Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe
Author: Robert Gellately
A bold new accounting of the great social and political upheavals that enveloped Europe between 1914 and 1945—from the Russian Revolution through the Second World War.
In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature. Arguing that the tragedies endured by Europe were inextricably linked through the dictatorships of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, Gellately explains how the pursuit of their “utopian” ideals turned into dystopian nightmares. Dismantling the myth of Lenin as a relatively benevolent precursor to Hitler and Stalin and contrasting the divergent ways that Hitler and Stalin achieved their calamitous goals, Gellately creates in Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler a vital analysis of a critical period in modern history.
The Washington Post - Simon Sebag Montefiore
"The image of Lenin that emerges from the pages of this book, even the mere mention of him in the title alongside Stalin and Hitler," writes Robert Gellately in the introduction to his new study of the epoch of the great slaughterhouse in the 20th century, "will disturb some people." The author, a distinguished academic, adds that "a good friend of mine…said the very thought of putting Lenin next to Stalin and Hitler in the book's title would be enough to make her Russian grandmother turn in her grave." But let that Russian grandmother turn: It's time to rip up the accepted versions of this terrible period and analyze it on the evidence that we now have. Gellately has done just that in a book that is both sensible and sophisticated, scholarly and very readable.
Publishers Weekly
Historian Gellately's (Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany) new work insists on Lenin's inclusion in any effort to understand the two major and deadly dictatorships of 20th-century Europe, Soviet communism and Nazism. Every horrendous act of the Stalin era had been seeded by Lenin, the author argues. Moreover, the Soviet and Nazi systems developed in tandem, each carefully eying the other, learning from each other, as they both reached an apex of brutality and terror. In developing this analysis, Gellately provides informed but somewhat plodding accounts of the two systems. Not all of the arguments stand up to scrutiny. "In the 1930s, the struggle between Communism and Nazism became a deadly rivalry for world domination," the author writes. But in the 1930s Stalin cared for little beyond the Soviet Union and was hardly bent on global conquest. Gellately's approach is relentlessly one-sided in its focus on ideology as the causative factor in history. Even the civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution is treated as backdrop for the implementation of ideology, rather than as an earthquake-like event that well into the 1950s shaped the thinking of Soviet leaders. Gellately is better on the Third Reich, but overall this is an unsatisfying and uninspired history. 16 pages of photos. (Aug. 20)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationKirkus Reviews
Overlong history of Europe between 1914 and 1945, the age of totalitarian empires and what Gellately (History/Florida State Univ.) (Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 2001, etc.) calls "the great catastrophe" whose origins lie in Leninism. Solzhenitsyn would approve, and so would the authors of The Black Book of Communism, none of whom would find Gellately's thesis extraordinary. However, since by the author's account so many academics hasten to distinguish the "good" Lenin from the "bad" Lenin, the idea that the 20th-century bloodletting somehow begins with him may prove controversial. Gellately defends his position well, and indeed even loyal Leon Trotsky allowed that Lenin "was driven to distraction," as Gellately puts it, "when other Bolsheviks did not grasp or agree that Communism could be realized only by paying a heavy price in human lives." The dictatorship that Lenin and his ambitious acolyte Stalin forced upon Russia was open to Jewish revolutionaries, a point not lost on Hitler when he came to power; Gellately argues that Hitler's war on the Soviet Union was "an extension of his war against the Jews," summarized by Hitler's conflation of "Jewish Bolshevism"; had Hitler kept his war confined to the Jews, Gellately observes in passing, many citizens of the Soviet regime would have proved sympathetic and even would have collaborated, but Hitler chose to make war on all things Soviet instead. Interestingly, Gellately notes toward the end of his book, Stalin's postwar pogroms may have been a delayed reaction to Hitler's charge; Stalin was no fan of Jewish Bolshevism either, but even so his "turn to anti-Semitism was out of character . . . and a completecontradiction of what Marxists had said about the Jewish question for almost a century." Such things will prove revelations for many readers, but much of Gellately's narrative repeats well-known facts about the various dictators' rise and fall. A more streamlined narrative would have been welcome. All the same, a solid contribution to the literature of World War II, totalitarianism and the bloody 20th century.
