Description: Hungary was the last ally of Nazi Germany, and as such suffered dreadful destruction in the course of the fighting during the last year of the war. Although the war discredited the political and social elite and gave opportunity for a new beginning. early optimism in democratic circles quickly dissipated. The communists, who had negligible indigenous support, with the help of the Soviet Army, in a short time managed to destroy any organized opposition to their taking power. Based on archival and other primary sources, this concise book describes the methods of communist conquest of power in one country in Eastern Europe to make the origin of the Cold War more understandable.
Brief description: Peter Kenez is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (1999); Varieties of Fear (1995); Cinema and Soviet Society (1992); The Birth of the Propaganda State (1985); Civil War in South Russia, 1918 (1971); and Civil War in South Russia, 1919-1920 (1976). He is the editor, with Abbott Gleason and Richard Stites, of Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution (1989).
Review Quotes: "The study under review here is a fine account of the struggle for Hungary's future after World War II, a transitional period when noncommunists believed they could overcome overwhelming odds and obtain a modicum of independence and political pluralism for their country. While more information might well surface one day from Soviet archives and modify what we now know, and other scholars might and indeed should scrutinize the motives and activities of the United States in greater detail, Hungary from the Nazis to the Soviets is going to the be the standard work on the subject for years to come." - Charles Gati, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C.