Terror by quota : state security from Lenin to Stalin : (an archival study) / Paul R. Gregory.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gregory, Paul R.

Series:

Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War.

The Yale-Hoover series on Stalin, Stalinism, and the Cold War

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti--History.

Soviet Union.

Internal security--Soviet Union--History.

Internal security.

Political persecution--Soviet Union--History.

Political persecution.

Soviet Union--Politics and government.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (viii, 346 p.) ) ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This original analysis of the workings of Soviet state security organs under Lenin and Stalin addresses a series of questions that have long resisted satisfactory answers. Why did political repression affect so many people, most of them ordinary citizens? Why did repression come in waves or cycles? Why were economic and petty crimes regarded as political crimes? What was the reason for relying on extra-judicial tribunals? And what motivated the extreme harshness of punishments, including the widespread use of the death penalty? Through an approach that synthesizes history and economics, Paul Gregory develops systematic explanations for the way terror was applied, how terror agents were recruited, how they carried out their jobs, and how they were motivated. The book draws on extensive, recently opened archives of the Gulag administration, the Politburo, and state security agencies themselves to illuminate in new ways terror and repression in the Soviet Union as well as dictatorships in other times and places.

Contents:

Stalin's Praetorians

Ranks of the Chekist elite

Organizing state security

Political enemies

Deadly Kremlin politics

Planning terror

Simplified methods

The repressors' dilemma

Conclusions.

Notes:

"Published in cooperation with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612353376

9786612089626

9780300152784

0300152787

9781282353374

1282353373

9781282089624

1282089625

OCLC:

666930818