80 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Similarly in his (1989) work Davies points out several errors made by the so-called 'anti-Stalinists1 writing in the glasnosi period. For instance intense pressures for rapid industrialization came from within the Party reflected in several drafts of the IFYP from 1927 onwards. He says 'all this is quite wrong* (i.e. to blame Stalin alone—emphasis mine).10 Ward makes no reference to this point. In the reviewer's opinion, the most balanced view of Stalin is summarised by E.H. Carr: 'Stalin's early career is so shrouded in mystery and no exact account will ever be recovered. ... In 1923, Lunacharsky, in his sketches of party leaders omitted Stalin altogether, Kamenev thought of him as just a 'small politician', while Trotsky called him 'an outstanding mediocrity of the party.' Further insights can be found in the correspondence between E.H. Carr and Davis (1984). Carr writes to Davies thus: 'I am glad to learn that you are not one of those who like Trotsky (and his cronies—my emphasis) are not simply interested in 'throwing stones at Stalin.' Rather you are more interested in understanding and explaining as to why and how collectivization and industrialization took place. . . Carr concludes as follows: Stalin's role in history thus remains paradoxical and in some sense contradictory. He carried out, in face of every obstacle and opposition, the industrialization of his country through intensive planning and thus not only paid tribute to the validity of Marxist theory, but ranged the Soviet Union as an equal partner among the Great Powers of the western world. In virtue of this achievement he takes his undisputed place both as one of the great executors of the Marxist testament and one of the great westernizers in Russian history. Yet this tour de force had, when studied and analysed, a supremely paradoxical character. Stalin laid the foundations of the proletarian revolution on the grave of Russian capitalism, but through a deviation from Marxist premisses so sharp as to amount almost to a rejection of them. He westernized Russia, but through a revolt, partly conscious, partly unconscious, against western influence and authority and a reversion to familiar national attitudes and traditions. The goal to be attained and the methods adopted or proposed to attain it often seemed in flagrant contradiction—a contradiction which in turn reflected the uphill struggle to bring a socialist revolution to fruition in a backward environment. Stalin's ambiguous record was an expression of this dilemma. He was an emancipator and a tyrant; a man devoted to a cause, yet a personal dictator; and he consistently displayed a ruthless vigour which issued, on the one hand, in the extreme boldness and determination and, on the other, in extreme brutality and indifference to human suffering. The key to these ambiguities cannot be found in the man himself. The initial verdict of those who