These are some of my fave parfumes in 2010

J'adore by Dior

Beauty by Calvin Klein

Pure by DKNY

Google Logo Art 2010

These are some of the Google images I've collected in 2010

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #12

Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953

Geoffrey Roberts
Paperback: 496 pages
Published: 2008
ISBN-10: 0300136226

Stalin’s Wars is a controversial book by Geoffrey Roberts about Joseph Stalin’s role as s military and political leader of the Soviet Union during the Second World War and more generally, about his decision making and policies from the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 to the postwar negotiations with the Grand Alliance, domestic reconstruction, and anti-West drift that solidified the Cold War tensions. The author’s argument is threefold: he believes that Stalin was a very “effective and highly successful war leader,” that he tried really hard to preserve the Alliance after the war, and finally that Stalin’s domestic regime of the post-war years was not as brutal as compared to the pre-war period. 

One of the most controversial claims by the author is his attempt to dispel the myth of Stalin as an incompetent war leader who does not deserve any credit for the Soviet victory over the Nazis. Roberts explicitly states that the countless crimes bordering on genocide that Stalin authorized and indirectly committed against his own people should not be denied or exonerated.  However, Stalin’s extraordinary ability to adopt, as well as his political and military acumen, his ability to learn from his mistakes and his flexibility tipped the balance of the war to the Soviet side and saved the world from Hitler.

Geoffrey Roberts believes that such a negative view of Stalin’s role during WWII and the aversion and disgust to anything associated with his name is undoubtedly linked to the terror of his rule, and is also the legacy of de-Stalinization undertaken by the Soviet leadership following his death. Stalin’s name became scarcely mentioned in the press and his body removed from the mausoleum where it was laid next to Vladimir Lenin himself. In the post-Stalinist era the Soviet propaganda placed more and more emphasis on the individual sacrifices and courage of ordinary soldiers and the Soviet people as a whole in the war effort against the German aggressor and lauded the skill and military genius of the top generals. It is not surprising, the author argues, that after many years of brainwashing, censorship and propaganda a whole new interpretation of what went on during the war has entered the Soviet psyche and entrenched itself not only in ordinary people’s minds but also became a standard view among many historians.

The depth and detail with which the author describes the events in this book support his argument because he is able to back his claim with specific examples rather than making sweeping broad generalizations about Stalin without concrete evidence that is often made by historians who paint the Soviet war effort in broad general brushstrokes. For example, by examining Zhukov’s and Vasilevskii’s memoirs and comparing them against other evidence such as Stalin’s appointment diary and other sources, the author is able to show inaccuracies and self-serving claims made by many influential people, especially after the de-Stalinization as well as in the late ’80s and early ’90s as the USSR began to crumble.  In fact, the author skillfully demonstrates the plethora of false claims ranging from the authorship of successful operation to Stalin’s secret plan to sign a separate peace agreement with Germany. Most importantly Stalin’s ability to learn from previous mistakes, his pragmatism – he stuck by and listened to his generals  – and his leadership albeit tyrannical proved decisive in the winning of the war. The author does not claim that Stalin did not make mistakes. For example, the discussion of the occupation of post-war Germany and the spheres of interest at Potsdam is a rare example of Stalin being tactically outsmarted in a diplomatic negotiation.

By focusing on detail Roberts presents a picture that is suddenly more complex and multifaceted than the fuzzy image one might form looking at the big picture of the Soviet war effort and Stalin’s role at commanding the front. Stalin certainly made mistakes, but he was also a very skilled political leader and where he lacked knowledge or experience he successfully delegated it to his subordinates allowing for a degree of creative freedom. This image of Stalin is difficult to accept for some, and it does not mean that the war was won because of him nor that a democratically elected leader would have been less successful at waging the war against the most well equipped and trained army in the world. What this does show us is that the truth is not necessarily black or white and that we should keep our minds open to ideas that do not necessarily fit what we want to believe. 

