Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956

by Anne Applebaum

***Premio de Periodismo deEl Mundo y Premio Francisco Cerecedo de Periodismo 2021***

La deslumbrante historia la creación del imperio soviético que partió Europa por la mitad durante medio siglo.

Al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial la Unión Soviética controlaba una inmensa extensión de territorio en Europa oriental. Stalin y su policía secreta emprendieron la conversión de doce países radicalmente diferentes a un sistema político y moral totalmente nuevo: el comunismo.

La historiadora Anne Applebaum (que obtuvo el premio Pulitzer por Gulag) presenta en estas páginas la obra definitiva sobre cómo surgió el Telón de Acero y cómo era la vida al otro lado. Applebaum describe con pavoroso detalle cómo los partidos políticos, la Iglesia, los medios, las organizaciones juveniles, en suma, todas las instituciones de la sociedad civil, fueron rápidamente desmanteladas. Explica cómo se organizó la policía secreta y cómo se atacaron y destruyeron todas las formas de oposición. Como resultado, en un periodo de tiempo asombrosamente breve, Europa oriental fue estalinizada por completo. A partir de documentos inaccesibles hasta hace poco y fuentes desconocidas en Occidente, Applebaum sigue la táctica comunista en su camino al poder, las amenazas, los abusos y los asesinatos. También narra historias individuales para mostrar las opciones que se presentaban a la gente: luchar, huir o colaborar.

El Telón de Acero es la deslumbrante historia de un periodo brutal y un preocupante recordatorio de cuán frágiles son las sociedades libres. Hoy el bloque soviético es una civilización perdida, cuya crueldad, paranoia, perversa moral y extraña estética logra capturar Applebaun en las fascinantes páginas de este libro.

Finalista delNational Book Award

Número 1 de los libros de no ficción de 2012 en la revistaTime

Libro destacado deThe New York Times

Entre los 10 mejores libros de 2012 deThe Washington Post

Mejor libro de no ficción de 2012 enThe Wall Street Journal

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics, European History, Russian History, Audiobook

566 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2012

About the author

Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is an American journalist at The Atlantic and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. She has written extensively about Marxism–Leninism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at The Economist and The Spectator, and was a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post. She lives in Poland and in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Igor Efimov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, well researched book. I grew up in a Siberian "closed" town, which was build by Gulag prisoners before I was born, i spent my childhood behind three rows of barbed wires. My small town produced refined plutonium, spy satellites and engines for intercontinental ballistic missiles. In nearly 30 years I lived in the USSR before moving to the USA, I had no idea what was happening outside USSR, not only in capitalist West, but even in socialist East. We just never had a chance to see the world, until Soviet Union collapsed and suddenly everything become possible.

It is sad that the responsibility for rape of Eastern Europe by Stalin's Soviet Union is not acknowledged by current Russian government, as it was by Germany. Without such a moral statement there will be no reconciliation.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Communism was a cult ran by conmen.
That’s kind of obvious. Especial for those who grew up in post-soviet countries. But how did they manage to hold the power for so long? Was it just totalitarian propaganda? This thorough research shows how. And it also shoes that basically nothing is nonpolitical. Communists used not just elections and secret police to gain power. It was everywhere: from media to culture, sport, and even church organisations and children’s summer camps. But even that wasn’t enough.
The research is meticulous and detailed, but history is shown through people’s povs and emotional witness statements. Which makes it more interesting and engaging than usual history books. Although the book mainly concentrated on Poland, Hungary and Eastern Germany, it still gives an overall look on political and economical situation of hole communistic region.
The book contains description of sensitive topics such as mass rapes and executions so some part can be triggering.
In general, good nonfiction with great audiobook narration.

[Brett C · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly researched look into the Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe. The book primarily highlights the Three Little Stalins: Walter Ulbricht of East Germany, Bolesław Bierut of Poland, and Mátyás Rákosi of Hungary. Other countries are mentioned (Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia) but not with as much emphasis of the major three. I found the politics, economic, ethnic cleansing, and violence chapters the most interesting. The book delivers topic-driven information from 1944 and the Red Army push to Germany until the revolutions on Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Overall a decent book with a lot of information but sometimes was dull and overkill. Recommended for anyone interested in Eastern European history. Thanks!

[Jan-Maat]

Shortest Review
Read Ashes and Diamonds instead.

Short Review
This is a book which in its final pages, like a bad report or essay seeks to assert new ideas (and with them the books own value and importance) which were not in evidence in the bulk of the text during whichThe Simpsons provide the essential vocabulary of reader response with Meh and Duh! depending on which blatantly obvious point the author highlights.

Longer Review
My overwhelming response to this book is don't bother.

Life, we are told, is short and its pace fast, as a reader one can admit there is an argument that can be made that given the finite number of books that one will read one has good reason to be careful of what one chooses to read. And I can see no way in which this book would make the cut unless one found oneself marooned on an island with only one or two books available. In my opinion this book is sadly neither bad enough to read for amusement value, nor good enough even allowing for a discordant range of ideological standpoints to be worthy of ones time.

Partly this is because she does have a specific ideological and historiographical point to make; that Totalitarianism is a valid and useful concept for understanding the period, however she doesn't make that front and centre of her presentation or allow it to drive the book as though she lacks the courage of her convictions. I feel myself that this is a bit of a strawman or Aunt Sally, as the opposite conviction seems to me too ridiculous to be taken seriously and five hundred pages of lobbing coconuts at poor aunt Sally is a bit much I'm not that sadistic - although having said that in the context of the USA, occasionally I do notice the idea that the universe orbits that country which is to be properly understood, depending on your ideological conviction, either as the instrument of a benevolent God in the world, or the Chomsyite view as the single source of all evil. As a non-US person I hold to the vile heresy that the USA is simply a country and a state like all others and that other parts of the world occasionally do act in accordance to their own internal dynamic - yea even unto a regional scale. And having said that I can't help but feel that an overly Totalitarian interpretation rather plays into the propaganda of the period, it leads me to think of Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman, we loose a lot of understanding by elevating leaders into idols.

Really I find that she needs to refine her core idea, then rewrite the book to actually support her argument, along the way it would help to reduce an indifferent Meh response or an amused Duh! if she thought about what she was writing. For example at one point in describing the new steel towns built in Poland (Nowa Huta), Germany (Eisenhüttenstadt) and Hungary (Dunaujvaros) she says that they were Gold Rush towns, perhaps I'm simply irritable but it seems to me the reader either has an understanding of what a Gold Rush town is like or that person ought not be reading grown up books, in which case we don't need a detailed point by point description - she could in theory cut to the chase and tell us the significance to her argument of these towns, and reduce the length of her book considerably - I feel she would struggle to do so, because what I observed reading her book is that she is not marshalling facts as a lawyer might before a judge and jury to build a case but simply dumping a pile of 'Soviet domination of Eastern Europe wasn't nice' in the readers lap which is true, but not a particularly interesting (or shocking) observation.

A number of times I wondered if she had ever been to Europe, or while there had her eyes open, particularly when she discussed the built environment. Across Europe you can read the built environment backwards like a book - the scale and the type of building indicates the type of demand and urgency in meeting it at the time of construction. No doubt better quality housing than the Plattenbau could have been provided, but if you take the dominant styles reflected in cities across western Europe in to account then it is plainly only a variation on a type, not a unique demonstration of Stalinist inhumanity revealed in its provision of functional mass housing.

She has a blind eye for the ideology implicit or unconscious in society, seeing only the conformity that can be imposed from above, not that implied into or aspired towards in all societies. In fact she'd explicitly view my point as Marxist. But it seems to me that you can't for example view the boy scouts as non-ideological simply because one is used to them or likes them. There are a wealth of ideological assumptions simply underlying the idea that it is a desirable and good part of a child's socialisation to spend their leisure time marching, singing, putting up tents and burning food over open fires, and a range of sociological and economic assumptions underlying the presumption that children and their families won't or can't do those things without an external organisation, even before explicitly political issues enter into things such as who may and who may not be a member of such an organisation and what it's stance on questions of ecology and gender might be. I reminded myself once or twice that in a US context to be non-partisan is good, and maybe such a consideration led her to ignore the politics of civil society.

Equally patriotism for her is simply good and non-controversial, yet the notion of Patria strikes me as quite complex - what are the limits to your Patria, who belongs and who doesn't. It is a pity that she doesn't explore this since the inter-war Eastern European states were generally 'imperial' in that one nation consisted the political majority which dominated over the state while minority groups were either marginalised or occupied distinct economic or social niches, while the states of the Soviet empire aspired to create a homo Sovieticus ( a point she gives over a chapter to) and she gives over pages to the fierce partisan warfare between Poles and Ukrainians at the close of the war. Patriotism isn't simple - what does it mean to be Polish or Ukrainian? What does it mean to assert that Vilnus was historically a Polish city, when for much of its recent history its population was mainly Jewish iirc 80% Jewish before the Holocaust? Equally it is all well and good to make a song and dance about the westward shift of Poland's post 1945 borders but Appelbaum doesn't acknowledge that those western and eastern frontiers of Poland in 1918 were determined by men with guns and right of conquest, one could with varying amounts of justice and injustice have moved them further in or out.

