What do you think?
Rate this book
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
Americans call the Second World War “The Good War.” But before it even began, America’s wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens—and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war’s end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness.
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
From Booklist
If there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today. Such scope may render Snyder’s project too imposing to casual readers, but it would engage those exposed to the period’s chronology and major interpretive issues, such as the extent to which the Nazi and Soviet systems may be compared. Solid and judicious scholarship for large WWII collections.
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
From Booklist
If there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today. Such scope may render Snyder’s project too imposing to casual readers, but it would engage those exposed to the period’s chronology and major interpretive issues, such as the extent to which the Nazi and Soviet systems may be compared. Solid and judicious scholarship for large WWII collections.
524 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2010
About the author
Timothy Snyder
69 books4,196 followersTimothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. He has held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard.
His most recent book is Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, published in September 2015 by Crown Books. He is author also of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), a history of Nazi and Soviet mass killing on the lands between Berlin and Moscow. A New York Times bestseller and a book of the year according to The Atlantic, The Independent, The Financial Times, the Telegraph, and the New Statesman, it has won twelve awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought.
His other award-winning publications include Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of A Habsburg Archduke (2008), and Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010).
Snyder helped Tony Judt to compose a thematic history of political ideas and intellectuals in politics, Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012). He is also the co-editor of Stalin and Europe: Terror, War, Domination and Wall Around the West: State Power and Immigration Controls in Europe and North America (2001).
Snyder was the recipient of an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2015. He is a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and sits on the advisory council of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research Research.
He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in modern East European political history.
His most recent book is Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, published in September 2015 by Crown Books. He is author also of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), a history of Nazi and Soviet mass killing on the lands between Berlin and Moscow. A New York Times bestseller and a book of the year according to The Atlantic, The Independent, The Financial Times, the Telegraph, and the New Statesman, it has won twelve awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought.
His other award-winning publications include Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of A Habsburg Archduke (2008), and Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010).
Snyder helped Tony Judt to compose a thematic history of political ideas and intellectuals in politics, Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012). He is also the co-editor of Stalin and Europe: Terror, War, Domination and Wall Around the West: State Power and Immigration Controls in Europe and North America (2001).
Snyder was the recipient of an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2015. He is a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and sits on the advisory council of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research Research.
He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in modern East European political history.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,786 reviews
September 7, 2011
I was raised amongst survivors of the great horror that was the War in Eastern Europe. My mother endured forced labour under the Soviets in 1940 and slave labour under the Nazis after 1941. She saw some of her family being deported by the Soviets to almost certain death in Kazakhstan and discovered the rest in a mass grave, shot by the Nazis. Her best friend survived Auschwitz. My Godfather was a partizan in the forests around Lwow, fighting both Nazis and Soviets. My Godmother lived through the Stalinist regime, survived the battles for Kharkov and slave labour in Germany. I was taught chess by a White Russian whose memories of that time were horrific. Even I visited Auschwitz in 1963 - when I returned to England I was shocked to realise non of the English people I knew knew anything about the place. Until recently who, apart from the Poles, knew the truth about Katyn?
So, when I started reading Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands” my first impression was “There is nothing new here”. I’d heard it all in one place or another. But what Snyder does do is take all those evils and puts them together in his Pandora’s Box - only one thing is missing, Hope. Because there was no hope, only fear and death. The depressing bleakness hollows out the soul. One has to pause to take stock, to look away, to absorb the evil and hear the dead cry out for justice, and an understanding that what happened there, on the “Eastern Front”, in the “Bloodlands”, actually exceeded anything the West could understand: “...The American and British soldiers who liberated the dying inmates from camps in Germany believed that they had discovered the horrors of Nazism. The images their photographers and cameramen captured of the corpses and the living skeletons at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald seemed to convey the worst crimes of Hitler...this was far from the truth. The worst was in the ruins of Warsaw, or the fields of Treblinka, or the marshes of Belarus, or the pits of Babi Yar.” Timothy Snyder is the conscience of us all.
Snyder fills his Pandora’s Box and then he reveals its contents to us. He deals with the real terrors of Stalinism; the tragedy of the Great Famine of the Ukraine, the nightmare of the Great Terror, and the cold-blooded elimination of the educated classes and all forms of potential resistance in Poland. He goes on to deal with Nazism; once more, the elimination of educated Poles, the attempts to depopulate Belarus, and the Final Solution. He looks at Post-War Cold War anti-Semitism in a very knowledgeable manner that makes the era clearly understandable. He does a wonderful job of sorting the truth out from the “false history” we have in the West by reminding us (for example) that “by the time the gas chamber and crematoria complexes came on line in spring 1943, more than three-quarters of the Jews who would be killed in the Holocaust were already dead.” The name of Belzec is less well known than that of Auschwitz because it was a death camp - those who survived it were highly lucky and could be counted on the fingers of one hand. “The vast majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust never saw a concentration camp.”
Snyder debunks the modern attempts to “balance” out history: the Nazis and the Soviets were not inhuman beasts - they were ordinary men and women like you and me. These men and women had ideals which they tried to live up to. They saw themselves as victims of other groups and their actions were a form of self-defense. They forced others to collude in their plans by giving them a choice between that or death. He reminds us of the real atrocities carried out in the war, for example, “About as many Poles were killed in the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 as Germans were killed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945. For Poles, that bombing was just the beginning of one of the bloodiest occupations of the war... “ and that “German journalists and (some) historians ... have exaggerated the number of Germans killed during wartime and postwar evacuation, flight, or deportation...”
Snyder’s “Bloodlands” are, for me, the lands of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth partitioned between 1772 and 1794. The horrors that took place here are just a continuation of the policies of the Germans and Russians to control those lands. Perhaps I fall into that category of historians who try to understand the horrors in nationalistic terms - he debunks the Russian myth of the “Great Patriotic war” and points out that most of the “Russian” dead were “Soviet” and came from Belarus, the Ukraine and Eastern Poland - themselves victims of Stalinism in 1939 (and earlier).
I said there was nothing new here - that isn’t completely true. Snyder’s research is so broad as he brings the strands together that there will always be a fact that will surprise you, no matter how much you think you know the history. I never knew that the invading Germans, in 1939, tended not to treat captured Polish soldiers as prisoners-of-war but simply shot many of them as they surrendered. Snyder filled his history with facts and figures throughout. One simple fact stands in for so many in the book: “On any given day in the second half of 1941, the Germans shot more Jews than had been killed by pogroms in the entire history of the Russian Empire.”
There’s nothing new in this book. The story and the facts have always been available. In this post-Cold war era the truth about what went on in the East has been slowly revealed to the West: all the “false” history is been revealed as another version of the West’s anti-Communist propaganda, a Big brother version of history in which Polish troops, for example, were not allowed to partake in VE celebrations because the country was Communist (albeit sold out by the allies at Yalta). Snyder brings the true history of this era to the attention of the West. Everyone should read it - but then I would say that, wouldn’t I, I was raised amongst survivors of the great horror that was the War in Eastern Europe.
So, when I started reading Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands” my first impression was “There is nothing new here”. I’d heard it all in one place or another. But what Snyder does do is take all those evils and puts them together in his Pandora’s Box - only one thing is missing, Hope. Because there was no hope, only fear and death. The depressing bleakness hollows out the soul. One has to pause to take stock, to look away, to absorb the evil and hear the dead cry out for justice, and an understanding that what happened there, on the “Eastern Front”, in the “Bloodlands”, actually exceeded anything the West could understand: “...The American and British soldiers who liberated the dying inmates from camps in Germany believed that they had discovered the horrors of Nazism. The images their photographers and cameramen captured of the corpses and the living skeletons at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald seemed to convey the worst crimes of Hitler...this was far from the truth. The worst was in the ruins of Warsaw, or the fields of Treblinka, or the marshes of Belarus, or the pits of Babi Yar.” Timothy Snyder is the conscience of us all.
Snyder fills his Pandora’s Box and then he reveals its contents to us. He deals with the real terrors of Stalinism; the tragedy of the Great Famine of the Ukraine, the nightmare of the Great Terror, and the cold-blooded elimination of the educated classes and all forms of potential resistance in Poland. He goes on to deal with Nazism; once more, the elimination of educated Poles, the attempts to depopulate Belarus, and the Final Solution. He looks at Post-War Cold War anti-Semitism in a very knowledgeable manner that makes the era clearly understandable. He does a wonderful job of sorting the truth out from the “false history” we have in the West by reminding us (for example) that “by the time the gas chamber and crematoria complexes came on line in spring 1943, more than three-quarters of the Jews who would be killed in the Holocaust were already dead.” The name of Belzec is less well known than that of Auschwitz because it was a death camp - those who survived it were highly lucky and could be counted on the fingers of one hand. “The vast majority of Jews killed in the Holocaust never saw a concentration camp.”
Snyder debunks the modern attempts to “balance” out history: the Nazis and the Soviets were not inhuman beasts - they were ordinary men and women like you and me. These men and women had ideals which they tried to live up to. They saw themselves as victims of other groups and their actions were a form of self-defense. They forced others to collude in their plans by giving them a choice between that or death. He reminds us of the real atrocities carried out in the war, for example, “About as many Poles were killed in the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 as Germans were killed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945. For Poles, that bombing was just the beginning of one of the bloodiest occupations of the war... “ and that “German journalists and (some) historians ... have exaggerated the number of Germans killed during wartime and postwar evacuation, flight, or deportation...”
Snyder’s “Bloodlands” are, for me, the lands of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth partitioned between 1772 and 1794. The horrors that took place here are just a continuation of the policies of the Germans and Russians to control those lands. Perhaps I fall into that category of historians who try to understand the horrors in nationalistic terms - he debunks the Russian myth of the “Great Patriotic war” and points out that most of the “Russian” dead were “Soviet” and came from Belarus, the Ukraine and Eastern Poland - themselves victims of Stalinism in 1939 (and earlier).
I said there was nothing new here - that isn’t completely true. Snyder’s research is so broad as he brings the strands together that there will always be a fact that will surprise you, no matter how much you think you know the history. I never knew that the invading Germans, in 1939, tended not to treat captured Polish soldiers as prisoners-of-war but simply shot many of them as they surrendered. Snyder filled his history with facts and figures throughout. One simple fact stands in for so many in the book: “On any given day in the second half of 1941, the Germans shot more Jews than had been killed by pogroms in the entire history of the Russian Empire.”
There’s nothing new in this book. The story and the facts have always been available. In this post-Cold war era the truth about what went on in the East has been slowly revealed to the West: all the “false” history is been revealed as another version of the West’s anti-Communist propaganda, a Big brother version of history in which Polish troops, for example, were not allowed to partake in VE celebrations because the country was Communist (albeit sold out by the allies at Yalta). Snyder brings the true history of this era to the attention of the West. Everyone should read it - but then I would say that, wouldn’t I, I was raised amongst survivors of the great horror that was the War in Eastern Europe.
December 27, 2012
Man. Oh, man.
This book is without a doubt the most depressing thing I've ever read. If there was ever a time and place that demonstrated man's inhumanity to man, it would be the "Bloodlands," the areas of Eastern Europe squashed flat two or three times by Hitler and Stalin. The author's accounts of casual starvation, brutal repression, and mass murder were horrifying not just because they happened, but because both victims and perpetrators were everyday, normal people.
This is why you read the epilogue in any history text: it's where the author makes their point. In this case, the author wanted to make clear exactly what happened to the 14 million people who died as a direct result of Soviet and Nazi policies before and during the Second World War. Specifically, he wanted to make it clear that it was actual people who died, and actual people who did the killing. He dips down into the masses and chooses one or two telling examples from each murder, each siege, each starvation.
It's people who died, the author says, and it's people who killed them. It's easy to dismiss the Nazis and the Stalinist as monsters, and in a sense they were. But that's a cop-out. The fact is, given the right time and circumstances, any of us might decide that it was in our best interest to cooperate in a program of mass killing. That's what the thousands of SS and NKVD men did. They're not so different from us. In acknowledging this, and in making plain what happened, Snyder make it ever so slightly less likely that it will ever happen again.
There are few history texts--few books of any kind--that have affected me as strongly as this book did. There were times I could barely keep listening, but I'm glad I did. Everyone should read this book. Not just historians or World War II enthusiasts (although the latter definitely should, if they only follow American history). Everyone should read this book, because everyone needs to hear its lesson. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, because I'm being entirely sincere. Read it.
Edit: corrected some embarrassingly bad grammar
This book is without a doubt the most depressing thing I've ever read. If there was ever a time and place that demonstrated man's inhumanity to man, it would be the "Bloodlands," the areas of Eastern Europe squashed flat two or three times by Hitler and Stalin. The author's accounts of casual starvation, brutal repression, and mass murder were horrifying not just because they happened, but because both victims and perpetrators were everyday, normal people.
This is why you read the epilogue in any history text: it's where the author makes their point. In this case, the author wanted to make clear exactly what happened to the 14 million people who died as a direct result of Soviet and Nazi policies before and during the Second World War. Specifically, he wanted to make it clear that it was actual people who died, and actual people who did the killing. He dips down into the masses and chooses one or two telling examples from each murder, each siege, each starvation.
It's people who died, the author says, and it's people who killed them. It's easy to dismiss the Nazis and the Stalinist as monsters, and in a sense they were. But that's a cop-out. The fact is, given the right time and circumstances, any of us might decide that it was in our best interest to cooperate in a program of mass killing. That's what the thousands of SS and NKVD men did. They're not so different from us. In acknowledging this, and in making plain what happened, Snyder make it ever so slightly less likely that it will ever happen again.
There are few history texts--few books of any kind--that have affected me as strongly as this book did. There were times I could barely keep listening, but I'm glad I did. Everyone should read this book. Not just historians or World War II enthusiasts (although the latter definitely should, if they only follow American history). Everyone should read this book, because everyone needs to hear its lesson. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, because I'm being entirely sincere. Read it.
Edit: corrected some embarrassingly bad grammar
March 27, 2022
If you wonder why Ukraine might hold a grudge against Russia, read Chapter 1 here: “The Soviet Famines.” In implementing his plan for the USSR’s collectivization of agriculture (1929–31) Josef Stalin killed 3.3 million Ukrainians. He starved them to death. He turned many into cannibals who ate their own sons and daughters. Far more than 3.3 million were sent to the Gulag for sabotage. But they weren’t saboteurs; they were sent into hard labor above the Arctic Circle because Stalin could not accept the fact that his collectivization plan had failed miserably. Ukranians paid the price for his ideological dogmatism. There’s a whole book on this by Robert Conquest, it’s called The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.
“Part of Stalin‘s political talent was his ability to equate foreign threats with failures in domestic policy, as if the two were actually the same thing, and as if he were responsible for neither. This absolved him of blame for policy failures, and allowed him to define his chosen internal enemies as agents of foreign powers. As early as 1930, as problems of collectivization became apparent, he was already speaking of international conspiracies between supporters of Trotsky and the various foreign powers. It was obvious, Stalin proclaimed, that ‘as long as the capitalist encirclement exists there will continue to be present among us wreckers, spies, saboteurs and murderers.’” (p. 71)
Then came the period of the USSR show trials, 1937-38, and dekulakization. The show trials focused on destroying Bolsheviks. Stalin thought some might be Trotskyites and thus ideologically impure, so he killed them. For more on the show trials read Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Dekulakization was the destruction of the so-called wealthy peasant class. Wealthy is a relative term. This “wealthy” peasant might perhaps have the luxury of a slate roof on his house rather than the thatched roof of his poorer neighbor. He might have two cows instead of one. Such marginally better off peasants were better at optimizing the shambolic Russian market economy of the day. Therefore they were capitalists, or the closest thing the USSR had to capitalists. Actually, the USSR had no bourgeois or capitalist class at all — classes Marx theorized must be destroyed if The Dictatorship of the Proleteriat was to be achieved. So a substitute had to be found, the kulaks, whose commitment to the market naturally made them reluctant to embrace collectivization. By the time Stalin was done, before World War II, he had killed millions, mostly Russians, but Ukrainians, Poles, and other nationalities as well.
I have long known that food was scarce during the war, but I’d always thought this was due to the enlistment of farmers. False. In the Soviet Union the farmers did not enlist, they were seen as anti-collectivists or fifth columnists and starved to death. As for Germany, it had produced the “Hunger Plan” whose goal was to systematically starve 30 million Soviet citizens to death in the soon-to-be-conquered USSR. The idea was to take over the fertile areas like Ukraine and redirect its agricultural products to Germany and its colonists. The plan was only realized in part because the Soviet Union turned the tide of war and chased the Nazis back to Berlin.
I don’t know of any book that compares and contrasts the murderous and genocidal policies of Hitler and Stalin in quite the way this one does. It is especially articulate when it comes to the ideation of mass killing. There is more information here, too, on the Nazi Einsatzgruppen and each of their mass killings than I have ever come across before in my wide reading. The two Warsaw uprisings — the Jewish Ghetto Uprising of 1943, and the broader 1944 military operation of the Polish Underground and Home Army — are discussed at some length.
