The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth CenturyThe Devil in History is a provocative analysis of the relationship between communism and fascism. Reflecting the author’s personal experiences within communist totalitarianism, this is a book about political passions, radicalism, utopian ideals, and their catastrophic consequences in the twentieth century’s experiments in social engineering. Vladimir Tismaneanu brilliantly compares communism and fascism as competing, sometimes overlapping, and occasionally strikingly similar systems of political totalitarianism. He examines the inherent ideological appeal of these radical, revolutionary political movements, the visions of salvation and revolution they pursued, the value and types of charisma of leaders within these political movements, the place of violence within these systems, and their legacies in contemporary politics. The author discusses thinkers who have shaped contemporary understanding of totalitarian movements—people such as Hannah Arendt, Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Albert Camus, François Furet, Tony Judt, Ian Kershaw, Leszek Kolakowski, Richard Pipes, and Robert C. Tucker. As much a theoretical analysis of the practical philosophies of Marxism-Leninism and Fascism as it is a political biography of particular figures, this book deals with the incarnation of diabolically nihilistic principles of human subjugation and conditioning in the name of presumably pure and purifying goals. Ultimately, the author claims that no ideological commitment, no matter how absorbing, should ever prevail over the sanctity of human life. He comes to the conclusion that no party, movement, or leader holds the right to dictate to the followers to renounce their critical faculties and to embrace a pseudo-miraculous, a mystically self-centered, delusional vision of mandatory happiness. |
Contents
Totalitarian Dictators and Ideological Hubris | 1 |
Utopian Radicalism and Dehumanization | 18 |
Diabolical Pedagogy and the Illogic of Stalinism | 53 |
Bolshevism Marxism | 87 |
Marxism | 123 |
Lessons | 161 |
Threats to Democracy | 193 |
Notes | 235 |
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Common terms and phrases
Agnes Heller anti-Semitism Antifascism became Black Book Bolshevik Bolshevism bourgeois Bukharin Cambridge Central civil society Communist Party Communist regimes countries Courtois crimes critical cult culture defined democracy democratic dictatorship dissident doctrine East European Eastern Europe elite enemies ethnic experience freedom fundamental Genocide German Gorbachev gulag historian Hitler human Ian Kershaw ideas identity ideological individual institutions intellectuals Jewish Jews Jowitt Kotkin leader Lefort legacy Lenin Leninist Leszek Kołakowski liberal London Manifesto Marx Marxism mass modernity moral myth National Nazi Nazism Oxford philosopher Political Religions post-Communist praxis Princeton proletariat purges quoted radical reform revisionism revolutionary revolutions of 1989 Robert Roger Griffin role Romanian Russian social socialist Soviet bloc Soviet Union Stalin Stalinist struggle terror Timothy Snyder tion Tony Judt totalitarian Totalitarian Movements tradition transformation trial truth Tucker twentieth century ultimate University Press USSR utopia Václav Havel victims violence vision Vladimir Tismaneanu York