The sub title "The crushing of Eastern Europe", is perhaps telling since after six years of war one might legitimately ask what was there to be crushed? Given her text and argument 'The rebuilding of Eastern Europe' would have made more sense but presumably might have been taken as too positive in its connotations. And with a little knowledge and peaking through the edges of her text in places one can say that the inter-war states of eastern Europe weren't that great. It's a big assertion when she only discusses Poland, Hungary and east Germany in any case. She's a huge believer in civil society, but inter-war civil society wasn't always so civil, there was anti-Semitism, if there were elections, suffrage was limited, certain groups were excluded not necessarily through formal means - one might note that even though these countries had most peasant economies that peasant parties didn't dominate the political life of those inter-war states. She describes them as having been Capitalist, which I think stretches the definition of the word, they were market economies but with the exception of the Bohemian part of Czechoslovakia, mostly typified by small scale production and not deeply integrated into the world economy,and during the 1930s eastern Europe was increasingly tied into dependency on to the German economy.

In the last couple of pages she mentions the disappearance of churches and entire religious groups under communism, and while I have no doubt that Poland and Hungary are less religious possibly that in the 1920s, that is probably also true of France. It is the position of the Churches in US life which is curious from a European perspective. Indeed in some countries the existence of the Church is not so much a marker of an independent civil society but instead one can see a continuity of ideology from church into state. To an extent Applebaum's book simply ends up reflecting issues that were widespread in the 1950s, ie that societies were conformist, repressive, and required self censorship, were rebuilding, that youth culture was regarded as suspicious and problematic, nervous and jittery, while not picking out much that was unique to Poland and Hungary beyond attempts to repress the Catholic Church, nor allowing that US perspectives are US perspectives rather than universal laws, nor does she draw out the nuances which counter her argument about Totalitarianism - ie when the subject states ended up at times more Stalinist than Stalin which is about as painful as it sounds. Reading, events from the 1953 disturbances in East Germany to the Hungarian spring in 1956 came over as telescoped together with Stalin's death, rather than events spread out over almost two years - when as has been noticed - a week is a long time in politics.

She's completely soft on the role of the wartime allies, both in playing politics over which resistance groups they prepared to back, and the Imperialist carve up at Yalta, and the whole business of the Suez Crisis. I think anybody could extrapolate the content of this book from Ashes and Diamonds and "La Dolce Vita" with an appreciation of Imperialism. Her final cri de coeur that we have to understand the destruction of Eastern Europe to be able to rebuild it, is apart from being late, I would say unproven. The more relevant question I fear is how far was the Second World war a complete caesura, and how far can the authoritarian politics dominant in Hungary for example, be seen as a continuity of the uneven political and social development since I don't know when. I apologise for the lack of spoilers in this review


reading notes
One needn't have read Pirandello's "The accidental death of Jan Masyrak", indeed with a little knowledge of Czech history one might feel it was intrinsically reckless for politicians there to get too close to windows
preface describing the Polish women's league "not in charitable, patriotic terms, but using political ideological language"p xxii - so in Applebaum's weltanschauung patriotism is neither political nor ideological!
no feel for attraction of communism in the context as society capable of resistance and rebuilding
soft on the relationship between allies and resistance - ie allies were playing politics too against communist resistance
if church and government are hand in glove can one legitimately view the church as element of civil society?
boy scouts as civil society! Not how they were intended!
charity assumes an entire social structure behind it like amateurism in athletics
soft on inter-war governments
hard on planned elements of soviet take over, time scale though indicates they were pushed by events
what about interior drive to totalitarianism why did it work as an ideology for SU?
p163 discussion of groups in civil societies from Burke and de Tocqueville cites Lenin/ Communist view that no organisation can be apolitical as illustrating ideological gulf. But conformity? And really can any group be apolitical in a society which has politics consider the issues around membership of boy scouts in USA probably since this book was published!

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hand of History

There are not many jokes in communism. Actually that’s not quite true. A case could be made that communism itself was a massive joke, except those living under it dared not laugh, or laugh only at their personal peril. All humour in what used to be called the Eastern Bloc was inevitably of a subversive nature. For as George Orwell wrote, a thing is funny when it upsets the established order; that every joke is a tiny revolution. The revolutionaries did not want revolution; they wanted total conformity.

Have you ever been in a situation, or a place, say a church or a library, where something struck you as funny? It may not be all that funny on later reflection but just try to contain a laugh when it wants to explode!

I’ve been reading Anne Applebaum’s masterly Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-56, a follow up to her equally masterly Gulag: a History of the Soviet Camps. There are not many laughs in that, you may think. But you are wrong. I’m not at all sure I could have survived the dull curtain of monotony that descended on Eastern Europe after 1945 for one simple reason – I have an acute sense of humour.

You see, I would have been overcome with explosive fits of laughter over the shear earnest pettiness of it all. Imagine going in to a bookshop and seeing children’s titles like Six-Year-Old Bronek and the Six Year Plan. You leave quickly, only to have your senses assaulted by a propaganda hoarding. There it is, just across the street, boldly announcing “Every artificially inseminated pig is a blow to capitalist imperialism!” Your lips are tightly closed; the laughter is escaping like steam under pressure. You don’t want to be seen so you turn away to look at the latest civic art, only to be confronted by a painting entitled “The technology and organisation of cattle slaughter.” Was the Berlin Wall really brought down, I wonder, by a great outburst of laughter? Sorry, I should write the Anti-Fascist Protection Wall, to give its official title.

Yes, there is humour in the story but the bigger picture is altogether bleak. In picturing the history of communism in Eastern Europe I see a façade, eaten hollow from within by termites. In the end the whole thing simply collapsed under its inherent contradictions, to borrow a piece of cherished Marxist terminology.

Let’s be absolutely clear about one thing: for people in places like Poland, particularly Poland, the Second World War did not end in 1945. The immediate joy of ‘liberation’ simply gave way to an understanding that a new occupation had taken hold, one that was to last for decades.

The expression ‘Iron Curtain’ did not originate with Winston Churchill but it was he who was to give it greatest resonance in speech delivered in Fulton, Missouri in March, 1946;

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.

Applebaum sets out her stall quickly. She refuses to entertain the revisionist view that the imposition of communism throughout Central and Eastern Europe after 1945 was a countermove to American policy at the start of what was to become the Cold War. No, the importation of a Soviet-style system was a deliberate ideological move, all part of the greater revolutionary good. As she quite rightly says, there was a template already in place for this in the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940, states that had been consigned to Stalin under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

So far as Stalin was concerned there were also foreign policy advantages. The new communist satrapies acted as a buffer zone in a period of growing East West tension. More specifically, an independent Poland would clearly have been a major political embarrassment to the Soviets, doubtless demanding the return of those territories in the east of the country seized by Stalin in 1939 as part of his satanic bargain with Hitler. For Poland it was a bleak choice between extinction and communism.

As always the road to hell begins with noble intentions. Alongside the cynical little Stalins, who had spent years licking the boots of their Master in Moscow, there were genuine idealists, people who believed in the lie. They came as self-perceived liberators, ready to free the working classes from capitalist exploitation. They expected to be welcomed in their establishment of a brave new world. Unfortunately for them it had real people in it.

The truth came quickly; the truth came in Poland. In 1946 the people decisively rejected a communist-backed referendum. Perplexed, the government rejected the people, concluding that they had acted in “some kind of incomprehensible spirit of resistance and complete ignorance.”

Here I immediately fast forwarded to the events of June, 1953 in East Berlin, the first serious uprising against imposed communist rule. Bertolt Brecht, the playwright, had hitherto served as the German Democratic Republic’s tame intellectual and court poet. But even he had enough, offering comment on the worker state’s suppression of the workers in his poem The Solution;

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

That would seem to serve as the very definition of the so-called People’s Democracies. In the place of real people came a hollow cardboard illusion.

Applebaum is splendid in her treatment of the high politics, in her description of the appalling stooges who reproduced the bleak apparatus of Stalinism in their respective spheres of influence: personality cults, purges, camps, bogus trials, the whole depressing paraphernalia. She also offers a description of the corrosive effects of communism on everyday life. Any kind of personal or free expression, even in the most minor forms of liberty, was excised. Popular consciousness was filled with the state and nothing but the state. One small example serves here. The scout movement was banned as were all other private societies. In 1950 in Poland a seventeen-year-old girl met with friends from a former troop. All were arrested and given jail sentences of two to five years.

