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The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
From the award-winning author of A People’s Tragedy and Natasha’s Dance, a landmark account of what private life was like for Russians in the worst years of Soviet repression There have been many accounts of the public aspects of Stalin’s dictatorship: the arrests and trials, the enslavement and killing in the gulags. No previous book, however, has explored the regime’s effect on people’s personal lives, what one historian called “the Stalinism that entered into all of us.” Now, drawing on a huge collection of newly discovered documents, The Whisperers reveals for the first time the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens as they struggled to survive amidst the mistrust, fear, compromises, and betrayals that pervaded their existence. Moving from the Revolution of 1917 to the death of Stalin and beyond, Orlando Figes re-creates the moral maze in which Russians found themselves, where one wrong turn could destroy a family or, perversely, end up saving it. He brings us inside cramped communal apartments, where minor squabbles could lead to fatal denunciations; he examines the Communist faithful, who often rationalized even their own arrest as a case of mistaken identity; and he casts a humanizing light on informers, demonstrating how, in a repressive system, anyone could easily become a collaborator.
A vast panoramic portrait of a society in which everyone spoke in whispers—whether to protect their families and friends, or to inform upon them—The Whisperers is a gripping account of lives lived in impossible times.
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Price: $20.00
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Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s
Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by a leading authority on modern Russian history. Focusing on the urban population, Fitzpatrick depicts a world of privation, overcrowding, endless lines, and broken homes, in which the regime's promises of future socialist abundance rang hollowly. We read of a government bureaucracy that often turned life into a nightmare, and of how ordinary citizens tried to circumvent it. We also read of the secret police, whose constant surveillance was endemic at this time, and the waves of terror, like the Great Purges of 1937, which periodically cast society into turmoil..
Price: $12.85
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Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization
This study is the first of its kind: a street-level inside account of what Stalinism meant to the masses of ordinary people who lived it. Stephen Kotkin was the first American in 45 years to be allowed into Magnitogorsk, a city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the predominantly agricultural nation into a "country of metal." With unique access to previously untapped archives and interviews, Kotkin forges a vivid and compelling account of the impact of industrialization on a single urban community. Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the substance of this fascinating story. Kotkin tells it deftly, with a remarkable understanding of the social and political system, as well as a keen instinct for the details of everyday life. Kotkin depicts a whole range of life: from the blast furnace workers who labored in the enormous iron and steel plant, to the families who struggled with the shortage of housing and services. Thematically organized and closely focused, Magnetic Mountain signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of Soviet social history..
Price: $31.58
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Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison
An internationally distinguished team of historians of Nazism and Stalinism provide a summary of the most up-to-date research and offer new perspectives on issues linking the two most terrible dictatorships of modernity. Three selected themes are explored: the leadership cults of Hitler and Stalin; the "war machines" engaged in the deadly clash of 1941 to 1945; and the ways in which interpretations of the past have shifted in Germany and Russia since the demise of the dictatorships..
Price: $25.72
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Stalinism as a Way of Life
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From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945
Bringing together a wealth of historical documents, memoirs, essays, and literature from Eastern Europe, this highly successful book vividly illustrates how the most original and challenging minds of the region have understood and reacted to Stanlinism and its successors since the end of the Second World War, ultimately showing how Eastern Europeans have made the journey from Stalinism to a new pluralism. The book creates a rich mosaic of political and historical development in these countries, presenting extracts from the works of Leszek Kolakowski, Czeslaw Milosz, Milovan Djilas, George Lukacs, Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and George Konrad alongside such seminal primary documents as the Yalta Agreement, the Helsinki Accords, and the Gdansk Agreement. Organized chronologically and thematically, a fifth chapter, entitled After the Fall, has been added to create a completely updated and expanded second edition. The new edition covers the critical events attending the rise of Stalinism and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Four new readings on the collapse of Yugoslavia into civil war, as well as close to fifty other documents make this reader the most comprehensive and up-to-date textbook on the history and politics of Eastern Europe since the end of World War II..
Price: $23.00
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Stalin & Stalinism (3rd Edition) (Seminar Studies in History Series)
One of the most successful and lethal dictators of the twentieth century, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a modern industrial state. While he demonstrated Russia's huge potential if harnessed correctly, Stalin's brand of coercive socialism sent millions to their deaths in the process. Updated to incorporate the most recent research the new edition in the Seminar Studies in History Series provides an accessible and important introduction to the Stalin phenomenon. Written by Martin McCauley, a leading authority on Russia and Eastern Europe, this new third edition includes a completely new chapter, Stalin: Personality and Power, which provides additional information about the man himself The author brings this best selling volume completely up-to-date, with existing chapters revised to include the latest information and debates. Additional documents have been added which graphically demonstrate the massive cost of the Stalin dictatorship to Soviet citizens For readers interested in the history of the Soviet Union.
Price: $15.50
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