Stalin's War: A New History of World War II

by Sean McMeekin

Overview

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.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541672772
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/20/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	395,023
File size:	30 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard College. The award-winning author of several books, including Stalin’s War, The Russian Revolution, and July 1914, McMeekin lives in Clermont, New York.

Table of Contents

A Note on Dates, Names, Translation, and Transliteration ix

Introduction: Whose War? 1

Prologue: May 5, 1941 7

I Before the Storm: The Main Currents of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1938

1 World Revolution 13

2 Stalin Makes His Mark 23

3 Strategic Coup in Washington 32

4 Behind the Popular Front 46

II "Huge and Hateful": The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

5 Courting Hitler 71

6 Gangster Pact, Part I: Poland 89

7 Gangster Pact, Part II: Finland 113

8 Maximum Danger: Finland, Baku, and the Katyn Massacre 133

9 Stalin Strikes: The Baltic, Bessarabia, and Bukovina 156

10 Showdown at the Danube Delta 178

11 Summit in Berlin: The Four-Power Pact? 193

12 Hitler Bars the Door 208

III Preparing for Armageddon

13 Mobilizing the Proletariat 219

14 The Battle for Belgrade 235

15 Operation Snow: Stalin Secures His Eastern Flank 251

16 To the Brink 265

17 Hitler Smashes Stalin's War Machine 286

18 Terror at the Front-and in the Rear 306

19 War for Aluminum 323

20 On the Ropes 336

IV Capitalist Lifeline

21 Lifting the Moral Embargo 347

22 The Hinge of Fate: December 1941 374

23 Capitalist Rope 389

24 Just-in-Time Delivery: Lend-Lease and Stalingrad 403

V Second Front

25 Keeping Stalin Happy: Unconditional Surrender and Katyn 435

26 Stopping Citadel: The Second Front? 456

27 Operation Tito 474

28 Teheran and Cairo 486

29 Second Front 516

VI Plunder

30 Warsaw 549

31 Soviet High Tide in Washington: The Morgenthau Plan 568

32 Moscow and Yalta: Unfinest Hour of the Anglo-Americans 585

33 Booty 609

34 Red Star over Asia: The Final Wages of Lend-Lease 630

Epilogue: Stalin's Slave Empire and the Price of Victory 651

Acknowledgments 667

Abbreviations 671

Notes 673

Bibliography 767

List of Archives and Principal Collections Used 767

Document Collections and Published Diaries 788

Published and Online Works Cited or Profitably Consulted, Including Memoirs 791

Index 813

Photo sections appear after pages 216 and 432

Editorial Reviews

01/18/2021

Soviet leader Josef Stalin cleverly manipulated the U.S. and Great Britain during WWII, sowing the seeds for Communist expansion throughout Europe and Asia, according to this richly detailed account. Historian McMeekin (The Russian Revolution) draws from recently opened Soviet archives to shed light on Stalin’s dark reasoning and shady tactics, documenting how he boozed up Nazi foreign affairs minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Moscow and forged the 1939 nonaggression pact with Germany during phone calls with Hitler. (Stalin then began “wringing every last drop of nectar out of his honeyed partnership” by invading the Baltics and Romania, McMeekin writes, prompting Hitler to begin “clearing the decks for war.”) Ever the bully, Stalin cajoled Churchill and Roosevelt into sending enormous amounts of aid to the Soviet Union, then showed little gratitude to the Allies, despite “timely interventions” that helped defeat Hitler’s forces at Stalingrad and Kursk. Stalin also forced Churchill and Roosevelt into “swallowing” his slander of the International Red Cross after it accused him of having thousands of Polish officers killed and buried in a mass grave in the Katyn Forest during the Soviet occupation of Poland in 1940. Packed with incisive character sketches and illuminating analyses of military and diplomatic maneuvers, this is a skillful and persuasive reframing of the causes, developments, and repercussions of WWII. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A provocative revisionist take on the Second World War...an accomplished, fearless, and enthusiastic ‘myth buster’...McMeekin is a formidable researcher, working in several languages, and he is prepared to pose the big questions and make judgments….The story of the war itself is well told and impressive in its scope, ranging as it does from the domestic politics of small states such as Yugoslavia and Finland to the global context. It reminds us, too, of what Soviet ‘liberation’ actually meant for eastern Europe….McMeekin is right that we have for too long cast the second world war as the good one. His book will, as he must hope, make us re-evaluate the war and its consequences.”—Financial Times

