Stalinism at War

Masterfully told and compellingly reinterpreted. The Moscow Times

Stalinism at War tells the epic story of the Soviet Union in World War Two.

Starting with Soviet involvement in the war in Asia and ending with a bloody counter-insurgency in the borderlands of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics, the Soviet Union’s war was both considerably longer and more all-encompassing than is sometimes appreciated.

Here, acclaimed scholar Mark Edele explores the complex experiences of both ordinary and extraordinary citizens—Russians and Koreans, Ukrainians and Jews, Lithuanians and Georgians, men and women, loyal Stalinists and critics of his regime—to reveal how the Soviet Union and the leadership of a ruthless dictator propelled Allied victory over Germany and Japan.

In doing so, Edele weaves together material on the society and culture of the wartime years with high-level politics. He unites the military, economic, and political history of the Soviet Union with broader popular histories from below.

The result is an engaging, intelligent, and authoritative account of the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1949.