Download or read book Stalin written by Stephen Kotkin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 1249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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.

Download or read book Stalin s Curse written by Robert Gellately and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives—and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire—during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West. At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Joseph Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader, whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, and not communist ideology. Now, using recently uncovered documents, Robert Gellately conclusively shows that, in fact, the dictator was biding his time, determined to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond. His actions during those years—and the poorly calculated responses to them from the West—set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalin’s Kremlin.

Download or read book Stalin s War written by Sean McMeekin and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prize-winning historian reveals how Stalin—not Hitler—was the animating force of World War II in this major new history. World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler’s war; it was Stalin’s war. Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin’s War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler’s genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin’s goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary. McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain’s self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin’s war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army. This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin’s armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism. A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin’s War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world order.

Download or read book Stalin s Genocides written by Norman M. Naimark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-19 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chilling story of Stalin’s crimes against humanity Between the early 1930s and his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin had more than a million of his own citizens executed. Millions more fell victim to forced labor, deportation, famine, bloody massacres, and detention and interrogation by Stalin's henchmen. Stalin's Genocides is the chilling story of these crimes. The book puts forward the important argument that brutal mass killings under Stalin in the 1930s were indeed acts of genocide and that the Soviet dictator himself was behind them. Norman Naimark, one of our most respected authorities on the Soviet era, challenges the widely held notion that Stalin's crimes do not constitute genocide, which the United Nations defines as the premeditated killing of a group of people because of their race, religion, or inherent national qualities. In this gripping book, Naimark explains how Stalin became a pitiless mass killer. He looks at the most consequential and harrowing episodes of Stalin's systematic destruction of his own populace—the liquidation and repression of the so-called kulaks, the Ukrainian famine, the purge of nationalities, and the Great Terror—and examines them in light of other genocides in history. In addition, Naimark compares Stalin's crimes with those of the most notorious genocidal killer of them all, Adolf Hitler.

Download or read book Stalin and Stalinism written by Martin Mccauley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most successful dictators of the twentieth century, Stalin believed that fashioning a better tomorrow was worth sacrificing the lives of millions today. He built a modern Russia on the corpses of millions of its citizens. First published in 1983, Stalin and Stalinism has established itself as one of the most popular textbooks for those who want to understand the Stalin phenomenon. Written in a clear and accessible manner, and fully updated throughout to incorporate recent research findings, the book also contains a chronology of key events, Who’s Who and Guide to Further Reading. This concise assessment of one of the major figures of twentieth century world history remains an essential purchase for students studying the subject.

Download or read book The Landscape of Stalinism written by Evgeny Dobrenko and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging cultural history explores the expression of Bolshevik Party ideology through the lens of landscape, or, more broadly, space. Portrayed in visual images and words, the landscape played a vital role in expressing and promoting ideology in the former Soviet Union during the Stalin years, especially in the 1930s. At the time, the iconoclasm of the immediate postrevolutionary years had given way to nation building and a conscious attempt to create a new Soviet �culture.� In painting, architecture, literature, cinema, and song, images of landscape were enlisted to help mold the masses into joyful, hardworking citizens of a state with a radiant, utopian future -- all under the fatherly guidance of Joseph Stalin. From backgrounds in history, art history, literary studies, and philosophy, the contributors show how Soviet space was sanctified, coded, and �sold� as an ideological product. They explore the ways in which producers of various art forms used space to express what Katerina Clark calls �a cartography of power� -- an organization of the entire country into �a hierarchy of spheres of relative sacredness,� with Moscow at the center. The theme of center versus periphery figures prominently in many of the essays, and the periphery is shown often to be paradoxically central. Examining representations of space in objects as diverse as postage stamps, a hikers� magazine, advertisements, and the Soviet musical, the authors show how cultural producers attempted to naturalize ideological space, to make it an unquestioned part of the worldview. Whether focusing on the new or the centuries-old, whether exploring a built cityscape, a film documentary, or the painting Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin, the authors offer a consistently fascinating journey through the landscape of the Soviet ideological imagination. Not all features of Soviet space were entirely novel, and several of the essayists assert continuities with the prerevolutionary past. One example is the importance of the mother image in mass songs of the Stalin period; another is the "boundless longing" inspired in the Russian character by the burden of living amid vast empty spaces. But whether focusing on the new or the centuries-old, whether exploring a built cityscape, a film documentary, or the painting Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin, the authors offer a consistently fascinating journey through the landscape of the Soviet ideological imagination.

