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Burkhard
Bischof --Die Presse
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“Scorched Earth: Stalin’s Reign of Violence”
Brief description
Stalinist tyranny cost millions of people their lives. They died of hunger, disappeared into the “Gulag Archipelago,” or were killed in party, state and military purges.
In this extensive book, Jörg Baberowski offers a new perspective on Stalinist crimes and leads the reader into the paranoid world of the Soviet dictator. The Bolsheviks wanted to create a new society and dreamed of a new human being. But is the Bolshevik project of modernization enough to explain the excesses of Stalinist violence? Was Stalinist terror an inevitable consequence of communist ideology? The book argues that the Bolshevik project created a framework in which mass killing could be justified.
Yet, according to Baberowski’s interpretation, ideology alone was not responsible. Stalin himself stood at the center of the system of terror. The dream of creating a new human being drowned in the blood of millions. Stalin was the initiator and director of a terror that ended only with his death. He created an order of mistrust and fear in which anyone could become a victim at any moment.
Press
“For readers interested in the delusions of dictators and the mechanisms of tyranny, Jörg Baberowski’s book Scorched Earth: Stalin’s Reign of Violence is highly recommended. Baberowski, of Humboldt University, is one of the leading German-language scholars of Stalinism and the author of several books on the subject.” Burkhard Bischof — Die Presse
“Jörg Baberowski’s detailed study of violence under Stalin is a fundamental work. Its focus gives an important new impetus to the discussion of this terrible epoch of the twentieth century.” Niels Beintker — Deutschlandfunk
“(...) a gripping and extraordinarily vivid history of Stalinism.”
Günter Kaindlstorfer — WDR
“As a history of terror and mass repression affecting millions of victims, reaching every layer of Soviet society and continuing until Stalin’s death, the book is both impressive and shocking. It documents a twentieth century in which the rule of the Bolsheviks and the National Socialists, followed later by Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, turned vast parts of humanity into a slaughterhouse.” Peter Merseburger — Die Welt
About the author
Jörg Baberowski is Professor of East European History at Humboldt University in Berlin.
© C. H. Beck
