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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... established impression that he slaughtered, tortured, imprisoned and oppressed on a 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 ...
... establish a Soviet sphere of influence in the states that bordered European Russia. There was also a great political ... establishing a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, Stalin's priorities after the war were economic ...
... by those historians seeking to establish that the main cause of the Second World War was not Hitler's designs, but Stalin's. One of the key texts in this oeuvre is a speech Stalin supposedly made to the Politburo on 19 August 1939 in.
... established a definite limit on German eastward expansion. One person who welcomed the Soviet move into Poland was Churchill – the British politician had just returned from a long spell in the wilderness and was back in the cabinet as ...
... established diplomatic relations between the two states (they had been severed in 1918) and led to a decade of intensive economic, political and military co-operation. The 'Rapallo relationship', as it was called, only broke down when ...
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 |