This article presents new evidence from the Russian Foreign Ministry archive regarding Josif Stalin's participation in the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences. The article shows that the published Soviet records of these wartime summits are incomplete and inaccurate in a number of respects. These omissions and distortions were motivated by political considerations, and the correction of them facilitates a more complete rendition of Stalin's statements at the three conferences. Of particular importance is evidence that Stalin during the war strongly favored the dismemberment of Germany. Not until later did he begin to propagate the myth that he had always supported German unity.

Recently released files from the collection (fond) of Josif Stalin's papers in the former Central Party Archive in Moscow have shed new light on the development of postwar S viet diplomatic historiography, particularly in relation to Stalin's personal role in framing the official rationale and justification for the Nazis viet pact of 1939–1941. This episode gave rise to a policy of archivebased publications in the mid 1950s and pr vided the foundation for later Soviet (and posts viet) treatments of the diplomatic history of the Second World War and other topics.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the ensuing conflict witnessed the political rehabilitation of the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maksim Litvinov. After serving as ambassador to the United States from 1941 to 1943, Litvinov returned to the Soviet Union and played a key role in charting Moscow's wartime Grand Alliance strategy. He urged So-viet leaders to convene a joint Anglo-Soviet-American commission to discuss military-political questions, and he helped organize the October 1943 foreign ministers'conference in Moscow. As the war drew to a close, Litvinov argued for a postwar settlement dividing the world into security zones. His realist conception of foreign policy suggested a more moderate alternative o Josif Stalin's reliance on confrontation with the West. Although Litvinov faded again from public view after his retirement in 1946, his belief that the Grand Alliance could continue suggests that the rapid, postwar descent into the Cold War might have been averted had it not been for Stalin.