Abstract
In this article, Sheila Fitzpatrick investigates the phenomenon of Soviet conmanship in the Stalin period through the medium of conman stories, both real (as reported in newspapers and archives) and fictional. While attention is paid to the distinctive characteristics of conman stories as a discursive genre, die main emphasis is on the social. The article explores the sources and processes of the Soviet confidence trick, as well as showing how conmen and their exploits illuminate social, bureaucratic, and cultural practices. In the comparison of prewar and postwar periods, the “Jewishing” of the conman in postwar representation is discussed and related to the broader phenomenon of officially encouraged anti-Semitism in the late Stalin period.
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