“Political initiative had not been rewarded in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Anyone responding with too much avidity to a given situation, or even to a political line, was at risk when the situation or the line changed. Thus Soviet rule in general, and the Great Terror of 1937–1938 in particular, had taught people not to take spontaneous action. People who had distinguished themselves in the Minsk of the 1930s had been shot by the NKVD at Kuropaty. Even when it must have been clear in Moscow that Soviet citizens in Minsk had their own reasons to resist Germans, communists understood that this would not be enough to protect them from future persecution when the Soviets returned. Kaziniets and all the local communists [in wartime Minsk] hesitated to create any kind of organization, knowing that Stalinism opposed any sort of spontaneous action from below.” (p. 231)
If you want to read only one book on the massacres and genocides of 20th century Europe, this is it. Oh, and let me recommend, too, Robert Jay Lifton’s The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Lifton is more about the dualist psychology of Dr Mengele — The Angel of Death — and his SS physician fellows.
Lastly, the chapters “Stalinist Anti-Semitism” and “Conclusion: Humanity” will set your hair on fire. In keeping with ideological purity of the Soviet state, it was necessary, the author explains, to deny The Holocaust. This because, “. . . to recall one’s own family’s deaths in the gas chamber was pure bourgeois sentimentality. A successful communist had to look ahead . . . to see just what the moment demanded from the truth, and act accordingly and decisively. The Second World War, like the Cold War, was a struggle for progressive against reactionary forces, and that was that." (p. 357)
To view the great crisis of the Second World War as The Holocaust was to diminish the Soviet experience. Stalin didn’t want Jewish deaths overshadowing the USSR’s losses. There can be no question that the war in the east was the real fight in Europe, which is not to diminish the American achievement, which was largely in the Pacific. There weren’t many Jews left, the Nazis had killed 6 million, but Stalin didn’t like divided loyalties between Polish communists and Israel (Zionism) or Israel’s supporter, America. If you weren’t all USSR all of the time you were suspect, if not a spy, who should be shot. Many were. But this later caper, known as the Doctors Plot, was diminished by the old boy’s death. It never reached the proportions of The Great Terror or collectivitzation.
“Part of Stalin‘s political talent was his ability to equate foreign threats with failures in domestic policy, as if the two were actually the same thing, and as if he were responsible for neither. This absolved him of blame for policy failures, and allowed him to define his chosen internal enemies as agents of foreign powers. As early as 1930, as problems of collectivization became apparent, he was already speaking of international conspiracies between supporters of Trotsky and the various foreign powers. It was obvious, Stalin proclaimed, that ‘as long as the capitalist encirclement exists there will continue to be present among us wreckers, spies, saboteurs and murderers.’” (p. 71)
Then came the period of the USSR show trials, 1937-38, and dekulakization. The show trials focused on destroying Bolsheviks. Stalin thought some might be Trotskyites and thus ideologically impure, so he killed them. For more on the show trials read Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Dekulakization was the destruction of the so-called wealthy peasant class. Wealthy is a relative term. This “wealthy” peasant might perhaps have the luxury of a slate roof on his house rather than the thatched roof of his poorer neighbor. He might have two cows instead of one. Such marginally better off peasants were better at optimizing the shambolic Russian market economy of the day. Therefore they were capitalists, or the closest thing the USSR had to capitalists. Actually, the USSR had no bourgeois or capitalist class at all — classes Marx theorized must be destroyed if The Dictatorship of the Proleteriat was to be achieved. So a substitute had to be found, the kulaks, whose commitment to the market naturally made them reluctant to embrace collectivization. By the time Stalin was done, before World War II, he had killed millions, mostly Russians, but Ukrainians, Poles, and other nationalities as well.
I have long known that food was scarce during the war, but I’d always thought this was due to the enlistment of farmers. False. In the Soviet Union the farmers did not enlist, they were seen as anti-collectivists or fifth columnists and starved to death. As for Germany, it had produced the “Hunger Plan” whose goal was to systematically starve 30 million Soviet citizens to death in the soon-to-be-conquered USSR. The idea was to take over the fertile areas like Ukraine and redirect its agricultural products to Germany and its colonists. The plan was only realized in part because the Soviet Union turned the tide of war and chased the Nazis back to Berlin.
I don’t know of any book that compares and contrasts the murderous and genocidal policies of Hitler and Stalin in quite the way this one does. It is especially articulate when it comes to the ideation of mass killing. There is more information here, too, on the Nazi Einsatzgruppen and each of their mass killings than I have ever come across before in my wide reading. The two Warsaw uprisings — the Jewish Ghetto Uprising of 1943, and the broader 1944 military operation of the Polish Underground and Home Army — are discussed at some length.
“Political initiative had not been rewarded in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Anyone responding with too much avidity to a given situation, or even to a political line, was at risk when the situation or the line changed. Thus Soviet rule in general, and the Great Terror of 1937–1938 in particular, had taught people not to take spontaneous action. People who had distinguished themselves in the Minsk of the 1930s had been shot by the NKVD at Kuropaty. Even when it must have been clear in Moscow that Soviet citizens in Minsk had their own reasons to resist Germans, communists understood that this would not be enough to protect them from future persecution when the Soviets returned. Kaziniets and all the local communists [in wartime Minsk] hesitated to create any kind of organization, knowing that Stalinism opposed any sort of spontaneous action from below.” (p. 231)
If you want to read only one book on the massacres and genocides of 20th century Europe, this is it. Oh, and let me recommend, too, Robert Jay Lifton’s The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Lifton is more about the dualist psychology of Dr Mengele — The Angel of Death — and his SS physician fellows.
Lastly, the chapters “Stalinist Anti-Semitism” and “Conclusion: Humanity” will set your hair on fire. In keeping with ideological purity of the Soviet state, it was necessary, the author explains, to deny The Holocaust. This because, “. . . to recall one’s own family’s deaths in the gas chamber was pure bourgeois sentimentality. A successful communist had to look ahead . . . to see just what the moment demanded from the truth, and act accordingly and decisively. The Second World War, like the Cold War, was a struggle for progressive against reactionary forces, and that was that." (p. 357)
To view the great crisis of the Second World War as The Holocaust was to diminish the Soviet experience. Stalin didn’t want Jewish deaths overshadowing the USSR’s losses. There can be no question that the war in the east was the real fight in Europe, which is not to diminish the American achievement, which was largely in the Pacific. There weren’t many Jews left, the Nazis had killed 6 million, but Stalin didn’t like divided loyalties between Polish communists and Israel (Zionism) or Israel’s supporter, America. If you weren’t all USSR all of the time you were suspect, if not a spy, who should be shot. Many were. But this later caper, known as the Doctors Plot, was diminished by the old boy’s death. It never reached the proportions of The Great Terror or collectivitzation.
March 23, 2011
First, there are numbers:
13,788 at Polesie
23,600 at Kamiamets-Podilskyi
3,739 prisoners at Starobilsk
358, one night at Palmiry Forest
2,500 at Leningrad by October, 1941
5,500 by November
50,500 by December
1,000,000 by the end of the Leningrad siege
80,000 at Stalag 307
60,000 at Stalag 319
55,000 at Stalag 325
23,000 at Stalag 316
500,000 Soviet prisoners in the General Government
450, one night at Krzesawice
12,000 at Dnipropetrovsk
386,798 kulaks
33,761 at Babi Yar
14 million in all.
Not soldiers in battle. Just people in the wrong place. Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians.
Think of the 1 at the end of 33,761, Timothy Snyder tells us, insists.
Each of the living bore a name.
Emmanuel Ringelblum, who created archives in the Warsaw ghetto making its history possible, and died betrayed.
Adam Czerniakow, told to present 5,000 Jews at a transfer point and certain mass death, and killed himself instead.
Sofia Karpai, a doctor who refused to yield under Stalin's torture.
And Dina Pronicheva, always Dina Pronicheva, one person, yet more than a number, who lived to tell of Babi Yar.
Along the way:
Violence is not confidence, and terror is not mastery.
And:
Those German soldiers who saw the Treblinka transports knew, if they wanted to know, just what they were fighting for.
There are people, some even in the reviews on this site, who argue which people suffered more. In a powerful closing chapter, Snyder asks, "Can the dead really belong to anyone?" And he warns us, "What begins as competitive martyrology can end with martyrological imperialism." We reflexively seem to need to see Hitler and Stalin as different from us, that we could never do what they did, that they are inhuman. Careful, Snyder says. That Jews and non-Aryans were sub-human was Hitler's justification for murder. "To find other people to be inhuman," Snyder writes, "is to take a step toward, not away from, the Nazi position."
The scholarship in this book is superb, much taken from untranslated Polish sources. And while the numbers sometimes read as lists, and points are often repetitively and numbingly made, Bloodlands is thought-provoking and personal.
The Nazi and Soviet regimes turned people into numbers, some of which we can only estimate, some of which we can reconstruct with fair precision. It is for us as scholars to seek these numbers and to put them into perspective. It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people. If we cannot do that, then Hitler and Stalin have shaped not only our world, but our humanity.
13,788 at Polesie
23,600 at Kamiamets-Podilskyi
3,739 prisoners at Starobilsk
358, one night at Palmiry Forest
2,500 at Leningrad by October, 1941
5,500 by November
50,500 by December
1,000,000 by the end of the Leningrad siege
80,000 at Stalag 307
60,000 at Stalag 319
55,000 at Stalag 325
23,000 at Stalag 316
500,000 Soviet prisoners in the General Government
450, one night at Krzesawice
12,000 at Dnipropetrovsk
386,798 kulaks
33,761 at Babi Yar
14 million in all.
Not soldiers in battle. Just people in the wrong place. Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians.
Think of the 1 at the end of 33,761, Timothy Snyder tells us, insists.
Each of the living bore a name.
Emmanuel Ringelblum, who created archives in the Warsaw ghetto making its history possible, and died betrayed.
Adam Czerniakow, told to present 5,000 Jews at a transfer point and certain mass death, and killed himself instead.
Sofia Karpai, a doctor who refused to yield under Stalin's torture.
And Dina Pronicheva, always Dina Pronicheva, one person, yet more than a number, who lived to tell of Babi Yar.
Along the way:
Violence is not confidence, and terror is not mastery.
And:
Those German soldiers who saw the Treblinka transports knew, if they wanted to know, just what they were fighting for.
There are people, some even in the reviews on this site, who argue which people suffered more. In a powerful closing chapter, Snyder asks, "Can the dead really belong to anyone?" And he warns us, "What begins as competitive martyrology can end with martyrological imperialism." We reflexively seem to need to see Hitler and Stalin as different from us, that we could never do what they did, that they are inhuman. Careful, Snyder says. That Jews and non-Aryans were sub-human was Hitler's justification for murder. "To find other people to be inhuman," Snyder writes, "is to take a step toward, not away from, the Nazi position."
The scholarship in this book is superb, much taken from untranslated Polish sources. And while the numbers sometimes read as lists, and points are often repetitively and numbingly made, Bloodlands is thought-provoking and personal.
The Nazi and Soviet regimes turned people into numbers, some of which we can only estimate, some of which we can reconstruct with fair precision. It is for us as scholars to seek these numbers and to put them into perspective. It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people. If we cannot do that, then Hitler and Stalin have shaped not only our world, but our humanity.
April 26, 2016
Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands is about the worst place that ever existed in the world: that unfortunate slice of Europe ruled by the two evilest people who ever inhabited our earth: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Imagine a Venn diagram of evil. The left (west) loop is Hitler; the right (east) loop in Stalin. And in the middle, where the two circles overlap, is the bloodlands, extending “from central Poland to western Russia, through Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States.” From 1933 to 1945, 14 million people died in this ill-fated swatch of ground. Bloodlands is their story.
Snyder begins with the famines in Soviet Ukraine, brought about by the collectivization required by Stalin’s five-year plan. This initial chapter is a bit on the frustrating side. Like many who came of age watching Saving Private Ryan, I’m a World War II junkie. There are more books on my shelf emblazoned with swastikas than I care to admit.
That doesn’t make me knowledgeable on the subject, however. Indeed, my reading has always tended to be a bit myopic. I’ve read ten books on the D-Day landings at Normandy to every one book on the decade leading up to war. That’s even more true with regards to the U.S.S.R., about which I frankly know next to nothing. Accordingly, I could have used a little more table-setting, a little more explanation of why things were they way they were. Snyder, though, simply jumps right in.
Despite this, this first chapter is among the most memorable, and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Most histories take a top-down approach. They start with the big picture, the big events, and the big people. Occasionally they will zoom in for a detailed glimpse, showing us what it was like for the common man, but this is only done for color. Snyder inverts this usual approach. He takes a microscopic, bottom-up approach, that begins and ends with the human dimension as its main focus.
I don’t mean to say that Snyder ignores Hitler or Stalin or any of their henchmen. He doesn’t. In fact, he spends as much time with them as any other World War II book. But Snyder does such a good job of integrating eloquent, searing first-hand accounts into his narrative that it leaves a lasting impression. He never forgets that history is not a relic to be studied; it is the story of human beings.
This is never more apparent than in Snyder’s dealing with the famines. The death toll of the World War II-era defy comprehension. At the very least, though, through archival footage, photographs, and film, we can start to imagine what the Holocaust was like. Starvation, though, is another matter. In comparison to marching someone to the gas chamber, it seems more like a crime of omission. Snyder forces you to reconsider, to envision what it actually means to starve to death, on a large scale, and on a personal level.
From the Ukrainian famines, Bloodlands moves into more familiar territory: Stalin’s “Great Terror”; the Nazi dispossession of the Jews; the einsatzgruppen aktions in the east, following Operation Barbarossa and Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union; and, of course, the Nazi concentration camps, some of which killed directly, and others of which worked through attrition. There are also sections devoted to Stalin’s treatment of the Jews, as well as resistance movements, especially the two uprisings in Warsaw.
Snyder covers this territory with empathy that is rare in history books. He has a plain, unadorned writing style that is appropriate to the subject matter. His keen eye for detail and acknowledgement of the power of certain, simple facts, makes for poignant reading. He should also be commended for his refusal to engage in simplistic comparisons pitting Hitler’s fascism verses Stalin’s communism. Any discussion about who was worse is, at its core, idiotic. They both sucked more than anything else on this planet has ever sucked.
Undoubtedly, the subject matter of Bloodlands is grim. And really, you should expect that, since the name of the book is Bloodlands. Yet the book itself is livened by Snyder’s injection of humanity. A contemporary of the late writer and intellectual Tony Judt (with whom Snyder collaborated), Snyder is more than an able historian, devoted to uncovering all the primary sources in all their many languages. He is also a thinker. All good histories tell you what happened. Snyder tries to work on two levels simultaneously, by also attempting an explanation at what it means today.
Imagine a Venn diagram of evil. The left (west) loop is Hitler; the right (east) loop in Stalin. And in the middle, where the two circles overlap, is the bloodlands, extending “from central Poland to western Russia, through Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States.” From 1933 to 1945, 14 million people died in this ill-fated swatch of ground. Bloodlands is their story.
Snyder begins with the famines in Soviet Ukraine, brought about by the collectivization required by Stalin’s five-year plan. This initial chapter is a bit on the frustrating side. Like many who came of age watching Saving Private Ryan, I’m a World War II junkie. There are more books on my shelf emblazoned with swastikas than I care to admit.
That doesn’t make me knowledgeable on the subject, however. Indeed, my reading has always tended to be a bit myopic. I’ve read ten books on the D-Day landings at Normandy to every one book on the decade leading up to war. That’s even more true with regards to the U.S.S.R., about which I frankly know next to nothing. Accordingly, I could have used a little more table-setting, a little more explanation of why things were they way they were. Snyder, though, simply jumps right in.
Despite this, this first chapter is among the most memorable, and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Most histories take a top-down approach. They start with the big picture, the big events, and the big people. Occasionally they will zoom in for a detailed glimpse, showing us what it was like for the common man, but this is only done for color. Snyder inverts this usual approach. He takes a microscopic, bottom-up approach, that begins and ends with the human dimension as its main focus.
I don’t mean to say that Snyder ignores Hitler or Stalin or any of their henchmen. He doesn’t. In fact, he spends as much time with them as any other World War II book. But Snyder does such a good job of integrating eloquent, searing first-hand accounts into his narrative that it leaves a lasting impression. He never forgets that history is not a relic to be studied; it is the story of human beings.
This is never more apparent than in Snyder’s dealing with the famines. The death toll of the World War II-era defy comprehension. At the very least, though, through archival footage, photographs, and film, we can start to imagine what the Holocaust was like. Starvation, though, is another matter. In comparison to marching someone to the gas chamber, it seems more like a crime of omission. Snyder forces you to reconsider, to envision what it actually means to starve to death, on a large scale, and on a personal level.
The Ukrainian musician Yosyp Panasenko was dispatched by central authorities with his troupe of bandura players to provide culture to the starving peasants. Even as the state took the peasants’ last bit of food, it had the grotesque inclination to elevate the minds and rouse the spirits of the dying. The musicians found village after village completely abandoned. Then they finally came across some people: two girls dead in a bed, two legs of a man protruding from a stove, and an old lady raving and running her fingernails through the dirt…
From the Ukrainian famines, Bloodlands moves into more familiar territory: Stalin’s “Great Terror”; the Nazi dispossession of the Jews; the einsatzgruppen aktions in the east, following Operation Barbarossa and Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union; and, of course, the Nazi concentration camps, some of which killed directly, and others of which worked through attrition. There are also sections devoted to Stalin’s treatment of the Jews, as well as resistance movements, especially the two uprisings in Warsaw.
Snyder covers this territory with empathy that is rare in history books. He has a plain, unadorned writing style that is appropriate to the subject matter. His keen eye for detail and acknowledgement of the power of certain, simple facts, makes for poignant reading. He should also be commended for his refusal to engage in simplistic comparisons pitting Hitler’s fascism verses Stalin’s communism. Any discussion about who was worse is, at its core, idiotic. They both sucked more than anything else on this planet has ever sucked.
