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Institution Affiliation Name

Book Critique; Ian, K. (1997). Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in comparison. Cambridge

University Press.

Moshe Lewin and Ian Kershaw, well-known Russian and German specialists, have

gathered an outstanding international team of scholars and sociologists to investigate the

comparable features of totalitarianism. Even though they are not overtly comparative, these

wide-ranging articles provide the groundwork for a more thorough comparative study and offer

the tools for furthering and expanding research in the area. The writings are divided into three

categories based on common ground that exists between the two systems. The first part examines

the similarities and contrasts between the leadership cults at the core of each dictatorship's power

structure. The second portion delves into the 'war machines' that took part in the epic battle of the

regimes between 1941 and 1945 in Europe (pg. 187). The last topic addressed examines the

changing perceptions of descendant civilizations in Germany and Russia because they have

confronted the legacy of the past and attempted to move forward. Stalinism and Nazism:

Dictatorships in Comparison brings together cutting-edge research and new views on the most

brutal and cruel period in modern European history, the Stalinist and Nazism eras. The

sociopolitical sciences, foreign diplomacy, transcultural studies, and students and experts in these

fields will find this book essential reading.

To put it another way: The Bolshevik Party had the actual ability to bring down the

Provisional Government and break up the Constituent Assembly however had neither a well-
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known command to lead all of Russia (not to mention non-Russian peripherals) nor an

unassailable legitimizing legend to back up their case to control. This was the puzzle of the

October Revolution: Although the Bolsheviks were effective in building up another state during

the Civil War, they were as yet a minority party that needed to demonstrate its authenticity to

stay in power (pg. 27). The Bolsheviks looked for dynamic help that could be activated toward

gallant goals, not simply detached acknowledgment in the new framework. Communists faced a

problem during their first two decades in power: how to shift away from using force to exert

control and instead build a support base based on an accepted hegemonic view of the historical

moment? Before the revolution, Stalin worked for the party as a komitetchik (committee

member) rather than a labor activist. Stalin was a doer because of his lack of ability to

synthesize and analyze theories like many of his contemporaries. This skilled political infighter

knew when to withdraw or stay quiet so that he could act with impunity. Additionally, Stalin was

likewise a result of Bolshevism's particular political culture and party practices, with its

inclination for uncontested power, failure to endure disappointment or analysis, and intuitive

doubt pointed even at those closest to him. Questions ejected, and they were wild and individual.

Subjection to higher specialists inside the development was required, and power and constraint

were close by to be utilized for the sake of communism, which was at last characterized by Stalin

as being inseparable from his arrangements and the protection of his position. As soon as he

became the party's top oligarch, he spoke on behalf of the Central Committee and the party

without consulting anybody. And he honed his brand of Marxism-Leninism to use against

imposters.

Through the annulment of the National Economic Policy (NEP), just as the disposal of

practically all private creation and exchange, Stalin set up the world's first current non-market,
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state-run economy, one that at the same time killed rival wellsprings of force and protection from

the focal specialists' will (pg. 35). 'Industrialists' were at this point not viewed as proprietors of

the method for creation. Laborer's capacity to effectively arrange to expand the cost of work was

presently preposterous. Ranchers were presently not permitted to retain grain to impact market

costs. Despite this, these gatherings discovered techniques to apply local levels of force,

independence, and opposition inside the order economy's structure. Laborers, for instance, had

the option to undermine extreme modern systems by moving their abilities, which were

exceptionally pursued by the executives, to somewhere else of business. Supervisors, caught

between the assumptions for the executives for expanded creativity and the requirements and

requests of their representatives, had to address a portion of their workers' issues and requests,

but inadequately, and even to give some level of specialist independence on the shop floor. The

Soviet authority spent a lot of their time and energy attempting to expand creation and efficiency,

and succeeding state strategies required the two facilities and concessions just as expanded

tension and constraint on the populace.

Hans Mommsen stresses the dictatorship's anti-bureaucratic, National-Socialist character.

Ultimately, Hitler's conviction that the best would win in an archaic competitive system led to

"cumulative radicalization" (pg. 82) and the Nazi Party's collapse. As a result, Kershaw

highlights the difference between Stalin and Hitler, the former always meddling while the latter

sought to stay detached. They both "deconstructed' the state as a rational-legal, administrative,

and generally policed entity," Lewin says (pg. 121). Michael Mann begins by describing both

governments as "chaotic, unable to compromise with allies or enemies" (pg. 145).

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This part of the book analyzes and contrasts the two sides' fighting records. In contrast to

Kursk's devastating defeat, Omar Bartov describes the blitzkrieg as mechanical, professional, and

systematic. Images and reality do interact but in a different ways. It was a blitzkrieg, but it was

"simultaneously connected to the beginning of extermination programs against other

populations." (pg. 183). According to Bernd Bonwetsch, the Red Army lost severely in 1941 and

early 1942 due to Stalin's ill-advised involvement in military matters. Aware that party

participation was waning, war commissars were abolished on October 9, 1942. Jacques Sapir

thinks the differences between the two technological cultures exceed the economic similarities.

The third part addresses specific historical issues. To learn more about Mark von Hagen's work,

go here. George Steinmetz critiques the German Sonderwegsthese, citing Wehler, Eley,

Faulenbach, and others. He argues convincingly that the English model suggests a constellation

of social and economic linkages as typical but also "unique." Despite the nation's desire to get rid

of the past, one thing must be done.