Stalinism as a way of life : a narrative in documents / Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov ; documents compiled by Ludmila Kosheleva ... [et al.] ; text preparation and commentary by Lewis Siegelbaum, Andrei Sokolov, and Sergei Zhuravlev ; translated from the Russian by Thomas Hoisington and Steven Shabad.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Siegelbaum, Lewis H.

Sokolov, A. K. (Andreĭ Konstantinovich), 1941-2015.

Kosheleva, L.

Zhuravlev, S. V. (Sergeĭ Vladimirovich)

Hoisington, Thomas H.

Shabad, Steven.

Series:

Annals of Communism.

Annals of Communism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953.

Stalin, Joseph.

Soviet Union--History--1925-1953--Sources.

Soviet Union.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (495 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, c2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Maybe some people are shy about writing, but I will write the real truth. . . . Is it really possible that people at the newspaper haven't heard this. . . that we don't want to be on the kolkhoz [collective farm], we work and work, and there's nothing to eat. Really, how can we live?"-a farmer's letter, 1936, from Stalinism as a Way of Life What was life like for ordinary Russian citizens in the 1930's? How did they feel about socialism and the acts committed in its name? This unique book provides English-speaking readers with the responses of those who experienced firsthand the events of the middle-Stalinist period. The book contains 157 documents-mostly letters to authorities from Soviet citizens, but also reports compiled by the secret police and Communist Party functionaries, internal government and party memoranda, and correspondence among party officials. Selected from recently opened Soviet archives, these previously unknown documents illuminate in new ways both the complex social roots of Stalinism and the texture of daily life during a highly traumatic decade of Soviet history. Accompanied by introductory and linking commentary, the documents are organized around such themes as the impact of terror on the citizenry, the childhood experience, the countryside after collectivization, and the role of cadres that were directed to "decide everything." In their own words, peasants and workers, intellectuals and the uneducated, adults and children, men and women, Russians and people from other national groups tell their stories. Their writings reveal how individual lives influenced-and were affected by-the larger events of Soviet history.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Notes on Transliteration and Terminology

A Note on the Documents

Glossary and Abbreviations

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. The Socialist Offensive

CHAPTER TWO. "Cadres Decide Everything!"

CHAPTER THREE. Stalin's Constitution

CHAPTER FOUR. Love and Plenty

CHAPTER FIVE. Bolshevik Order on the Kolkhoz

CHAPTER SIX. Happy Childhoods

Conclusion

Notes

Index of Documents

General Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9786611721718

9781281721716

1281721719

9780300128598

0300128592

OCLC:

1024051226