ABSTRACT
Joseph Stalin oscillated between extremes, changing direction with astonishing rapidity and little regard for logic or consistency. The social and economic crises of 1932 convinced many that the time had come for a softer line. Hostility towards Stalin boiled over when Central Committee member Riutin circulated a document calling for his removal. In the 1970s a significant controversy erupted amongst economic historians on the contribution of collectivization to industrialization and the wider economic rationality of the Great Breakthrough. Most Western academics took for granted a scenario which characterized collectivization as in some way inevitable and rational. M. Lewin incorporates his image of Stalinism within a generalized crisis of early twentieth century Russia. Revisionist explorations of Kremlin politics and accounts of the reception of Stalinism by various social groups probably owe more to Lewin than to any other historian.
