Nina Bystrova, The USSR and the Formation of Military-Bloc Confrontation in Europe [1945-55]/SSSR I Formirovanie Voenno-Blokovogo Protivostoianiia V Evrope (1945-1955 Gg.) (Book Review‪)‬

Nina Bystrova, SSSR i formirovanie voenno-blokovogo protivostoianiia v Evrope (1945-1955 gg.) (The USSR and the Formation of Military-Bloc Confrontation in Europe [1945-55]). 584 pp. Moscow: Giperboreia, Kuchkovo pole, 2007. ISBN-13 978-5901679715. In her study of the Cold War, or the emergence of "military-bloc confrontation" in Europe between the United States and the Soviet Union, Nina Bystrova contrasts the global ambitions of America with the more local security concerns of the postwar Soviet leadership. America's network of air and naval bases from the war developed into the "so-called 'base strategy'" on the frontiers of the Soviet Union, whereas Stalin during the war and after looked to secure a "sphere of influence" in East-Central Europe and other traditionally Russian zones of imperial interest (7-10, 26, 223). (1) In contrast to historians who focus on the paranoia of Stalin, the autocratic character of Soviet politics, or Marxist-Leninist ideology as decisive factors in the evolution of the early Cold War, Bystrova directs our attention to the recent experience of the war and Russian fears of the revival of Germany (19-25, 107-10). (2) As a "geopolitician," Stalin conducted himself "correctly in relation to the West," she writes (26). The Russians were still fighting the last war in the early years of the Cold War, and their primary interests in the region concerned security, reparations, the extraction of strategic resources, and the potential revival of German power. (3)