Iron Curtain is a splendid piece of work, witty, perceptive, thoroughly researched and superbly written. I was impressed enough to consider it the most important book I’ve read this year, one that will make a lasting contribution to our understanding of this period in history, a tragedy on which the final curtain has thankfully fallen. My main criticism concerns the title. It’s not a comprehensive history of Eastern Europe between 1944 and 1956, as the title misleadingly suggests, but principally a history of three countries behind the Curtain – Poland, East Germany and Hungary. There is next to nothing on places like Romania, where the whole communist experiment eventually descended to the most degenerate form.

Don’t let that bother you. The history we are given is first class, a journey into a heart of darkness. Iron Curtain is a book that is scholarly and accessible, free of all condescension while losing nothing in the telling. It’s a commendable achievement. I felt both exhilarated at deflated at the end, especially after reading about the brutal suppression of the 1956 anti-communist rising in Hungary, which proved to all who were not blind that the liberation of 1945 was nothing but a lie. I was exhilarated by the narrative and deflated by the fate of some of our fellow Europeans, to whom history had dealt such a poor hand.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

A well researched book but ultimately, a major disappointment. The author is connected with the neoconservative Legatum Institute as well as high ranking elements in the Polish establishment so if you are looking for a balanced account of Europe behind the Iron Curtain, you shouldn't look for it here. Problems include:

- a narrow focus that concentrates only on the immediate postwar period as well as just three countries, East Germany, Hungary and Poland

- a failure to acknowledge that barmy as the communist system in central Europe was, its instigators weren't all cynical sociopaths like Stalin and that some of them were making an honest attempt to rectify society's inequalities

- a too cosy appraisal of the regimes' opposing forces - fine in the case of dissidents and intellectuals but not in the case of the highly conservative clergy nor the freemasons - both are portrayed as angelic forces and not since Boycey in Only Fools and Horses have the latter received such rave reviews

- the shooting down of easy targets such as Soviet realist architecture (has she ever been to Milton Keynes or Sarcelles?), societal malfunction (should we regard Detroit or Kinshasa as 'typical' of capitalism per se ?) and the lack of 'freedom' (what about Guantanamo Bay?)

- little mention of the catastrophic shock therapy that followed on from the fall of the Berlin Wall - outside the scope of the book perhaps but it needs mentioning to put things in perspective

The sub-Hayekian hectoring quickly becomes tiring and one suspects that some gullible publisher was strong armed into releasing this as a trade book when what we need is an even handed view of the entire 40+ years of Communism in the Soviet client states of Eastern Europe.

[Maciek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Applebaum is a journalist and author of Gulag: A History, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004. She has written for many papers and publications, and was a foreign correspondent for The Economist in the late 1980's, when she covered the societal and political changes happening in Eastern Europe. She is married to Radosław Sikorski, Poland's former minister of foreign affairs, and is now a Polish citizen.

Iron Curtain is a well-researched and important book which seeks to answer the question: what happened in central and Eastern Europe immediately after World War 2? How did a number of countries, all ethnically and culturally very different, adopt the same, foreign ideology? How did communist parties - never very popular before the war - suddenly found themselves in position of unchallenged power?

The answer lies in the overwhelming presence of the Red Army. As the soldiers marched towards Berlin, the rest of the allies became aware that there would be no stopping them from eventually dominating the entire part of the continent east of the city. Although post-war agreements allowed only for free and unfettered elections, they were quickly proven to be worthless as elections and referendums were blatantly falsified, and pro-Soviet puppet governments were installed (sometimes without even pretending to hide the fact - Poland's Defence Minister was a Soviet General named Konstantin Rokossovsky). The allies did not want to challenge an overwhelming military presence and start another world war; in the words of president Roosevelt there was little point in opposing Stalin as he had the power to take what he wanted, and it was better to give in to him gracefully. This included not only placing Eastern Europe firmly under Soviet domination, but an enlargement of the Soviet Union itself at the expense of the Baltic States, Poland and Romania. The European people will simply have to endure Russian domination, he infamously said in a private conversation with Cardinal Spellman of New York before the conferences, in the hope that in ten or twenty years they will be able to live well with the Russians.

Applebaum's book is divided into two parts. The first, False Dawn, covers the years of immediate post-war chaos - chaos which was greatly exploited by the Red Army. While it is undoubtedly true that it was the Red Army which provided crucial in defeating Nazi Germany and suffered the biggest loses, it also committed massive looting and rape as it moved westward - which Stalin famously dismissed as soldiers reacting to horrors of war by "having fun with wenches and taking some trifle". While there was no order to conduct sexual violence towards civilians or POWs, little was made to stop it; both Soviet officials and soldiers treated everything they could get their hands on as trophy which should rightfully be theirs. As they lay in ruins, Germany and other Axis countries were also made to pay war "reparations", which included taking resources and stripping both private and state property from anything valuable and transferring it to the Soviet Union. Entire industries have been dismantled and moved eastward; factories literally disappeared, sometimes along with workers. Not only Axis countries were affected: Poland, which has not only not been an Axis country but has never collaborated with Nazi Germany, was also made to pay "reparations" and had its factories, train tracks and trains dismantled and taken away - on the excuse of the factories and other property being "German property", despite them never having German owners. The Soviet Union did defeat Nazi Germany and suffered the worst loss of human life of all allied nations - but also asked a terrible price for its victory, which had to be paid and paid and paid.

The book's second part is titled High Stalinism, and covers institutional and societal changes and radical ideological transformation of entire nations in the newly formed Soviet bloc. These nations have been culturally and ethnically distinct before the war and have never been unified in any way previously; yet after the war they found themselves being shaped into an ideologically and politically homogeneous region, with their national autonomy systematically dismantled, free flow of information and free expression suppressed, and their media, culture and education tightly controlled and moderated. Independent political opposition ceased to exist - anticommunist right-wing parties have been dismantled, as was the non-communist left; any potential opposition inside the communist party itself has been eliminated. Independent organizations have been dissolved and replaced by state-run mass organizations, which would serve at strengthening party propaganda, which would ideally encompass all aspects of society.

The theme of daily life in a world controlled by constant propaganda and its impact on human psyche is a topic of its own, and is explored in greater depth by Polish Nobel-winning poet and author Czesław Miłosz in his The Captive Mind - a must read for anyone interested in the subject.

The subtitle of Iron Curtain might be a bit misleading - while it refers to Eastern Europe, it focuses mainly on Germany, Poland and Hungary, with occasional references to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. These three countries had very different histories and experiences, both before and during the war - but they all had much closer ties to Western Europe than they did to Soviet Russia, and there was little in their history or culture which would automatically destine them to become totalitarian states. Applebaum studies case after case of political and social repression which radically transformed these countries into Soviet satellites: the subjugation of churches and the clergy, the state takeover of youth organization and the media, the campaigns waged against private enterprise. There are many personal stories in this book - many coming from personal interviews conducted by the author.

This is by no means a definite work concerning the origins and development of communism in Europe - such a work would be numbered in volumes, not pages, and would require a comprehensive overview of history of the Soviet Union itself, about which we read very little. It would also be necessary to include a more comprehensive views of many other countries, most notably Yugoslavia (whose leader, Josip Broz Tito famously defied Stalin which resulted in sour relations until the latter's death), and Romania - whom history has cruelly given a leader so despotic that he might have outdone Stalin himself in his eccentricities. There is still much to write about this subject, and even more to read - but for anyone interested in the post-war development of Central Europe Iron Curtain will certainly prove a title worth reading.

[Alex Givant · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a kid in Soviet school they told us Russian troops brought peace and prosperity to Eastern Europe countries and I believed in it, but what 13-14 years old in totalitarian society could know.

Later I read lot of stuff and now I see picture much clearer: we brought misery and raping to these countries. First our soldiers (not all of them, but enough to discard it as one-off) raped women in all countries they liberated.

Then came more dangerous predators: politicians. They raped not a single woman, but whole country or block of countries at once. It's done on much deeper level that just physical humiliation: political, fate, religions, freedom of expression. They molested kids in youth organization, indoctrinated people with love to Big Brother. If people didn't like it - they put those in labor camps (including Russian Gulag).

I knew about Hungarian 1956 and Prague 1968, but this book talk about other events as well. Please do yourself a favor, read this book to understand how totalitarian regime works.

[zed · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The best work of modern history I have ever read" says A N Wilson on the cover. The cover praise is gushing as we get "masterpiece" from Oliver Kamm and "at last the story can be told" by Orlando Figes. I have to say that I have come out of this book extremely disappointed and for many reasons.

The best work of modern history is as ridiculous a comment and as to Masterpiece? Evans Reich trilogy just kills this book for the sheer brilliance of the telling of the subject as opposed to a limited focus on 3 nations and a constant dose of wide eyed polemic mixed in. As to the story being finaly being told the story has been told countless times and if it was all new why the extensive bibliography?

