Book Review;Mass murder

　　書評;大屠殺

　　History and its woes;How Stalin and Hitler enabledeach other s crimes;

　　歷史及其悲哀之處;斯大林和希特勒如何縱容彼此犯下大罪;

　　Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. ByTimothy Snyder.

　　血染之地：希特勒和斯大林之間的歐洲，作者TimothySnyder。

　　In the middle of the 20th century Europe s two totalitarian empires, Nazi Germany andStalin s Soviet Union, killed 14m non-combatants, in peacetime and in war. The who, why,when, where and how of these mass murders is the subject of a gripping andcomprehensive new book by Timothy Snyder of Yale University.

　　在20世紀(jì)中期，歐洲大陸的兩大集權(quán)帝國，納粹德國和斯大林治下的蘇聯(lián)，在和平時期和戰(zhàn)爭時期殺死了1400萬非戰(zhàn)斗人員。這些大屠殺所涉及的人，屠殺的原因、時間、地點(diǎn)以及過程就是耶魯大學(xué)的TimothySnyder的這本引人而內(nèi)容全面的新書的主題。

　　The term coined in the book s title encapsulates the thesis. The bloodlands are the stretchof territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea where Europe s most murderous regimes didtheir most murderous work. The bloodlands were caught between two fiendish projects:Adolf Hitler s ideas of racial supremacy and eastern expansion, and the Soviet Union sdesire to remake society according to the communist template. That meant shooting,starving and gassing those who didn t fit in. Just as Stalin blamed the peasants for the failureof collectivisation, Hitler blamed the Jews for his military failures in the east. As Mr Snyderargues, Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought aboutcatastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to makethe case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformativeUtopia, a group to be blamed when its realisation proved impossible, and then a policy ofmass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory.

　　本書題目中所造的詞語是其主題的濃縮。血染之地就是指從黑海至波羅的海這片土地，在這片土地上，歐洲最殺人如麻的政權(quán)犯下了最為殘暴的惡行。這片血染之地夾在兩個惡魔般的計(jì)劃之間：阿道夫-希特勒的種族優(yōu)越思想和東擴(kuò)的念頭，以及蘇聯(lián)按共產(chǎn)主義模式再造世界的強(qiáng)烈欲望。這就意味著對于那些與這兩個計(jì)劃的格格不入的人，就要被槍斃、餓死或用毒氣毒死。就像斯大林將社會主義集體化的失敗歸咎于農(nóng)民身上那樣，希特勒把在東方的軍事失敗歸咎于猶太人。正如Snyder所說，故斯大林和希特勒的暴政是有著某些共同之處的，他們都帶來災(zāi)難，歸罪他們的自己所指的敵人，然后用數(shù)百萬人死亡的代價來證明他們的政策是必要或理想的。二人都建立了變種的烏托邦，當(dāng)發(fā)現(xiàn)政策根本不現(xiàn)實(shí)時，就歸咎于一群人，然后就可以把大屠殺政策宣稱為一場虛假的勝利了。

　　Mr Snyder s book is revisionist history of the best kind: in spare, closely argued prose, withmeticulous use of statistics, he makes the reader rethink some of the best-known episodesin Europe s modern history. For those who are wedded to the simplistic schoolbook notionsthat the Hitlerites were the mass murderers and the Soviets the liberators, or that the killingstarted in 1939 and ended in 1945, Mr Snyder s theses will be thought-provoking orshocking. Even those who pride themselves on knowing their history will find themselvesrepeatedly brought up short by his insights, contrasts and comparisons. Some ghastly butwell-known episodes recede; others emerge from the shadows.