Table of Contents:
Abbreviations and Glossary xiNote on Russian Spelling and Dates xv
Maps xvi
Introduction 3
Lenin's Communist Dictatorship
The First World War and the Russian Revolution 21
On the Way to Communist Dictatorship 41
Civil Wars in the Soviet Union 62
The Rise of German National Socialism
Nazism and the Threat of Bolshevism 81
First Nazi Attempt to Seize Power 102
Hitler Starts Over 117
Stalin Triumphs over Political Rivals
Battle for Communist Utopia 131
Lenin's Passing, Stalin's Victory 141
Stalin's New Initiatives 160
Stalin Solidifies His Grip 173
Germans Make a Pact with Hitler
Nazi Party as Social Movement 185
Nazism Exploits Economic Distress 198
"All Power" for Hitler 211
Stalin's Reign of Terror
Fight Against the Countryside 227
Terror as Political Practice 240
"Mass Operations" 253
"Cleansing" the Soviet Elite 267
Hitler's War Against Democracy
Winning Over the Nation 285
Dictatorship by Consent 298
Persecution of the Jews in the PrewarYears 315
"Cleansing" the German Body Politic 331
Stalin and Hitler: Into the Social Catastrophe
Rival Visions of World Conquest 345
German Racial Persecution Begins in Poland 360
Hitler and Western Europe 375
The Soviet Response 384
The War Spreads 397
Hitler's War on "Jewish Bolshevism"
War of Extermination as Nazi Crusade 413
War Against the Communists: Operation Barbarossa 429
War Against the Jews: Death Squads in the East 441
The "Final Solution" and Death Camps 452
Hitler's Defeat and Stalin's Agenda
Greatest Crisis in Stalin's Career 471
Between Surrender and Defiance 482
Soviets Hold On, Hitler Grows Vicious 498
Ethnic Cleansing in Wartime Soviet Union 511
Final Struggle
From Stalingrad to Berlin 525
Stalin Takes the Upper Hand 543
End of the Third Reich 560
Epilogue 579
Notes 595
Acknowledgments 671
Index 673
Photographic Credits 697
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Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World
Author: Dennis Ross
In this wise and thought-provoking book, the renowned peace negotiator Dennis Ross shows that America’s current foreign policy problems stem from the Bush administration’s inability to use the tools of statecraft to advance our national interests. Ross explains that in the globalized world—with its fluid borders, terrorist networks, and violent unrest—statecraft is more necessary than ever. In vivid chapters, he outlines how statecraft helped shape a new world order after 1989. He shows how the failure of statecraft in Iraq and throughout the Middle East has undercut the United States and makes clear that only statecraft can check the rise of China and the danger of a nuclear Iran. He draws on his expertise to reveal the art of successful negotiation. And he shows how the next president could resolve today’s problems and define a realistic, ambitious foreign policy. Statecraft is “an essential book for our time” (Walter Isaacson).
Publishers Weekly
Ross, the Clinton administration's Middle East envoy (The Missing Peace) makes the seemingly dreary, opaque processes of international diplomacy as coherent, absorbing and occasionally dramatic as a procedural thriller. He conceives of statecraft as a subtle orchestration of foreign policy "assets," including intelligence and analysis, diplomacy, sanctions, economic aid and military pressure. Most of all, it requires negotiations: the book's middle section is a lengthy tutorial on the nuts and bolts of epic negotiating, Ross's forte, complete with tips on how and when to stage angry outbursts at the conference table. The author illustrates with case studies of foreign policy triumphs and disasters (many of which he had a hand in), from German reunification to the war in Iraq. The book is an avowedly "neo-liberal" rebuke of Bush's unilateralist, "faith-based" foreign policy blundering. Indeed, with its call for virtuoso state craftsmanship and its detailed proposals on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iranian nuclear ambitions to relations with China, it could well be Ross's application for the 2009 secretary of state opening. If so, it's an impressive one, full of canny, judicious insights into the making of foreign policy. (June)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationForeign Affairs
Everything was so much clearer during the Cold War. The UnitedStates used its diplomatic, economic, and military might to contain and outmaneuver the Soviet Union. Then, as the Cold War was winding down, the United States engaged Mikhail Gorbachev's rapidly declining regime as a source of leverage to manage and resolve conflicts across the globe.
Through sustained diplomatic negotiations, Washington took advantage of the shifting geopolitical landscape to negotiate settlements and aid transitions in Afghanistan, Central America, Southeast Asia, and southern Africa while laying the foundations for Europe's post-Cold War security architecture. This approach helped the United States defeat Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, launch the Madrid phase of the Middle East peace process, and facilitate the unification of Germany. Thanks in large part to the United States' vision and diplomatic skill, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of over a dozen states in its wake was a remarkably peaceful affair.<
Kirkus Reviews
A former Middle East envoy for the Bush I and Clinton administrations argues that the current President Bush's team has abandoned "statecraft" in favor of lecturing, posturing, bullying and bombing, thereby making the world a far more dangerous place. Ross (The Missing Peace, 2004) is most knowledgeable about the Middle East, unsurprisingly, and issues in that region dominate his plodding but important text. He writes with great understanding about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, Iran, Iraq and the rise of what he calls "non-state actors," such as Osama bin Laden. He begins with a long, textbookish definition of "statecraft," as distinguished from ordinary diplomacy. An early chapter deals with recent failures of the craft-Bush I's neglect of the Balkans, Clinton's inaction in Rwanda, Bush II's bloody boondoggle in Iraq-and insists that the United States must quickly return to "a statecraft mentality." Ross then offers a number of case studies in effective statecraft: Bush I's handling of German reunification and his crafting of the coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait; Clinton's tardy though effective work with the Balkans. He follows with a hard look at Bush II's failed Iraq policies and strategies, then hammers hard his theme that our objectives must align with our means and our strategies. He identifies state-supported terror, WMDs, weak and failing states as among the most serious challenges we face today and outlines 12 rules our diplomats should follow in the practice of statecraft. Unfortunately, this section and some later ones read and look like PowerPoint presentations designed for undergraduates, and pop-culture jargon like "tough love" and "good cop-bad cop"attenuates the gravitas established earlier. Ross concludes with some strong passages dealing with our most troubling challenges: radical Islam, Iran and the rise of China. Brimming with important ideas, well-organized and well-argued, but lacking the stylistic polish and panache that would attract a wider readership.
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