There is no denying the appalling struggles with totalitarian communist regimes that the masses were forced to endure in the eastern parts of Europe after the fall of Nazi Germany. The vast humanity that had endured Nazi suffering deserved better but that does not make this book with its wide eyed and bushy tailed presentation any better.
Lets take the chapter on Ethnic Cleansing as an example. Russian soldiers treated the German civilians appallingly no doubt but the author seems shocked at times. Why? Had not the Germans just committed atrocity after atrocity on Russian civilians, not only with the gun but by starvation and many other means? Did the author expect some charity? How naive!

The many examples of badly written prose is for me rather astonishing. Lets take this statement about travel. "According to the Interior Ministry statistics, only 9360 crossed the border for any reason in 1951, of whom only 1980 were travelling to capitalist countries" Well yes. We are reading about a country ravished by WW2 that not too far forward is a poverty stricken totalitarian regime with controls over the populace. But what we get a couple of aghast "only"s as if the then Polish government was going to conform to modern western freedom of travel.

The final chapter, Revolutions, finishes with a polemic on everyone being wrong. This is not a writing on history at all and is out of place as to what the chapter should have been about. And as to the Epilogue I just wonder the point. I want history, not another polemic aimed at a modern reader who still seems to think that there is a red menace out there. I mean do others who have praised this book really in their heart feel that the eastern European countries were particularly liberal prior to Nazi and Communist takeovers after 1939 as implied by the author? Free trade does not by itself make Poland, to use as an example, a liberal nation prior to 1939.

This book is as big a failure as I have read in a long time. The gushing praise just had me salivating but I am left very wanting. There must be better books on this subject than this, a book that to me is just a journalistic pursuit aimed at making a western audience reading the Murdoch Press and watching Fox News somehow think that their very way of life is till under attack.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bulgarian review is first, the English translation follows it below

”Човешките същества не се превръщат толкова лесно в “тоталитарни личности”.”

”Преди една нация да бъде възстановена, нейните членове първо трябва да разберат как тя е била унищожена: как институциите й са били подкопани, как езикът ѝ е бил изкривен, как хората ѝ са били манипулирани. Те трябва да знаят всички детайли, а не само общите теории, и трябва да чуят индивидуалните истории, а не обобщенията за масите.”

“[…] една неприятна истина за човешката природа: ако достатъчно на брой хора са достатъчно мотивирани и са подкрепени от достатъчно ресурси и сила, биха могли да разрушат стари и изглеждащи непоклатими правни, политически, образователни и религиозни институции, понякога завинаги. И ако едно гражданско общество може да бъде толкова дълбоко увредено при народи, различни като историческо развитие и богати като културно наследство като тези от Източна Европа, това би могло да се случи навсякъде. Ако не друго, историята на следвоенната сталинизация доказва колко крехка всъщност е нашата цивилизация.”

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Една салфетка (ако легендата за използването ѝ от Чърчил и Сталин е вярна) решава съдбата на следвоенна Европа: Изтокът за Москва, Западът - за САЩ, Великобритания и останалите западни победители във втората световна война. И ето ни през 2025 г. - все още несъвзели се от салфетката, а вече се оформя нова такава…

Ан Апълбаум с много съчувствие и фактологичност се опитва да отговори на централния въпрос - как тоталитаризмът поглъща относително (къде повече, къде по-малко) свободни или поне динамични граждански общества, и ги трансформира в унифицирана, пасивна, безгласна маса. Единственото цветно петно остават пропагандните плакати за светлото комунистическо бъдеще. За целта годините 1944 - 1949 г. са изключително показателни.

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Стъпките за овладяване са ясни и прегледни и включват:

✔️ армия, която да е под ръка и в състояние да смаже мигновено всеки знак за съпротива. Червената армия отговаря на условието, а и не храни симпатии към гнилия Запад;

✔️ ключови властови позиции, дадени на московски комунисти, като местните такива са изтикани на втори ред, да не пречат на централната линия;

✔️ терор за всички несъгласни и разполагащи с някакво влияние (или оръжие), и безотчетни и всесилни тайни служби;

✔️ тотална цензура, овладяване и централизация на всички медии;

✔️ премахване на всички граждански неправителствени сдружения и организации и замяната им с централно управлявани държавни съюзи за индоктриниране (детски, спорт, профсъюзни, културни, че и религиозни).

Тези стъпки са планомерно и последователно приложени, в резултат на което всички източноевропейски държави, стартирали доста хаотично и различно в руините на втората световна война - през 1949 г. са вече завършили трансформацията си в тоталитарни държави от сталинистки тип.

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Ан Апълбаум е стеснила значително дефиницията си за Източна Европа. Всъщност подзаглавието е подвеждащо - става дума единствено за част от Централна Европа, и то най-вече за Полша, с добър съпътстващ обзор на Унгария и Източна Германия (ГДР). Ако някой очаква да научи нещо за останалите страни от бившия източен лагер, ще трябва да си потърси друга книга. (България се споменава единствено като “най-покорна”, с изключение само на екзекутирания Никола Петков.) Което ми се вижда голяма загуба, но авторката вероятно се е съсредоточила там, където изследванията ѝ са най-задълбочени и подробни. Фактологията и явленията са до голяма стелен познати на всички източноевропейци, макар да не се припокриват изцяло.

В този централноевропейски “преглед” Апълбаум очертава стъпка по стъпка промяната от потенциално градивно гражданско общество към сива безлична маса. Доколкото материалът ѝ е позволил, тя изследва - не на последно място и чрез куп лични истории - трансформирането на гражданина и индивида в homo sovieticus. В изследването е отчетена съвсем трезво силата на марксистката идеология и мечтата за социално равенство (която крушира в изкуствена уравниловка с провалена икономика), както и историческите параметри на епохата и човешката природа. Затова и нарисуваната картина е доста универсална, макар и не изцяло. Явленията “социалистическа култура”, “социалистическа инономика”, “социалистическа архитектура” и - ужас на ужасите - “социалистически реализъм” и “социалистическа наука” добиват много отчетливи контури.

По отношение на хронологията - унгарските “събития” от 1956 г. изскачат някак неочаквано чак в последната глава. Годините на изследване свършват реално до 1950 г. И ако някой се чуди как над 400 страници могат да покрият само 5-6 години и реално само 3 държави - всъщност биха могли да се изпишат поне още 400… Апълбаум пише увлекателно, точно, ясно, предимно безпристрастно, но с чувство. Страниците навеждат на много размисли и съпоставки, а и има куп интересни събития и обществени явления - интересни за 2025 г, защото за щастие са отминали, но за нещастие може пък тяхна по-технологизиране версия тепърва да предстои…

Та пак се сещам за Черноризец Храбър от 9 век - “Голи са без книги всички народи и готови са за плена на вечната мъка.” Тъжното е, че и той звучи много съвременно.

А отговорността за собствената национална съдба иска къртовски труд, истина, справедливост - и познание. За разлика от пропагандата, която е лесна и бърза, без да изпитва никакви съмнения.

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”В резултат на пораженията върху цивилизацията посткомунистическите страни се нуждаят от много повече от простото възстановяване на институциите […] на “демокрацията" — избори, политически кампании и политически партии, за да станат отново истински функциониращи либерални общества. Те трябва да създадат или възстановят независими медии, частно предприемачество и правна система, която да го подкрепя, образователна система, освободена от пропаганда, и граждански служби, в които издигането да бъде за талантливите, а не за онези, които са идеологически коректни. Най-успешните посткомунистически държави са онези, които са успели да запазят някакви елементи на гражданското общество по времето на комунизма. Това никак не е случайно.”

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Западногерманци наблюдават падането на секция от Берлинската стена през 1989 г., докато източногерманските граничари я прерязват

“Human beings do not acquire ‘totalitarian personalities’ with such ease.”

“Before a nation can be rebuilt, its citizens need to understand how it was destroyed in the first place: how its institutions were undermined, how its language was twisted, how its people were manipulated. They need to know particular details, not general theories, and they need to hear individual stories, not generalizations about the masses.”

“[...] “an unpleasant truth about human nature: if enough people are sufficiently determined, and if they are backed by adequate resources and force, then they can destroy ancient and apparently permanent legal, political, educational and religious institutions, sometimes for good. And if civil society could be so deeply damaged in nations as disparate, as historic and as culturally rich as those of Eastern Europe, then it can be similarly damaged anywhere. If nothing else, the history of postwar Stalinization proves just how fragile ‘civilization’ can turn out to be.”

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A single napkin (if the legend of Churchill and Stalin’s "Percentages Agreement" is to be believed) decided the fate of postwar Europe: the East for Moscow, the West for the USA, Great Britain, and the other victors. Here we are in 2026—still not fully recovered from that napkin, while a new one is already being drafted...

Anne Applebaum, with great empathy and factual precision, attempts to answer a central question: how does totalitarianism swallow relatively free (to varying degrees) or at least dynamic civil societies and transform them into a unified, passive, and voiceless mass? The only spots of color remaining are the propaganda posters of a "bright communist future." The years 1944–1949 are particularly telling in this regard.

