Debating the role of Russia in the origins of the Second World War

The central characters in A. J. P. Taylor’s The Origins of the Second World War are Hitler and a succession of British and French statesmen. Soviet Russia is ascribed a lesser role, as earlier critics have pointed out. ¹ For Taylor, the really important action takes place in Berlin, London and Paris, not Moscow. This is a serious weakness because, by “tilting” his analysis to the west, Taylor limits himself to an incomplete and interpretively distorted account of Europe’s descent into war. Ironically, this western orientation leads Taylor seriously to underestimate the influence of anti-Communism and Russophobia within the British leadership.