Zubok, Vladislav and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin's Cold War. Harvard University Press: Cambridge Massachusetts, 1996. 346 pp.

The authors of Inside the Kremlin's War are Russian academics. Both studied at the Institute for the US and Canada Studies of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and have become influential scholars in the United States because of their perspective and charm; Zubok has even become a regular commentator on CNN's Cold War programming. This background gives the book a unique place in the historiography of the Cold War as their treatment of the leaders mirrors their own experience. For example, it is hard to imagine an U.S. American-born would include language to suggests that “Khrushchev was the last 'true believer' in the mandate of the Bolshevik Revolution among the post-Stalin generation of leaders,” which seems to suggest that the ideological framework (at least philosophically) of the violent overthrow of Bourgeois World governments was still valid to Khrushchev-- an idea that many would consider patently wrong (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 178). Nevertheless, this distinctively non-Western understanding of Cold War leaders in the Kremlin is part of their heritage.

Zubok and Pleshakov grew up in the Soviet Union and graduated from Moscow State University in the early 1980s. After that, they studied at the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies where they both began to understand the intricacies of Soviet Policy making, filtering it through the lens of their cultural upbringing. During their studies they had access to much of the new material that was becoming available to scholars as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Because of this unique course of study the scholars developed a key explanatory thesis to guide understanding of Soviet foreign policy in the Cold War: a “revolutionary-imperial paradigm”: "The imperial implications of both Marxist thought and Russian history provide the broad background and context for understanding Soviet involvement in the Cold War" (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 3). Each Soviet leader is dealt with in the context of this paradigm, which from leader to leader, is upheld to various degrees. Stalin becomes the champion of this paradigm after he succeeds Lenin. In fact, Stalin is the most profound exemplar of this “Marxist-Imperial Revolutionary” paradigm, according to Zubok and Pleshakov. Nevertheless, one might wonder why Lenin and the last Czar did not find a more substantive place in the text because an in-depth look at the training that Stalin received under these two governments might add depth to the curious mix of brutal authoritarianism, security concerns, personality, and Marxist ideology that the authors attempt to place squarely on the shoulder of Stalin. If Zubok and Pleshakov had offered more of a look at Stalin's tutors the implications of their thesis paradigm would be more obvious.

Still, when it comes to the reign of Joseph Stalin, the imperial-revolutionary paradigm is compelling. In the early years of the Cold War the allies were looking for a way to continue the Grand Alliance which was integral to the defeat of Nazi Germany and peace in Europe. Stalin was at the helm of the Soviet Union for the entire war and was the benefit of U.S. American wartime aid. After the war it quickly became apparent to the West that a similar post-war relationship with Stalin's Soviet Union would be impossible. Zubok and Pleshakov posit that Stalin with his “symbiosis of imperial expansionism and ideological proselytism” was unable to work with the Western powers, though he wanted to for his own reasons (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 3).

The authors argue that Stalin reached out to the West on several occasions. For instance, they state, “In 1943-1946, Stalin... nurtured [a] vision of a realpolitik partnership with the Western Allies,” hence his cold reaction to the Chinese revolution at first (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 56-57). Thus, the argument that Zubok and Pleshakov seem to be making is that although Stalin wanted to find a way to work peacefully with the West, his ideological position made it literally impossible-- an example of how ideology features prominently in modern Cold War historiography.

The men that stood by Stalin during his tenure as “Boss” of the Soviet Union were Molotov and Zhadanov. Each of these leaders had a specific role in shoring-up the rule of their leader and mentor, Joseph Stalin. Molotov was Stalin's foreign diplomat and Zhadanov was his propaganda chief. The stories of these men, although interesting, boil down to their role as an extension of Stalin's authoritarian power. On the subject of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Molotov is said to have “had the authority to sign any document with Hitler on the spot, but his cable to Stalin suggested that any deal on spheres of influence be delayed until the German minister... came to Moscow” (Zubok and Pleshakov. p. 79). Clearly here, and other places in the text, Zubok and Pleshakov argue that Molotov was serving as an agent of Stalin, the personification of the Soviet Union at the time. In fact, Molotov was so committed to his role as servant to Stalin that even after his wife was charged, arrested, and sent to a gulag, he remained a faithful protector of the Stalin foreign policy legacy until his death.

Andrie Alexandrovich Zhdanov was Stalin's other man, the “mouthpiece of the of [Stalin's] new worldview that turned the iron curtain into a tragic reality for many millions to the east of the Elbe river” (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 111-112). These two leaders, at least from the perspective of Zubok and Pleshakov, served as the “faceless politicians” and “valets of the master” (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 137).