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The steps for seizing control are clear and systematic:

An army: Ever-present and capable of instantly crushing any sign of resistance. The Red Army fit the bill perfectly, harboring zero sympathy for the "decadent West."

Key power positions: Reserved for Moscow-trained communists, while local communists were pushed to the second tier to avoid interference with the central line.

Terror: For all dissenters or those with any influence (or weapons), backed by unaccountable and omnipotent secret services.

Total censorship: Seizing control and centralizing all media outlets.

Dissolving civil society: Removing all NGOs and replacing them with state-controlled unions for indoctrination (youth, sports, trade unions, culture, and even religion).

By 1949, countries that had started chaotically amidst the ruins of WWII had completed their transformation into Stalinist-style totalitarian states.

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Applebaum narrows her definition of "Eastern Europe" significantly. The subtitle is somewhat misleading; the book primarily focuses on parts of Central Europe—specifically Poland, with excellent overviews of Hungary and East Germany (GDR). If one hopes to learn about the rest of the Eastern Bloc, they will need another book. (Bulgaria is mentioned only as the "most submissive," with the sole exception of the executed Nikola Petkov.) This feels like a loss, but the author clearly focused where her research was most profound.

Step by step, Applebaum outlines the degradation of a constructive civil society into a grey, anonymous mass. Through numerous personal stories, she explores the transformation of the individual into homo sovieticus. She soberly accounts for the power of Marxist ideology and the dream of social equality (which eventually crashed into artificial egalitarianism and a failed economy). The concepts of "socialist culture," "socialist economy," and the horror of "socialist realism" take on very distinct contours here.
In terms of chronology, the Hungarian "events" of 1956 appear somewhat unexpectedly in the final chapter, as the core research ends around 1950. Applebaum writes engagingly and clearly, with a sense of impartial but felt conviction. Her pages invite deep reflection and comparison—especially relevant in 2026 because while these events are in the past, a more technologically advanced version of them might yet lie ahead.

I am reminded of the medieval Bulgarian scholar Chernorizets Hrabar from the 9th century: “Naked are all nations without books, and they are ready for the captivity of eternal sorrow.” It is tragic how modern he sounds today.

Taking responsibility for one's national destiny requires Herculean effort, truth, justice—and knowledge. Unlike propaganda, which is easy and fast, never burdened by doubt.

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“As a result of this damage, post-communist countries required far more than the bare institutions of ‘democracy’ – elections, political campaigns and political parties – to become functioning liberal societies again. They also had to create or re-create independent media, private enterprise and a legal system to support it, an educational system free of propaganda and a civil service where promotions are given for talent, not for ideological correctness. The most successful post-communist states are those which managed to preserve some elements of civil society throughout the communist period. This is not an accident.”

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West Germans watch as a section of the Berlin Wall falls in 1989, while East German border guards cut through it.

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Anne Applebaum had written 'Iron Curtain' at the height of the revisionist '70s and '80s, she'd be dismissed as an acolyte of Richard Pipes. After two decades of opened files in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European satellite states, however, we know that the traditionalist Western view of 'High Stalinism' was more or less correct. Even giving post-war socialist striving its due, the Stalinist form of Central European consolidation was almost as depraved as the commie-hunters of the '50s claimed. The problem was not so much the brutality of late-period Stalinism - plenty of people died, to be sure, but only a shadow of the number during the famines and Great Terror of the 1930s. The problem was the constant lying to self and others in trying to believe in the type of state that could never really exist under centrally-planned socialism of the Stalinist variety.

Applebaum is at her best when she gives us the same kind of review of daily life under 1950s Eastern Europe Stalinism that Orlando Figes gave us in 'The Whisperers,' his excellent study of the USSR in the 1930s. There is a direct sense of clinging to the false as a desperate attempt to find something to believe in after the utter devastation of society in World War 2. And the supporters of centralist Stalinism appear at their most devious not in crushing political opponents or in controlling the workplace, but in their fervent desire to crush any type of civil society whatsoever - even chess clubs and YMCA outlets. This is why Stalinism was so similar to Falangist fascism - "All supporting the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state" is one of the most depraved concepts of modern government developed in the past century. The notion reaches its most absurd levels when Applebaum relays the lyrics to 'The Party is Always Right,' but of course there is no joke intended in this particular song.

Still, the book can drag a bit in those cultural-life reviews. There are times in the critiques of modern-art formalism and descriptions of 'Homo Sovieticus' when the attention can wander. In general, however, Applebaum is a great writer who makes her analyses come alive.

My bigger complaint is that the book cannot be comprehensive because it chooses to focus on Poland, East Germany, and Hungary. It's understandable that Applebaum wanted to make her subject manageable. Putting aside Yugoslavia may have been necessary because Tito was such a special case. But Romania and Bulgaria are unknowns to many in the West, and a better study of their cultural specifics would have been nice. The bigger loss, though, is Czechoslovakia. The brutal nature of the 1948 coup, and the special circumstances leading up to the 1968 Czech Spring, virtually demand a better coverage of that nation.

Other elements of the book seem hurried. Applebaum spends plenty of time in the 18 months of displaced hell following World War 2, which is very worthy considering the paucity of research in that period. But why breeze over the show trials of 1949-50 so quickly? Why spend so little time looking into the bizarre role played by U.S. citizen Noel Field? A little more balance in what was and was not covered would have made this a better book.

Still, this is a decent analysis about a terrible time in history that is not studied carefully and seriously enough. The holes in Applebaum's study might justify a sequel book to study the Southern European states of Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.

[Mikey B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Page 174 (my book, Polish radio announcer Andrzej Zalewski)

One winter day, I stupidly wrote in the text of the script, “There is a cold atmospheric front approaching us from Russia.” The broadcaster read it aloud … in the morning they phoned me: “Go and see the director.” I went to see the director and was ushered in right away: “Zalewski,” he told me, “I thought you were more intelligent. From now on, remember only warm, good things come from the East.” It didn’t seem funny at the time…

This book focuses primarily on East Germany, Poland, and Hungary. The other Iron Curtain countries get only a passing glance.

The author, Anne Applebaum, clearly points out how these countries were in a complete apocalypse at the ending of the Second World War in Europe. Poland had its intellectual elite eliminated. No education was provided for the Polish population during the long German years of brutal occupation.

The climb back to a semblance of civilized society was to be a long one – and it was to be under Stalin’s terms. There was an ethnic cleansing of Poles, Ukrainians, and Germans. In Poland and Ukraine there were roving armed groups intent on asserting their independence from either Poland or Russia.

Page 124

In all, some 12 million Germans left Eastern Europe in the postwar period and settled in both East and West Germany.

Page 133

By 1950, not much remained of multi-ethnic Eastern Europe… In the end, most deported Germans went to Germany, Poles went to Poland, and Ukrainians could go to Soviet Ukraine.

Any opposition was repressed with thousands of political prisoners, and a huge police force supervised by Russia’s NKVD with thousands of informers. No one knew who one could trust. It was much like the novels of George Orwell – “Animal Farm” and “1984”.

I felt the writing in the latter half of the book became belaboured and tedious. For example, the author goes on about conformity, but the same could be said of western countries in the 1950’s with the McCarthy era and the ostracism of the new Beat generation. She also dwells over many pages on the sloganeering of workers for higher production outputs which reminded me of the reward plaques that I keep seeing in fast-food and coffee franchises for the “employee of the month”. She was on firmer ground when providing examples of the severe punishments, like imprisonment, for those who transgressed. Also, she describes the extensive privileges given to those at the upper government echelons.

There were times when I felt the author was disappointed that the Western powers did not declare war on the Soviet Union in May 1945 to prevent the assimilation of Eastern Europe. She is somewhat jaded about some of the accomplishments attained in educational levels in Eastern Europe which were abysmal in 1945.

Nevertheless, we do see the repression and subservience that existed to Moscow.

[Lauren]

▫️IRON CURTAIN: The Crushing of Eastern Europe by Anne Applebaum, 2012.

Leaning in heavy to my history shelves, specifically the books that have been sitting there for a (long) spell. Planned to just flip through and get a feel... And then I was entrenched and read it all in one week.

Applebaum's doorstopper is a surprisingly accessible history of three "Soviet bloc" states: Poland, Hungary, and East Germany (GDR/DDR) from 1944-1956.

She delves into the politics of each state, making a clear distinction that these countries are not a "bloc" or monolith, each with differing cultures, languages, and histories shaped by imperialism, geography, and access to resources. Chapters focus on the government leaders, the role of media in Communist propaganda & dissent, educational reforms, economics & industrialization, city planning & architecture, and hints at the future beyond the 1956 scope.

By limiting to this immediate post-War period, the focus is primarily on Stalinist regimes, the "Little Stalins" leaders who patterned their country's governments on Moscow. Pushing her scope to 1956 also gives a small peek of what happened in Hungary, Poland, and East Germany after Stalin's death in 1953 and the impending revolutions of the latter half of the 20th century.

