Anne Applebaum
Author of Gulag: A History
About the Author
Anne Applebaum is a columnist and member of the editorial board of the Washington Post.
Works by Anne Applebaum
Associated Works
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: Parts I-II (1973) — Foreword, some editions — 6,024 copies, 48 reviews
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: Parts III-IV (1974) — Foreword, some editions — 1,943 copies, 12 reviews
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: Parts V-VII (1976) — Foreword, some editions — 1,176 copies, 9 reviews
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: Parts I-VII (Complete) (1990) — Foreword, some editions — 326 copies, 2 reviews
The American Crisis: What Went Wrong. How We Recover. (2020) — Afterword, some editions — 72 copies, 1 review
From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States (2006) — Introduction, some editions — 41 copies, 1 review
World Monuments: 50 Irreplaceable Sites to Discover, Explore, and Champion (2015) — Contributor. — 21 copies
Our Brave New World: Essays on the Impact of September 11 (Hoover Institution Press Publication) (2002) — Contributor — 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Applebaum, Anne
- Legal name
- Sikorska, Anne Elizabeth
- Birthdate
- 1964-07-25
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Yale University (BA | 1986)
London School of Economics (MA|1987)
University of Oxford (St Antony's College) - Occupations
- historian
writer
journalist - Organizations
- Slate (Editorialiste)
Washington Post (Editorialiste)
The Economist (Correspondante Varsovie)
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Agora Institute - Awards and honors
- George Herbert Walker Bush/Axel Springer Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin
Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust Award (1992)
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (2004)
Cundill Prize (2013)
Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature (2013)
Lionel Gelber Prize (2018) (show all 7)
Marshall Scholar - Relationships
- Sikorski, Radek (husband)
- Short biography
- Anne Applebaum attended Yale University and won a Marshall Scholarship to study at the London School of Economics and Oxford University. She moved to Warsaw in 1988 to work for The Economist, providing valuable first-hand reportage on important social and political transitions in Eastern Europe before and after the fall of Communism and the end of the Berlin Wall in 1989. She has been a reporter and editor for the Evening Standard and the Spectator, as well as writing for many other publications, and formerly served as an editorial board member of the Washington Post.
She is also Director of Political Studies at the Legatum Institute in London, where she runs projects on political and economic transition. Her second book, Gulag: A History (2003), was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. Applebaum speaks English, French, Polish and Russian. She is married to Radoslaw Sikorski, a Polish politician and writer and the couple has two sons. In 2005, her husband served as Minister of Defense of the Polish government. - Nationality
- USA (Birth)
Poland - Birthplace
- Washington, D.C., USA
- Places of residence
- Washington, D.C., USA
London, England, UK
Warsaw, Poland - Map Location
- USA
Members
Reviews
Summary: An extended essay considering the shift to authoritarian leaders in Europe and the United States, analyzing both why such leaders are attractive, and the strategies they used to gain power.
Anne Applebaum's book might be subtitled, "The Tale of Two Parties." It is bookended with a party in 1999, and one in 2019. Many on the guest list of the first would not be on the second, or even on speaking terms with the author. Applebaum is a center-right neo-conservative, married to Radek show more Sikorski, a Polish politician. For much of her career she has written award-winning books documenting Soviet-style totalitarianism. The time of 1999 was a heady one, with former eastern bloc countries embracing Western style liberal democratic ideals (at least to some degree).
The book begins with Applebaum describing the fate of three of those on the list, one who had drawn close to Poland's Law and Justice party leader and would no longer speak to her, another who had become an internet troll, amplifying American alt-right proponents, while a third had become engrossed in conspiracy theories. Throughout the book, Applebaum moves between trying to understand what has happened to her friends, and what is happening in a number of European countries, from Poland and Hungary, to England and the United States, where shifts have occurred to authoritarian ideas and leaders.
She explores how contemporary movements differ from fascism and Communism. Instead of the "Big Lie," these leaders use the Medium-Size Lie designed to play on fears and offer simple explanations for complex realities--immigration explains economic woes and crime, for example. Sometimes it is a conspiracy, for example "the deep state," when in fact the real conspiracy lies with the networks of people fomenting these ideas. She describes how this works for example in Viktor Orban's Hungary, where all of Hungary's woes can be attributed to non-existent Syrian refugees (to whom Hungary never opened their borders) and George Soros, whose conspiratorially funded the immigrant hordes. All of this buttresses a corrupt, self-serving government where power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of its leader. Chillingly, Applebaum observes that studies show roughly one-third of the people in most societies to be susceptible to authoritarian leaders, particularly in times of upheaval.