Undoubtedly, the subject matter of Bloodlands is grim. And really, you should expect that, since the name of the book is Bloodlands. Yet the book itself is livened by Snyder’s injection of humanity. A contemporary of the late writer and intellectual Tony Judt (with whom Snyder collaborated), Snyder is more than an able historian, devoted to uncovering all the primary sources in all their many languages. He is also a thinker. All good histories tell you what happened. Snyder tries to work on two levels simultaneously, by also attempting an explanation at what it means today.
Here, perhaps, is a purpose for history, somewhere between the record of death and its constant reinterpretation. Only a history of mass killing can unite the numbers and the memories. Without history, the memories become private, which today means national; and the numbers become public, which is to say an instrument in the international competition for martyrdom. Memory is mine and I have the right to do with it as I please; numbers are objective and you must accept my counts whether you like them or not. Such reasoning allows a nationalist to hug himself with one arm and strike his neighbor with the other.
February 4, 2018
History As Intention and Response
History can be told in several ways: as a textbook-like sequence of events and dates; as a moral tale; as a story of the strong or of the weak; from the point of view of the victors or the vanquished; as an account of divine providence or satanic interference. Snyder has a particularly engaging method of narrating history: as intention and response to circumstances. According to his title one could conceive his subject as the history of a specific geographical region, namely Eastern Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. But this is merely the location of the action.
The real history in Bloodlands is stated in the subtitle, namely the personal intentions of Hitler and Stalin and how these intentions were formed and interacted. Events in Bloodlands are relevant only as they relate to these intentions. Dates are relevant primarily to distinguish action and response. The story is not one of conflict and victory or loss but of joint persecution by Hitler and Stalin of a victim-population of Poles, Slavs, Jews and other ethnic groups. It is this genre of purposeful historiography in which the centre of attention is the intended victims that makes the book highly readable and intellectually compelling.
According to Snyder, the fundamental aims of both National Socialism and Soviet Communism were the same: to control their own food supply. The Germans, by expanding eastward, to acquire the most productive agricultural acreage in Europe. The Russians, by expanding westward into Poland and collectivising Soviet agriculture, primarily to finance industrialisation through exports. It is these intentions, their mutual responses to the other, and the interpretations by their subordinates that determine the trajectory of events from the end of WWI through the conclusion of WWII.
The central 'show' according to this view was never in Western Europe or Southeast Asia but in precisely that area for which both powers contended for agricultural land, Snyder's Bloodlands. It is here as well, and only here, that the full horror of both fascist and communist regimes can be appreciated. The details of the military campaign, as well as the 'formal' atrocities of Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet Gulag are important but, in a sense, obscure the wider and ultimate intentions to murder or displace the entire existing population of the region. The millions who died and the millions more who suffered were not 'collateral damage' incidental to war, they were the point of the war on both sides.
Stalin's clear purpose in his agricultural policy of the early 1930's, for example, was not just to crush Ukrainian nationalism and to eliminate any residual Polish influence in the Western Soviet Union, but also to replace its indigenous population by Russians. German strategy was commensurate, that is, to liquidate or otherwise enslave the Slavic population of the same region, and encourage the emigration of German farmers. Stalin used starvation as his weapon of choice; Hitler his Einsatzgruppen. Both were strategic necessities not incidental aberrations. Both used substantial resources that appear wasted only if their strategic intent is ignored.
Moreover, both leaders seriously risked their own positions to pursue these aims, an indication of their centrality. Ukrainian collectivisation was an obvious economic failure. It was nevertheless pursued by Stalin until de-population was largely achieved. The Einsatzgruppen which carried out the bulk of the Nazi liquidations in occupied countries were opposed by the regular army as a militarily useless collection of thugs and psychopaths. Yet they were given free rein in military areas by Hitler and received logistical priority, even in retreat.
These sorts of actions can only be perceived as errors in judgement if their real intent is ignored. Neither man was as concerned so much about the outcome of any particular battle as about his ability to carry out his ultimate purpose. And this purpose remained constant. Every significant political and military act, even the most bizarre, can be traced to the need to eliminate opposition to the requirements of the overall purpose, no matter how politically inept or militarily inefficient.
Failure to appreciate these aims was also the root of misunderstanding by contemporaries who should have known better. Among journalists only the Welsh Gareth Jones could see beyond the fascist and communist propaganda to the ultimate aims. Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize-winning bureau chief of the New York Times, simply refused to believe the overwhelming evidence of mass starvation. Even intellectuals like Arthur Koestler temporised about the most horrible events - including widespread cannibalism - by insisting on the ultimate beneficence of socialism. American foreign policy simply ignored the reality of German and Russian intentions for two decades.
Continuing failure to appreciate the impact of these tragedies is the 'take-away' from Snyder's analysis. For example, Stalin starved to death approximately 3 million Ukrainians in 1932-33, and killed approximately another 3 million whom he had already deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. These people were murdered not because they refused to conform to his policies but because they were who they were. Can there be any doubt about the conviction of present-day Ukrainians to resist further assimilation by Russia?
The unreliability of the press in reporting the factual detail of events was matched by the ineptitude of the intelligence and ambassadorial services in analysing their own sources of information. In part, at least, this seems due to an inability to accept the degree of depravity that human beings can reach. By any standards Stalin and Hitler were mad. But were then also the millions of previously normal citizens who necessarily carried out and even supplemented their malicious commands also mad? One small unit of NKVD officers shot more than 20,000 people during the Great Terror in the Soviet Union. If these men were not mad, how could they not have become so, and their families, their acquaintances, their country with them?
An interview with a communist activist who was charged with enforcing Stalin's orders to take the seed grain from collective farms, thus condemning the peasants to death, could be the most important theme of the entire book. "As before", he says, "I believed because I wanted to believe." This certainly would have been the response of every Soviet commissar, Nazi SS officer, Treblinka or Gulag camp guard and general army officer. This realisation is even more depressing than the seemingly endless atrocities recounted by Snyder. Commitment, loyalty, passion to and for ideals, no matter what they are, or leaders who represent these ideals, no matter who they are, are not virtues but vices.
It was these vices - the real evils of commitment, loyalty, and passion - that allowed Stalin and Hitler and their henchmen to carry out their work. These men were inspired by the conquest of the American West and the liquidation of its native population. These men created myths of foreign plots to undermine national sovereignty and used them to justify the closing of borders, the isolation of minority groups, and the necessity for murderous action against unarmed people. These men were consistent in their pronouncements about what they intended to do and why. And still each was able to manipulate the unique politics of his own system to maintain popular support through an appeal to purported 'virtue'. It is this virtue, not nationalism, or ideology per se which was the driving force of the evil committed.
Am I alone, therefore, in feeling apprehension watching American political rallies or evangelical religious meetings, or even corporate 'team-building' exercises? Am I alone in suspecting that men like Trump and Putin are capable of the most horrific crimes regardless of the institutional constraints imposed on them? Am I alone in considering that the cause for strength, whoever puts it forth, is a fundamental evil which has no inherent limits? Why are commitment, loyalty and passion valued most by the people who do most harm in the world? Is it I who am mad?
An addendum on Purpose and History
In the 1980's I attended a lecture by an economist whose name now escapes me (it could have been Paul Johnson). His topic was the history of agricultural policy in the United States. He pointed out that the two main components of this policy from the 1930's onwards had been 1) Rather substantial subsidies to farmers for not growing certain crops, and 2) Also rather large subsidies to industry and academia for research directed toward the increase in yields for the same crops that farmers were already paid not to grow.
Every year when these subsidies were brought before Congress, someone would point of the apparent contradiction. A debate would ensue. And a vote would endorse both sets of subsidy, usually with and increase. The presumption of irrationality in the political process was put forward as the only possible explanation.
Until it was pointed out, I believe to the Reagan administration, that this outcome only appeared irrational because no one was looking for the fundamental rational, the real purpose. According to the lecturer, this purpose wasn't obvious because it was never made explicit, but it nevertheless was there and it was politically compelling. The purpose of the apparently contradictory subsidies was quite straightforward: to maximise the value of U.S. farm land. In this light both subsidies made sense.
The importance of this insight was not merely intellectual. Having articulated the implicit purpose of historical agricultural policy, it was then possible to ask the question: Is the increased value of farm land a national priority? The answer was 'no'. Consequently, for the first time in several generations, both subsidies were reduced.
The implications for historical method are to me profound. The presumption of purpose is crucial in historical analysis. Without it, one is confronted with apparently random often irrational events. With it, one is forced to confront intentions that are only implicit and perhaps only shared by a very few with leadership positions. It is a presumption that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But so is its negation. The example of U.S. agricultural policy is one proof of its superiority as a general method.
History can be told in several ways: as a textbook-like sequence of events and dates; as a moral tale; as a story of the strong or of the weak; from the point of view of the victors or the vanquished; as an account of divine providence or satanic interference. Snyder has a particularly engaging method of narrating history: as intention and response to circumstances. According to his title one could conceive his subject as the history of a specific geographical region, namely Eastern Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. But this is merely the location of the action.
The real history in Bloodlands is stated in the subtitle, namely the personal intentions of Hitler and Stalin and how these intentions were formed and interacted. Events in Bloodlands are relevant only as they relate to these intentions. Dates are relevant primarily to distinguish action and response. The story is not one of conflict and victory or loss but of joint persecution by Hitler and Stalin of a victim-population of Poles, Slavs, Jews and other ethnic groups. It is this genre of purposeful historiography in which the centre of attention is the intended victims that makes the book highly readable and intellectually compelling.
According to Snyder, the fundamental aims of both National Socialism and Soviet Communism were the same: to control their own food supply. The Germans, by expanding eastward, to acquire the most productive agricultural acreage in Europe. The Russians, by expanding westward into Poland and collectivising Soviet agriculture, primarily to finance industrialisation through exports. It is these intentions, their mutual responses to the other, and the interpretations by their subordinates that determine the trajectory of events from the end of WWI through the conclusion of WWII.
The central 'show' according to this view was never in Western Europe or Southeast Asia but in precisely that area for which both powers contended for agricultural land, Snyder's Bloodlands. It is here as well, and only here, that the full horror of both fascist and communist regimes can be appreciated. The details of the military campaign, as well as the 'formal' atrocities of Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet Gulag are important but, in a sense, obscure the wider and ultimate intentions to murder or displace the entire existing population of the region. The millions who died and the millions more who suffered were not 'collateral damage' incidental to war, they were the point of the war on both sides.
Stalin's clear purpose in his agricultural policy of the early 1930's, for example, was not just to crush Ukrainian nationalism and to eliminate any residual Polish influence in the Western Soviet Union, but also to replace its indigenous population by Russians. German strategy was commensurate, that is, to liquidate or otherwise enslave the Slavic population of the same region, and encourage the emigration of German farmers. Stalin used starvation as his weapon of choice; Hitler his Einsatzgruppen. Both were strategic necessities not incidental aberrations. Both used substantial resources that appear wasted only if their strategic intent is ignored.
Moreover, both leaders seriously risked their own positions to pursue these aims, an indication of their centrality. Ukrainian collectivisation was an obvious economic failure. It was nevertheless pursued by Stalin until de-population was largely achieved. The Einsatzgruppen which carried out the bulk of the Nazi liquidations in occupied countries were opposed by the regular army as a militarily useless collection of thugs and psychopaths. Yet they were given free rein in military areas by Hitler and received logistical priority, even in retreat.
These sorts of actions can only be perceived as errors in judgement if their real intent is ignored. Neither man was as concerned so much about the outcome of any particular battle as about his ability to carry out his ultimate purpose. And this purpose remained constant. Every significant political and military act, even the most bizarre, can be traced to the need to eliminate opposition to the requirements of the overall purpose, no matter how politically inept or militarily inefficient.
Failure to appreciate these aims was also the root of misunderstanding by contemporaries who should have known better. Among journalists only the Welsh Gareth Jones could see beyond the fascist and communist propaganda to the ultimate aims. Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize-winning bureau chief of the New York Times, simply refused to believe the overwhelming evidence of mass starvation. Even intellectuals like Arthur Koestler temporised about the most horrible events - including widespread cannibalism - by insisting on the ultimate beneficence of socialism. American foreign policy simply ignored the reality of German and Russian intentions for two decades.
Continuing failure to appreciate the impact of these tragedies is the 'take-away' from Snyder's analysis. For example, Stalin starved to death approximately 3 million Ukrainians in 1932-33, and killed approximately another 3 million whom he had already deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. These people were murdered not because they refused to conform to his policies but because they were who they were. Can there be any doubt about the conviction of present-day Ukrainians to resist further assimilation by Russia?
The unreliability of the press in reporting the factual detail of events was matched by the ineptitude of the intelligence and ambassadorial services in analysing their own sources of information. In part, at least, this seems due to an inability to accept the degree of depravity that human beings can reach. By any standards Stalin and Hitler were mad. But were then also the millions of previously normal citizens who necessarily carried out and even supplemented their malicious commands also mad? One small unit of NKVD officers shot more than 20,000 people during the Great Terror in the Soviet Union. If these men were not mad, how could they not have become so, and their families, their acquaintances, their country with them?
An interview with a communist activist who was charged with enforcing Stalin's orders to take the seed grain from collective farms, thus condemning the peasants to death, could be the most important theme of the entire book. "As before", he says, "I believed because I wanted to believe." This certainly would have been the response of every Soviet commissar, Nazi SS officer, Treblinka or Gulag camp guard and general army officer. This realisation is even more depressing than the seemingly endless atrocities recounted by Snyder. Commitment, loyalty, passion to and for ideals, no matter what they are, or leaders who represent these ideals, no matter who they are, are not virtues but vices.
It was these vices - the real evils of commitment, loyalty, and passion - that allowed Stalin and Hitler and their henchmen to carry out their work. These men were inspired by the conquest of the American West and the liquidation of its native population. These men created myths of foreign plots to undermine national sovereignty and used them to justify the closing of borders, the isolation of minority groups, and the necessity for murderous action against unarmed people. These men were consistent in their pronouncements about what they intended to do and why. And still each was able to manipulate the unique politics of his own system to maintain popular support through an appeal to purported 'virtue'. It is this virtue, not nationalism, or ideology per se which was the driving force of the evil committed.
Am I alone, therefore, in feeling apprehension watching American political rallies or evangelical religious meetings, or even corporate 'team-building' exercises? Am I alone in suspecting that men like Trump and Putin are capable of the most horrific crimes regardless of the institutional constraints imposed on them? Am I alone in considering that the cause for strength, whoever puts it forth, is a fundamental evil which has no inherent limits? Why are commitment, loyalty and passion valued most by the people who do most harm in the world? Is it I who am mad?
An addendum on Purpose and History
In the 1980's I attended a lecture by an economist whose name now escapes me (it could have been Paul Johnson). His topic was the history of agricultural policy in the United States. He pointed out that the two main components of this policy from the 1930's onwards had been 1) Rather substantial subsidies to farmers for not growing certain crops, and 2) Also rather large subsidies to industry and academia for research directed toward the increase in yields for the same crops that farmers were already paid not to grow.
Every year when these subsidies were brought before Congress, someone would point of the apparent contradiction. A debate would ensue. And a vote would endorse both sets of subsidy, usually with and increase. The presumption of irrationality in the political process was put forward as the only possible explanation.
Until it was pointed out, I believe to the Reagan administration, that this outcome only appeared irrational because no one was looking for the fundamental rational, the real purpose. According to the lecturer, this purpose wasn't obvious because it was never made explicit, but it nevertheless was there and it was politically compelling. The purpose of the apparently contradictory subsidies was quite straightforward: to maximise the value of U.S. farm land. In this light both subsidies made sense.
The importance of this insight was not merely intellectual. Having articulated the implicit purpose of historical agricultural policy, it was then possible to ask the question: Is the increased value of farm land a national priority? The answer was 'no'. Consequently, for the first time in several generations, both subsidies were reduced.
The implications for historical method are to me profound. The presumption of purpose is crucial in historical analysis. Without it, one is confronted with apparently random often irrational events. With it, one is forced to confront intentions that are only implicit and perhaps only shared by a very few with leadership positions. It is a presumption that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But so is its negation. The example of U.S. agricultural policy is one proof of its superiority as a general method.
March 3, 2022
This is possibly the most gruesome book I’ve ever read. It tells the story of 14 million victims of Hitler and Stalin in the “Bloodlands” – the area in central Europe from Poland to western Russia where the devastation brought by both dictators overlapped. These 14 million people didn’t die directly from the war, or even indirectly from malnutrition or disease, but instead died from “mass killing” programs. If you are considering reading this book, be prepared for blunt and detailed descriptions of the atrocities. I can’t emphasize this enough.
I would also consider skipping this review. I do not get anywhere near as graphic as the book does, but I can’t avoid sharing some of the disturbing findings.
I think this book is best geared for people with some level of understanding of World War II, Nazi Germany, and Soviet history, as it doesn’t really do a lot of “table setting”. Personally, I knew something of the first two (I’m no expert, I’ve just read a few books and know the basics) but I was largely ignorant of Soviet history, and that made the book more challenging. Trying to absorb the details of the Ukrainian starving program, or the Great Terror, while also getting a crash course in Soviet history was a lot to absorb, and I often had to re-read sections or take a break and do a bit of background learning on some of the people or incidents mentioned.
