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 89
... Military leadership. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Diplomatic history. 4. Soviet Union—History, Military. 5. World politics— 1945– I. Title. DK268.S8R574 2006 947.084'2092—dc22 [B] 2006023395 A catalogue record for this book is available from ...
... Military Operations, 1944 14 Operation Bagration 15 The Soviet Advance on Warsaw, Summer 1944 16 The Vistula–Oder Operation, January–February 1945 17 The Berlin Operation, April 1945 18 The Manchurian Campaign, August 1945 19 The ...
... military dimensions of Stalin's war leadership.1 I also became more interested in Soviet domestic politics and in the social history of the Stalin regime in the 1940s. The result is the present book – a detailed and sustained study of ...
... military commanders, and led the country to one disaster after another during the Second World War.4 Khrushchev's speech was delivered to a secret session of the 20th congress of the Soviet communist party but within a few months a ...
... military memoirs.16 After 1956 these memoirs had been mainly devoted to embellishing and elaborating Khrushchev's critique of Stalin's wartime record. After Khrushchev's fall in 1964 the memoirists were free to provide a more positive ...
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 |