Covering the volatile period from 1945 to 1962, this book explores the personalities and motivations of the key people who directed Soviet political life and shaped foreign policy. Two of Russia's most accomplished Cold War historians have brought us a treasure trove of arresting new information, insights, and judgments that do much to change our understanding of the Soviet Union's motives and behavior during its long and tragic confrontation with the West. This is the first account of the early Cold War written primarily from Soviet sources; and it is the first opportunity young Russian historians have had to state their views, in English, on what the Cold War was all about. Illustrated.