　　Snyder的書是一本最好的修正史：用簡練而論證嚴(yán)密的筆法，加上對統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)的精妙運(yùn)用，本書使讀者對歐洲現(xiàn)代史上最著名的一些章節(jié)作了一番再思考。對于那些已經(jīng)接受了單純的教科書觀點(diǎn)的人來說，作者所述之事將是發(fā)人深思、震人心魄的。就算那些以自己的歷史知識為傲的讀者也會一再地為作者的廣博見識、鮮明比照和比喻手法而受益匪淺。一些蒼白可怖但廣為人知的歷史片段逐漸模糊，另一些片段從陰影中開始浮現(xiàn)。

　　Sometimes the memories are faded because so few were left to remember. Those whosuffered horribly but lived to tell the tale naturally get a better hearing than the millions inunmarked graves. Mr Snyder s book straightens the record in favour of the voiceless andforgotten.

　　有時，記憶的褪色是因?yàn)闆]有幾個人能活到現(xiàn)在。那些歷經(jīng)苦難但活下來的人，他們講的故事自然比那數(shù)百萬無名冢所述更有受眾。Snyder的大作理清了曲直，只為那些已無法出聲或已被忘卻的冤魂。

　　He starts with the 3.3m in Soviet Ukraine who died in the famine of 1933 that followedStalin s ruthlessly destructive collectivisation. He goes on to mark the 250,000-odd Sovietcitizens, chiefly Poles, shot because of their ethnicity in the purges of 1937-38. Sometimes theNKVD simply picked Polish-sounding names from the telephone directory, or arrested enmasse all those attending a Polish church service.

　　作者從1933年造成330萬人死亡的烏克蘭饑荒寫起，這次饑荒緊隨斯大林的殘酷而毀滅性的集體化運(yùn)動。然后又寫到25萬余蘇聯(lián)公民，主要是波蘭人，在 1937-38年的大清洗中被殺害，只因?yàn)樗麄兊姆N族。有時內(nèi)務(wù)人民委員會只在電話號碼簿上挑一些發(fā)音像是波蘭人的名字，或是成批逮捕去波蘭教堂禮拜的人。

　　Some stories remained untold because they were inconvenient. About as many people diedin the German bombing of Warsaw in 1939 as in the allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. Post-war Poland was in no state to gain recognition for that. The Nazi-Soviet alliance of August1939 was cemented in blood, Stalin said approvingly. Few wanted to remember that twoyears later, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. TheWestern allies did little to stop the Holocaust. Few wanted reminding that the onlygovernment that took direct action to help the Jews was the Polish one: seven of the firsteight operations conducted in Warsaw by the underground Polish Home Army were in supportof the ghetto uprising.

　　有些故事仍然未見天日，因?yàn)椴槐阒v出。1939年德國對華沙的轟炸造成的死亡人數(shù)和盟軍在1945年轟炸德累斯頓造成的死亡人數(shù)不相上下。這一犧牲，戰(zhàn)后的波蘭從未正式獲得承認(rèn)。納粹和蘇聯(lián)在1939年8月的結(jié)盟是 鮮血凝成的，斯大林贊許地說道。沒幾個人愿意記起，兩年后，德國就發(fā)動巴巴羅薩計(jì)劃入侵蘇聯(lián)。西方盟國對大屠殺幾乎未加阻止。沒幾個人愿意提起，唯一一個對猶太人直接給予幫助的政府恰恰是波蘭政府。在地下的波蘭國民軍所組織的前八次行動中，有七次是為了支持猶太區(qū)的起義。

　　Stalin regarded all Soviet prisoners-of-war as traitors. Their German captors starved them todeath in their millions; nobody dared mourn them. The Holocaust, too, did not fit into Soviethistoriography, especially as post-war anti-Semitism intensified . Memorials to murdered Jewscarried not the Star of David but the five-pointed Soviet one, and referred blandly to Sovietcitizens or victims of fascism.

　　斯大林把所有蘇聯(lián)戰(zhàn)俘都當(dāng)成叛徒。俘獲他們的德軍將他們上百萬地餓死，沒有人敢為他們哀悼。大屠殺也不合蘇聯(lián)的官修史要求，在戰(zhàn)后反猶運(yùn)動日益激烈之后更是如此。，被屠殺猶太人的墓碑上不是大衛(wèi)星，而是蘇聯(lián)的五角星，他們被淡淡地歸為蘇聯(lián)公民或法西斯主義的受害者。

　　Many of the stories in the book are already known as national or ethnic tragedies. Poles focuson the Warsaw uprising; Jews on Auschwitz; Russians on the siege of Leningrad; Ukrainianson the great famine. Mr Snyder s book weaves the stories together, explaining how thehorrors interacted and reinforced each other. Hitler learnt a lot from Stalin, and vice versa.