She discusses the appeal of nostalgia, the longing for some idealized past when those appealed to dominated the culture as an alternative to the pluralistic, multi-ethnic cultural landscapes that increasingly characterize both Europe and the United States. She describes how Boris Johnson leveraged this nostalgia in the run-up to Brexit, even though the English had led the initiative forming the European Union. Particularly dangerous, she believes, are the "restorative nostalgics" whose "memory" of the past is often selective, and whose vision for restoration reflects those gaps in an idealized version of the past.
She portrays the manipulation of digital media streams to promote the narrative, including the characterization of established media as "fake" and part of the "conspiracy." She writes:
"This new information world also provides a new set of tools and tactics that another generation of clercs can use to reach people who want simple language, powerful symbols, clear identities. There is no need, nowadays, to form a street movement in order to appeal to those of an authoritarian predisposition. You can construct one in an office building, sitting in front of a computer. You can test messages and gauge the response. You can set up targeted advertising campaigns. You can build groups of fans on WhatsApp or Telegram. You can cherry-pick the themes of the past that suit the present and tailor them to particular audiences. You can invent memes, create videos, conjure up slogans designed to appeal precisely to the fear and anger caused by this massive international wave of cacophony. You can even start the cacophony and create the chaos yourself, knowing full well that some people will be frightened by it." (117-118)
She describes the shift she saw in once-friend Laura Ingraham. I think one of the most important insights she offers here is the increasing concern Ingraham, and others like Pat Buchanan have over the evidence of American moral decline, of various forms of extremism from "cancel culture" to overreach into religious communities breaching First Amendment protections that have led her and others to conclude that these cannot be fought by "politics as usual" but require more extreme measures and justify "undemocratic" means.
I wish Applebaum would have done more with what I thought a perceptive observation. I know people like those Applebaum describes, and one thing that is overlooked is that most of these feel that figures like our current President are the first to take them seriously. Many of these people live in America's heartland. They probably are more religious. Most work hard and pay their taxes. And they feel patronized by many politicians, overlooked, treated as part of "flyover" country. Like Laura Ingraham, they also feel they are witnessing a "twilight of democracy."
While I am deeply sympathetic to Applebaum's concerns about authoritarianism, all her talks about toney parties with fellow refugees from the neo-con movement don't really address the concerns of the time adequately. She concludes by addressing some vague hope in the cycles of history to right things, which seems to me a hope that, after a time, the "right" people will regain power. My observation is that we are in the midst of more and more violent pendulum swings, with winners and losers becoming increasingly energized against one another. What I do agree on with Applebaum is that democracies are not indestructible. Might it be that recognizing our common care about the future of democracy may be a starting point for a different kind of political conversation? Might it be that this common, and urgent concern could bring people together from across the political spectrum who all perceive the abyss toward which we are hurtling? I cannot help but think that this next decade may be decisive in many ways for our country--and for humankind. Will the twilight we are in give way to night--or a new dawn? show less
Anne Applebaum's book might be subtitled, "The Tale of Two Parties." It is bookended with a party in 1999, and one in 2019. Many on the guest list of the first would not be on the second, or even on speaking terms with the author. Applebaum is a center-right neo-conservative, married to Radek show more Sikorski, a Polish politician. For much of her career she has written award-winning books documenting Soviet-style totalitarianism. The time of 1999 was a heady one, with former eastern bloc countries embracing Western style liberal democratic ideals (at least to some degree).
The book begins with Applebaum describing the fate of three of those on the list, one who had drawn close to Poland's Law and Justice party leader and would no longer speak to her, another who had become an internet troll, amplifying American alt-right proponents, while a third had become engrossed in conspiracy theories. Throughout the book, Applebaum moves between trying to understand what has happened to her friends, and what is happening in a number of European countries, from Poland and Hungary, to England and the United States, where shifts have occurred to authoritarian ideas and leaders.