This was the last paper I submitted into the black hole known as the academe 

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #11

Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945

Richard Overy
Paperback: 432 pages
Published: 1998
ISBN-10: 0140271694

• Richard Overy’s Russia’s War is a brief historical work about the Soviet fight in the Second World War from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet-Finnish war to the Potsdam Conference and the Nuremberg trial and the events that sowed the seeds of the Cold War. The overarching argument put forward by the author is one of the brutality of the Soviet regime and the draconian methods of terror and control it exercised over its population before, during and even after the war. Nonetheless, Overy clearly states that the reason for the Soviet victory is multifaceted. Patriotism and dedication of ordinary soldiers and factory workers perhaps played the most significant role, however, talented military leadership and successful strategy, huge increase in military production of weapons and tanks, Allied assistance, and miscalculations on the part of the German leadership sealed Soviet victory in World War II. 

Richard Overy sets the context of the Soviet involvement in the war by familiarizing the reader with the nature of the Bolshevik regime from the Civil War and collectivization and mass industrialization to the Great Terror. It is clear that the Soviet regime was merciless and brutal in the way it treated its own citizens in Gulags and the propaganda lies it generated during and after the war. Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact behind the back of his allies which lead to the Polish invasion, the Soviet troops committed massive atrocities against the Polish military officers in the Katyn forest as well as against German civilians as they advanced toward Berlin. Desertion or retreat was harshly punished by the regime, often by execution. Soviet civilians, including women and children, worked eighteen hour days with hardly any rest to contribute to the war effort either by digging trenches or working in factories. 

The author argues that against the iron grip of the regime, the Soviet victory was not possible through terror alone. In fact, the remarkable turn around in Soviet fortunes that started with the battle of Stalingrad and culminated with the taking of Berlin, taking into the account the state of the military preparedness of the USSR at the eve of the invasion in 1941 bordered on impossible. One of the main reasons for the successful effort at stopping the enemy and pushing it back is the selfless sacrifice and the ferocious fighting of the ordinary Russian solider who fought to death protecting his fatherland from the German invader. After a few unsuccessful efforts at conducting the war Stalin backed away and let the military genius of Zhukov, Konev and Rossokovsky, as well as others to come up with and execute the war strategy. The General Staff also learned from German tactics and mistakes and after a few years became familiar with the way the Germans fought the war. Even Stalin came to appreciate the way the modern warfare was conducted. Democratization in the army, encouragement of responsibility and diminishing of the role of the party in the military affairs lead to increased efficiency in the armed forces.

Factories, along with its workers, relocated to the safety of the remoteness of Siberia were mass producing weaponry at the expense of consumer goods and other industry. This was possible as the U.S. provided aid through the Lend-Lease program supplied food, consumer goods, field telephones, radio receivers, jeeps, motorcycles, etc. Victory on the battle field was decisive in the way the war unfolded. The victories of 1943 were won at a high cost in lives, although the cost was very much less than it had been a year before. For example, Stalingrad cost the lives of 470,000 soldiers and airmen whereas the battle of Kursk was won with 70,000 dead.  

Hitler, like Stalin who often did not listen to his generals, made several tactical mistakes that proved to be fatal. German intelligence was often ignored or the front of the Soviet counter offensive was completely misjudged which resulted in Soviet assault on the areas least defended. Overy writes that “out of 34.5 million men and women mobilized an incredible 84 percent were killed, wounded or captured.”  The exact number of those who perished might never be known, but it is believed that the total Soviet war dead may have been as high as 25 million – one quarter higher than the official figure of 20 million announced by Khrushchev in 1956.  This clearly shows the incredible cost of human lives that was sacrificed for victory by the Soviet people. Although they fought courageously, it seems that they were accustomed to a repressive system designed to push them to the brink, which eventually pushed the Soviets over the hump to defeat the Nazis. 

Dr. W: never gave me this paper back

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #10

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945

Catherine Merridale

In her book Catherine Merridale takes a closer look at the Soviet Army during the Second World War (1939-1945) primarily focusing on the beliefs, attitudes, values, and what it took to survive the atrocities of war for a Soviet solider. Her goal is very much a grassroots approach to individual experiences as she tries to discover what it was like for an average Ivan to fight against the Germans. However, perhaps inadvertently, the author paints a broad picture of the Soviet war effort setting the Great Patriotic War, as the Russians today refer to World War II, in the context of the pre-war Stalinist years, early Soviet military failures, political propaganda, major battles, plundering of Europe by the Red Army as it advanced towards Berlin, and demobilization. Finally she presents dilemmas with the war’s legacy in now newly independent non-Russian post-Soviet states. She touches upon the mental and physical anguish of those who survived it. Veterans who saw the Soviet Union crumble were finally able to learn the jarring truth about the Second World War although many, after decades of propaganda, still cling to their own vision and memory.

