Chad Crowley

2/ World War II remains the central myth of liberalism, shaping modern morality and dictating the bounds of political discourse. Liberals invoke Hitler as a specter to silence nationalist opposition, warning that any deviation from their perverse worldview risks "another Auschwitz." Those who refuse to kneel before the liberal-humanist zeitgeist are branded as evil fascists, border security is hysterically likened to genocide, and Antifa thugs cosplaying as resistance fighters delude themselves into believing they are the rightful heirs of the soldiers who stormed Normandy’s beaches. This relentlessly propagandized historical narrative serves a clear purpose. It upholds the crude morality play that defines the modern West: "democracy" against "dictatorship," "tolerance" versus "racism," and "civilization" against "barbarism." Allied victory is framed as the ultimate vindication of liberal democracy, radical racial egalitarianism, and globalist ideology, ensuring that any nationalist alternative is permanently branded as an unforgivable evil. Sean McMeekin’s "Stalin’s War" dismantles these entrenched lies with devastating precision. Rather than blindly accepting Adolf Hitler as the war’s sole villain, McMeekin exposes Joseph Stalin as its true instigator and, relatedly, its ultimate victor, the ruthless manipulator who engineered global conflict to expand communist tyranny. This reframing fundamentally undermines the liberal historical consensus, tearing apart its moral pretensions and exposing the hypocrisy upon which it stands.

3/ McMeekin convincingly argues that Stalin, rather than Hitler, dictated the course of World War II, exposing the liberal narrative of Soviet innocence as a deliberate fabrication. Unlike Hitler, who perished in Berlin, Stalin emerged as the war’s greatest victor, transforming half of Europe into a communist prison. Rejecting Lenin’s more restrained doctrine of socialism within national borders, Stalin pursued aggressive global revolution, exploiting international instability to secure Soviet hegemony. While mainstream historians frame Stalin as a reactive participant forced into war by Hitler’s aggression, McMeekin dismantles this fiction, revealing him as the true instigator who maneuvered the world into a conflict that served his expansionist aims. McMeekin establishes this point decisively in the book’s prologue by quoting Stalin’s chilling speech shortly before Operation Barbarossa, where Stalin openly described the Soviet Union as a predator waiting for the right moment to strike. Though McMeekin does not fully endorse Viktor Suvorov’s "Icebreaker" theory, which argues that Stalin was preparing a preemptive assault against Germany in summer 1941, he persuasively demonstrates that the Red Army was structured for offensive warfare at the moment Germany attacked. Stalin emerges not as a reluctant player dragged into war, but as a calculating force whose actions determined the war’s trajectory and reshaped Europe under communist rule.

4/ McMeekin’s most powerful chapters expose Stalin’s calculated exploitation of liberal democracies, particularly Roosevelt’s America, ruthlessly highlighting the catastrophic consequences of liberal delusion. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, thoroughly infiltrated by communist agents and sympathetic liberal fellow travelers, consistently placed Soviet interests above America’s own interests. Unlike Britain, which Roosevelt callously forced into humiliating concessions, Stalin enjoyed unconditional American industrial aid through the Lend-Lease program, effectively saving the Soviet regime from military collapse. Prominent figures within Roosevelt’s administration, most notably the influential Jewish Treasury official Harry Dexter White, actively promoted pro-Soviet policies such as the infamous Morgenthau Plan. This scheme explicitly aimed at crippling Germany permanently, destroying its industrial base, and reducing the German people to an impoverished servile existence that directly advanced Stalin’s postwar ambitions. Roosevelt himself displayed shocking moral corruption by seriously entertaining Stalin’s monstrous proposal for the mass execution of tens of thousands of German officers, underscoring liberalism’s willingness to ally itself with genocidal communism against European nationalism. McMeekin makes unmistakably clear that America’s vast industrial resources, instead of defending the West and its people, were cynically harnessed to empower Stalin and impose communist tyranny across half of Europe. Roosevelt emerges not merely as naïve, but as complicit in aiding the worst tyranny of the twentieth century.

5/ McMeekin delivers an unsparing indictment of Western complicity in Stalin’s postwar conquest of Eastern Europe. Britain and America abandoned nationalist anti-communist resistance movements in favor of communist insurgents loyal to Stalin. Nowhere was this betrayal more evident than in Yugoslavia, where Western support for Tito’s communist partisans ensured the violent suppression of Serbian nationalism, setting the stage for the broader Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. Even Churchill initially defended Soviet aggression in Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states, framing it as a necessary measure for Soviet security. Only later did he realize the extent of Stalin’s expansionist ambitions, but by then, he was powerless to counter Roosevelt’s staunchly pro-Soviet policies. Truman inherited this compromised legacy, and despite his anti-communist rhetoric, Soviet sympathizers remained embedded within American foreign policy, most notably influencing disastrous decisions in China. McMeekin reveals that the Allies were not simply naïve but played a direct role in cementing communist control over Eastern Europe. Rather than upholding their stated principles of self-determination, they abandoned nationalist resistance movements and paved the way for Soviet dominance, sacrificing the very nations and people they claimed to protect.

