A chilling, skillfully delineated account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Stalin's true motives--and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire--during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Roosevelt, Churchill, and the capitalist West.At Yalta, Stalin very persuasively played the role of a great world leader. Even astute observers like George Kennan concluded that the United States and Great Britain could deal with Stalin by assuming realistic objectives like self-preservation. But now, Robert Gellately uses the most recently uncovered and up-to-date documents to make clear that, in fact, the dictator was merely biding his time, determined as ever to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond, and that his actions during these years (and the poorly calculated responses to them from the West) set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin's Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalin's Kremlin.