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

Hardcover book. 820 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-5416-7279-6
Stock Number: 0343

Stalin’s War is the most important examination in years by an American scholar about the great global conflict that has so decisively shaped today’s world. This sweeping new look at World War II is a magnificent work of scholarly synthesis, packed with eye-opening facts, keen observations and shrewd insights.

The author thoroughly dismantles the simplistic view, relentlessly promoted by Hollywood and accepted by millions of Americans, of World War II as a righteous “good war” in which the soldiers of “freedom” heroically vanquished the forces of evil. The prevailing and generally accepted view of the Second World War in the US and Britain is fundamentally wrong, Prof. McMeekin explains, and particularly the popular view of US President Roosevelt and British premier Churchill in the conflict.

The author, a prize-winning American historian who has specialized in Soviet history, explains in this iconoclastic and overdue reassessment that it was Stalin, not Hitler, who was the central animating figure of World War II. Drawing on wide-ranging new research in Russian, European and US archives, McMeekin shows that it was the dictator in Moscow, not Hitler, who envisioned and prepared for a titanic global conflict, one in which the Soviet regime and Communism would emerge as the great victor.

McMeekin details the belligerent character of the Soviet regime, and especially Stalin’s aggressive policies of 1939-1941, and his ambitious plans for the future – all of which made a clash with the Germany and her European allies inevitable. By June 1941, the Soviet air force was not only the world’s largest, it was greater than the combined air forces of all other countries together. Similarly, the Soviet airborne assault force – which could be used only in offensive operations – was not only larger than Germany’s, it was larger than the combined paratroop forces of the rest of the world. The Soviet Red Army’s tank force was not only the world’s largest, it was larger than the tank forces of the rest of the world combined.

Hitler’s decision to strike against the Red empire in 1941, the author shows, was made only after the mortal threat to Europe and Germany posed by the immense Soviet military buildup and Stalin’s hostile intentions, were manifestly clear.

McMeekin details the astonishing scale of US economic and military aid to the Soviet regime during the conflict. Stalin’s war machine, the author shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél -- from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfers, and even food. The Roosevelt administration’s strongly pro-Soviet outlook and policies, McMeekin explains, made a mockery of American pretentions of concern for justice and international law, or for victims of oppression and tyranny.

During the war, the author notes, Stalin himself privately expressed the view that without US support, Hitler would win. Without American aid, the author explains, there would have been no Soviet victory in the decisive Battle of Stalingrad. So important was US wartime aid to the Soviets, McMeekin suggests, that it may have been crucial in saving the Stalin regime from destruction, and in any case enabled the Red Army to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.

The breathtakingly misguided wartime views and policies of President Roosevelt and other high-ranking US officials, McMeekin shows, were based on ignorance or delusional naiveté about the Soviet regime, and driven by an utterly unrealistic vision of the postwar world.

The author looks at Britain’s shameful betrayal of Poland. In September 1939, the British government cited its supposed concern for Poland’s independence to declare war against Germany – and thereby transformed what had been a localized German-Polish conflict into a world war, or at least a “continent wide” one. After five and a half years of horrifically destructive and murderous war, the British betrayal of Poland was complete, with Britain agreeing to turn the country over to Stalin.

McMeekin raises deeply troubling questions about Allied aims in World War II, and the ultimate cost and merit of America’s role in the conflict. In effect, he suggests, Americans in World War II killed, died and sacrificed – in least in large measure – “to make much of Europe and Asia safe for Communism.” “In view of the disappointing returns,” he adds, “it is worth asking whether the sacrifices of millions of Poles, Britons, Frenchmen, Canadians, Australians, Russians, Americans, and others were necessary in the first place.”

“If the point of the war against Hitler was to save Western Europe from foreign subjugation,” writes the author, “this could have been done at infinitely less human and material cost at the negotiating table. If the point was to save Poland and Eastern Europe from foreign subjugation, then the war was an abysmal failure.”

“Still more uncomfortable questions,” McMeekin says, “surround matters such as Britain’s misleading promises to Poland in 1939, which encouraged Polish leaders to resist Hitler on the largely mistaken understanding that Britain and France would render them active armed assistance against Germany; the Allies’ rejection of German peace feelers in October 1939, after the fall of Poland; [and] Churchill’s refusal to parley in June-July 1940, after the fall of Norway, France and the Low Countries …”