«In this book, a well-known American journalist and political analyst explores the history of the formation and initial evolution of communist regimes in Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Analyses of events — mainly in Hungary, East Germany and Poland liberated by the Red Army — are supported by new materials from numerous archives and eyewitness accounts. Various aspects of socio-political and economic processes in the countries of the socialist camp, the functioning of propaganda mechanisms and political control in every sphere of the society are comprehensively reconstructed, and the role of the special services in suppressing opposition and social movements is revealed.
The author shows that dogmatic reproduction of methods of the Soviet totalitarian regime by the local communists, as well as protest moods in the society that persisted despite everything, logically led to the collapse of the ‘eastern bloc’ as soon as the main pillar — the Soviet Union — had cracked and the Iron Curtain had fallen.»
Iron Curtain
The Suppression of Eastern Europe (1944−1956)
Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain. The Suppression of Eastern Europe (1944−1956). Translated from English by Andrei Zakharov (Anne Appllebaum. Iron Curtain. The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944−1956. Allen Lane an imprint of Penguin Books. New York, 2012). — M.: Moscow School of civic education, 2015. — 704 p., b/w illl.
