Adrian Buck’s Reviews > Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 > Status Update

"Not all of those who stayed [in East Germany] were admirers of the communist system, but they had assessed the situation, worked out how much compromise would be required and how much passive opposition would be possible. They made what they thought was the best choice for themselves and their families, and then waited to see what woul happen next.

"...failed planning, failed architecture, a failed utopian dream" pg 409. But people weren't compelled there, they went because compared to their hovels/small holdings these Socialist cities did offer a higher standard of living. The problems they encountered were similar to the problems encountered in industrialising cities from 19th century Britain to 21st century China.

"The notion of small children as blank slates or lumps of clay which the regime could mould at will was not a new one in Germany: the Nazis had used very similar metaphors (as had the Jesuits, among others)" pg 320. Nor I think in Hungary, where the Church had long had a central role in education.

"...it's also clear that the recollection of the past - the murky, confusing, conspiratorial past - created emotional and psychological trauma even when n violence was used at all" cf Darkness at noon

"...nationalization politicized ordinary workplace conflicts almost everywhere. When factory workers were angry about pay or conditions in their state-owned factories, they aimed their protests directly at the state" (pg 254). She's completely under my skin now, I'm done on rethinking Hungary 1945-1948, I'm working on Britain 1945-1979

"But at least in the very beginning, the Soviet Union clearly intended to preserve at least the appearence, and to some extent the reality, of democratic choice. And it expected to benefit." Interesting, the Hungarian sources I read on this all felt that before 1948, the reality was there.

"By 1945, the Bolsheviks had also developed a theory of civil society...They dismissed the 'bourgeois' notion of open discussion, and hated independent associations, trade unions, guilds of all kinds, which they referred to as 'separatist' or 'caste' divisions within society. ... Everything was political. And if it was not openly political, then it was secretly political" pg 161

"Theoretically, in 1946 Hungary was ... a democracy. ... But the Hungarian Communist party controlled the security organs ... Through the selective use of terror, the could send clear messages to their opponents, and the general public, about what kinds of behaviour and what kinds of people were no longer acceptable to the new regime."