Between 1934 and 1941 Stalin unleashed what came to be known as "The Great Terror" against millions of Soviet citizens. This book is a study of how ordinary Russians experienced life during this period. Sarah Davies' study uses NKVD and Party reports, letters and other evidence to show that, despite propaganda and repression, the people continued to criticize Stalin and the Soviet regime, and complain about particular policies. This book sheds light on a hugely important part of Russia's social, political and cultural history.

The recent declassification of a substantial portion of Stalin's archive has made possible this fundamental new assessment of the controversial Soviet leader. Leading international experts accordingly challenge many assumptions about Stalin from his early life in Georgia to the Cold War years--with contributions ranging across the political, economic, social, cultural, ideological and international history of the Stalin era. The volume provides a more profound understanding of Stalin's power and one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century.

Between 1934 and 1941 Stalin unleashed what came to be known as "The Great Terror" against millions of Soviet citizens. This book is a study of how ordinary Russians experienced life during this period. Sarah Davies' study uses NKVD and Party reports, letters and other evidence to show that, despite propaganda and repression, the people continued to criticize Stalin and the Soviet regime, and complain about particular policies. This book sheds light on a hugely important part of Russia's social, political and cultural history.

This qualitative study draws on and extends two important concepts of the public understanding of science literature: scientists' understandings of 'the public', and the currently popular notion of science-public dialogue. Using data from interviews with scientists and engineers, the 'understanding of the public by scientists' is examined. Constructions of publics are also an emphasis in a detailed case study of informal science-public dialogue at the Dana Centre, London. Here structures of power and authority are more traditional than the dialogue movement's rhetoric would suggest, but there...

Drawing on recently declassified material from Stalin's personal archive in Moscow, this is the first attempt by scholars to systematically analyze the way Stalin interpreted and envisioned his world--both the Soviet system he was trying to build and its wider international context. Since Stalin rarely left his offices and perceived the world largely through the prism of verbal and written reports, meetings, articles, letters, and books, a comprehensive analysis of these materials provides a unique and valuable opportunity to study his way of thinking and his interaction with the outside...