Iron Curtain

The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956

By: Anne Applebaum

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 26 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway.

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

©2012 Anne Applebaum (P)2012 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"So much effort is spent trying to understand democratization these days, and so little is spent trying to understand the opposite processes. Anne Applebaum corrects that imbalance, explaining how and why societies succumb to totalitarian rule. Iron Curtain is a deeply researched and eloquent description of events which took place not long ago and in places not far away - events which contain many lessons for the present." (Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World)

" Iron Curtain is an exceptionally important book which effectively challenges many of the myths of the origins of the Cold War. It is wise, perceptive, remarkably objective and brilliantly researched." (Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad and The Second World War)

"This dramatic book gives us, for the first time, the testimony of dozens of men and women who found themselves in the middle of one of the most traumatic periods of European history. Anne Applebaum conveys the impact of politics and ideology on individual lives with extraordinary immediacy." (Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War)

From Stetin in the Baltic....

I had looked forward to listening to this and was a tad disappointed, but my expectations had been in the wrong direction. I had expected a much more detailed discussion of the policies crafted by Stalin and Zhdanov for the overlordship of their new satrapies. Instead this concentrated much more on the puppet governments themselves, and on the social movements that fulminated in their respective countries as the USSR felt its way through the first years of occupation, slowly strengthening its grip.

The book spends a fair amount of time on the backgrounds and policies of the "little Stalins", such as Ulbrecht in the DDR. Their local struggles in implementing the policies handed down by the Kremlin are discussed in depth, particularly in East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Their difficult positions - essentially acting as the local representatives of the USSR - might almost be pitiable were they not typically willing accomplices of the NKVD.

The narration was, to my ear, bland. It may be that I'm used to having my European History read to me by a male with a British accent, but I found the reader to be lacking.

As a companion piece to this, I would highly recommend "Revolution 1989" by Victor Sebestyen. After hearing about the establishment of these dystopias, a few hours listening to the story of their dismantlement will make you feel that some wrongs, in the end, are inevitably reversed.

Slightly misleading title

What did you like best about Iron Curtain? What did you like least?

Originating from central Europe, the history of the central Europe region interests me quite a bit. Unfortunately, at the start of the book the author explains that she concentrated on 3 countries from the region - Germany, Poland and Hungary. None of which is my country of origin.
And despite the fact that it shed some light on what had the people go through in those years, it left a feeling of something missing to a full picture.

Did Iron Curtain inspire you to do anything?

Since the book was more less describing mostly events from 2 central european countries, it inspired me to go and look for more information the country where i was born.

A well organized insightful book.

I was fascinated by the history of this era of eastern europe. The personal stories included cry out against the impersonal bureaucracy of government.

Comprehensive & Fascinating

I thoroughly enjoyed this work of scholarship from Anne Applebaum. Although by no means a happy period in any of the countries she discussed, the period & the actions of the Soviet leadership in establishing & maintaining control of puppet regimes behind the very aptly-named “Iron Curtain” was relayed in a manner which held my interest & made me want to read further about Poland & especially Hungary, both during the 20th century & before.

Long and repetitive

While interesting the 90 min chapters are very slow moving and repeats topics already covered in depth. The book could be less than 20hrs without miss any points. If you like Stephen King’s books, especially the longer ones he has re-issued, you will like Applebaum’s long winded and often irrelevant writing style.

Important history

A detailed story of how the soviets put Eastern Europe under its totalitarian system. Sad, horrible stories of how everyone was eventually swallowed by the Soviet regime. The best part is the last chapter about the Hungarian revolution and epilogue where the author describes how people never submitted to the Soviet system

So much to learn!

Thank you for this history---and for the picture of how humans function. I had only an undifferentiated impression of a bloc in the East. I have not stopped to realize even that the Soviets/ Russians were occupiers!

Thank you

Great read!

I come from one of these ex-communist countries mentioned in the book. I’ve learned a great deal about my country, the communist party , the ideology, and many other topics. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to others as well.
The reason I gave only 4 stars for the Performance is that the narrator had a hard time pronouncing foreign names. I know it is a difficult task, but someone should carefully train narrators in the pronunciation of foreign names and words. For example, “sz” in Polish might be pronounced as “sh,” but in Hungarian, it is just an “s.” Some of names from all three languages were really hard to understand, and if I wanted to do further research on the subject, I’d run into difficulties, this being an audiobook where I don’t see the written text.
Otherwise, I am glad I bought the book. I will surely reread it in the future.

Great book glad it is written before 2016

The book covers a large topic but she really did a great job keeping it entertaining with interesting anecdotes while also maintaining the larger themes and lessons to be learned.
She identifies many of the methods used in the Soviet Union's countries including control of a secret police force. For those Americans who are not concerned about the politicization of our FBI (for either party) you should read this book. A few arrests will keep hundreds in line.

Also there is the press. How it can become subtly biased and that can snowball. Of course along with that there is the propaganda. Everyone who is not with the left is a Nazi. Everyone who is not with the left is extreme right wing.

Then there is the undermining of any other institutions that might compete with the state - the church and other cultural groups.

I had listened to a few interviews of Anne Applebaum before reading this book where she attacks Donald Trump. I am not a big fan of Trump but it seems to me that the left is using most of these tactics much more than Trump has been. That said I think the most common mistake is to claim that now is just like some other time in history. From her interviews I am pretty sure she would agree every time in history is unique.

Nonetheless lessons can be learned and dirty tactics can be identified. This book was written before the Trump and the wars between conservatives and the left leaning media. So the books coverage of this time is like pure snow. I just hope she never does another edition which might be tainted.

I thought the narrator was excellent. I love history but it can be dry especially when the book is 25+ hours. This narrator I thought did a great job. BTW it is not like the book was too long. I was always excited to hear more throughout the book and I am glad she did not cut anything out. I would actually like to listen to more about this time in history including some countries that weren't especially covered in this book such as Romania and Czechoslovakia. (This book mainly covers Hungary, East Germany, and Poland.)

Marxism.

1) Dictatorship by scientific Marxist experts to rule the State.
2) State ownership of the means of production.

What could possibly go wrong.

"They lie to us. We know they lie to us. They know we know they lie to us. We all go home." To this very day people claim to be Marxist and, presumably willing to make their omelets by breaking enough eggs.