Download or read book The Spectre of War written by Jonathan Haslam and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War II The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Haslam transforms our understanding of the deep-seated origins of World War II, its conflicts, and its legacy. Haslam offers a panoramic view of Europe and northeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, connecting fascism’s emergence with the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. World War I had economically destabilized many nations, and the threat of Communist revolt loomed large in the ensuing social unrest. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire, and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order. The appeasement and political misreading of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy that followed held back the spectre of rebellion—only to usher in the later advent of war. Illuminating ideological differences in the decades before World War II, and the continuous role of pre- and postwar Communism, The Spectre of War provides unprecedented context for one of the most momentous calamities of the twentieth century.
Download or read book The Spectre of Stalin written by Jean-Paul Sartre and published by Hamish Hamilton. This book was released on 1969 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book FashionEast written by Djurdja Bartlett and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-10-08 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly illustrated, comprehensive study of fashion under socialism, from state-sponsored prototypes to unofficial imitations of Paris fashion. The idea of fashion under socialism conjures up images of babushka headscarves and black market blue jeans. And yet, as Djurdja Bartlett shows in this groundbreaking book, the socialist East had an intimate relationship with fashion. Official antagonism—which cast fashion as frivolous and anti-revolutionary—eventually gave way to grudging acceptance and creeping consumerism. Bartlett outlines three phases in socialist fashion, and illustrates them with abundant images from magazines of the period: postrevolutionary utopian dress, official state-sanctioned socialist fashion, and samizdat-style everyday fashion. Utopian dress, ranging from the geometric abstraction of the constructivists under Bolshevism in the Soviet Union to the no-frills desexualized uniform of a factory worker in Czechoslovakia, reflected the revolutionary urge for a clean break with the past. The highly centralized socialist fashion system, part of Stalinist industrialization, offered official prototypes of high fashion that were never available in stores—mythical images of smart and luxurious dresses that symbolized the economic progress that socialist regimes dreamed of. Everyday fashion, starting in the 1950s, was an unofficial, do-it-yourself enterprise: Western fashions obtained through semiclandestine channels or sewn at home. The state tolerated the demand for Western fashion, promising the burgeoning middle class consumer goods in exchange for political loyalty. Bartlett traces the progress of socialist fashion in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, and Yugoslavia, drawing on state-sponsored socialist women's magazines, etiquette books, socialist manuals on dress, private archives, and her own interviews with designers, fashion editors, and other key figures. Fashion, she suggests, with all its ephemerality and dynamism, was in perpetual conflict with the socialist regimes' fear of change and need for control. It was, to echo the famous first sentence from the Communist Manifesto, the spectre that haunted socialism until the end.
Download or read book The Specter of Communism written by Melvyn P. Leffler and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics. The Specter of Communism is a concise history of the origins of the Cold War and the evolution of U.S.-Soviet relations, from the Bolshevik revolution to the death of Stalin. Using not only American documents but also those from newly opened archives in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, Leffler shows how the ideological animosity that existed from Lenin's seizure of power onward turned into dangerous confrontation. By focusing on American political culture and American anxieties about the Soviet political and economic threat, Leffler suggests new ways of understanding the global struggle staged by the two great powers of the postwar era.
Download or read book Sartre Against Stalinism written by Ian H. Birchall and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sartre against Stalinism demonstrates that the continuing debate with the anti-Stalinist left was an essential component of Sartre's political development, and provides an important key to the understanding of his work as a whole."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Stalin s War written by Sean McMeekin and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prize-winning historian reveals how Stalin—not Hitler—was the animating force of World War II in this major new history. World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler’s war; it was Stalin’s war. Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and US archives, Stalin’s War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler’s genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin’s goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary. McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain’s self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin’s war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army. This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin’s armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism. A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin’s War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world order.
