REVIEWS I59 to advocate partial solutions inHungary. Unlike Tito, who was regarded as a 'precious asset' (p. 85) in Washington, Imre Nagy was given short shrift. Gati undermines his own argument, however, by stating thatNagy 'lacked the political skill tomake the revolution victorious' (p.4). At one point, he portrays Nagy as 'a genuine martyr and the only good Bolshevik theworld has ever known' (p. 225); at another, he styles him as a reluctant revolutionary, 'harried and vacillating' (p. 213). Crucially, Gati blames Nagy for failing to control the outburst of violence on 30 October. In his judgement, thiswas themain reason why Moscow decided to resort to force for a second time. This argument is all too familiar. The Kadar regime used similar accusa tions to discredit Nagy. More to the point, these charges explicitly contradict the prevailing view that Soviet decision-making on 30-31 October followed the logic of the power strugglewithin theKremlin, not the developments in Budapest. Gati also plays down the importance of such pivotal international factors as the Suez crisis.The neuralgic point of the book, though, iswhether the collapse ofCommunism could have been accelerated in 1956.The author wisely avoids peddling the line that 'liberation' could have happened thirty three years before 1989, but he toyswith the idea of a limited 'victory'.He is convinced that 'a stronger dose of realism in 1956 could have made a differ ence' (p. 22). Could it really have prevented the Soviet intervention? I doubt it. Still, it is difficult to deny thatmore circumspection, political skill and wisdom might have affected the course, if not the outcome, of the revolution. More realism might have influenced the contested legacy of the revolution, too. Acrimonious debates need not have fractured the collective memory, perpetuating and widening thepolitical riftsat every anniversary of 1956 since the collapse of Communism inHungary. Department ofLanguages andEuropean Studies G. Batonyi Universityof Bradford Fiirst,Juliane (ed.). Late StalinistRussia: Society BetweenReconstruction andReinven tion. BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies, 29.Routledge, London and New York, 2006. xii + 287 pp. Notes. Tables. Figures. Index. ?75.00. In her introduction,Juliane Fiirst argues that 'late Stalinism' is usefully seen as a phenomenon in its own right and not as a 'stale', 'superfluous' or 'bizarre appendix' of Stalin's leadership which she believes is theprism throughwhich many scholars have hitherto viewed it (p. 3). One of her central contentions is that during late Stalinism as a post-war society, 'war and the myth of war informed political decisions on all levels' (p. 6). Thus, in all fields,policy makers had to contend with the results of destruction and upheaval and the historian has to explore a society in a period of recovery and reconstruction which Fiirst suggests has been, until now, 'shrouded inmystery' (p. 5). Mie Nakachi's chapter sets the scene by discussing the huge post-war demographic crisis after the loss of 27million citizens resulting in catastrophic gender imbalances. She covers the pre-history of the 1944 Family Law and l60 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2009 the pro-natalist consequences of fresh legislation, pointing out that a sharp boundary was set between two-parent and single-parent households, with the latter eligible for aid. Unmarried male partners were now relieved of respon sibilityforpayment for theiroffspringwith wide-ranging social consequences. Another dire result ofwar was invalidity and ill-health.Beate Fieseler tells the story of the two and a half million invalids discharged from theRed Army and maintains that the officialpromises of help and welfare were 'mere fiction' (p. 58) In a fascinating chapter on rumours in the years 1945 to 1947,Timothy Johnston traces how gossip thatwar was imminent spread quickly in different areas, with attacks from Britain and America likely.As a result, food and money were hoarded. Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, for example, triggered a wave ofwithdrawals from banks in theCrimea. He argues that rumours can usefully be understood as providing news, not just as subversive tales.Donald Filtzer stayswith the theme of hardship by underscoring death rates, hunger, the food crisis, the inadequacies of the clothing industryand inmuch greater detail ponders the housing crisis and the inadequacies of urban sanitation. Rebecca Manley...
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