Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (78 page)

On the Russian Revolution, H. Shukman (ed.),
The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution
(Oxford, 1988), is handy. O. Figes,
A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924
(1996), is a vivid and panoramic account whose pessimism contrasts strikingly with both E. H. Carr,
The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923
(1950), and with S. Fitzpatrick,
The Russian Revolution, 1917–1932
(Oxford, 1982). O. Radkey,
The Election to the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917
(Cambridge, Mass., 1950), is an incisive study of Russian popular political opinion at the start of the revolution. V. Shklovsky,
A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs, 1917–1922
(Ithaca, NY, 1984), is a brilliant memoir. For polemical interpretations of the long-run significance of the Russian Revolution, see Z. Brzezinski,
The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century
(New York, 1990), M. Malia,
The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917–1991
(1994), and F. Furet,
Le Passé d’une illusion: essai sur l’idée communiste
(Paris, 1995). G. Hosking,
A History of the Soviet Union
(1992 edn), is no less useful for being less polemical.

For Weimar Germany, see P. Gay,
Weimar Culture
(1968), F. L. Carsten,
The Reichswehr and Politics
(1966), K. Sontheimer,
Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik
(Munich, 1974), C. Maier, “The vulnerabilities of interwar Germany,”
Journal of Modern History
, 56 (March 1984), pp. 89–99, and P. Fritzsche’s thought-provoking, “Did Weimar fail?,”
Journal of Modern History
, 68 (September 1996), pp. 629–66. I. Kershaw,
The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives
(1985), and P. Aycoberry,
The Nazi Question: An Essay on the Interpretation of National Socialism (1922–1975)
(New York, 1981), survey the historical debates surrounding the Third Reich. See also K. D. Bracher,
The German Dictatorship
(1969), and D. Crew (ed.),
Nazism and German Society
(1994). W. S. Allen,
The Nazi Seizure of Power
(1965), remains unsurpassed as a vivid portrayal of the collapse of German democracy in a small town. The best collection of documents is the three volumes edited by J. Noakes and G. Pridham.

Law and legal theory—largely neglected by historians—are discussed by J. Bendersky,
Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Third Reich
(Princeton, NJ, 1983), and by Ellen Kennedy in her introduction to Schmitt’s
Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy
. See also Karl Loewenstein, “Law in the Third Reich,”
Yale Law Journal
, 45 (1936), I.
Muller,
Hitler’s Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich
(Cambridge, Mass., 1991), and E. Fraenkel’s classic
The Dual State
(New York, 1941). F. Morstein Marx,
Government in the Third Reich
(New York, 1937), and H. Arthur Steiner,
Government in Fascist Italy
(1938), both have the advantage of taking their subjects seriously as functioning forms of modern administration, avoiding some silly post-war scholarly debates about whether inter-war dictators controlled what was going on inside their administrations or not. C. Beradt,
The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation, 1933–1939
(Wellingborough, Northants, 1985), shows how totalitarianism pervaded the unconscious. H. Krausnick and M. Broszat,
Anatomy of the SS State
(1970), and R. Gellatelly,
The Gestapo and German Society
(Oxford, 1990), lay bare the mechanics of the Nazi terror system, while A. Bullock,
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
(1991), and I. Kershaw and M. Lewin (eds.),
Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison
(Cambridge, 1997), compare the repressiveness of the two major totalitarian regimes. Despite all the discussion of totalitarianism, however, we still lack searching comparative analysis of Nazism and communism.

