Churchill and the Soviet Union

By David Carlton

Book Overview

In the already vast literature on Churchill, no single work has focused on his changing attitude towards the Soviet Union. In the first four decades after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he oscillated in a seemingly bewildering fashion between enmity and apparent friendship with the Soviets. Taking the Bolshevik Revolution as its starting point, this is a pioneering study of this great statesman's relationship with the USSR until his retirement in 1955.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0719041066
• ISBN13: 9780719041068
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Churchill: Just Another Politician

This analytical and thorough work builds nicely on the current critical look at Churchill's achievements. Carlton reminds us that Churchill, at bottom, was just another politician. Certainly, he believed passionately that the Soviet empire was evil and tyrannical; yet, in his zeal to be remembered as a world statesman (rather than just one of the protagonists in World War II) he was willing to flip flop whenever it suited him. Carlton also, repeatedly, reminds us that Churchill probably thought the Russians to be more wicked than the Germans and that he advocated the preemptive postwar use of nuclear weapons before the Soviets had developed a nuclear arsenal. Churchill's duplicity, vanity and senility in his last years are also brilliantly illustrated in this book. This is not the Churchill that many of us were taught by our history masters. Thanks to David Carlton, we now have a readable account of the whole man and not just the man as he would have us remember him. A must read.