DOCSLIB.ORG

Acknowledgements

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Acknowledgements acknowledgements This book is the result of lengthy research, conducted in a spirit of genuine international collaboration, as a carefully researched Russian text was revised and rewritten for an Anglophone audience. Along the way, we have accumu- lated numerous debts, which it is our pleasure to acknowledge here. Financially, the work has been generously assisted by the Leverhulme Trust (Research Project Grant RPG–2015–156); the British Academy (Small Research Grant SG 100185) and the Russkiy Mir Foundation. Vladimir Pechatnov was also the grateful recipient of an Archives By- Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge and a research grant from The Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park, New York. We are also greatly indebted to the help of archivists at the following reposi- tories: the Russian Federal Archive Agency (A.N. Artizov); the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (O.V. Naumov, A.K. Sorokin, V.N. Shepelev); the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, the Historical Documentary Department and the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry (A.I. Kuznetsov, I.V. Fetisov, A.N. Zaleyeva); the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York (archivist Robert Clark); the Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri (archivist Rebecca Sowell); the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University (director Allen Packwood). S.V. Kudryashov (German Historical Institute, Moscow) rendered great assis- tance in identifying and processing archival material. Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and the German Historical Institute, Moscow (N. Katzer) created favourable xv xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS working conditions for the Russian research and provided organizational support. Vladimir Pechatnov is especially grateful to MGIMO President, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.V. Torkunov, whose faith in and constant promotion of the project made its Russian version possible. In Britain, David Reynolds acknowledges the assistance of Daniel Wunderlich and Edward Mayes in securing and administering the British funding, and the continued support of the Cambridge History Faculty and of Christ’s College in his work. The Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents and the Russian Defence Ministry kindly allowed use of some material from their collections as illustrations. Other photo credits are indicated in the list of illustrations. Crown copyright documents composed by Winston Churchill and other members of the wartime British government are reproduced under the Open Government Licence, but are cited where possible from publicly available collections. This publication greatly benefited from advice given by Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the late G.N. Sevostyanov, Honoured Scholars of the Russian Federation O.A. Rzheshevsky and V.L. Malkov. Two distinguished American historians of the Roosevelt era – Warren F. Kimball and David Woolner – made valuable critiques of the draft English text. Additional comment and advice were kindly provided by Kristina Spohr, Patrick Miles and Patrick Salmon of FCO Historians. We each owe a particular debt, as usual, to our long- suffering spouses: Margaret and Luba. Our thanks to those at Yale University Press who have supported the project, particularly Robert Baldock, Rachael Lonsdale and Clarissa Sutherland, and to copy- editor Clive Liddiard. Yale’s commitment to publishing this book, and also, later, an online edition of the whole correspondence, has been exemplary. Appreciation, too, for our agent Peter Robinson and assistant Matthew Marland at Rogers, Coleridge & White. The book could not have been completed without the help of two immensely talented younger historians of the Second World War era whose linguistic, scholarly and compositional skills were invaluable. Iskander Magadeyev worked closely on the research and publication of the Russian edition; Olga Kucherenko, likewise, on translating the Russian material and in helping to prepare the English- language text. Both of them are acknowledged on the title page. The Kremlin Letters is respectfully dedicated to two scholars – one Russian and the other American – who pioneered the way both in forging academic ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii contacts across the Cold War divide and in setting an example for the editing of wartime documents. We are indebted to them as historians and as friends. Finally, a word of mutual appreciation: this book shows that it is possible for two scholars from different, often frictional, political cultures to find common ground and complete a project that, we hope, will enhance historical research and also – in some small way – international understanding. Cambridge and Moscow, May 2018 xviii FINLAND Axis states Axis allies Leningrad NORWAY Axis conquered territory ESTONIA Volga North Sea Vichy France and territories LATVIA SWEDEN Moscow IRELAND UNITED DENMARK Neutral territories Baltic LITHUANIA