Soviet Union

Paul Wingrove examines the starkly different interpretations that seek to explain the career of Joseph Stalin, who died fifty years ago this month.

John Claydon analyses the increasingly rich profusion of writings on the nature of the Bolshevik Revolution and of subsequent Soviet rule.

Peter Anderson compares the tactics and resources of the two sides.

With the final collapse of the Soviet Union on December 1st, 1991, and with the new openness promised by Mikhail Gorbachev well under way, the release to historians of files, photographs and film strips held in the Soviet state archives seemed a very real possibility.

A.D. Harvey assesses the role of the Soviet Air Force in the defeat of Nazism.

Geoffrey Roberts explains the fateful sequence of events from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to Hitler's invasion of the USSR. 

Julian Reed-Purvis investigates Stalin's role in the origins of the great purges.

John Erickson reviews the recent controversies surrounding Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.

Helen Rappaport tells the story of James Abbe, a little-known American photographer, whose images of the USSR in the 1930s record both the official and unofficial faces of the Stalinist regime.

Paul Dukes takes a fresh look at the Cold War in the light of some recurring themes of Russian and American history since the 18th century.