　　書中很多故事都已作為國家或民族慘案而為人知曉。波蘭人關(guān)注華沙起義;猶太人關(guān)注奧斯維辛，俄羅斯人關(guān)注列寧格勒圍城戰(zhàn)，烏克蘭人關(guān)注那次大饑荒。本書將這些事穿插起來一起記述，解釋了恐懼是如何相互影響和逐步扎根的。希特勒從斯大林那里學(xué)到了不少，二人彼此彼此。

　　Mr Snyder shifts the usual geographical focus away from the perpetrator countries to theplaces where they first colluded and then collided. Germany and Russia mostly fared better, or less horribly, than the places in between . No corner of whatare now Belarus and Ukraine was spared. Much of Germany and even more of Russia wasunscathed, at least physically, by war.

　　作者將地理上的關(guān)注點(diǎn)從傳統(tǒng)的兩個罪惡國家，轉(zhuǎn)移到了兩國初次勾結(jié)而后又發(fā)生沖突的地方。德國和俄羅斯兩國所付出的代價在大都比兩國之間其他歐洲地區(qū)更小，或者沒那么可怕。。現(xiàn)在的白俄羅斯和烏克蘭全境的每個角落都無一幸免。 而德國的很多地方和俄羅斯的更多地方都未遭受戰(zhàn)爭的傷害，至少未受有形的傷害。

　　He also corrects exaggerations, misapprehensions and simplifications. The bestial treatmentof slave labourers in concentration camps, and the use of gas chambers, are commonlyseen as the epitomes of Nazi persecution. But the Germans also shot and starved millions ofpeople, as well as gassed and worked them to death. In just a few days in 1941, the Nazisshot more Jews in the east than they had inmates in all their concentration camps.

　　作者同樣糾正了一些對歷史的夸大、誤解和簡單化現(xiàn)象。在對納粹迫害的記述概要中，經(jīng)常可以看到集中營對奴隸勞工非人的虐待和毒氣室的使用。但德國人除了用毒氣毒死和活活累死大批人之外，也槍殺和餓死了數(shù)以百萬計(jì)的人。僅在1941年的幾天內(nèi)，納粹在東線槍殺的猶太人數(shù)量，就比所有集中營的囚犯人數(shù)還要多。

　　Bloodlands has aroused fierce criticism from those who believe that the Soviet Union, for allits flaws, cannot be compared to the Third Reich, which pioneered ethnic genocide. Doingthis, the critics argue, legitimises ultranationalists in eastern Europe who downplay theHolocaust, exaggerate their own sufferingand dodge guilt for their own collaborationwith Hitler s executioners.

　　血染之地已經(jīng)激起了一些人的激烈批評，這些人認(rèn)為蘇聯(lián)即使有千般缺點(diǎn)，也比不上第三帝國的罪惡，后者是種族屠殺的先鋒。批評者認(rèn)為，這種做法將使東歐的極端民族主義者合法化，這些極端分子漠視大屠殺，夸大自身遭受的苦難---而不愿直面他們與希特勒的劊子手們勾結(jié)的罪行。

　　That argument is powerful but unfair. Many people say stupid things about history. Mr Snyderis not one. He does not challenge the Holocaust s central place in 20th-century history. Nordoes he overlook Soviet suffering at the hands of Hitler or the heroism of the soldiers whodestroyed the Third Reich. But he makes a point that needs reinforcement, not least inRussia where public opinion and officialdom both retain a soft spot for Stalin s wartimeleadership. The Soviet Union s ethnic murders predated Nazi Germany s. Stalin was notdirectly responsible for the Holocaust, but his pact with the Nazis paved the way for Hitler skilling of Jews in the east.