6/ Perhaps the most distinctive element of "Stalin’s War" is its "revisionist" portrayal of Nazi-Soviet relations. Mainstream court historians portray Hitler as cynically exploiting Soviet trust, but McMeekin overturns this simplistic narrative, demonstrating Stalin’s strategic dominance in their partnership. Stalin skillfully leveraged the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to secure vast territorial and economic advantages, invading Poland only after German forces had decisively neutralized Polish resistance, thus maximizing Soviet gains at minimal cost. Importantly, McMeekin acknowledges a crucial truth largely ignored by mainstream scholarship: National Socialist Germany demonstrated genuine concern for the welfare of its soldiers, consistently seeking to recover captured troops, whereas Stalin showed ruthless disregard for Soviet lives, willingly sacrificing millions in reckless offensives. McMeekin’s honesty starkly contrasts the prevailing liberal narrative, vividly illustrating Stalin’s cold-blooded contempt for human life compared to Germany’s earnest attempts to protect its own people.

7/ Ultimately, "Stalin’s War" delivers a devastating blow to the liberal mythology surrounding World War II. By exposing Stalin as the true victor and revealing the extent of Western complicity, McMeekin forces readers to reconsider the war’s moral legitimacy. Far from securing freedom, the war resulted in communist domination, cultural devastation, and the destruction of European nationalist movements. Liberal historians dismiss communism as a regrettable but forgivable mistake while endlessly portraying nationalism as an existential threat. McMeekin exposes this hypocrisy by forcing readers to confront uncomfortable questions: Was defeating Germany truly worth delivering half of Europe to Stalin’s totalitarian rule? Were the deaths of millions justified when the war’s outcome empowered communism’s rise rather than securing Western civilization? "Stalin’s War" is essential reading for those who refuse to accept the sanitized lies that uphold the modern world order. McMeekin systematically dismantles the liberal narrative, exposing Stalin’s ruthless maneuvering, the Western betrayal of nationalist forces, and the catastrophic consequences of Allied complicity. Instead of reinforcing the prevailing myths of WWII, this book forces a long-overdue reckoning with historical truth, tearing apart the ideological framework designed to delegitimize nationalism and sustain liberal hegemony.

8/ A Reply: I'm not going to waste time dissecting the opening of your post because it's the usual mix of ideological absurdity, historical ignorance, and transparent bad faith. I also suspect you have an ethnic ax to grind. However, your patently false claims about "Lend-Lease" are so blatantly wrong that they demand correction. Your assertion that "Lend-Lease armed Britain, France, and the Pacific War" while only reaching the Soviets in 1944 when "the war was over" is flat-out incorrect. France had already fallen by June 1940, nearly a year before "Lend-Lease" began in March 1941. The Free French forces did receive aid, but only in 1944 when the Western Allies were already liberating France. By that point, France was a secondary player in its own war effort, completely dependent on Britain and the United States. Including France in this discussion is either deliberate dishonesty or proof of your ignorance. Your claim about Britain is equally misleading. Yes, Britain received the largest share of "Lend-Lease" at around $31.4 billion, but this came at a steep price. Before "Lend-Lease," Britain had to drain its gold reserves and sell off overseas assets just to purchase arms under the "cash and carry" system. When Britain ran out of money, Roosevelt demanded further concessions. In 1940, Britain was forced into the "Destroyers for Bases Agreement," handing over critical naval bases in the Caribbean and the Atlantic in exchange for fifty outdated American destroyers. This was not an act of generosity but a calculated move to strip Britain of strategic assets while ensuring American postwar dominance. In short, it was the beginning of the dismantling of Great Britain’s empire and, eventually, the colonial holdings of every European "ally." Unlike the Soviets, Britain was expected to pay back every cent of its debts, with payments continuing until 2006. Meanwhile, Stalin took everything and repaid virtually nothing. The Soviet Union received $11.3 billion in aid, worth over $180 billion today, and never settled its obligations. In 1972, the Soviets agreed to a token repayment of $722 million, but even that was never fully paid. The disparity could not be more glaring. Britain was bled out and shackled with debt, while Stalin was given a blank check to expand his empire. Your most ridiculous claim is that "Lend-Lease" only reached the Soviets in 1944 when "the war was over." This is an outright lie. The first shipments began arriving in October 1941, just months after Germany's invasion of the USSR. By 1942 and 1943, the Red Army was heavily dependent on American supplies. The Soviets received over 400,000 American trucks, which made up nearly two-thirds of their military transport, allowing them to sustain deep offensives. They were provided with 14,000 aircraft, 12,000 armored vehicles, 8,000 anti-aircraft guns, 4.5 million tons of food, 2.5 million tons of fuel, and vast quantities of steel, rubber, and chemicals, all of which they lacked the capacity to produce in sufficient numbers. Later Soviet offensives such as Kursk in 1943, "Operation Bagration" in 1944, and the final drive into Berlin would not have been possible without American support. The Red Army was fed with American food, fueled with American oil, and moved with American trucks. The idea that "the war was over" before "Lend-Lease" mattered is a blatant falsehood. Beyond the war itself, the terms of "Lend-Lease" expose the hypocrisy of Allied relations. Roosevelt deliberately used it to cripple Britain's financial independence, undermining its global position, while handing Stalin everything with no conditions. American industry propped up the Soviet war machine, ensuring its survival and expansion. In return, the Soviets turned against the very nations that had saved them, spending the next four decades subverting the West. Roosevelt never demanded repayment, never imposed restrictions, and never once held Stalin accountable.