Rate: 5/5
Iron Curtain in simple terms is about how all the Eastern European countries experienced the process of going through brutal totalitarian states like Stalin ordered. The book consists of stories of people persecuted by the communist regime. Anne Applebaum goes against the theories of researchers. This process is gradual and does not come overnight. As I read this book, I learned about the happenings during the war which was the ongoing violence, brutality, mass murder, poverty, hunger and rape. These events were the uprooting and how the population was treated in Europe until At the end of World War II. The people had to give in to the false hopes of the communist without choice or freedom of speech. The author describes how millions of people have experienced the terrible regime in this part of Europe geographically known.
The main idea of this totalitarian regime was that the party is always right and cannot make mistakes. Similar to the Third Reich during the Nuremberg trials, and even during WW1 and WW2 Nazi regime and army of Hitler and the people in Germany thought the same.The conspirators were in many places and paranoia is the name of the game. The clergy, workers, intellectuals, rural landowners, all classified as "internal enemies" gulags were sent to conduct mock trials, recorded the evidence and false witnesses. There is a lot more "technical" terms used and the stories of brutality and unfairness is talked about throughout this book in Europeon Countries.
I was interested in this book because I took two courses on history which were Third Reich and Cold War. I wish everyone could read this book but we all have different interests. I would recommend this book for people who are interested in history because it has an amazing amount of information on the Eastern Soviet Union and other European countries.