　　這理由很有力卻不公平。很多人都對歷史胡說八道，但作者不是其中之一。他既沒有挑戰(zhàn)大屠殺在20世紀(jì)歷史中的中心地位，也沒有無視蘇聯(lián)在希特勒的鐵蹄下所受的苦難，以及摧毀第三帝國的士兵們的英勇。作者提出了的觀點(diǎn)亟需聲援，尤其是在俄羅斯這樣一個國家，大眾輿論和官方仍然對斯大林的戰(zhàn)時領(lǐng)導(dǎo)心懷仰慕。蘇聯(lián)的種族屠殺要早于納粹德國。斯大林對屠殺是沒有直接責(zé)任，但他和納粹的結(jié)盟為希特勒在東方屠殺猶太人鋪平了道路。

　　Mr Snyder s scrupulous and nuanced book steers clear of the sterile, sloganising exchangesabout whether Stalin was as bad as Hitler, or whether Soviet mass murder in Ukraine orelsewhere is a moral equivalent of the Nazis extermination of the Jews. What it does do,admirably, is to explain and record. Both totalitarian empires turned human beings intostatistics, and their deaths into a necessary step towards a better future. Mr Snyder s bookexplains, with sympathy, fairness and insight, how that happened, and to whom. Justdon t read it before bedtime.

　　Snyder先生的這本嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)而微妙的著作，繞開了那些無意義的口號式的相互攻擊，諸如斯大林是否和希特勒一樣壞，或蘇聯(lián)在烏克蘭或其他地方的大屠殺是不是和希特勒滅絕猶太人一樣的道德犯罪。令人敬佩的是，這本書所給出的是解釋和記錄。這兩個集權(quán)帝國都把活生生人變成了統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)字，把這些人的死亡變成了實(shí)現(xiàn)國家美好未來的必要步驟。Snyder的這本書懷著同情，正直而富有洞察力地解釋了這一切是如何發(fā)生的，發(fā)生在了誰的頭上。 只是不要在睡覺前讀。

　　Book Review;Mass murder

　　書評;大屠殺

　　History and its woes;How Stalin and Hitler enabledeach other s crimes;

　　歷史及其悲哀之處;斯大林和希特勒如何縱容彼此犯下大罪;

　　Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. ByTimothy Snyder.

　　血染之地：希特勒和斯大林之間的歐洲，作者TimothySnyder。

　　In the middle of the 20th century Europe s two totalitarian empires, Nazi Germany andStalin s Soviet Union, killed 14m non-combatants, in peacetime and in war. The who, why,when, where and how of these mass murders is the subject of a gripping andcomprehensive new book by Timothy Snyder of Yale University.

　　在20世紀(jì)中期，歐洲大陸的兩大集權(quán)帝國，納粹德國和斯大林治下的蘇聯(lián)，在和平時期和戰(zhàn)爭時期殺死了1400萬非戰(zhàn)斗人員。這些大屠殺所涉及的人，屠殺的原因、時間、地點(diǎn)以及過程就是耶魯大學(xué)的TimothySnyder的這本引人而內(nèi)容全面的新書的主題。

　　The term coined in the book s title encapsulates the thesis. The bloodlands are the stretchof territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea where Europe s most murderous regimes didtheir most murderous work. The bloodlands were caught between two fiendish projects:Adolf Hitler s ideas of racial supremacy and eastern expansion, and the Soviet Union sdesire to remake society according to the communist template. That meant shooting,starving and gassing those who didn t fit in. Just as Stalin blamed the peasants for the failureof collectivisation, Hitler blamed the Jews for his military failures in the east. As Mr Snyderargues, Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought aboutcatastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to makethe case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformativeUtopia, a group to be blamed when its realisation proved impossible, and then a policy ofmass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory.