She explores how contemporary movements differ from fascism and Communism. Instead of the "Big Lie," these leaders use the Medium-Size Lie designed to play on fears and offer simple explanations for complex realities--immigration explains economic woes and crime, for example. Sometimes it is a conspiracy, for example "the deep state," when in fact the real conspiracy lies with the networks of people fomenting these ideas. She describes how this works for example in Viktor Orban's Hungary, where all of Hungary's woes can be attributed to non-existent Syrian refugees (to whom Hungary never opened their borders) and George Soros, whose conspiratorially funded the immigrant hordes. All of this buttresses a corrupt, self-serving government where power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of its leader. Chillingly, Applebaum observes that studies show roughly one-third of the people in most societies to be susceptible to authoritarian leaders, particularly in times of upheaval.
She discusses the appeal of nostalgia, the longing for some idealized past when those appealed to dominated the culture as an alternative to the pluralistic, multi-ethnic cultural landscapes that increasingly characterize both Europe and the United States. She describes how Boris Johnson leveraged this nostalgia in the run-up to Brexit, even though the English had led the initiative forming the European Union. Particularly dangerous, she believes, are the "restorative nostalgics" whose "memory" of the past is often selective, and whose vision for restoration reflects those gaps in an idealized version of the past.
She portrays the manipulation of digital media streams to promote the narrative, including the characterization of established media as "fake" and part of the "conspiracy." She writes:
"This new information world also provides a new set of tools and tactics that another generation of clercs can use to reach people who want simple language, powerful symbols, clear identities. There is no need, nowadays, to form a street movement in order to appeal to those of an authoritarian predisposition. You can construct one in an office building, sitting in front of a computer. You can test messages and gauge the response. You can set up targeted advertising campaigns. You can build groups of fans on WhatsApp or Telegram. You can cherry-pick the themes of the past that suit the present and tailor them to particular audiences. You can invent memes, create videos, conjure up slogans designed to appeal precisely to the fear and anger caused by this massive international wave of cacophony. You can even start the cacophony and create the chaos yourself, knowing full well that some people will be frightened by it." (117-118)
She describes the shift she saw in once-friend Laura Ingraham. I think one of the most important insights she offers here is the increasing concern Ingraham, and others like Pat Buchanan have over the evidence of American moral decline, of various forms of extremism from "cancel culture" to overreach into religious communities breaching First Amendment protections that have led her and others to conclude that these cannot be fought by "politics as usual" but require more extreme measures and justify "undemocratic" means.
I wish Applebaum would have done more with what I thought a perceptive observation. I know people like those Applebaum describes, and one thing that is overlooked is that most of these feel that figures like our current President are the first to take them seriously. Many of these people live in America's heartland. They probably are more religious. Most work hard and pay their taxes. And they feel patronized by many politicians, overlooked, treated as part of "flyover" country. Like Laura Ingraham, they also feel they are witnessing a "twilight of democracy."
While I am deeply sympathetic to Applebaum's concerns about authoritarianism, all her talks about toney parties with fellow refugees from the neo-con movement don't really address the concerns of the time adequately. She concludes by addressing some vague hope in the cycles of history to right things, which seems to me a hope that, after a time, the "right" people will regain power. My observation is that we are in the midst of more and more violent pendulum swings, with winners and losers becoming increasingly energized against one another. What I do agree on with Applebaum is that democracies are not indestructible. Might it be that recognizing our common care about the future of democracy may be a starting point for a different kind of political conversation? Might it be that this common, and urgent concern could bring people together from across the political spectrum who all perceive the abyss toward which we are hurtling? I cannot help but think that this next decade may be decisive in many ways for our country--and for humankind. Will the twilight we are in give way to night--or a new dawn? show less
Appelbaum dissects the way that civil society in Eastern Europe was eradicated in the years following WWII, and replaced by a monolithic, state-run apparatus that controlled all aspects of peoples' lives. In her epilogue, she uses the example of the reemergence of the Polish Women's League in Lodz to show how freedom and democracy require groups such as these - non-profit advocacy groups that are dedicated to accomplishing what the state cannot. Appelbaum aptly points out that the Russian show more government still persecutes many of these groups within their own country.
