The Stalin Affair

Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 forced Britain, the United States and Stalin’s regime into an alliance built on military necessity rather than trust. Giles Milton follows the diplomats and envoys sent to Moscow, including W. Averell Harriman and Archibald Clark Kerr, as they negotiated aid, strategy and access to a government shaped by secrecy and terror. Their private lives and relationships unfolded under surveillance while the Eastern Front absorbed immense losses.

Using diaries, letters and diplomatic records, the book examines the personal negotiations behind the Grand Alliance and the repeated clashes over supply, a second front and the postwar settlement. It presents Stalin as both indispensable ally and authoritarian ruler whose aims could not be separated from Soviet security and expansion. The account shows how a small diplomatic community helped keep the coalition intact long enough to defeat Nazi Germany while disagreements were already laying foundations for the Cold War.