KINGDOM Sea Frontiers, 1941 SOVIET Axis advance into London NETHERLANDS Soviet Union, December 1941 Berlin BELGIUM Warsaw UNION GERMANY POLAND Kiev Paris Stalingrad LUX. e n i h FRANCE R Vienna SLOVAKIA UKRAINE AUSTRIA SWITZ. ATLANTIC HUNGARY OCEAN ITALY ROMANIA be YUGOSLAVIA Danu Black Sea SPAIN Corsica BULGARIA PORTUGAL Rome ALBANIA Sardinia TURKEY Gibraltar GREECE (British) Mediterranean Sea Casablanca Algiers Tunis Sicily MOROCCO ALGERIA TUNISIA SYRIA Malta Cyprus Crete (British) Map 1 Europe at the beginning of December 1941. FINLAND Helsinki Leningrad Tallinn ESTONIA SWEDEN LATVIA Moscow Riga LITHUANIA Baltic Dvinsk SOVIET Sea Tula Königsberg Vilna Danzig Minsk Orel UNION Gomel Berlin Kursk POLAND Warsaw GERMANY Dresden Kiev Kharkov Prague Krakow Lvov BOHEMIA SLOVAKIA UKRAINE Vienna Budapest AUSTRIA HUNGARY Odessa ROMANIA Belgrade Bucharest YUGOSLAVIA Black Sea BULGARIA ITALY ALBANIA Front lines 1 August 1943 to 1 December 1943 GREECE to 30 April 1944 to 19 August 1944 to 30 August 1944 31 December 1944 Mediterranean Sea Main axis of advance Map 2 Advance of the Red Army into Eastern Europe, 1943–44. xix xx Front lines 24 July 1944 UNITED North 12 September 1944 Sea Hamburg 9 February 1945 KINGDOM NETHERLANDS Bremen 8 May 1945 London Amsterdam Main axis of advance Portsmouth Dover Berlin Essen Antwerp English Channel Calais Elb Brussels Düsseldorf e Cherbourg BELGIUM Cologne Le Havre Leipzig Brest R Caen h i Rouen n S e GERMANY e in Falaise e Soissons LUX. Loudéac Frankfurt Rennes Lorient Paris Verdun Laval Melun Prague Le Mans Nantes Stuttgart Regensburg Strassburg Loire Chatillon-sur- Seine FRANCE Dijon Munich Danube SWITZERLAND Bordeaux AUSTRIA Lyon Map 3 Allied advance across Western Europe, 1944–45. 1 & 2. Prime time The Big Three at Tehran, with photographers, 29 November 1943. 3. Stalin’s cri de coeur 3 September 1941. Stalin wanted a second front before the end of 1941, sufficient to divert from the east thirty or forty German divisions. 4. Nice words from Churchill 21 September 1941. 5. Special envoy Harry Hopkins in Stalin’s Kremlin office, July 1941, with Lenin at work in the background. 6. Diplomatic interpreter Ivan Maisky clinks glasses with Churchill in the Winter Garden of the Soviet embassy in London, 29 August 1941. 7 & 8. The go-between The intrepid Vyacheslav Molotov lands in Scotland, 20 May 1942, with the indefatigable interpreter Vladimir Pavlov at his side. Below, he is waved off from Washington on 4 June 1942 by Admiral Ernest J. King (left), Ambassador Litvinov, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and General George C. Marshall. 9. New friends On the veranda at 10 Downing Street, Maisky and Molotov take a photo call with Churchill, May 1942. Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, is next to Molotov, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden stands to Churchill’s left. 10. The Alaska–Siberia air bridge Soviet and US airmen pose in front of a P-63 fighter delivered under Lend-Lease, Ladd Field, Alaska, 1943. 11. First meeting Churchill and Stalin in the Kremlin, August 1942, with the US envoy Averell Harriman in the middle and Molotov on the right. 12. Just the two Stalin was otherwise engaged when Roosevelt and Churchill conferred at Casablanca, January 1943. The battle of Stalingrad had reached its climax. 13. Stalin the editor Molotov’s draft to Churchill on 26 November 1942 damned the Allied pact with Vichy politico Admiral Darlan in Algiers. But the boss’s blue pen altered the whole tone, commending the Darlan deal as a matter of necessity: in war, one must use ‘even the devil and his grandma’ for military purposes. 14. ‘Most grateful’ Churchill to Stalin, 1 December 1942. 15. Behind Winston’s back Joseph E. Davies with Stalin and Molotov in the Kremlin, May 1943, having delivered a letter from the president proposing a Roosevelt–Stalin meeting without Churchill. 16. Mission accomplished FDR’s thank-you on 4 June 1943 for Stalin’s hospitality to Davies. ‘Mr Brown’ was the not-so- opaque codename used for Molotov during his 1942 visit to the USA. 17 & 18. Molotov’s new boys In the summer of 1943 Andrey Gromyko (left) was appointed ambassador in Washington and Fedor Gusev (right) took over in London. 19. The other three Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and Vyacheslav Molotov at the Moscow conference of foreign ministers, October 1943. 20. Waiting for Roosevelt The new US secretary of state Edward Stettinius (left) and Molotov (front centre), along with Gromyko (behind them) and Pavlov (right), watch the president’s plane The Sacred Cow coming in to land at Saki airfield for the Yalta conference, February 1945. 21. Two little giants Stalin and Churchill in the Livadia Palace at Yalta, February 1945. 22. The waning president Roosevelt enjoys a lighter moment in the courtyard of the Livadia Palace, February 1945. 23. British diplomacy goes to work Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, Britain’s ambassador to Moscow, and Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, pictured at Potsdam, July 1945. 24. Ebb tide Churchill hosts a dinner for Stalin and FDR’s successor Harry S.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Buildup of the German War Economy: the Importance of the Nazi-Soviet Economic Agreements of 1939 and 1940 by Samantha Carl I
