Partisan Review 3/2000 [antikvár]

Comment Robert Conquest has finally received his due by political observers for being one of the very few anti-communists who before 1989 said the Soviet Union was politically and economi-cally in trouble. His latest book, Reflections on a Ravaged Century, is a very impressive and painstaking account of the twentieth century with particular reference to the two totalitarian regimes: the Nazis and the Communists. Conquest has a detailed historical account of the development of modem societies; he has a lengthy and profound analysis especially of the formation of nation-states and of the rise of nationalism. Conquest emphasizes both the benefits of some nationalisms and the dangers of excessive nationalism. He is quite an original in his detailed observations of how the forces of nationalism played a part in the rise of both fascism and communism. Conquest's year-by-year account of the terror, and the political and economic failures, covered up by ideology, propa-ganda, and false statistics is, as far as I know, the most illuminating ever written. His analysis of the forces of the entire century, with spécial référencés to the totalitarian societies, is most interesting, fresh in its détails and its depth. In fact, his réfutation of the claims of Marx's théories and political ideas is the most thorough I have seen. Conquest makes a fascinating comparison of fascism and communism indicating the commonalities and developments as well as the différences. And he is especially sharp and humorous about the blind supporters of communism, whom Lenin referred to as "useful idiots." Though this book dwells only on the major movements of totalitarian-ism, it does offer a novel political history of the twentieth century. WP