Overview

Stalin's Terror of the 1930s has long been a popular subject for historians. However, while for decades, historians were locked in a narrow debate about the degree of central control over the terror process, recent archival research is underpinning new, innovative approaches and opening new perspectives. Historians have begun to explore the roots of the Terror in the heritage of war and mass repression in the late Imperial and early Soviet periods; in the regime's focus not just on former 'oppositionists', wreckers and saboteurs, but also on crime and social disorder; and in the common European concern to identify and isolate 'undesirable' elements. Recent studies have examined in much greater depth and detail the precipitants and triggers that turned a determination to protect the Revolution into a ferocious mass repression. The Anatomy of Terror is an edited volume which brings together the work of the leading historians in the field, presenting not only the latest developments in the subject, but also the latest evolution of the debate. The sixteen chapters are divided into eight themes, with some themes reflecting the diversity of sources, methodologies and angles of approach, others showing stark differences of opinion. This opens up the field of study to further research, and this volume will proof indispensable for historians of political violence and of the era of Stalinist Terror.

Full Product Details

Author:   James Harris (Senior Lecturer in Modern European History, University of Leeds)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.90cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 23.70cm
Weight:   0.676kg
ISBN:  

9780199655663

ISBN 10:   0199655669
Pages:   344
Publication Date:   11 July 2013
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

James Harris: Introduction Formative Influences 1: Iain Lauchlan: Chekist Mentalite and the Origins of the Great Terror 2: James Harris: Terror from Lenin to Stalin Stalin and the Party 3: Arfon Rees: Stalin as Architect of the Terror 4: J. Arch Getty: The Rise and Fall of a Party First Secretary: Vainov of Iaroslavl' Practices of State Violence 5: David Hoffmann: Technologies and Practices of Soviet State Violence 6: David Shearer: Mass Repression, Modernity and the Social Engineering Argument Ideology 7: David Priestland: Terrors of Left and Right: 1937 in Comparative Perspective 8: David Brandenberger: Ideological Zig-Zag: Official Explanations for the Great Terror, 1936-1938 Police, Justice and Terror 9: Paul Hagenloh: Mass Operations and Soviet Statecraft under Lenin and Stalin 10: Gabor T. Rittersporn: Police, Justice and Terror before, during and after the Mass Purges of 1937-38 Precipitants 11: Matthew Lenoe: Fear, Loathing, Conspiracy: The Kirov Murder as Impetus for Terror 12: J. Arch Getty: Pre-election Fever: The Origins of the 1937 Mass Operations Victims and Perpetrators 13: Wendy Goldman: Small Motors of Terror: The Role of Factory Newspapers 14: William Chase: Scapegoating One's Comrades in the USSR, 1934-1937 Statistics 15: Stephen G. Wheatcroft: The Great Terror in Historical Perspective: The Records of the Statistical Department of the Investigative Organs of OGPU/NKVD 16: Melanie Ilic: The Great Terror in Leningrad: Evidence from the Leningradskii martirolog

Reviews

stimulating, though-provoking reading ... this volume would be an asset to many university courses on Stalinism, dealing as it does with all the principal and perennial questions concerning the 'Terror', rehearsing and critiquing a wide historiography, and offering a variety of interpretations. Jonathan Waterlow, History

Author Information

James Harris is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Leeds.

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