The Devil in History
Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century
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The Devil in History is a
provocative analysis of the relationship between communism and fascism.
Reflecting the author’s personal experiences within communist
totalitarianism, this is a book about political passions, radicalism,
utopian ideals, and their catastrophic consequences in the twentieth
century’s experiments in social engineering. Vladimir Tismaneanu
brilliantly compares communism and fascism as competing, sometimes
overlapping, and occasionally strikingly similar systems of political
totalitarianism. He examines the inherent ideological appeal of these
radical, revolutionary political movements, the visions of salvation and
revolution they pursued, the value and types of charisma of leaders
within these political movements, the place of violence within these
systems, and their legacies in contemporary politics.
The author discusses thinkers who have shaped contemporary understanding
of totalitarian movements—people such as Hannah Arendt, Raymond Aron,
Isaiah Berlin, Albert Camus, François Furet, Tony Judt, Ian Kershaw,
Leszek Kolakowski, Richard Pipes, and Robert C. Tucker. As much a
theoretical analysis of the practical philosophies of Marxism-Leninism
and Fascism as it is a political biography of particular figures, this
book deals with the incarnation of diabolically nihilistic principles of
human subjugation and conditioning in the name of presumably pure and
purifying goals. Ultimately, the author claims that no ideological
commitment, no matter how absorbing, should ever prevail over the
sanctity of human life. He comes to the conclusion that no party,
movement, or leader holds the right to dictate to the followers to
renounce their critical faculties and to embrace a pseudo-miraculous, a
mystically self-centered, delusional vision of mandatory happiness.
336 pages; ISBN 9780520954175
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