The Anatomy of Terror: Political Violence under Stalin

344 Pages·2013·1.27 MB·English

by  James Harris

THE ANATOMY OF TERROR
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Th e Anatomy of
Terror
Political Violence Under Stalin
Edited by
JAMES HARRIS
1
1

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Contents

List of Abbreviations and Russian Terms v ii
List of Contributors i x
General Introduction 1
James Harris
I. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES
Introduction 11
1. Chekist Mentalité and the Origins of the Great Terror 13
Iain Lauchlan
2. Intelligence and Th reat Perception: Defending the Revolution,
1917–1937 29
James Harris
II. STALIN AND THE PARTY
Introduction 47
3. Stalin: Architect of the Terror 49
E. A. Rees
4. Th e Rise and Fall of a Party First Secretary: Vainov of Iaroslavl’ 66
J. Arch Getty
III. PRACTICES OF STATE VIOLENCE
Introduction 87
5. Th e Conceptual and Practical Origins of Soviet State Violence 89
David L. Hoff mann
6. Stalinist Repression, Modernity, and the Social Engineering Argument 105
David Shearer
IV. IDEOLOGY
Introduction 123
7. Terrors of Left and Right: 1937 in Comparative Perspective 125
David Priestland
vi Contents
8. Ideological Zig-Zag: Offi cial Explanations for the Great Terror,
1936–1938 143
David Brandenberger
V. POLICE, JUSTICE, AND TERROR
Introduction 161
9. ‘Mass Operations’ under Lenin and Stalin 163
Paul Hagenloh
10. Terror and Soviet Legality: Police vs Judiciary, 1933–1940 176
Gábor T. Rittersporn
VI. PRECIPITANTS
Introduction 193
11. Fear, Loathing, Conspiracy: Th e Kirov Murder as Impetus for Terror 195
Matthew Lenoe
12. Pre-election Fever: Th e Origins of the 1937 Mass Operations 216
J. Arch Getty
VII. VICTIMS AND PERPETRATORS
Introduction 239
13. Small Motors of Terror: Th e Role of Factory Newspapers 241
Wendy Z. Goldman
14. Scapegoating One’s Comrades in the USSR, 1934–1937 263
William Chase
VIII. STATISTICS
Introduction 285
15. Th e Great Terror in Historical Perspective: Th e Records of the
Statistical Department of the Investigative Organs of OGPU/NKVD 287
Stephen G. Wheatcroft
16. Th e Great Terror in Leningrad: Evidence from the L eningradskii
martirolog 306
Melanie Ilic
Further Reading 3 26
Index 331
List of Abbreviations and Russian Terms
APRF Presidential Archive of the Russian Federation
artel’ cooperative association (pejorative in reference to local party organiza-
tions, implying a politically incorrect group loyalty)
Comintern Communist International
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International
EKU Economic Administration (of OGPU/NKVD)
FSB Federal Security Service
GANO State Archive of Novosibirsk Region
GARF State Archive of the Russian Federation
gorkom city party committee
GPU State Political Administration
gubkom provincial party committee (until late 1920s)
GUGB Main Directorate of State Security
GUMZ Chief Administration for Prisons
INFO Information Department (of OGPU/NKVD)
INO Foreign Department (of OGPU/NKVD)
kolkhoz collective farm
KPK Party Control Commission
KR Counter-revolutionary
KRO Counter-Revolutionary Organization
kraikom regional party committee
MGB Ministry of State Security
MVD Ministry of the Interior
NEP New Economic Policy
NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Aff airs
obkom provincial party committee
oblast’ province
O GPU Consolidated State Political Directorate
OO Special Department (of OGPU/NKVD) for Military Matters
Operod Operations Department (of OGPU)
OSO Special Conference (of Collegium of OGPU or NKVD
OTsR Department of Central Registration (of OGPU)
Politburo Political Bureau of the Communist Party
Rabkrin Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate
raion district
RGANI State Russian Archive of Recent History
RGASPI Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History
RGVA Russian State Military Archive
ROVS Russian General Military Union
SO Secret Department (of OGPU) for KROs
SOU Secret Operational Administration (of OGPU) coordinating operational
departments
viii List of Abbreviations and Russian Terms
