Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0195055802, Hardcover)
The definitive work on Stalin's purges, Robert Conquest's The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. Edmund Wilson hailed it as "the only scrupulous, non-partisan, and adequate book on the subject." George F. Kennan, writing in The New York Times Book Review, noted that "one comes away filled with a sense of the relevance and immediacy of old questions." And Harrison Salisbury called it "brilliant...not only an odyssey of madness, tragedy, and sadism, but a work of scholarship and literary craftsmanship." And in recent years it has received equally high praise in the Soviet Union, where it is now considered the authority on the period, and has been serialized in Neva, one of their leading periodicals.
Of course, when Conquest wrote the original volume two decades ago, he relied heavily on unofficial sources. Now, with the advent of glasnost, an avalanche of new material is available, and Conquest has mined this enormous cache to write a substantially new edition of his classic work. It is remarkable how many of Conquest's most disturbing conclusions have born up under the light of fresh evidence. But Conquest has added enormously to the detail, including hitherto secret information on the three great "Moscow Trials," on the fate of the executed generals, on the methods of obtaining confessions, on the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, on life in the labor camps, and many other key matters.
Both a leading Sovietologist and a highly respected poet, Conquest here blends profound research with evocative prose, providing not only an authoritative account of Stalin's purges, but also a compelling and eloquent chronicle of one of this century's most tragic events. A timely revision of a book long out of print, this updated version of Conquest's classic work will interest both readers of the earlier volume and an entirely new generation of readers for whom it has not been readily available.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English (20)
During his rule Stalin seemingly turned back the clock of history and ruled like a sadistic, medieval Tsar. At one point in the book he disparages criticism of Ivan the Terrible. His program of terror was greater than anything done by Nicholas II, the last Tsar. He destroyed all of his rivals and made sure that the orders of the government were followed without any questions.
The most public form of the terror was the show trials. They started in the early 30's after the murder of Kirov who was the Party leader in Leningrad. Others in the leadership were arrested and tortured until they were ready to confess to any and all of the crimes charged against them. Once someone was arrested by the NKVD it was only a matter of time. Western journalists were invited to the trials and they dutifully gave legitimacy to a proceeding straight out of Alice in Wonderland. The show trials eliminated and discredited all of the Old Bolsheviks, insuring that they could not challenge Stalin for power.
The purges were massive murder campaigns that wiped out the leadership throughout the country. Generals, scientists and engineers all read their confessions and were lead away to be shot. The labor camps were used to keep the common people in line. An unsuspecting person would be denounced by his neighbor and arrested for owning a book that had the wrong version of history. Then he was sent to Siberia to dig canals or cut down forests with little chance he would live out his sentence. His wife would be arrested and his children sent to an NKVD orphanage, no one was spared.
The author is very thorough in his description of the mechanisms of terror. There is a graphic description of the assassination of Trotsky. The only part that is not described is the torture. The author simply talks about people beaten beyond recognition. There is a lengthy description of the different diets in the labor camps. I learned how executions were done in Lubyanka prison, NKVD headquarters in Moscow. The author provides details of the Russian criminal code that made legal the crimes of the terror. There are quotes from NKVD memorandums sent throughout the country with quotas for arrests.
The worst part is that the terror was effective. The confessions at the show trials explained why there was nothing to eat. The fear of the knock on the door made sure no one complained. There was never any shortage of prison guards or prosecutors. Stalin, who was 5"3", ruled Russia from about 1927 until he died in his sleep in 1953. This book is a testament to Stalin's millions of victims. As horrible as it was it needs to be studied so that their suffering is not forgotten.