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Vladimir Tismaneanu, in his appreciative review of Robert Gellately¡¯s Stalin¡¯s Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War, makes the startling claim that ¡°Stalin was intent upon provoking a new world war¡± (¡°Painting the world Red¡±, Books, 7 March).

Yet in ¡°Remarks on Economic Questions Connected with the November 1951 Discussion¡±, a section in his booklet Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR dated February 1952, Stalin makes it clear that capitalist countries, ¡°although they clamour, for ¡®propaganda¡¯ purposes, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union¡±, nevertheless ¡°are aware of the Soviet Union¡¯s peaceful policy and know that it will not itself attack them¡±.

Many of us will read Gellately¡¯s important book to learn how he resolves this contradiction between Stalin the paranoid warmonger and Stalin the supporter of a peace movement to prevent another world war.

R.E. Rawles
Honorary research fellow in psychology
University College London