    The Buildup of the German War Economy: The Importance of the Nazi-Soviet Economic Agreements of 1939 and 1940 By Samantha Carl INTRODUCTION German-Soviet relations in the early half of the twentieth century have been marked by periods of rapprochement followed by increasing tensions. After World War I, where the nations fought on opposite sides, Germany and the Soviet Union focused on their respective domestic problems and tensions began to ease. During the 1920s, Germany and the Soviet Union moved toward normal relations with the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.(1) Tensions were once again apparent after 1933, when Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany. Using propaganda and anti-Bolshevik rhetoric, Hitler depicted the Soviet Union as Germany's true enemy.(2) Despite the animosity between the two nations, the benefits of trade enabled them to maintain economic relations throughout the inter-war period. It was this very relationship that paved the way for the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 and the subsequent outbreak of World War II. Nazi-Soviet relations on the eve of the war were vital to the war movement of each respective nation. In essence, the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact on August 23, 1939 allowed Germany to augment its war effort while diminishing the Soviet fear of a German invasion.(3) The betterment of relations was a carefully planned program in which Hitler sought to achieve two important goals. First, he sought to prevent a two-front war from developing upon the invasion of Poland. Second, he sought to gain valuable raw materials that were necessary for the war movement.(4) The only way to meet these goals was to pursue the completion of two pacts with the Soviet Union: an economic agreement as well as a political one.
    [Show full text]
  • Soviet-American Relations and the Origins of Containment 1941-1946: the Force of Tradition
    University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1988 Soviet-American relations and the origins of containment 1941-1946: The force of tradition Anita Louise Coryell The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Coryell, Anita Louise, "Soviet-American relations and the origins of containment 1941-1946: The force of tradition" (1988). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 5179. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5179 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 Th i s is an unpublished m a n u s c r ip t in w h ic h c o p y r ig h t s u b s i s t s . Any f u r t h e r r e p r in t in g of i t s c o n t e n t s m u st be APPROVED BY THE AUTHOR. Ma n s f i e l d L ib r a r y U n i v e r s i t y of Mo n ta n a Da t e : , 1 , SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS AND THE ORIGINS OF CONTAINMENT, 1941-1946: THE FORCE OF TRADITION By Anita Louise Coryell B.A., Rutgers, The State University, 1974 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 1988 Approved by: Chairman, Board of Examiners Dean, Graduate School lusrt/J Date UMI Number: EP40643 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
    [Show full text]
  • H-Diplo Roundtable XXII-1 on Gabriel Gorodetsky, Ed. the Complete Maisky Diaries, Volumes I-III
    H-Diplo H-Diplo Roundtable XXII-1 on Gabriel Gorodetsky, ed. The Complete Maisky Diaries, Volumes I-III Discussion published by George Fujii on Monday, September 7, 2020 H-Diplo Roundtable XXII-1 Gabriel Gorodetsky, ed. The Complete Maisky Diaries, Volumes I-III. Translated by Tatiana Sorokina and Oliver Ready. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9780300117820 (hardcover, $300.00). 7 September 2020 | https://hdiplo.org/to/RT22-1 Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii Contents Introduction by Warren Kimball, Rutgers University. 2 Review by Anne Deighton, University of Oxford. 7 Review by Norman Naimark, Stanford University. 10 Review by Vladimir Pechatnov, Moscow State Institute of International Relations. 13 Review by Alexis Peri, Boston University. 16 Review by Sergey Radchenko, Cardiff University. 21 Response by Gabriel Gorodetsky, Tel Aviv University and All Souls College, University of Oxford. 26 Introduction by Warren Kimball, Rutgers University As a friend once commented about a review of edited documents: “An incise, pithy review that highlights what everyone wishes to know about the collection, and can take away from the texts. Little nuggets about the drafts of history that never really blow in the conference window are the big story here.”[1] What is This Genre? In books like this, attaching ‘editor (ed.)’ after the name of the ‘author’ is misleading since the author is the one who wrote the diaries; in this case, Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky (Jan Lachowiecki), a Soviet- era diplomat who spent eleven years (1932-1943) in London as Joseph Stalin’s Ambassador to Great Britain. But gathering or compiling documents is not the same as what Gabriel Gorodetsky has done Citation: George Fujii.
