Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization: Ideas, Power, and Terror in Inter-War Russia

ISBN-13: 9780199245130 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 500 str.

David Priestland; St Hall Edmund

Opis

Stalin's Terror of 1937-8 is one of the most extraordinary events of the twentieth century. His seemingly irrational attack on the military, technical, and political elite on the eve of war, precisely the time when he needed them most, remains difficult to understand. Stalinism and the Politics of Terror provides a new explanation of the political violence of the late 1930s by examining the thinking of Stalin and his allies, and placing it in the broader context of Bolshevik ideas since 1917.
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Recenzje

David Priestland's book is a contribution to the academic study of the history of the USSR, and in particular the origins of the 1930s terror. It is distinguished by the attempt to take seriously the political ideas of the Stalinists and their connection to, and partial divergence from, the ideas of the Bolsheviks after the revolution. It is this, as well as the wealth of documentation on the book-especially of political turns within the regime-that makes it worth reading.