What was most shocking to me was the way that the Red Army and the Soviet government treated potential allies in the Polish Home Army, and other anti-Nazi leftists. Some of the concentration camps used in the Holocaust were reused to imprison political dissidents. Some people who were liberated from concentration camps were then sent to the Gulag for not being "politically correct". The communist project in Eastern Europe might have been more successful if they had not sown such bitter seeds at the beginning. show less
What was most shocking to me was the way that the Red Army and the Soviet government treated potential allies in the Polish Home Army, and other anti-Nazi leftists. Some of the concentration camps used in the Holocaust were reused to imprison political dissidents. Some people who were liberated from concentration camps were then sent to the Gulag for not being "politically correct". The communist project in Eastern Europe might have been more successful if they had not sown such bitter seeds at the beginning. show less
Life under Nazi overlords during World War II was horrific for the peoples of Eastern Europe, but it didn’t improve all that much once the Red Army arrived, ostensibly as “liberators.” Anne Applebaum’s Iron Curtain is an account (in great and graphic detail) of how the Soviets imposed their will on Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, East Germany, and Hungary.
Applebaum is fluent in Polish and Hungarian, and so she has been able to utilize sources inaccessible to most western show more historians. The result is a much more comprehensive narrative of the imposition of Soviet style communism on what became the Eastern Bloc than has hitherto been available to the general reader in the West. And what a sad tale of woe it is!
Stalin was not about to allow unfriendly states exist on his western border. Accordingly, the Soviet government began planning how to control the small countries of Eastern Europe once it became apparent that the Red Army would sweep into Germany. Negotiations with the western allies (the U.S. and Britain) for a post-war settlement at Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences proved to be just window dressing, as the Soviets did pretty much what they wanted in areas controlled by their armed forces irrespective of the agreements arrived at the conferences.
Pockets of armed resistance to Soviet rule continued for several years after the war against Germany had ended in 1945. Ukrainians fought Poles for control of disputed territory before new national boundaries were finalized under Russian supervision. The Polish “Home Army,” an anti-communist group that had formed while the Nazis were still in power, fought the Soviet-imposed government on into the early 1950s before they were finally suppressed.
Mass deportations were effected immediately after the German surrender as Stalin sought to change the boundaries of Europe by relocating Poland several hundred miles to the west. This was “ethnic cleansing” writ large. Millions of people were put on trains and shipped out of their native countries. Germans living in what had been East Prussia were shipped west to a shrunken Germany while their former homeland became part of Poland. Whole groups of Poles and Ukrainians were in essence “swapped” – Poles living in the Soviet Union were shipped west, and Ukrainians in Poland were sent east.
As the Red Army poured into Eastern Europe, it was accompanied by the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) and a cadre of Moscow-trained communist nationals of each conquered country. The tightening of the Soviet grip was gradual, except in Germany. The Soviets even allowed relatively fair elections to take place in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1946 and 1947. The communists expected to win since they viewed themselves to be liberators of those countries. They were stunned to find out that they were very unpopular, garnering only small minorities of the votes. How then did the Soviets impose “totalitarianism” on the societies they conquered? Applebaum puts forth a number of explanations:
Most saliently, there were life-threatening repercussions to disobedience. The NKVD maintained control of the security apparatus and established Gestapo-like secret police institutions in all the occupied countries. They then employed intimidation, beatings, transportation to the Gulag, and executions of anti-communists to impose Stalin’s will on the general populace of all the eastern European countries except Yugoslavia, which, although communist, had not been “liberated” by the Red Army.
In addition, the Soviets immediately took control over the radio broadcasting capacity of each country. (They believed strongly in the power of propaganda and at that time, radio was the most powerful broadcast medium.) They took advantage of the natural tendency of people to defer to authority. Also, like the Nazis and early Soviet communists, the East European communists organized the youth into propaganda-driven organizations with putative goals of social or intellectual or physical achievement. And finally, after years of the war and depredations of World War II, East Europeans just wanted to return to normalcy, even if the new “normal” wasn’t very good.
Two other important considerations kept the otherwise not-very-workable system going. On the one hand, elites had many special privileges not available to the masses to keep them happy and in line. They therefore had a vested interest in maintaining the system. On the other hand, the hoi polloi had a number of well-established ways to get around the strictures and hardships of the Communist regimes. Even if you couldn’t find anything in the notoriously empty grocery stores, it wasn’t impossible to get what you wanted “na leva” (literally, “on the left” – i.e., outside of normal channels.) Furthermore, while you couldn’t get access to anything interesting to read in regular book shops, “samizdat,” or censored publications reproduced by hand and passed from reader to reader, still allowed those who could work the system to get information from the world on the other side of the curtain.
Most of Applebaum's book, however, is not about why the takeover happened, but rather what it was like, and what the nature was of the system the Communists sought to impose in East Germany, Poland, and Hungary.
