Foreword

I. Totalitarian Myths

Chapter One. Myth, History, and Politics

1. Myth and Mythology

2. Some National Myths

3. The Slavic Myth

4. ”Paradise Lost“ or the Road to Hell

5. Thomas More’s Utopia

6. The Communist Manifesto

Chapter Two. The Communist Myth

1. Lenin as a Personality

2. Lenin’s Marxism

3. Lenin’s Great Russian Jingoism

4. Stalin’s Schematization

5. Khrushchev’s Communist “Paradise” and Brezhnev’s “Developed Socialist Society”

6. The Challenge of China

Chapter Three. The National Socialist Myth

1. The “Normal” Communism and the “Crazy” National Socialism

2. Adolf Hitler as a Personality

3. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party

4. ”My Struggle” and “The Myth of the 20th Century”

5. The Third Reich

6. Hitler’s Anti-Communism and Stalin’s “Anti-Fascism”

7. The “Final Solution” and the Catastrophe of National Socialist Germany

Chapter Four. The Fascist Myth

1. Mussolini as a Socialist

2. Mussolini and Lenin

3. The Fascist Revolution

4. “The Doctrine of Fascism”

5. Mussolini and Hitler

6. “The Italian Social Republic”

Chapter Five. Totalitarianism as Theory and Practice

1. The Leftist Basis of Totalitarianism

2. Totalitarianism and Conservatism

3. Totalitarian Anti-Individualism

4. Totalitarian Militarism

5. Totalitarianism as a Denial of Democracy and Parliamentary Rule

6. The Totalitarian Leader

7. Totalitarian Anti-Capitalism

8. Anti-Socialism and the Denial of Social Democracy

9. The Eternity Endeavor and the One Party Monopoly

10. Cannibalism as a Political Art

11. Totalitarian Anti-Semitism

Chapter six. The “Liberation struggle” myth and totalitarian aggression

1. The Strategic Goal of the Soviet State

2. Russian Expansionism in Stalin’s Way

3. “Peaceful Coexistence” and the Brezhnev Doctrine

4. Mao’s War against the “Global City”

5. Russian Expansionism before and after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

6. The National Socialist Expansionism

7. The Ambitions of Fascist Italy

8. Totalitarian Aggressiveness in Some Small European Countries

9. Ayatollah Khomeini’s Jihad

II. Myths of the Historical Memory

Chapter Seven. The Myth about “Just” and “Unjust” Wars

1. “Just” and “Unjust” Wars in Ancient Times

2. The Winners and the Losers in the 1877—1878 War against Turkey

3. The Two Balkan Wars

4. The First World War: The Struggle against Russian Despotism and German Imperialism until 1917

5. The Fist World War: The Struggle of Democracy against Absolutism, Part Two (1917—1918)

6. The Second World War: The “Nation with no Living Space” and the Struggle against the “Western Plutocracies” (1937—1941)

7. The Second World War: The Struggle against “Fascist Aggression” (1941—1945)

8. The Israeli-Arab Antagonism

9. The Korean War and the Vietnamese Syndrome

10. The Wars against Dictators and Terrorism at the End of the 20th and the Beginning of the 21st Century

Chapter Eight. Who Set the Fire to the Second World War?

1. Unconfortable Truths about the Second World War

2. Lenin’s Diplomatic Strategy

3. Stalin’s Tactics

4. Goals and Means of Hitler’s Diplomacy

5. The Negotiations in the Spring and Summer of 1939

6. The Soviet-Nazi Alliance

7. Hitler’s Preemptive Strike

Chapter Nine. The Myth about the “Turkish Servitude” and about Russia’s “Liberation Mission”

1. Ottoman Rule in the Historical Fate of the Bulgarians

2. The Roots of the “Turkish Servitude” Legend and of the Russophile Myth

3. Russian Pan-Slavism

4. Russia and the 1875—1878 Great Eastern Crisis

5. The Russophile Myth from the End of the 19th Century to the Bolshevik Coup in Russia

6. Russophilia and Pan-Slavism the Communist Way

7. Attempts of Liberation from the “Liberators”

Chapter Ten. The San Stefano and the Berlin Treaty

1. The San Stefano Myth and the Beginnings of the Modern Bulgarian State

2. The 1876 April Uprising and Russia

3. The Reichstadt Agreement and the Budapest Convention

4. The 1877—1878 War

5. The San Stefano Treaty

6. Bulgaria under Russian Occupation

7. The Shuvalov-Salisbury Agreement

8. The Berlin Treaty

9. The Russian Occupation Regime in Bulgaria after the Berlin Congress

Chapter Eleven. The Myth about Stambolov as a “Dictator”

1. “The Tyrant Stambolov” as a Term of the Russian and Russophile Propaganda

2. The Bulgarian Parliamentary System until 1885

3. The Union, the Coup, and the Countercoup

4. The Plots of Russian Agents against Stefan Stambolov’s Regency

5. Russian Conspiracies against Prince Ferdinand and against Stefan Stambolov’s Government

6. Kosta Panitsa’s Plot and the Assassination of Khristo Belchev and Georgi Vulkovich

7. The Fall of Stefan Stambolov

Chapter Twelve. The Myth about Ferdinand’s “Personal Regime”

1. The Theory about the “Personal regime”

2. The Monarch and the Executive according to the Turnovo Constitution

3. Cabinets and Parliamentary Majorities under Ferdinand’s Reign

4. Cabinets and Parliamentary Majorities in the Balkans and in Europe

5. Prime Ministers and Ministers, Imposed by Ferdinand

6. Prime Ministers and Ministers, Imposed by the Belgian and British Coburgs

7. The Fifth Grand National Assembly

Chapter Thirteen. The Myth about Bulgaria’s “Two National Catastrophes”

1. The Act for the Trial of Those Guilty of the “National Catastrophe”

2. Bulgaria in the Balkan Strategy of Russia under Nicholas II

3. The Two Balkan Wars

4. The Fist World War: The Balkan Aims of Russia

5. The First World War: Bulgaria’s Choice

6. Bulgaria’s Victory against Russia

7. Assets and Liabilities

Some Conclusions and Lessons

Appendixes

1. San Stefano Treaty, Concluded by Russia and Turkey on February 19 (March 3) 1878

2. Berlin Treaty

3. Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. What to Do? (an excerpt)

4. Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. The Forthcoming Tasks of Soviet Power (excerpts)

5. Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. On the State (an excerpt)

6. Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (an excerpt)

7. Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. “Leftism”: A Child Disease of Communism (an excerpt)

8. Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. Speech at a Meeting of Asctivists of the Russian Communist Party’s Moscow Organization, December 6, 1920 (an excerpt)

9. Joseph Dzugashvili-Stalin. A Greetings Letter to the Heroic Capital Moscow on the Occasion of Her 800th Anniversary (excerpts)

10. Adolf Hitler. My Struggle (excerpts)

Index

Primary and secondary sources

Summary in English