Cathrine Marridale does not explicitly state her argument though it is clear from her book that only a regime so cruel and repressive as Stalinist Soviet Union was able to turn around the circumstances with which the country was faced on the eve of the German invasion in June 1941 and produce what became the Red Army. A whole generation inundated in Soviet propaganda and educational system loyal to the Communist regime grew up since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Although I believe that she perhaps overstates the level of complacency of the populace to the regime ignoring some of the more subtle expression of dissent such as jokes and the sheer fact that people could not express themselves freely, she makes a clear point that on the eve of the Nazi attack most people were indoctrinated to believe in Communism and Stalin, which ultimately proved to be a decisive factor. However, she is also very explicit in her argument that those who fought, fought courageously sacrificing their lives without really giving much though to the propagandist slogans such as “for Victory! For Stalin!” Punitive battalions and “rats” or the NKVD troops at the rear, however, served as a method of terror for those who thought of desertion or self mutilation as a way of escaping a war which meant almost a certain death. 

Freedom of speech or thought was never permitted, and political officers or politruks were attached to soldiers’ units to agitate and monitor the political correctness of their behavior. Even close friendships were looked down upon with suspicion since they could encourage spying or subversion. Letters from the front were censored. This, undoubtedly, presents a problem for scholars who want to uncover the true attitudes and thoughts of the soldiers. Mental illness, stress or post-traumatic disorders were dismissed as illegitimate health concerns. The author says that the estimates vary but “it seems likely that only a hundred thousand of the Red Army’s twenty million active service troops would eventually be counted as permanent causalities of the mind.”  

More than three million Soviet (principally Russian) prisoners of war were killed in Nazi camps, many as a result of direct acts of brutal and illegal violence.  The atrocities committed by the Soviet troops simply did not exist in the official record, although the organs of political education in the Red Army encouraged this kind of behavior and thinking. There is no doubt that the men’s actions were encouraged, if not orchestrated by Moscow. Rape was the most prevalent from the atrocities and was committed on a massive scale, most prominently in East Prussia, but “rape was a problem wherever the Red Army uncounted its enemies.”  The author sites that while thousands of German women and girls undoubtedly suffered rape at the hands of Soviet troops; the figure may well have reached hundreds of thousands.” Although rape was not the only crime that Soviet soldiers committed as they swept through Prussia. Towns were burned, officials murdered, and columns of refugees were strafed and shelled as they fled west toward Berlin. 

One of the things that Merridale does exceptionally well is place the Red Army at the center of the Stalinist regime. The Soviet Army was what it was because of state propaganda and censorship, the cruelty of punitive battalions and the state’s general disregard for the human life. She underscores the individual courage and patriotism of Soviet citizens, without which victory would have never been possible, but she also reveals the brutality of the government not only towards its own citizens but the state’s encouragement of atrocities including mass rapes and murder which the Soviet soldiers committed in the West without any apparent protest from Moscow. 

Dr. W: An excellent critique. A

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #9

Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule


Karel C. Berkhoff 

Karel C. Berkhoff’s book Harvest of Despair is a narrative history of Reichskommissariat Ukraine – Nazi Germany’s largest colony on the territory of Soviet Ukraine that had been under Soviet rule for over two decades at the time of the German invasion.  The book is a thematic and horrific account of every day life of Ukrainian peasants and urban dwellers, or more accurately the “natives” because this included other groups as well, from 1941 to roughly 1944, the time of the German retreat. By concentrating specifically on Reichskommissariat Ukraine the author is able to present the reader with a more successful and complete historical study of German occupation as opposed to lumping a diverse patchwork of historically different territories under one umbrella of “German rule.” Above all, Berkhoff’s account brings to light the unimaginable brutality and inhumanity with which the Nazi treated the local population; they exterminated most of the Jew population, they starved the Red Army POWs and city dwellers, extorted food from the peasantry and forced millions into work for the regime, among others.

