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ALTER LAQUEUR
389
from Marxism."
Rauschning's second book is well-written, interesting and at times
prophetic. But it is not a primary source; it has been known for a long
time that these were not conversations with Hitler (the French title,
Hitler m 'a dit
... ,
was even more emphatic). In fact, Rauschning sel–
dom saw Hitler and did not talk alone with him for more than a few
minutes. Rauschning was neither Boswell nor Eckerman. His book was
an essay in anti-Hitlerian propaganda, as such perfectly legitimate, and
apparently also an endeavor to improve Rauschning's finances. He later
emigrated to America and with his earnings bought a farm. Rauschning's
books are still of considerable interest as the views of a contemporary
observer. However, they are not a primary source for Hitler's
obiter dicta.
Hannah Arendt's
Origins of Totalitarianism,
in Furet's words the most
important intellectual contribution to the analysis of Communism, pub–
lished in 1951, was certainly the most influential book at the time on
this subject, linking the Nazi and Communist phenomenon as "essentially
identical." But Arendt does not deal with Communism except in pass–
ing. Her book has much to say about Captain Dreyfus and Cecil Rhodes
but hardly anything about Lenin . She was aware that the Marxist-Soviet
dimension of the book was missing and intended to write this part in
1953 but somehow (as her biographer reports) never did. What she has
to say about the Soviet Union is characterized by exaggeration. She
glosses over its distinctions from Nazi Germany, arguing, for instance,
that Hitler never intended to defend the "West" against Bolshevism -
which is perfectly correct. But she then asserts that he always remained
ready to join "the Reds" in the destruction of the West, even in the
middle of the struggle against Soviet Russia, which is not true. Her con–
victions in this respect were emphatic but not apparently very deep. [n
subsequent editions of the book she retreated from her earlier exaggera–
tions to new opposing ones. By 1957-58 she had reached the conclusion
that ever since Stalin's death, the Soviet Union had engaged in
"detotalitarianization" which was only partly correct. ("The clearest sign
that the Soviet Union can no longer be called totalitarianism in the
strict sense of the term is, of course, the amazingly swift and rich recov–
ery of the arts in the last decade" - 1965.) This is a breathtaking reversal
of her earlier views, with which neither Furet nor other serious students
would agree. And what does all this leave of Arendt's original theses
about the fundamentally new phenomenon (the "horrible originality of
totalitarianism") based on depersonalization, the "mob," loneliness, the
emergence of mass society remaking reality and changing man? Seen in
this light, Stalinism was merely the old-fashioned tyranny of one man;
