2023復習正是強化復習階段，在考研英語中占了40分，所以考研英語閱讀是英語科目中重要的一項。名師老師曾建議過考研生需要堅持每天泛讀10-15分鐘的英文原刊。強烈推薦了雜志《經濟學人》.雜志中的文章也是考研英語的主要材料來源.希望考研考生認真閱讀，快速提高考研英語閱讀水平。 　　Soviet history 　　蘇聯舊事 　　Stalin and his cursed cause 　　斯大林和他可憎的事業 　　High five for communism 　　為共產主義擊掌 　　Stalin s Curse: Battling for Communism in War andCold War. By Robert Gellately. 　　《斯大林的詛咒》：熱冷戰期間為共產主義而戰斗。羅伯特蓋拉特萊著。 　　FIRST and foremost, Stalin was a communist, who believed that the sacred cause justifiedthe most extreme measures: what non-believers would call unparalleled barbarity. Thiscentral message in Robert Gellately s masterly new book is an uncomfortable one for thosewho believe that Stalinism was an aberration, or a reaction to mistakes made by the West.It is facile to say Stalin was simply a psychopath, that he believed in terror for terror s sake,or that the Red Tsar s personality cult replaced ideology. A Leninist to his core, he wasconspiratorial, lethal, cynical and utterly convinced of his own rightness. 　　首先，斯大林是一個共產主義者。他相信只要是為了神圣的事業，采取最極端措施也是可以的。而不相信的人稱之為空前的暴行。蓋拉特萊最新的作品堪稱大師之作。文中表達的中心思想會讓一些人感到不安。那些人認為斯大林主義不合常規，或者是對西方所犯的錯誤作出的回應。人們可以輕率地說，斯大林就是一個精神病，他為引起恐慌而信仰恐怖活動。或者說他用對紅色沙皇的個人狂熱崇拜取代意識形態。斯大林是徹頭徹尾的列寧主義者，他愛耍陰謀，心狠手辣，生性多疑，卻堅信自己事業的正義性。 　　Stalin s Curse draws mainly on German and Russian archives, plus numerous first-handaccounts, and the author s formidable interpretative skills. Unlike other biographies thathave focused on the most sensational episodes in the dictator s life, it sets Stalin firmly inthe historical context: the rise of what the author calls the Red Empire. 　　除了運用大量第一手記述資料之外，《斯大林的詛咒》主要參考了德國和俄國檔案。書中作者對史料的解讀展現出高超的技巧。與其他傳記聚焦這個獨裁者一生中最轟動的軼事不同，本書牢牢地將斯大林置身于在歷史大背景 　　Mr Gellately s latest work has a good claim to be the best single-volume account of thedarkest period in Russian history. It is part of a crop of excellent new accounts of the era. Itsits well with Timothy Snyder s 2010 book, Bloodlands and AnneApplebaum s Iron Curtain . It is also a worthy successor to his Lenin, Stalin, Hitler: The Age of SocialCatastrophe , which compared and contrasted the three monsters. 　　要說講述俄國最黑暗時期的單冊歷史書描述中最優秀的，蓋拉特萊的新書當之無愧。它是記錄那個時代的諸多新杰作之一。這本書和蒂莫西 斯奈德2010年的新書《血色土地》和安妮 阿普勒鮑姆《鐵幕》相得益彰。此書算得上蓋拉特萊的《列寧，斯大林，希特勒：災難的年代》的出色姊妹篇。后者比較了三個殘酷的領導人。 　　Stalin s supposed strategic genius gets short shrift, along with his generalship. Becausecommunist doctrine said all imperialists were equal, Stalin failed to see that the Westernpowers were not the same as Nazi Germany, and might even be useful allies against it. Forall his paranoia and cynicism, the Soviet leader was determinedly friendly to Adolf Hitler,apparently believing that close ties with the Soviet Union made a Nazi attack less likely. ButHitler saw it the other way round: relying on Soviet imports endangered his long-term goal ofdestroying communism. 　　人類們認為斯大林滿腹韜略和將才的天賦，本書作者卻不以為然。因為社會主義教條宣稱帝國主義者都是一樣的。斯大林沒能看到西方政權與納粹德國并非完全相同，甚至與西方政權聯盟可能對反納粹德國最有效。盡管偏執又多疑，這位蘇維埃領導人卻堅定地對阿道夫希特勒表示友好，顯然是認為德國和蘇聯關系緊密，可以減少納粹進攻的可能性。但希特勒卻從另一方面看待此事：依賴蘇聯進口威脅了他摧毀社會主義的長遠目標。 　　