    [Show full text]
  • FINLAND's RELATIONS with the SOVIET UNION, 1940-1952 By
    FINLAND'S RELATIONS WITH THE SOVIET UNION, 1940-1952 by HANS PETER KROSBY B.A., University of British Columbia, 1955 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in INTERNATIONAL STUDIES We accept this Thesis as conforming to the required standard: UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA April, 1958 ABSTRACT In March 194-0, Finland had just completed another life and death struggle with the Soviet Union, the second such struggle since Bolshevik autocracy- replaced Tsarist autocracy in Russia in 1917. During the following fifteen months, Soviet diplomacy endeavoured to complete the job which the Red Army had "begun. By a unilateral and extremely liberal interpretation of the Peace Treaty of March 12, 1940, the Soviet Union tried to isolate Finland from her other neighbours and to establish a favourable basis for a complete annexation of Finland in the manner of the three Baltic States. Surrounded by Soviet and German military might, and noticing the increasing friction in the Nazi-Soviet alliance, Finland, in order to save herself from an imminent Soviet invasion, grasped the only straw which seemed to offer some hope: a transit agreement for German troops from Finland's Bothnian coast to Kirkenes in oc• cupied Norway. The resulting presence of German troops in the country did save Finland from becoming the seventeenth Soviet Socialist Republic in 1940 or 194-1* but it also involved her deeply in the Nazi-Soviet conflict which followed. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 194-1, Finland tried in vain to have her neutrality respected, and she was attacked by Soviet forces three days after the German aggression.
    [Show full text]
  • Stalin's Big-Fleet Program
    Naval War College Review Volume 57 Article 6 Number 2 Spring 2004 Stalin’s Big-Fleet Program Milan L. Hauner Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Hauner, Milan L. (2004) "Stalin’s Big-Fleet Program," Naval War College Review: Vol. 57 : No. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol57/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hauner: Stalin’s Big-Fleet Program STALIN’S BIG-FLEET PROGRAM Milan L. Hauner The Party is in favor of small submarines with a short range. You can build three times as many submarines for your money as big ones.... but the actual problem lay in a quite different sphere. Big submarines mean a policy of aggression, to further world revolution. Small sub- marines mean coastal defense—that is, self-defense, and postponement of world revolution. ARTHUR KOESTLER his is the answer that in Koestler’s famous 1941 novel Darkness at Noon the Tpolice investigator Ivanov gives the accused Rubashov, who asked him why a certain admiral had to be executed. “The times are against us,”Ivanov continues; “we are in the hollow of a wave and must wait until we are lifted by the next.”His explanation suggests what actual Soviet naval strategy Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • The Signature of the Nazi-Soviet Pact on 23 August 1939 Has Been Described As
    The Northern Department of the British Foreign Office and the Soviet Union, 1939-1942. Jacqueline Helen Dooley. Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of Leeds. School of History. September 2014. 1 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. ©2014. The University of Leeds and Jacqueline Helen Dooley. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Geoff Waddington, for all his help throughout these four years, as well as his continued support, for which I am extremely appreciative. The love and support of my family has been essential throughout my studies. I am eternally indebted to my parents, who have provided me with love, support and guidance, without which I would not be where I am today. I would especially like to thank my late Grandparents, Edward and Joyce Hughes, for their never failing belief in my abilities and their eternal love and support. Finally, I would like to thank my partner and best friend, Gareth Harrop, who has provided me with much-needed love and support. I am forever grateful. 3 Abstract This thesis examines the opinions of, and advice tendered by, members of the Northern Department of the British Foreign Office during the years 1939-1942. Previous works on this era have focussed predominantly on the role of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden.
