Description: Drawing on previously inaccessible sources and extensive personal interviews, Epstein offers an unparalleled portrait of the most enduring and influential generation of Central European communists. In the service of their party, these communists experienced solidarity and betrayal, power and persecution, sacrifice and reward, triumph and defeat.
Brief description: Catherine Epstein is Assistant Professor of History at Amherst College.
Review Quotes: A pathbreaking study that explores the world of veteran communists and puts forward fresh interpretations of their peculiar mentality. Moving well beyond traditional institutional and organizational analyses of communism, Epstein demonstrates in her richly documented collective biography how social conditioning and experiences during a time of struggle and sacrifice prior to 1945 shaped the ideologies and policies of this small band of East German leaders. Essential reading for an understanding of the communist mind and of communist practice.--V. R. Berghahn, Columbia University