INSIDE THE KREMLIN'S COLD WAR VLADISLAV ZUBOK & CONSTANTINE
PLESHAKOV H/B
During the peak years of the Cold War, when the
inscrutability of the Kremlin's agenda left many Western observers fearing
imminent nuclear war, Americans could only speculate about what Soviet leaders
might be thinking and planning. What were the Soviet's true intentions? Did they
have a comprehensive strategy in their confrontation with the West? Was there a
Communist blueprint for every action, or were they engaging in the same
cautious realpolitik that leaders in the West practised as well? Using archival
materials, personal interviews and a broad familiarity with Russian culture,
two young Russian historians have written an interpretation of the Cold War as
seen from the Soviet shore. Covering the volatile period from 1945 to 1962,
Zubok and Pleshakov explore the personalities and motivations of the key people
who directed Soviet political life and shaped Soviet foreign policy. They begin
with the figure of Joseph Stalin, who was driven by the dual dream of a
Communist revolution and a global empire. They reveal the scope and limits of
Stalin's ambitions by taking us into the world of his closest subordinates, the
foreign minister Molotov and the Party's chief propagandist, Zhdanov. The
authors expose the machinations of the secret police chief Beria and the party
cadre manager Malenkov, who tried but failed to set Soviet policies on a
different course after Stalin's death. Finally, they document the motives and
actions of Nikita Khrushchev, who overturned many of Stalin's policies with
strategizing on a global scale. The authors show how, despite such attempts to
change Soviet diplomacy, Stalin's legacy continued to divide Germany and
Europe, and led the Soviets to the split with Maoist China and to the Cuban
missile crisis. Zubok and Pleshakov's work reveals how Soviet statesmen
conceived and conducted their rivalry with the West within the context of their
own domestic and global concerns and aspirations. The authors demonstrate that
the Soviet leaders did not seek a conflict with the United States, yet failed
to prevent it or bring it to conclusion. They also document why and how Kremlin
policy-makers triggered the crises of the Cold War in Korea, Berlin and Cuba.
Zubok and Pleshakov present portraits of the men who made the West fear, to
reveal why and and how they acted as they did.
Publisher
|
Harvard
University Press
|
ISBN-13
|
9780674455313
|
FIRST
Edition 1996 in very good condition, in very good price-clipped dustwrapper.
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