Fascist Italy is best approached through A. Lyttelton,
The Seizure of Power
(1972), and P. Corner,
Fascism in Ferrara, 1915–1925
(Oxford, 1975). E. Gentile,
The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy
(Cambridge, Mass., 1996) may be compared with I. Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth
(Oxford, 1987). E. R. Tannenbaum,
The Fascist Experiment
(1972), is comprehensive but dated. A lot of the most interesting recent work focuses on relations between regime and society: see V. de Grazia,
The Culture of Consent: Leisure in Fascist Italy
(1981), T. H. Koon,
Believe, Obey, Fight
(1985), D. Thompson,
State Control in Fascist Italy
(1991), and A. de Grand, “Cracks in the facade: the failure of Fascist totalitarianism,”
European History Quarterly
, 21: 4 (October 1991), pp. 515–37. C. Delzell (ed.),
Mediterranean Fascism
(1971), and A. Lyttelton (ed.),
Italian Fascisms from Pareto to Gentile
(1973), are useful collections. A. Stille,
Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families under Fascism
(1992), is a brilliantly readable study of the complex relationship between Fascism and Italy’s Jews. Fascist anti-Semitism is covered by G. Bernardini, “The origins and development of racial anti-semitism in Fascist Italy,”
Journal of Modern History
, 49 (September 1977), pp. 431–53, and by F. Levi,
L’ebreo in oggetto
(Turin, 1991). Italian imperialism has been largely neglected by historians, but see G. W. Baer,
Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia and the League of Nations
(Stanford, Calif., 1967), and E. M. Robertson, “Race as a factor in Mussolini’s policy in Africa and Europe,”
Journal of Contemporary History
, 23 (January 1988), pp. 37–59. Luisa Passerini,
Fascism in Popular Memory: The Cultural Experience of the Turin Working Class
(Cambridge, 1987), reconstructs popular attitudes through memories and oral testimonies.

The rise of the nationalist Right in eastern Europe and much more is covered by H. Seton-Watson,
Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918–1941
(1962 edn), A. Polonsky,
The Little Dictators
(1975), P. Sugar (ed.),
Native Fascism in the Successor States, 1918–1945
(Oxford, 1971), and J. Rothschild,
East Central Europe between the Two World Wars
(1984). More detailed analysis is provided by N. Nagy-Talavera,
The Green Shirts and Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Rumania
(1970), and by B. Vago,
The Shadow of the Swastika: The Rise of Fascism and Anti-Semitism in the Danube Basin, 1936–1939
(1975). C. Codreanu’s collected speeches in
For My Legionaries
(Madrid, n.d.) convey the crazed flavour of Romanian fascism. A self-serving intellectual reminiscence is offered by M. Eliade,
Autobiography
, vol. 1 (Chicago, 1981) which is best read alongside L. Volovici,
Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s
(Oxford, 1991). For Poland see A. Polonsky, “Roman Dmowski and Italian Fascism,” in R. J. Bullen (ed.),
Ideas into Politics
(1984), pp. 130–47, and J. Holzer, “The political right in Poland, 1918–1939,”
Journal of Contemporary History
, 12: 3 (1977).

C. A. Macartney,
National States and National Minorities
(1968) is a good introduction to the national aspects of the Versailles settlement. T. Bottomore and P. Goode (eds.),
Austro-Marxism
(1978), and E. Traverso,
TheMarxists and the Jewish Question
(New Jersey, 1994), discuss Marxist approaches to nationalism. G. Liber,
Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923–1934
(Cambridge, 1992), can be read alongside R. Pipes,
The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–1923
(Cambridge, Mass., 1964), or H. Carrère d’Encausse,
The Great Challenge: Nationalities and the Bolshevik State, 1917–1930
(New York, 1992). League of Nations policies are examined in I. Claude,
National Minorities: An International Problem
(Cambridge, Mass., 1955), and J. Robinson
et al., Were the Minorities Treaties a Failure?
(New York, 1943). Recent studies include C. Fink, “Defender of Minorities”: Germany in the League of Nations, 1926–1930,”
Central European History
(1972), pp. 330–57; P. B. Finney, “ ‘An evil for all concerned’: Great Britain and minority protection after 1919,”
Journal of Contemporary History
(1995), pp. 533–51, A. J. Motyl, “Ukrainian nationalist violence in interwar Poland, 1921–1939,”
East European Quarterly
(1985), and I. Livezeanu,
Cultural Politics in Greater Romania
(Ithaca, NY, 1995). As yet we have no study comparing the nationalities policies adopted by Geneva and Moscow between the wars. For Asia Minor, the classic contemporary account is A. J. Toynbee,
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey
(1923). Y. Ternon,
Les Arméniens: Histoire d’un génocide
(Paris, 1996 edn), is better than anything in English, though M. J. Somakian,
Empires in Conflict: Armenia and the Great Powers, 1895–1920
(1995), is a balanced, recent account. L. Stavrianos,
The Balkans since 1453
(1958), is a classic textbook; R. J. Wolff,
The Balkans in Our Time
(1956), is as good for the modern period. P. Kitromilides, “Imagined communities and the origins of the national question in the Balkans,”
European History Quarterly
, 19: 2 (1989), pp. 149–92, discusses the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman empire. On refugees, see J. Hope Simpson,
The Refugee Problem
(1939), and C. Skran,
Refugees in Interwar Europe
(Oxford, 1995). Nazi attitudes towards international law are discussed in J. Herz, “The National Socialist doctrine of international law and the problems of international organisation,”
Political Science Quarterly
(December 1939), pp. 536–54. See too P. Stirk, “Authoritarian and national socialist conceptions of nation, state and Europe,” in Stirk (ed.),
European Unity in Context: the Interwar Period
(1989).