After she describes the process of the takeovers, Applebaum details the careers of several “mini-Stalins,” who were put in charge of various governments by the Soviets. All of them were nationals of the countries they came to rule, but had been communists before the war, and received rigorous training in Stalinist statecraft in the Soviet Union. She also gives an account of ordinary life in the communist countries, bleak from consumer goods shortages, dreary propaganda-laden “entertainment,” and virtually complete lack of political choice.
Applebaum ends the history in 1956 with the Polish and Hungarian uprisings, although that was far from the end of the Iron Curtain. But there was in fact a sea change then. Stalin had died in 1953, and the Kremlin was trying to stabilize its satellites. Presumably, she will continue the saga with another volume.
Evaluation: Applebaum’s prose is readable and her historical research is very thorough. To some extent, the book drags on because the story is so depressing. But for anyone who wonders how people could live so long under the adverse conditions of communist-ruled Eastern Europe, this book provides a very complete explanation.
The author is what we might label a “neo-con” on the political spectrum. She currently directs political studies at the Legatum Institute, and before that worked for the American Enterprise Institute. She is also married to a fierce anti-communist Polish politician. While I could see how her background may have colored her presentation, I could not quarrel with the facts she presented.
I listened to the unabridged audio version. The narrator, Cassandra Campbell, seemed quite competent, particularly in her fluent pronunciation of foreign words and names. Nevertheless, the unrelenting progression of depressing events caused the listening experience to be a downer. Moreover, some readers less familiar with the time and geography under consideration might miss the maps, photos, and footnotes that accompany the written book.
(JAB) show less
Applebaum is fluent in Polish and Hungarian, and so she has been able to utilize sources inaccessible to most western show more historians. The result is a much more comprehensive narrative of the imposition of Soviet style communism on what became the Eastern Bloc than has hitherto been available to the general reader in the West. And what a sad tale of woe it is!
Stalin was not about to allow unfriendly states exist on his western border. Accordingly, the Soviet government began planning how to control the small countries of Eastern Europe once it became apparent that the Red Army would sweep into Germany. Negotiations with the western allies (the U.S. and Britain) for a post-war settlement at Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences proved to be just window dressing, as the Soviets did pretty much what they wanted in areas controlled by their armed forces irrespective of the agreements arrived at the conferences.
Pockets of armed resistance to Soviet rule continued for several years after the war against Germany had ended in 1945. Ukrainians fought Poles for control of disputed territory before new national boundaries were finalized under Russian supervision. The Polish “Home Army,” an anti-communist group that had formed while the Nazis were still in power, fought the Soviet-imposed government on into the early 1950s before they were finally suppressed.
Mass deportations were effected immediately after the German surrender as Stalin sought to change the boundaries of Europe by relocating Poland several hundred miles to the west. This was “ethnic cleansing” writ large. Millions of people were put on trains and shipped out of their native countries. Germans living in what had been East Prussia were shipped west to a shrunken Germany while their former homeland became part of Poland. Whole groups of Poles and Ukrainians were in essence “swapped” – Poles living in the Soviet Union were shipped west, and Ukrainians in Poland were sent east.
As the Red Army poured into Eastern Europe, it was accompanied by the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) and a cadre of Moscow-trained communist nationals of each conquered country. The tightening of the Soviet grip was gradual, except in Germany. The Soviets even allowed relatively fair elections to take place in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1946 and 1947. The communists expected to win since they viewed themselves to be liberators of those countries. They were stunned to find out that they were very unpopular, garnering only small minorities of the votes. How then did the Soviets impose “totalitarianism” on the societies they conquered? Applebaum puts forth a number of explanations:
Most saliently, there were life-threatening repercussions to disobedience. The NKVD maintained control of the security apparatus and established Gestapo-like secret police institutions in all the occupied countries. They then employed intimidation, beatings, transportation to the Gulag, and executions of anti-communists to impose Stalin’s will on the general populace of all the eastern European countries except Yugoslavia, which, although communist, had not been “liberated” by the Red Army.
In addition, the Soviets immediately took control over the radio broadcasting capacity of each country. (They believed strongly in the power of propaganda and at that time, radio was the most powerful broadcast medium.) They took advantage of the natural tendency of people to defer to authority. Also, like the Nazis and early Soviet communists, the East European communists organized the youth into propaganda-driven organizations with putative goals of social or intellectual or physical achievement. And finally, after years of the war and depredations of World War II, East Europeans just wanted to return to normalcy, even if the new “normal” wasn’t very good.
