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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... position, Volkogonov was able, particularly during the Gorbachev years, to gain access to a wide range of Soviet military, political and intelligence archives.43 His 1989 biography of Stalin was widely regarded as the first serious and ...
... position and used the Great Terror to that end. However, perhaps the most important key to Stalin's motivations lies in the realm of ideology. The leitmotif of Soviet communist ideology in the 1920s and 1930s was class struggle – the ...
... positions in their localities; and fostering cultural and linguistic nationalism among the peoples of the USSR, including some who had no discernible national identity before the Soviet era. But one section of the population remained ...
... position at home. His victory in the war made his leadership unquestionable and unchallengeable, while popular adulation reached new heights of absurdity. Stalin's domestic policy after the war is often characterised as a return to ...
... position in an area considered vital to the security of Leningrad. In the context of the triple alliance negotiations a 'free hand' meant Moscow's right to take pre-emptive action to avert Nazi subversion of the Baltic States and the ...
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 |