General Information

Author/Creator

Rayfield, Donald, 1942-

Language

English.

Published

London : Penguin Books, 2005.

Physical Description

xxvi, 528 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

Contents/Summary

Summary

Founded by Feliks Dzierzynski, the Cheka–the Extraordinary Commission–came to life in the first years of the Russian Revolution. Spreading fear in a time of chaos, the Cheka proved a perfect instrument for Stalin’s ruthless consolidation of power. But brutal as it was, the Cheka under Dzierzynski was amateurish compared to the well-oiled killing machines that succeeded it. Genrikh Iagoda’s OGPU specialized in political assassination, propaganda, and the manipulation of foreign intellectuals. Later, the NKVD recruited a new generation of torturers. Starting in 1938, terror mastermind Lavrenti Beria brought violent repression to a new height of ingenuity and sadism. As Rayfield shows, Stalin and his henchmen worked relentlessly to coerce and suborn leading Soviet intellectuals, artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists. Maxim Gorky, Aleksandr Fadeev, Alexei Tolstoi, Isaak Babel, and Osip Mandelstam were all caught in Stalin’s web–courted, toyed with, betrayed, and then ruthlessly destroyed. In bringing to light the careers, personalities, relationships, and “accomplishments” of Stalin’s key henchmen and their most prominent victims, Rayfield creates a chilling drama of the intersection of political fanaticism, personal vulnerability, and blind lust for power spanning half a century. Though Beria lost his power–and his life–after Stalin’s death in 1953, the fundamental methods of the hangmen maintained their grip into the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Rayfield argues, the tradition of terror, far from disappearing, has emerged with renewed vitality under Vladimir Putin. Written with grace, passion, and a dazzling command of the intricacies of Soviet politics and society, Stalin and the Hangmen is a devastating indictment of the individuals and ideology that kept Stalin in power.

Subjects

Subject

Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953.

Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza > Purges > History.

Soviet Union. Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del > History.

Political atrocities > Soviet Union.

Soviet Union > Politics and government > 1917-1936.

Soviet Union > Politics and government > 1936-1953.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

Donald Rayfield.

Library Special Collection

Donation of Anatole Shub

ISBN

9780141003757

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	947.0842/092 RAY		OSA Repository	Donation of School of Public Policy.
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	947.0842/092 RAY		General Stacks	-

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