Victor Sebestyen
Stalin Supreme
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–1956
By Anne Applebaum
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 614pp £25 order from our bookshop
Stalin famously said, midway through the Second World War, that when the fighting was over, whoever occupied a territory ‘would impose their own social system on that territory … it can be no other way’. Every now and then the monster called things right. The western Allies introduced liberal democracy into states often unfamiliar with it, promoting free markets and independent legal systems. In western Europe, through choice, people have stuck with the democratic idea, however imperfect, ever since.
In the East, the victorious generalissimo imposed his version of communism, based partly on ideology and partly on his mistrustful and secretive personality. How Stalin and his apparatchiks colonised and crushed all opposition in a third of Europe is the subject of Anne Applebaum’s brilliant and important book, as masterly
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'A publicist interviewed by Fairrie praises Collins and her heroines ... because these were "women who behaved like men". Is that supposed to be good, given how men behaved towards Collins?'
Peter Conrad reviews a new documentary about Jackie Collins.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/easy-writer
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo
'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine