This excellent book sheds light on several important aspects of Central European history. David Tompkins underscores the important role music played in Poland and East Germany, and illuminates the complicated relationship—the blurry lines, in fact—between state and society in these countries. The book also explicates the ways in which Eastern European states worked with and influenced their populations through “softer power.” The author further reveals the complexity of cultural and everyday life in the Soviet bloc through the late 1950s.

The chief argument in Composing the Party Line is that music developed in both Poland and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) through a “complicated, collaborative” (3) process, not simply via top-down control. Drawing from various theories of Eigen-Sinn (“sense of one's own interests”) and music's role in Communist societies, Tompkins helps us understand how these two states tried to use music to create hegemonic control over their societies—but instead ended up with a more complex reality. This point reinforces much recent work on Poland, the Soviet bloc, and especially East Germany.

The comparison between Poland and East Germany is fruitful, illustrating commonalities throughout the Soviet bloc, as well as important differences from country to country. Tompkins's attention to each country's unique history is especially helpful, though scholars of Germany may wish for a little more detail on the fascinating ways in which the East German regime both rejected and made use of previous Nazi music politics. The Polish and East German states treated music as an important means to legitimize their regimes and build socialism, and both countries had long-established musical cultures that served various purposes in the wake of Nazism, World War II, crystallizing Cold War divisions, and the imposition of Soviet authority.

Tompkins studies a very specific time period. He begins in the heady postwar era, especially the years 1947 and 1948, and then moves into the early 1950s, when Polish and GDR leaders had their greatest influence on music. Events following Stalin's death in March 1953 and the East German uprising in June 1953 prompted changes in cultural politics. Tompkins ends in the late 1950s, when both regimes again altered cultural policies in the wake of the Polish October and Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign of 1956.

The book balances big-ticket politics and the experiences of everyday life in these countries. Studying that nexus, Tompkins explicates well the development of what Konrad Jarausch has called “welfare dictatorship” in the Eastern bloc. Tomkins often refers to “overlapping” interests at play in Poland and East Germany: political leaders, composers, ensembles, and audiences all pushed their own agendas. Yet, he finds that they shared some, though often not quite all, of the same aims. Tompkins writes about some citizens who resisted state control and others who worked gladly to promote Soviet ideology; much of that took place in a gray zone in which various actors found ways to compromise and work with each other. The book describes the experiences of individuals involved in musical life at all levels: composers of art music and popular songs, political leaders, party functionaries, ensembles small and large, as well as audience members. Its rich detail is arguably the book's greatest feature, but Tompkins does not ignore the forest for the trees. He uses specific and even individual experiences to demonstrate his larger point about the complex function of music in postwar Poland and East Germany.

The first lengthy chapter traces the development of socialist realism in music. This idea developed differently in each country, although each case ultimately followed a similar trajectory that helped define music (and culture more generally) throughout the Soviet bloc. Tompkins's detail illuminates the ways in which socialist realism functioned both to liberate and control those involved in music. Chapters on composers' unions and struggles over commissions make clear that composers faced a variety of pressures. Tompkins calls the all-important composers' unions in each country “sites of contestation” (95), organizations that both represented composers' interests and conveyed state directives. Likewise, the process of garnering commissions exposed tensions between state power and creative production.

Chapters on music festivals and concerts explore the tensions among musicians, the state, and audiences. Polish and GDR officials tried to use these public venues to deliver their ideological messages, but balanced against audiences' preferences. The ideal new music in both countries seems to have been a rousing, melodic piece that workers could sing and that inspired political action. Such ideal creations were, of course, rare. More common were compromises that articulated some of what the state wished, that gave composers some creative space for expression, and that appealed to some audiences.

Each of these case studies makes plain the state's and party's attempts to control all aspects of musical life, as well as the many reasons those endeavors were never quite achieved. They gained control, but not as total as they had sought. Scholars of Eastern bloc society and culture will find further evidence here of how important “soft power” was, and about how average citizens were intimately engaged in the work of the state, sometimes to their advantage and sometimes to their detriment. Some readers may be surprised to discover the degree to which well-known composers, especially those in Poland, such as Andrzej Panufkni, cooperated with the regime. This book is not an apology for regimes that coerced behavior and even harmed their citizens, but rather an intimate exposure of the way that power functioned. With a substantial bibliography and index, Composing the Party Line is a useful tool for many scholars. Well-written and filled with compelling stories, the book should have broad appeal.