“Brilliantly inquisitive.”—National Review

“Sean McMeekin’s revisionist Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II isn’t just one of the most compelling histories written about the war this year, it’s one of the best ever. I doubt anyone who reads it will think about the Second World War in the same way.”—David Harsanyi, The Federalist's Notable Books of 2021

“The volume is impressive even by the standard of histories of the second world war…The book is well researched and very well written. It puts forward new ideas and revives some old ones to challenge current mainstream interpretations of the conflict… a new look at the conflict, which poses new questions and, one should add, provides new and often unexpected answers to the old ones.”—Guardian

“Indispensable… There are new books every year that promise ‘a new history’ of such a well-studied subject as World War II, but McMeekin actually delivers on that promise.”—Christian Science Monitor

“McMeekin is a superb writer. There isn’t a boring page in the book. His familiarity with the archives of several countries is extraordinary.”—The Times (UK)

“This remarkable book… meticulously researched, elegantly written… Stalin’s War is that rare thing: a book that forces us to think again, and to challenge our narrative of that most well-trodden subject.”—BBC History Magazine

“Criticisms of the British for living in a Second World War past are frequent. Sean McMeekin, professor of history at Bard College and a talented scholar of the First World War, takes an alternative view by arguing that we are generally living in the wrong war. Drawing on an impressive array of international archives, McMeekin…directs attention to Soviet activity….The book is pertinent because of the extent to which modern cultural wars draw on historicised identities and historical controversies.”—The Critic (UK)

“Based on a vast amount of research.”—Prospect (UK)

“In considering the war from a global perspective and shifting the focus from a Eurocentric view, he [McMeekin] provides a refreshing corrective that takes in areas of the war often overlooked by westerners.” —The Spectator (UK)

“Fast-paced and well-written … A gifted writer and a talented polemicist.”
 —Inside Story

“Impressively researched and well-written.”—Washington Examiner

“McMeekin writes well and has the language skills to comb through a huge amount of archival material… There is much interesting detail about allied supplies to Russia, the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944, the Soviet plunder of Germany in 1945, and the war with Japan.”
 —Irish Times

“[A] well-written book…the product of massive research involving every detail of the war. Stalin is intimately painted in all his colours.”—Eurasia Review

“The ambitious sweep of Hastings, Roberts and Beevor, but much else besides… McMeekin chooses to see Stalin as the central figure in the conflict, rather than Hitler.”—Ian Thomson, The Tablet

“McMeekin’s book is, on top of making for great reading, a timely reminder that victory in a war does not end geopolitical competition and international conflict.”—Jakub Grygiel, Law & Liberty

“Stalin’s War is a magnificent book and everyone interested in the causes and consequences of World War II—and what reasonable person could not be?—should read it.”—David Gordon, Mises Wire

“An independent-minded and immensely learned historian, McMeekin demonstrates the extent of Soviet brutality and treachery before and during WWII.”—Paul Gottfried, Chronicles

"McMeekin’s Stalin’s War is such a mind-blowing assault on the conventional narrative that I’m fairly certain it’s not even legal."—Austin Bramwell, former trustee of the National Review

“In the eyes of many Russians today, the Soviet Union’s victory in World War Two still legitimizes Josef Stalin’s bloody dictatorship. In this brilliant and provocative history, Sean McMeekin takes on Stalin’s legend, demonstrating, among other things, that the Western allies, and especially the United States, were far more critical to Stalin’s victory than Soviet propaganda then or later would ever acknowledge. This book will change the way readers understand Stalin’s War.”—Walter Russell Mead, Global View Columnist, Wall Street Journal

“Gripping, authoritative, accessible, and always bracingly revisionist.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

“Stalin’s War is above all about strategy: the failure of Roosevelt and Churchill to make shrewd choices as World War II played out. McMeekin brilliantly argues that instead of weighting the European and Pacific theaters to favor their own interests—and to weaken the inevitably antagonistic Soviet Union—FDR and Churchill left the most critical parts of Asia unguarded while they ground down the German army, a decision that favored Stalin's interests far more than their own. Roosevelt’s ‘Germany first’ strategy and the trillion dollars of Lend Lease aid he poured into Stalin's treasury would underwrite Soviet control of China and East Central Europe after 1945 and hatch a Cold War whose dire effects are with us still.”—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Sons of Freedom and director of the University of North Texas Military History Center

