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
... 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 Stalin's military and political leadership in the final and most important phase of his life and ...
... politics and ideology that strove for both utopian and totalitarian ends. Stalin was an idealist prepared to use ... political leader. I have also tried to allow Stalin to speak with his own voice so that readers can form their own ...
... political genius who had led his country to victory in war and to superpower status in peace, but the 'father of the peoples'.3 He was, the slogan went, the 'Lenin of today', and, fittingly, Stalin's body was laid alongside that of the ...
... political change.8 Gorbachev failed to reinvigorate Soviet communism but his reform programme destabilised the political system sufficiently to precipitate its collapse in 1991. By the end of that year the multinational Soviet state had ...
... political consequences for the communist system it was a catastrophe for the Soviet people. During the war 70,000 Soviet cities, towns and villages were laid waste. Destroyed were 6 million houses, 98,000 farms, 32,000 factories, 82,000 ...
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 |