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 67
... Grand Illusions: Stalin and 22 June 1941 4 War of Annihilation: Stalin versus Hitler 5 Victory at Stalingrad and Kursk: Stalin and his Generals 6 The Politics of War: Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt 7 Triumph and Tragedy: Stalin's Year ...
... Grand Alliance of the Second World War. The aim was to explore how the Grand Alliance emerged and developed, the way Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Truman fought their diplomatic and political battles, and why the coalition collapsed ...
... grand scale is not in error. On the other hand, it is impossible to understand this immensely gifted politician by attributing solely to him all the crimes and suffering of his era, or to conceive him simply as a monster and a mental ...
... grand capitalist coalition dedicated to crushing the Soviet socialist system. By the early 1940s Soviet Russia was much stronger and Stalin was confident about the Red Army's ability to defend the socialist motherland, but the nightmare ...
... grand strategy and his control of the technical and tactical details of the Soviet war effort.37 But what mattered to his generals was Stalin's operational art – his ability to direct big battles and control large-scale military ...
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 |