To Run the World
Sergey Radchenko
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From the publisher
What would it feel like To Run the World? The Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. In this panoramic new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides an unprecedented deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin's postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev's reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev's jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev's failed attempts to reinvent Moscow's claims to greatness. Perennial insecurities, delusions of grandeur, and desire for recognition propelled Moscow on a headlong quest for global power, with dire consequences and painful legacies that continue to shape our world.
- A sweeping new history of Soviet foreign policy from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union which uncovers the inner workings of the Kremlin
- Reveals the role that political legitimacy, and the accompanying desire for recognition, played and continue to play in Soviet and Russian foreign policies
- Provides new insights into key episodes of the Cold War on the basis of previously unknown archival materials