    [Show full text]
  • Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War I
    Stalin and the Spanish Civil War: Chapter 2 2/20/04 1:58 PM Email this citation Introduction 2. Soviet Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War I. Diplomacy 1 1. Pre-July 1936 Through much of the Spanish Civil War, and for many years after, Soviet propagandists 2. Civil War 3. To Moscow often claimed that the many impediments to fully functioning Soviet-Spanish diplomatic II. Soviet Aid relations that existed between 1917-1936 suddenly melted away at the start of the war. In 4. Solidarity this version of events, the Spanish Republic had in the Soviet regime an immediate ally and 5. Children friend, one it could count on even as Spain's traditional allies cowered behind the veil of the III. Cultural Policy Non-Intervention Agreement. The official Spanish communist history of the war, Dolores 6. Pre-War Ibárruri's Guerra y revolución, asserts that, "from the first moment, the Soviet government 7. Agit-prop and people, united in a single purpose, enthusiastically came to the side of the Spanish 8. Home Front people...." 1 Even Maiskii, writing during the Khrushchev thaw, insisted that, "from the very IV. Military Aid beginning of the Spanish conflict ... the Soviet people took their stand firmly and decidedly 9. Operation X on the side of Spanish democracy." 10. Hardware 2 11. Spanish Gold V. Soviet Advisors The intention of Ibárruri, Maiskii, and other pro-Soviet chroniclers of the Spanish struggle is 12. Command clear: to present a tidy portrait of Soviet involvement in the civil war, a narrative in which 13. Activities Moscow immediately recognized the critical nature of the Republic's predicament and came 14.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fighting Republic of Poland 1939–1945
    The Fighting MACIEJ KORKUĆ Republic of Poland 1939–1945 The Fighting MACIEJ KORKUĆ Republic of Poland Reviewers Prof. dr hab. Marek Wierzbicki Dr hab. Zdzisław Zblewski Translated by IURIDICO Legal & Financial Translations Sp. z o.o. (employer Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Proofreading and typesetting Publishing House of the IPN Cover Elżbieta Waga-Krajewska Graphic design Sylwia Szafrańska Printed by Pasaż Sp. z o.o. ul. Rydlówka 24, 30-363 Kraków ISBN 978-83-8098-769-2 © Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 2019 SPIS TREŚCI Foreword ......................................... 5 I. The Versailles Order ................................. 7 II. 1939: A war fought alone instead of Allied pincers .......... 13 III. A state resisting the occupations ....................... 33 I V. The terror of occupation and genocide ................... 47 V. The Polish Underground State ......................... 81 VI. A sinister “ally” ..................................... 93 VII. Freedom: not for Poles ............................... 105 FOREWORD World War II changed the course of history. Started by the Germans with the complic- ity of the Soviet Union, it led to unimaginable destruction and millions of deaths. Later, it brought many nations under Soviet domination for almost fifty years and left the world divided in the Cold War. Poland fell victim to the aggression of both totalitarian systems, German national socialism and Soviet communism. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact entered into by the Third Reich and Soviet Union on 23 August 1939 was the prelude to a global conflict, started on 1 September 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland, the first country to demonstrate ac- tual armed resistance against the aggressor, ending the string of Berlin’s peaceful con- quests.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College
    THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY THE MAKING OF A STALINIST MYTHOS: POLITICS, BUREAUCRACY, AND NATION-BUILDING IN SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY, 1939-1953 DANIEL R. HIZGILOV Spring 2019 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in History and International Politics with honors in History Reviewed and approved* by the following: Dr. Tobias Brinkmann Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History Thesis Supervisor Dr. Cathleen Cahill Associate Professor of History Honors Advisor * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT This thesis explores the intersection of politics, bureaucracy, and ideology on the Soviet historical front in the latter half of the Stalin period from 1939-1953. In formulating this topic, I was motivated by a personal interest in the society and culture that my family fled from in the 1970s and by an interest in the contemporary implications of political interjections into academia in contemporary nation-states. In my writing, I sought to understand how it was that the Soviet system was able to subordinate the production of academic historical research within a rigid ideological framework and to trace the artifacts of nation-building processes apparent in the work produced by the Soviet historians. I chose to focus on two historians as archetypal characters in the Stalinist Soviet drama: a dutiful soldier and a collaborator. In contrasting their experiences and opinions before, during, and after the Second World War, I hope to have provided a unique perspective to scholarship on Soviet academia. While I embarked on this project expecting to find a system of extensive state coercion, what I also uncovered was a web of human motivations and experiences that profoundly impacted the form Stalinist thought took.
