Book Review: Western Europe: Alcide de Gasperi

Published date01 March 1967
Date01 March 1967
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/002070206702200146
Subject MatterBook Review
136
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
ULBRICHT.
A
Political
Biography
By
Carola
Stern.
1965.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto: Burns
&
MacEachern.
xi,
231pp.
$7.25)
This
short
biography
of
Walter
Ulbncht
is
an
American
edition
of
a work
completed
in
1964
by
a
refugee
from
East
Germany
who
is
an
experienced
intelligence
worker.
It
is
a
fair
and
balanced account.
Miss
Stern
does
not
hold
the
popular
view
that
Ulbncht
is
guilty of
all
Com-
munism's
sins
in
Germany-
others
share
in
this.
But Ulbricht
has
grown
into
the
dominant
Communist
functionary-he
is
now
also
Head
of
State-and
this
book
summarizes
the
principal
events
of
his
gradual
rise
to power.
It
makes a
dreary
but
enlightening
tale.
Hard
work,
shrewdness,
and
single-mindedness,
rather
than
intelligence,
imagina-
tion,
and
the
flamboyance
usually
associated with
a
charismatic
leader,
make
up
the
dominant
characteristics
of
a
successful
apparatchik
like
Ulbncht.
In
1945
when
Ulbncht
returned
from
exile
in
the
U.S.S.R.,
he
was
imbued
with
guilt
for
the
German
attack
on
"the
first workers'
state"
and
demanded
that
all
his
co-workers
share this
burden. But
although
Ulbncht
began
to
see
Germany
through
Russian
eyes,
or
at
least
as
he
believed
Russians
saw Germany
he
did
not
always
submit
to
Moscow's
discipline
in
serving
world
revolutionary
objectives.
He
weathered
the
crises
of
1953
and
of
the
Twentieth
Party
Congress
in
part
because
he
resisted
Moscow's
demands.
The
author
shows
that
the
June
17,
1953,
workers'
revolt
"did
not
overthrow
Ulbricht-it
saved
him"
(p.
149).
Later
he
defeated
the internal
opposition
that
sided
with
Bena
and
Malenkov
after
Stalin's
death
and
eliminated
competitors
for
power
in
East
Germany
A
chapter
on
Soviet
Russia's
policy
in
Germany
is
in
many
ways
the
most
interesting
one
in
the
book
but
lacks
sufficient
detail
to
be
fully
convincing.
The
treatment
of
Stalin's
effort
in
1952
to
block
West
Germany's
entry
into
a
military
alliance
in
the
West
by
offering new
terms
for
German
reunification is
inadequate.
There
is
more
confirma-
tion
for
the
author's
assertion
that
it
was
Khrushchev's
idea
to
build
the
Berlin
Wall
but
that
the
Russian
leader
refused
to sign
a
unilateral
peace
treaty
with
East
Germany
which
Ulbncht
demanded,
because
this
would
have
given
Ulbncht
control
of
traffic
from
the
West
to
Berlin
and
with
it
the
power
of
decision
over
war
or
peace.
(pp.
188-90).
It
is
understandable
that
some of
the
author's
sources
have
to
remain
unnamed,
but
the
failure
to
include
a
bibliography
of
principal
sources
is
inexcusable.
New
York
City
GERALD
FREUND
ALCIDE
DE
GASPERI.
The
Long Apprenticeship.
By
Elisa
A.
Carrillo.
1965.
(Montreal:
International
Publishers.
viii,
185pp.
$5.95)
Sightseers
making the
tour
of
the
principal
basilicas
of
Rome
sooner
or
later
reach
the
composite
ancient
and
Renaissance
church
of
San
Lorenzo
on
the
eastern
outskirts
of
the
city
Originally
a
third
century
church,
it was
reconstructed
again
after
having
suffered
bomb

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