Download or read book The Soviet Union and the Gutting of the UN Genocide Convention written by Anton Weiss-Wendt and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How both the Soviet Union and the United States manipulated and weakened the drafting of the United Nations Genocide Convention treaty in the midst of the Cold War.

Download or read book Stalin s Master Narrative written by David Brandenberger and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 759 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical edition of the text that defined communist party ideology in Stalin’s Soviet Union The Short Course on the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) defined Stalinist ideology both at home and abroad. It was quite literally the the master narrative of the USSR—a hegemonic statement on history, politics, and Marxism-Leninism that scripted Soviet society for a generation. This study exposes the enormous role that Stalin played in the development of this all-important text, as well as the unparalleled influence that he wielded over the Soviet historical imagination.

Download or read book Joseph Stalin written by Source Wikipedia and published by University-Press.org. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 147. Chapters: Battle of Stalingrad, Gulag, Vyacheslav Molotov, Yalta Conference, Great Purge, Tehran Conference, Holodomor, Soviet Union in World War II, 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, Stalinist architecture, German-Soviet Axis talks, Iron Curtain, Stalin and Anti-Semitism, Neo-Stalinism, Kamo, Early life of Joseph Stalin, Alexander Poskrebyshev, Stalin Note, Falsifiers of History, Rise of Joseph Stalin, Boris Bazhanov, Joseph Stalin in the Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, and Polish-Soviet War, Georgian Affair, List of places named after Joseph Stalin, Soviet famine of 1932-1933, Tito-Stalin split, Stalin's alleged speech of 19 August 1939, Sword of Stalingrad, Anti-Stalinist left, Stalin Monument, Purge of the Red Army in 1941, Napoleon, Stalin Society, Ioseb Iremashvili, Stalin and His Hangmen, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature, Order No. 227, Joseph Stalin Museum, Gori, Order No. 270, Children of the Revolution, Stalin Epigram, Kuntsevo Dacha, Yanks for Stalin, 1906 Bolshevik raid on the Tsarevich Giorgi, VMN, Batumi Stalin Museum.

Download or read book The Stalinist Era written by David L. Hoffmann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.

Download or read book Soviet Internationalism after Stalin written by Tobias Rupprecht and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-06 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soviet Union is often presented as a largely isolated and idiosyncratic state. Soviet Internationalism after Stalin challenges this view by telling the story of Soviet and Latin American intellectuals, students, political figures and artists, and their encounters with the 'other' from the 1950s through the 1980s. In this first multi-archival study of Soviet relations with Latin America, Tobias Rupprecht reveals that, for people in the Second and Third Worlds, the Cold War meant not only confrontation with an ideological enemy but also increased interconnectedness with distant world regions. He shows that the Soviet Union looked quite different from a southern rather than a Western point of view and also charts the impact of the new internationalism on the Soviet Union itself in terms of popular perceptions of the USSR's place in the world and its political, scientific, intellectual and cultural reintegration into the global community.

Download or read book In the Name of the Great Work written by Doubravka Olšáková and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in 1948, the Soviet Union launched a series of wildly ambitious projects to implement Joseph Stalin’s vision of a total “transformation of nature.” Intended to increase agricultural yields dramatically, this utopian impulse quickly spread to the newly communist states of Eastern Europe, captivating political elites and war-fatigued publics alike. By the time of Stalin’s death, however, these attempts at “transformation”—which relied upon ideologically corrupted and pseudoscientific theories—had proven a spectacular failure. This richly detailed volume follows the history of such projects in three communist states—Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—and explores their varied, but largely disastrous, consequences.

