Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War

by Robert Gellately

A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives—and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire—during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West.

At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Joseph Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader, whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, and not communist ideology. Now, using recently uncovered documents, Robert Gellately conclusively shows that, in fact, the dictator was biding his time, determined to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond. His actions during those years—and the poorly calculated responses to them from the West—set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalin’s Kremlin.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Russian History, Soviet Union, Politics, World War II

512 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2013

About the author

Robert Gellately (born 1943) is a Newfoundland-born Canadian academic who is one of the leading historians of modern Europe, particularly during World War II and the Cold War era. He is Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University. He often teaches classes about World War II and the Cold War, but his extensive interest in the Holocaust has led to his conducting research regarding other genocides as well. He is occasionally known to give lectures on specific genocides. Gellately has very strict guidelines for what he will deem a genocide, and has had several televised debates regarding his somewhat controversial views.

Gellately's most recent work is Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War (Knopf (March 5, 2013) Gellately recently published a set of original documents by Leon Goldensohn dealing with the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials of war criminals in The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist's Conversations With The Defendants and Witnesses (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).

His other books include Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2001). It has been published in German, Dutch, Spanish, Czech, and Italian. Japanese and French translations are in press. Backing Hitler was chosen as a main selection for book clubs in North America and the United Kingdom.

In the book Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Gellately argues that the Gestapo were not in fact all-pervasive and intrusive as they have been described. The Gestapo only numbered 32,000 for the entire population of Germany, and this clearly limited their impact. In the city of Hanover there were only 42 officers. Instead, Gellately says that the atmosphere of terror and fear was maintained by 'denunciations' from ordinary Germans, whereby they would inform any suspicious 'anti-Nazi' activity to the local Nazi authority. According to Gellatley, these denunciations were the cause of most prosecutions, as in Saarbrücken 87.5 per cent of cases of 'slander against the regime' came from denunciations. This diminished the Gestapo's role in maintaining fear and terror throughout the Third Reich, however they still proved to be a powerful instrument for Hitler and continued to provide the security apparatus needed for the Nazi Regime.

His first book was The Politics of Economic Despair: Shopkeepers in German Politics, 1890-1914 (London, 1974). In 1991 he published The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press.) It has been translated into German and Spanish.

In addition, Gellately has co-edited a volume of essays with Russian specialist Sheila Fitzpatrick, Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789-1989 (University of Chicago Press, 1997). With his colleague Nathan Stoltzfus (also at Florida State University) he co-edited a collection called Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (Princeton University Press, 2001). With Ben Kiernan, Director of the Genocide Studies program at Yale, he recently co-edited The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Professor Gellately has won numerous research awards, including grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Many of the books written or edited by him are used as textbooks in college classrooms across America.

Credits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...

Reviews

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book we are provided with Stalin’s conquest and domination of Eastern Europe during, and then after, World War II.

The author presents Stalin as the sole leader (the dictator) of the Soviet Union. As he points out both Churchill and Roosevelt were duped by Stalin into thinking they could trust him. They mistakenly dealt with him as they would another leader of the liberal democracies. But Churchill did come to realize towards the end of the war that Stalin was not going to keep any promises he made on Eastern Europe (such as free elections in Poland) – signified by the title of the last of his war memoirs “Triumph and Tragedy”.

I don’t agree with the author’s statement that Roosevelt lost out at the Yalta Conference. He succeeded in his main goals of getting Soviet participation in the United Nations and a commitment to join the war against the Japanese three months after Germany’s defeat.

Stalin used the same techniques within and without the Soviet Union to dominate – ethnic cleansing and a brutal police state with informers everywhere. All ethnic groups (Germans,Tatars, Chechens, Kalmyks, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians...) were perceived as a threat and deported, sent to the Gulag or killed off (particularly the elites).

Page 201 my book – from Isaak Kobylyansky on “resettlement” of Tatars in the Crimea

A sergeant... read out the family’s names and declared: “according to government decree, you and your family are to be resettled. You have fifteen minutes to prepare.”... The next day... they passed near another Tatar village. It was completely deserted – the people had apparently been removed the previous morning. The houses were still unlocked, and the eating utensils lay undisturbed on the tables... “The entire village resounded with the wild howls from abandoned, suffering cows, which had not been milked for two days.”

