Research Catalog

Stalinist confessions : messianism and terror at the Leningrad Communist University / Igal Halfin.

Title: Stalinist confessions : messianism and terror at the Leningrad Communist University / Igal Halfin.
Author: Halfin, Igal
Publication: Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, c2009.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	LC178.S65 H35 2009	Off-site

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Details

Description

vii, 485 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

During Stalin's Great Terror, accusations of treason led to lengthy imprisonment or firing squads. Many of the accused agreed to confessions after torture or interrogation by the NKVD. Some gave up without a fight. This book investigates the phenomenon of a mass surrender to the will of the state. It deciphers the discourse through which Stalin defined his cult of personality and consolidated his power by building a grassroots base of support and instilling a collective psyche in every citizen. By rooting out evil (opposition) wherever it hid, good communists could realize purity, morality, and their place in the greatest society in history. Confessing to trumped-up charges, comrades made willing sacrifices to their belief in socialism and the necessity of finding and making examples of its enemies. The book focuses on Leningrad Communist University as a microcosm of Soviet society. Here, students proved their loyalty to the new socialism by uncovering opposition within the University. Through their meetings and self-reports, students sought to become Stalin's New Man. The author examines the transformation in the language of Stalinist socialism from an initial attitude that dismissed dissent as an error in judgment and redeemable through contrition to a doctrine where members of the opposition became innately wicked and their reform impossible.

Series Statement

Pitt series in Russian and East European studies

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books
ebrary.
Series in Russian and East European studies

Subject

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

Introduction: The Revolution devours its children -- The winds of purge -- The NKVD and the extraction of confessions -- Pandemonium at Communist University -- Messianic times -- The final curtain -- Epilogue: The truth of sacrifice.

ISBN

9780822943679 (cloth : alk. paper)
0822943670 (cloth : alk. paper)
9780822960164 (pbk. : alk. paper)
0822960168 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2009009147

OCLC

297144833
SCSB-11524704

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library