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)

My Amazon Review of Peter Fritzche's "Hitler's First Hundred Days"

Into the Heart of Darkness

This dry and academic, yet captivating book by University of Illinois history professor Peter Fritzche takes us on a 100 day trip into the very heart of darkness that would become Nazi Germany. In late morning of January 30, 1933 German president Paul von Hindenburg would meet with former chancellor Joseph von Papen, National People’s Party leader Alfred Hugenberg and National Socialist Party leader Adolf Hitler to name the 43 year old Hitler as chancellor of Germany. Within 100 days Hitler would have absolute power over all of Germany.

Fritzche tells the story through diaries and press accounts of how educated everyday Germans succumbed to Hitler’s siren call. Through persuasion, rhetoric, parades, pageantry, bonfires and the jackbooted thugs of the S.A., democratic Germany yielded to a one party dictatorship. Hitler evoked the unity of August 1914 when Germany, at least on the surface, was united for war and the shame of defeat of November 1918 where the new social democratic government surrendered to the Allied Powers.

Simply put the Nazi message of nationalism trumped the class message of both the socialists and the communists.  And it was that nationalist message that fueled the hatred for the Jews by labeling them outside the German nation. It was during this time that the Dachau concentration camp was established and by April 1^st the government proclaimed a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses under the slogan “Jews Drop Dead.” It would be a few more short steps toward the holocaust that was to come.

It is not that the Nazi’s were initially super-popular. The Nazi alliance only received 52% of the popular vote in the March election. Nevertheless with full power Hitler intimidated his opponents and those who were not enamored of his regime initially acquiesced and later moved to full support as the economy improved and as they got caught up in the growing nationalist fervor.

Fritzche’s book drives home historian Ian Kershaw’s belief that the Bolshevik Revolution was the defining moment of the 20^th Century because it hardened the Right and divided the Left. The reason that Germany’s reactionary elements backed Hitler was their fear of communism and under Stalin’s orders the German Communist Party refused to align with the socialists. In fact it was a Nazi-Communist alliance that brought down the Center government of Heinrich Bruning in May 1932 setting the stage for Hitler.  Fritzche notes that when Moscow reversed itself and supported popular front alliance the socialists beat back the French Right in both 1934 and again in 1936. If only Stalin had adopted his popular front position in 1932.

Although many readers might find this book rough going, there are many lessons to be learned. Above all we should not take our freedom and liberties for granted. Hitler demonstrated to all who can see that liberal democracy can be a very fragile thing. Cherish it.

As an aside I couldn’t help but noting that Weimar came into being on November 9, 1918, Kristallnacht took place on November 9, 1938 and the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Quite a coincidence.

For the full amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1BUEMXXPALITD/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

My Amazon Review of Andrew Nagorski's "1941: The Year Germany Lost the War"

The Hitler- Stalin Duel

Journalist and historian Andrew Nagorski’s highly readable book places 1941 as the pivotal year of World War II. Although the actual tide of the war turned in 1943, the die was cast in 1941. His book is very much in the tradition of Ian Kershaw’s broader “Fateful Choices” which focuses on both 1940 and 1941 as the two years that determined the outcome of the war. Although Nagorski discusses the roles of Churchill, Roosevelt and the Japanese he mostly focuses on Hitler and Stalin. 

To Nagorski it is Hitler’s failure to understand that Germany did not have the resources to simultaneously fight the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union that led him into the trap that Russia became. Yet it was a very close run thing during the 1940 battle of Moscow. The Soviets won that battle because Stalin finally relented in giving battlefield control to General Zhukov. Prior to that Stalin failed to heed his generals and more importantly refused to accept intelligence from multiple sources, especially Richard Sorge in Tokyo, that Hitler was about to invade Russia. It was Japan’s decision to move south in 1941, instead of supporting Hitler in Russia, that enabled Zhukov’s army to be transferred from Siberia to the Moscow front.

Hitler’s tactical mistake on the Russian front was his maltreatment of captured POWs and the civilian population. Initially the long suffering Russian people welcomed the German Army, but it was the harsh treatment by the German occupiers that soon made enemies of them. It was also in 1941 Russia that the horrible outlines of Hitler’s destruction of European Jewry was actualized.

Nagorski’s Roosevelt and Hopkins are all in to aid Britain prior to Pearl Harbor. In fact it was with the introduction of the lend-lease program that Hitler believed that war with the United States would be inevitable.

Nagorski is very good in developing his thesis that Stalin from the get go was thinking beyond the alliance with the U.S. and Britain towards a postwar era that would enable him to capture the gains he made in the Ribbentrop- Molotov Pact of 1939. Thus to Nagorski the Cold War begins in 1941 and further he sees both Roosevelt and Hopkins being taken in by the wily Stalin against the wishes of the far more experienced diplomat George Kennan.

I have only scratched the surface of Nagorski’s magnificent book. He brings real drama to the personalities and the events of that very critical time when, in very real sense, civilization was held in the balance.

For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1X6BGF00YCXTZ/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv