--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> [WS:] I think Stalin was more like Ivan the
> Terrible, the enforcer, whereas
> Peter the Great was more of a visionary and
> modernizer. I'd rather compare
> Lenin to PtG.
>
>
I think Stalin internally compared himself to both, but thought of Ivan as his model. The copy of his biography of Ivan the Terrible he had on him during the Battle of Moscow has his handwritten comment "teacher teacher" in it.
Peter was both a forced modernizer and enforcer, and whatever else you can say about the Father of the Peoples, forced modernizing was something he did well. And Peter did build a whole city using forced labor.
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