Reichskommissariat Ukraine included the Right Bank Ukraine except for the pre-1939 Ukrainian territories, as well as Left Bank covering the area of Poltava as well as Southern Ukraine. One of the most horrendous crimes committed by the invading Nazi forces was almost complete extermination of the local Jewish population. Women, children and the elderly were rounded up in many cities and taken to the ghettoes where they were stripped of their clothes and shot. The ravine of Babi Yar was one of the largest and most notorious places where the mass killing of the Kiev Jewish population took place with many locals participating as auxiliary police and assisting the Nazi.  In 1942-43 the Germans murdered over 350,000 Jews in Reichskommissariat.  The Nazi also perpetrated genocide against the Roma or Gypsies.  In the wake of the massacres the outright passivity of local population is disturbing, although it is known that the Germans punished any kind of transgression by shooting people on the spot and this appears to be at least a partial explanation for the seeming indifference to the plight of the Jews.

Ethnic Russians were regarded as inferior and were also targeted for extermination, more so than the local Ukrainians. One of the reasons that the Red Army POWs were brutally treated, arbitrarily murdered and artificially starved was due to the fact that most of them were perceived to be Russian (some Ukrainians were released). A policy of artificial starvation of major cities by cutting off the outside food supply, including to Kiev is well documented. Although the expression of Ukrainian culture was permitted and the use of Ukrainian language was allowed for the official use, the Germans stopped short of allowing anything that might appeal to Ukrainian nationalism. Religion was repressed, education above the forth grade was abolished and included a ban the proliferation of Ukrainian literature, sciences and humanities. Germans used forced labor both in the Reich and in Ukraine. In June 1943 the number of those taken out of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine reached one million and together with the southern military zone this number reached 1.5 million people.  

Berkhoff’s work is very important for our understanding not only of the Holocaust, Red Army POW massacres, and mass murder and other crimes committed against the non-Jewish population in Reichskommissariat Ukraine, but it also paints a more complete picture of the brutality and assault on the local population by the both Nazi and Soviet regimes. The author makes a very clear argument that the Soviets were no better than Hitler in the way they treated, in this case, their own people. With the German invasion and the Red Army retreat, the NKVD shot prisoners en masse in prisons, industrial and farm equipment was ordered to be destroyed. Only the Communist elite was evacuated from Kiev and the rest of the citizens were abandoned to face the invaders while the city itself was rigged with mines which caused many explosions and fires days later. 

Dr. W: An excellent critique. A

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #8

The History of the Gulag

From Collectivization to the Great Terror

Oleg V. Khlevniuk

Oleg Khlevniuk’s The History of the Gulag traces the history of labor camps and, more generally, the Soviet punitive system from its formation and entrenchment in the early 1930s to the opening of the war with Germany in 1941.  The history of the Gulag cannot be separated from the history of repression and industrialization in the Soviet Union, as the state’s economy was largely propped up and subsidized by the forced labor performed by convicts in subhuman conditions. One of the author’s main arguments is the centrality of the draconian and repressive methods used in the Guglas to the Stalinist repression with which it ruled the population. The regime was not only able to eradicate the “dangerous elements” by physical liquidation and mass deportations, but also by utilizing forced labor for capital projects, as well as in various labor intensive industries mostly in Siberia and near the Arctic circle. Oleg Khlevniuk is unequivocal in his assessment of Stalin’s role in the purges and the Great Terror. His other argument is that seemingly chaotic mass repressions of the Stalinist era were in fact a series of Politburo initiated actions supported and personally overseen by Stalin.

Stalin’s policy of dekulakization and crash industrialization set the stage for the Gulag network of camps and the Soviet punitive system. In 1930-31 more than 1.8 million people were exiled.  Those resettled to special and labor settlements were housed in horrid conditions – they lived in crowded rooms, many starved to death and died from pestilence and disease. They had no warm clothes, underwear or shoes. Seventy to 75 percent of all children and 20 percent of the adults were sick and in some places mortality was as high as 25 percent.  The state had no means of supporting the exiles and forced labor was seen as something that could be extracted and used to house and clothe the exiles and prisoners in the camps, prisons and colonies. 

