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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... western historiography of the Stalin era. But many western historians were sceptical about Khrushchev's efforts to lay all the blame for past communist crimes on Stalin and the cult of his personality. Khrushchev himself was a member of ...
... western historians, who broadened it to include a more wide-ranging critique of the controversial Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939–1941. The Nazi–Soviet Pact When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939 he did so secure in the ...
... Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine.46 These experiences of severe setback should be borne in mind when considering Stalin's extraordinary faith in victory during the Second World War, which never wavered even when the Germans ...
... western literature and culture. This speech launched what became know as the Zhdanovshchina – an ideological campaign against western influence that extolled the unique virtues of Soviet science and culture. Zhdanov's speech was heavily ...
... western powers but saw such a conflict as remote. 'I am completely certain that there will be no war, it is rubbish. They [the British and Americans] are not capable of waging war against us,' Stalin said to the Polish communist leader ...
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 |