　　本書題目中所造的詞語是其主題的濃縮。血染之地就是指從黑海至波羅的海這片土地，在這片土地上，歐洲最殺人如麻的政權(quán)犯下了最為殘暴的惡行。這片血染之地夾在兩個惡魔般的計(jì)劃之間：阿道夫-希特勒的種族優(yōu)越思想和東擴(kuò)的念頭，以及蘇聯(lián)按共產(chǎn)主義模式再造世界的強(qiáng)烈欲望。這就意味著對于那些與這兩個計(jì)劃的格格不入的人，就要被槍斃、餓死或用毒氣毒死。就像斯大林將社會主義集體化的失敗歸咎于農(nóng)民身上那樣，希特勒把在東方的軍事失敗歸咎于猶太人。正如Snyder所說，故斯大林和希特勒的暴政是有著某些共同之處的，他們都帶來災(zāi)難，歸罪他們的自己所指的敵人，然后用數(shù)百萬人死亡的代價來證明他們的政策是必要或理想的。二人都建立了變種的烏托邦，當(dāng)發(fā)現(xiàn)政策根本不現(xiàn)實(shí)時，就歸咎于一群人，然后就可以把大屠殺政策宣稱為一場虛假的勝利了。

　　Mr Snyder s book is revisionist history of the best kind: in spare, closely argued prose, withmeticulous use of statistics, he makes the reader rethink some of the best-known episodesin Europe s modern history. For those who are wedded to the simplistic schoolbook notionsthat the Hitlerites were the mass murderers and the Soviets the liberators, or that the killingstarted in 1939 and ended in 1945, Mr Snyder s theses will be thought-provoking orshocking. Even those who pride themselves on knowing their history will find themselvesrepeatedly brought up short by his insights, contrasts and comparisons. Some ghastly butwell-known episodes recede; others emerge from the shadows.

　　Snyder的書是一本最好的修正史：用簡練而論證嚴(yán)密的筆法，加上對統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)的精妙運(yùn)用，本書使讀者對歐洲現(xiàn)代史上最著名的一些章節(jié)作了一番再思考。對于那些已經(jīng)接受了單純的教科書觀點(diǎn)的人來說，作者所述之事將是發(fā)人深思、震人心魄的。就算那些以自己的歷史知識為傲的讀者也會一再地為作者的廣博見識、鮮明比照和比喻手法而受益匪淺。一些蒼白可怖但廣為人知的歷史片段逐漸模糊，另一些片段從陰影中開始浮現(xiàn)。

　　Sometimes the memories are faded because so few were left to remember. Those whosuffered horribly but lived to tell the tale naturally get a better hearing than the millions inunmarked graves. Mr Snyder s book straightens the record in favour of the voiceless andforgotten.

　　有時，記憶的褪色是因?yàn)闆]有幾個人能活到現(xiàn)在。那些歷經(jīng)苦難但活下來的人，他們講的故事自然比那數(shù)百萬無名冢所述更有受眾。Snyder的大作理清了曲直，只為那些已無法出聲或已被忘卻的冤魂。

　　He starts with the 3.3m in Soviet Ukraine who died in the famine of 1933 that followedStalin s ruthlessly destructive collectivisation. He goes on to mark the 250,000-odd Sovietcitizens, chiefly Poles, shot because of their ethnicity in the purges of 1937-38. Sometimes theNKVD simply picked Polish-sounding names from the telephone directory, or arrested enmasse all those attending a Polish church service.

　　作者從1933年造成330萬人死亡的烏克蘭饑荒寫起，這次饑荒緊隨斯大林的殘酷而毀滅性的集體化運(yùn)動。然后又寫到25萬余蘇聯(lián)公民，主要是波蘭人，在 1937-38年的大清洗中被殺害，只因?yàn)樗麄兊姆N族。有時內(nèi)務(wù)人民委員會只在電話號碼簿上挑一些發(fā)音像是波蘭人的名字，或是成批逮捕去波蘭教堂禮拜的人。

　　Some stories remained untold because they were inconvenient. About as many people diedin the German bombing of Warsaw in 1939 as in the allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. Post-war Poland was in no state to gain recognition for that. The Nazi-Soviet alliance of August1939 was cemented in blood, Stalin said approvingly. Few wanted to remember that twoyears later, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. TheWestern allies did little to stop the Holocaust. Few wanted reminding that the onlygovernment that took direct action to help the Jews was the Polish one: seven of the firsteight operations conducted in Warsaw by the underground Polish Home Army were in supportof the ghetto uprising.

