Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953This breakthrough book provides a detailed reconstruction of Stalin's leadership from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to his death in 1953. Making use of a wealth of new material from Russian archives, Geoffrey Roberts challenges a long list of standard perceptions of Stalin: his qualities as a leader; his relationships with his own generals and with other great world leaders; his foreign policy; and his role in instigating the Cold War. While frankly exploring the full extent of Stalin's brutalities and their impact on the Soviet people, Roberts also uncovers evidence leading to the stunning conclusion that Stalin was both the greatest military leader of the twentieth century and a remarkable politician who sought to avoid the Cold War and establish a long-term detente with the capitalist world. By means of an integrated military, political, and diplomatic narrative, the author draws a sustained and compelling personal portrait of the Soviet leader. The resulting picture is fascinating and contradictory, and it will inevitably change the way we understand Stalin and his place in history. Roberts depicts a despot who helped save the world for democracy, a personal charmer who disciplined mercilessly, a utopian ideologue who could be a practical realist, and a warlord who undertook the role of architect of post-war peace. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 82
... European Studies. The book is dedicated to the late Dennis Ogden. Dennis was of the generation of British communists who had to come to terms with the debunking of the Stalin cult by Khrushchev in 1956. He was in Moscow at the time ...
... European war Soviet–German Boundary and Friendship Treaty Soviet–Estonian Treaty of Mutual Assistance Soviet–Latvian ... European war France surrenders to Germany USSR proposes spheres of influence agreement in the Balkans Bessarabia and ...
... Europe. Stalin's decision to do this deal with Hitler on the very eve of a new European war was a dramatic, last-minute improvisation. Only a few days before this radical turn in Soviet policy Stalin had been negotiating the terms of ...
... Europe. Taking up this theme, Nazi propagandists claimed the German invasion of Russia was a preemptive strike against an imminent Soviet attack and depicted the war as a crusade in defence of civilised Christian Europe from the Asiatic ...
... Europe and Stalin was determined to establish a Soviet sphere of influence in the states that bordered European Russia. There was also a great political swing to the communist parties across the continent and Stalin had visions of a ...
Contents
Stalin and his Generals | |
Stalin Churchill and Roosevelt | |
Stalins Year of Victories | |
Stalins Aims in Germany and Eastern Europe | |
Stalin Truman and the End of the Second World | |
Stalin and the Origins of the Cold | |
The Domestic Context of Stalins Postwar Foreign Policy | |
Stalin Embattled | |
Stalin in the Court of History | |
Select Bibliography | 1957 |
Index | 1975 |