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
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... discussion of the Soviet past as a weapon in his struggle against opponents of political change.8 Gorbachev failed to reinvigorate Soviet communism but his reform programme destabilised the political system sufficiently to precipitate ...
... discussion about his regime offered new evidence and perspectives. Particularly valuable was the contribution of Soviet military memoirs.16 After 1956 these memoirs had been mainly devoted to embellishing and elaborating Khrushchev's ...
... discussion has been Stalin's military and political leadership during the Great Patriotic War. During the war Stalin was Supreme Commander of the Soviet armed forces, head of the State Defence Council and People's Commissar for Defence ...
... discuss Soviet proposals for changes to the Soviet–German boundary in occupied Poland. Stalin told Ribbentrop that ... discussions was a new Nazi–Soviet pact in the form of the 'German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty' of 28 ...
... discussions with Ribbentrop on 27 September Stalin emphasised the Rapallo precedent: Soviet foreign policy has always been based on belief in the possibility of cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union. When the Bolsheviks came ...
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 |