　　有些故事仍然未見天日，因?yàn)椴槐阒v出。1939年德國對華沙的轟炸造成的死亡人數(shù)和盟軍在1945年轟炸德累斯頓造成的死亡人數(shù)不相上下。這一犧牲，戰(zhàn)后的波蘭從未正式獲得承認(rèn)。納粹和蘇聯(lián)在1939年8月的結(jié)盟是 鮮血凝成的，斯大林贊許地說道。沒幾個人愿意記起，兩年后，德國就發(fā)動巴巴羅薩計(jì)劃入侵蘇聯(lián)。西方盟國對大屠殺幾乎未加阻止。沒幾個人愿意提起，唯一一個對猶太人直接給予幫助的政府恰恰是波蘭政府。在地下的波蘭國民軍所組織的前八次行動中，有七次是為了支持猶太區(qū)的起義。

　　Stalin regarded all Soviet prisoners-of-war as traitors. Their German captors starved them todeath in their millions; nobody dared mourn them. The Holocaust, too, did not fit into Soviethistoriography, especially as post-war anti-Semitism intensified . Memorials to murdered Jewscarried not the Star of David but the five-pointed Soviet one, and referred blandly to Sovietcitizens or victims of fascism.

　　斯大林把所有蘇聯(lián)戰(zhàn)俘都當(dāng)成叛徒。俘獲他們的德軍將他們上百萬地餓死，沒有人敢為他們哀悼。大屠殺也不合蘇聯(lián)的官修史要求，在戰(zhàn)后反猶運(yùn)動日益激烈之后更是如此。，被屠殺猶太人的墓碑上不是大衛(wèi)星，而是蘇聯(lián)的五角星，他們被淡淡地歸為蘇聯(lián)公民或法西斯主義的受害者。

　　Many of the stories in the book are already known as national or ethnic tragedies. Poles focuson the Warsaw uprising; Jews on Auschwitz; Russians on the siege of Leningrad; Ukrainianson the great famine. Mr Snyder s book weaves the stories together, explaining how thehorrors interacted and reinforced each other. Hitler learnt a lot from Stalin, and vice versa.

　　書中很多故事都已作為國家或民族慘案而為人知曉。波蘭人關(guān)注華沙起義;猶太人關(guān)注奧斯維辛，俄羅斯人關(guān)注列寧格勒圍城戰(zhàn)，烏克蘭人關(guān)注那次大饑荒。本書將這些事穿插起來一起記述，解釋了恐懼是如何相互影響和逐步扎根的。希特勒從斯大林那里學(xué)到了不少，二人彼此彼此。

　　Mr Snyder shifts the usual geographical focus away from the perpetrator countries to theplaces where they first colluded and then collided. Germany and Russia mostly fared better, or less horribly, than the places in between . No corner of whatare now Belarus and Ukraine was spared. Much of Germany and even more of Russia wasunscathed, at least physically, by war.

　　作者將地理上的關(guān)注點(diǎn)從傳統(tǒng)的兩個罪惡國家，轉(zhuǎn)移到了兩國初次勾結(jié)而后又發(fā)生沖突的地方。德國和俄羅斯兩國所付出的代價在大都比兩國之間其他歐洲地區(qū)更小，或者沒那么可怕。。現(xiàn)在的白俄羅斯和烏克蘭全境的每個角落都無一幸免。 而德國的很多地方和俄羅斯的更多地方都未遭受戰(zhàn)爭的傷害，至少未受有形的傷害。

　　He also corrects exaggerations, misapprehensions and simplifications. The bestial treatmentof slave labourers in concentration camps, and the use of gas chambers, are commonlyseen as the epitomes of Nazi persecution. But the Germans also shot and starved millions ofpeople, as well as gassed and worked them to death. In just a few days in 1941, the Nazisshot more Jews in the east than they had inmates in all their concentration camps.

