Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe: Elite purges and mass repression - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719089026 ISBN 13: 9780719089022

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2012

Synopsis

This volume examines Stalinist terror in Eastern Europe in the period 1940 to 1956.

About this title

About the Authors

Kevin McDermott is Senior Lecturer in Political History at Sheffield Hallam University

Matthew Stibbe is Professor of Modern European History at Sheffield Hallam University

From the Back Cover

This wide-ranging collection of essays is the first book in English to examine the impact of Stalinist terror on Eastern Europe in the years 1940 to 1956.

Covering the Baltic states, Moldavia, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, the authors investigate terror both 'from above', in the form of elite purges and show trials, and 'from below' in the guise of large-scale arrests and deportations of ordinary people. Key questions addressed include the relative importance of Soviet influence versus 'local' factors; the persecution of particular groups, such as 'kulaks', church leaders, the middle-class intelligentsia and members of non-communist left-wing parties; cases where repression was more, or conversely less, intense than elsewhere; and the relevance of key events such as the Tito-Stalin split of 1948, the Rajk trial of 1949 and the Slánský trial of 1952.

This book highlights areas of considerable diversity, making this volume an excellent starting point for all scholars and students interested in the wider history of political trials, forced labour and state-sponsored violence in the twentieth century's 'age of extremes'.

From the Inside Flap

This wide-ranging collection of essays is the first book in English to examine the impact of Stalinist terror on Eastern Europe in the years 1940 to 1956. Covering the Baltic states, Moldavia, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, the authors investigate terror both from above , in the form of elite purges and show trials, and from below in the guise of large-scale arrests and deportations of ordinary people. Key questions addressed include the relative importance of Soviet influence versus local factors; the persecution of particular groups, such as kulaks , church leaders, the middle-class intelligentsia and members of non-communist left-wing parties; cases where repression was more, or conversely less, intense than elsewhere; and the relevance of key events such as the Tito-Stalin split of 1948, the Rajk trial of 1949 and the Slánský trial of 1952. This book highlights areas of considerable diversity, making this volume an excellent starting point for all scholars and students interested in the wider history of political trials, forced labour and state-sponsored violence in the twentieth century s age of extremes .

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719089026
• ISBN 13: 9780719089022
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: McDermott Kevin, Stibbe Matthew