With the famine of 1932-33 and the campaign against the “kulaks” and those who resisted forced requisition of grain, the conditions in the camps became drastically worse. The government could not even provide food for the urban population, while at the same time due to the repressions, the camp populations grew almost by 50 percent.  The author states that by early May there were 777,000 prisoners in crowded prisons, colonies, police detention stations and jails despite previous discharges and the very high mortality rates to due to hunger and disease.  After a brief relaxation of the mid-30s the Great Terror struck with an even greater force. Order no. 00447 targeted against “kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements” mandated 268,950 arrests, out of which 72,950 individuals were to be shot.  The scale and intensity of the terror was reflected in the camp population, and the increased number of arrests in the country lead to an increase in the camp population, as well as the arbitrary killings and violations that occurred in the midst of the mass hysteria. In two years of the Great Terror, “all NKVD organs (excluding the police) arrested more than 1,600,000 people.”  Khevniuk states that after a brief relaxation and as the war loomed larger, the state has increased its reliance on forced labor and once again increased repression. 

The forced-labor sector of the economy was so substantial that it encouraged the thriftlessness and mismanagement so characteristic of the Soviet economy in general. The system did not care for those starving and dying of cold and disease in the camps. Instead they were used to build critical projects for the Soviets such as the Dmitrovsky canal, Belmorkanal, construction of the Moscow-Volga canal, the Kolyma, Ukhta and Pechora mines, among others.

The Gulag system was an important component though which the Stalinist regime controlled, terrorized and exploited the population - about 20 million were convicted in 1930-41 and about 3 million were exiled and deported.  One of the strengths of Khlevniuk’s work is his ability to explain the nature and scale of repression in the camps, its “excesses” and a relative lull, in the context or as a direct outcome of bureaucratic wrangling and turf battles between different agencies within the government. Khlevniuk makes it clear that the political climate manifested in the level of repressions was central to the policy affecting labor camps and colonies as, for example, during the Great Terror the repressive measures were greatly intensified and the number of prisoners increased significantly. 

Dr. W: A strong critique, you made many important points. There were some stylistic problems, however. A-

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #7

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

Orlando Figes

Orlando Figes’s The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia is a superbly written but heartbreaking book in which the author unveils the tragic life stories and personal struggles of people who lived and survived the horrors of the Stalinist years. Figes juxtaposes personal experiences of the generation born around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution against the political upheavals of the dekulakization, the Great Terror, the Second World War and traces some of their lives to the present day. Those who were fortunate enough to survive the terror and the destitute of Stalinism were mentally and sometimes physically scarred for the rest of their lives. They lived in fear and often concealed their past even from their loved ones in order to protect them and give them a chance to adapt and survive in the Soviet system. 

Through out the book the author traces life stories of individuals and families such as Elizaveta Drabkina, Anatoly and Liuba Golovnia, the Laskins, the Simonov, the Golovins, the Buhuevs and many others. Through reconstructing their backgrounds and events that took place in their lives, their attitudes and beliefs, actions that they took, letters and poems that they wrote the authors paints a picture of the times not only of that took place in the Soviet Union directed from above but also how the ordinary and not so ordinary people have been affected by it and how they have responded. For example, the Laskins and the Golovins have survived and stayed a close knit family despite all the hardships they have endured. 

Some were not so fortunate. The whole generation of children whose parents disappeared in the purges was brought up in orphanages, by grandparents, distant relatives or strangers as in the case of the Goldenshteins. Some had to work from the early age and fend for themselves as did Marksena Karpitskaya after her parents were arrested and her brother taken away. These events were undoubtedly traumatic for the victims. Some believed that their relatives were in fact guilty of opposing the regimes, but most believed in their innocence. Those brought up by relatives preserved the centrality of the family and the memory of their parents, but many of less fortunate who were taken by the state were often morphed into new Soviet citizens – it was a policy in children’s homes to remold them by erasing their original identity. 

