Stalin and Togliatti
Subtitle: Italy and the origins of the Cold War
By: Elena Agarossi and Victor Zaslavsky
Contributors: Zaslavsky, Victor, 1937-2009
Series: Cold War International History Project series; Cold War International History Project series
Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Washington, D.C; Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 339
ISBN-13: 9780804774321
Subjects: Politics and government; Communism; Cold War; Partito comunista italiano; Foreign relations; History
Work titles: Stalin e Togliatti
Description: Stalin and Togliatti reveals the dependence of the Italian Communist Party on Soviet decision making in the early Cold War and the willingness of Stalin to sacrifice the interests of the Italian Communist Party to Soviet foreign interests. It explores the connection between domestic Italian politics and international affairs during the final phases of the Second World War and the first years of the Cold War.

The authors employ previously classified documents in Russian and Italian archives, including reports to Stalin on the virtually daily meetings of Palmiro Togliatti, head of the Italian Communist Party, with Soviet diplomats. This recent, post-revisionist scholarship underscores the role of Stalin's ambitions and their incompatibility with liberal-democratic systems in the development of the Cold War. Stalin and Togliatti come across as shrewd politicians, implacable enemies of the capitalist West, yet acutely aware of the limits of their power.

Stalin and Togliatti is a translation and expansion of a prizewinning book published in Italian in 1997 and updated in 2007. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Translation and expansion of: Togliatti e Stalin; published in Italian in 1997 and updated in 2007.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The Soviet Union under Stalin and the international Communist movement; title: Soviet plans for the postwar European order; title: The Italian Communist Party : a party of government and of opposition; title: The Italian Communist Party, Italian foreign policy, and the problem of Trieste; title: The Italian Communist Party and Italian prisoners of war in the USSR; title: The roots of Communist autarchy and the rejection of the Marshall Plan; title: From collaboration to confrontation; title: Armed insurrection and the 1948 elections; title: The Italian Communist Party and Stalin's last years.