The United States was building an empire as well. Purges, insistence on conformity, crushing of dissent reflected the priorities and practices of a single individual and resulted, Gaddis says, in an empire by imposition. Stalin tried to construct a Soviet empire in Eastern Europe modeled on the way he ruled at home. Convinced that total control was necessary to defeat his domestic “enemies,” he carried this attitude over in his relations with the area under Red Army occupation. Stalin’s suspicion, distrust, and his conviction that conciliation was weakness were fatal character flaws. For while superpower rivalry would certainly have existed, it was Stalin’s insistence on equating security with territory that led to counter-measures designed to contain his ambitions. Reviewing the origins of the East-West confrontation Gaddis maintains that the way it ultimately developed was not inevitable, but was due primarily to one individual. John Lewis Gaddis, a professor at Yale University, takes a new look at the Cold War, using materials that have come to light as a result of the breakup of the Soviet bloc. For the generation whose careers were entwined with it one way or another, We Now Know makes for an interesting read.
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