Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936-1941 PDF Download

Author: Silvio Pons
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136758186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This is a study of the responses of the Soviet Union to the European crises which led to World War II. It is based on a substantial body of political and diplomatic documents that has become accessible to scholars since the opening up of former Soviet archives in 1992.

Author: Alexander Hill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113576526X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This book consists of extracts from key documents, along with commentary and further reading, on the ‘Great Patriotic War’ of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, 1941-45. Despite the historical significance of the war, few Soviet documents have been published in English. This work provides translations of a range of extracts from Soviet documents relating to the titanic struggle on the Eastern Front during World War II, with commentary. This is the only single-volume work in English to use documentary evidence to look at the Soviet war effort from military, political, economic and diplomatic perspectives. The book should not only facilitate a deeper study of the Soviet war effort, but also allow more balanced study of what is widely known in the West as the ‘Eastern Front’. This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of military history, Soviet history, and World War II history.

Author: Stephen Kotkin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 073522448X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1249

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Book Description
“Monumental.” —The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world’s largest peasant economy into “socialist modernity,” otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself. Stalin’s obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin’s seat of power. It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.

Author: Melvyn P. Leffler
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780809097173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 620

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Book Description
An analysis of the struggle between the U.S. and Soviet Union following World War II illuminates how Reagan, Bush, and Gorbachev finally extricated themselves from the policies and mindsets of the Cold War, a task in which their predecessors had failed.

Author: Sarah Davies
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139446631
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The figure of Joseph Stalin has always provoked heated and often polarized debate. The recent declassification of a substantial portion of Stalin's archive has made possible this fundamental new assessment of the Soviet leader. In this groundbreaking 2005 study, leading international experts challenge many assumptions about Stalin from his early life in Georgia to the Cold War years with contributions ranging across the political, economic, social, cultural, ideological and international history of the Stalin era. The volume provides a deeper understanding of the nature of Stalin's power and of the role of ideas in his politics, presenting a more complex and nuanced image of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. This study is without precedent in the field of Russian history and will prove invaluable reading for students of Stalin and Stalinism.

Author: Michael Jabara Carley
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487545916
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Shedding light on the origins of the Second World War in Europe, Stalin’s Gamble aims to create a historical narrative of the relations of the USSR with Britain, France, the United States, Poland, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Romania during the 1930s. The book explores the Soviet Union’s efforts to organize a defensive alliance against Nazi Germany, in effect rebuilding the anti-German Entente of the First World War. Drawing on extensive research in Soviet as well as Western archives, Michael Jabara Carley offers an in-depth account of the diplomatic manoeuvrings which surrounded the rise of Hitler and Soviet efforts to construct an alliance against future German aggression. Paying close attention to the beliefs and interactions of senior politicians and diplomats, the book seeks to replace one-sided Western histories with records from both sides. The book also offers an inside look at Soviet foreign policy making, with a focus on Stalin as a foreign policy maker as well as nd his interactions with his colleagues. Told in a fascinating narrative style, Stalin’s Gamble attempts to see the European crisis of the 1930s through Soviet eyes.

Author: David R. Egan
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810866714
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 501

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Book Description
With the opening of Russian and communist-bloc archives dating from the Soviet-era, there has been a significant increase of scholarly writings pertaining to Joseph Stalin. Widely considered to be among the most influential historical figures of the twentieth century, Stalin continues to be a source of intense study. In the absence of a comprehensive compilation of periodical literature, the need for Joseph Stalin: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Periodical Literature to 2005 is conspicuous. Ranging from editorials and news reports to academic articles, the more than 1,700 sources cited collectively cover the full range of his life, the various aspects of his leadership, and virtually all facets of the system and practices traditionally associated with his name. The coverage in this bibliography extends beyond the person of Stalin to include the subjects of Stalinism, the Stalinist system, the Stalin phenomenon, and those policies and practices of the Communist Party and Soviet state associated with him. This volume also provides a record of scholarly opinion on Stalin and sheds light on the evolution and current state of Stalinology. An effort has been made to list only those articles in which Stalin figures prominently, but, in some instances, articles have been included which do not center on Stalin but are worthy of listing for other reasons. The book is divided into fourteen main sections: General Studies and Overviews; Biographical Information and Psychological Assessments; The Revolutionary Movement, October Revolution and Civil War; Rise to Power; Politics; Economics; Society and Social Policy; Nationalism and Nationality Policy; Culture; Religion; Philosophy and Theory; Foreign Relations and International Communism; Military Affairs; and De-Stalinization. Including a subject index of several hundred headings and even greater number of subheadings, this comprehensive annotated bibliography should be of benefit to those individuals who, for the purpose of research or classroom instruction, are seeking sources of information on Stalin.

Author: Michael Jabara Carley
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487553471
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
In the spring of 1936, the Soviet effort to build an anti-Nazi alliance was failing. Stalin continued nevertheless to support diplomatic efforts to stop Nazi aggression in Europe. In Stalin’s Failed Alliance, the sequel to Stalin’s Gamble, Michael Jabara Carley continues his re-evaluation of European diplomacy during the critical events between May 1936 and August 1939. This narrative history examines the great crises of the pre-war period – the Spanish Civil War, Anschluss, and Munich accords – as well as both the last Soviet efforts to organize an anti-Nazi alliance in the spring–summer of 1939 and Moscow’s shocking volte-face, the signing of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Carley’s history traces the lead-up to the outbreak of war in Europe on 1 September 1939 and sheds light on the Soviet Union’s efforts to organize a defensive alliance against Nazi Germany, in effect rebuilding the anti-German Entente of the First World War. The author argues for the sincerity of Soviet overtures to the western European powers and that the non-aggression pact was a last-ditch response to the refusal of other states, especially Britain and France, to conclude an alliance with the USSR against Nazi Germany. Drawing on extensive archival research in Soviet and Western archival papers, Stalin’s Failed Alliance aims to see the European crisis of the 1930s through Soviet eyes.

Author: Yakov Feygin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674296656
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A masterful account of the global Cold War’s decisive influence on Soviet economic reform, and the national decay that followed. What brought down the Soviet Union? From some perspectives the answers seem obvious, even teleological—communism was simply destined to fail. When Yakov Feygin studied the question, he came to another conclusion: at least one crucial factor was a deep contradiction within the Soviet political economy brought about by the country’s attempt to transition from Stalinist mass mobilization to a consumer society. Building a Ruin explores what happened in the Soviet Union as institutions designed for warfighting capacity and maximum heavy industrial output were reimagined by a new breed of reformers focused on “peaceful socioeconomic competition.” From Khrushchev on, influential schools of Soviet planning measured Cold War success in the same terms as their Western rivals: productivity, growth, and the availability of abundant and varied consumer goods. The shift was both material and intellectual, with reformers taking a novel approach to economics. Instead of trumpeting their ideological bona fides and leveraging their connections with party leaders, the new economists stressed technical expertise. The result was a long and taxing struggle for the meaning of communism itself, as old-guard management cadres clashed with reformers over the future of central planning and the state’s relationship to the global economic order. Feygin argues that Soviet policymakers never resolved these tensions, leading to stagnation, instability, and eventually collapse. Yet the legacy of reform lingers, its factional dynamics haunting contemporary Russian politics.

Author: Geoffrey Roberts
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300150407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This 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.