Download or read book Stalin written by Hiroaki Kuromiya and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This profile looks at how Stalin, despite being regarded as intellectually inferior by his rivals, managed to rise to power and rule the largest country in the world, achievieving divine-like status as a dictator. Through recently uncovered research material and Stalin’s archives in Moscow, Kuromiya analyzes how and why Stalin was a rare, even unique, politician who literally lived by politics alone. He analyses how Stalin understood psychology campaigns well and how he used this understanding in his political reign and terror. Kuromiya provides a convincing, concise and up-to-date analysis of Stalin’s political life.
Download or read book Stalin From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power written by Roland Boer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book not only explicates Stalin’s thoughts, but thinks with and especially through Stalin. It argues that Stalin often thought at the intersections between theology and Marxist political philosophy – especially regarding key issues of socialism in power. Careful and sustained attention to Stalin’s written texts is the primary approach used. The result is a series of arresting efforts to develop the Marxist tradition in unexpected ways. Starting from a sympathetic attitude toward socialism in power, this book provides us with an extremely insightful interpretation of Stalin’s philosophy of socialism. It is not only a successful academic effort to re-articulate Stalin’s philosophy, but also a creative effort to understand socialism in power in the context of both the former Soviet Union and contemporary China. ------- Zhang Shuangli, Professor of Marxist philosophy, Fudan University Boer's book, far from both "veneration" and "demonization" of Stalin, throws new light on the classic themes of Marxism and the Communist Movement: language, nation, state, and the stages of constructing post-capitalist society. It is an original book that also pays great attention to the People's Republic of China, arising from the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, and which is valuable to those who, beyond the twentieth century, want to understand the time and the world in which we live. -------Domenico Losurdo, University of Urbino, Italy, author of Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend.
Download or read book The Spectre of Munich written by Jeffrey Record and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation. No historical event has exerted more influence on Americas postWorld War II use of military force than the Anglo-French appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Informed by the supposed grand lesson of Munichnamely, that capitulating to the demands of aggressive dictatorships invites further aggression and makes inevitable a larger warAmerican presidents from Harry Truman through George W. Bush have relied on the Munich analogy not only to interpret perceived security threats but also to mobilize public opinion for military action. In The Specter of Munich, noted defense analyst Jeffrey Record takes an unconventional look at a disastrous chapter in Western diplomatic history. After identifying the complex considerations behind the Anglo-French appeasement of Hitler and the reasons for the policys failure, Record disputes the stock thesis that unchecked aggression always invites further aggression. He proceeds to identify other lessons of the 1930s more relevant to meeting todays U.S. foreign policy and security challenges. Among those lessons are the severe penalties that foreign policy miscalculation can incur, the constraints of public opinion in a modern democracy, and the virtue of consistency in threatening and using force. The Specter of Munichconcludes that though todays global political, military, and economic environment differs considerably from that of the 1930s, the United States is making some of the same strategic mistakes in its war on terrorism that the British and French made in their attempts to protect themselves against Nazi Germany. Not the least of these mistakes is the continued reliance on the specter of Adolf Hitler to interpret today's foreign security threats.
Download or read book Stalin s Secret Police written by Rupert Butler and published by Amber Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrated with more than 100 black-and-white photographs and expertly written, Stalin’s Secret Police is a chilling history of the Soviet secret police from 1917 to the fall of Communism.
Download or read book Stalin s Nemesis written by Bertrand M. Patenaude and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Leon Trotsky was the charismatic intellectual of the Russian Revolution, a brilliant writer and orator who was also an authoritarian organizer. He might have succeeded Lenin and become the ruler of the Soviet Union. But by the time the Second World War broke out he was in exile, living in Mexico in a villa borrowed from the great artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, guarded only by several naive young Americans in awe of the great theoretician. The household was awash with emotional turmoil - tensions grew between Trotsky and Rivera, as questions arose over his relations with Frida Kahlo. His wife was restless and jealous. Outside of the villa, Mexican communists tried to storm the house and kill the man they regarded as a traitor, the Trotskys' sons were being persecuted and killed in Europe, and in Moscow, Stalin personally ordered his secret police to kill his fiercest left-wing critic - at any cost. By the summer of 1940, they had found a man who could penetrate the tight security around the house in far-away Mexico. This title offers a brilliant reconstruction of one of the most infamous state crimes, and a panoramic view of Trotsky's incredible life. ." from Book jacket (abridged).