“Sean McMeekin’s new book fills a massive gap in the historiography of World War II.  Based on exhaustive research in Russian and other archives, this examination of Stalin’s foreign policy explores fresh avenues and explodes many myths, perhaps the most significant being that of unwittingly exaggerated emphasis on ‘Hitler’s war.’ McMeekin shows conclusively that the two tyrants were equally responsible, both for the outbreak of war in 1939 and the appalling slaughter which ensued.”
 —Nikolai Tolstoy

“Sean McMeekin’s approach in Stalin’s War is both original and refreshing, written as it is with a wonderful clarity.”—Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

“A sweeping reassessment of World War II seeking to ‘illuminate critical matters long obscured by the obsessively German-centric literature’ on the subject....Yet another winner for McMeekin, this also serves as a worthy companion to Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War, which argued that Britain should not have entered World War I. Brilliantly contrarian history.”—Kirkus

“Historian McMeekin (The Russian Revolution) draws from recently opened Soviet archives to shed light on Stalin’s dark reasoning and shady tactics....Packed with incisive character sketches and illuminating analyses of military and diplomatic maneuvers, this is a skillful and persuasive reframing of the causes, developments, and repercussions of WWII.”—Publishers Weekly

“Often thought of as 'Hitler's War,' the Second World War is here reexamined with Russian documents that only recently became available....The book pulls no punches in describing the many atrocities, including those against Poles and Germans, that Soviet troops committed....Thoroughly researched.”—Library Journal

From the Publisher

02/26/2021

McMeekin (history, Bard Coll., Russian Origins of the First World War) seeks to add a new survey history of World War II's eastern front. Often thought of as "Hitler's War," the Second World War is here reexamined with Russian documents that only recently became available. McMeekin provides a solid summary of Stalin's early years, the events leading up to the war, and diplomacy between the Soviet Union and Germany. Far from praising Stalin, the book pulls no punches in describing the many atrocities, including those against Poles and Germans, that Soviet troops committed. Nor does McMeekin gloss over Western hypocrisy. A thorough analysis of Soviet diplomatic and military efforts, the work covers topics such as the Katyn Massacre and the Yalta Conference. Maps are clear and relevant and complement the text. An extensive bibliography contains many primary source documents. VERDICT This thoroughly researched book is best directed toward more serious readers of Second World War history. A fine addition to the corpus of World War II history, this may find a place on shelves next to works by Antony Beevor (Stalingrad, The Fall of Berlin), Stephen G. Fritz (Ostkrieg), and David Glantz and Jonathan M. House (When Titans Clashed).—Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven

Library Journal

★ 2021-01-07
A sweeping reassessment of World War II seeking to “illuminate critical matters long obscured by the obsessively German-centric literature” on the subject.

Veteran historian McMeekin states bluntly that while Hitler wanted war, Stalin wanted it more. A loyal Marxist, he had no doubt that capitalist nations—among which he included Nazi Germany—were doomed. According to the author, throughout the 1930s, as war became more likely, Stalin worked to ensure that it would leave his enemies exhausted and ripe for revolution. The 1939 nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany seemed a dazzling coup for both nations, but Stalin got greedy. Piggybacking on Hitler’s early victories, he snatched as much territory as Nazi Germany. As a result, several hundred miles of buffer between the Soviet Union and Germany disappeared, making Hitler’s 1941 surprise attack possible. In his account of the titanic campaign that followed, McMeekin pays more attention than most military historians to the loathsome behavior of both sides to civilians and even their own soldiers. He shows less sympathy than most to Stalin’s insults and demands for aid from the Allies and none whatsoever for Soviet representatives vacuuming up America’s patents, technology, and services. The author maintains that Nazism vanished in 1945, but “the Soviet legacy lives on in the Communist governments of China, North Korea, and Vietnam, countries on which Hitler’s short-lived Reich left not even a shadow.” He adds that Allied efforts to cultivate Stalin before Hitler’s invasion failed, and the massive American support afterward was entirely selfish. Consequently, the Soviets, having done most of the fighting, emerged with most of the fruits of victory. The author’s provocative suggestion that America should have allowed the two evil empires to fight it out will ruffle feathers, but it effectively kills the idea that WWII was a battle of good vs. evil. Yet another winner for McMeekin, this also serves as a worthy companion to Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War, which argued that Britain should not have entered World War I.

Brilliantly contrarian history.

Kirkus Reviews