The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia

Richard Overy's "The Dictators, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia" is a wonderful look at two of the most repressive regimes in history and the men who led them. Overy compares how both men maneuvered their way into power in their respective nations. The 'Utopia' both men sought is considered heavily throughout this work- the 'Racial State' for Hitler and the 'Classless State' for Stalin. Overy's comparison of the men of course addresses the events that led to their epic showdown in World War II, and this makes for some of the work's most fascinating chapters. For instance, Overy presents the growing arms race between Germany and the USSR in the 1930s as the natural precursor to the Cold War arms race between the USSR and the United States. The relationships between both dictators and their military leaderships is also very illuminating as both men considered themselves quite adept at military affairs after their service in WWI and the Russian Civil War, respectively. This comparative study of the two regimes is must reading for students of modern European History and stands along side Robert Gellately's "Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe" as one of the great works on the subject.

I have seen some criticism of this book, including from professional historians, but I don't see it. I found this to be an absorbing and fascinating look at both Hitler & Stalin, as the author cuts back and forth between their careers. The compare and contrast method really works quite well, and this book also gives Overy a chance to re-look at some of his work on Nazi Germany & Soviet Russia, after Soviet archives were coming available. I think this is a great work of history by a major historian- one who has proved his knowledge of a wide range of WWII matters. Not for the dilletante- its quite long, but for the serious WWII reader its a rewarding experience.

Overy is more than a scholar; he is a deep thinker. There is a world of difference. "The Dictators" is a seminal work comparing how the two greatest dictators of all time exercised control over their political, economic, and military systems all while laying out the implications of this control. It is the painstaking comparison, often paragraph-by-paragraph, that gives this work its magisterial quality. But what really makes "The Dictators" work is how it builds on Overy's previous work, "Why the Allies Won," which assumed that the Allied victory was not a forgone conclusion in 1940 and asked, and answered, probing questions about comparative command structures, production economies, and capital sources. Without this base, Overy's latest could have become just another book on Hitler and Stalin. And a boring one at that. With it, however, we get insights unavailable elsewhere. Having studied Marxism, Leninism, and the Soviet Union for forty years, I was deeply impressed. The next step in this line of scholarship is to put it in the context of falling information costs. Wealth is created when increasing amounts of ever cheaper information can be substituted for other resources like land, labor, and capital. "The Dictators" describes how Hitler and Stalin did the opposite, systematically lowering the cost of information or themselves and raising it for everyone else. Following Overy's reasoning in "Why the Allies Won" the question is, absenting world war, was the Dictator system sustainable? If so, for how long? This question is critical to understanding the future of China as it tries to contain falling information costs and keep some semblance of Party leadership. And critical to us in trying to manage our relationship with China. Next book Mr. Overy? Editing: Five Stars. Comparing two systems across so many functions page-by-page and often paragraph-by paragraph can quickly become unwieldy and most would advise strongly against it. Better to keep each leader to his own chapter. But Overy carries this off and his editor wisely let him proceed. Copy Editing: Five Stars

In recent times libertarians following Hayek have suggested that the regimes of Hitler and Stalin were two sides of the same coin. Overy who has written a very good book on the reason why the allies won the Second World War examines the two regimes. One of the more interesting chapters is that dealing with the two economic systems. In some respects there were significant similarities. In the 30's both systems achieved amazing growth figures. The Soviet by around 100% the German by some 50%. In both economies growth was fuelled by massive investment by depressing living standards. In Russia the collectivisation policy allowed for the siphoning of farm income to fund machine imports. In Germany wages were regulated and kept at depression levels. The Soviet system allowed some private enterprise to flourish mainly in small plots and the German system had large state enterprises developing synthetic rubber and oil. Many other aspects of the regimes were similar, the control of culture, the idealisation of the leader the means of repression. However there were also significant differences. Hitler believed in a sort of racial mercantilism where the key to prosperity of society was the geographic size of the country. To achieve wealth a country must have an empire. That empire was to be administered by those of the "German" race who operated a slave type system in the conquered territories. Inferior races were to be serfs denied education and citizenship. No one of course was going to voluntarily be part of that empire so that one had to have a strong army. In fact the key role of the government, in the Nazi State was to provide that army so that the country could achieve territorial expansion and safeguard the destiny of the race. The Soviet system although having the same concentration camps, the same elements of repression was more a child of the enlightenment. Historically Russia had been a country that had celebrated the role of the "Russian People" in the development of the Czarist empire. Under the communists the country was not even known as Russia but the more abstract Union of Socialist Soviets. Broadly it was a repellent system but not a racist one. This meant that during the crisis of the Second World War it was better able to mobilise its resources and win. The Germans by their policy of racial exclusivity limited the potential size of their armies and were appalling at using the resources of their conquests.

Overy makes the controversial thesis that Hitler's regime was more revolutionary than Stalin's Russia. Overy claims that the Nazi party began to take over areas of the German economy while Stalin after the nineteen thirties left the economy in the hands of economist and engineers. Also during the war years the Nazi party was taking over control of military operations, but Stalin was ceding control to his generals. The Gestapo was not constrained by any law while the Soviet NKVD in the early forties was scrutinize by some judicial oversight. Finallly the Nazis eliminated ethinic groups based on their race and the Soviets judged other ethinic groups based on their loyalty to the Soviet state. The main weakness of Overy's book is that he skims over Stalin's collectivization drive and how it resulted in the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens through stravation and repression. Despite this weakness, I would reccomend this book for anyone ineterested in a comparason of these two regimes.