ABSTRACT
The international scene, 1935-1939 By 1934-35 the growing threat of war in Europe and Asia led Stalin to a reappraisal. He was still convinced that the international revolution was about to decapitate capitalist states, but he also feared an anti-capitalist coalition congealing against the Soviet Union. He wanted to contain Germany, Japan, and Italy, but not destroy them. These countries certainly pursued policies that were antiCommunist and threatened the Soviet Union, but they also took actions that could lead them into war with France, England, and perhaps the United States, and an intra-capitalist war was the catalyst that Stalin thought would finally catapult Communist regimes answerable to Moscow in power around the globe. It made no difference if the Germans, Japanese, and Italians were anti-Communist if their first priority was to take down the Western global order, a priority that would inevitably produce a long war of attrition, not unlike World War I, among the capitalist states with the USSR sitting on the sidelines and gaining strength daily and the wherewithal to enter the conflict at an opportune time to dictate a new Communist world order.
