Vojtech Mastny. Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941-45. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. xxii, 409 pp. $16.95.

Professor Vojtech Mastny has written a superb account of Soviet diplomacy during World War II. Since a truly definitive history will not be possible until some unimaginable future miracle leads to the opening of Soviet archives, this work is likely to remain by far the best account of Soviet wartime foreign policy for many years to come. It is based upon years of meticulous and painstaking research in half a dozen different languages. It is eloquently written with an admirable economy of style. In sharp contrast to so many works dealing with this emotional subject, it is written with balance, fairness, and dis- passion. One of the many strengths of this work is that it effectively portrays the fluidity and uncertainty of Soviet policy as it evolved over the long years from June 1941 to August 1945. Professor Mastny has no use for the cardboard caricatures of either the right or the left whereby Stalin is portrayed as single-mindedly dedicated to world conquest or actively seeking long term cooperation with the West. Mastny argues that even though Stalin lacked a clear sense of long term goals, he was determined to take advantage of those opportunities for expansion that unexpectedly came his way. Initially, Stalin had a modest view of Soviet capabilities and was respectful of the potential strength of the West. Had the West clearly and forcefully set definite limits, some kind of settlement might well have been possible. But as the West failed to counter Soviet expansion, Stalin's appetite grew. Thus Mastny takes issue with those who attribute the cold war to the West's resort to "atomic diplomacy" and to Stalin's sup- posed disappointment with the hardening of American foreign policy in 1945-47. In Mastny's view, the die was cast much earlier, and the major failing of Western policy was the lack of timely firmness. In providing this brief summary of the book's thesis, one does not do justice to its richness and depth. Above all, Professor Mastny is interested in exploring the intricacies of individual historical events. While he sees trends and tendencies, he does not see a rigid pattern or a fixed masterplan. He emphasizes fluidity, improvisation, and evolution. It is this ability to take a fresh and unfettered look at individual events that enables him to advance original and thought-provoking interpretations of such questions as Soviet overtures to Germany for a separate peace, the dissolution of the Comintern, the wartime perspectives of Maksim Litvinov, and the hardening of Soviet policy as early as the autumn of 1945. This clearly is a work that any serious student of Stalin's foreign policy will want to read and ponder.

Paul Marantz University of British Columbia

Jiri Valenta. Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968; Anatomy of a Decision. Balti- more: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. 208 pp.

Since I was in Prague on 21 August 1968, the opportunity to review Jiri Valenta's book has forced me to reconstruct my own perceptions of why the Soviets intervened in Czechoslovakia and to weigh those perceptions against Valenta's analysis. In large measure Valenta's analysis corresponds to my own thinking on the Soviet intervention. His ex- planation of how the Soviets perceived Dubcekism as a "revisionist disease" or "contam- ination," a "cancer" or an "infection," that threatened to spread throughout Eastern Europe and into the Soviet Union corresponds to what many observers of the events of the summer of 1968 highlighted as a rationale for the Soviet decision to intervene. Dubcek's apparent inability to control the flow of domestic events in Czechoslovakia, as well as his political naivete as contrasted to Soviet Realpolitik, also strikes a familiar chord some years after the fact. The scope of Valenta's study, however, extends beyond these limited parameters in- sofar as it attempts to construct an analytical framework by which we can assess the ra- tionale for Soviet decision-making. Here the questions relating to the predictability or unpredictability of Soviet behavior are of paramount significance. Valenta's approach also involves an attempt to apply the "bureaucratic politics paradigm" to Soviet decision- making. by placing a substantial amount of emphasis on the "pulling and hauling" that occurs within the senior ranks of the Soviet bureaucratic elite. Valenta views the course and the outcome of this bureaucratic "tug-of-war" as central to our understanding of the consensus-style of decision-making that characterizes collective leadership at the top of the Soviet establishment. In Valenta's view the "tug-of-war" that occurred in August, 1968 pitted the Soviet interventionists against the non-interventionists. Interestingly, the interventionist coalition represented the interests of those individuals within the Soviet political establishment who were primarily concerned with domestic affairs and the problems of political stability, while the non-interventionist coalition represented those individuals who were concerned with external affairs. The interventionist camp included the leaders of the national re- publics in the western part of the Soviet Union who feared the spread of Czechoslovak liberalism and experiements with federalism as a means of encouraging national indepen- dence movements within the U.S.S.R. In fact, one of the leading spokesmen for the in- terventionist position was the Ukrainian Party leader, V. E. Shelest. The interventionist ranks also included representatives from within the KGB, those organizations concerned with party indoctrination, military leaders whose primary concerns included the Warsaw Pact Command and the Ground Forces Command, as well as such prominent East Euro- pean leaders as Poland's Gomulka and East Germany's Ulbricht who feared that the spread of Czech reformism would jeopardize their positions at home. The ranks of the anti-in- terventionist coalition included figures such as Suslov, whose primary concern was the fate of the international Communist movement; Kosygin and the Ministry of Foreign Af- fairs who were concerned about the future of detente and the pursuit of SALT negotia- tions with the U.S.; the Strategic Rocket Forces Command; the leadership of the Italian and Spanish Communist parties; as well as Tito and Ceau§escu who represented the pur- suit of an independent line within East European Communism. Following the admittedly ambiguous settlements negotiated at Cierna and Bratislava, the pro-interventionist camp brought pressure to bear upon the Soviet leadership forcing them to opt in favor of the August military intervention. In Valenta's view the require- ments of Soviet domestic politics triumphed over foreign policy considerations. This en- abled the interventionists to claim that the preservation of domestic stability and ideo- logical conformity took precedence over any potential negative fallout on the interna- tional front. The fact that the Soviets knew that the Czech army would not resist the Warsaw Pact intervention and that the U.S. would not intervene in support of Czechoslo- vakia only served to reduce any possible risks the Soviet Union might incur as a conse- quence of the invasion. In Valenta's view-and I believe his insights are both correct and instructive-the sys- tem of bureaucratic "payoffs" rewarded individuals whose primary responsibility lay within the sphere of Soviet domestic politics. Moreover, the essential unpredictability of the Czech situation caused alarm within the ranks of the Soviet bureaucracy. That the West tended to celebrate the Cierna/Bratislava negotiations as a triumph for the Czechs and a defeat for the Soviets also served to reinforce the Soviet leadership's decision to in- tervene. In sum, the Czechoslovak crisis demonstrated that the Soviets were unwilling to countenance any experimentation with "reformist" or "pluralistic" Communism. The