Under Stalin's Shadow

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Under Stalin's Shadow examines the history of the communist party of Greece (KKE) from 1918-1956, showing how much national communism was related to international developments. The history of the KKE reveals the role of Moscow in the various communist parties of Southeastern Europe, as Nikos Marantzidis shows that communism's international institutions (Moscow Center, Comintern, Balkan Communist Federation, Cominform, sister parties in the Balkans) were not merely external factors influencing orientation and policy choices. Based on research from unpublished and published archival documents located in Greece, Russia, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Balkan countries, Under Stalin's Shadow traces the movement's interactions with fraternal parties in neighboring states and with their acknowledged supreme mentors in Stalin's Soviet Russia. Marantzidis reveals how, because the boundaries between the national and international in the communist world were not clearly drawn, international institutions, geopolitical soviet interests, and sister parties' strategies shaped in fundamental ways the KKE's leadership, its character and decision-making as a party, and the way of life of its followers over the years.