Stalin's Terror Revisited by Melanie Ilič (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS l6l place to drink cocktails. One of itskey functionswas to convey normality at a time of reconstruction. Various identitieswere found here ranging from official representations of power, demobilized returnees, black marketers, prostitutes and younger stiliagi who were criticized in the press as bohemians and nihilists. The concluding chapter by Sheila Fitzpatrick sets late Stalinism inhistorical perspective. She tracks from when Soviet totalitarianism was viewed by many academics as a 'seamless whole extending from the late 1920s until 1953' (p. 269) through thegreater attention to theUSSR during theCold War years to the recent past when rich archives for the post-war period were finally opened. Fitzpatrick observes how thewar became the 'cornerstone of Soviet patriotism' as the cult of war 'increasingly encroached' on the status of the Revolution as 'foundingmyth' (p. 272). Her thesis is that utopianism after the war was on the wane, but that for most citizens 'being Soviet was easy' (p. 272) ? particularly for thosewho had fought. For suspected collaborators, however, this was not the case. Fitzpatrick also examines the complexities of post-war antisemitism, both official and popular, which itselfwould have made a solid chapter in expanded form. Overall this is a handy volume, drawing together diverse but interrelated material, deepening our knowledge of thepost-war years. Itmight have made more organizational sense to put Fitzpatrick's chapter after Fiirst's introduc tion since it, too, sets the scene and only tiptoes at the end into the post Stalin years, but this is a minor point. Itwould also be unkind to note which range of topics one would additionally like to have seen here, since omissions are always inevitable and much depends upon what scholars are actually researching. What is certain is thatmuch more welcome work on this and other periods will follow. Hughes Hall Mary Buckley UniversityofCambridge Ilic, Melanie (ed.). Stalin's Terror Revisited. Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2006. xvii + 236 pp. Glossary. Tables. Figures. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. ?45.00. When the Soviet archives firstopened their doors to foreign scholars in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Stalin's 'Great Terror' was one of the most impor tant and exciting areas of research. A desire to understand the purges drove a new generation of historians that included J. Arch Getty, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Roberta Manning, Gabor Rittersporn, soon to be collectively labelled the 'revisionists'. Over the last decade or so scholars have gone in somewhat new directions: on the one hand we have seen a desire to branch out into other periods of Soviet history (particularly the post-war years); on the other, there has been an attempt to focus less on thepolitical structures of theTerror and more on the mentalities and beliefs thatmade terror possible (as demon stratedby thework of Stephen Kotkin, Igal Halfin andjochen Hellbeck). This l62 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2009 is not to say, however, that the political processes that directed the Terror, nor indeed its impact, have been the subject of definitive analysis. Melanie Die's volume thus offersa timely return to some of the key issues raised by the revisionists: what were the causal factors behind the Terror? What was the impact of terror on the system itself? And who exacdy were the victims? A collaboration by British,Korean, Russian and Ukrainian scholars, this collec tion offersdetailed archival study of theway the repressivemachinery worked, with a particular emphasis on its regional impact. Broadly speaking, the volume falls into two halves. The first four articles explore different aspects of the political system that both created theTerror and suffered its impact. In an excellent opening chapter, R. W. Davies challenges earlier claims that the decision to orchestrate show-trials in 1936 can be explained in terms of economic downturn, instead suggesting thatmost sectors of industrydid not experience a decline until after the escalation of terrorhad begun. Following on from this,Oleg Khlevnyuk's second chapter puts forward an alternative explanation, one based on political rather than economic factors: in launching the terror, Khlevnyuk argues, Stalin wanted to build a base of support for his personal dictatorship from the young people he promoted (pp. 39-40). Khlevnyuk, Davies, and indeed Junbae...