Stalin’s War: Disorted history of a

complex second World War

Book review: Sean McMeekin dubiously contends war was more Stalin’s than
Hitler’s

Geoffrey Roberts

Sat, May 8, 2021, 06:00

Sean McMeekin’s contention that the second

World War was more Stalin’s war than Hitler’s
Book Title:
has a long and dubious pedigree reaching back
Stalin’s War to the war-revolution conspiracy theory of the

ISBN-13:

interwar years. According to this myth, Stalin

978-0241366431 plotted to precipitate a new world war in order
to foment global revolution.
Author:

Sean McMeekin
In truth, there was nothing Stalin feared more
Publisher:
than a major war. While the first World War
Allen Lane had enabled the Russian Revolution, that was
followed by foreign military interventions
Guideline Price:

£40.00 which came close to strangling Bolshevism at

birth. Stalin’s nightmare scenario was the
revival of that anti-communist coalition. War did offer opportunities – and Stalin
certainly took advantage of them – but war also posed an existential danger to the
Soviet state.

So sparse is the evidence for the war-revolution hypothesis that McMeekin resorts
to citing a blatant forgery: a document purporting to report on a speech Stalin
supposedly made in August 1939 in which he spoke about the Sovietisation of
Europe as a result of the war he intended to provoke. The document in question
initially appeared in the French press shortly after the outbreak of war and was
plainly propaganda designed to discredit Stalin at a time when he was
collaborating with Hitler.

A legitimate piece of evidence cited by McMeekin are the private remarks made by
Stalin in September 1939: “A war is on between two groups of capitalist countries.
We see nothing wrong in their having a good fight and weakening each other. We
can manoeuvre, pit one side against the other to set them fighting each other as
fiercely as possible.”

But McMeekin lets his readers down by not quoting what Stalin also said: “We
preferred agreements with the so-called democratic countries and therefore
conducted negotiations. But the English and French wanted us for farmhands and
at no cost.”

ADVERTISEMENT

We Value Your Privacy

The use of technology such as cookies allows The Irish Times to operate and improve the functionality of our website,
SUGGESTEDthat
derive insights about our audience, provide social media features, and personalise content or advertising FOR YOU
may be of
interest to you. You can choose to accept and agree to this use, or you can manage your settings toMARKET
IT | NEW TO adjust your choices. 
€350k Phibsborough house
You can change your mind any time by returning to this site. If you do not allow certain cookies some areas of this site
may not function as intended. To find out more please read our cookie policy feels far, far away from its
urban surrounds

MANAGE MY SETTINGS I ACCEPT

READ NOW
 What these remarks actually show is that having failed to form an anti-Hitler
coalition with Britain and France, Stalin instead opted for neutrality and the Nazi-
Soviet pact, intended to further protect Russia from the consequences of war.

Disastrous miscalculation
According to McMeekin, it was Stalin who goaded the Japanese to invade
Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937. He says the Soviet campaign for collective
security against fascist aggression was a sham, as was Moscow’s support for
Republican Spain during its civil war. Then, in 1939, Stalin engineered an Anglo-
French-German war over Poland. Allied to Hitler, Stalin overplayed his hand by
refusing to deepen his pact with the Nazi dictator. That disastrous miscalculation
almost led to the Soviet Union’s defeat in 1941, says McMeekin, but Stalin’s bacon
was saved by western military aid, the crucial source of all subsequent Soviet
victories over Hitler’s armies.

His most bizarre claim is that in spring 1943 Stalin approached Hitler to offer an
armistice. During the war there were numerous fake news stories about peace
feelers being extended, many of them generated by intelligence agencies. The
Soviets played this game, too, but there is no hard evidence of any serious intent
to negotiate a separate peace with Hitler. Why would Stalin do such a thing after
the resounding Soviet victory at Stalingrad in January 1943? And why risk
alienating his British and American allies when they were supplying him with
massive material aid, which McMeekin insists the Soviets were dependent on?

