Top Highlights

• In response, hisinner circle adopted mechanisms of collective decision-making on thebasis of which the system was able to work smoothly without him whenhe died.
• Stalin as producer: the Moscow show trials and theconstruction of mortal threats
• the historical logic of rapid modernisation: collectivisation and industrialisation ‘were imposed by theobjective situation which Soviet Russia in the later 1920s had to face’.
• began to consider thepossibility that relatively autonomous bureaucratic institutions mighthave had some influence on policy-making at the highest level.
• He wanted to delegateresponsibilities, but never entirely trusted those who worked for him.