Stalin's Role in World War II: A Comprehensive History

David Freydkin: Stalin's War by Sean McMeekin is a terrific piece of revisionist history. The basic message I got from this book (which is 666 pages long excluding sources) is that Stalin's USSR largely won the war by defeating Nazi Germany with overly generous lend-lease aid from the US Government. This aid included trillions of dollars in fighter planes, tanks, jeeps, trucks, other military equipment as well as foodstuffs all paid by the American taxpayer. Other allies fighting the Axis powers such as the UK or Chiang Kai-Chek's forces fighting Imperialist Japan received very little aid in comparison.

This aid enabled Stalin and the Red Army to expand and enforce their Communist ideology into Eastern and Central Europe as well as northern and eastern Asia. Ironically, prior to Hitler's order to invade Soviet occupied Poland, the USSR and Nazi Germany were allies with the Soviets supplying the German war effort with oil and other essential materials.

Stalin was equally aggressive as Hitler in his foreign policy. While Hitler occupied France, Austria, the low countries, Czechoslovakia and western Poland, Stalin occupied eastern Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, much of Romania and...

United States on Mar 01, 2024

Amazon Customer: What a revelation as to who was the greatest statesman of the Twentieth Century, Stalin wins hands down he ran rings around everyone else.
And the world is still paying for their ineptitude today, only now Putin has taken over his mantle.

United Kingdom on Feb 28, 2024

José L. Fdez.: Lectura necesaria para desmitificar y entender qué es el estalinismo y el enorme daño que hizo a Europa y que aún 70 años después sigue haciendo a países como Cuba.

Spain on Aug 13, 2023

Andrew: Excellent writings.

Canada on Jun 14, 2023

Cliente Kindle: Não é fácil para mim ler rapidamente em inglês, vou devagar, mas até o momento tenho achado o livro muito bom, o autor mostra que o assunto segunda guerra mundial é muito mais complexo que a velha lenda segundo a qual os nazistas queriam dominar o mundo. Sem isentar Hitler o autor sugere que este possa ter sido apenas um peão no tabuleiro geopolítico do verdadeiro " player": Joseph Stalin! Recomendo a leitura e torço por uma tradução para o português.

Brazil on Dec 29, 2022

Eric Grover: Historian Sean McMeekin’s Stalin’s War is a riveting, revisionist history of World War 2, drawing on previously-classified Soviet archives. It’s Stalin- rather than Hitler-centric and takes some of the luster off the Big Three.

McMeekin makes a persuasive case the Soviet Union won WW2, takes the lionized Churchill down a peg, and reveals FDR’s conduct as cringeworthy.

Stalin was cut from a different cloth. He bifocally and ruthlessly pursued current and post-war objectives. Russia under the cloak of the USSR finished the war a superpower and was the only major belligerent that gained territory and vassal states. And, the Soviets amassed enormous industrial assets and technology from US Lend-Lease gifts and by looting occupied lands. While the Soviet Union suffered horrendous losses, Stalin, hailed as the Vozhd (leader), who’d murdered millions of his own countrymen and conquered subjects, didn’t lose a wink of sleep over it.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain observed the Soviets didn’t share Western values, were “afraid of Germany and Japan, and would be delighted to see other people fight them.” Stalin said it was in the USSR’s...

United States on Mar 20, 2022

Writing Historian: Sean McMeekin's core thesis is that historians have focused far too much on Adolf Hitler's role in the Second World War. Indeed, he even questions the commonly understood definition of "Second World War" as starting on 1 September 1939 with the Nazi invasion of Poland. McMeekin contends, with some justification IMHO, that the term "Second World War" deserves a broader (and less Euro-centric) interpretation. The author sets out to convince readers that WW2 started in the Far East in 1931 and continued until later 1945, with few breaks in the conflict. That interpretation allows McMeekin to focus on the single world leader who directed his nation's policies throughout that lengthy period: Joseph Stalin.

During the period 1931 t0 1945, the Soviet Union seemed hellbent on involving itself, indeed on occasion it actually fomented wars and played, albeit behind the scenes, a part in sustaining the fighting between other nations. Stalin's motivation for that policy stemmed from two factors: His paranoid delusion that the western world would (in his eyes "once again" in light of the Anglo-American-Japanese intervention against the Bolsehviks) band together to stifle modern...

United States on Aug 22, 2021

Iokaste: Aus meiner Sicht gehört dieses Buch in den Kanon der Bücher zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, seiner Genese und der Geschichte des Totalitarismus dar. Dem Autor gelingt es, den sowjetischen Anteil am Ausbruch des Krieges und die verbrecherische Natur des Sowjetsystems herauszuarbeiten ohne dabei die NS-Diktatur zu entlasten.
Besonders lobenswert ist die Erweiterung der Betrachtung des Krieges auf den Osten und das Aufzeigen der Bedeutung US-amerikanischer Hilfe für die UdSSR und die Unterwanderung der US-Regierung durch sowjetische Spione.
Ein herausragendes Buch, dem ich ein breites Publikum wünsche. Klare Kaufempfehlung!

Germany on Jul 10, 2021