While Applebaum's own right-of-center strokes come out in some synthesis statements, the majority of the book focuses on archival research + interviews / oral histories.

The scope is already SO broad with these three state focuses, but I do hope to follow up with some readings on Czech, Yugoslav, and Romanian histories of this era too. While briefly mentioned in this text (& limited resources mentioned in the notes and bibliography) I was hoping for more on these regions as well - of course, that would have liked turned the book into an encyclopedia set...

Many paths to follow up on here; Recommendations welcome.

If you're interested in a comprehensive political/economic + cultural history of Eastern Europe in this era, this is a worthy addition to the shelf.

[Nikos Tsentemeidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Άλλο ένα εξαιρετικό βιβλίο ιστορίας από τις εκδόσεις Αλεξάνδρεια.

Αυτό που μου έκανε εντύπωση είναι η διαφορετική στάση που κράτησε η Σοβιετική Ένωση απέναντι στην Ανατολική Γερμανία, σε αντίθεση με τις υπόλοιπες ανατολικές χώρες. Προσπάθησε δηλαδή να δείξει έναν καλό εαυτό, ένα πρόσωπο καλύτερο από αυτό του προηγούμενου καθεστώτος, των ναζί. Δηλαδή, δεν πείραξε την εκκλησία, δεν κυνήγησε τον κλήρο κτλ, όπως έκανε σε Πολωνία, Ουγγαρία κτλ. Βέβαια από το 1945 μέχρι το 1961 3,5 εκατομμύρια απο τα 18 πέρασαν στη Δυτική Γερμανία.

Είναι τρομακτικό το τι προσπάθησε και εν πολλοίς το πέτυχε, η Σοβιετική Ένωση. Έστησε δίκες-παρωδία, όπως ακριβώς αυτών της Μόσχας, έχοντας πλέον την εμπειρία να ανάγει σε τέχνη τον εξαναγκασμό ομολογίας. Δημιούργησε σοσιαλιστικές πόλεις, δηλαδή τις έχτισε από την αρχή, γνωρίζοντας πλήρη αποτυχία (Στάλινσταντ - Ανατολική Γερμανία, Στάλινβαρος - Ουγγαρία, Νόβα Χούτα - Πολωνία).

Ο τρόπος που πήρανε την εξουσία και η προπαγάνδα, δεν άφησε πολλά περιθώρια σε αντιπολίτευση παρα μόνο παθητικά, δηλαδή σε ανέκδοτα, ανώνυμες επιστολές κτλ. Απαγορεύτηκαν η ψυχανάλυση, τα βιβλία των Φρόυντ, Γιούνγκ, τα κόμικς, ως προϊόντα του καπιταλισμού.

Αυτά είναι μόνο λίγα παραδείγματα. Η συγγραφέας περιγράφει και συγκεκριμένα πραγματικά περιστατικά, που δείχνουν το τραγελαφικό της όλης κατάστασης. Γίνονται μικρές αναφορές σε διανοούμενους που στήριξαν με πάθος το σοβιετικό εγχείρημα, όπως ο Σαρτρ, ο Πικάσο, ο Μπρέχτ και ο Λούκατς.

Πρόκειται για ένα ολοκληρωμένο βιβλίο, που εξετάζει όλες τις πτυχές της ιστορίας των ανατολικών χωρών κυρίως τα 10 πρώτα χρόνια μετά το τέλος του πολέμου.

[Max Berendsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is almost too well researched. Its full of powerful stories, with a level of detail that can get overwhelming. The main overwhelming thing, however, is the degree to which idealistic ideology could be submerged by compulsive emotional obsessions. The Soviets arrived like a mighty wave of crusaders, proclaiming their cause to liberate humanity from barbaric injustice. But their paranoid obsession with eliminating disloyalty rivaled that of the Romans, who had banned any local organizations they could not control, even associations of volunteer firefighters. Instead of treating Polish partisans fighting the Nazis as comrades against a common foe, the Russians disarmed and imprisoned them. Next they suppressed all local organizations for self-help in war-devasted communities. Anything the Russians didn’t control, they treated as an enemy. As Applebaum quotes Wolfgang Leonhard,

It was impossible for Stalinism to permit the creation of independent initiative from below, of anti-Fascist, Socialist or Communist movements or organizations, because there was a constant danger that such organizations would escape control and try to resist directions issued from above.

Applebaum explores the effects of that obsession over the following decade in Poland, Hungary, and East Germany, up to the explosion of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. If anybody doubts the degree of popular hostility against Russian domination in Eastern Europe, this documents it.

[Manray9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 is a thoroughly-researched and rewarding read. Although I approached the book with some skepticism, due to the author's association with prominent neoconservative organizations (The Legatum Institute and the American Enterprise Institute) and her husband's position as Foreign Minister of Poland (he is an AEI alumnus too), it was detailed and fair -- if vehemently anti-Russian. I noted with interest in the acknowledgements section at the book’s end, a thank you to both the Scaife Foundations AND the National Endowment for the Humanities. Hmmm?

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο σχετικά με την εγκαθίδρυση των σοβιετικού τύπου καθεστώτων στην Ανατολική Ευρώπη. Το γενικό πλαίσιο γνωστό, κάποια από τα επιμέρους όχι, τουλάχιστον σε εμένα.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

An in depth review of the modes of repressing and molding the human psyche in Eastern European societies that have suffered under the Soviet-Stalinist hand. It touches on everything from the political, economic and social environments to the specific use of radio to either brainwash people or to help the permanent (even though small) resistance during the period of 1944-1956, as well as a beautiful dive into the architecture of oppression (which has quickly become one of my favorite subjects) and the way designing certain spaces, like the industrial cities of '49, '50 influences the way people live their lives. It mainly focuses on Hungary, Poland and the Cheks, but it also touches on my country, Romania, a few times, and makes some very good points about things that I have as well studied in school with regards to our communist years.

My favorite part of Applebaum's writing is her irony and dark humor - she manages to make you laugh with a well-placed remark about some politician's life, in the midst of a lecture on one of the worst things humans have done to themselves. And the pages in this book that write specifically about the use of jokes under communism in order to kindle and keep alive the fire of resistance in people hit very close to home, because even I, born 6 years after the fall of communism in my country, still use some of them and still understand and in a weird way relate to this black, bleak humor.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in Eastern Europe in the 20th Century, but as always, be aware, this is a history book, not a piece of fiction, so you might have to read everything with a pen in hand and Wikipedia open, in order to check names, dates and facts. I think that's very important to do when you read historical works, as otherwise your brain tends to treat them as pure fiction or the more literary type of writing, and you don't retain as much information.

[Bettie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

Please note - all the comments regarding this book have been removed and I have not been informed by grramazon. It took an observant flister to point it out.

So are we still being censored folks!

ETA: according to Feedback, who answered promptly, it looks like there is a bug going around re deleted comments. That is heartening.

Wouldn't this be fab:

Source

[Cristian Sirb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comunismul n-a fost “o idee bună, prost aplicată”, ci o idioțenie bine aplicată, care, ca orice idioțenie, a sfârșit prost.

Dacă spun că asemenea lucrări sunt “obligatorii” pentru orice cititor cu pretenții de la sine, sună prea ca la școală.

Dar simt că încă nu sunt suficiente cărțile care să facă obiectiv (și critic) radiografia nemiloasă a așa-zisului comunism, instalat prin intervenția și sub amenințarea tancurilor rusești, în strânsă colaborare cu ticăloșii locali - peste tot în Europa de est.

Cât timp copiii noștri sau noi încă purtăm tricouri cu moaca ucigașului Che Guevara și asta ni se pare absolut normal și cool, dar ne-am îngrozi (pe bună dreptate) dacă cineva s-ar afișa cu zvastica pe tricou sau cu moaca lui Hitler, înseamnă că mai e nevoie să citim niște istorie recentă.

Ori măcar să-i mai ascultăm când și când pe alții, care o cunosc. Altfel, tot noaptea minții ne așteaptă.

[Margarita Garova · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Колко пъти съм бил принуждаван да приемам чуждо мнение, което не споделям. Когато това мнение се промени, от мен се иска и аз да променя моето. Това ме кара да се чувствам гадно, по-гадно, отколкото ако са ме били. Аз съм човек и също имам глава, с която да мисля.”

Това не е цитат от някой известен централноевропейски дисидент, а безименен унгарски металург – един от многото работници, които през 50-те години на 20 век протестират срещу непосилните трудови норми и мизерните надници. За онези времена такива протести са звучали напълно неразбираемо – възможно ли е класата, която би трябвало да е най-облагодетелстваната от “държавата на работниците” да протестира срещу тази държава?

