My Amazon Review of Jonathan Haslam's "The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II"

 

The Long Shadow of the Bolshevik Revolution

 

Jonathan Haslam, a professor at Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Studies, confirms Ian Kershaw’s thesis that the Bolshevik Revolution was the most significant event of the 20^th century. As I noted in my review of Kershaw’s “To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949” the Bolshevik Revolution hardened the Right and divided the Left. (Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Ian Kershaw's "To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949" ) This theme plays out throughout Haslam’s very academic book that views the interwar period through the prism of the Soviet Union, but nonetheless a history nerd like me can enjoy.

 

The Russian Revolution scared the daylights out of capitalist Europe and the actions of the Comintern in the 1920’s and early 1930’s reinforced those fears. Haslam discusses the Comintern’s activities in China in support of the local Communist Party in interfering with the huge British interests there, in supporting the Indochinese Communist Party in attacking French interests and in its funding of the 1926 British general strike. The Soviet Union was not acting as rational state, but rather as a revolutionary power.

 

The fear of Communism enabled the usually cautious German establishment to support the rabble-rousing Nazis and it would prevent all too many British conservatives from supporting an alliance with Russia against Hitler. This was especially true of Chamberlain. In fact, many of those conservatives were actually pro-Hitler in viewing him as a bulwark against communism from the east. They worried that should Hitler fall, the communists would pick up the pieces. In essence they viewed Hitler as rational and Stalin as irrational.

 

With the respect to the Left, socialist parties split all over Europe into social democratic and communist factions. To Stalin and the Comintern the social democrats, not the Nazis were the true enemy up until 1934. The social democrats were called “social fascists” and the German communists worked hand-in-glove to bring down the Bruning government in 1932 thereby opening the way for Hitler

 

When the party-line shifted in 1935 to support the “Popular Front,” for the first time the Left was united. Popular Front governments were formed in 1936 in Spain and France thereby triggering the Spanish Civil War and further frightening the anxious conservatives in both France and Britain. At last, the Soviets were acting as rational state in trying to form an alliance with the capitalist powers against Hitler.

 

However, because the British were not of one mind with respect to an alliance, Stalin made his infamous deal with Nazi Germany in 1939. Stalin’s gamble was that the West would bleed itself white and he would then be able to pick up the pieces. However, when France quickly fell, Stalin was foisted on his own petards as a seemingly rational move became undone.

 

Haslam makes a compelling case that had the Bolshevik Revolution not happened European history would have been radically altered. Hitler likely would not have risen to power and the world would have been in a much better place.

For the full Amazon URL see: The Long Shadow of the Bolshevik Revolution (amazon.com)