Where Stalin excelled, again and again, was in ruthlessness and attention to detail. He paidminute attention to extending Soviet rule in places conquered at the war s end. He took greatinterest in details of science and cultural policy, fearing even the faintest breach incommunist omniscience. The results might be disastrous: but they were in accordance withcommunist theory, which was what mattered. 　　斯大林次次出眾的是殘暴以及對細節的關注。在這場戰爭尾聲，他對蘇聯統治在被攻克地區的擴張給予了密切關注。他對科學和文化政策的細枝末節十分感興趣，甚至擔心自己的模糊會對社會主義者無所不知的形象造成破壞。其結果可能是災難性的，但再這些政策都與社會主義理論相符合 ，這是最關鍵的。 　　Mr Gellately, a professor in Florida, has a deft touch with detail. For all the havoc hewreaked on the countryside, Stalin knew next to nothing about it . During their furious conquest of Germany, the Red Army soldiersavenged their homeland s suffering in an orgy of destruction. An eyewitness describestheir taking axes to armchairs, sofas, tables and stools, even baby carriages. Individualstories are recounted with understated sympathy. But the scope of the suffering isinconceivable. An all but forgotten post-war famine in the Soviet Union killed 1m-2m people.Communism probably killed around 25m: roughly the same toll of death and destruction asthat wrought by the Nazis. 　　蓋拉特萊，是一名佛羅里達的教授，善于挖掘細節。盡管斯大林在農村造成了破壞，本人卻幾乎毫不知情。在猛攻德國期間，紅軍通過一系列肆意摧毀來為祖國曾遭受的苦難復仇。一個目擊者形容他們用斧頭劈扶手椅，沙發，桌子，凳子甚至嬰兒車。個體的故事只是帶著輕描淡寫的同情色彩敘述著。但苦難的波及之廣是難以想象的。 一場快被遺忘的蘇聯戰后饑荒餓死了10到20萬人。共產主義可能導致了25萬人死亡：和納粹造成的死亡、損失數字大致持平。 　　Aside from the chief villain, Western leaders too come in for quiet but deserved scorn.Both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman failed to grasp their counterpart s malevolence.Winston Churchill made casual deals that consigned millions of people to slavery andtorment. The foreigners thought Stalin was a curmudgeonly ally to be coaxed and cajoled.He treated them as enemies to be outwitted. Far from provoking Stalin into unnecessaryhostility, the Western powers were not nearly tough enough. 　　除首要的反面人物外，西方領導人也受到雖克制的但應得的蔑視。富蘭克林羅斯福和哈里S杜魯門都沒能洞悉與他們的對手斯大林的惡毒。邱吉爾隨意就達成了協議：導致數以百萬計的人遭受奴役和折磨。這個外國人認為斯大林是個易被哄騙和勸誘的，脾氣暴躁的同盟者。他對他們就像瞞騙敵人。西方列強不愿挑起斯大林的不必要敵意，更談不上對他采取強硬態度。 　　Some of the strongest passages of the book concern Stalin s final years: the sharpeningcontrast between his obsessive paranoia and his analytical powers; the loominganti-Semitism, and the beginnings of a massive new arms build-up. Little of that came tofruition, sparing the world untold new horrors. But what Stalin did achieve was quite badenough. 　　書中涉及斯大林最后日子的段落是高潮：他的強迫性偏執和超強的分析能力形成鮮明對比;骨子里的反親猶太人主義，一種大規模新式軍備逐步增強的開端。這些只有少部分實現了，使世界免于數不清的新恐慌。但已實現了的那些，卻是夠壞的了。 　　詞語解釋 　　1.believe in 信賴;信仰 　　We want so badly to believe in superheroes. 　　我們都愿意相信超級英雄神話。 　　I believe in human ability to face things. 　　我相信人類有面對各種事情的能力。 　　2.focus on 致力于;使聚焦于 　　Many of these funds only focus on longer dated futures contracts. 　　這些基金很多只關注期限較長的期貨合約。 　　Do entrepreneurs put enough focus on customer relationships? 　　創業者給予客戶關系的重視足夠嗎? 　　3.claim to 要求 　　Both political parties in america claim to love entrepreneurs. 　　美國兩大黨派都聲稱喜歡創業者。 　　She accepted my claim to be heard. 　　她贊成大家知道我的要求。 　　4.fail to 未能 　　Why might those in washington fail to pursue their counterparts on wall street? 　　為什么華盛頓未能問責華爾街? 　　Things change and when you fail to grasp that truth you suffer. 　　世事變遷，而且你也未能領會承受折磨的真相。

