Agents of Terror

by Bernstein, Seth

Type Book

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Title Statements

Full title :Agents of Terror.

Summary

In the Great Terror of 1937 38 more than a million Soviet citizens were arrested or killed for political crimes they didn t commit. What kind of people carried out this violent purge, and what motivated them? This book opens up the world of the Soviet perpetrator for the first time. Focusing on Kuntsevo, the Moscow suburb where Stalin had a dacha, Alexander Vatlin shows how Stalinism rewarded local officials for inventing enemies. Agents of Terror reveals stunning, detailed evidence from archives available for a limited time in the 1990s. Going beyond the central figures of the terror, Vatlin takes readers into the offices and interrogation rooms of secret police at the district level. Spurred at times by ambition, and at times by fear for their own lives, agents rushed to fulfill quotas for arresting enemies of the people even when it meant fabricating the evidence. Vatlin pulls back the curtain on a Kafkaesque system, forcing readers to reassess notions of historical agency and moral responsibility in Stalin-era crimes.

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2016.

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):University of Wisconsin Press
Place of Publication:Madison, Wisconsin
Language:eng
Publication Date:2016.

The Physical Object

Description:1 online resource

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:0299310833, 9780299310837
oclc:ocn959428145
LC Classification:HV8225.7.N37
Dewey Decimal:363.3

Subjects

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Infrastructure History Political persecution Political persecution -- History. -- Ru… Russia (Federation) -- Kunt︠s︡evskiĭ raĭon SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General Soviet Union., Narodnyĭ komissariat vnu…