Professor McCagg has undertaken an expedition into the dark recesses of Soviet politics and of Stalin's mind and come up with an extraordinary reappraisal of Stalin's policy toward the West in the crucial years of World War II and its aftermath. He finds the basis for much of his interpretation in domestic developments and in the challenges Stalin faced from his colleagues in the Politburo and from Communist leaders outside the U.S.S.R. Some of it seems far-fetched, but the book deserves careful study by all who think they know something about the subject.