This is a review of the final two volumes of a trilogy. The first volume, Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930–1936 (2023), was reviewed in Slavic Review, vol. 83, issue 4. Michael Jabara Carley’s Stalin’s Failed Alliance ends with the failure of talks with the British and French in August 1939. He covers the same ground in 1939: The Alliance that Never Was and the Coming of World War II (1999), although the range of sources consulted is now even more impressive.

Stalin’s Great Game is about Soviet relations with Britain and the attempt to keep Nazi Germany at arm’s length in September 1939 and afterwards, especially following the unexpected French defeat in June 1940. The title seems to have been inspired by a comment about the Russians made by Lord Halifax in April 1940: “their game … is to do all they can to prolong the war as much as possible … in the hope that it will end in deadlock and general exhaustion, from which they will draw the benefit” (Great Game, 118); this perspective became less apposite when Britain was left alone in the ring with Nazi Germany. The “great game” is elsewhere contrasted with “mutual assistance” (Great Game, 306); mutual assistance (or “collective security”) was, according to these volumes, the objective of Soviet policy until 1938, and would be again from June 1941.

The titles of all three volumes are bound up with the Soviet dictator, his “gamble,” his “failed alliance” and his “great game”; in addition, one chapter of the final volume is subtitled as his “momentous failure.” Despite this, details about Iosif Stalin himself are limited, as well as the dynamics within the “Quartet” (comprising Stalin, Lazar Kaganovich, Viacheslav Molotov, and Kliment Vorshilov). Those parts of the books that are about Russia are mainly about the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID), its senior personnel in Moscow, and its diplomats abroad. There is also, however, a rich seam of important material from Soviet intelligence reports. What is less evident—beyond the diplomatic narrative—are ideological, economic and military threads of Soviet policy, as well as relations with foreign communist parties.

The challenge of headlining Stalin in the titles is the contradictory nature of his activities. On the one hand he is depicted in the trilogy as a rational “realist” leader working consistently for the security of the USSR (and not, as is often suggested elsewhere, working in opposition to Maksim Litvinov, head of the NKID from 1930 to 1939). At the same time, Michael Carley admits that Stalin was responsible for mass terror and, in particular, the deaths of many individuals in the Soviet intelligence services and Red Army. This is described as “so ghastly as to belie explanation” (Failed Alliance, 39), but an explanation might have been attempted. Stalin also made a major and tragic overestimate of the ability of the British and French to continue to fight the Germans in 1939–40 (hopefully in a bloody stalemate with Germany). In addition, a major theme of the final volume is the way that Stalin ignored, in 1941, a mass of information (detailed in Great Game) about an imminent German attack. As Carley puts it (with reference to events of 1938): “It is hard to think of Stalin having clean hands, when they were soaked in the blood of his former colleagues, but he appears to have conducted a clean foreign policy” (Failed Alliance, 308). This quote refers to 1938, but it might be taken as the leitmotif of the whole trilogy.

Another element of the book (larger than Stalin’s involvement) is material about the formation of policy towards Soviet Russia by foreign governments. They are essentially the villains of the piece (beyond, of course, the Nazis), at least until near the end of Stalin’s Great Game. The analysis of activities of these states is more consistent and is treated in greater detail than the analysis of Soviet policy. The “governing elite,” it is said, were sympathetic to Fascism. (According to the overall analysis in these volumes, the USSR does not seem to have had a “governing elite.”) The British are above all to blame, because the French followed their lead. An argument about the fatal lure of anticommunism for the British FO had recently been developed in similar depth by Jonathan Haslam in The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II (2021).

The main emphasis of the book is a richly documented narrative of events. There is little engagement with other historians. An unusual use of secondary sources relates to a discussion of Soviet policy in early 1941, when the work of Gabriel Gorodetsky and Geoffrey Roberts is brought in (Great Game, 250–53). One can disagree with aspects of the “realist” interpretation of the books under review and with their scope. However, it is certainly correct that the failure to confront Adolf Hitler in 1939 has to be seen in the context of the previous five or six years. And it is also hard to disagree with the Jabra Carley’s observation that, with a few exceptions, “everyone thought the Nazi tiger could be sent in other directions or could be caged at least in the short term, and everyone, including Stalin, was wrong” (Great Game, 155).

“It is a pity that we do not have the minutes of the meetings of Stalin with his closest colleagues” (Great Game, 302). That, of the course, is the nub of the problem for all historians of this period. But what these books do exploit is an extraordinary mass of material from the Russian, British, and French archives. An example would be the report of the discussion between Voroshilov and General Auguste Antoine Palasse (the French military attaché) in late September 1939 (Great Game, 14–16). Carley is also particularly good at interpreting different secret reports of one diplomatic conversation (sent, for example, to Moscow and to London) in order to tease out significant differences and unveil subtexts. Little-used archives elsewhere in Europe are exploited, and the discussion is strong on smaller countries like Romania and Türkiye.

Another strength of these books is the writing style. This is primarily a narrative, but certainly not a dry or uninteresting one. The individuals involved, and their views, are often described with deep understanding. Examples on the Soviet side are Vladimir Potemkin, Litvinov, and Ivan Maiskii (less so Stalin and Molotov or the other member of the “Quartet”). On the British side Stafford Cripps and David Lloyd George (as an elder statesman) are especially well developed. The author has had a unique access to primary sources in Russia and elsewhere. Reflecting, as they do, thirty years of research, both these volumes are an extremely valuable contribution to our understanding of the diplomatic scene in this crucial period.