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
... leadership in the final and most important phase of his life and career. Baldly stated, my conclusions are threefold. First, that Stalin was a very effective and highly successful war leader. He made many mistakes and pursued brutal ...
... leader prepared to compromise, adapt and change, as long as it did not threaten the Soviet system or his own power. As Robert H. McNeal, one of Stalin's greatest biographers, said: there is no point 'in trying to rehabilitate Stalin ...
... leaders queued up to eulogise their dead boss in reverential tones that suggested the passing of a saint, not a mass ... leader, denounced the cult of personality as a perversion of communist principles and depicted Stalin as a despot ...
... leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who encouraged critical 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 ...
... leadership struggles of the 1920s, the industrialisation and collectivisation drives of the 1930s, and the cold war conflict with the west in the 1940s and 1950s. But the central episode in his life was what the Soviets called the Great ...
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 |