SPO Secret Political Department (of NKVD)
SR Socialist Revolutionary
TO Transport Department (of OGPU/NKVD)
troika (NKVD) Commissions of three issuing summary justice
TsAFSB Central Archive of the Federal Security Service
TsK Central Committee of the Communist Party
TsKK Central Control Commission of the Communist Party
USO Administration of Statistics and Accounts (of OGPU/NKVD)
VKP All-Union Communist Party
VMH Highest Measure of Punishment—Death Sentence
VSNKh Supreme Council of the National Economy
List of Contributors
David Brandenberger writes on Stalin-era propaganda, ideology, and nationalism. He has
published two monographs: N ational Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation
of Modern Russian National Identity , 1931–1956 (2002) and Propaganda State in Crisis:
Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination and Terror under Stalin, 1928–1941 (2011), as well as an
edited collection with Kevin M. F. Platt entitled Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Lit-
erature as Stalinist Propaganda (2006). Brandenberger is presently fi nishing a critical edition
of Stalin’s infamous 1938 party history textbook, Th e Short Course on the History of the All-
Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in collaboration with M. V. Zelenov.
William Chase is a Professor of History and Director of the Urban Studies Program at the
University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of E nemies Within the Gates? Th e Comintern and
the Stalinist Repression, 1934–1939 (2001), Workers, Society and the Soviet State: Labor and
Life in Moscow, 1918–1929 (1987), and various articles.
J. Arch Getty is Professor of History at UCLA. He is the author of O rigins of the Great
Purges: Th e Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered (1985), Th e Road to Terror: Stalin and the
Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939 (with Oleg Naumov, 1999), Yezhov: the Rise
of Stalin’s ‘Iron Fist’ (with Oleg Naumov, 2008), Practicing Stalinism: Bolsheviks, Boyars, and
the Persistence of Tradition (2013), and the editor of several volumes, including K ratkii
putevoditel’: fondy i kollektsii, sobrannye Tsentral’nym partiinym arkhivom (1993), the fi rst
catalogue and guide to the former Central Party Archive in Moscow.
Wendy Z. Goldman is a Professor of Russian History at Carnegie Mellon University. She is
the author of I nventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin’s Russia (2011) and
Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: Th e Social Dynamics of Repression (2007) among
other books. She is currently working on a study of the home front in the Soviet Union
during the Second World War.
Paul Hagenloh is an Associate Professor in history in the Maxwell School of Syracuse Uni-
versity. He is the author of Stalin’s Police: Public Order and Mass Repression in the USSR,
1926–1941 (2009). He is currently completing a study of military and civilian administra-
tion during the Russian civil war and the NEP, titled Soviet Power: Revolutionary Councils
and the Communist State under Lenin and Stalin .
James Harris is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Leeds.
He is the author of Th e Great Urals: Regionalism and the Evolution of the Soviet System
(1999) and co-editor (with Sarah Davies) of S talin: A New History (2005). He is currently
completing two monographs, Th e Great Fear: Th e Origins of Stalin’s Terror and Stalin on
Stalinism: Th e Dictator and his World (with Sarah Davies).
David L. Hoff mann is Professor of History at the Ohio State University. He is the author
of Peasant Metropolis: Social Identities in Moscow, 1929–1941 (1994); S talinist Values: Th e
Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917–1941 (2003); and C ultivating the Masses: Modern
State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914–1939 (2011). He is also the editor of Russian
Modernity: Politics, Knowledge, Practices (2000), and Stalinism: Th e Essential Readings
(2003). He is currently writing a monograph entitled Th e Stalinist Era .