　　2023復習正是強化復習階段，在考研英語中占了40分，所以考研英語閱讀是英語科目中重要的一項。名師老師曾建議過考研生需要堅持每天泛讀10-15分鐘的英文原刊。強烈推薦了雜志《經濟學人》.雜志中的文章也是考研英語的主要材料來源.希望考研考生認真閱讀，快速提高考研英語閱讀水平。 　　Soviet history 　　蘇聯舊事 　　Stalin and his cursed cause 　　斯大林和他可憎的事業 　　High five for communism 　　為共產主義擊掌 　　Stalin s Curse: Battling for Communism in War andCold War. By Robert Gellately. 　　《斯大林的詛咒》：熱冷戰期間為共產主義而戰斗。羅伯特蓋拉特萊著。 　　FIRST and foremost, Stalin was a communist, who believed that the sacred cause justifiedthe most extreme measures: what non-believers would call unparalleled barbarity. Thiscentral message in Robert Gellately s masterly new book is an uncomfortable one for thosewho believe that Stalinism was an aberration, or a reaction to mistakes made by the West.It is facile to say Stalin was simply a psychopath, that he believed in terror for terror s sake,or that the Red Tsar s personality cult replaced ideology. A Leninist to his core, he wasconspiratorial, lethal, cynical and utterly convinced of his own rightness. 　　首先，斯大林是一個共產主義者。他相信只要是為了神圣的事業，采取最極端措施也是可以的。而不相信的人稱之為空前的暴行。蓋拉特萊最新的作品堪稱大師之作。文中表達的中心思想會讓一些人感到不安。那些人認為斯大林主義不合常規，或者是對西方所犯的錯誤作出的回應。人們可以輕率地說，斯大林就是一個精神病，他為引起恐慌而信仰恐怖活動。或者說他用對紅色沙皇的個人狂熱崇拜取代意識形態。斯大林是徹頭徹尾的列寧主義者，他愛耍陰謀，心狠手辣，生性多疑，卻堅信自己事業的正義性。 　　Stalin s Curse draws mainly on German and Russian archives, plus numerous first-handaccounts, and the author s formidable interpretative skills. Unlike other biographies thathave focused on the most sensational episodes in the dictator s life, it sets Stalin firmly inthe historical context: the rise of what the author calls the Red Empire. 　　除了運用大量第一手記述資料之外，《斯大林的詛咒》主要參考了德國和俄國檔案。書中作者對史料的解讀展現出高超的技巧。與其他傳記聚焦這個獨裁者一生中最轟動的軼事不同，本書牢牢地將斯大林置身于在歷史大背景 　　Mr Gellately s latest work has a good claim to be the best single-volume account of thedarkest period in Russian history. It is part of a crop of excellent new accounts of the era. Itsits well with Timothy Snyder s 2010 book, Bloodlands and AnneApplebaum s Iron Curtain . It is also a worthy successor to his Lenin, Stalin, Hitler: The Age of SocialCatastrophe , which compared and contrasted the three monsters. 　　要說講述俄國最黑暗時期的單冊歷史書描述中最優秀的，蓋拉特萊的新書當之無愧。它是記錄那個時代的諸多新杰作之一。這本書和蒂莫西 斯奈德2010年的新書《血色土地》和安妮 阿普勒鮑姆《鐵幕》相得益彰。此書算得上蓋拉特萊的《列寧，斯大林，希特勒：災難的年代》的出色姊妹篇。后者比較了三個殘酷的領導人。 　　Stalin s supposed strategic genius gets short shrift, along with his generalship. Becausecommunist doctrine said all imperialists were equal, Stalin failed to see that the Westernpowers were not the same as Nazi Germany, and might even be useful allies against it. Forall his paranoia and cynicism, the Soviet leader was determinedly friendly to Adolf Hitler,apparently believing that close ties with the Soviet Union made a Nazi attack less likely. ButHitler saw it the other way round: relying on Soviet imports endangered his long-term goal ofdestroying communism. 　　人類們認為斯大林滿腹韜略和將才的天賦，本書作者卻不以為然。因為社會主義教條宣稱帝國主義者都是一樣的。斯大林沒能看到西方政權與納粹德國并非完全相同，甚至與西方政權聯盟可能對反納粹德國最有效。盡管偏執又多疑，這位蘇維埃領導人卻堅定地對阿道夫希特勒表示友好，顯然是認為德國和蘇聯關系緊密，可以減少納粹進攻的可能性。但希特勒卻從另一方面看待此事：依賴蘇聯進口威脅了他摧毀社會主義的長遠目標。 　　