Чисто материалните аспекти на този протест настрана, цитатът по-горе разкрива много по-дълбоките измерения на индивидуалната трагедия, сполетяла източноевропейците след 1945 г. – третирането им от режима като непълнолетни, непълноценни и неразвити същества, на които Държавата диктува какво да мислят, какви дрехи да носят и какво да четат, поемайки ги в здравата си тоталитарна хватка от люлката до гроба. Нищо, наистина нищо, не е оставено на случайността

Няма да се спирам нито върху темите, които книгата на Ан Апълбаум покрива – те са развити подробно в общ и конкретен план, като засягат максимално много аспекти от живота на изток от Желязната завеса; нито върху фактите, които в по-голямата си част са познати на хората от нашите географски ширини. По-важни са фундаменталните изводи за природата на режима, чисто човешкото му отражение върху различните хора и поколенията, които отглежда, част от които, ще трябва да преживеят на два пъти душевно раздвоение – веднъж при налагането му, и втори път при колапса в края на 80-те. Изследването не се фокусира върху всички поробени държави (Апълбаум се спира подробно на ГДР, Полша и Унгария), нито обхваща целия период на комунистическа власт (фокусът е най-вече върху повратната за всички сателити 1948 г. до смъртта на Сталин през 1953 г.), но и така дава много добра представа за политическата, социална, икономическа и културна картина.

Но докато четях (с вътрешна наслада) за трудностите, с които съветските “представители” по места са се сблъсквали в опитите си да прекършат окончателно поляци, унгарци и германци, не можех да не направя печалното сравнение, че ние сме били най-покорните и сервилни от целия “блок”. Но дори и при нас, и в годините на най-тотален контрол и най-голяма уравниловка, идеологията като теория и практика не имала никакъв шанс – дори само заради това, че нейното пълно разминаване с начина, по който функционира човешката природа, с елементарните човешки желания и потребности за свободна лична изява, за творчество и индивидуалност, я правят безжизнена, мухлясала, безвремева.
“Преди една нация да бъде възстановена, нейните членове първо трябва да разберат как тя е била унищожена: как институциите й са били подкопани, как еизкът й е бил изкривен, как хората й са били манипулирани. Те трябва да знаят всички детайли, а не само общите теории, и трябва да чуят индивидуалните истории, а не обобщенията за масите.”

“Най-успешните посткомунистически държави са онези, които са успели да запазят някакви елементи на гражданското общество по времето на комунизма.”

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really struggled to get to the middle of the book and eventually gave up. There were lots of interesting facts, but the book tried to do too much, from too many angles at the expense of depth. The author's opinions and frustrations were too prominent in the writing, which at first I liked since my problem with most history books is the overly objective narrative, but this was really too much! At one point it felt like a rant, despite the well polished academic tone... a historian's rant...

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book on the history of post WWII East Germany, Poland and Hungary, though Czechoslovakia is not totally ignored places like Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania are barely touched on. In terms of the areas covered it is superb. But it is too long since I read it to write a useful review. Read the GR ones praising it - they'll tell you what you need to know.

[Omar Fakhry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anne Applebaum was an editor at The Spectator, so that should give you enough insight on her. Hysterically, she runs a propaganda and disinformation project at LSE. I've recently learned she is on the board of NED. NED is the national endowment for democracy, which is basically just a U.S. govt-funded agency that “promotes democracy.” Pretty much just a CIA propaganda tool. LSE is the London School of Economics.

That being said however, it's quite clear that the author has a bias against the Red Army and Soviet Union, that she makes the Red Army and Soviet Union sound worse than the Nazis. The Soviet Union, due to the Nazi invasion and the war to save their country, and destroy the Nazis, lost at least 27 million people. Several of the East European countries (Romania, Hungary, Slovakia) that the author portrays as innocent victims supplied HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of troops to assist the Nazis in their goal of destroying the Soviet Union. Poland, also, during 1920-1, had a war with the Red Army in which the Poles defeated the Red Army. The Poles, as the price for an end of the war, took parts of Ukraine, and Belorussia, which had few Polish residents and incorporated them into Poland.

I have a question for the author or anyone else. Except for the Red Army, who would have freed Poland, and other Eastern European countries, from the Nazis? The answer is no one. Only the Red Army was strong enough to thoroughly defeat the Nazis and force them out of Eastern European and eventually capture Berlin.

It is understandable that a nation that lost more than 15% of its population to invading armies would feel threatened, if there were hostile nations on its’ borders. Stalin was paranoid. But it was not out of the question that the Nazis might try to convince the Western Allies that the Soviet Union was the real menace. General Patton advocated attacking the Red Army (which was an insane idea). The author is ridiculously anti-Soviet.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed (enough for me) account of how Stalin forced Eastern- European countries into submission. It focuses on East-Germany, Poland and Hungary, but does, I think, encapsulate the Eastern-Block.
With reference to the Potsdam and Yalta conferences and the ‘agreements made by the BIG 3’, that one can see were paid lip-service by Stalin, this provides a most gruesome chronology of how the Red Army occupied these once democratic states.
1939 and 40 saw Hitler (Germany’s desire for hegemony of Europe) invade and occupy neighbouring countries; and inflict harm upon many of the populace.
After his invasion of Poland, we declared war. 1944 and 45, Stalin did the same and much worse.
I accept, as the war closed, Stalin held all the cards and both Roosevelt and Churchill were not looking for another fight over Europe.
I can also accept that many of these countries were still reeling from Nazi occupation; more rabbits caught in the headlights than free-thinking, self- governed entities. Weakened by the war and without any real ability to resist an invasion by the Red Army; Stalin held all the cards.
When countries made a stand against communist rule they became witnesses to the carnage that the hammer and sickle was able to wield.
Reading the personal stories saddened me; and I cannot sit in judgement, but I come away from this shows, wondering how we could have turned a blind eye to what we knew was happening.

[Bagus · Rating 3 out of 5]

When using the term Eastern Europe, there are several ways to interpret the term. Culturally, some of the countries included in Anne Applebaum’s analysis here belong to Germanic sphere of influence as part of Mitteleuropa. Geographically, some of them are located in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Thus, Eastern Europe in this sense is described as several countries in alliance with and which were dependent politically and militarily in existence to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Her analysis reveals the intricate web of political dependencies and power struggles that characterised the region during this time.

Drawing on a diverse range of sources, including primary archival materials and firsthand accounts, the author meticulously reconstructs the underlying mechanisms that led to the establishment of communist states in Eastern Europe, with focuses on Poland, Hungary, and East Germany, with occasional detour to Czechoslovakia. Her analysis sheds light on the deliberate strategies employed by the Soviet Union to systematically dismantle oppositional forces, stifle dissent, and consolidate power in these nations. The author’s narrative highlights the entangled web of pre-war communist activism, forced mergers of local communist parties with their social democrat counterparts, and the systematic destruction of civil societies, that paved the way for the rise of totalitarian states across Eastern Europe which culminated in the era of High Stalinism.

Moreover, the book extends beyond a mere historical account, echoing themes explored in Francis Fukuyama's seminal work The End of History and the Last Man. The author’s insightful examination of the limitations and contradictions inherent in communist ideology presents a compelling case for the system's imminent collapse. Through the analysis in the book, the flaws in its attempt to control every aspect of society and its grand promises of prosperity espoused by the communist regimes become starkly apparent, underscoring the deep-seated tensions that eventually led to their downfall.

Furthermore, the author’s analysis offers a nuanced perspective on the post-communist landscape, emphasising the significance of preserving pre-existing institutions to foster successful transitions. By underscoring the importance of independent media, private enterprise, education systems free of propaganda, and merit-based civil services, she underscores the critical role played by these structures in shaping the trajectory of post-communist states. The case studies presented in the book provide invaluable insights into the multifaceted challenges faced by these nations as they grappled with the legacy of communist rule and sought to chart a new course toward democracy and prosperity.

The latter factors also inherently explain the different paths pursued by some former Soviet states, most notably Russia, in their development. The absence of the crucial factors for an extended period (almost 70 years), explained the difficulties of maintaining the existence of independent media and the rise of oligarchs controlling the society, contrasting to former Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe with their more successful embrace of democracy and integration to the European Union project which bring them closer to their counterparts in Western Europe.

[WarpDrive · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and well written book about the post-war period in Eastern Europe. It contains a detailed and interesting narrative of the progressive Stalinization of Eastern Europe, focused primarily on East Germany, Poland and Hungary.
The only issue with this book (and the reason why I am not giving it 5 stars) is, in my opinion, a (possibly ideologically motivated) lack of balance in the judgment of the individuals and peoples involved in this process - sometimes they are portrayed in an almost caricatural manner, ignoring that some of them were making an honest attempt to rectify society's inequalities and they did believe that the new Communist societies would remediate the evils visible in the Capitalistic societies.
If proper allowance is made for this lack of balanced view, this book is really a very interesting read, recommended to anybody interested in this particular period.

[A.L. Sowards]

This it the third Anne Applebaum book I've read or listened to in the past six months. Of the three, I actually enjoyed Gulag: A History and Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, 1921-1933 more, but I still found this one well-researched and worth my time.