Kulaks’ children fear of expulsion was frequently reflected in a desperate urge to prove themselves as “Soviet citizens” by distancing themselves from their families and many ended up as ardent Stalinists and even made careers for themselves by joining the repressive organs of the state. Orlando Figes underscores that fear was only one of a number of contradictory impulses and emotions. Passivity, the desire to withdraw, shame, inferiority, which could give in the same person to both a secret hatred of the Soviet regime and a will to overcome one’s stigma by demonstrating devotion to the Soviet cause.  

The author places Konstantin Simonov at the center of his book and traces his life and his convictions though out the period of Stalinism and up to his death in 1979. Simonov was the famous Soviet poet and decorated war journalist, famous for his poem “Wait for Me” and other works not only in the U.S.S.R. but also in the West. His blind devotion to the regime and its cause is often filled with self-doubt and remorse as he lives through the ebb and flow of the Soviet system and reflects on his life. 

Figes’s book is such a powerful account of private life in Stalinist Russia not only because of the breadth of research he presents and the way he brings to light the extent of human suffering that took place, but also because he does such a superb job of placing historical events as the backdrop for his narrative. In his discussion of the Great Terror, Figes makes it clear that Stalin was the mastermind of the terror and that the regime made a conscious effort to arrest at least 1.3 million people, almost 700,000 of which were shot.  His attempt to explain the motives and the inner world of those who carried out and believed in the regime– Gulag guards who shot and imprisoned people, those who denounced kulaks as Kolya Kuzmin did, and Simonov who attacked some of his colleagues and continued to support Stalinism – is extremely valuable and insightful. 

Dr. W: An excellent critique. A

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #6

The Voices of the Dead: Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930

Hiroaki Kuromiya

Hiroaki Kuromiya’s The Voices of the Dead is a work about the Great Terror in Ukraine that traces the life stories and fates of ordinary citizens who were arrested and interrogated by the NKVD in 1937-38. The book reveals the sheer brutality of the regime expressed in the methods used and the speed at which it moved to eradicate those it deemed undesirable or suspect. Through the examined personal case files the author shows the totality of the terror; individuals with links to foreign countries or nationals, ethnic minorities, priests and their families, former privileged classes, fugitives and de-kulakized peasants, marginal people such as the poor and unemployed, and those who were suspected of Ukrainian or any other nationalism were targeted.  However, anyone could be implicated and arrested for “anti-Soviet agitation,” “counter-revolutionary activity,” or espionage. Witness depositions, and the interrogation records themselves were almost always manipulated and confessions extracted or falsified by the NKVD.

Kuromiya’s focus is on the less studied and perhaps less known aspect of the terror – individual case files and what they reveal about the victims and the psyche of the Stalinist system. His goal is to give these victims a voice – in most cases their families and relatives have long since disappeared and the vestiges of their existence have been effaced and their memory forgotten.  Almost all the cases examined in the book come from Kiev as today Ukraine allows greater access to information pertaining to the NKVD records than does Russia.  Nonetheless, the pattern of the Great Terror violence in Ukraine, during which 700,000  or so people were sentenced to be executed for political reasons in the entire Soviet Union, is not noticeably different from the rest of the country in numerical terms.  In Kiev in 1937-1938, according to the available data, 3,555 people were sentenced by the extra-judiciary tribunals (troika or dvoika).  Almost always executions were carried out a few days after sentencing, which became mere rubber-stamping, usually taking no more than a few minutes.  Executions usually took place in a basement or execution chamber of the prisons between 11 p.m. and midnight, carried out by a bullet to the nape of the neck.  Then the bodies were loaded in a truck and buried in mass graves in Bykivnia on the outskirts of Kiev.  Some were rehabilitated in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but the government still lied about their cause of death. Most victims were rehabilitated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and in almost all cases no living relatives could be located. 

