Sovietisation And Violence

The first volume of the Proceedings of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, entitled Sovietisation and Violence: The Case of Estonia, contains articles by members of the Institute's research team and historians associated with the Institute of Historical Memory, some of which have been published previously in Estonian. These articles focus primarily on the most violent period of the era of Soviet occupation, the latter half of the 1940s and the early 1950s, when tens of thousands from Estonia's population numbering only one million were imprisoned for political reasons or deported from Estonia. These articles do not focus exclusively on overt political terror, including the deportation of March, 1949, rather they also examine more theoretical questions. They consider the policies of the Soviet Union's central authorities in the newly occupied countries, along with other questions such as the taxation of farmers at rates that exceeded their means in order to force them into collective farms, and the use and exploitation of the recent past for propagandistic aims in the form of historical texts published by Soviet State Security. The world-famous researcher of the history of Eastern Europe and member of the Learned Committee of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, Stanford University Professor Norman M. Naimark, has written the preface.

The author's father, a civil engineer, left Poland for the Soviet Union in 1931. An idealistic communist, he believed it was his duty to emigrate, and to contribute to the building of a new society. His wife and his infant son followed soon after. In 1938 he was arrested and sent to a GULAG camp in Kolyma, where he became a slave in Stalin's state of proletarian dictatorship. Two years later he died, most likely from exhaustion, working in a gold mine. In this book The author, who is a retired physics professor (Professor Emeritus at Montclair State University, New Jersey), shares what he knows and thinks about Stalinism. Educated in the Soviet Union (elementary school), in Poland (high school and master's degree) and in France (Ph.D. in nuclear physics), he came to the United States in 1964. He deliberately avoided talking about Stalinism and concentrated on professional activities--teaching and research. Approaching retirement, however, he wrote an essay on Stalinism entitled "Alaska Notes." It describes the gruesome Soviet reality, focusing on Kolyma, and on Stalin's inner circle. The essay contained comments on what has been published by some survivors of Stalinism, and by authors of several scholarly books, such as Leszek Kolakowski. "Alaska Notes" was posted on the Internet discussion list at Montclair State University. This public forum revealed a wide range of opinions about communism. The animated discussion, mostly among professors, convinced the author to transform the essay into this book. It is dedicated to all victims of Stalinism, and in particular to the author's father, a naive idealist deceived by propaganda. Royalties will be donated to a Montclair State Universityscholarship fund.

Stalin's Terror of the 1930s has long been a popular subject for historians. However, while for decades, historians were locked in a narrow debate about the degree of central control over the terror process, recent archival research is underpinning new, innovative approaches and opening new perspectives. Historians have begun to explore the roots of the Terror in the heritage of war and mass repression in the late Imperial and early Soviet periods; in the regime's focus not just on former 'oppositionists', wreckers and saboteurs, but also on crime and social disorder; and in the common European concern to identify and isolate 'undesirable' elements. Recent studies have examined in much greater depth and detail the precipitants and triggers that turned a determination to protect the Revolution into a ferocious mass repression. The Anatomy of Terror is an edited volume which brings together the work of the leading historians in the field, presenting not only the latest developments in the subject, but also the latest evolution of the debate. The sixteen chapters are divided into eight themes, with some themes reflecting the diversity of sources, methodologies and angles of approach, others showing stark differences of opinion. This opens up the field of study to further research, and this volume will proof indispensable for historians of political violence and of the era of Stalinist Terror.

An international group of historians present case studies on the use and types of physical violence in the USSR and its European satellite states after the death of Joseph Stalin. Contributors present novel insights into the motives and nature of physical violence--both in the public and private realms--during the last decades of state socialism.

Mark Solonin is a Russian aviation engineer and historian. He was born in Kuybyshev (now Samara) on 29 May 1958. The problem with history is that it changes, depending on who is writing it and for whom it is being written. As the hackneyed phrase goes: "History is written by the victors". A subtler rephrasing has it that "the vanquished are the ones who are guilty of treason, even by the historians." Sometimes, however, many parties feel that certain historical events are best forgotten, the facts being too awful and the conclusions too dire to face. This was certainly the case with the history of the Red Army's advance through Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. This was the most massive ethnic cleansing ever performed. Between 1944 and 1950, through terror and starvation, 12-14 million ethnic Germans were driven from their eastern homelands with a death toll so large and chaotic that it can only be estimated between 600 thousand and 2 million. The Western Allies preferred not to know so as to avoid being sullied by the crimes. The Soviets, who never had their Nuremburg for this or other doings, most certainly were not ready to face the matter and never have. "It was a long time ago and it never happened anyway." This short book was written by Mark Solonin in 2009 and is possibly the first book written by a Russian historian as a polemic for Russian readers to face facts and discover one can still live -and live better- with awkward knowledge. It is a remarkable work and should be useful to Western readers who also need to face the fact that we here allowed these matters to swept under the carpet as well. Mark Solonin is the author of several best-selling books in Russian that freshly analyse the history of the Second World War (the Soviet Great Patriotic War). As a result, he now finds himself obliged for his personal safety to live in exile.

This special issue deals with the phenomenon of violence in the post-Soviet space. It examines both political and legal discourses and practices of internal and external violence, broadly conceived, simultaneously aspiring to situate them in the broader literature on political violence and ethnic and separatist conflict, and to examine these from political, legal, and security studies perspectives. The issue approaches the problem of violence in the post-Soviet space from three perspectives: international-structural, inter-state, and domestic-political. The contributors focus on structural sources of violence, such as the relevance of the self-determination principle, the role of democratization, and the relationship between violent behavior inside and outside the state. They also analyze the role of the Russian Federation in generating, perpetuating, and mitigating political violence. Finally, they adopt a bottom-up approach, exploring how non-state actors contribute to political violence.

This special issue deals with the phenomenon of violence in the post-Soviet space. It examines both political and legal discourses and practices of internal and external violence, broadly conceived, simultaneously aspiring to situate them in the broader literature on political violence and ethnic and separatist conflict, and to examine these from political, legal, and security studies perspectives. The issue approaches the problem of violence in the post-Soviet space from three perspectives: international-structural, inter-state, and domestic-political. The contributors focus on structural sources of violence, such as the relevance of the self-determination principle, the role of democratization, and the relationship between violent behavior inside and outside the state. They also analyze the role of the Russian Federation in generating, perpetuating, and mitigating political violence. Finally, they adopt a bottom-up approach, exploring how non-state actors contribute to political violence.

Examining Stalin's reign of terror, this text argues that the Soviet people were not simply victims but also actors in the violence, criticisms and local decisions of the 1930s. It suggests that more believed in Stalin's quest to eliminate internal enemies than were frightened by it.