Arguing that ideology is the cornerstone of the Cold War, Mastny demonstrates that Stalin's single-minded adherence to Marxism-Leninism created an atmosphere, both domestically and internationally, of constant insecurity. Behind the internal purges, Russia's control of Eastern Europe, Stalin's relationship with Tito and the West, and acts of espionage and assassination, lay an insecurity, born of ideology, that neither Stalin nor the Soviet Union could ever dispel.