Word: kennan
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Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, by George Kennan. A graceful, informative account of the relations between Russia and the West...
...subsidiary theme is Kennan's running critique of Russian historiography. In his preface, the author expresses concern over "the image of Soviet Western relations how being cultivated by Soviet historians," which he says, "in an important part of Moscow's contemporary political appeal...
With respect to the intervention, for instance. Kennan points out that the Allies main motive was to before the Eastern Front, even if this necessitated everthrowing the Bolshevik government. But Kennan is somewhat obscure in ex planing why the intervention continued a year and a half after the end of the war. Similarly, Kennan tries to debunk the Soviet contention that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 was entirely due to the West's failure to stand up to Hitler at Munich. But one is left wondering whether there would have been such a Pact had the West done just...
...Kennan is highly critical of Stalin's foreign policy, and insists that many Soviet moves were due to the director's fears for his personal power. He cites the Communists' failure in China in 1927 and the withdrawal of aid from the Spanish Republican forces in 1936 as examples. At times, however, he may be exaggerrating the significance of the peculiarities of Stalin's personality...
Acheson's book is a completely different genre. If the merit of Kennan's book lies in its profundity and its classic prose; that of Acheson's lies in its sensitivity. Sketches from Life is a series of delicate personality sketches of Bevin, Schuman, Churchill, Molotov, Vyshinsky, Salazar, Vanderberg, Marshall and Adenauer...