Of the 14 million deaths, 5.4 million are Jewish victims of the Holocaust. These parts are well worth reading, but I was more unfamiliar with other incidents. The two largest sources of other deaths are Ukrainian victims of Soviet famines (3.3 million) and the victims of the German hunger plan in the Soviet Union (over 4 million, 3.1 million of which were Soviet Prisoners-of-War).
The Ukrainian famine was a result of Stalin’s collectivization program. There was a sequence of tragic and avoidable events. The program was enacted the year after a strong harvest. When the results were not replicated, the Soviet enforcers still ruthlessly demanded farmers surrender their allocated quotas and severely penalized those that didn’t.
The Soviet enforcers would often take the farmer’s seed grain as punishment, which would doom the farmers futures. The enforcers also terrorized the farmers in various ways when they did not turn in their full quota. You can read the book for graphic details of the terror that the Soviet enforcers wrought, and for details of what it was like for individuals and communities as nobody had any food to eat. As bad as the above sounds, frankly it only scratches the surface of the horror. Some of the things that were described I just don’t have the stomach to write about here.
And when the Ukrainians starved, Stalin interpreted this as a resistance movement, and he doubled down on demanding the farmers turn in their yields. In another perverse twist of logic, Stalin interpreted any resistance as evidence of the success of his programs, reasoning that the success of Communism is just stirring greater fears from its opponents.
The German hunger plan was equally horrifying. Hitler’s strategic plan was to use the captured lands for food and living space for Germans, and to kill or enslave the native populations. He was not successful; otherwise tens of millions more would have died. But one segment where the Germans did enact this program was on the Soviet Prisoners-of-War.
Traditionally, countries have been reluctant to mistreat Prisoners-of-War, as they don’t want their own prisoners to be treated similarly. But Hitler turned this logic on its head. Hitler wanted his own soldiers to be afraid that if they got captured, they would be treated with no mercy. So, the Soviet Prisoners-of-War were literally starved to death.
Other incidents are described in the book, and while the death numbers do not rise to that of the Ukrainian famines or the German starving program, the inhumanity is just as horrifying. This includes:
• Over 1M civilians in Leningrad died during the Siege from hunger
• 700K civilians shot by Germans in Belarus and Poland in 1944
• 700K executions during the “Great Purge” by Stalin in 1937-38
• 200K Poles killed by both regimes in occupied Poland in 1939-41
One thing that struck me about the book is that there were a lot of numbers. Snyder spends a lot of time discussing what the actual death count is for various incidents, what we know about how that breaks down (for instance into different ethnicities) and how confident we are in these numbers. It was difficult to keep track of what exactly each number meant. Your eyes may glaze over at times. But this isn’t a criticism. It’s important to document what we know, and that includes getting the numbers correct. If you hear “1 million people died as a result of famines in Ukraine in 1932-33” you might process that mentally the same way as if you heard “3.3 million people died as a result of the famines in Ukraine in 1932-33”. But it matters that the actual number is 3.3 million, not 1 million. Just as two people dying is twice the tragedy as one person dying, each of those 3.3 million people had a name, a family, and people that cared about them. So, I appreciate Snyder’s work in getting the numbers right, even though it makes the reading more tedious.
Snyder has a concluding chapter titled “Humanity” that has some interesting thoughts. I’ll highlight a couple memorable quotes:
"It is unlikely that reducing history to morality plays makes anyone moral"
It is easy to identify with the victims, and just think of the perpetrators as monsters that we could never have anything in common with. But the perpetrators were not driven by an ideology, which would make it easier to write them off as being almost a different species than us. Rather, they were typically driven by personal economic and survival incentives. Because of this, the “moral risk” is that we might be the perpetrators, and we should try the difficult task of understanding their actions, so we can guard against this risk.
"When meaning is drawn from killing, the risk is that more killing will result in more meaning"
This quote is referring to the very human tendency to draw a greater meaning from the killings. That they served some greater purpose – like winning the war, teaching us to value freedom, or evolving us to a more pacifist nature. Snyder talks about how this impulse has been taken to such an extreme that it is common to exaggerate the deaths a country has endured, to reinforce an identity or to establish a standing as innocent victims. Snyder makes the case that this isn’t harmless. He points to the example of the wars for Yugoslavia, where it began, in part, because Serbs believed in an exaggerated number of deaths during the second World War.
I hope this gives a flavor for how the book ends. No easy answers, and in fact instead of answers there are just more questions to think about. It’s probably not fair to expect anything more.
I would also consider skipping this review. I do not get anywhere near as graphic as the book does, but I can’t avoid sharing some of the disturbing findings.
I think this book is best geared for people with some level of understanding of World War II, Nazi Germany, and Soviet history, as it doesn’t really do a lot of “table setting”. Personally, I knew something of the first two (I’m no expert, I’ve just read a few books and know the basics) but I was largely ignorant of Soviet history, and that made the book more challenging. Trying to absorb the details of the Ukrainian starving program, or the Great Terror, while also getting a crash course in Soviet history was a lot to absorb, and I often had to re-read sections or take a break and do a bit of background learning on some of the people or incidents mentioned.
Of the 14 million deaths, 5.4 million are Jewish victims of the Holocaust. These parts are well worth reading, but I was more unfamiliar with other incidents. The two largest sources of other deaths are Ukrainian victims of Soviet famines (3.3 million) and the victims of the German hunger plan in the Soviet Union (over 4 million, 3.1 million of which were Soviet Prisoners-of-War).
The Ukrainian famine was a result of Stalin’s collectivization program. There was a sequence of tragic and avoidable events. The program was enacted the year after a strong harvest. When the results were not replicated, the Soviet enforcers still ruthlessly demanded farmers surrender their allocated quotas and severely penalized those that didn’t.
The Soviet enforcers would often take the farmer’s seed grain as punishment, which would doom the farmers futures. The enforcers also terrorized the farmers in various ways when they did not turn in their full quota. You can read the book for graphic details of the terror that the Soviet enforcers wrought, and for details of what it was like for individuals and communities as nobody had any food to eat. As bad as the above sounds, frankly it only scratches the surface of the horror. Some of the things that were described I just don’t have the stomach to write about here.
And when the Ukrainians starved, Stalin interpreted this as a resistance movement, and he doubled down on demanding the farmers turn in their yields. In another perverse twist of logic, Stalin interpreted any resistance as evidence of the success of his programs, reasoning that the success of Communism is just stirring greater fears from its opponents.
The German hunger plan was equally horrifying. Hitler’s strategic plan was to use the captured lands for food and living space for Germans, and to kill or enslave the native populations. He was not successful; otherwise tens of millions more would have died. But one segment where the Germans did enact this program was on the Soviet Prisoners-of-War.
Traditionally, countries have been reluctant to mistreat Prisoners-of-War, as they don’t want their own prisoners to be treated similarly. But Hitler turned this logic on its head. Hitler wanted his own soldiers to be afraid that if they got captured, they would be treated with no mercy. So, the Soviet Prisoners-of-War were literally starved to death.
Other incidents are described in the book, and while the death numbers do not rise to that of the Ukrainian famines or the German starving program, the inhumanity is just as horrifying. This includes:
• Over 1M civilians in Leningrad died during the Siege from hunger
• 700K civilians shot by Germans in Belarus and Poland in 1944
• 700K executions during the “Great Purge” by Stalin in 1937-38
• 200K Poles killed by both regimes in occupied Poland in 1939-41
One thing that struck me about the book is that there were a lot of numbers. Snyder spends a lot of time discussing what the actual death count is for various incidents, what we know about how that breaks down (for instance into different ethnicities) and how confident we are in these numbers. It was difficult to keep track of what exactly each number meant. Your eyes may glaze over at times. But this isn’t a criticism. It’s important to document what we know, and that includes getting the numbers correct. If you hear “1 million people died as a result of famines in Ukraine in 1932-33” you might process that mentally the same way as if you heard “3.3 million people died as a result of the famines in Ukraine in 1932-33”. But it matters that the actual number is 3.3 million, not 1 million. Just as two people dying is twice the tragedy as one person dying, each of those 3.3 million people had a name, a family, and people that cared about them. So, I appreciate Snyder’s work in getting the numbers right, even though it makes the reading more tedious.
Snyder has a concluding chapter titled “Humanity” that has some interesting thoughts. I’ll highlight a couple memorable quotes:
"It is unlikely that reducing history to morality plays makes anyone moral"
It is easy to identify with the victims, and just think of the perpetrators as monsters that we could never have anything in common with. But the perpetrators were not driven by an ideology, which would make it easier to write them off as being almost a different species than us. Rather, they were typically driven by personal economic and survival incentives. Because of this, the “moral risk” is that we might be the perpetrators, and we should try the difficult task of understanding their actions, so we can guard against this risk.
"When meaning is drawn from killing, the risk is that more killing will result in more meaning"
This quote is referring to the very human tendency to draw a greater meaning from the killings. That they served some greater purpose – like winning the war, teaching us to value freedom, or evolving us to a more pacifist nature. Snyder talks about how this impulse has been taken to such an extreme that it is common to exaggerate the deaths a country has endured, to reinforce an identity or to establish a standing as innocent victims. Snyder makes the case that this isn’t harmless. He points to the example of the wars for Yugoslavia, where it began, in part, because Serbs believed in an exaggerated number of deaths during the second World War.
I hope this gives a flavor for how the book ends. No easy answers, and in fact instead of answers there are just more questions to think about. It’s probably not fair to expect anything more.
April 15, 2022
“Each of the living bore a name. The toddler who imagined he saw wheat in the fields was Józef Sobolewski. He starved to death, along with his mother and five of his brothers and sisters, in 1933 in a famished Ukraine. The one brother who survived was shot in 1937, in Stalin’s Great Terror. Only his sister Hanna remained to recall him and his hope. Stanisław Wyganowski was the young man who foresaw that he would meet his arrested wife, Maria, “under the ground.” They were both shot by the NKVD in Leningrad in 1937. The Polish officer who wrote of his wedding ring was Adam Solski. The diary was found on his body when his remains were disinterred at Katyn, where he was shot in 1940. The wedding ring he probably hid; his executioners probably found it. The eleven- year-old Russian girl who kept a simple diary in besieged and starving Leningrad in 1941 was Tania Savicheva. One of her sisters escaped across the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga; Tania and the rest of her family died. The twelve- year-old Jewish girl who wrote to her father in Belarus in 1942 of the death pits was Junita Vishniatskaia. Her mother, who wrote alongside her, was named Zlata. They were both killed. “Farewell forever” was the last line of Junita’s letter. “I kiss you, I kiss you.”
Cultures of memory are organized by round numbers, intervals of ten; but somehow the remembrance of the dead is easier when the numbers are not round, when the final digit is not a zero. So within the Holocaust, it is perhaps easier to think of 780,863 different people at Treblinka: where the three at the end might be Tamara and Itta Willenberg, whose clothes clung together after they were gassed, and Ruth Dorfmann, who was able to cry with the man who cut her hair before she entered the gas chamber. Or it might be easier to imagine the one person at the end of the 33,761 Jews shot at Babi Yar: Dina Pronicheva’s mother, let us say, although in fact every single Jew killed there could be that one, must be that one, is that one.
Each of the dead became a number. Between them, the Nazi and Stalinist regimes murdered more than fourteen million people in the bloodlands.
These atrocities shared a place, and they shared a time: the bloodlands between 1933 and 1945. To describe their course has been to introduce to European history its central event. Without an account of all of the major killing policies in their common European historical setting, comparisons between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union must be inadequate. Now that this history of the bloodlands is complete, the comparison remains. “
This is what I was preparing to write and then Snyder wrote it better. My grandfather was born in the Ukrainian part of the bloodlands in the first year of Holodomor. He was always a very quiet man, not bothering anyone unlike my communist grandmother, who loved ussr and was an ardent communist, who was one of the millions of mourners at Stalin’s funeral. Her strong loud personality always overshadowed his. But I remember he hated the Soviets very much. I knew his 6 siblings died as children but I assumed it was just bad healthcare in the village in Poltava. Never asked how they died and why he hated ussr so much. And now he's dead and that history of my ancestors is lost to me. It is my big regret that I wasn't curious enough to ask. I am now and there’s nobody left.
P.S. They both never talked about life under nazi occupation.
Cultures of memory are organized by round numbers, intervals of ten; but somehow the remembrance of the dead is easier when the numbers are not round, when the final digit is not a zero. So within the Holocaust, it is perhaps easier to think of 780,863 different people at Treblinka: where the three at the end might be Tamara and Itta Willenberg, whose clothes clung together after they were gassed, and Ruth Dorfmann, who was able to cry with the man who cut her hair before she entered the gas chamber. Or it might be easier to imagine the one person at the end of the 33,761 Jews shot at Babi Yar: Dina Pronicheva’s mother, let us say, although in fact every single Jew killed there could be that one, must be that one, is that one.
Each of the dead became a number. Between them, the Nazi and Stalinist regimes murdered more than fourteen million people in the bloodlands.
These atrocities shared a place, and they shared a time: the bloodlands between 1933 and 1945. To describe their course has been to introduce to European history its central event. Without an account of all of the major killing policies in their common European historical setting, comparisons between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union must be inadequate. Now that this history of the bloodlands is complete, the comparison remains. “
This is what I was preparing to write and then Snyder wrote it better. My grandfather was born in the Ukrainian part of the bloodlands in the first year of Holodomor. He was always a very quiet man, not bothering anyone unlike my communist grandmother, who loved ussr and was an ardent communist, who was one of the millions of mourners at Stalin’s funeral. Her strong loud personality always overshadowed his. But I remember he hated the Soviets very much. I knew his 6 siblings died as children but I assumed it was just bad healthcare in the village in Poltava. Never asked how they died and why he hated ussr so much. And now he's dead and that history of my ancestors is lost to me. It is my big regret that I wasn't curious enough to ask. I am now and there’s nobody left.
P.S. They both never talked about life under nazi occupation.
March 13, 2017
This is history that deserves to be read, if for no other reason, to acknowledge the individual lives of so many innocent people deliberately murdered. We’re not talking war casualties or so-called collateral wartime deaths. We’re talking civilians sentenced to death by deliberate national policy. Sometimes they were targeted because of national, political, or ethnic reasons. Sometimes they were targeted for no particular discernible reason.
The author does a good job of balancing the numbingly huge numbers with the firsthand accounts from letters and diaries of victims, recorded memories of survivors, and written records of the perpetrators. One example I found especially horrific were the words from a letter written by an Austrian soldier to his wife telling of how he is repeatedly shooting, on a daily basis, large numbers of Jews including women and children. He even includes details such as throwing babies into the air and shooting them before they fall into the pit or water. Can you image admitting such behavior in writing to a spouse? Presumably, his wife approved. One wonders if these stories were shared with this couple’s children. (He specifically mentions in his letter that he thinks of his own children.)
After reading about millions of Ukrainian peasants starved because of an artificial famine created by Soviet collectivization, my heart was rent by the following simple story:
There were times I felt the stories in this book were too awful to read. But I felt it my duty to keep on, if for no other reason, to honor the memories of those who perished. These are stories that are not widely known in western circles. A detailed tally of the numbers involved could not be studied by western historians until the Soviet Union fell and the records of the Communist era opened. This book brings the Nazi and Soviet regimes together, and Jewish and European history together, and the national histories together. It describes the victims, and the perpetrators. It discusses the ideologies and the plans, and the systems and the societies.
The "bloodlands" referenced in the title of the book consists of those territories subject to both German and Soviet police power and associated mass killing polices at some point between 1933 and 1945. It consists generally of the areas within the following counties: Ukraine, Belarussia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The book contains discussions of the motivations of nations that led to these deaths. Germany was quite clear that they considered the bloodlands to be a frontier for German civilization to expand into. The German settlers moved into the area would deal with native populations in a manner similar to the way American settlers pushed (and killed) the Indians out of the way. (Himler, head of the German SS, actually referenced the American example.) The Soviet actions were somewhat disguised by Marxist rhetoric, but the author shows a clearly nationalistic and racist aspect to the mass killings by the Soviet Union. He shows that the Poles, Ukrainians, and Belarussians were statistically much more likely to be killed than the ethnic Russians and Georgians (Stalin was Georgian).
The book also discusses the deliberate changing of the numbers of people killed by post-war nations to fit their political agendas. It seems that after the war every nation had a motive to adjust, inflate or ignore the numbers in different ways. The recent Yugoslavian experience is a reminder that mass killings can still happen. Need I mention Cambodia or Uganda?
I found it particularly interesting to learn why the author used the term "mass killings" instead of "genocide" in this book. When the word "genocide" was written into international law the Soviet Union made sure that it excluded mass killings of "political" groups, and it also does not include destruction of a social group through the forcible removal of a population. In doing so the Soviets made sure that the mass killings under Stalin could not be defined as genocide. I suppose these are some of the technicalities that Turkey uses to insist that the killing of the Armenians after WWI was not genocide.
Thus far in this review I have refrained from mentioning the numbers of people killed. Once you start mentioning numbers they take over. This book contains lots of numbers, big numbers that are hard to fathom. If you want numbers you can read the following excerpts that I have taken from the book. I have made the text bold that compares those killed to the total of American battlefield losses in all foreign wars because I'm assuming most people reading this are from the United States.