Applebaum focuses on three of the Eastern block countries: Poland, East Germany, and Hungary, then covers how the Soviets cemented control thematically. So there's a chapter on youth groups, art, radio, rebuilding, etc. The epilogue makes a point that when a government tries to control all aspects of life, all aspects of life become a possible venue for political protest--which radio station people listen too, every business decision, even what to wear. Applebaum sheds some light on what it would have been like to live in a totalitarian society.

[Elías Pensado · Rating 1 out of 5]

En El telón de acero, Anne Applebaum pretende realizar una aproximación histórica a las democracias populares de Polonia, Hungría y Alemania del Este durante los últimos momentos del estalinismo; desde la invasión soviética hasta el XX Congreso del PCUS. Estructura su obra en dos partes, la primera hasta 1950 y la segunda hasta 1956, aunque son cronológicamente flexibles.
El análisis de la autora se ubica cercano al de la vieja historia total, pues busca, en un marco espaciotemporal concreto, desgranar todos los elementos que configuran el desarrollo histórico de estos tres estados: economía y cultura, vida pública y privada, alta política, experiencias de las clases populares… Desde este enfoque, recurre a multitud de fuentes para construir un relato narrativamente atractivo y pretendidamente veraz. Hace uso de fuentes en diversos idiomas, archivos desclasificados y testimonios orales, lo cual fundamenta y enriquece el texto, permitiendo observar aspectos que, en una escala de análisis más amplia, podrían pasar inadvertidos.
No obstante estas virtudes, la obra adolece de una descarada parcialidad que empaña los análisis. Applebaum suscribe (y difunde) el relato canónico liberal que presenta a la URSS como una maquinaria estatal monstruosa, sustentada básicamente en la propaganda y la represión. Una obra de estas características, publicada en 2014, no es inocente: agita las reminiscencias del totalitarismo en el contexto de la nueva guerra fría. Pretende rememorar los peligros del imperialismo soviético, reeditado en dos nuevas amenazas al “mundo libre”: Rusia y, sobre todo, China (heredera del régimen de Mao, a quien la autora etiqueta también como “totalitario”).
El carácter beligerante lo comprobamos ya en el título: el uso de un término tan potente como “destrucción”, fechado nada menos que en 1944. ¿Acaso la “destrucción” de estos estados no había comenzado ya bajo el yugo nazi? ¿O incluso antes con las dictaduras autoritarias de Horthy o Piłsudski? Existe una vocación clara en enfatizar el “carácter perverso” de la URSS y trazar una línea de continuidad respecto a Hitler. El trasfondo ideológico de la obra me parece tan relevante como la cientificidad y erudición que hay a primera vista.
Durante la introducción, expone el debate acerca del uso del término “totalitarismo” y sus numerosas deficiencias. Pero a continuación, nos dice que «sigue siendo una descripción empírica útil y necesaria. Ya va siendo hora de recuperarlo» (p. 15). No da mayor explicación de su adscripción al término ni una definición precisa del mismo; suponemos que se basará en los “cinco (vagos) puntos” de Brzezinski (p. 12). Ya que en torno a la idea del “totalitarismo” orbita toda la obra, echo en falta una mayor fundamentación teórica en este sentido.
A partir de ahí, Applebaum nos adentra en la realidad de las democracias populares haciendo uso de una narrativa periodística, que por momentos adquiere el tono de una crónica. Volviendo sobre las fuentes empleadas, diría que uno de los puntos fuertes son los testimonios. Las páginas están salpicadas de biografías (unas más conocidas que otras), lo cual siempre ameniza y abre perspectivas micro, pero plantea diversos problemas: la credibilidad de las fuentes orales, la focalización en elementos disidentes o el recurso a la evidencia anecdótica para soportar tesis más amplias.
En general, la obra es tan ambiciosa, quiere abordar tantos flancos y presentar una batalla ideológica tan firme a la URSS, que termina cometiendo errores historiográficos reseñables. Para empezar, se ha molestado en buscar traductores para fuentes alemanas, polacas y húngaras, pero no rusas, lo cual me parece muy expresivo teniendo en cuenta el peso de la URSS en su relato. Considera que la visión soviética es pura propaganda, mientras que los disidentes son portadores de la verdad. A este respecto, es llamativo que cuando habla de propaganda occidental la escribe entre comillas (p. 344).
En segundo lugar, parece dar la espalda al contexto internacional de la Guerra Fría. Las apariciones de EEUU o Reino Unido son escasas, superfluas y en exceso positivas. Casi todo el tiempo se nos presenta un diálogo entre la URSS y las democracias populares, donde se enumera la violencia, la represión y la falta de libertades; se nos dice el cómo, pero rara vez el por qué. Obvia las causas y el contexto que llevaron a la URSS a actuar de determinadas maneras.
La exposición que Applebaum ofrece cumple con aspectos de rigor, como el recurso a datos y fuentes, pero hace un uso parcial de los mismos, con omisiones y un trasfondo moralizante recurrente. Critica aspectos represivos de la URSS, lo cual me parece correcto, pero la explicación siempre es la misma: la represión es fruto del totalitarismo, que a su vez proviene de las funestas ideas de Marx. Achaca al terror rojo cuestiones que tienen una explicación mucho más compleja, o prácticas represivas que incluso las democracias occidentales, en situaciones excepcionales, llevan a cabo.
Por citar algunos ejemplos: habla del pillaje y las violaciones como producto de la bestialidad del Ejército Rojo, cuando por desgracia es algo relativamente común a todas las guerras; presenta el racionamiento como una decisión política arbitraria, no como necesidad de posguerra; o sitúa a los soviéticos como fanáticos de la limpieza étnica, cuando incluso el propio Norman Naimark (a quien la autora cita en reiteradas ocasiones) dice que la reordenación étnicamente homogénea de los estados era algo sumamente común en el mundo pos-1945 (NAIMARK, 2002: pp. 125 – 126). Además, es frecuente el recurso a psicologismos como explicación reduccionista; cito uno de los que más me impactaron: “los comunistas odiaban a los socialdemócratas porque eran más populares” (pp. 335 – 336). Esto podría haberlo escrito Federico Jiménez Losantos.
Otro punto que me ha chirriado es su excesiva amabilidad con el nacionalismo polaco. Alaba a la resistencia polaca como heroica y da un reflejo del “pueblo polaco” como víctima. No explica las (como poco) tensas relaciones históricas polaco-rusas, ni el expansionismo polaco de Entreguerras. Hay omisiones destacadas, como cuando dice que «era ridículo» afirmar que el general Wilk había colaborado con los alemanes (p. 164). Sin embargo, otros autores afirman que sí que hubo negociaciones con los alemanes para realizar ofensivas conjuntas contra el Ejército Rojo (PIOTROWSKI, 1998: pp. 88 y ss.).
Los peores capítulos, sin duda, fueron el 9 (La política) y el 10 (La economía), puesto que quieren ser tan abarcadores que las deficiencias anteriormente expuestas resultan exacerbadas. El que más me gustó, en cambio, fue el 13 (El homo sovieticus), donde adopta un enfoque más estructural, y sí que ejemplifica (más allá de lo anecdótico) la tesis del totalitarismo, a nivel de educación, trabajo, ocio, deporte…
Todo el libro opera como una gran petición de principio donde la URSS es intrínsecamente perversa por sustentarse en una ideología errónea. Esto le lleva a adoptar una visión teleológica que da al sistema por difunto ya en los años 50, basándose en su ulterior desarrollo. En el Epílogo deja ver abiertamente sus posturas, con afirmaciones como que los regímenes «eran inestables por definición», que «el propio proyecto comunista era imperfecto» (¿y cuál no lo es?), o que «la ideología comunista y la teoría económica marxista-leninista contenían las semillas de su propia destrucción» (p. 691).
La visión que Applebaum tiene de Rusia me parece similar a la de George Kennan, quien la veía «ya fuese la de los zares o la bolchevique» como «una sociedad atrasada y bárbara» (cit. en HOBSBAWM, 2012: p. 237). El telón de acero aparece atravesado por la dialéctica de imperios, presentándose como un libro-batalla destinado a reforzar el anticomunismo y la rusofobia del polaco promedio, en lugar de como una obra netamente académica que persigue la objetividad y la imparcialidad en la medida de lo posible.
En conclusión, tenemos setecientas páginas alimentadas por una mitología orwelliana (autor repetidamente citado), que obvia por completo el “factor Huxley”; ¿dónde está el soma? Ninguna dictadura se sostiene durante cuarenta años por medio de la represión y la propaganda; la imagen que ofrece Applebaum, sin ser completamente falsa, es parcial y caricaturesca. Como valoración sintética, diría que no es un buen libro para acercarse de manera holística a esta realidad histórica, pero sí para conocer la visión “oficialista” que la historiografía liberal tiene sobre ella.