Includes bibliographical references and index.

International relations on the eve of the Second World War -- The start of the Second World War -- The preparation for war against the USSR -- The Soviet economy and the state of the armed forces on the eve of the Great Patriotic war -- The start of the Great Patriotic war -- The war in the pacific -- The creation of the anti-fascist coalition -- The North African campaign -- Stalingrad -- The resistance movements in the occupied countries -- Soviet victories in 1943 -- Military and political events outside the Soviet-German front: 1943 -- The year of decisive victories -- The final defeat of fascist Germany -- The surrender of Japan and the results of the Second World War.

"Graham Lyons has taken the two main textbooks used in the senior forms of Russian secondary schools and here presents, in direct translation, the story of the War as seen through Russian eyes. Anyone remotely familiar with 'history' as taught on the western side of the Iron Curtain will read with bemused fascination of the 'real' origins of the Second World War, of the 'true' meaning of the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact, of why the Russians stopped before Warsaw - and so on, and so on. But why indeed should one version be any more 'true' than the other? This fascinating book not only presents the other side of the coin but poses the much deeper question of the true meaning of the evidently much-abused word 'history'."-- Amazon.com