Who or whom in a sentence with multiple verbs

Question

Would it be correct to use "who" or "whom" in the following sentence?

Industrialization in the USSR did not provide a better life for many soviets, especially the peasants, who(m) Stalin claimed would benefit most from a communist nation.

I believe it would be "who" because it is the subject of "would benefit," but I'm still a little bit confused.  I also tried to use the heuristic where you replace "who" or "whom" with either "he" or "him," and I believe it would be "...Stalin claimed he would benefit most..."
Thanks for your help!
Note: I know that there are many “who vs. whom” questions already on this site, but I believe that mine is distinct because there are multiple verbs.  I have searched for similar questions before, but I couldn’t find them (maybe I just didn’t search well enough).  I think that calling this question a duplicate (unless there is another question very similar to mine) would make it harder for people like me to find an answer to their question.  Thanks!

BillJ · Answer

Industrialization in the USSR did not provide a better life for many
soviets, especially the peasants, who(m) Stalin claimed [___ would benefit
most from a communist nation].

The pronoun is not object of "claimed" but subject of the embedded "would benefit" clause (bracketed), so subjective "who" (not objective "whom") is correct.
We understand that many soviets, especially the peasants would benefit most from a communist nation.

user394676 · Answer

By parsing the sentence, we can figure out whether we should use “who” (subjective) or “whom” (objective).

...especially the peasants, who(m) Stalin claimed would benefit most from a communist nation.

Stalin isn’t claiming “who(m).”  Instead, “who(m)” is the subject of “would,” so “who” is the correct pronoun.

Who or whom in a sentence with multiple verbs

2 Answers

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question