Two other important considerations kept the otherwise not-very-workable system going. On the one hand, elites had many special privileges not available to the masses to keep them happy and in line. They therefore had a vested interest in maintaining the system. On the other hand, the hoi polloi had a number of well-established ways to get around the strictures and hardships of the Communist regimes. Even if you couldn’t find anything in the notoriously empty grocery stores, it wasn’t impossible to get what you wanted “na leva” (literally, “on the left” – i.e., outside of normal channels.) Furthermore, while you couldn’t get access to anything interesting to read in regular book shops, “samizdat,” or censored publications reproduced by hand and passed from reader to reader, still allowed those who could work the system to get information from the world on the other side of the curtain.
Most of Applebaum's book, however, is not about why the takeover happened, but rather what it was like, and what the nature was of the system the Communists sought to impose in East Germany, Poland, and Hungary.
After she describes the process of the takeovers, Applebaum details the careers of several “mini-Stalins,” who were put in charge of various governments by the Soviets. All of them were nationals of the countries they came to rule, but had been communists before the war, and received rigorous training in Stalinist statecraft in the Soviet Union. She also gives an account of ordinary life in the communist countries, bleak from consumer goods shortages, dreary propaganda-laden “entertainment,” and virtually complete lack of political choice.
Applebaum ends the history in 1956 with the Polish and Hungarian uprisings, although that was far from the end of the Iron Curtain. But there was in fact a sea change then. Stalin had died in 1953, and the Kremlin was trying to stabilize its satellites. Presumably, she will continue the saga with another volume.
Evaluation: Applebaum’s prose is readable and her historical research is very thorough. To some extent, the book drags on because the story is so depressing. But for anyone who wonders how people could live so long under the adverse conditions of communist-ruled Eastern Europe, this book provides a very complete explanation.
The author is what we might label a “neo-con” on the political spectrum. She currently directs political studies at the Legatum Institute, and before that worked for the American Enterprise Institute. She is also married to a fierce anti-communist Polish politician. While I could see how her background may have colored her presentation, I could not quarrel with the facts she presented.
I listened to the unabridged audio version. The narrator, Cassandra Campbell, seemed quite competent, particularly in her fluent pronunciation of foreign words and names. Nevertheless, the unrelenting progression of depressing events caused the listening experience to be a downer. Moreover, some readers less familiar with the time and geography under consideration might miss the maps, photos, and footnotes that accompany the written book.
(JAB) show less
Perhaps what is most fascinating about the strange episode of human history under which the communist oppression of Eastern Europe falls is that it has gone so long without a comprehensive history of how it occurred. Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 appears to step into that gap, providing in-depth research and a vividly written history of the period that saw the Soviet oppression and domination through totalitarian regimes of what would come to be show more known as the Communist Bloc and comprising the countries in Central and Eastern Europe with communist regimes.
Uniquely, the communist dictatorships that lasted, roughly speaking, from the end of World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall were based, at least in theory, on an ideology rather than nationalism or, as in the case of Germany, racism. Applebaum traces the oppression of Eastern Europe and the rise of the Iron Curtain to "zero hour," that moment of silence between the retreat of the German war machine and the invasion of the Russian army on its way to Berlin. The fighting had ended, and life was to begin again, but in Eastern Europe, where the carnage was worse than anything on the western half of the continent, there was no fresh start. People slipped from labor camps to make their way home, others began long migrations back to their homeland (or further if their homeland was now held by others), and still others continued fighting, shifting focus from the Nazis to the occupying Russian Army. The destruction left not a blank slate, but a gap of order, and into this gap the Soviets dictated the new order at the point of the Russian soldier's gun.
Applebaum's writing is vivid and clear, making colorful even the grey oppression of the dark communist decades. Here's an example from the beginning of the book that I think typifies her writing and which kept be reading to the end:
Lending an image both of the vast and the specific simultaneously, it's an apt start to Applebaum's endeavour to examine the methods and means by which communists, largely directed and guided from Moscow, set up and took control of the governments and people of Eastern and Central Europe, first under the guise of democratic elections and then, as necessary, with the assistance of secret police and tank columns.
