Robert C. Tucker, R.I.P.

The great Stalin scholar died last Thursday, the New York Times reports. His two volumes on the tyrant are masterpieces of research, analysis, and writing. Citations, for example in studies on the run-up to World War II, have not been as numerous recently as they should have been, probably because Tucker emphasizes Stalin's aggressive (reckless, he calls it) side over his nowadays more fashionable caution. The two Tucker volumes take the story up to 1941, and the Times obituary confirms what I had feared for a while now: there won't be a third. Apparently a combination of writers' bloc, declining health, and the great amount of new material that has come out since 1990 caused the project to get bogged down. Maybe George Kennan saw this coming when he wrote Tucker to congratulate him on the publication of the second book and added: you must now complete the final volume! (Don't have the book with the letter handy at the moment). I was rooting for him too, being a confirmed ally in the world of Stalin scholarship. That sounds presumtuous (and it is), but we met once at a conference (the big conference on Stalin and the Cold War at Yale in 1999), and at one point during a group conversation between sessions about Stalin's possible motives in Germany after World War II (the subject of the paper I had submitted for this event), he declared: "well, I'm with van Dijk on this." It was very nice to hear, but not really a surprise, because his work was, and continues to be, the greatest single influence on my interpretation of Stalin's worldview and its importance for policy. It's wonderful to have Tucker's books, but I'm sorry to have to give up on ever reading volume three.
Update: Kennan wrote his letter in August 1994 and printed it in At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982-1995 (Norton, 1996), 238-244. It is a kind letter, but one in which Kennan does question the particular psychological explanation (self-hatred) Tucker employs to make sense of Stalin's behavior. I could try to summarize it all here, but it's much better if you read it yourself. Btw, in the Washington Post obituary, there is also a link to a 1996 appearance by Tucker on the Charlie Rose program on PBS.