STALIN'S WAR

Sean McMeekin

Subtitle: A new History of World War II, Basic Books, N.Y., 2021, 811 pgs., index, bibliography, notes, illustrations, maps, acknowledgments,

Reviewer's Comment:
This book is another example of Dr. McMeekin's combination extensive use of original documents in a wide variety of archives with an engaging writing style that enables him to meld all the new information and his insights into a very readable book. In this book he provides a view of Stalin, and therefor of Soviet foreign and domestic policy from the 1930's into the 1950's. This is 'revisionist' history. Predicably, he generated criticism from much of the establishment. For an academic bio one can read his Wikipedia entry.
His central thesis is that Stalin had and used both outright pro-Communist agents in the West and politicians and other influential individuals who did not favor either Stalin or Communism but who thought that rendering all possible aid to Soviet Russia was essential for defeating Hitler's Germany.

Introduction: Whose War?

Prologue: May 5, 1941 

I: Before the Storm: The Main Currents of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917 - 1938

1. World Revolution

2. Stalin Makes His Mark

3. Strategic Coup in Washington

4. Behind the Popular Front

II: "Huge and Hateful": The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 

5. Courting Hitler

6. Gangster Pact, Part I: Poland

7. Gangster Pact, Part II: Finland

8. Maximum Danger: Finland, Baku, Bessarabia, and Bukovina

9. Stalin Strikes: The Baltic, Bessarabia, and Bukovina

10. Showdown at the Danube Delta

11. Summit in Berlin: The Four-Power Pact?

12. Hitler Bars the Door

III. Preparing for Armageddon

13. Mobilizing the Proletariat

14. The Battle for Belgrade

15. Operation Snow: Stalin Secures His Eastern Flank

16. To the Brink

17. HItler Smashes Stalin's War Machine

18. Terror at the Front - and in the Rear

19. War for Aluminum

20. On the Ropes

IV. Capitalist Lifeline

21. Lifting the Moral Embargo

22. The Hinge of Fate: December 1941

23. Capitalist Rope

24. Just in Time Delivery: Lend-Lease and Stalingrad

V. Second Front

25. Keeping Stalin Happy: Unconditional Surrender and Katyn

26. Stopping Citadel: The Second Front?

27. Operation Tito

28. Teheran and Cairo

29. Second Front

VI. Plunder

30. Warsaw

31. Soviet High Tide in Washington: The Morgenthau Plan

32. Moscow and Yalta: Unfinest Hour of the Anglo-Americans

33. Booty

34. Red Star over Asia: The Final Wages of Lend Lease

Epilogue: Stalin's Slave Empire and the Price of Victory