"Drawing on ambitious new research in European and U.S. archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of World War II by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war that emerged in Europe in August 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, was the Pacific war of 1941-1945 the direct result of Stalin's maneuverings, which he orchestrated to unleash the furies of war between capitalist powers Japan and the U.S. This groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War elucidates Stalin's conquest of most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism"--