Stalin And Soviet Early Cold War Policy

The Cold War was a unique international conflict partly because Josef Stalin sought socialist transformation of other countries rather than simply the traditional objectives. This intriguing book, based on recently accessible Soviet primary sources, is the first to explain the emergence of the Cold War and its development in Stalin's lifetime from the perspective of Soviet policy-making. The book pays particular attention to the often-neglected "societal" dimension of Soviet foreign policy as a crucial element of the genesis and development of the Cold War. It is also the first to put German postwar development into the context of Soviet Cold War policy. Stalin vainly tried to mobilize the Germans with slogans of national unity and then to discredit the West among the Germans by forcing the surrender of Berlin. Further attempts to prevail deadlocked him into a confrontation with the newly united Western powers. Comparing Stalin's internal statements with Soviet actions, Gerhard Wettig draws original conclusions about Stalin's meta-plans for the regions of Germany and Eastern Europe. This fascinating look at Soviet politics during the Cold War provides readers with new insights into Stalin's willingness to initiate crisis with the West while still avoiding military conflict.

Debating the Origins of the Cold War examines the coming of the Cold War through Americans' and Russians' contrasting perspectives and actions. In two engaging essays, the authors demonstrate that a huge gap existed between the democratic, capitalist, and global vision of the post-World War II peace that most Americans believed in and the dictatorial, xenophobic, and regional approach that characterized Soviet policies. The authors argue that repeated failures to find mutually acceptable solutions to concrete problems led to the rapid development of the Cold War, and they conclude that, given the respective concerns and perspectives of the time, both superpowers were largely justified in their courses of action. Supplemented by primary sources, including documents detailing Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s and correspondence between Premier Josef Stalin and Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov during postwar meetings, this is the first book to give equal attention to the U.S. and Soviet policies and perspectives.

In the first analysis of the start of the Cold War from a Soviet viewpoint, Caroline Kennedy-Pipe draws on Russian source material to reach some startling conclusions. She challenges the prevailing orthodoxy of Western historians to show how Moscow saw the presence of US troops in Europe in the 1940s and early 1950s as advantageous rather than as a check on Soviet ambitions. The author points to a complex web of concerns than fuelled Moscow's actions, and explores how the Soviet leadership, and Stalin in particular, responded to American policy. She shows how the Soviet experience of the United States and Europe, both before, during and after the Second World War, led Moscow to a policy that was not simply fuelled by anti-Americanism. Six chapters cover events from the wartime conferences of 1943 until the death of Stalin. A final chapter places the book in the context of the current debate over the causes of the Cold War.

Immediately after the Allied WW2 victory in Europe, claims were made by the Soviet Union over the eastern regions of Turkey, to secure direct control over the Bosporus, Dardanelles, and Turkish Straits. The detailed study of the international components of these events, featuring the veiled complexities of Stalin’s anti-Turkish diplomacy, provides a key to understanding crucial aspects of these Soviet territorial claims. Iranian Azerbaijan became another hotspot of post-war confrontation between the western Allies and the USSR: Soviet policy towards Iran manifested in the desire to access their oil resources. A further direction emerging within Soviet post-war strategy was the Kurdish issue in the Near and Middle East. At the conjunction of Turkish and Iranian events, Soviet secret service bodies and diplomatic institutions exploited their strengths and toyed with Kurdish minorities in the region. Their decisions placed the bordering regions of China, Turkey, and Iran squarely in the shadowy reaches of Moscow’s policy. This research uses newly discovered archive material to illustrate the underlying intrigue behind Soviet ambition and intimately tracks how the Soviet Union was defeated in the first Cold War confrontation over its southern borders. It also links events of this period with the critical issue of Uyghur assimilation, and further contemporary developments highlighting Putin’s policies, making it invaluable for both academic and general readers.

In this long-awaited sequel to his acclaimed Russia's Road to the Cold War (1979), Vojtech Mastny offers a thorough history of the early years of the Cold War, drawing upon his extensive research in newly opened Soviet archives. Just as the earlier volume offered the definitive portrait of Joseph Stalin's foreign policy during World War II, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity affords readers an equally superb account of Stalin's foreign policy during his last years. Combining important new data with the fascinating insights of one of our leading authorities on Soviet affairs, this book illuminates a crucial period in recent world history.

Canada and the Cold War is a fascinating historical overview of a key period in Canadian history. The focus is on how Canada and Canadians responded to the Soviet Union -- and to America's demands on its northern neighbour.

A study of Russian foreign policy from 1941 to 1953 examines relations between Russia and America and the development of the Cold War

Stalin and the Soviet Union examines the Soviet leader's domestic and foreign policy covering core topics such as his rise to power, economic policies, society and culture, politics and terror, the Second World War and the Cold War.