The Postwar World
Journal: Cambridge University Press eBooks
Year: 2024

Was the Cold War inevitable, and who is responsible for its outbreak? This chapter argues that, as the Second World War neared its end, Joseph Stalin was shopping for a great bargain with the Allies, in keeping with Russia's realpolitik tradition. While the details of Stalin's vision remain blurry, evidence from internal Soviet deliberations in 1944–45 points to a broadly imperial, nineteenth-century, conceptualization of the Soviet role in Europe. Stalin sought both power and legitimacy, and un