______________
The author does a good job of balancing the numbingly huge numbers with the firsthand accounts from letters and diaries of victims, recorded memories of survivors, and written records of the perpetrators. One example I found especially horrific were the words from a letter written by an Austrian soldier to his wife telling of how he is repeatedly shooting, on a daily basis, large numbers of Jews including women and children. He even includes details such as throwing babies into the air and shooting them before they fall into the pit or water. Can you image admitting such behavior in writing to a spouse? Presumably, his wife approved. One wonders if these stories were shared with this couple’s children. (He specifically mentions in his letter that he thinks of his own children.)
After reading about millions of Ukrainian peasants starved because of an artificial famine created by Soviet collectivization, my heart was rent by the following simple story:
"... Garth Jones met a peasant who had acquired some bread, only to have it confiscated by the police. "They took my bread away from me," he repeated over and over again, knowing that he would disappoint his starving family."Soviet police assumed that whenever they saw a peasant with some food it must have been stolen, so they would take it away. The logic of Stalin's thinking was that the peasants deserved to die because they were being anti-revolutionary by starving instead of being happy in a Communist paradise. Anybody on Stalin's staff who couldn't understand this logic was eliminated (i.e. killed).
There were times I felt the stories in this book were too awful to read. But I felt it my duty to keep on, if for no other reason, to honor the memories of those who perished. These are stories that are not widely known in western circles. A detailed tally of the numbers involved could not be studied by western historians until the Soviet Union fell and the records of the Communist era opened. This book brings the Nazi and Soviet regimes together, and Jewish and European history together, and the national histories together. It describes the victims, and the perpetrators. It discusses the ideologies and the plans, and the systems and the societies.
The "bloodlands" referenced in the title of the book consists of those territories subject to both German and Soviet police power and associated mass killing polices at some point between 1933 and 1945. It consists generally of the areas within the following counties: Ukraine, Belarussia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The book contains discussions of the motivations of nations that led to these deaths. Germany was quite clear that they considered the bloodlands to be a frontier for German civilization to expand into. The German settlers moved into the area would deal with native populations in a manner similar to the way American settlers pushed (and killed) the Indians out of the way. (Himler, head of the German SS, actually referenced the American example.) The Soviet actions were somewhat disguised by Marxist rhetoric, but the author shows a clearly nationalistic and racist aspect to the mass killings by the Soviet Union. He shows that the Poles, Ukrainians, and Belarussians were statistically much more likely to be killed than the ethnic Russians and Georgians (Stalin was Georgian).
"Whereas Hitler turned the Republic into revolutionary colonial empire, Stalin translated the poetics of revolutionary Marxism into durable work-a-day politics."When the narrative finally reached the end of WWII, I thought the killing had finally stopped. But no, Stalin was still alive and many thousands of people were dislocated. Germans were moved out of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and Polish boundaries were moved toward the east with subsequent moving of the population.
The book also discusses the deliberate changing of the numbers of people killed by post-war nations to fit their political agendas. It seems that after the war every nation had a motive to adjust, inflate or ignore the numbers in different ways. The recent Yugoslavian experience is a reminder that mass killings can still happen. Need I mention Cambodia or Uganda?
The wars for Yugoslavia in the 1990's began, in part, because Serbs believed that far larger numbers of their fellows had been killed in the Second World War than was the case. (pg 406)The author suggests that people today who identify with the victims and find the behaviors of the killers incomprehensible, could probably learn more by trying to understand the motivations of the killers. The book hints that most readers would behave in the same manner if placed in the same circumstances.
I found it particularly interesting to learn why the author used the term "mass killings" instead of "genocide" in this book. When the word "genocide" was written into international law the Soviet Union made sure that it excluded mass killings of "political" groups, and it also does not include destruction of a social group through the forcible removal of a population. In doing so the Soviets made sure that the mass killings under Stalin could not be defined as genocide. I suppose these are some of the technicalities that Turkey uses to insist that the killing of the Armenians after WWI was not genocide.
Thus far in this review I have refrained from mentioning the numbers of people killed. Once you start mentioning numbers they take over. This book contains lots of numbers, big numbers that are hard to fathom. If you want numbers you can read the following excerpts that I have taken from the book. I have made the text bold that compares those killed to the total of American battlefield losses in all foreign wars because I'm assuming most people reading this are from the United States.
______________
" Fourteen million is the approximate number of people killed by purposeful policies of mass murder implemented by Nazi Germany and the soviet Union in the bloodlands. (pg.409)(The following tabulation of numbers has been abbreviated and edited from how it's shown in book, so it's not an exact quotation:)
The count of fourteen million is not a complete reckoning of all the death that German and Soviet power brought to the region. It is an estimate of the number of people killed in deliberate policies of mass murder. (pg.410)
Fourteen million, after all, is a very large number. It exceeds by more than ten million the number of people who died in all of the Soviet and German concentration camps (as opposed to the death facilities) taken together over the entire history of both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. If current standard estimates of military losses are correct, it exceeds by more than two million the number of German and Soviet soldiers, taken together, killed on the battlefield in the Second World War (counting starved and executed prisoners of war as victims of a policy of mass murder rather than as military casualties). It exceeds by more than thirteen million the number of American and British casualties, taken together, of the Second World War. It also exceeds by more than thirteen million all of the American battlefield losses in all of the foreign wars that the Unites States has ever fought. (pg.411)
3,300,000 Soviet citizens (mostly Ukrainians) deliberately starved, 1932-1933. (by USSR)The following link is to another excerpt from the book, "Bloodlands" by Timothy Snyder (pages: 32-35)
300,000 Soviet citizens (mostly Poles and Ukrainians) shot 1937-1938. (by USSR) (*)
200,000 Polish citizens (mostly Poles) shot by German and Soviet forces in occupied Poland (1939-1941). (by USSR and Ger.)
4,200,000 Soviet citizens (largely Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians) starved by German occupiers (1941-1944). (by Ger.)
5,500,000 Jews (most of Polish or Soviet citizens) gassed or shot by the Germans in 1941-1944. (by Ger.)
700,000 civilians (mostly Belarussians and Poles) shot by the Germans in “reprisals” chiefly in Belarus and Warsaw in 1941-1944. (by Ger.) (pg.411)
TOTALS: 3,700,000 by USSR, 10,500,000 by Ger.
(*) Total of 700,000 victims of the great terror in all of Soviet Union.
"In general, these numbers are sums of counts made by the Germans or the Soviets themselves, complemented by other sources, rather than statistical estimates of losses based upon censuses. Accordingly, my counts are often lower (even if stupefyingly high) than others in the literature. The major case where I do rely upon estimates is the famine in Soviet Ukraine, where data are simply insufficient for a count, and where I present a total figure on the basis of a number of demographic calculations and contemporary estimates. Again, my reckoning is on the conservative side. (pg.412) "
http://www.delanceyplace.com/view-arc...The following is a link to the Wikipedia article about the Holodomor, the name given for the man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed an estimated 2.5–7.5 million Ukrainians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HolodomorThe following is a link to the movie, "Bitter Harvest," a movie about the Holodomor:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3182620/
August 6, 2016
An account of what happened in the lands between Hitler and Stalin from 1933 to 1952 (the year Stalin died). These consist of the countries of present day Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the western part of the Russian Federation.
The principal thesis of the author is that we should not look at these lands as being affected by just one of the two evil dictators. We cannot look at the history of this land as simple chronology, acting in different time slots. The very boundaries these countries occupied was itself very fluid during this time period - most particularly Poland - so this also made the borders adjoining Eastern Poland malleable as well. Poland was one entity from 1933 to September, 1939. It was carved between two vicious empires between 1939 thru June, 1941. It was then merged into Germany until about mid-1944 and then re-absorbed into the Soviet empire. In this time period millions were killed in Poland – millions of others were brought to Poland to be killed.
The ruthlessness of Hitler and Stalin is apparent through-out. It is obvious both understood each other’s language –for example, it took very little time for the Nazi-Soviet pact to be signed in August 1939 with its secret protocols. The two major Allied democracies should have paid more heed to the history of Stalin’s Soviet Union when they all became ‘Allies’ and started to ‘negotiate’ with Stalin about Eastern Europe. Stalin never intended to keep his Yalta agreement and have free elections in post-war Poland – Poland was his and dissension and nationalist aspirations were not tolerated in the lands he possessed. We can see this very clearly in the history Mr. Snyder gives of the Soviet Union in the 1930’s.
Mr. Snyder illuminates the development of the Stalinist state prior to 1941. The Soviet Union was a closed society allowing little journalistic access – and it was successful in convincing the West of its’ achievements – most of which were accomplished with little regard for human rights. The famines in Ukraine gradually ‘leaked out’ and it took more years to realize that these mass starvations were a deliberate policy.
One of the strengths of this book is the human examples the author provides – of the victims and how the perpetrators did their deeds.
The people in these lands were persecuted first by Stalin’s henchmen (NKVD), then by the Nazis, and after “liberation” by Stalin again. We, living in civilized Western Europe or North America, have little comprehension of the level of ruthlessness of these altering occupiers. Many people lived under these regimes for the entire formative periods of their lives. Those who survived the famines, the camps and the invasions had to adjust quickly when a new occupier arrived in their territory. Alliances shifted and the new authorities would not allow them time to contemplate how to choose sides.
I was less familiar with the Soviet side of repression than the Nazi rule. What is apparent on the Soviet side is the predominant role of the NKVD in the creation and maintenance of a vast repressive state. I have no idea of the size of the NKVD, but it must have been composed of thousands of devoted members and was obviously above the army in the power structure of Soviet society. As the author points out, comparatively speaking, there was much less repressive police action within Germany.
This is not a book of mere statistics; it provides personalities and it gives an ethnical geography of the land. Due to borders shifting ethnic cleansing was done after the Second World War was over. Ukrainians had to be with Ukrainians, Poles with Poles… this was how Stalin would segregate and then dominate.
The last chapter “Humanity” provides interesting commentary. It is easy for us to “humanize” or empathize with the victims; it is less easy to “humanize” the perpetrators. Mr. Snyder provides us with high level rationalizations of what Hitler, Himmler, Stalin and Beria wanted. But what about the perpetrators doing their ruthless acts on site – the mass shootings, starvations and other sadistic acts? They were actively involved and as cited in two works of Daniel Goldhagen – often, they did this very willingly. Perhaps we can never know what possessed them to do these horrible undertakings.
The author at the end, very tellingly states that we always have “to turn the numbers into people”.
The principal thesis of the author is that we should not look at these lands as being affected by just one of the two evil dictators. We cannot look at the history of this land as simple chronology, acting in different time slots. The very boundaries these countries occupied was itself very fluid during this time period - most particularly Poland - so this also made the borders adjoining Eastern Poland malleable as well. Poland was one entity from 1933 to September, 1939. It was carved between two vicious empires between 1939 thru June, 1941. It was then merged into Germany until about mid-1944 and then re-absorbed into the Soviet empire. In this time period millions were killed in Poland – millions of others were brought to Poland to be killed.
The ruthlessness of Hitler and Stalin is apparent through-out. It is obvious both understood each other’s language –for example, it took very little time for the Nazi-Soviet pact to be signed in August 1939 with its secret protocols. The two major Allied democracies should have paid more heed to the history of Stalin’s Soviet Union when they all became ‘Allies’ and started to ‘negotiate’ with Stalin about Eastern Europe. Stalin never intended to keep his Yalta agreement and have free elections in post-war Poland – Poland was his and dissension and nationalist aspirations were not tolerated in the lands he possessed. We can see this very clearly in the history Mr. Snyder gives of the Soviet Union in the 1930’s.
Mr. Snyder illuminates the development of the Stalinist state prior to 1941. The Soviet Union was a closed society allowing little journalistic access – and it was successful in convincing the West of its’ achievements – most of which were accomplished with little regard for human rights. The famines in Ukraine gradually ‘leaked out’ and it took more years to realize that these mass starvations were a deliberate policy.
One of the strengths of this book is the human examples the author provides – of the victims and how the perpetrators did their deeds.
The people in these lands were persecuted first by Stalin’s henchmen (NKVD), then by the Nazis, and after “liberation” by Stalin again. We, living in civilized Western Europe or North America, have little comprehension of the level of ruthlessness of these altering occupiers. Many people lived under these regimes for the entire formative periods of their lives. Those who survived the famines, the camps and the invasions had to adjust quickly when a new occupier arrived in their territory. Alliances shifted and the new authorities would not allow them time to contemplate how to choose sides.
I was less familiar with the Soviet side of repression than the Nazi rule. What is apparent on the Soviet side is the predominant role of the NKVD in the creation and maintenance of a vast repressive state. I have no idea of the size of the NKVD, but it must have been composed of thousands of devoted members and was obviously above the army in the power structure of Soviet society. As the author points out, comparatively speaking, there was much less repressive police action within Germany.
This is not a book of mere statistics; it provides personalities and it gives an ethnical geography of the land. Due to borders shifting ethnic cleansing was done after the Second World War was over. Ukrainians had to be with Ukrainians, Poles with Poles… this was how Stalin would segregate and then dominate.
The last chapter “Humanity” provides interesting commentary. It is easy for us to “humanize” or empathize with the victims; it is less easy to “humanize” the perpetrators. Mr. Snyder provides us with high level rationalizations of what Hitler, Himmler, Stalin and Beria wanted. But what about the perpetrators doing their ruthless acts on site – the mass shootings, starvations and other sadistic acts? They were actively involved and as cited in two works of Daniel Goldhagen – often, they did this very willingly. Perhaps we can never know what possessed them to do these horrible undertakings.
The author at the end, very tellingly states that we always have “to turn the numbers into people”.
July 5, 2021
Lengthy but loaded with good information and details of various groups of people starved to death and murdered initially by Stalin and his purges while changing USSR to collectivism with millions dying and then by Hitler with his focus on killing Jews and undesirable people. Finally when Russians took back territory from Germany the continued to purge by killing or sending to gulags suspected partisans or alleged spy’s for The US or Israel. Much information had been locked behind the iron curtain including details about the death camps and actual numbers of deaths. Much was distorted for propaganda purposes by the Soviet Union including murders by them that were blamed on the Nazis. Fascinating read that was very well researched. Great for any WWII or Holocaust buffs.
March 8, 2022
The story told in Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin is not a revelation. Readers familiar with the works of Robert Conquest, Daniel Goldhagen, Anne Applebaum, or Halik Kochanski have read it all before. Snyder presents it with a new perspective, concentrating on the plight of the minority peoples caught between the two ideological empires of the mid-twentieth century – Ukrainians, Belorussians, Balts, Roma, Russians, Germans, Poles, Jews – all pawns of Hitler and Stalin. Both tyrants were committed to ethnic and cultural homogeneity in the lands they ruled, but as Snyder so aptly pointed out, it was Stalin who won Hitler's war, so his vision triumphed.
The old adage about man's inhumanity to man was never reinforced better than in Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. While well-written, often captivating, and thoroughly footnoted (extensive references in English, Polish, German and Russian), it is undeniably a depressing book. Stalinism, with its forced collectivization of agriculture, the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class,” and recurring politically-driven suppressions, when married in time and geography with Nazism's bloodlust and pseudo-scientific racism, resulted in a clash of unrivaled barbarity. The beleaguered peoples of Eastern Europe bore the brunt. A volatile mix of nationalism, racism, and political ideology led to the devastation of wide swaths of the European borderlands where mixed religions, ethnicities, and cultures had survived, and even thrived, during the ages of the Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs. The advent of Hitler and Stalin ended that situation, perhaps forever. The numbers are mind-boggling. Many millions were slaughtered and no group escaped untouched. In Warsaw on 5 and 6 August 1944 alone, SS Special Commando Dirlewanger shot 40,000 Polish civilians. While much of western historiography has been focused on the Holocaust, the Jews comprised 5.40 million of the 14 million victims of totalitarianism in the bloodlands. Snyder rounds out the ugly tale of murder.
Timothy Snyder deserves great credit for presenting a new look at this sanguinary chapter of European history. So much of today's news on the region has been shaped by the events described and explained in Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Snyder's book earned a rating of Four Stars in my library. Another plus: The text is accompanied by excellent maps. A brief study of the maps reflecting the changing borders in the region from 1918 through the post-war era is, in itself, enlightening.
The old adage about man's inhumanity to man was never reinforced better than in Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. While well-written, often captivating, and thoroughly footnoted (extensive references in English, Polish, German and Russian), it is undeniably a depressing book. Stalinism, with its forced collectivization of agriculture, the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class,” and recurring politically-driven suppressions, when married in time and geography with Nazism's bloodlust and pseudo-scientific racism, resulted in a clash of unrivaled barbarity. The beleaguered peoples of Eastern Europe bore the brunt. A volatile mix of nationalism, racism, and political ideology led to the devastation of wide swaths of the European borderlands where mixed religions, ethnicities, and cultures had survived, and even thrived, during the ages of the Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs. The advent of Hitler and Stalin ended that situation, perhaps forever. The numbers are mind-boggling. Many millions were slaughtered and no group escaped untouched. In Warsaw on 5 and 6 August 1944 alone, SS Special Commando Dirlewanger shot 40,000 Polish civilians. While much of western historiography has been focused on the Holocaust, the Jews comprised 5.40 million of the 14 million victims of totalitarianism in the bloodlands. Snyder rounds out the ugly tale of murder.
Timothy Snyder deserves great credit for presenting a new look at this sanguinary chapter of European history. So much of today's news on the region has been shaped by the events described and explained in Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Snyder's book earned a rating of Four Stars in my library. Another plus: The text is accompanied by excellent maps. A brief study of the maps reflecting the changing borders in the region from 1918 through the post-war era is, in itself, enlightening.