During the Great Terror anybody could be denounced and arrested for anti-Soviet 

behavior such as making a political joke or complaining about the quality of life, and there are plenty of cases where innocent people were arrested and executed under such pretext. Kuromiya, however, demonstrates the fatality of the situation of those who happened to have foreign connection either through coming in contact with foreigners, having relatives or being born abroad, or simply being of Polish, German, Romanian, Greek, Korean, Japanese or other descent. Because of the shifting borders and mass migration that occurred as a result of the collapse of the Russian empire and World War I, many citizens fell into this category. With the increased paranoia of espionage, political opposition and subversion this group was extremely vulnerable during the Great Terror. The author demonstrates, however, that fake accusations supported by fraudulent denouncements could be mounted against anybody that the regime wanted to eliminate (priests, nationalists, having the wrong last name, etc.)

By closely studying the cases presented Kuromiya shows that guilt did not need to be proven. The accused were often tortured and forced to confess. If they did not, their confessions were often faked. Some hoped to save themselves by being firm and denying their guilt, but many thought that partial confession would save them. Ultimately it really did not matter; only when the Great Terror wound down to its end did its severity and absurdness subside. 

Kuromiya’s work is invaluable in his attempt to give voice to those ordinary innocent men and women who where caught and perished in the eye of the storm by sheer chance often because they were born in the wrong place or found themselves in the wrong situation at the wrong time. He shines a light on an often forgotten part of history and exposes the brutality and absurdity of a system that had no respect for the sanctity of human life. 

Dr. w: An excellent critique. It is also very well written. A

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #5

Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin

The Social Dynamics of Repression

Wendy Z. Goldman

Wendy Z. Goldman’s Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin shines the light on our understanding of the Great Terror of 1937-38 from bottom up focusing on the human agency and how it contributed to the devastation and ultimately the devouring of the mid- to high- level party cadres and workers’ unions. She argues that Stalin’s encouragement of the mass criticism and assault on regional party leaders, managers, and unions by the rank-and-file – the so called democracy – bears the dictator’s clear intent to exterminate the remnants of political opposition. This dynamic between party leaders and their “family circles,” the unions, the NKVD, and the workers as well as the free-for-all and the mass frenzy of denunciations and self-preservation was critical to the all-encompassing spread and participation in the terror that engulfed the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

 Goldman focuses her examination on the relationship between the unions and the workers during the terror largely on heavy industrial enterprises and textile factories, though smaller shops are also mentioned. Because of the duress of the forced collectivization and mass industrialization drive as well as an economic collapse characterized by chronic shortages of consumer goods, housing, and food, workers lived and worked in appalling conditions. Fatal accidents and death from the toxic environment and pestilence in factories was common place. 

Goldman writes that with the Kirov murder and the opposition trials the paranoia surrounding Stalin and the highest echelons of party heightened. Stalin never believed that the Trotskyites were completely eliminated, but instead he thought they was dispersed and hidden among the middle level managers and cadres. Industrial accidents were common, but the party leadership scapegoated them on the opposition and its many “ever-present agents” that were trying to “wreck” and sabotage socialist progress. Given the widespread discontent and rumbling among the starving masses and their knowledge about the devastation and famine in the countryside due to the forced collectivization, Stalin unleashed terror that not only eliminated his enemies at the top, but also targeted workers’ union organization and the mid level party officials as he was concerned for the survival of the regime and growing discontent.

Because of the undemocratic structure of the Communist party, powerful fiefdoms of middle managers and union officials have emerged with their entrenched allies and networks of patronage. In an effort to dismantle this structure and eliminate the opposition, during the Central Committee Plenum of February-March 1937 Stalin proposed to mobilize the rank-and-file by organized secret-ballot elections within unions. The author argues that because of the relative democracy (although opinions critical of the government were never permitted), the workers’ ability to elect their party committees and union members as well as the regimes scapegoating of wreckers encouraged and created the atmosphere of a denunciation frenzy and a witch-hunt atmosphere. Since the party used denunciations as a method to uncover opposition and thought there was a secret ring of Trotskyites anyone who could be linked to the denounced, anybody with questionable social origins, links to the opposition even if he or she had renounced, or anybody with connections to already arrested people was in danger of being denounced. Factory foremen and managers were at risk of being denounced by the rank-and-file for industrial wrecking. Such conditions guaranteed that nobody was safe and this created an atmosphere of hysteria, panic and pre-emptive denounciations.