Where Stalin excelled, again and again, was in ruthlessness and attention to detail. He paidminute attention to extending Soviet rule in places conquered at the war s end. He took greatinterest in details of science and cultural policy, fearing even the faintest breach incommunist omniscience. The results might be disastrous: but they were in accordance withcommunist theory, which was what mattered. 　　斯大林次次出眾的是殘暴以及對細節的關注。在這場戰爭尾聲，他對蘇聯統治在被攻克地區的擴張給予了密切關注。他對科學和文化政策的細枝末節十分感興趣，甚至擔心自己的模糊會對社會主義者無所不知的形象造成破壞。其結果可能是災難性的，但再這些政策都與社會主義理論相符合 ，這是最關鍵的。 　　Mr Gellately, a professor in Florida, has a deft touch with detail. For all the havoc hewreaked on the countryside, Stalin knew next to nothing about it . During their furious conquest of Germany, the Red Army soldiersavenged their homeland s suffering in an orgy of destruction. An eyewitness describestheir taking axes to armchairs, sofas, tables and stools, even baby carriages. Individualstories are recounted with understated sympathy. But the scope of the suffering isinconceivable. An all but forgotten post-war famine in the Soviet Union killed 1m-2m people.Communism probably killed around 25m: roughly the same toll of death and destruction asthat wrought by the Nazis. 　　蓋拉特萊，是一名佛羅里達的教授，善于挖掘細節。盡管斯大林在農村造成了破壞，本人卻幾乎毫不知情。在猛攻德國期間，紅軍通過一系列肆意摧毀來為祖國曾遭受的苦難復仇。一個目擊者形容他們用斧頭劈扶手椅，沙發，桌子，凳子甚至嬰兒車。個體的故事只是帶著輕描淡寫的同情色彩敘述著。但苦難的波及之廣是難以想象的。 一場快被遺忘的蘇聯戰后饑荒餓死了10到20萬人。共產主義可能導致了25萬人死亡：和納粹造成的死亡、損失數字大致持平。 　　Aside from the chief villain, Western leaders too come in for quiet but deserved scorn.Both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman failed to grasp their counterpart s malevolence.Winston Churchill made casual deals that consigned millions of people to slavery andtorment. The foreigners thought Stalin was a curmudgeonly ally to be coaxed and cajoled.He treated them as enemies to be outwitted. Far from provoking Stalin into unnecessaryhostility, the Western powers were not nearly tough enough. 　　除首要的反面人物外，西方領導人也受到雖克制的但應得的蔑視。富蘭克林羅斯福和哈里S杜魯門都沒能洞悉與他們的對手斯大林的惡毒。邱吉爾隨意就達成了協議：導致數以百萬計的人遭受奴役和折磨。這個外國人認為斯大林是個易被哄騙和勸誘的，脾氣暴躁的同盟者。他對他們就像瞞騙敵人。西方列強不愿挑起斯大林的不必要敵意，更談不上對他采取強硬態度。 　　Some of the strongest passages of the book concern Stalin s final years: the sharpeningcontrast between his obsessive paranoia and his analytical powers; the loominganti-Semitism, and the beginnings of a massive new arms build-up. Little of that came tofruition, sparing the world untold new horrors. But what Stalin did achieve was quite badenough. 　　書中涉及斯大林最后日子的段落是高潮：他的強迫性偏執和超強的分析能力形成鮮明對比;骨子里的反親猶太人主義，一種大規模新式軍備逐步增強的開端。這些只有少部分實現了，使世界免于數不清的新恐慌。但已實現了的那些，卻是夠壞的了。 　　詞語解釋 　　1.believe in 信賴;信仰 　　We want so badly to believe in superheroes. 　　我們都愿意相信超級英雄神話。 　　I believe in human ability to face things. 　　我相信人類有面對各種事情的能力。 　　2.focus on 致力于;使聚焦于 　　Many of these funds only focus on longer dated futures contracts. 　　這些基金很多只關注期限較長的期貨合約。 　　Do entrepreneurs put enough focus on customer relationships? 　　創業者給予客戶關系的重視足夠嗎? 　　3.claim to 要求 　　Both political parties in america claim to love entrepreneurs. 　　美國兩大黨派都聲稱喜歡創業者。 　　She accepted my claim to be heard. 　　她贊成大家知道我的要求。 　　4.fail to 未能 　　Why might those in washington fail to pursue their counterparts on wall street? 　　為什么華盛頓未能問責華爾街? 　　Things change and when you fail to grasp that truth you suffer. 　　世事變遷，而且你也未能領會承受折磨的真相。