To his credit, McMeekin steers clear of the wilder claims of right-wing historical
revisionism. He doesn’t excuse Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union as a
preventative war or claim that Stalin was preparing to attack Germany. Nor does
he blame the Holocaust on Stalin.

Shorn of its polemics there is some good history in this book. McMeekin writes
well and has the language skills to comb through a huge amount of archival
material, though in the Russian case not always accurately. There is much
interesting detail about allied supplies to Russia, the Warsaw Uprising of August
1944, the Soviet plunder of Germany in 1945, and the war with Japan.

ADVERTISEMENT

McMeekin’s relentless anti-communism keeps him focused on the dark side of the
We Value Your Privacy
Soviets’ war – the Katyn massacre of Polish POWs, the deportation of ethnic
groups
The use of technology suchaccused of collective
as cookies allows Thedisloyalty,
Irish Timesand
toStalin’s
operatemaltreatment
and improve theof the families of our website,
functionality
of Soviet POWs, including that of his son, Yakov, who died in German captivity in that
SUGGESTED
derive insights about our audience, provide social media features, and personalise content or advertising FOR YOU
may be of
1943. This is fair enough. Arguably, Stalin and the Red Army did save
interest to you. You can choose to accept and agree to this use, or you can manage your settings the world
IT | NEW TOtoMARKET
adjust your choices. 
from Hitler and the Nazis, but the cost was brutal. €350k Phibsborough
You can change your mind any time by returning to this site. If you do not allow certain cookies some areas of this site
house
may not function as intended. To find out more please read our cookie policy feels far, far away from its
In conclusion McMeekin argues the West should have confronted Stalin during
urban surrounds
the war and formed “a broad international coalition against totalitarian
aggression”, an alliance
MANAGE MY SETTINGS I ACCEPT that could have included “pro-Axis Hungary and Fascist
READ NOW
Italy”. As to Hitler, he could have been dealt with by a peace deal that would have
 saved Western Europe from Nazi occupation and may even have extracted
conquered Poland from his clutches.

This book will certainly enhance Prof McMeekin’s reputation as an ideologically-

driven conservative historian. His fantastical speculation that standing up to
Stalin would have produced a better outcome than standing up to Hitler may
appeal to those who share his fervent anti-communism. More impartial readers
will recoil from the book’s distortion of the complex and multi-faceted history of
the second World War.

Geoffrey Roberts is Emeritus Professor of History at UCC and a Member of the

Royal Irish Academy. His Stalin’s Personal Library: An Intimate History of a
Dictator and His Books will be published by Yale

Stay in touch with culture that matters. Subscribe.

Click here to sign up to the Irish Times Book

Club

MORE FROM THE IRISH TIMES

Books

Mary Lavin and the New Yorker: a creative and

lucrative partnership
Books

The Books Quiz: Normal People by Sally Rooney

started life as a short story called...?

Books

All in it Together: Excesses and venality of pre-Brexit

Britain
Culture

Euro 2020: How Irish people should feel –

philosophically speaking – about England’s loss

SPONSORED

How to make your furniture work for you in a large
open plan space
Artisan chocolatier is a story of resilience and
reinvention
48 Hours in Dublin: There has never been a better
time to discover the capital
The bold and the beautiful is what makes this house
a home

ADVERTISEMENT

We Value Your Privacy ADVERTISEMENT

The use of technology such as cookies allows The Irish Times to operate and improve the functionality of our website,
SUGGESTEDthat
derive insights about our audience, provide social media features, and personalise content or advertising FOR YOU
may be of
interest to you. You can choose to accept and agree to this use, or you can manage your settings toMARKET
IT | NEW TO adjust your choices. 
€350k Phibsborough house
You can change your mind any time by returning to this site. If you do not allow certain cookies some areas of this site
may not function as intended. To find out more please read our cookie policy feels far, far away from its
urban surrounds

MANAGE MY SETTINGS I ACCEPT

READ NOW