Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-456) and index.

The Stalinist revolution -- Making the Stalinist revolution -- Exterminating internal threats to socialist unity -- War and illusions -- Soviet aims and Western concessions -- Taking Eastern Europe -- The communists in Berlin -- Restoring the Stalinist dictatorship in a broken society -- Shadows of the Cold War -- Stalin and Truman: false starts -- Potsdam, the bomb and Asia -- Soviet retribution and post-war trials -- Settling retribution and ethnic groups -- Reaffirming communist ideology -- Stalin's Cold War -- New communist regimes in Poland and Czechoslovakia -- The pattern of dictatorships: Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary -- Communism in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece -- The passing of the communist moment in Western Europe -- Stalin's choices and the future of Europe -- Stalinist failures: Yugoslavia and Germany -- Looking at Asia from the Kremlin -- New waves of Stalinization -- Stalin's last will and testament.