Seminar 10

The Culture of Violence and the ‘Great Terror’

Is the culture of violence innate to Bolshevism?

What were the objectives of the terror?

How did society react to the terror?
Who were the victims of the Great Terror?

PPT

Source

Getty/Naumov, The Road to Terror, pp. 468-490

Essential Reading

Getty, J. Arch, ‘The Politics of Repression Revisited’, in Getty, J. Arch and Roberta T. Manning (eds), Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 40-62.

Khlevnyuk, Oleg, ‘The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-8’, in Read (ed.), The Stalin Years, pp. 104-119.

Kuromiya H. 'Communism, Violence and TerrorLink opens in a new window', in: Pons, Silvio and Smith, Stephen A., (ed.) The Cambridge History of Communism (Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 279-303.

Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, read pp. 190-217 (= Chapter 8: A Time of Troubles); if you happen to have a bit of time also these chapters are of interest: pp. 115-138 (= Chapter 5: Insulted and Injured), pp. 164-189 (= Chapter 7: Conversations and Listeners), . Electronic copy in library

Additional Reading

Nove, Alec, ‘Victims of Stalinism: How many? in Getty/Manning, Stalinist Terror, pp. 261-274. LEARNING GRID UNIVERSITY HOUSE

Applebaum, Anne, The GULag. A History

Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism, pp. 164-189 (= Chapter 7: Conversations and Listeners).

Fitzpatrick, Sheila, ‘How the Mice Buried the Cat: Scenes from the Great Purges of 1937 in the Russian Provinces,’ Russian Review, 52 (1993), pp. 299-320 [in Ward, The Stalinist Dictatorship, pp. 277-302 or in Read, The Stalin Years, pp. 121-144].

Getty/Naumov, The Road to Terror, pp. 364-419.

Thurston, Robert, ‘The Stakhanovite Movement: The Background to the Great Terror in the Factories, 1935-1938’, in Getty/Manning, Stalinist Terror, pp. 142-160

Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, pp. 280-354 [= Chapter 7]

Getty, J. Arch and Roberta T. Manning (eds), Stalinist Terror. New Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993)

Getty, J. Arch, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 (Cambridge, 1985)

Rittersporn, Gabor T., ‘The omnipresent conspiracy: on Soviet imagery of politics and social relations in the 1930s’, in Ward, The Stalinist Dictatorship, pp. 260-277.

Ilič, Melanie (eds), Stalin’s Terror Revisited (Houndmills, 2006)

Conquest, Robert, The Great Terror (Harmondsworth, Mx, 1971).

Conquest, Robert, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (New York, 1990)

Harris, James R., ‘The Purging of Local Cliques in the Urals Region, 1937-37’, in Fitzpatrick, Stalinism: New Directions, pp. 262-285

Solshenitsyn, Aleksandr I., The Gulag Archipelago I-II (New York, 1974)

Ginzburg, Eugenia, Journey into the Whirlwind (New York, 1967) – memoir

Rybakov, Anatoli, Fear (Boston, Mass., 1992) – novel

Trifonov, Yuri, House on the Embankment (New York, 1983) – novella

Weisberg, Alex, Conspiracy of Silence (London, 1952) – memoir

Stalinist Labour Camps, online exhibition
http://www.osa.ceu.hu/gulag/index.html

The Ukrainian Famine
http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/

Report of Court Proceedings against Kamenev, Zinovev et al, 19-24, 1936
http://art-bin.com/art/omoscowtoc.html