The exiled Trotsky began his biography of Stalin with the observation that the old revolutionist Leonid Krassin 'was the first, if I am not mistaken, to call Stalin an "Asiatic"'. He proceeded to write about 'Asiatic' leaders as cunning and brutal, presiding over static societies with a huge peasant base. Another Bolshevik who ran foul of Stalin, Nikolai Bukharin, called him 'a Genghis Khan', while Isaac Deutscher described Stalin as 'primitive, Oriental, but unfailingly shrewd'.

LRB 15 December 2005 | PDF Download