STALINISM AT WAR, 1937-49, THE SOVIET UNION IN WORLD WAR II, By Ayse Dietrich^*, Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing, Written by Mark Edele, Year of Publishing: 2021. Subject Area: Soviet Union in World War II, Stalin. Book Type: Russian History. Total Number of Pages: 272. ISBN: 978-1-3501-5351-6, hardback, $31,50.

This book, organized in nine chapters, is about World War II and Stalin’s policies.

Chapter 1 discusses whether the Soviet Union was ready to confront the assault of a modern, industrialized army; mass warfare; the question of how important the different stages of World War II were in the lives of ordinary citizens, whether Stalin’s totalitarian state adequately prepared the country for World War II; the deportations; and the Great Purges of 1937–1938 that eliminated many of the most capable and sophisticated officers and prominent guerrillas for partisan warfare. In addition the writer also examines the topics of military effectiveness, the preparedness of the economic system and society for a total war, and practical knowledge. It also talks about the counter-productive aspects of this Stalinist war preparation, the subjugation of the peasantry through collectivization and the confiscation of the most successful farmers in 1929–1932, and man-made famine which created a large class of dissatisfied second-class citizens, crushing their willingness to put their lives on the line for the regime.

Chapter 2 examines how Stalin managed to avoid the major threat of a war on two fronts, the role of the Soviet Union in the war in Asia in 1937–1939, Stalin’s geopolitical strategies that helped China to resist Japan, Stalin’s paranoia and the deportations of Koreans, Soviet victory in the border war of 1938–1939, the clashes at Lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol on the Soviet–Japanese border, how Stalin’s maneuvers prevented Japan from attacking the Soviet Union and “pushed Tokyo towards a ‘southern strategy’ keeping the Soviet eastern front quiet until 1945 and brought Japan into conflict with the United States”.

In Chapter 3 the author talks about the role of the Soviets in the war that started in the West between 1939 and 1941 after the alliance with Germany, the invasion of foreign territories and terror, expansion to the west, the justification of the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland via a formula that explained Soviet intervention as a national liberation to free Slavic Ukrainian and Belarusian brothers from Polish oppression, the annexation of the Baltic countries and the logic behind it.

Chapter 4 discusses the early stages of the German–Soviet war between 1941 and 1942; how Germany declared war without warning; Stalin’s strategies to deal with this catastrophe;, the formation of the labor army; the evacuation of the residents of Leningrad, Moscow, Ukraine and Belarus; executions as a solution to impossible evacuations; and the origins of this catastrophe. It also describes how Stalin and his staunch supporters did not give up and were determined to resist by conducting relentless counter-attacks to stop the German advance.

In Chapter 5 the author talks about the remarkable recovery from the shock of the first weeks, the Soviet’s dual process of centralization and de-centralization. The author explains how de-centralization worked and “empowered individuals circled like satellites around the stationary center of the system: Stalin”. The chapter also discusses the massive mobilization of resources, and men and women for defense; the Battle of Moscow in 1942 that reached the Caucasus; the strategy the Soviets used to buy time to for a counter-attack on the Germans’ flanks; conditions during the war; the scarcity of food and malnutrition during the war.

Chapter 6 explains how the Soviets won the war in 1943–1945 and explores the role of Allied support in Soviet success and the Lend-Lease program enacted by the US; the Soviet role in the victory in Asia; and how the two-front threat to the birthplace of socialism had been neutralized. It also analyses the wartime economy, the origins of the food crisis and the role of coerced labor in Gulag camps.

Chapter 7 deals with the Russians’ reasons for supporting Stalin and shows how Stalin’s war effort against Germany gained the support of the Russian people and other nationalities who dedicated themselves to the destruction of Nazism. The chapter also examines the scorched-earth deportations; the role of Soviet partisan in the Soviet victory; and the conflict in the western borderlands which evolved into a series of civil wars within the context of the larger, conventional struggle.

Chapter 8 moves on to examine the Soviet war against wartime collaborators and nationalist guerrillas; the counter-insurgency troops’ criminal activities in the newly acquired territories between 1944–1949; the Soviet’s attempts to re-establish their monopoly of violence; and the results of demobilization and the reintegration of the former soldiers into civilian society.

In Chapter 9 looks at the impact of World War II on Soviet society; how the victory achieved by Stalin’s system war transformed into a war cult that became one of the main elements of later Soviet culture and society; how the memory of the war in the successor states came to focus on victimization by Hitler and Stalin; and national resistance to totalitarianism in the wake of the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

The author has made a significant contribution to the history of World War II and Stalinism in the Soviet Union and provided important insights into the impact of Stalin’s policies. This book can be recommended for those interested in issues related to Soviet World War II politics and the impact of total war on a society.