In The Left Side of History Kristen Ghodsee tells the stories of partisans fighting behind the lines in Nazi-allied Bulgaria during World War II: British officer Frank Thompson, brother of the great historian E.P. Thompson, and fourteen-year-old Elena Lagadinova, the youngest female member of the armed anti-fascist resistance. But these people were not merely anti-fascist; they were pro-communist, idealists moved by their socialist principles to fight and sometimes die for a cause they believed to be right. Victory brought forty years of communist dictatorship followed by unbridled capitalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today in democratic Eastern Europe there is ever-increasing despair, disenchantment with the post-communist present, and growing nostalgia for the communist past. These phenomena are difficult to understand in the West, where “communism” is a dirty word that is quickly equated with Stalin and Soviet labor camps. By starting with the stories of people like Thompson and Lagadinova, Ghodsee provides a more nuanced understanding of how communist ideals could inspire ordinary people to make extraordinary sacrifices.
- Contents
- Maps and Illustrations
- Prologue. Communism 2.0?
- A Note on Transliteration
- Part I. The Way We Remember the Past Determines Our Dreams for the Future
- 1. The Mysterious Major Frank Thompson
- 2. A Communist by Any Other Name . . .
- 3. “I Simply Want to Fight”
- 4. The Brothers Lagadinov
- 5. A Failed Petition
- 6. Lawrence of Bulgaria?
- 7. Ambushed in Batuliya
- 8. Guerillas in the Mist
- 9. Everyday Life as a Partisan
- 10. Blood of a Poet
- 11. The Head Hunted
- 12. Words of One Brother on the Death of Another
- Part II. The Remains of the Regime
- 13. The Retired Partisan
- 14. A Woman’s Work Is Never Done
- 15. History Is Written by the Victors
- 16. On Censorship and the Secret Police
- 17. The Politics of Truth
- 18. Cassandra’s Curse
- 19. The Red Samaritan
- 20. The Past Is a Foreign Country
- 21. A Moment of Redemption
- Conclusion. On the Outskirts of Litakovo
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
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