After the death of Stalin a new wave of leadership vied for the throne of the Kremlin. Thus, the authors' ideological explanations take a more pragmatic turn. After the Boss's death, two leaders took temporary charge. These leaders, Beria and Malenkov, came to power just as the Soviets were able to test their first nuclear bomb. The authors view their short rule and policies as being influenced by the fact of nuclear bi-polarity with the United States. In an interesting chapter of the book, which Zubok and Pleshakov entitled “Learning to Love The Bomb,” the authors make the case that both of these leaders became interested in change after the death of Stalin (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 139). Nevertheless, change for the two Soviet apparatchiks had more to do with the changes that were already going on in the Soviet Union because of the introduction of the “super weapon” to their military arsenal than with the “liberalization” and “de-Stalinization” that would take place under Khrushchev. Under Stalin, Beria and Malenkov “benefited from Stalin's great purges” and rose to become chiefs of the Soviet Union's large military-industrial programs: atomic, missiles, and air defense (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 141-142). Apparently, this is the fundamental reason why Zubok and Pleshakov believe that these men were able to seize power after the death of Stalin; Stalin was dead, the nation had just gotten the bomb, and the leadership who administered the atomic program were in the strongest national position.

Where Beria and Malenkov sought to establish a new technocratic elite, Khrushchev was more of a leader of the people, the Party, and a statesman with a real understanding of the nature of nuclear bi-polarity and what it meant for Bolshevik revolutionary goals. Largely more ideological than his temporary predecessors, Khrushchev led that party and the Soviet nation into a new phase of the Cold War which would lead to the “long peace” with the West. Khrushchev came to power, underestimated by his political adversaries, and “rushed into the Cold War”— perhaps for the purpose of shoring up his domestic clout in a political environment, created by Beria and Malenkov, where atomic strength equated to political power (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 173).

Zubok and Pleshakov describe Khrushchev as easy to underestimate. Beria and Malenkov did not see the new leader as a threat to their power because they did not understand that Khrushchev was a son of Stalin and the revolutionary paradigm that he came to represent. The authors inspiringly make this analogy of Khrushchev, quoting a Russian psychiatrist: “...Khrushchev had been a latter Oedipus who had lived in the shadow of his father, Stalin, and passionately loved 'mother' Russia. Later, with 'sadistic satisfaction,' he had committed parricide at the Twentieth Party Congress” (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 179). The whole legacy of the rule of Khrushchev, it seems, was to bring the revolution forward and put Stalin into perspective as a flawed, yet important, part of the march of Bolshevik revolutionary causes.

There is no doubt that Zubok and Pleshakov's short book adds a great deal to the historiography of the Cold War. Their analysis of the early Cold War leaders in the Kremlin is illuminating on two levels. First, the information given is from people who actually grew up in the Soviet Union and watched its collapse. This aspect allows for a lens of scholarship which has a cultural perspective, which is perhaps unavailable to a Western-born scholar. One can't help but think of Cold War era scholars such as George Kennan who had an in-depth knowledge of the Soviet System but could not have possibly understood, from the inside, the Marxist-imperial in the way that a native born scholar could. Second, the popularity of dealing with the Cold War in terms of ideology is given a twist as the two Russian scholars argue that ideological concerns, not specifically Communism, drove the train when it came to Soviet foreign policy. Also, it is interesting to note that Zubok and Pleshakov seem to take it for granted that the United States had its own political ideological concerns which the Soviets (Stalin's legacy) were dealing with through a jaundiced eye, not visible to the West.

The weakness of the book is that there is simply not enough. One would like to see the authors re-write the book and go back farther, perhaps going back as far as the last Czars of Imperial Russia. An historical analysis of just how the Czars were similar to the Soviets would add a good deal of depth to their thesis that the Soviets were working out of the paradigm that they posit as central to the entire life of the Communist empire. Additionally, it would be highly illuminating to add Lenin as the first leader, and grandfather of the Cold War; for certainly it was Lenin's ideological focus that gave Stalin the governmental structure that allowed him to rise to power in the Soviet Union. Also, perhaps a treatment of Lenin's policies would add to making the author's argument (that Stalin neatly fits the “Marxist-Imperialist” paradigm) compelling. As it is written, it would be just as easy to argue that Stalin worked out of his own desire for personal power, no matter how couched his words were in Communist rhetoric.

Unnumbered and the closing chapter of the book, the section entitled “Postmortem: Empire Without Heroes is the most compelling section of the work. The authors give their final conclusions and note that when the last of the leaders mentioned in their book died, the Cold War ended and the Soviet experiment collapsed. Zubok and Pleshakov suggest, “after decades of rivalry, the new elites of the Soviet Union conceded to themselves that the USSR had lost the political and economic competition with the United States” (Zubok and Pleshakov, p. 276). The chapter reads like etchings on a tombstone and give a solemn analysis of the way things went and where they may go in the future, only offering that whatever may happen in Russia, the ideology and the leaders of the Kremlin's Cold War will not return, which is perhaps wishful thinking on their part.