    [Show full text]
  • Stalin's Paradigm
    Vladislav M. Zubok. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. New Cold War History Series. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 504 pp. $22.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8078-5958-2. Reviewed by Nikolas K. Gvosdev Published on H-Diplo (October, 2009) Commissioned by Christopher L. Ball (DePaul University) Could the Soviet Union have avoided the Cold Asian states to pose a challenge to Soviet security War?[1] Would Joseph Stalin and his successors (p. 8). Within Franklin D. Roosevelt's administra‐ have been able to make the necessary ideological tion, there was some receptivity to these con‐ and geopolitical compromises that would have cerns. Reporter W. L. White summed up the pre‐ prevented the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics vailing view, as it stood in late 1944: "We should (USSR) from becoming enmeshed in a long, remember that Russia is entitled to a Europe drawn-out, and ultimately debilitating conflict which is not hostile to her.... What they really with the United States and its allies? Or did the So‐ want is a durable peace so they can build up their viet leadership compound initial mistakes by own country. If we insist on decent compromises, throwing more good money after bad? These are setting up governments, not Communist but some of the questions addressed in Vladislav M. friendly to Russia, they will take it."[2] This under‐ Zubok's A Failed Empire. standing formed the basis of the compromises As World War II was drawing to a close, it reached at Yalta.
    [Show full text]
  • The Anglo-Soviet Alliance
    Title: The Anglo-Soviet Alliance: What does Manchester think? Author: Catherine Danks, Senior lecturer in Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, Great Britain. Email: [email protected] Abstract: An examination of the role of the UK Ministry of Information in the promotion of the Anglo-Soviet Alliance during World War II. The MOI’s regional, local and divisional committee structure and the committees’ roles are explained. The city of Manchester is used as a case study of the dissemination of MOI information and of how public opinion was monitored about the alliance. Key words: Anglo-Soviet Alliance, Winston Churchill, Ivan Maisky, Stalin, Anglo-Soviet Friendship Committees, Ministry of Information, Public Opinion, Second Front. Introduction: In response to the Nazi invasion of the USSR on 22nd June 1941, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill a veteran anti-Bolshevik, declared his support for the USSR. That same evening Churchill broadcast on BBC radio, declaring that, ‘Any man or State who fights Nazism will have our aid.’ Further that Hitler’s ‘invasion of Russia is no more than a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles’ and that, ‘The Russian danger is therefore our danger and the danger of the United States just as the cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe [8].’ On 12th July 1941 the British and Soviet foreign ministers Sir Stafford Cripps and Vyacheslav Molotov, signed an Anglo-Soviet Agreement in Moscow.
    [Show full text]
  • Shared Responsibility to History and Our Future
    Vladimir Putin President of the Russian Federation 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT VICTORY: SHARED RESPONSIBILITY TO HISTORY AND OUR FUTURE Moscow 2020 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT VICTORY: SHARED RESPONSIBILITY TO HISTORY AND OUR FUTURE 75 years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War. Several generations have grown up over the years. The political map of the planet has changed. The Soviet Union that claimed an epic and crushing victory over Nazism and saved the entire world is gone. Besides, the events of that war have long become a distant memory, even for its participants. So why does Russia celebrate May 9 as the biggest holiday? Why does life almost come to a halt on June 22? And why does one feel a lump rise in their throat? They usually say that the war has left a deep imprint on every family’s history. Behind these words, there are fates of millions of people, their sufferings and the pain of loss. Behind these words, there is also the pride, the truth and the memory. For my parents, the war meant the terrible ordeals of the Siege of Leningrad where my two-year old brother Vitya died. It was the place where my mother miraculously managed to survive. My father, despite being exempt from active duty, volunteered to defend his hometown. He made 3 the same decision as millions of Soviet citizens. He fought at the Nevsky Pyatachok bridgehead and was severely wounded. The more years pass, the more I feel the need to talk to my parents and learn more about the war period of their lives.
    [Show full text]