Episode 22: The Soviet Union's War: Communist Ideology, Stalin, and Soviet Strategy in WWII
Guest
Michelle Paranzino, David R. Stone
Files
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Description
This episode of Strategy Matters supports the World War II in Europe case study with a close look at the Soviet Union's approach to the conflict. Host Dr. Vanya Eftimova Bellinger discusses the Soviet perspective with Dr. David R. Stone and Dr. Michelle Paranzino. The episode commences with a brief exploration of the conditions and the ideology shaping the Soviet Union, its state on the eve of World War II, and the strategic rationale behind its notorious non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. The guests then assess Joseph Stalin's role as a strategic leader and the role of communist ideology in the course and end of the war. Finally, they explore why World War II continues to serve as a foundational myth in today's Russia, and the lessons learned for the war in Ukraine.
Guests:
Professor David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published A Military History of Russia (2006) and The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (2015). He edited The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945 (2010). He has written several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy.
Michelle Paranzino earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied U.S. foreign policy, Soviet history, and Cold War Latin America. She has published numerous articles and book chapters and is the author of The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War: A Short History with Documents (Cambridge: Hackett, 2018). She has held fellowships at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and is currently working on a book about the war on drugs.
The opinions expressed on this podcast represent the views of the presenters and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the United States Navy, or the U.S. Naval War College.
Episode Length
33:16
File Size
17 MB
File Format
MP3
Release Date
9-18-2026
Keywords
U.S. Naval War College, Strategy and Policy, S&P, Strategy and War, Strategy Matters, Military History, Military Strategy, Soviet Union, World War II, Eastern Front, Joseph Stalin, Communism, Nazi-Soviet Pact, Great Patriotic War, Russia, Ukraine
Recommended Citation
Bellinger, Vanya Eftimova, "Episode 22: The Soviet Union's War: Communist Ideology, Stalin, and Soviet Strategy in WWII" (2026). Strategy Matters Podcast. 22.
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/strategy-matters/22
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