Stalin's Cold War: Soviet Strategies in Europe, 1943-56 - Tapa dura

This work analyzes the start of the Cold War from a Soviet viewpoint, drawing on Russian sources. It challenges the prevailing orthodoxy of Western historians to show how Moscow saw the presence of US troops in Europe in the 1940s and early 1950s as advantageous, rather than as a check on Soviet ambitions. The author points to a complex web of concerns that fuelled Moscow's actions, and explores how the Soviet leadership, and Stalin in particular, responded to American policy. She shows how the Soviet experience of the United States and Europe, both before, during and after World War II, led Moscow to a policy that was not simply fuelled by anti-Americanism. Six chapters cover events from the wartime conferences of 1943 until the death of Stalin. A final chapter places the book in the debate over the causes of the Cold War.