Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe » (Reprint)

Robert Gellately is the Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University and recently was the Bertelsmann Visiting Professor of Twentieth Century Jewish Politics and History at Oxford University. He is the author of The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933—1945 and Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. He was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

A bold new accounting of the great social and political upheavals that enveloped Europe between 1914 and 1945—from the Russian Revolution through the Second World War.

In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature. Arguing that the tragedies endured by Europe were inextricably linked through the dictatorships of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, Gellately explains how the pursuit of their “utopian” ideals turned into dystopian nightmares. Dismantling the myth of Lenin as a relatively benevolent precursor to Hitler and Stalin and contrasting the divergent ways that Hitler and Stalin achieved their calamitous goals, Gellately creates in Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler a vital analysis of a critical period in modern history.

The Washington Post - Simon Sebag Montefiore

"The image of Lenin that emerges from the pages of this book, even the mere mention of him in the title alongside Stalin and Hitler," writes Robert Gellately in the introduction to his new study of the epoch of the great slaughterhouse in the 20th century, "will disturb some people." The author, a distinguished academic, adds that "a good friend of mine…said the very thought of putting Lenin next to Stalin and Hitler in the book's title would be enough to make her Russian grandmother turn in her grave." But let that Russian grandmother turn: It's time to rip up the accepted versions of this terrible period and analyze it on the evidence that we now have. Gellately has done just that in a book that is both sensible and sophisticated, scholarly and very readable.

Abbreviations and Glossary     xi
Note on Russian Spelling and Dates     xv
Maps     xvi
Introduction     3
Lenin's Communist Dictatorship
The First World War and the Russian Revolution     21
On the Way to Communist Dictatorship     41
Civil Wars in the Soviet Union     62
The Rise of German National Socialism
Nazism and the Threat of Bolshevism     81
First Nazi Attempt to Seize Power     102
Hitler Starts Over     117
Stalin Triumphs over Political Rivals
Battle for Communist Utopia     131
Lenin's Passing, Stalin's Victory     141
Stalin's New Initiatives     160
Stalin Solidifies His Grip     173
Germans Make a Pact with Hitler
Nazi Party as Social Movement     185
Nazism Exploits Economic Distress     198
"All Power" for Hitler     211
Stalin's Reign of Terror
Fight Against the Countryside     227
Terror as Political Practice     240
"Mass Operations"     253
"Cleansing" the Soviet Elite     267
Hitler's War Against Democracy
Winning Over the Nation     285
Dictatorship by Consent     298
Persecution of the Jews in the PrewarYears     315
"Cleansing" the German Body Politic     331
Stalin and Hitler: Into the Social Catastrophe
Rival Visions of World Conquest     345
German Racial Persecution Begins in Poland     360
Hitler and Western Europe     375
The Soviet Response     384
The War Spreads     397
Hitler's War on "Jewish Bolshevism"
War of Extermination as Nazi Crusade     413
War Against the Communists: Operation Barbarossa     429
War Against the Jews: Death Squads in the East     441
The "Final Solution" and Death Camps     452
Hitler's Defeat and Stalin's Agenda
Greatest Crisis in Stalin's Career     471
Between Surrender and Defiance     482
Soviets Hold On, Hitler Grows Vicious     498
Ethnic Cleansing in Wartime Soviet Union     511
Final Struggle
From Stalingrad to Berlin     525
Stalin Takes the Upper Hand     543
End of the Third Reich     560
Epilogue     579
Notes     595
Acknowledgments     671
Index     673
Photographic Credits     697