August 2, 2023
A Tragedy in Two Parts.
Those who lived in western Russia, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania between 1930 and 1945 endured the most brutal and violent period in human history. Two of humanity’s most evil men were in control of this territory, suspicious and obsessed with each other, with an equal hatred of those caught between them. This is the story of the clash of titans; Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich and Josef Stalin and Soviet Russia and their desires to fulfil their own ideologies. Timothy Snyder’s book takes the reader of a journey from hell, from the start of collectivisation in the USSR and Stalin’s war on the Ukraine, through the Holocaust and Second World War to the beginning of the Cold War. Nazism and communism had swept across this land, back and forth with devastating effect.
Fourteen million soldiers and civilians died at the hands of the Soviets or the Nazis during this period, through fighting, execution, starvation, mass murder or as collateral damage. The majority of them were innocent. As Snyder reiterates in this book, the West tends to have the presumption the majority of people died in concentration camps, where they were worked to death. This myth is based around American and British soldiers uncovering these camps with the pacification of Germany in 1945. What they didn’t know was that there were far worse death camps in the east, with the sole purpose of extermination. In some cases prisoners being killed within two hours of the train stopping at the gates. Auschwitz is an expansive of where this happened, however as Snyder reminds us, that by the time the gas chambers were in action here in 1943, the majority of Jews and other ‘undesirables’ were already killed. Either shot or starved to death.
Another myth Snyder seeks to correct is the one that Stalin killed more than Hitler. He says this is not true, both killed millions, but Hitler perhaps two million more. These were also not primarily in the Gulag system but in the Ukraine, during the Holodomor. Right in the Bloodlands. Snyder is able to show how all of this came about. The Nazis actually sacrificed practically and military sense to kill Jews, only stopping in the winter of 1941-2 to use them as workers to manufacture winter clothes for the Wehrmacht. They were then shot afterwards. Resources and man power was wasted on their fanatical ideology, which was evidently more important to the Nazis than any victory. As Operation Barbarossa failed, the Battle of Britain lost, the initial solution to deport Jews to Madagascar and then eastern Russia was not available. They became more desperate and therefore mass extermination was their only option. As the Nazis were pushed back, more and more were killed. Snyder makes an interesting observation, the Third Reich was more murderous in wartime, the USSR in peacetime.
The book is well written and full of harrowing stories and macabre facts. The Jewish police in the ghettos who were forced to provide up to ten people a day to be executed or they’d lose their own families is one that sticks out. They would naturally pick children or the weak, stealing the young from under their parents noses and handing them to the SS. The ghettos as a result would leave overwhelmingly young men behind. This in the end did not save anyone, as all including the police were escorted to death camps as the wee waged on. Another anecdote that has stayed with me, is the death camp guards who ensured the young Jewish women were killed last off the train, as they wanted to look at their naked bodies before they went into the chamber. This strange scenario of a young man trying to look at young women with lust before they killed them all.
As Snyder shows, neither side is better than the other in this apocalyptic nightmare. Stalin was well aware of his war on the Ukraine and the persecution of the invented class of Kulak, a so-called ‘rich peasant’. Snyder also shows how he also blamed Jews for economic and military failure, even forcing his daughter Svetlana to divorce a Jewish man she had married. Within this and in the background Stalin’s evil entourage such as Vyacheslav Molotov or Lavrentiy Beria lurk, enforcing the death. Hitler has his Lieutenants too, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Himmler and Heydrich were the architects of the final solution one of the most appalling decisions in the history of the human race. The numbers of death and destruction are so high on either side and what contributes to WWII being so unique with its brutality, death and destruction. A must read so these crimes and their victims will not be forgotten.
Those who lived in western Russia, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania between 1930 and 1945 endured the most brutal and violent period in human history. Two of humanity’s most evil men were in control of this territory, suspicious and obsessed with each other, with an equal hatred of those caught between them. This is the story of the clash of titans; Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich and Josef Stalin and Soviet Russia and their desires to fulfil their own ideologies. Timothy Snyder’s book takes the reader of a journey from hell, from the start of collectivisation in the USSR and Stalin’s war on the Ukraine, through the Holocaust and Second World War to the beginning of the Cold War. Nazism and communism had swept across this land, back and forth with devastating effect.
Fourteen million soldiers and civilians died at the hands of the Soviets or the Nazis during this period, through fighting, execution, starvation, mass murder or as collateral damage. The majority of them were innocent. As Snyder reiterates in this book, the West tends to have the presumption the majority of people died in concentration camps, where they were worked to death. This myth is based around American and British soldiers uncovering these camps with the pacification of Germany in 1945. What they didn’t know was that there were far worse death camps in the east, with the sole purpose of extermination. In some cases prisoners being killed within two hours of the train stopping at the gates. Auschwitz is an expansive of where this happened, however as Snyder reminds us, that by the time the gas chambers were in action here in 1943, the majority of Jews and other ‘undesirables’ were already killed. Either shot or starved to death.
Another myth Snyder seeks to correct is the one that Stalin killed more than Hitler. He says this is not true, both killed millions, but Hitler perhaps two million more. These were also not primarily in the Gulag system but in the Ukraine, during the Holodomor. Right in the Bloodlands. Snyder is able to show how all of this came about. The Nazis actually sacrificed practically and military sense to kill Jews, only stopping in the winter of 1941-2 to use them as workers to manufacture winter clothes for the Wehrmacht. They were then shot afterwards. Resources and man power was wasted on their fanatical ideology, which was evidently more important to the Nazis than any victory. As Operation Barbarossa failed, the Battle of Britain lost, the initial solution to deport Jews to Madagascar and then eastern Russia was not available. They became more desperate and therefore mass extermination was their only option. As the Nazis were pushed back, more and more were killed. Snyder makes an interesting observation, the Third Reich was more murderous in wartime, the USSR in peacetime.
The book is well written and full of harrowing stories and macabre facts. The Jewish police in the ghettos who were forced to provide up to ten people a day to be executed or they’d lose their own families is one that sticks out. They would naturally pick children or the weak, stealing the young from under their parents noses and handing them to the SS. The ghettos as a result would leave overwhelmingly young men behind. This in the end did not save anyone, as all including the police were escorted to death camps as the wee waged on. Another anecdote that has stayed with me, is the death camp guards who ensured the young Jewish women were killed last off the train, as they wanted to look at their naked bodies before they went into the chamber. This strange scenario of a young man trying to look at young women with lust before they killed them all.
As Snyder shows, neither side is better than the other in this apocalyptic nightmare. Stalin was well aware of his war on the Ukraine and the persecution of the invented class of Kulak, a so-called ‘rich peasant’. Snyder also shows how he also blamed Jews for economic and military failure, even forcing his daughter Svetlana to divorce a Jewish man she had married. Within this and in the background Stalin’s evil entourage such as Vyacheslav Molotov or Lavrentiy Beria lurk, enforcing the death. Hitler has his Lieutenants too, Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Himmler and Heydrich were the architects of the final solution one of the most appalling decisions in the history of the human race. The numbers of death and destruction are so high on either side and what contributes to WWII being so unique with its brutality, death and destruction. A must read so these crimes and their victims will not be forgotten.
June 6, 2022
Coming back to this review once again. As I said after reading it in 2011, "I would have liked it if the author had said more about the Soviet side, and about their reasons for doing what they did. It may be that Hitler's (and the Nazi Party leadership's) thoughts are more accessible than Stalin's and the Soviet high command's were, but as it is Snyder says fairly little about why he has more to say about Nazi motivations than about those of the Soviets." I have since found out that quite a lot of the relevant archives were indeed available, had he wanted to avail himself of them. On top of that, after rereading this jacobin review by Lazare, and after seeing how Snyder's been behaving himself since this book got published, I have little faith left that this omission was accidental. This especially so because of how Snyder seems rather intent on blaming the Soviets in general, and Stalin in particular, for Hitler's choices, as well as for blaming partisans for the German army's reprisals. Because this phrase truly is an insane accusation, especially in light of the repeated refusals of the western leaders to rein in Hitler before he got started (and Hitler's upper MC and elite support within Germany), which Snyder never mentions. Lazare:
So if you read, do it to see how Big Lie creation and propagation works.
Additionally, see https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022...
But since the Soviets were complicit in Nazi aggression, resistance was no less criminal than the invasion itself. Since the Soviets “allowed Hitler to begin a war” in 1939, Snyder writes, they had no right to complain when he turned his guns on them in 1941.
So if you read, do it to see how Big Lie creation and propagation works.
Additionally, see https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022...
July 12, 2023
Bloodlands. The poor benighted ribbon of land caught between Hitler and Stalin, monstrous merciless dictators, with their absolutist ideologies and willing apparatchiks. Comprising the Baltic states, Poland, Belorussia and Ukraine, fourteen million of whose civilian inhabitants died as a result of deliberate policies of extermination or neglect.
It started even before the Second World War, with three million Ukrainians starved so that Stalin could claim victory in his collectivisaton drive. Many hundreds of thousands more died in the Great Terror, shot in the back of the neck or transported thousands of miles to die in some empty wilderness.
Then the war starts and the killing increases in pace. Poland is dismembered again and it's elites are simply murdered - 20,000 officers killed by the NKVD at Katyn for example. Then in 1941 the Germans invade Soviet Russia. Three million Soviet prisoners of war are left to die through starvation and neglect, whilst behind the front line the Nazi death squads start to murder Jews. Later on the obscene murder camps are constructed to industrialise the process of extermination.
After the war population transfers lead to further deaths. The borders of Poland and Germany are moved westwards as Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill re-draw the maps, further dislocating historic communities and reanimating ethnic tension (as if this were needed). Facts on the ground - the mighty Red Army - mean that historic promises to Poland from Britain and France are forgotten, and the Baltic countries are reabsorbed into Mother Russia.
The numbers murdered are incredible. Fourteen million - mainly Jews, Poles, Belorussians and Ukrainians, with a smattering of Balts, Germans and others.
The author leads us through this unimaginable path with a scalpel sharp exposition of the reasons for the killing. Twisted ideology certainly but also a sense that eliminating "the other" allows for the formation through shared hatred of a master race. It is also a convenient excuse for political failure, why admit mistakes when you can blame the scapegoat. He also shows us the impossible choices faced by people whose lands are invaded three times in five years by diametrically opposed ideologues - do you collaborate and live, for now, or resist and face a bullet? Of course for many this is not a choice they face, as they are condemned and murdered for what they are rather than what they have done - they are a kulak , a Jew or an educated Pole, Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian.
An important if disturbing book.
It started even before the Second World War, with three million Ukrainians starved so that Stalin could claim victory in his collectivisaton drive. Many hundreds of thousands more died in the Great Terror, shot in the back of the neck or transported thousands of miles to die in some empty wilderness.
Then the war starts and the killing increases in pace. Poland is dismembered again and it's elites are simply murdered - 20,000 officers killed by the NKVD at Katyn for example. Then in 1941 the Germans invade Soviet Russia. Three million Soviet prisoners of war are left to die through starvation and neglect, whilst behind the front line the Nazi death squads start to murder Jews. Later on the obscene murder camps are constructed to industrialise the process of extermination.
After the war population transfers lead to further deaths. The borders of Poland and Germany are moved westwards as Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill re-draw the maps, further dislocating historic communities and reanimating ethnic tension (as if this were needed). Facts on the ground - the mighty Red Army - mean that historic promises to Poland from Britain and France are forgotten, and the Baltic countries are reabsorbed into Mother Russia.
The numbers murdered are incredible. Fourteen million - mainly Jews, Poles, Belorussians and Ukrainians, with a smattering of Balts, Germans and others.
The author leads us through this unimaginable path with a scalpel sharp exposition of the reasons for the killing. Twisted ideology certainly but also a sense that eliminating "the other" allows for the formation through shared hatred of a master race. It is also a convenient excuse for political failure, why admit mistakes when you can blame the scapegoat. He also shows us the impossible choices faced by people whose lands are invaded three times in five years by diametrically opposed ideologues - do you collaborate and live, for now, or resist and face a bullet? Of course for many this is not a choice they face, as they are condemned and murdered for what they are rather than what they have done - they are a kulak , a Jew or an educated Pole, Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian.
An important if disturbing book.
October 17, 2018
Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin was a colossal disappointment. The book attempts to explore the parallel, and sometimes simultaneous rampages of Stalin and Hitler across Eastern Europe from 1933 through 1953, arguing that the resultant crimes inspired and fed off one another. There might be some merit in this approach, but Snyder doesn't make it convincing. While the book provides a seemingly endless ledger of atrocities both Communist and fascist, it's extraordinarily thin on analysis and interpretation; where Snyder does venture to look further at the motivations of his antagonists, the book is remarkably thin. He's particularly facile examining Nazi Germany, making the extraordinary claim that antisemitism wasn't central to Hitler's worldview (!!!) and taking the functionalist-intentionalist argument about the Holocaust to an absurd extreme by claiming the Final Solution was mere "revenge" for the failure of Operation Barbarossa (!!!!!). Nevermind that Snyder's own evidence contradicts this bizarre assertion; the book shows that you can have a reasonable command of facts, figures and sources and still get the history grievously wrong.
March 14, 2023
„Населението източно от линията „Молотов-Рибентроп“, претърпяло една германска и две съветски окупации, страда повече от населението във всеки друг район на Европа.“
Не можех да не чета труда на Снайдър, без пред очите ми да е трагедията на украинския народ в наши дни, не само защото „войната се завърна в Европа“; а и защото това завръщане е твърде сходно с онова отпреди 80 години.
„Кървавите поля“ е тази тъжна европейска земя, включваща Полша, балтийските държави, Беларус, Украйна и Западна Русия, в която от 1933 г. до 1945 г. загиват 14 милиона души, жертви на нацисткия и сталинисткия режим. Снайдър уточнява, че става дума не за войници на действителна военна служба, а цивилно население – жени, деца, възрастни хора. Това са местата, в които се вихри организираният от Сталин Гладомор над украинските селяни; това са и лобните площадки за милиони евреи – нацистките концентрационни лагери и фабриките на смъртта; след войната ст��тици хиляди загиват при насилствените депортации, особено след промяната в полско-германската граница.
Огромният брой жертви се дължи на това, че тези територии попадат в полезрението на двамата диктатори – линията „Молотов-Рибентроп“ установява първата им подялба през 1939 г., а през 1941 г. Вермахтът я пресича в посока изток, за да установи новия нацистки ред. Обратът от 1943 г. заварва населението на тези земи за пореден път с нов господар, този път консолидиран за десетилетия напред. Това движение на изток и запад от линията означава трагедия за милиони хора – гладна смърт, принудително изселване, робски труд, или (на този фон) милостив бърз куршум в тила. Една трета от тях са жертви на сталинизма.
В това перверзно съревнование между двете кървави диктатури, е видно, че и Хитлер, и Сталин предпочитат да убиват извън собствените си територии, а след края на първия, вторият продължава с етническото прочистване на германци, поляци и украинци, вече в сателитната му Полша, а в края на живота си антиеврейската му параноя за малко да затрие останалите в Съветския съюз евреи.
Равносметката (освен милионите загинали) е окончателно променената демография, колективната травма на оцелелите, огромният и загубен завинаги човешки потенциал, съдържащ се във всеки насилствено отнет живот. Моралната оценка на Снайдър за нацизма и болшевизма е ясна и безпощадна – фактите са показателни за сходствата между двата режима. Остава паметта – като отговорност на историците, но и на о��делния индивид. Недобросъвестността на първите води до конфузии относно съдържанието на понятията „жертва“ и „агресор“ у вторите.
Без съмнение, една от най-потресаващите книги, която съм чела за този период и много нужна на българския читател с цел осмисляне на сегашната война. „Кървави поля“ избистря в най-суров вид природата на тоталните режими, за които хората са пионки, а смъртта им – числа. Индиректно обаче се прокрадва надежда, че нито една диктатура не може да трае дълго – тоталният й характер изисква самодостатъчност, твърде много ресурси и мобилизация, които я изчерпват отвътре (ако преди това не се самоубие с безсмислена война).
Не можех да не чета труда на Снайдър, без пред очите ми да е трагедията на украинския народ в наши дни, не само защото „войната се завърна в Европа“; а и защото това завръщане е твърде сходно с онова отпреди 80 години.
„Кървавите поля“ е тази тъжна европейска земя, включваща Полша, балтийските държави, Беларус, Украйна и Западна Русия, в която от 1933 г. до 1945 г. загиват 14 милиона души, жертви на нацисткия и сталинисткия режим. Снайдър уточнява, че става дума не за войници на действителна военна служба, а цивилно население – жени, деца, възрастни хора. Това са местата, в които се вихри организираният от Сталин Гладомор над украинските селяни; това са и лобните площадки за милиони евреи – нацистките концентрационни лагери и фабриките на смъртта; след войната ст��тици хиляди загиват при насилствените депортации, особено след промяната в полско-германската граница.
Огромният брой жертви се дължи на това, че тези територии попадат в полезрението на двамата диктатори – линията „Молотов-Рибентроп“ установява първата им подялба през 1939 г., а през 1941 г. Вермахтът я пресича в посока изток, за да установи новия нацистки ред. Обратът от 1943 г. заварва населението на тези земи за пореден път с нов господар, този път консолидиран за десетилетия напред. Това движение на изток и запад от линията означава трагедия за милиони хора – гладна смърт, принудително изселване, робски труд, или (на този фон) милостив бърз куршум в тила. Една трета от тях са жертви на сталинизма.
