Viola's wonderful book has shown ... that it is most helpful for understanding the post-war trials to better explore the pre-war practices and inner dynamics of the NKVD.
Lynne Viola is Professor of History at the University of Toronto. She is the author of The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements, Peasant Rebels Under Stalin, The Best Sons of the Fatherland, co-editor of Russian Peasant Women, and editor/co-editor of six other books. Viola is a recipient of the Thomas Henry Pentland Molson Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.