Research Essay: Stalin's Terror

One of the most difficult periods of Soviet history to comprehend and one of the most complex and controversial, is the period of mid-1930s, when the Stalinist regime subjected the Soviet population and especially the Communist party, to unprecedented levels of violence. The horrifying events from 1935-1938 led to total destruction of the Leninist party. Why did Stalin elect to pursue such policy against the party over which he enjoyed almost total control? Why did he resort to such brutal and merciless cruelty?

Wrestling with Aspects of Interwar Stalinism, 2024

This essay addresses several issues regarding interwar Soviet history, including how western researchers label mass repression. It also discusses the fact that Leon Trotsky and Lev Sedov lied about their relations to several defendants in the August 1936 trial and how their lies challenge us to re-think certain assumptions about the trial and onset of mass repression.

This is the English version of the chapter published in Russian.

2005

Abstract The paper considers how a number of features of Stalin's rule that appear most pointless or counter–productive from a present day standpoint, summed up as “futile repression”, can be understood as the rational choices of a dictator optimising his regime. The same reasoning may be applied to those aspects of Stalin's legacy that are most commonly seen as positive, such as the industrial and military policies that saved his country in World War II.

Europe-asia Studies, 2004

Canadian Slavonic papers, 2015

Despite the fact that more than 60 years have passed since the death of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the USSR from 1922 to 1953, the memory of him remains alive. For several years running Stalin has topped the ranking of the most remarkable figures in Russia's history. Portraits of him appear at political demonstrations and religious events; new monuments to the dictator are erected. The Kremlin's official rhetoric increasingly refers to the positive aspects of the Soviet era, in particular to the victory in World War II. Representatives of the state's administration and the Orthodox Church have been making favourable comments about Stalin. However, Stalin's popularity among society in today's Russia is rather superficial – Russians know little about the dictator and his life; they are rather nostalgic about the period of his rule and the achievements of his era. The image of the Soviet dictator as an outstanding leader is blended with Russians' individual memories of repression and terror which affected almost every Russian family. These reminiscences however do not penetrate the public sphere at the mass level, which makes it possible for the state's narrative to dominate it. The Krem-lin has exploited the ambivalent and superficial attitude which Russians have to Stalin. Even though it does not glorify him, it allows for his social cult to develop, and contributes to it by selectively emphasising the positive aspects of the leader's actions and by mythologising his image. The Kremlin has been legitimising its power based on politics of memory, generating controlled divisions in society and mobilising its proponents. On the other hand, the government has made it more difficult to draw attention to the murderous nature of Stalin's actions. Any criticism of him (from Russian citizens and civil society organisations as well as the international community) is seen as an attack on contemporary Russia and its present government which presents itself as the heir to the USSR's and Stalin's accomplishments and victories.

2005

Journal of Labor and Society, 2017

This article outlines the causes of the mass repressions of 1937-1938 in the Soviet Union. Primarysource evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that these repressions were the result of anti-Stalin conspiracies by two groups, which overlapped somewhat: the political Opposition of supporters of Grigorii Zinoviev, of Trotskyists, of Rightists (Bukharin, Rykov, and their adherents); and of military men (Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and others); and high-ranking Party leaders, nominally supporters of Stalin, who opposed the democratic aspects of the "Stalin" Constitution of 1936. It discusses Stalin's struggle for democratic reform and its defeat. The prevailing "anti-Stalin paradigm" of Soviet history is exposed as the reason mainstream scholarship has failed to understand the mass repressions, misnamed "Great Terror." It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party's Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e.,70 per cent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-1938).. .. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes.. .. Now, when the cases of some of these so-called "spies" and "saboteurs" were examined, it was found that all their cases were fabricated. Confessions of guilt of many arrested and charged with enemy activity were gained with the help of cruel and inhuman tortures.

H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences, 2021

How does one make sense of Stalin and Stalinism? This question has been at the heart of heated debates for decades, not only within Western scholarship of Soviet history, but more importantly, within contemporary historiographical debates in Russia and other post-Soviet countries (in particular, Georgia). As editors James Ryan and Susan Grant note in the introduction of this volume, quoting from no less a figure than Nikita Khrushchev, the legacy of Stalin is "complicated" (p. 3). Moreover, as historian David Hoffmann wrote, "for students of Soviet history, no problem looms larger than that of Stalinism" (quoted, p. 7). The current volume seeks to further unpack this "Stalin enigma," challenging the commonly held assumptions and narratives about the Soviet dictator and his regime through new archival re

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2019

In the present article, I attempt to bring to light the particularities of Stalinist wartime criminal justice via the example of the implementation of the most “popular” article of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic [RSFSR] Criminal Code on “counterrevolutionary crimes,” Article 58-10, regarding propaganda or agitation containing a call to overthrow, undermine, or weaken Soviet power or to commit specific counterrevolutionary crimes. In my view, counterrevolutionary crime cases most clearly demonstrate both the continuity of Stalinist criminal justice from the period of the 1930s and its evolution under the influence of the realities of war. Above all, the penal policies and judicial practices of the beginning of the war are in many regards reminiscent of the Great Terror, even though in absolute numbers the scale of repression was significantly smaller.

2020

What is really behind the growing popularity of Stalin in contemporary Russia? The article discusses different expressions of what has been termed a new "Stalin cult" or "Stalin renaissance" in Russian public and political discourse today, despite widespread knowledge and official acknowledgment of Stalinist mass crimes. It argues that short of constituting a rehabilitation of Stalinism, this phenomenon primarily reflects on people's desire for stability and order.