Stalin's Strategy of Soviet Influence from the Bosphorus to Xinjiang

Baku/12.01.21/Turan: Amazon announced the sale of the book "Stalin and Soviet Early Cold War Policy: Southern Neighbours in the Shadow of Moscow, 1945-1947" by Azerbaijani historian Jamil Hasanli.

The book which has 272 pages will be published on July 8, 2022 in English.

In the book, Hasanli uses a number of newly available archival sources to reveal key aspects of the Soviet Union's relations with its southern neighbors immediately after World War II.

Touching upon relations with Turkey, Iran, and China, Hasanli explores how Stalin strategized the Soviet influence over the Bosporus and Dardanelles, Iranian Azerbaijan, and Xinjiang. At various times this included varying degrees of coercion, diplomacy, espionage, and mediation. Although the Cold War has generally been associated with tensions in Europe, some of its earliest movements actually occurred in Central and West Asia. In particular, Hasanly argues, the period from 1945 to 1947 was an active phase of Soviet expansion southward and the new Stalin-Molotov doctrine. These regions were used as a testing ground for Soviet expansionist policies, many of which failed and thus played an important role in the subsequent shaping of Soviet policy toward the West.

Dr. Jamil Hasanli is a researcher at SAS - IHR, University of London. His monographs have been published in the United States, Great Britain, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Hong Kong. He is an honorary member of the Turkish Historical Society and the American Historical Association.-0-