Capitalism’s crisis is reviewed in R. Overy,
The Interwar Crisis, 1919–1939
(1994), P. Fearon,
The Origin and Nature of the Great Slump
(1979), H. W. Arndt,
The Economic Lessons of the 1930s
(1963 edn), and C. Kindleberger,
The World in Depression, 1929–1939
(1973). B. Eichengreen,
Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939
(1992), and S. Pollard,
The Gold Standard and Employment Policies between the Wars
(1970), show what was wrong with the gold standard. Capitalism’s chief sponsors are discussed by
D. Silverman,
Reconstructing Europe after the Great War
(Cambridge, Mass., 1982), C. Maier,
Recasting Bourgeois Europe
(Princeton, NJ, 1975), R. Boyce,
British Capitalism at the Crossroads, 1919–1932
(Cambridge, 1987), R. Skidelsky,
Politicians and the Slump: The Labour Government of 1929–31
(1967), S. Schuker,
The End of French Predominance in Europe
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1988), and J. Jackson,
The Politics of Depression in France
(Cambridge, 1985) and
The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934–38
(Cambridge, 1988). D. S. White,
Socialists of the Front Generation, 1918–1945
(Cambridge, Mass., 1992), shows why capitalism’s crisis pushed several brilliant young socialists to the Right. R. Kuisel,
Capitalism and the State in Modern France
(Cambridge, 1981), charts capitalism’s adaptation before, during and after the depression.

On communism as an economic system, see R. W. Davies, M. Harrison and S. G. Wheatcroft (eds.),
The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945
(Cambridge, 1994). For communism as modernization see M. Lewin,
The Making of the Soviet System
(1985). R. W. Davies, “Forced labour under Stalin: the archive revelations,”
New Left Review
, 214 (November/December 1995), pp. 62–80, judiciously reviews new evidence. M. Fainsod’s classic,
Smolensk under Soviet Rule
(1989 edn), brings the world of Stalin’s Russia to life. Forced industrialization as lived experience is the subject of S. Kotkin,
Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization
(Berkeley, Calif., 1995). V. Kravchenko,
I Chose Freedom: The Personal and Political Life of a Soviet Official
(1947), is a gripping memoir. L. Lih
et al
. (eds.),
Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 1925–1936
(New Haven, Yale, 1995), though offering few revelations, do give an insight into the tone and rhythm of high-level policy-making.

For the relationship between fascism and capitalism, the best place to start is H. James,
The German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924–1936
(Oxford, 1988), and G. Toniolo,
L’economia dell’Italia fascista
(Rome, 1980). For the big corporations see P. Hayes,
Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era
(Cambridge, 1987) and the collected essays in R. Overy,
War and Economy in the Third Reich
(1994). M. Kele,
Nazis and Workers: National Socialist Appeals to German Labor, 1918–1933
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1972), covers the period before Hitler came to power. Tim Mason,
Social Policy in the Third Reich
(Oxford,
1993), covers the period after. For capitalism’s evolution in eastern Europe, see M. C. Kaser and E. Radice (eds.)
The Economic History of Eastern Europe, 1919–1975
, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1986), and G. Berend and I. Ranki, “L’évolution économique de l’Europe orientale entre les deux guerres mondiales,”
Annales
, 33 (1978). M. Jackson and J. Lampe,
Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950
(Bloomington, Ind., 1982), has much good data. L. Neal, “The economics and financing of bilateral clearing agreements: Germany, 1934–38,”
Economic History Review
(1979), demystifies Nazi trade policy. M. Mazower,
Greece and the Interwar Economic Crisis
(Oxford, 1991), tries to show there were advantages as well as disadvantages to backwardness.