Wendy Goldman does an excellent job of presenting the context of the democracy-terror paradigm by explaining the socio-economic conditions and the political climate of the time that was conducive to such an outcome. Aside from doing a good job by explaining how the secret ballot and democratic voting on the union level coexisted with the terror, I think her argument of its actual impact or contribution to the terror is weak since it appears that denounciations were motivated by personal reasons of surviaval and were not directly linked to the outcome of elections in the factories since she argues they did not make much of a impact beyond the immediate level of factories.

Dr. W: A strong critique despite the minor stylistic problems. A-

Stalinist Russia Grad Class Papers #4

The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939

J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov

In The Road to Terror Arch J. Getty looks at the “apex of the pyramid” of the Communist leadership in 1932-1939 by examining recently declassified archival materials and other sources pertaining to policy making and implementation as well as the  general political environment during the purges and the Great Terror in the Soviet Union. The author’s goal is to understand the larger picture of the terror and, perhaps, most importantly to answer the big question: “How was all this possible?” He contends that even though Stalin was the main architect of the terror, he must be considered in conjunction with other factors: the siege mentality of the Bolsheviks as well as the elite’s fears for their position. Most importantly the documentary evidence suggests that the dichotomy between legalism and repression in the 1930s points to the ad hoc nature of the Stalinist policies - there is no direct evidence for the existence of a “moderate” or “radical” faction in the Central Committee. 

Arch J. Getty draws his arguments about the terror based on a large variety of documents - speeches, memos, laws, degrees and executive orders, resolutions, resumes, and even suicide notes. Unfortunately, even this breadth of information does not provide us with specific answers about the horrors unleashed by the party in the 1930s. 

In the aftermath of the brutality of collectivization and with the creation of the USSR Procuracy and the formulation of the NKVD in 1933-1934, it seemed like the country was finally moving in the direction of reduced repressions. Moreover, in the Central Committee decree of 8 May 1933 halting mass arrests Stalin declared that “we are no longer in need of mass repression” and criticized arbitrary arrests while at the same time stating that the class struggle was still ongoing.  Because of the dangerous “new situation” in 1932 that threatened the survival of the regime, the purge of 1933 was seen by the leadership not as a prelude to the Great Terror but rather as a survival mechanism for the nomenklatura.  The Kirov murder in 1934 played a role in unleashing the subsequent wave of terror which resulted in a witch-hunt atmosphere and the show trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Most historians today think that Stalin was not behind the assassination or in any way connected to it and thus the terror that resulted was largely unplanned.

The Red Terror of 1937, like its predecessors, reflected a deep-seated insecurity and fear of the regime as well as an inability to identify its precise enemies.  The NKVD archival documents show wholesale unabashed brutality of the Stalinist rule with hysteria, spy-mania, and xenophobia reaching new heights.  The Terror of 1938, however, hit some groups much harder than others,  and the government used the power of the NKVD to destroy the regional secretaries both politically and physically.  But because this threatened the very survival of the party, once gain, the regime did a volte-face and exonerated cadres; “large numbers of expelled members were readmitted and recruitment of new members began for the first time sine 1933.”  With Yezhov’s fall in 1938, Vyshinsky’s legalism gained an upper hand - although never criticizing the terror he made “suggestions aimed at controlling, regularizing, and even limiting it.”  Curiously, despite the relaxation, the numbers in camps continued to increase until Stalin’s death in 1953. 

There is no evidence pointing to a rift or an opposition to the Stalinist policies. However a form of discourse might have occurred within the Central Committee, but given the “Stalinist penchant for party discipline and unity”  it is not surprising that it never found its way into the documentary record.  Aside from Stalin’s role, Getty explains the politics of the 1930s as an evolving political history in which self-interested persons and groups jockeyed for position. 

Though looking at the big picture through the documents by and large produced in the highest echelons of power, the author nonetheless presents a zoomed in view of individual fates from heavyweights such as Nikolai Bukharin and Nikolai Yezhov to Alexander Tivel and political prisoners in the GULAG.  This book is an excellent source for the students of the Stalinist period as it presents a breadth of archival documents that shine light on the degree of human cost and suffering as well as on the complexity of the politics and policy behind the purges of the 1930s.

Dr. W: An excellent critique. A