Robert Taker American political scientist, professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences. Country: USA

1. Biography of Robert Tucker
2. Research on Stalin
3. Use of Sources and Theories
4. Participation in International Seminar

Biography of Robert Tucker

Robert Tucker is an American political scientist, professor, and doctor of historical sciences. He was born in 1918. Tucker began his career as an attaché at the American Embassy in Moscow from 1944 to 1953. During this time, he also led the translation bureau, which employed staff from the American, British, and Canadian embassies. In 1954, he returned to the United States and taught at Indiana University after defending his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. Since 1962, he has been working at Princeton University.

Research on Stalin

In addition to his teaching career, Tucker is known for his extensive research on Joseph Stalin. He is the author of several works on Stalin, including a fundamental three-volume biography, which is often referred to as a "psychobiography" in the West. The first volume, "Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929: A Study in History and Personality," was published in 1974. Its Russian translation, titled "Stalin. The Path to Power, 1917-1929," was released in Moscow in 1991. The second volume, "Stalin in Power, 1929-1941," was translated into Russian in 1997. There is currently no information available on the third volume. Tucker's work is considered the most comprehensive biography of Stalin published in both Russia and the West. It is worth noting that Tucker was the only Western historian granted access to Stalin's library in the Kremlin.

Use of Sources and Theories

Tucker draws on various sources for his research, including memoirs and studies by Russian and Georgian emigrants, Sovietologists, and Kremlinologists. While some of these materials have been published in Russian, they are still largely inaccessible to Russian historians. One notable aspect of Tucker's work is his attempt to explain Stalin's actions and character based on the theories of American psychologist Karen Horney.

Tucker argues that Stalin's personality is a crucial factor in understanding Soviet history until 1953. Without considering this aspect, it is difficult to explain certain well-known historical facts. For example, most specialists in Soviet history agree that the mass terror from 1936 to 1939, which led to the repression of millions of people, caused significant damage to the Soviet Union's economy and military power. This put the USSR in a life-threatening situation vis-a-vis Nazi Germany. The Great Terror could not have been a "systemic necessity," as sociologists might say. However, there was no doubt that it was initiated and supported by Stalin. Therefore, it must reflect, at least in part, the personal needs of the leader, some of which, according to Tucker, were psychopathological. An indirect proof of this concept can be seen in the changes that occurred in the USSR after Stalin's death. If terror were an integral part of the Soviet system, it would be difficult to explain the significant decrease in repression levels after Stalin's demise. In 1985, Tucker published "Stalin Biographer's Memoir" in New York.

Participation in International Seminar

In July 1992, Tucker participated in an international seminar titled "The Phenomenon of Stalin in the Context of World Historical Process" in Novosibirsk. In his thesis, he focused on the chauvinistic element in Stalinism, which, according to him, represented a radically right-wing Bolshevism that adopted only the most cruel, repressive, and terrorist aspects of Lenin's legacy.