Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism / Edition 1

by Roy A. Medvedev, George Shriver

Overview

The most comprehensive and revealing investigation of Stalinism and political developments in the Soviet Union from 1922-1953, this edition is an extensively revised and expanded version of a classic work. The internationally known historian Roy Medvedev has included more than one-hundred new interviews, unpublished memoirs, and archives from survivors of Stalin's death camps. This updated version of a classic work was written during a time of great change in the Soviet Union. With the advent of perestroika and glasnost, more progressive leadership has sought to demolish the Stalinist system which had finally crippled the Soviet Union and incited public discontent.

Let History Judge contains new material on purges in 1929-1931 and terror against the peasantry; the Kirov assasination and show trials; the "great terror" from 1936-1938, which caused irreparable damage to the Soviet Union and left it vulnerable for Hilter's attack in 1941; the trial of Bukharin; Trotsky's revolutionary activity and Stalin's involvement with his murder in Mexico; Stalin's miscalculations and errors during the war, which cost the Soviet Union nearly 25 million in casualties; new purges from 1946-1953; and the actual vote of the Seventeenth Congress, which decided Stalin's candidacy.

Since the first edition was finished by the author in 1969 and published in 1971, dozens of new informants have come forward to give their evidence to Roy Medvedev. Distinguished Soviet literary, cultural, and political figures like the late Alexander Twardovsky, Ilja Ehrenburg, Konstantin Simonov, Yuri Trifono, Mikhail Romm and many others have accumulated documentary records of Stalinism in anticipation of an expanded version.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231063517
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/12/1989
Edition description:	REVISED
Pages:	891
Product dimensions:	1.83(w) x 6.14(h) x 9.21(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Roy Medvedev is a prominent and highly respected Soviet historian of international reputation. His books include On Soviet Dissent and The October Revolution, (published by Columbia University Press). He has had articles published in the New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and Dissent.

Table of Contents

Stalin's Rise in the Party
Stalin as a Party Chief
The Fight with the Opposition
Stalin's Usurpation of Power, and the Great Terror
Mistakes and Crimes in Collectivization and Industrialization
Stalinism: Its Nature and Causes
New Crimes by Stalin in the Early Thirties
Some Consequences of Stalin's Personal Dictatorship
The Kirov Assassination and the Purge Trials
The Assault on Party and State Cadres, 1937-1938
Rehabilitation and Repression, 1938-1941
Illegal Methods of Investigation and Confinement
The Problem of Stalin's Responsibility
Other Causes of Mass Repression
Conditions Facilitating Stalin's Usurpation of Power
Errors in Diplomacy and War
Crimes and Mistakes in the Postwar Period
The Impact of Stalinism on Science and Art
Socialism and Pseudosocialism
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

A milestone in the understanding of nearly fifty years of Russian history.

The New York Times Book Review - Harrison Salisbury

A milestone in the understanding of nearly fifty years of Russian history.

— Harrison Salisbury

The New York Times Book Review

A milestone in the understanding of nearly fifty years of Russian history.

Harrison Salisbury

A work so rich in documentations, so scrupulous in scholarship and, above all, so harrowingly vivid in its recounting of the calamities inflicted by Stalin on his country . . . Restores a long-abandoned standard of professional integrity to Soviet historiography.

Time