Stalin: Machtpolitiker und Ideologe (review)

I. V. Stalin was one of the most important politicians of the twentieth century. An enormous literature in many languages has discussed him and his policies. Over the past two decades or so, the opening of some of the formerly closed Soviet archives has generated a further proliferation of publications about this famous dictator. Stefan Creuzberger’s Stalin: Machtpolitiker und Ideologe is a welcome addition to the existing literature. Creuzberger deems Stalin of utmost relevance nowadays, for without Stalin today’s world cannot be imagined. In current-day Russia, in particular, where Stalin is one of the most popular historical figures, his relevance is all the greater.

Apparently, Creuzberger conducted no archival research in the former Soviet Union for this book. Instead, as he states in the preface, his goal is a synthetic work to familiarize the reading public and students of history with the specialist literature and the present state of knowledge about Stalin. In some respects he succeeds, in others he does not.

As the title suggests, this is not a straightforward biography. Rather, the book focuses on Stalin the politician. However, it does not cover Stalin the politician in a comprehensive way. Creuzberger consciously departs from standard practice and divides his discussion into two parts: domestic and international politics. The latter, which is the more interesting to this reader, focuses on two large subjects that Creuzberger considers the most important to Stalin: Germany and China.

On the first subject, Creuzberger lucidly summarizes the state of knowledge in the field. He rejects Robert C. Tucker’s thesis that Stalin’s foreign policy was a return to the old Tsarist policy of the Russian Empire and convincingly shows that Stalin was an ideologically motivated politician with a keen sense of pragmatism. Stalin consistently pursued the export of socialist revolution abroad, but he did not do so when it would pose a risk to the Soviet homeland. In practical terms Stalin sought the extension of Soviet control overseas but was cautious and mostly averse to “adventurism” in the realm of foreign policy. Yet sometimes he succumbed to unrealistic adventures that ended in spectacular failures, such as the 1923 German Revolution and the 1927 Communist uprisings in China. At other times his caution proved disastrous, as in the case of Germany’s devastating attack against the Soviet Union in June 1941. On the postwar German question, Creuzberger believes that Stalin had no master plan and instead pursued the priorities of the Soviet Union—external security from the capitalist camp through the control of Eastern Europe as a “cordon sanitaire” (p. 241). According to Creuzberger, Stalin did not initially favor the division of Germany; he wanted a united Germany that would be friendly toward the Soviet Union. (Creuzberger does not discuss Stalin’s earlier, wartime plan for the dismemberment of Germany.) By 1948 Stalin had largely abandoned this goal. Still, in his mind, the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not exclude the future unification of Germany on terms favorable for the Soviet Union. The 1952 “Stalin Note” adhered to this perspective. Yet by that time the note was not much more than a propaganda maneuver. Contrary to the claims of Wilfried Loth, Creuzberger shows that the GDR was not Stalin’s “unloved child” (p. 245).

Creuzberger’s discussion of China is potentially of much interest because the existing literature on Stalin tends to give Asia short shrift. Unfortunately, Creuzberger is much less sure-footed here than on the German question. He tends to support Maoist interpretations of Stalin’s China policy, claiming, for example, that already in the 1930s Stalin and Mao Zedong were conscious of their “rivalry.” There is little evidence that either Stalin or Mao actually perceived the other as a rival. By the 1930s Stalin was the undisputed leader of the world Communist movement, whereas Mao was utterly unknown outside China and was dependent on the USSR for the survival of his Communist movement. In fact, Stalin in the mid-1930s was the one who helped Mao become leader of the Chinese Communist...