It should also be pointed out that this occurred during the war when there was a life and death struggle with Nazi Germany. In other words vital transportation was being used to move thousands and thousands of helpless people to the far reaches of the Soviet Union. Not to speak of the “police brigades” involved in this who should have been used in the war effort.

When it came time to occupy the Eastern European countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary...) the practise was fine-tuned. Initially for the first year or two a semblance of opposition was permitted, but then Stalin’s wrath came down and they became puppet states with the requisite police. This became more severe after Tito’s Yugoslavia asserted its’ independence.

On war’s end Stalin did not want to acknowledge the Holocaust – referring instead to Soviet citizens being massacred. For instance at Babi Yar it was stated that 33,000 citizens were massacred – even though they were all Jews. Stalin would give no recognition to any nationality. Also he would not acknowledge that some Soviet citizens were culpable in the Holocaust.

The author believes it was Stalin who started the Cold War. It was Stalin who gave the green light for North Korea to invade South Korea. Stalin refused aid from the Marshall Plan – and then the Eastern satellites had to follow suit. Western Europeans realized that they did not want Stalin as they adopted the Marshall Plan in the late 1940’s.

Page 306

“If the United States had turned away [from Europe], those who condemn it for offering the Marshall Plan would blame it – and rightly so – for doing nothing to put an end to the suffering and starvation in war-torn Europe.”

In 1947 Czech Communist leaders expressed the wish to go to Paris to take part in the discussions of the Marshall Plan. They were summoned to the Kremlin – and told they would not attend.

Page 311 Jan Masaryk
“I went to Moscow as the Foreign Minister of an independent sovereign state. I returned as a lackey of the Soviet Government.”

This book gives us the history of Stalin’s suppression of Eastern Europe, how it tried but failed to do the same in Western Europe, and how for a time he tried to impose his will on the Chinese Communists. We are given full view of his cult of domination in the Soviet State – much like Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't fault this book it is very good and readable but, when there are so many books on Stalin and his period to read, one has to be selective and, though I am very interested in Russia and the post revolution period, if you are unsure of whether to choose this book I would ask have you read any of Simon Sebag Montefiore's books on Stalin or Stephen's Kotkin's multi-volume biography of Stalin? If not then I would recommend them before this book. If you have read them I would recommend turning to books about specific aspects of Stalin's times Like Anne Applebaum's books 'Gulag: A History', 'Red Famine: Stalin's War on the Ukraine', and 'Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe'. There are many others by equally excellent authors on other aspects of Stalin's life and times. I stress it is a reflection of their excellence not the failures of this book. They are just so much better and readable.

[Adam O’Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The blurb asserts that the book’s aim is to demonstrate that Stalin was motivated by communist ideology of global revolution through his reign, but I’m not sure how successful it is at demonstrating that. It makes for an interesting account of Stalin’s life and rule of the Soviet Union, and the relationships between the USSR and the USA and Britain during wartime and later with its satellite states are carefully detailed with interesting anecdotes. The author’s rather staccato and dry writing style meant that Stalin’s Curse, rather dramatically named, didn’t have so much energy to transport you to the time period as the best history books can do. Writing the year before Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the author is overly optimistic about Putin and naive in his confidence that the ‘anti-Stalinists’ will win out in the end - I feel that this marks him out as a rather poor observer of modern Russia.

[Marin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A serious analysis of the way Stalin shaped the communism first in USSR and then in Europe and Asia.
Even in the Eastern European countries his army occupied after the war, where he succeeded to impose communist regimes, he couldn’t have the total control he had in USSR.
Unoccupied communist countries such as Yugoslavia and Albania wriggled out of his control.

The Marshal Plan ensured the economic recovery of the Western Europe so the western communist parties he sustained weren't attractive enough for their electorates and despite some initial electoral successes they faded into protest parties, continuously subsidised by Kremlin.

I knew the main events but the twist and turns of the various communist parties and their leaders described in the book enhanced my view of the period.

Some less known points:
- Poles and Czechs saw the red army occupation as an opportunity to deport their entire Germans population. The ethnic cleansing was accompanied by violence and expropriation.
- In both countries, unlike Romania or Hungary, it was a pro-soviet sentiment in part of the population.
- Tito was an expansionist, who wanted to create a "Greater Yugoslavia" by annexing Albania, Bulgaria and parts of Romania and Hungary.
- After his breaking up with Stalin, he ruled in Stalinist style, murdering many opponents and putting possible opponents in jail.
- Anti-Semitism flourished in all communist countries. In Poland, after the war, some returning Jews were killed in a pogrom.

