How totalitarianism came to Eastern Europe, and why it didn’t stay.

Frank Dikötter Reason Magazine 1/5/2013

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956, by Anne Applebaum, Doubleday, 608 pages, $35.00.

…From 1948 onwards, the communist parties also began to dismantle the institutions of civil society. Schools were nationalized and independent organizations suppressed. […]