Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe

Elite purges and mass repression

Kevin McDermott,Matthew Stibbe

• Éditeur: Manchester University Press
• Année: 2024
• ISBN:
  9781526183958
• Sujet: Historia
• Sous-sujet: Historia de Europa del Este

This wide-ranging collection of essays, newly available in paperback, is the first book in English to examine the impact of Stalinist terror on Eastern Europe in the years 1940 to 1956. Covering the Baltic states, Moldavia, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, the authors investigate terror both 'from above', in the form of elite purges and show trials, and 'from below' in the guise of large-scale arrests and deportations of ordinary people. Key questions addressed include the relative importance of Soviet influence versus 'local' factors; the persecution of particular groups, such as 'kulaks', church leaders, the middle-class intelligentsia and members of non-communist left-wing parties; cases where repression was more, or conversely less, intense than elsewhere; and the relevance of key events such as the Tito-Stalin split of 1948, the Rajk trial of 1949 and the Slánský trial of 1952.

Table des matières

• Front matter
• Contents
• List of abbreviations and glossary of terms
• List of archives and archival abbreviations
• Notes on contributors
• Chapter 1: Stalinist terror in Eastern Europe: problems, perspectives and interpretations
• Chapter 2: Soviet in form, local in content: elite repression and mass terror in the Baltic states, 1940–1953
• Chapter 3: Stalinist terror in Soviet Moldavia, 1940–1953
• Chapter 4: East Germany, 1945–1953: Stalinist repression and internal party purges
• Chapter 5: Stalinism in Poland, 1944–1956
• Chapter 6: Stalinist terror in Czechoslovakia: origins, processes, responses
• Chapter 7: Stalinist terror in Hungary, 1945–1956
• Chapter 8: Political purges and mass repression in Romania, 1948–1955
• Chapter 9: Stalinist and anti-Stalinist repression in Yugoslavia, 1944–1953
• Chapter 10: Stalinist terror in Bulgaria, 1944–1956
• Chapter 11 : Purge and counter-purge in Stalinist Albania, 1944–1956
• List of major works cited
• Index