Sign-In
Cart
Stalin's Drive to the West, 1938-1945: The Origins of the Cold War
Hardcover
Immigration & RefugeesRussian History
ISBN13: 9780804724159
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: Sep 1 1995
Pages: 280
Weight: 1.34
Height: 0.95 Width: 6.22 Depth: 9.36
Language: English
Exploiting new findings from former East Bloc archives and from long-ignored Western sources, this book presents a wholly new picture of the coming of World War II, Allied wartime diplomacy, and the origins of the Cold War. The author reveals that the story - widely believed by historians and Western wartime leaders alike - that Stalin's purposes in European diplomacy from 1938 on were mainly defensive is a fantasy. Indeed, this is one of the longest enduring products of Stalin's propaganda, of long-term political control of archival materials, and of the gullibility of Western observers.
The author argues that Stalin had concocted a plan for bringing about a general European war well before Hitler launched his expansionist program for the Third Reich. Stalin expected that Hitler's war, when it came, would lead to the internal collapse of the warring nations, and that military revolts and proletarian revolutions like those of World War I would break out in the capitalist countries. This scenario foresaw the embattled proletarians calling for the assistance of the Red Army, which would sweep across Europe.
The book further shows that the wartime disputes between Stalin and his Western allies originated over the postwar redisposition of the territories Stalin had gained from his pact with Hitler. The situation was complicated by the incautious, unrestricted commitment of support to the Soviet Union first by Churchill and then by Roosevelt, and wartime circumstances provided cover to obscure these diplomatic failures. The early origins of the Cold War described in this book differ dramatically from the usual accounts that see a sudden and surprising upwelling of Cold War antagonisms late in the War or early in the postwar period.
Also in
Russian History
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Baron, Scott
Wise, James E.
Hardcover
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Higginbotham, Adam
Paperback
The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature
English, Charlie
Hardcover
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Browder, Bill
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
Beginner's Russian with Interactive Online Workbook, 2nd Edition
Kagan, Olga E.
Kudyma, Anna S.
Miller, Frank J.
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 3]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
The Dark Side of the Earth: Russia's Short-Lived Victory Over Totalitarianism
Zygar, Mikhail
Hardcover
Welcome to the Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity
Mathewes-Green, Frederica
Paperback
The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
Walker, Shaun
Paperback
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
Nathans, Benjamin
Paperback
Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Sullivan, Rosemary
Paperback
The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice
Parkin, Simon
Paperback
Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation
Borogan, Irina
Soldatov, Andrei
Hardcover
The Future Is History (National Book Award Winner): How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Gessen, Masha
Paperback
The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia
Jager, Sheila Miyoshi
Paperback
The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
Walker, Shaun
Hardcover
Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
Browder, Bill
Paperback
Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
Baier, Bret
Whitney, Catherine
Paperback
The Return of Russia: From Yeltsin to Putin, the Story of a Vengeful Kremlin
Rodgers, James
Hardcover
The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky
Kaufman, Andrew D.
Paperback
When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
Beckerman, Gal
Paperback
Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Large Print Edition)
Whitney, Catherine
Baier, Bret
Paperback
The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World
Davies, John
Kent, Alexander J.
Hardcover
The Moscow Playbook: How Russia Used, Abused, and Transformed Sports in the Hunt for Power
Berglund, Bruce
Hardcover
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
Nathans, Benjamin
Hardcover
One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964
Naftali, Timothy
Fursenko, Aleksandr
Paperback
The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II
MacGregor, Iain
Paperback
Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance
White, Philip
Paperback
Putin's Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia's Collapse Into Mercenary Chaos
Rondeaux, Candace
Hardcover
Lost Splendor: The Amazing Memoirs of the Man Who Killed Rasputin
Youssouppoff, Prince Felix
Paperback
Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability
Kimmage, Michael
Hardcover
Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus' Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption
Pacepa, Ion Mihai
Paperback
Tatiana Romanov, Daughter of the Last Tsar: Diaries and Letters, 1913-1918
Nicholson, Nicholas B. a.
Azar, Helen
Hardcover
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (Large Print Edition)
Gessen, Masha
Paperback
First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Gevorkyan, Nataliya
Timakova, Natalya
Putin, Vladimir
Paperback
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
Brown, Kate
Paperback
Dancing in Petersburg: The Memoirs of Kschessinska - Prima Ballerina of the Russian Imperial Theatre, and Mistress of the future Tsar Nicholas II
Kschessinska, Mathilde
Paperback
What's Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork
Szablowski, Witold
Paperback
Comradely Greetings: The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj
Tololonnikova, Nadezhda
Zizek, Slavoj
Paperback
War in Ukraine Volume 12: The Battle of Kharkiv and the Slobozhan Counteroffensive, February-October 2022
Kharkuk, Andrij
Kharkuk, Daryna
Paperback
Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State
Schrad, Mark Lawrence
Paperback
Born under the Hammer and Sickle: From Communist Russia to Freedom in Canada
(Tkatschow) Hill, Rita
Paperback
Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition
Bown, Stephen R.
Hardcover
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
Rappaport, Helen
Paperback
Once Upon a Time in Russia: The Rise of the Oligarchs--A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder
Mezrich, Ben
Paperback
Replaying the Second World War: Soviet Parallels and Inspirations for Russian Atrocities in the Russo-Ukrainian War, 2014-25
Drachewych, Oleksa
Paperback
Russian Literary Journals, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy in St. Petersburg, 1877
Mayhew, Linda M.
Paperback