[Ian McGaffey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good look at the influence of Stalin around the world, both during his life and after. I enjoyed the soviet centered story that shows a digferent side of the history I have heard before.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a valuable complement to Manchester's "The Last Lion, much of which is about the budding relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill on one side, and Stalin on the other, to Max Hasting's "Inferno," about Stalin Red Army in Hitler's the Eastern Front, and Snyder's "Bloodlands," about the 1939 Nonagression Pact's division of the Ukraine and Poland between Hitler and Stalin, and the subsequent mass deaths by famine and violence. Each book shows the disdain for life by "Uncle Joe," a disdain that went beyond even Hitler's.

Gellately argues that Stalin was not crazy in the normal sense: he did not "like" to kill people as a serial killer might. Rather, he simply was indifferent to the human costs of his policies, whether they were military, economic (collectivization), or political--lost lives were the fodder in which Communism would grow. Gellately throws out an estimate that about 50 million lives might have been lost during Stalin's reign: half during WWII (about half of that from combat, the other half from "collateral damage") and the remaining 25 million from his efforts to pursue his economic policies (e.g., his 1930s policy of stripping food from the farmers, whom he characterized as rich peasants, or "kulaks," and diverting it to feed the urban industrial workforce).

The first third of the book is about Stalin's manipulation of Roosevelt and Churchill in the division of postwar spoils--how would Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, be divided? would Germany be deindustrialized or reindustrialized (Roosevelt for the first, Churchill for the second)?, how would Germany be divvied up? This was the subject of the Yalta Conference, which Stalin ignored when the time came.

The second third is about the postwar development of Eastern Europe, with East Germany, Hungary, Checkoslavakia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Albania coming under the USSR's umbrella. Stalin publicly argued that every nation should have a democratic system and should choose its own path. Privately he controlled each nation down to the finest detail. His strategy was simple: set up "national fronts" in a country (each would be a collection of communist puppet groups that would give the appearance of competitive political parties), have "democratic" elections that would allocate power among those parties, then when communism was an accepted fact, lift the curtain and have a single communist party controlled by Stalin. By 1950 he had succeeded and every Eastern European country was competing to be more Stalinist than the others.

The last third of the book is notes and biography.

Several interesting insights emerge in this history. The first is that though Stalin presented his reach for Eastern European control as a national security issue--the USSR needed buffer states--he was really driven by Leninist ideology, that is, by the goal of solidifying Communism in Russia, then extending extending it across Europe and into Asia.

Another interesting observation is that the Cold War was Stalin's creation, starting with the Berlin Blockade of 1948 (which was initiated by a trumped-up dispute over issuing new German currency). A third is that FDR--thinking that he could charm Stalin and thus "work with him," was hoodwinked by Stalin, who charmed FDR into thinking that he would negotiate on any important issues; Truman--with the assistance of George Kennan's "Long Telegram." saw much more clearly that Stalin's tactic was to pretend to negotiate until he was given what he wanted. One wonders what we would have given away if Roosevelt had lived!

[Bill Glover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Gellately has crafted a readable account of Soviet foreign policy at the dawn of the Cold War. Some myths are explored and debunked, others are merely asserted as false with little explanation in the text. The author asserts that Stalin was driven more by ideology than realpolitik or his own personal paranoia but hardly proves that assertion.

In fairness, Stalin's Curse... does come with a fair amount of end notes and sourcing. Still, as a lay person I can't take it upon myself to validate his research. The author could take the time to weave these findings into the narrative a bit more as opposed to simply stating his conclusions. Show, don't tell, if archival documents prove his thesis then he may speak of those findings as part of the narrative. Furthermore, he tends to lend a fair amount of weight to comments by historical figures when it fits his thesis but choses ignore those that do not.

Case in point; Tito was known to have questioned Stalin's commitment to Internationalism but this aspect seems to get scant coverage in the work. The Yugoslavian/Soviet rift gets ample time but the focus remains on Tito's intransigence, his reluctance to take instruction from Moscow. Why Tito's questioning of Stalin's commitment to the cause is overshadowed by the comments of fawning sycophants is a mystery.

