Eastern Europe consists of the eight states that were occupied by the Red Army in 1944 and 1945 and became part of the Soviet Bloc. They were Poland, E. Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. "The war gave Stalin an unprecedented opportunity to impose his particular vision of communist society on his neighbors." This book is a history of how totalitarianism prevailed, and focuses on Poland, E. Germany and Hungary.
Zero Hour is the point in time when the fighting stopped and the survivors stumbled into the daylight of a world that was either partially or totally destroyed. Warsaw and Berlin were leveled; Budapest fared better, but three-quarters of its buildings were damaged. Millions were dead and civilization had ceased to exist throughout the region. Into this vacuum came the rapists, thieves and murderers of the Red Army. The Soviets began to take their 'reparations' and shipped east personal property, factories and even electric power plants. On the heels of the invaders were the Moscow communists who were slavishly loyal to Stalin and ready to follow orders. Their first job was to join coalitions of national liberation and cooperate with other political parties. They were accompanied by NKVD-trained men who built new police states. As the Soviets had done in eastern Poland from 1939-41, they arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned and occasionally executed those who 'might' oppose the new communist era. They were particularly brutal in Poland where the Home Army had fought so bravely yet were treated by the Reds no better than the Nazis. "Everywhere in Eastern Europe, their control over the secret police gave minority communist parties an outsized influence over political events." In the first round of elections, the communists were embarrassed and began the process of purging voters, imprisoning and exiling opponents and stuffing ballot boxes. "By the end of 1948.....politics had become something that happened not between several parties but within a single party."
High Stalinism, the author's characterization of the brutality of the five years preceding the tyrant's 1953 death, encompassed all the states of eastern Europe. The Reds cracked down on their number one enemy, the Catholic and Protestant establishments that survived the war. Schools, hospitals, and monasteries were closed and their lands confiscated. 'Enemies of the state' were subjected to Soviet-style show trials, imprisonment and for some deportation to the Soviet Gulag. Culture, sport, construction and education soon followed the Soviet model. Stalin died on March 6, 1953. In June, Berlin workers struck and rallied against the state. The Soviets declared martial law and Soviet tanks restored order. Three years later, after Khruschev's 'secret speech', there were riots in Poland and an exercise of a certain amount of independent nationalism that Khrushchev allowed. But not so in Hungary where the Soviets brutally crushed the Hungarian Revolution. Thankfully, 1989 brought an end to the Soviet domination of eastern Europe.
Anne Applebaum is an excellent writer and this is an excellent book. I cannot, however, remember why I noted it for consideration. Most of the material was covered in Tony Judt's 'Cold War' and other books about the aftermath of the war. A number of years ago, I vowed to stop reading anything about the Bolsheviks and the seventy-five year nightmare they perpetuated. A world in which the truth is abhorred and lies, deceit, cheating, brutality, injustice, and dozens of other false ways of living are elevated is too unpleasant to explore. Never again, and I hope I stick to it.
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