I. Fest’s book reaches the Russian reader with a long delay; it had to lie on shelves in special storage for a long time, like most Western works about fascism.
Then the effect of recognition was dangerous. Despite all the peculiarities of brown and red totalitarianism, the similarity of structures and leaders was too obvious.
Today, readers’ attention will more likely be drawn by striking analogies and parallels between Weimar Germany and modern Russia. A socio-economic crisis, a vacuum of power, corruption, collective anger, politicization, the loss of a sense of security—this is fertile ground for fascism. We must not forget that fascism itself was a revolt “for order.”
Our harsh experience pushes us to look anew at many books and concepts that we once treated with arrogant criticism. And Iоахім Фест’s book, undoubtedly, belongs to the category of works that are necessary to acquaint ourselves with in order to form our historical self-awareness, political and spiritual culture, and therefore to develop immunity against fascist and any other totalitarian infection.