В това перверзно съревнование между двете кървави диктатури, е видно, че и Хитлер, и Сталин предпочитат да убиват извън собствените си територии, а след края на първия, вторият продължава с етническото прочистване на германци, поляци и украинци, вече в сателитната му Полша, а в края на живота си антиеврейската му параноя за малко да затрие останалите в Съветския съюз евреи.
Равносметката (освен милионите загинали) е окончателно променената демография, колективната травма на оцелелите, огромният и загубен завинаги човешки потенциал, съдържащ се във всеки насилствено отнет живот. Моралната оценка на Снайдър за нацизма и болшевизма е ясна и безпощадна – фактите са показателни за сходствата между двата режима. Остава паметта – като отговорност на историците, но и на о��делния индивид. Недобросъвестността на първите води до конфузии относно съдържанието на понятията „жертва“ и „агресор“ у вторите.
Без съмнение, една от най-потресаващите книги, която съм чела за този период и много нужна на българския читател с цел осмисляне на сегашната война. „Кървави поля“ избистря в най-суров вид природата на тоталните режими, за които хората са пионки, а смъртта им – числа. Индиректно обаче се прокрадва надежда, че нито една диктатура не може да трае дълго – тоталният й характер изисква самодостатъчност, твърде много ресурси и мобилизация, които я изчерпват отвътре (ако преди това не се самоубие с безсмислена война).
December 18, 2022
Само за 12 години, между 1933 и 1945, нацисткият и съветският режим унищожават в центъра на Европа близо 14 милиона души. Кървавите поля - лобното място на жертвите - се простират от Полша до западна Русия, обхващат Украйна, Беларус и балтийските държави. Районът е подложен на насилие, невиждано в историята дотогава. От тези 14 милиона нито един не е войник на действителна служба, повечето са жени, деца и възрастни, никой не е въоръжен. Въпреки че районът е бойно поле, жертвите умират по-скоро от човеконенавистната политика на тоталитарните режими, отколкото от жестокостите на войната.
Масовата смърт започва през 1933 г. с Голодомора. Сталин разпорежда за целите на колективизацията да се изземе храната от гладуващите селяни, най-вече украинци. Загиват повече от 3 милиона души. Без война, без причина, само за целите на комунистическата идеология. Документирани са смразяващи случаи на канибализъм. Насилието продължава през 1937 - 1938 г. с "Големия терор", при който Сталин се отървава от нежелани групи - кулаци (богати селяни, притежаващи земя) и етнически малцинства, най-вече поляци и евреи. Началото на войната променя баланса на убийствата в полза на нацистите. При операция Барбароса през лятото на 1941 г. кървавите поля са завладени от армиите на Хитлер. Местното население е подложено на глад и разстрели в масови гробове. Най-мащабните екзекуции край Бабий Яр и Каменец-Подолски са описани в смразяващи детайли.
Германските и съветските концентрационни лагери обграждат кървавите поля и от изток, и от запад. В съветския ГУЛАГ умират най-малко един милион души през разглеждания интервал, предимно от изтощение и болести. Вероятно всеки е чувал за Аушвиц, като символ на Холокоста, но колко знаят за Терблинка, Собибор, Белжец, Хелмно и Майданек? За разлика от лагерите в Германия, освободени от западните съюзници и печално известни със снимките на ходещи скелети, изброените пет лагера са фабрики на смъртта в най-чист смисъл. В тях няма принудителен труд. Всеки попаднал там е изпратен да умре - чрез куршум или отровен газ. Има немалко истории на лагеристи, оцелели в Аушвиц, но не и такива в Треблинка.
Особен интерес за мен представляваха многобройните препратки към свидетелства на евроепйски писатели, съвременници на събитията - Джордж Оруел, Василий Гросман, Хана Аренд, Гюнтер Грас, Анна Ахматова, Артур Кьостлер, Гарет Джоунс. Силно препоръчителна книга, която показва най-мрачните черти на човешката природа. Категорична оценка 5 от 5 в Goodreads.
Масовата смърт започва през 1933 г. с Голодомора. Сталин разпорежда за целите на колективизацията да се изземе храната от гладуващите селяни, най-вече украинци. Загиват повече от 3 милиона души. Без война, без причина, само за целите на комунистическата идеология. Документирани са смразяващи случаи на канибализъм. Насилието продължава през 1937 - 1938 г. с "Големия терор", при който Сталин се отървава от нежелани групи - кулаци (богати селяни, притежаващи земя) и етнически малцинства, най-вече поляци и евреи. Началото на войната променя баланса на убийствата в полза на нацистите. При операция Барбароса през лятото на 1941 г. кървавите поля са завладени от армиите на Хитлер. Местното население е подложено на глад и разстрели в масови гробове. Най-мащабните екзекуции край Бабий Яр и Каменец-Подолски са описани в смразяващи детайли.
Германските и съветските концентрационни лагери обграждат кървавите поля и от изток, и от запад. В съветския ГУЛАГ умират най-малко един милион души през разглеждания интервал, предимно от изтощение и болести. Вероятно всеки е чувал за Аушвиц, като символ на Холокоста, но колко знаят за Терблинка, Собибор, Белжец, Хелмно и Майданек? За разлика от лагерите в Германия, освободени от западните съюзници и печално известни със снимките на ходещи скелети, изброените пет лагера са фабрики на смъртта в най-чист смисъл. В тях няма принудителен труд. Всеки попаднал там е изпратен да умре - чрез куршум или отровен газ. Има немалко истории на лагеристи, оцелели в Аушвиц, но не и такива в Треблинка.
Особен интерес за мен представляваха многобройните препратки към свидетелства на евроепйски писатели, съвременници на събитията - Джордж Оруел, Василий Гросман, Хана Аренд, Гюнтер Грас, Анна Ахматова, Артур Кьостлер, Гарет Джоунс. Силно препоръчителна книга, която показва най-мрачните черти на човешката природа. Категорична оценка 5 от 5 в Goodreads.
September 17, 2024
Having read hundreds of books on World War II, it's pretty rare to come across a book which covers a topic I'm not very familiar with. However, the subject of the Holocaust is one which I've avoided mostly because it's just too damn depressing, and while this book covers a broader topic it's probably one I would have skipped in the past. I'm glad I didn't skip this one.
The author defines the Bloodlands as the lands between pre-war Nazi Germany and the western edge of the Russian Republic, predominantly Poland, Belarus, the Baltic States and Ukraine. I was unaware this book would not focus on the military action(s) and instead focus on the ordinary citizens in these areas as I had not read any reviews prior to starting this book. I have to say, this is one of the best books I've read in quite some time, and the fact it covers a subject I've avoided has opened my mind to wanting to learn more.
The author recounts how first Stalin and then Hitler undertook various programs/campaigns against the Polish, Belorussian, Ukrainian and Baltic populaces, as well as against those of the Jewish faith. In a combined campaign of extermination, over 14 million people were killed essentially because of where they lived, what religion they practiced, or if for some reason they were viewed as a threat. Along the way, author Snyder does a really good job of explaining the rationale behind the murderous schemes of Stalin and Hitler and how they fit into the grand plans/ideals of the Nazis and the Soviet Union. Along the way, the reader will encounter multiple personal vignettes about those who were there, many of whom did not survive. The story is truly horrifying and the sheer numbers staggering, yet Snyder has woven together an excellent narrative which doesn't get bogged down in either horror or numbers. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the events in the Bloodlands from the late 1920's through the early 1950's--it truly is an excellent read.
The author defines the Bloodlands as the lands between pre-war Nazi Germany and the western edge of the Russian Republic, predominantly Poland, Belarus, the Baltic States and Ukraine. I was unaware this book would not focus on the military action(s) and instead focus on the ordinary citizens in these areas as I had not read any reviews prior to starting this book. I have to say, this is one of the best books I've read in quite some time, and the fact it covers a subject I've avoided has opened my mind to wanting to learn more.
The author recounts how first Stalin and then Hitler undertook various programs/campaigns against the Polish, Belorussian, Ukrainian and Baltic populaces, as well as against those of the Jewish faith. In a combined campaign of extermination, over 14 million people were killed essentially because of where they lived, what religion they practiced, or if for some reason they were viewed as a threat. Along the way, author Snyder does a really good job of explaining the rationale behind the murderous schemes of Stalin and Hitler and how they fit into the grand plans/ideals of the Nazis and the Soviet Union. Along the way, the reader will encounter multiple personal vignettes about those who were there, many of whom did not survive. The story is truly horrifying and the sheer numbers staggering, yet Snyder has woven together an excellent narrative which doesn't get bogged down in either horror or numbers. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the events in the Bloodlands from the late 1920's through the early 1950's--it truly is an excellent read.
August 2, 2021
An eighteen and a half hour unabridged audiobook.
The striking similarities between the Soviet and Nazi treatment of its people cannot be missed in this book. Although the main differences are Hitler focusing his killing on those of occupied countries (where most Jews and other "opponents" were located), whereas Stalin slaughtered his own, without remorse, until he had populaces of other countries within his grasp. The Nazis and Soviets eradicated whomever they deemed enemies of their state. The Nazis focused on what they considered to be racial differences, and the Soviets focusing on what they deemed to be class differences, and those they deemed opposed to their draconian rule.
This book is a foundation stone in understanding the breadth of Soviet atrocities throughout the 1920s through the 1950's. Very well researched and written. I mention Soviet because I feel the western world has plenty of books to read about Hitler and the Nazis. To this day there is revulsion when one thinks of nazis or fascists. But the same isn't often the case when one speaks of Communists or Marxists. I never understood why, considering both were responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians. This book does an excellent comparing and contrasting of who killed who, when, why, and how.
It's focus is on a particular part of Europe that saw the most bloodshed- the area ranging from Central Poland to the western Soviet Union. But it doesn't cover southern Europe.
I loved this book for the insight it provided, even though it was depressing to listen to as it deals with actual horrific events.
*Edited for grammar
The striking similarities between the Soviet and Nazi treatment of its people cannot be missed in this book. Although the main differences are Hitler focusing his killing on those of occupied countries (where most Jews and other "opponents" were located), whereas Stalin slaughtered his own, without remorse, until he had populaces of other countries within his grasp. The Nazis and Soviets eradicated whomever they deemed enemies of their state. The Nazis focused on what they considered to be racial differences, and the Soviets focusing on what they deemed to be class differences, and those they deemed opposed to their draconian rule.
This book is a foundation stone in understanding the breadth of Soviet atrocities throughout the 1920s through the 1950's. Very well researched and written. I mention Soviet because I feel the western world has plenty of books to read about Hitler and the Nazis. To this day there is revulsion when one thinks of nazis or fascists. But the same isn't often the case when one speaks of Communists or Marxists. I never understood why, considering both were responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians. This book does an excellent comparing and contrasting of who killed who, when, why, and how.
It's focus is on a particular part of Europe that saw the most bloodshed- the area ranging from Central Poland to the western Soviet Union. But it doesn't cover southern Europe.
I loved this book for the insight it provided, even though it was depressing to listen to as it deals with actual horrific events.
*Edited for grammar
November 8, 2013
After our trip through the Baltic this summer, Snyder’s historical account of the mass killings in Eastern Europe had a big impact on me. I’ve now seen a lot of the places he talks about: Gdansk, Poland; Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; St. Petersburg, Russia. While the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler aren’t exactly news, the sheer numbers involved and the scope of the destruction are truly staggering. I didn’t know much about Stalin’s starvation policies, or the impossibly complicated situation of Poland and the Baltic states in the 1930s as they were trapped between two despots who were so alike, and yet so diametrically opposed. Synder makes a compelling case, comparing and contrasting Hitler and Stalin’s methods. This book is very bleak reading. I had to take long breaks from it to clear my head. But if you’re interested in this period of history, and want a case study of just how absolutely power can corrupt, and just how horrible humans can be to each other, this book is an excellent choice.
Read
April 4, 2020As good as it is grim
February 3, 2018
Like all good works of history, Bloodlands poses as many questions as it seeks to explain and answers many more. The recapitulation of the mass killings perpetrated under the Stalin and Hitler regimes has never before been so explicit and thorough. But I would argue that Snyder is too meticulous in drawing lines and categorizations—although I completely understand and respect his methodology—in that they do not completely live up to the theme and subtitle of his concluding chapter: humanity. But too his credit, he also admits that his numbers may be low and on the conservative side.
For example, I have long been disturbed by the use of the term Holocaust. If one asks anyone with a general knowledge of this era how many people died in the Holocaust, the most common answer is 6 million (Snyder, in keeping with his dogged goal of accuracy claims the number is 5.7 million). This has always bothered me because it omits the millions of human beings who were not Jewish but were victims of the policies of death. But in no way is this an attempt to minimize the fact that Jews were the primary targets of the Holocaust. That is not in question. When one thinks that a Roma, homosexual, communist or Pole, for example, who died together with Jewish victims are not counted by many as victims of the Holocaust, I think it somehow minimizes our collective humanity. Snyder cites the number 14 million. I would, using his own caveats, think that number to be even higher based on the evidence he cites.
Other questions that Bloodlands posed for me were how Hitler could equate in his evil ideas to achieve his Generalplan Ost—to clear out the Ukraine and surrounding areas to create a resettlement plan for German agricultural “pioneers” of sorts—with the American history of Manifest Destiny. Although not comparable, one could at least see how one could draw these crude associations. And, as I consider the tragedy unfolding today in the Ukraine, Snyder’s explanations of Stalin’s plans of intentional starvation help explain why some parts of the country have ethnic Russian majorities. This did not happen by chance. It has dark historical roots.
Lastly, I finished reading this book and write this as three unconnected events dominate the news: the shooting down of the Malaysian Air flight over the Ukraine, the ground incursion of Gaza by the Israeli military and the hateful responses by xenophobic Americans toward children refugees from Central America. While none of these events in any way compare to the history described in Bloodlands, the common theme of all is whether we will ever realize our humanity to care for and respect those we do not know or necessarily understand.
For example, I have long been disturbed by the use of the term Holocaust. If one asks anyone with a general knowledge of this era how many people died in the Holocaust, the most common answer is 6 million (Snyder, in keeping with his dogged goal of accuracy claims the number is 5.7 million). This has always bothered me because it omits the millions of human beings who were not Jewish but were victims of the policies of death. But in no way is this an attempt to minimize the fact that Jews were the primary targets of the Holocaust. That is not in question. When one thinks that a Roma, homosexual, communist or Pole, for example, who died together with Jewish victims are not counted by many as victims of the Holocaust, I think it somehow minimizes our collective humanity. Snyder cites the number 14 million. I would, using his own caveats, think that number to be even higher based on the evidence he cites.
Other questions that Bloodlands posed for me were how Hitler could equate in his evil ideas to achieve his Generalplan Ost—to clear out the Ukraine and surrounding areas to create a resettlement plan for German agricultural “pioneers” of sorts—with the American history of Manifest Destiny. Although not comparable, one could at least see how one could draw these crude associations. And, as I consider the tragedy unfolding today in the Ukraine, Snyder’s explanations of Stalin’s plans of intentional starvation help explain why some parts of the country have ethnic Russian majorities. This did not happen by chance. It has dark historical roots.
Lastly, I finished reading this book and write this as three unconnected events dominate the news: the shooting down of the Malaysian Air flight over the Ukraine, the ground incursion of Gaza by the Israeli military and the hateful responses by xenophobic Americans toward children refugees from Central America. While none of these events in any way compare to the history described in Bloodlands, the common theme of all is whether we will ever realize our humanity to care for and respect those we do not know or necessarily understand.
January 7, 2020
Very good (and quite long) history of the holocaust and the gulag and all the horrible things humans have done to other humans. So important
August 3, 2022
One of the best histories of WWII I've read. Jesus. It killed me a bit. The numbers are just staggering.
October 18, 2020
Snyder's Bloodlands is an interesting case. It was highly successful with the public and with newspaper reviews as well as some historians (Anne Applebaum wrote favorably about it) but also the topic of controversial discussion among historians.
Right upfront, as a historian of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, I am not a fan of this book. I will in the following present some of the - in my opinion - most pertinent criticisms of the book.
Starting with something that some people might see as minor but to me as well as several reviewers were indicative of the way Snyder works: There is a number of errors in the book that would do not necessarily impact the larger argument but that is indicative of some shoddy work:
For example, Snyder claims that large scale "Aryanization" starts only in 1938 when in fact in Germany we see this phenomenon right up from 1933; he writes the Operation Reinhard Camps closed in 1944 when in fact they closed a year earlier; he claims Hitler did dissolve the Reichstag when it was Hindenburg who did; that people were sentenced to the Belsen concentration camp, when Belsen was an Aufenthaltslager, etc.
While some of these are probably necessarily bound to happen, the sheer number in this book indicates that Snyder is less sound when it comes to the historiography of Nazi Germany than he makes out to be.
