Stalinism

In the past I have bemoaned the problems in finding good resources on the Gulag in English. This has now been rectified with a new site, Many Days, Many Lives. The site is excellent, and contains plenty of material that will be of use to students.

The Gulag was horrific, but as this site rightly points out there was no single unified experience. Vast numbers of people were sent into the camps, and they all have their own story. Some of these have been told. Many of them have not. This site will go some way to rectifying this situation.

Details:

Kocho-Williams, Alastair, The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 86, Number 1, 1 January 2008 , pp. 90-110(21)

Abstract:

This article offers a case study of a commissariat and its members during Stalin’s purges. It considers the effects of the purges on diplomats and on Soviet diplomacy, adding new dimensions to previous works, in particular dealing with how the Foreign Commissar Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov and the Soviet diplomats serving under him responded to the purges, what their opinions of them were, and how they dealt with the challenge of explaining the purges to observers abroad, as well as examining the numbers that perished, what they were accused of, why the Narkomindel was so vulnerable to the purges, how the Narkomindel struggled to function effectively during a difficult time in Soviet foreign relations, and how the regime achieved a withdrawal from international affairs.

I have been comissioned to write entries on Gromyko, Shevardnaze and the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Seemed to go down well…

I talked for about an hour, and they seemed to be interested. I certainly got asked some good questions which I tried to respond to as best I could. Some relae to this paper, but others have a broader significance. The jist of them was

- Are there any religious connections. Ideas of monasticism? - Certainly the ILS is culty
- Why did the school close in 1938?
- Why was there no consideration of the nationalities question in the prerequesite reading list for the ILS?
- How was the centre envisaging that ILS graduates might reintegrate into their national parties?
- How did western governments view the ILS?

Positive feedback and some good foos for thought. I’m in the process of sorting out the podcast to include the slides, but the audio is here, both the paper and the question and answer session (click buttons below).

Online here

Students are capable (when they have done the work) of producing work that changes how you think about a topic.  One such example I came across today was that the Stalinist Terror was planned, but had the veneer of being reactionary.  Not only is this an interestign slant on the problem, but it also led me to think further about the nature of duplicity in Stalinist society