Download or read book Stalinism written by Robert C. Tucker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years since Stalin's death, his profound influence upon the historical development of Communism has remained elusive and in need of interpretation. Stalinism, as his system has become known, is a phenomenon which embraced all facets of political and social life. While its effect upon the Soviet Union and other nations today is far less than it was while Stalin lived, it is by no means dead.In this landmark volume some of the world's foremost scholars of the subject, in a concerted group inquiry, present their interpretations of Stalinism and its influence on all areas of comparative Communist studies from history and politics to economics, sociology, and literary scholarship. The studies contained in this volume are an outgrowth of a conference on Stalinism held in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies.In his major contribution to this book, Leszek Kolakowski calls Stalinism "a unified state organism facing atom-like individuals." This extraordinary volume, augmented by a revealing new introduction by the editor, Robert C. Tucker, can be seen as amplifying that remark nearly a half century after the death of Joseph Stalin himself.Contributors to this work are: Wlodzimierz Brus, Katerina Clark, Stephen F. Cohen, Alexander Erlich, Leszek Kolakowski, Moshe Lewin, Robert H. McNeal, Mihailo Markovic, Roy A. Medvedev, T. H. Rigby, Robert Sharlet, and H. Gordon Skilling. Robert C. Tucker's principle work on Stalin has been described by George F. Kennan as "the most significant single contribution made to date, anywhere, to the history of Soviet power."