Download or read book Redefining Stalinism written by Harold Shukman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-11-23 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in 1879 in Georgia, Stalin joined the Bolsheviks under Lenin in 1903 and became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. These edited papers reassess the deeds, policies and legacy of a man who was responsible for innumerable deaths and untold human misery.
Download or read book Stalin s Gamble written by Michael Jabara Carley and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2023-07-26 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shedding light on the origins of the Second World War in Europe, Stalin’s Gamble aims to create a historical narrative of the relations of the USSR with Britain, France, the United States, Poland, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Romania during the 1930s. The book explores the Soviet Union’s efforts to organize a defensive alliance against Nazi Germany, in effect rebuilding the anti-German Entente of the First World War. Drawing on extensive research in Soviet as well as Western archives, Michael Jabara Carley offers an in-depth account of the diplomatic manoeuvrings which surrounded the rise of Hitler and Soviet efforts to construct an alliance against future German aggression. Paying close attention to the beliefs and interactions of senior politicians and diplomats, the book seeks to replace one-sided Western histories with records from both sides. The book also offers an inside look at Soviet foreign policy making, with a focus on Stalin as a foreign policy maker as well as nd his interactions with his colleagues. Told in a fascinating narrative style, Stalin’s Gamble attempts to see the European crisis of the 1930s through Soviet eyes.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Populism written by Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Populism presents the state of the art of research on populism from the perspective of Political Science. The book features work from the leading experts in the field, and synthesizes the main strands of research in four compact sections: concepts, issues, regions, and normative debates. Due to its breath, The Oxford Handbook of Populism is an invaluable resource for those interested in the study of populism, but also forexperts in each of the topics discussed, who will benefit from accounts of current discussions and research gaps, as well as a map of new directions in the study of populism.
Download or read book Stalin s Unwanted Child written by Wilfried Loth and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did Germany come to be divided during the Cold War? The renowned German historian Wilfired Loth has examined the archives of the Eastern side and comes to fascinating conclusions. He demonstrates that Stalin wanted neither a separate state on the soil of the Soviet Occupation Zone nor a socialist state in Germany at all. Instead, Stalin sought a joint administration of Germany by the victorious powers, a Germany along the lines of the Weimar Republic. The socialist separate state of the GDR is primarily the product of Walter Ulbricht's revolutionary zeal, which was able to unfold in the context of the Western walling-off policy.
Download or read book How Finland Survived Stalin written by Kimmo Rentola and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic and timely account of Stalin’s failed invasion of Finland in 1939, and the decade of wars and fraught relations that followed In November 1939, Stalin directed his military leaders to launch an invasion of Finland. In what became known as the Winter War, the full might of the Soviet army was pitted against this small Nordic republic. Yet despite their vastly superior military strength, the Soviets suffered heavy losses and failed to mount Stalin’s intended full-scale invasion. How did Finland evade Stalin’s crosshairs—not once, but three times more? In this groundbreaking account, Kimmo Rentola traces the epochal shifts in Soviet-Finnish relations. From the Winter War to Finland’s exit from World War II in 1944, a possible Soviet-backed coup in 1948, and Moscow’s designation of Finland as an enemy state in 1950, Finland was forced to navigate Stalin’s outsize political and territorial demands. Rentola presents a dramatic reconstruction of Finland’s unlikely survival at a time when the nation’s very existence was at stake.
Download or read book Stalin s War with Germany The road to Berlin written by John Erickson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Completing the most comprehensive and authoritative study ever written of the Soviet-German war, Erickson presents the vivid and compelling story of the Red Army's epic struggle to drive the Germans from Russian soil.