Other historians (Montefiore for example) have documented with great detail Stalin's pathologies and the steps he was willing to take to consolidate power. Millions were destroyed as the dictator hardened a protective cocoon of paranoia around himself, the Kremlin, the Soviet Union, and finally Soviet satellites. In a sense Mr. Gellately is being more charitable by stating that Stalin's primary motivation was ideology as opposed to something more base. Furthermore, he himself would surely concede that these two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Stalin was a man motivated by ideology AND a need to enhance the security of the Soviet State (in turn his own power and well being as he believed he was the state).

Any reader interested in the history of the Cold War or of the USSR will certainly enjoy this book. The narrative has a good pace and you could certainly finish Stalin's Curse in a weekend. It is possible that Gellately sacrificed his ability to present his evidence on the altar of readability. The narrative simply does not lend itself to in-depth analysis. Still, another possibility is that his premise is flawed and that Stalin (though motivated by Communist zeal) used his so-called love for the proletariat as camouflage to hide his own sociopathic pursuit of power.

[Kristinn Valdimarsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Byrjaði á þessari bók í kjölfar innrásar Rússa á Krímskaga því mér datt í hug að í henni væri að finna upplýsingar um hvernig Stalín hefði farið með Úkraínubúa og jafnvel Krímverja. Ekki var nú mikið sagt af því en þó voru fróðlegar málsgreinar hér og þar um þetta og líkt og maður vissi svo sem þá var þetta ljót saga. Ekki var síður fróðlegt að rifja upp stöðuna í Austur-Evrópu í lok heims-styrjaldarinnar en þá komust kommúnistar til valda í þessum löndum, þó flestar þjóðirnar væru alfarið á móti þeim, vegna þess að þeir höfðu Rauða herinn á bak við sig. Ekki ósvipað ástand er núna á Krimskaga þar sem búið er að boða til atkvæðagreiðslu um sjálfstæði héraðsis nú þegar það er fullt af rússneskum hermönnum þar. En nóg um tengsl bókarinnar við atburði dagsins í dag. Dómur minn um hana er sá að hér er um almennt yfirlit yfir tímabilið frá 1929-1953 að ræða og hvergi er farið mjög djúpt í hlutina og því þarf ekki að koma á óvart að lítið kom fram sem maður vissi ekki fyrir. Það var helst um miðbik bókarinnar í umfjölluninni um fyrstu mánuði Truman í embætti sem maður las eitthvað bitastætt. Annað sem angraði mig nokkuð var að höfundurinn lýsir Stalín sem (brjáluðum) snillingi sem alltaf vissi hvað hann var að gera á meðan að Vesturveldin þreifuðu sig bara áfram. Að mati höfundarins liggur sökin á Kalda stríðinu einnig alfarið hjá hinum fyrrnefnda á meðan Bandaríkin og bandalagsþjóðir þeirra eru blásaklaus. Ég er reyndar sammála höfundi um það að Kalda stríðið sé Rússum að kenna en lýsing hans á atburðarásinni finnst mér hins vegar of einfeldningsleg. Bókin er vel skrifuð en ég vil þó minnast á nokkur atriði. Í fyrsta lagi þá tvítekur höfundur sig nokkuð. Í annan stað þá fara að birtast persónulegar lýsingar samtíðamanna í lok bókarinnar sem höfðu ekki sést fyrr. Ekkert að slíku en hefði þá átt að hafa samræmi í gegnum alla bókina. Að lokum þá nefnir höfundur í upphafi bókarinnar að Stalín hafi nánast einn og óstuddur mótað samfélög Austur-Evrópu eftir stríð en svo þegar kemur að þeim köflum í bókinni þá virðist hann hafa skipt um skoðun og talar nokkuð um áhrif heimamanna!

[Gokhan Balaban · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to Robert Gellately, the author of this fine book, millions of ordinary people have been inspired by Joseph Stalin; and millions have shouldered his actions and legacy as a curse. Approximately 25 million people perished in the USSR as a result of some kind of repression, the largest share undoubtedly during Stalin's reign.

Gellately argues that Stalin was a devoted adherent of the communist ideology and cause. He didn't view himself as an imperialist tsar but rather a savior for his people and everyone else.

The cult of Stalin and his style of leadership was emulated by communist leaders all over the world.
Gellately quotes a Bulgarian playwright as saying that the communist regime in Bulgaria drilled the idea that Stalin was the greatest man on earth. An elderly Bulgarian farmer once told me that he wasn't a communist, but rather a Stalinist. His justification was simple: if you are as formidable as Stalin, other powerful actors would think twice before messing with you. He went on to say that the US would never have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein was as fearsome as Stalin.