Download or read book The Soviet Union and World Peace written by Joseph Stalin and published by New York : New Century. This book was released on 1946 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity written by Vojtech Mastny and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book A Preponderance of Power National Security the Truman Administration and the Cold War written by Melvyn P. Leffler and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 921 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States the Cold War shaped our political culture, our institutions, and our national priorities. Abroad, it influenced the destinies of people everywhere. It divided Europe, split Germany, and engulfed the Third World. It led to a feverish arms race and massive sales of military equipment to poor nations. For at least four decades it left the world in a chronic state of tension where a miscalculation could trigger nuclear holocaust. Documents, oral histories, and memoirs illuminating the goals, motives, and fears of contemporary U.S. officials were already widely circulated and studied during the Cold War, but in the 1970s a massive declassification of documents from the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Defense, and some intelligence agencies reinvigorated historical study of this war which became the definitive conflict of its time. While many historians used these records to explore specialized topics, Melvyn Leffler marshals in this book the considerable available evidence to offer an overall analysis of national security policy during the Truman years and a comprehensive history of that administration’s progressive embroilment in the Cold War. A Preponderance of Power won the 1992 Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize sponsored by The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the 1992 Herbert Hoover Book Award sponsored by The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association and the 1993 Bancroft Prize sponsored by the Friends of the Columbia Libraries. “Each generation, if it is lucky, is given a book that becomes standard for one of the turning-point eras in American history. The immediate post-1945 years certainly were such an era, and Leffler’s work is such a book. Having exhausted the U.S. records, taken the globe as his province, and exploited the perspective of Communism’s recent collapse, he has written the account from which others must move if they are to contribute to our further understanding of these origins of the cold war.” — Walter LaFeber, Noll Professor of History, Cornell University “This is a magnificent book. It transcends forty years of historical writing about the origins of the cold war and the evolution of the Truman administration’s policies. Scrupulously documented, it will inevitably become the intellectual fulcrum around which all discussions, arguments, and revisions of cold war historiography henceforth will turn.” — Martin J. Sherwin, Dickson Professor of History, Director of the Nuclear Age History and Humanities Center, Tufts University “This bold, persuasive book puts the self-conscious expansion of U.S. power where it belongs — at the center of cold war tensions. Leffler effectively establishes that the ‘wise men’ had a coherent world view, devised a grand strategy to satisfy it, and extended U.S. power abroad to meet threats they exaggerated. A gem of a book.” —Thomas G. Paterson, Professor of History, University of Connecticut “Leffler’s panoramic survey of global developments offers an important reassessment of American policy in the early cold war — one that sees American policy driven as much by an expansive definition of national security as by the threat of Soviet imperialism. As the cold war comes to an end, Leffler presents a fresh appraisal of its origins.” — Michael J. Hogan, Professor of History, Ohio State University, Editor, Diplomatic History “Magisterial... This book is without question a major achievement. It is a masterly work of synthesis, weaving together in a single coherent study the various and often contradictory trends in previous historical writing on the Cold War’s origins. It is indefatigably researched... and most important, it is an intellectually honest work... A fine book.” — The Atlantic “A brilliant new book... An invaluable contribution.” — The Nation “[A Preponderance of Power] remains today [November 2013] the (so-far) definitive history of US behavior in the Cold War” — Eric Alterman, The Nation “The best book to date on the Truman administration and the origins of the Cold War.” — Detroit Free Press “A Preponderance of Power will be of immense value to scholars interested in the grand strategy of the Truman administration. Leffler has combined a solid grasp of secondary material with a comprehensive and very carefully documented analysis of primary sources, including a vast array of previously classified documents. The result is not only a more complete record of U.S. policymakers’ thinking about national security but also a more nuanced and sophisticated reconstruction of their concerns and objectives” — Alan C. Lamborn, American Political Science Review “A monumental work, rich in information and insights.” — R.C. Grogin, Canadian Journal of History “This massive distillation of the perceptions and policy prescriptions of the national security establishment of the Truman years... is policy history based on years of exhaustive research in government archives and private papers... Leffler’s judgment on Truman’s men and their work is favorable: they were sometimes very wise, nearly always prudent... and foolish primarily in overvaluing the strategic importance of peripheral areas.” — Gaddis Smith, Foreign Affairs “A good, indeed excellent, narrative history, straightforward and chronological... As a comprehensive and well-documented narrative of the Truman administration’s response to historic challenges beyond our shores, this book will prove indispensable as an up-to-date guide to further research.” — George Botjer, History “Leffler’s magisterial history of U.S. security policy in the Truman administration... will be widely appealing to political scientists and others grappling with issues in U.S. postwar security and foreign economic policy... Leffler has achieved a powerful synthesis of competing explanations of U.S. Cold War policy and has strongly elucidated U.S. grand strategy... A Preponderance of Power is a highly ambitious, thoughtful, and important work of scholarship, indisputably the outstanding historical synthesis of U.S. foreign policy in the early Cold War era.” — Lynn Eden,International Security “A remarkable piece of work. The book’s sweep is encyclopedic: it covers both military and foreign policy for the entire period from 1945 to January 1953, and deals systematically with American policy in all the important areas of the world--eastern and western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Far East as well. The book is based on a vast amount of archival research...” — Marc Trachtenhexg, Orbis “What sets Leffler’s work apart from that of most of his predecessors is not only its comprehensive coverage of Cold War issues, its exhaustive — at least in American sources — research, and incisive prose, but also the effective integration of political, ideological, economic and strategic analysis.” — Stephen J. Randall, International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis “Massive, brilliant post-glasnost analysis of early cold-war realities... This study of how Truman dealt with a world sealed off to him by FDR is a book and a half.” — Kirkus “Offering a new slant on the early years of the Cold War, this major reassessment traces the development of national security policy during the Truman administration. Based on a rich vein of recently declassified material, Leffler’s majestic study describes how Harry Truman and his advisers sought to mobilize America’s power in order to deal with the dangers of the postwar world and create a global environment hospitable to U.S. interests and values.” — Publishers Weekly “In examining the formulation of policy during the Truman administration, Leffler concentrates on the small group of (now unfashionably elite, white, and male) individuals who exercised decision-making responsibility in the late 1940s and early 1950s... We get to know Leffler’s main characters—Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, Nitze, James Forrestal, John McCloy, and half a dozen others—very well. We learn how they saw the world and what they aimed to accomplish... Leffler’s book, [...] is by far the best on its subject.” — H. W. Brands, American Historical Review “Leffler’s timely book is the product of more than a dozen years of prodigious research and patient investigations into many recently available collections of documents. The result is a valuable assessment of prudent policymakers who formulated the blueprints for US Cold War strategies... Leffler’s interpretation will remain a standard resource for years to come.” — S. Prisco III, Choice Review

Download or read book Stalin s World written by Sarah Davies and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on declassified material from Stalin’s personal archive, this is the first systematic attempt to analyze how Stalin saw his world—both the Soviet system he was trying to build and its wider international context. Stalin rarely left his offices and viewed the world largely through the prism of verbal and written reports, meetings, articles, letters, and books. Analyzing these materials, Sarah Davies and James Harris provide a new understanding of Stalin’s thought process and leadership style and explore not only his perceptions and misperceptions of the world but the consequences of these perceptions and misperceptions.