But coming up on the central thesis, in the words of Omer Bartov, Snyder ”presents no new evidence and makes no new arguments. Facts and interpretations are culled from established authorities: Christian Streit on the Soviet prisoners of war (POWs); Christian Gerlach on “hunger politics”; Nicolas Werth and Lynne Viola on the Ukrainian famine; Dieter Pohl and Karel Berkhoff on German-occupied Ukraine; Peter Longerich, Christopher Browning, and Andrej Angrick on the Holocaust. Admirably synthesizing this voluminous scholarship, Snyder stresses that most civilians (and POWs) died in the east. While not a revelation for scholars of the period, this argument may appear startlingly new and shocking to nonexperts. Snyder’s designation of this site of mass killing as “bloodlands,” though evocative, lacks any historical existence: none of the protagonists would have recognized it, and it excludes large numbers of victims on both sides. And his penchant for citing vast figures to the last digit cannot be reconciled with the notorious unreliability and contentiousness of such figures.”
A further problem is that by presenting the cruelties and crimes of the regimes in chronological juxtaposition, Snyder implies arguments rather than making them. Recounting the Ukrainian famines side by side with Hitler's election and policies in the early 30s implies that the two share a connection for which Snyder fails to provide the evidence. Similarly, the juxtaposition between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising again implies some sort of similarity between the two; something for which Snyder also fails to provide historical evidence and where he completely ignores the local actors (a topic that I will return to shortly).
Furthermore, and even more damming, Synder tries to make the argument that the Stalinist regime followed a similarly racially inspired policy as did the Nazis and through this, ignores large numbers of victims of the Stalinist regime. By emphasizing Ukrainian, Baltic and Belorussian victims in his unfounded attempt to prove that Stalin had a racial motivation, he goes on to ignore that the majority of the victims of the purges and the Gulags were ethnically Russians; that the famine policies of the early 1930s hit several other groups such as the Khazaks Nomanda who died in vast numbers; and that of the millions of forced laborers in the Stalinist USSR the majority was Russian. To quote Richard Evans:
”Snyder's relentless focus on Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine, and the large claims he makes for the victimisation of their inhabitants, sidelines the fate of the millions of Russians who died at Stalin's hands.”
Additionally, Snyder's tendencies of presenting all of the civilian population of his chosen "Bloodlands" as the victims of two undoubtedly brutal regimes, robs the reader of some important perspectives that would further historical understanding. It completely glosses over the facts of the difficult issues of local collaboration, anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and the question of motivation for working for either one of the regimes. Snyder does not want to explain anything to his readers, he wants to portray suffering. Issues such as Poles parttaking in an anti-Semitic pogrom in Jedwabne in 1941, Balts working together with the Nazis or the historically complex topic of the Trawniki men are ignored in his account.
When he discusses Soviet Partisans, he again uses his technique of juxtaposition to imply a similarity between them and the German Wehrmacht. Partisan resistance is not treated as resistance but rather as a further factor for brutalizing the war between the USSR and the Nazis. They in the view of Snyder become a mere Stalinist ploy and a Hitlerite tool when the reality was much more complicated.
Another criticism of Snyder is that in his intense focus on the "Bloodlands", he mischaracterizes the Nazis' policies by leaving crucial information out. This not only includes the treatment of Western Jews, the vicitms of Nazi policies in the Balkans but also collaborationist regimes in the same area such as the Romanian anti-Semitic campaign and its victims.
Lastly, authors like Thomas Kühne and others have rightly pointed out that Snyder in his book attributes most of the violence that is happening to Stalin and Hitler, leaving out all the nuanced discussions about agency, perpetrators, local dynamics and so on that has happened in recent years in academia. He basically presents a "Great Men of Violence" theory of history.
Following the criticisms of Evans, Bartov, Kühne, and even Jörg Baberowski, Snyder presents a narrative that in essence is a warmed up theory of totalitarianism and in that reduces historical complexities to an untenable degree but also fails to back it up with historical evidence and relies rather on implication through juxtaposition and other rhetorical tricks.
Evans makes also a great (in my opinion rather funny) point about Snyder's style:
”The prose style in which he conveys his facts doesn't help: the endless succession of short sentences hits us like a series of blows from a cudgel until eventually brain death sets in. The same phrases and formulations are repeated over and over again in an almost incantatory fashion. as if Snyder doesn't want us to think critically about what he is telling us, just to feel the pain of what he is describing.”
Sources and further reading:
Omer Bartov's review in Slavic review: http://defendinghistory.com/wp-conten...
Richard Evans' review in the London Review of books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n21/richard-...
Jacques Sémelin's overivew dossier on the criticisms of the book: http://www.booksandideas.net/Timothy-...
Dan Diner, ‘Topography of Interpretation: Reviewing Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands’ in Contemporary European History: http://defendinghistory.com/wp-conten...
Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe's review on H-Soz-Kult: http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationrev...
Michael Wildt: Ist der Holocaust nicht mehr beispiellos? In Sueddeutsche Zeitung: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/neu...
Right upfront, as a historian of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, I am not a fan of this book. I will in the following present some of the - in my opinion - most pertinent criticisms of the book.
Starting with something that some people might see as minor but to me as well as several reviewers were indicative of the way Snyder works: There is a number of errors in the book that would do not necessarily impact the larger argument but that is indicative of some shoddy work:
For example, Snyder claims that large scale "Aryanization" starts only in 1938 when in fact in Germany we see this phenomenon right up from 1933; he writes the Operation Reinhard Camps closed in 1944 when in fact they closed a year earlier; he claims Hitler did dissolve the Reichstag when it was Hindenburg who did; that people were sentenced to the Belsen concentration camp, when Belsen was an Aufenthaltslager, etc.
While some of these are probably necessarily bound to happen, the sheer number in this book indicates that Snyder is less sound when it comes to the historiography of Nazi Germany than he makes out to be.
But coming up on the central thesis, in the words of Omer Bartov, Snyder ”presents no new evidence and makes no new arguments. Facts and interpretations are culled from established authorities: Christian Streit on the Soviet prisoners of war (POWs); Christian Gerlach on “hunger politics”; Nicolas Werth and Lynne Viola on the Ukrainian famine; Dieter Pohl and Karel Berkhoff on German-occupied Ukraine; Peter Longerich, Christopher Browning, and Andrej Angrick on the Holocaust. Admirably synthesizing this voluminous scholarship, Snyder stresses that most civilians (and POWs) died in the east. While not a revelation for scholars of the period, this argument may appear startlingly new and shocking to nonexperts. Snyder’s designation of this site of mass killing as “bloodlands,” though evocative, lacks any historical existence: none of the protagonists would have recognized it, and it excludes large numbers of victims on both sides. And his penchant for citing vast figures to the last digit cannot be reconciled with the notorious unreliability and contentiousness of such figures.”
A further problem is that by presenting the cruelties and crimes of the regimes in chronological juxtaposition, Snyder implies arguments rather than making them. Recounting the Ukrainian famines side by side with Hitler's election and policies in the early 30s implies that the two share a connection for which Snyder fails to provide the evidence. Similarly, the juxtaposition between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising again implies some sort of similarity between the two; something for which Snyder also fails to provide historical evidence and where he completely ignores the local actors (a topic that I will return to shortly).
Furthermore, and even more damming, Synder tries to make the argument that the Stalinist regime followed a similarly racially inspired policy as did the Nazis and through this, ignores large numbers of victims of the Stalinist regime. By emphasizing Ukrainian, Baltic and Belorussian victims in his unfounded attempt to prove that Stalin had a racial motivation, he goes on to ignore that the majority of the victims of the purges and the Gulags were ethnically Russians; that the famine policies of the early 1930s hit several other groups such as the Khazaks Nomanda who died in vast numbers; and that of the millions of forced laborers in the Stalinist USSR the majority was Russian. To quote Richard Evans:
”Snyder's relentless focus on Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine, and the large claims he makes for the victimisation of their inhabitants, sidelines the fate of the millions of Russians who died at Stalin's hands.”
Additionally, Snyder's tendencies of presenting all of the civilian population of his chosen "Bloodlands" as the victims of two undoubtedly brutal regimes, robs the reader of some important perspectives that would further historical understanding. It completely glosses over the facts of the difficult issues of local collaboration, anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and the question of motivation for working for either one of the regimes. Snyder does not want to explain anything to his readers, he wants to portray suffering. Issues such as Poles parttaking in an anti-Semitic pogrom in Jedwabne in 1941, Balts working together with the Nazis or the historically complex topic of the Trawniki men are ignored in his account.
When he discusses Soviet Partisans, he again uses his technique of juxtaposition to imply a similarity between them and the German Wehrmacht. Partisan resistance is not treated as resistance but rather as a further factor for brutalizing the war between the USSR and the Nazis. They in the view of Snyder become a mere Stalinist ploy and a Hitlerite tool when the reality was much more complicated.
Another criticism of Snyder is that in his intense focus on the "Bloodlands", he mischaracterizes the Nazis' policies by leaving crucial information out. This not only includes the treatment of Western Jews, the vicitms of Nazi policies in the Balkans but also collaborationist regimes in the same area such as the Romanian anti-Semitic campaign and its victims.
Lastly, authors like Thomas Kühne and others have rightly pointed out that Snyder in his book attributes most of the violence that is happening to Stalin and Hitler, leaving out all the nuanced discussions about agency, perpetrators, local dynamics and so on that has happened in recent years in academia. He basically presents a "Great Men of Violence" theory of history.
Following the criticisms of Evans, Bartov, Kühne, and even Jörg Baberowski, Snyder presents a narrative that in essence is a warmed up theory of totalitarianism and in that reduces historical complexities to an untenable degree but also fails to back it up with historical evidence and relies rather on implication through juxtaposition and other rhetorical tricks.
Evans makes also a great (in my opinion rather funny) point about Snyder's style:
”The prose style in which he conveys his facts doesn't help: the endless succession of short sentences hits us like a series of blows from a cudgel until eventually brain death sets in. The same phrases and formulations are repeated over and over again in an almost incantatory fashion. as if Snyder doesn't want us to think critically about what he is telling us, just to feel the pain of what he is describing.”
Sources and further reading:
Omer Bartov's review in Slavic review: http://defendinghistory.com/wp-conten...
Richard Evans' review in the London Review of books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n21/richard-...
Jacques Sémelin's overivew dossier on the criticisms of the book: http://www.booksandideas.net/Timothy-...
Dan Diner, ‘Topography of Interpretation: Reviewing Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands’ in Contemporary European History: http://defendinghistory.com/wp-conten...
Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe's review on H-Soz-Kult: http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationrev...
Michael Wildt: Ist der Holocaust nicht mehr beispiellos? In Sueddeutsche Zeitung: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/neu...
June 29, 2016
Reading this book is a painful experience, and when it's not painful it's even worse because you realize you've become desensitized by statistics, the sheer number of deaths. Starting with the planned famine in Ukraine, and then each subsequent chapter gets - I won't say 'worse'; it's maybe a little vulgar to try and quantify these things. Each subsequent chapter details something horrific enough to defy belief, and the scale of killing keeps increasing (even though what Stalin did to Ukraine was already the largest planned famine in history).
Snyder shies away from making any very controversial or daring conclusions (a little disappointingly, in his final discussion of the political uses of memory and victimhood, he criticizes Poland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, among others, but refrains from even mentioning Israel); nonetheless he's clearly a great historian and a remarkable writer. As he says in the last chapter, 'totalitarianism' has become over-theorized; what we need is a better understanding of what actually happened. Snyder's ability to synthesize large, complicated moments in history is matched by a novelistic attention to individual stories. He uses these gifts to provide a clearer picture of unimaginable horror and suffering.
Reading this book will not make you a good person. In fact I feel like I myself may be farther from that than ever right now. It won't make you a good person, but it will make you stay up at night thinking about Ukrainian children eating each other. I don't know if this sort of insomnia might be a way of honoring the dead. It's important to be humble about these things. I don't know
*
What does a famine actually look like?
Holodomor.
Snyder shies away from making any very controversial or daring conclusions (a little disappointingly, in his final discussion of the political uses of memory and victimhood, he criticizes Poland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, among others, but refrains from even mentioning Israel); nonetheless he's clearly a great historian and a remarkable writer. As he says in the last chapter, 'totalitarianism' has become over-theorized; what we need is a better understanding of what actually happened. Snyder's ability to synthesize large, complicated moments in history is matched by a novelistic attention to individual stories. He uses these gifts to provide a clearer picture of unimaginable horror and suffering.
Reading this book will not make you a good person. In fact I feel like I myself may be farther from that than ever right now. It won't make you a good person, but it will make you stay up at night thinking about Ukrainian children eating each other. I don't know if this sort of insomnia might be a way of honoring the dead. It's important to be humble about these things. I don't know
*
What does a famine actually look like?
City dwellers were more accustomed to the sight of peasants at the marketplace, spreading their bounty and selling their wares. In 1933, peasants made their way to familiar city markets, but now to beg rather than to sell. Market squares, now empty of both goods and customers, conveyed only the disharmonies of death. Early in the day the only sound was the soft breathing of the dying, huddled under rags that had once been clothes. One spring morning, amidst the piles of dead peasants a the Kharkiv market, an infant suckled the breast of its mother, whose face was a lifeless grey. Passersby had seen this before, not just the disarray of corpses, not just the dead mother and the living infant, but that precise scene, the tiny mouth, the last drops of milk, the cold nipple. The Ukranians had a term for this. They said to themselves, quietly, as they passed: 'These are the buds of the socialist spring.'
Ukraine in 1933 was full of orphans, and sometimes people took them in. Yet without food there was little that even the kindest of strangers could do for such children. The boys and girls lay about on sheets and blankets, eating their own excrement, waiting for death.
[description of cannibalism]
Holodomor.
March 29, 2015
Not for the faint-hearted…or for bedtime reading. A lengthy, methodical study of the 14 million civilians murdered by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia between 1933-1945. Snyder doesn't so much ask "How?", but Who?" and "Why?". His contribution is sorting out sequences and ethnic minorities (Kulaks, Ukraines, Roma, etc.) in the serial purges. Also, over and over, he faces the question: "Who are the Jews?"--nationals of their country (Poland, Lithuania, etc.) or inter-national tribe. And in bringing back the voices of the dead from diaries written, sometimes, up to the moment of death.
I agree with most other reviewers, so won't belabor here. But three things were new to me: First, that so few Jews existed in the Reich before the war--almost all lived in territories conquered after 1939. Second, Hitler's preferred final solution for Jews was deportation East of the Urals, once Germany beat the Soviet Union. Failing that, Jews were hounded into ever smaller areas. And, third, when it became apparent that the Soviets would win on the Eastern front, Jew-killing became Hitler's substitute for the military triumph Russia would deny him.
"'Please sirs,' [the Jewish children] would say to the Germans, 'Do not hit us. We can get to the [gas] trucks on our own.'"
Diary of an 11 year old in Leningrad, in its entirety:
"Zhenjiang died on December 28th at 12:30 A.M. 1941
Grandma died on January 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942
Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 am. 1942
Uncle Vasya died on April 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942
Uncle Lesha died on May 10th at 4:00 pm 1942
Mother died on May 13th 7:30 am 1942
Savichevs died
Everyone died
Only Tania is left."
Tania Savicheva died in 1944.
I agree with most other reviewers, so won't belabor here. But three things were new to me: First, that so few Jews existed in the Reich before the war--almost all lived in territories conquered after 1939. Second, Hitler's preferred final solution for Jews was deportation East of the Urals, once Germany beat the Soviet Union. Failing that, Jews were hounded into ever smaller areas. And, third, when it became apparent that the Soviets would win on the Eastern front, Jew-killing became Hitler's substitute for the military triumph Russia would deny him.
"'Please sirs,' [the Jewish children] would say to the Germans, 'Do not hit us. We can get to the [gas] trucks on our own.'"
Diary of an 11 year old in Leningrad, in its entirety:
"Zhenjiang died on December 28th at 12:30 A.M. 1941
Grandma died on January 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942
Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 am. 1942
Uncle Vasya died on April 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942
Uncle Lesha died on May 10th at 4:00 pm 1942
Mother died on May 13th 7:30 am 1942
Savichevs died
Everyone died
Only Tania is left."
Tania Savicheva died in 1944.
June 7, 2018
I always thought I knew a good deal of what happened during World War II. Both my parents were adults and have told me and my sisters a lot about it. I still care for the little diary my mother kept, collecting all kind of illegal newspapers and forbidden cartoons.
Last year I read about this book and I was curious what could be told more. Well I got my share and more than I desired. I have finished it for the first time, but I surely have to read it another time and another, for there is much to learn from it.
This book should be read by everybody, either interested in history or not. The author made clear to me that the existing visions, opinions and points of view are only half of the story. The complete story runs so much deeper.
The horror and bloodshed that happened between 1920-1945 is part of the European legacy. Everyone on this beautiful sphere we call Earth and that we call our home should know the truth Timothy Snyder is revealing to prevent that this would ever happen again.
Last year I read about this book and I was curious what could be told more. Well I got my share and more than I desired. I have finished it for the first time, but I surely have to read it another time and another, for there is much to learn from it.
This book should be read by everybody, either interested in history or not. The author made clear to me that the existing visions, opinions and points of view are only half of the story. The complete story runs so much deeper.
The horror and bloodshed that happened between 1920-1945 is part of the European legacy. Everyone on this beautiful sphere we call Earth and that we call our home should know the truth Timothy Snyder is revealing to prevent that this would ever happen again.
March 6, 2022
Astonishing history of the Second World War as experienced by civilians in Eastern Europe. The chapter on Stalin's mass murders in Ukraine is particularly relevant today if one seeks to understand the roots of Ukrainian nationalism. The book was captivatingly written throughout.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,786 reviews