Fearsome as Stalin was, Gellately drives home the point that it was his shrewd political skills that enabled him to get want he wanted in various negotiations with Western leaders. FDR and Truman had misplaced and naive views that conflicts with the Soviets could be resolved via personal diplomacy.

[Mikhael Karpovics]

Gellately uses an enormous amount of information in several languages, he highlights Stalin’s geopolitical designs and demonstrates, against revisionist histoical claims, that it was the USSR, not the US and her allies, that wanted and provoked the Cold War. This is particularly important now when historical ignorance and poor scholarship meet in attempts to present a dangerously naive US politician such as Henry Wallace, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice- president from 1941 to 1945, as a visionary statesman.

As a historian of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Gellately offers a view of Stalin’s political, diplomatic and psychological manoeuvres that allowed the USSR to achieve superpower status. The author has incredable knowledge of his subject and provides a compelling narrative of deception, brutality, foolishness and betrayed idealism. Gellately rightly emphasises Stalin’s fixation on internal enemies as well as his dedication to the purity of official doctrine.

[Tomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who favors Bernie Sanders or any other Socialist, read this book. Socialism, Communism...same thing...it does not work and this book will show you why. This book covers Stalin's rule in the USSR. The part set in WWII didn't have much that was new to me; but in the second half, I learned a lot about Stalinism in the Cold War. One of the best sentences in the book came near the end, when the author tells us that trading freedom and political rights for the state's provision of material benefits failed. Stalin knew a lot. He was smart, sneaky, manipulative, and a good enough actor to hide his faults. (FDR, Churchill, and Truman all fell for the actor and didn't see the evil.) But he didn't know people, and popular support is essential for a system to survive. According to statistical analysts, the human cost of Stalinism was about 31 million people - including entire nations (and not including those who died in WWII). That's a lot of death for a system that failed.

[Eb · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has become very fashionable to repeatedly insult the Soviet Union when you talk about it. I suppose scholarly neutrality shouldn't get in the way of self-righteousness.

Books on Hitler take for granted that he did evil things and don't need to constantly point it out. It's self-evident. When there is a moral judgment, it's often in the prologue or epilogue. The same should be done for the USSR or Stalin. I definitely like opinions and an analysis of people's motives as a book goes along, but I don't need it peppered with reminders of how terrible the people are and, especially, a tone that looks down on the subject. The author's style is probably due to a legacy of the USA's policy of calling the Soviet Union the Evil Empire.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the post-war Stalin era, making good use of post-1991 revelations from Soviet sources.

I gave the book four stars instead of five because the organization of the book, the shifting between Soviet domestic developments and then foreign policy developments and then domestic developments in the (then) new Communist states, did not quite work for me. I realize that it was a very busy era with many important events, so I understand the author's difficulty. I just feel, however, that he could have arranged his material better.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. Stalin was a terrible man who did terrible things. I don't think the rest of the world really knows how bad he was, which is why this book is so important. However,I do not agree with the author's comments at the end that the Anti-Stalinists will eventually prevail. It certainly looks like Putin wants to recreate the USSR.

[Jabohvat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bla bla bla Stalin is the one of the worst tyrants bla bla bla killed trillions with one hand....
The book for brainwashed apologists of the theory that the market itself will adjust everything and who considers "economics" as a study book of economic science, not the bible of totalitarian sect's of so-called liberls(who has in common with liberty as much as Hitler had)

[Harmeet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stalin, caused so many deaths, disrupted so many cultures. Yet, there are number of people who say he caused a lot of progress and he likely himself felt he was doing necessary things. This is a book to read to get an idea about the scope, change, durability and pain caused by Stalinism.

[Sam Busch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was decent at first but is so unbelievably boring, would have loved it if it was more chronological but I felt like everything was jumbled together.

[Janet Biehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview of the Stalin years with a focus on foreign affairs and the brutality of the dictatorship. The writing is clumsy at times however, and weak on analysis.

[Patrick Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that incorporates post-Glastnost Soviet documents in the historical analysis.

[David Alonso vargas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sin profundizar demasiado, estamos ante una interesante síntesis del mandado de Stalin tanto antes como, durante y, sobre todo, después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.