Stalin's War: A New History of World War II (Hardcover)

By Sean McMeekin

$40.00

ISBN: 9781541672796

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Basic Books - April 20th, 2021

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We could learn a lot about the times we live in (while dealing with Russia and Putin) if we took the time to read about Stalin. Stalin was playing the long game in the 1930s and balancing his schemes on what he was seeing in Nazi Germany, France, and Britain. His goal was never to get into a war to just win it, but to gain as much political advantage as he could while forcing the other powers to battle each other. We know about the antisemitism that plagued Germany at this time, however we gloss over how much Stalin purged his own ranks throughout the 30s. Letting Hitler run amok in Europe was, as Sean McMeekin details, allowed by Stalin (or at least Stalin didn’t care to get involved, see the non-aggression pact signed between Hitler and him) to stir up as much turmoil as possible. In the end, it worked. World War II causalities were huge on the Russian population, but Stalin would be fine with that (in fact, he was good at killing his own people in the large amounts as well). It helped Stalin secured enough political capital, slave labor and new territories to grow the Soviet Union into a world power.

— Jason Kennedy