As she details the fall and decline of civil society to the relentless oppression, Applebaum walks through how communists took control of and used the police, youth organizations, the media (which meant radio in those days), politics, and the economies of Central and Eastern Europe, but especially with a focus on Poland and Hungary. Her examination isn't directed so much as communism--China, Cuba, North Korea, and Russia (but for its role dominating the Soviet bloc) are not address--but totalitarianism. American "Cold Warriors" positioned themselves, as Applebaum puts it, as opponents to it, and Applebaum sets out to examine whether it was a real threat or just a ruse and exaggeration. Today, the threat of totalitarianism may seem silly, but in a time when Hitler was fresh on the mind and while Stalin's personality cult raged, the possibility of that the USSR would turn Eastern Europe into an ideologically and politically homogenous region seemed real.
Gone the way of history though it may be, Applebaum succeeds in bringing the period to life, drawing on new resources and documents to tell the stories of the post-World War II Poles, Hungarians, and others trapped behind the Iron Curtain. After reading it earlier this year, I have found myself turning back to Iron Curtain's pages on more than one occasion to refresh my memory on details and discussions that Applebaum's book holds. Not only is it a fascinating, if dark, period of history, but it is a saga we would be wise to learn from and retain. Applebaum does it justice in her account, and it should be a part of the library of any person with even the slightest interest in history of Eastern Europe and the brave people who endured the totalitarian oppression of communism and Soviet Russia. show less
Uniquely, the communist dictatorships that lasted, roughly speaking, from the end of World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall were based, at least in theory, on an ideology rather than nationalism or, as in the case of Germany, racism. Applebaum traces the oppression of Eastern Europe and the rise of the Iron Curtain to "zero hour," that moment of silence between the retreat of the German war machine and the invasion of the Russian army on its way to Berlin. The fighting had ended, and life was to begin again, but in Eastern Europe, where the carnage was worse than anything on the western half of the continent, there was no fresh start. People slipped from labor camps to make their way home, others began long migrations back to their homeland (or further if their homeland was now held by others), and still others continued fighting, shifting focus from the Nazis to the occupying Russian Army. The destruction left not a blank slate, but a gap of order, and into this gap the Soviets dictated the new order at the point of the Russian soldier's gun.
Applebaum's writing is vivid and clear, making colorful even the grey oppression of the dark communist decades. Here's an example from the beginning of the book that I think typifies her writing and which kept be reading to the end:
Explosions echoed throughout the night, and artillery fire could be heard throughout the day. Across Eastern Europe, the noise of falling bombs, rattling machine guns, rolling tanks, churning engines, and burning buildings heralded the approach of the Red Army. As the front line drew closer, the ground shook, the walls shivered, the children screamed. And then it stopped.
Lending an image both of the vast and the specific simultaneously, it's an apt start to Applebaum's endeavour to examine the methods and means by which communists, largely directed and guided from Moscow, set up and took control of the governments and people of Eastern and Central Europe, first under the guise of democratic elections and then, as necessary, with the assistance of secret police and tank columns.
As she details the fall and decline of civil society to the relentless oppression, Applebaum walks through how communists took control of and used the police, youth organizations, the media (which meant radio in those days), politics, and the economies of Central and Eastern Europe, but especially with a focus on Poland and Hungary. Her examination isn't directed so much as communism--China, Cuba, North Korea, and Russia (but for its role dominating the Soviet bloc) are not address--but totalitarianism. American "Cold Warriors" positioned themselves, as Applebaum puts it, as opponents to it, and Applebaum sets out to examine whether it was a real threat or just a ruse and exaggeration. Today, the threat of totalitarianism may seem silly, but in a time when Hitler was fresh on the mind and while Stalin's personality cult raged, the possibility of that the USSR would turn Eastern Europe into an ideologically and politically homogenous region seemed real.
Gone the way of history though it may be, Applebaum succeeds in bringing the period to life, drawing on new resources and documents to tell the stories of the post-World War II Poles, Hungarians, and others trapped behind the Iron Curtain. After reading it earlier this year, I have found myself turning back to Iron Curtain's pages on more than one occasion to refresh my memory on details and discussions that Applebaum's book holds. Not only is it a fascinating, if dark, period of history, but it is a saga we would be wise to learn from and retain. Applebaum does it justice in her account, and it should be a part of the library of any person with even the slightest interest in history of Eastern Europe and the brave people who endured the totalitarian oppression of communism and Soviet Russia. show less
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