　　作者同樣糾正了一些對歷史的夸大、誤解和簡單化現(xiàn)象。在對納粹迫害的記述概要中，經(jīng)常可以看到集中營對奴隸勞工非人的虐待和毒氣室的使用。但德國人除了用毒氣毒死和活活累死大批人之外，也槍殺和餓死了數(shù)以百萬計(jì)的人。僅在1941年的幾天內(nèi)，納粹在東線槍殺的猶太人數(shù)量，就比所有集中營的囚犯人數(shù)還要多。

　　Bloodlands has aroused fierce criticism from those who believe that the Soviet Union, for allits flaws, cannot be compared to the Third Reich, which pioneered ethnic genocide. Doingthis, the critics argue, legitimises ultranationalists in eastern Europe who downplay theHolocaust, exaggerate their own sufferingand dodge guilt for their own collaborationwith Hitler s executioners.

　　血染之地已經(jīng)激起了一些人的激烈批評，這些人認(rèn)為蘇聯(lián)即使有千般缺點(diǎn)，也比不上第三帝國的罪惡，后者是種族屠殺的先鋒。批評者認(rèn)為，這種做法將使東歐的極端民族主義者合法化，這些極端分子漠視大屠殺，夸大自身遭受的苦難---而不愿直面他們與希特勒的劊子手們勾結(jié)的罪行。

　　That argument is powerful but unfair. Many people say stupid things about history. Mr Snyderis not one. He does not challenge the Holocaust s central place in 20th-century history. Nordoes he overlook Soviet suffering at the hands of Hitler or the heroism of the soldiers whodestroyed the Third Reich. But he makes a point that needs reinforcement, not least inRussia where public opinion and officialdom both retain a soft spot for Stalin s wartimeleadership. The Soviet Union s ethnic murders predated Nazi Germany s. Stalin was notdirectly responsible for the Holocaust, but his pact with the Nazis paved the way for Hitler skilling of Jews in the east.

　　這理由很有力卻不公平。很多人都對歷史胡說八道，但作者不是其中之一。他既沒有挑戰(zhàn)大屠殺在20世紀(jì)歷史中的中心地位，也沒有無視蘇聯(lián)在希特勒的鐵蹄下所受的苦難，以及摧毀第三帝國的士兵們的英勇。作者提出了的觀點(diǎn)亟需聲援，尤其是在俄羅斯這樣一個國家，大眾輿論和官方仍然對斯大林的戰(zhàn)時領(lǐng)導(dǎo)心懷仰慕。蘇聯(lián)的種族屠殺要早于納粹德國。斯大林對屠殺是沒有直接責(zé)任，但他和納粹的結(jié)盟為希特勒在東方屠殺猶太人鋪平了道路。

　　Mr Snyder s scrupulous and nuanced book steers clear of the sterile, sloganising exchangesabout whether Stalin was as bad as Hitler, or whether Soviet mass murder in Ukraine orelsewhere is a moral equivalent of the Nazis extermination of the Jews. What it does do,admirably, is to explain and record. Both totalitarian empires turned human beings intostatistics, and their deaths into a necessary step towards a better future. Mr Snyder s bookexplains, with sympathy, fairness and insight, how that happened, and to whom. Justdon t read it before bedtime.

　　Snyder先生的這本嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)而微妙的著作，繞開了那些無意義的口號式的相互攻擊，諸如斯大林是否和希特勒一樣壞，或蘇聯(lián)在烏克蘭或其他地方的大屠殺是不是和希特勒滅絕猶太人一樣的道德犯罪。令人敬佩的是，這本書所給出的是解釋和記錄。這兩個集權(quán)帝國都把活生生人變成了統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)字，把這些人的死亡變成了實(shí)現(xiàn)國家美好未來的必要步驟。Snyder的這本書懷著同情，正直而富有洞察力地解釋了這一切是如何發(fā)生的，發(fā)生在了誰的頭上。 只是不要在睡覺前讀。