Stalin Tweets From The Grave

MAX FRANKEL 


In Max Frankel's review of "Iron Curtain," the eminent journalist quotes Anne Applebaum's warning that new media technology may facilitate totalitarian repression. But Frankel, a Pulitzer winner who covered Moscow and Eastern Europe in the 1950s, seems more optimistic. He writes:

We should be studying how totalitarianism worked, [Applebaum] maintains, because “we can’t be certain that mobile phones, the Internet and satellite photographs won’t eventually become tools of control” in other places. Well, Vladimir Putin may yet make her a prophet, but so far this century, technology has become a welcome defense against tyranny.

As I write from Bulgaria, one of the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia still darkened by Stalin's shadow, this debate is more than academic. It is historic in the same sense that journalism is the first draft of history happening right here, right now. 
Reuters, Nov. 21, 2012:

ALMATY, Kazakstan - The Central Asian state of Kazakhstan has moved to ban two opposition movements critical of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and to close dozens of opposition media outlets for "propagating extremism.... Suindikov said prosecutors were seeking the closure of eight newspapers and 23 Internet sites that operated under the umbrella of the Respublika publisher, as well as the Vzglyad newspaper and its Internet sites.

Novinite.com Sofia News Agency, Nov. 21, 2012:

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Disgruntled Bulgarians are organizing themselves on social networks to stage a "Tomato Revolution." The demonstration is going to take place Saturday in support of Bulgarian dissident, poet and publicist, Nikolay Kolev Bosiya (The Barefooted), who may face up to two years behind bars for throwing a tomato at the Parliament as an act of protest against the rampant corruption in the country.

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe,1944-1956, By Anne Applebaum. Illustrated. 566 pp. Doubleday. $35. ADVERTISEMENT: Click here to order Kindle or hardback editions from Amazon.com

CREDITS: Max Frankel, "Stalin’s Shadow. Anne Applebaum recounts the Soviet grab for Eastern Europe." New York Times, Nov. 21, 2012. Other reviews include Ohio State History Professor Jennifer Siegel's "Dark Blots on the Blank Slate: An epic yet intimate history of how the Soviets attempted to remake every aspect of life in Eastern Europe in the wake of World War II." Wall Street Journal, Nov. 9, 2012. Frankel photo Columbia University.