The Great Terror

The definitive work on Stalin s purges, Robert Conquest s The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968 Harrison Salisbury called it brilliantnot 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 former Soviet Union, where it is now considered the definitive account of the period When Conquest wrote the original volume, he relied heavily on unofficial sources With the advent of glasnost, an avalanche of new material became available, and Conquest mined this enormous cache to write, in 1990, a substantially new edition of his classic work, adding enormously to the detail Both a leading historian and a highly respected poet, Conquest 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 He provides gripping accounts of everything from the three great Moscow Trials, to methods of obtaining confessions, the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, life in the labor camps, and many other key matters On the fortieth anniversary of the first edition, in the light of further archival releases, and new material published in Moscow and elsewhere, it remains remarkable how many of Conquest s most disturbing conclusions have continued to bear up This volume, featuring a new preface by Conquest, rounds out the picture of this huge historical tragedy, further establishing the book as the key study of one of the twentieth centurys most lethal, and longest misunderstood,offenses against humanity. Best Read The Great Terror [ By ] Robert Conquest [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr It is completely incomprehensible to most of us how systematic the nature of evil under Stalin can be Perhaps only North Korea today can compare for the quantity, the extremity, and the sheer randomness of how the state chooses its victims Authorities became criminals.Stalin acts like a vengeful pagan god Whole families are condemned for the imagined or perceived sins of one man He receives lists of victims and condemns them all, signing his name across the front Shot, poisoned, starved, hu It is completely incomprehensible to most of us how systematic the nature of evil under Stalin can be Perhaps only North Korea today can compare for the quantity, the extremity, and the sheer randomness of how the state chooses its victims Authorities became criminals.Stalin acts like a vengeful pagan god Whole families are condemned for the imagined or perceived sins of one man He receives lists of victims and condemns them all, signing his name across the front Shot, poisoned, starved, humiliated, imprisoned Old friends, allies, and even the first generation of torturers are swallowed into the abyss Yagoda and Yezhov, the first stooges of the Great Terror, were also shot.Wh...Amongst my other reading at present I ve been working my way through Robert Conquest s classic The Great Terror, an exploration of the Stalinist purge in Russia in the mid 1930s I ve reached the most terrible phase of that terrible part of the nation s history, the so called Yezhovchina, named after Nikolai Yezhov, then head of the NKVD, the Soviet security police It s difficult to know how the nation was able to survive the ever growing spiral of denunciations, arrests and executions, emb Amongst my other reading at present I ve been working my way through Robert Conquest s classic The Great Terror, an exploration of the Stalinist purge in Russia in the mid 1930s I ve reached the most terrible phase of that terrible part of the nation s history, the so called Yezhovchina, named after Nikolai Yezhov, then head of the NKVD, the Soviet security police It s difficult to know how the nation was able to survive the ever growing spiral of denunciations, arrests and executi...This guy s real name is Robert Conquest My nom de plume is going to be Biceps Wellhung.durrrrrrRRRWhich isterrifying Stalin s 1936 38 terror, or Western liberals inability to recognize it Updating his original work The Great Terror with a vast amount of new data, Conquest scrupulously details and puts into context the purges themselves the many players and defendants, the shifting political cross currents, the rounds of trials and arrests.And he does the same for the many Western observers intellectuals, writers, journalists, and left activists who were oblivious to it or act Which isterrifying Stalin s 1936 38 terror, or Western liberals inability to recognize it Updating his original work The Great Terror with a vast amount of new data, Conquest scrupulously details and puts into context the purges themselves the many players and defendants, the shifting political cross currents, the rounds of trials and arrests.And he does the same for the many Western observers intellectuals, writers, journalists, and left activists who were oblivious to it or actively sought to hush it up, even decades later when there were no longer any shreds of doubt This is the equival...The Great Terror is a book of enormous importance because it was the first book on Stalin s purges written by a member of the Anglo Saxon race employed as a professor at a major university in an Anglo Saxon country During the 1970 s when I was studying history at an Anglo Saxon university Slavs were given little respect The fact that they had lived in Russia or some other country like Poland meant that they had strongly partisan feelings and hence could not be trusted to give a truthful accoun The Great Terror is a book of enormous importance because it was the first book on Stalin s purges written by a member of the Anglo Saxon race employed as a professor at a major university in an Anglo Saxon country During the 1970 s when I was studying history at an Anglo Saxon university Slavs were given little respect The fact that they had lived in Russia or some other country like Poland meant that they had strongly partisan feelings and hence could not be trusted to give a truthful account of anything However, when Conquest made his case using the methodology accepted in North American and British Commonwealth universities, the historical profession h...Brilliant work, its value underscored by the savage attacks on it by Kremlin apparatchiks Originally the standard work on the Great Terror, Stalinism was worse than Robert Conquest reported Hitler lost, and failed to complete the cover up of Nazi crimes Sonderaktion 1005 On the other hand, Stalin won, and didn t die until 1953 Stalin had the opportunity to complete his cover up The breadth of Stalin s criminality only began to be under...Conquest s The Great Terror is the definitive work in English on Stalin s purges and the death of Bolshevism For readers interested in the ascendency of Stalinism in Russia this is the primary source.OK, let s begin with the obvious Conquest can lean to polemical language from his excitable right wing background really, what is helped by calling someone odorific , and his tendency to let his passion direct his writing can make him seem a less reliable historian Nevertheless, no one had better compiled the history of show trials than Conquest did in his original Great Terror, and the new version, reflecting new information from the 1990s, puts all the elements in place For that reas OK, let s begin with the obvious Conquest can lean to polemical language from his excitable right wing background really, what is helped by calling someone odorific , and his tendency to let his passion direct his writing can make him seem a less reli...Psychopathy is usually analyzed as an individual psychological phenomenon As we ve seen, the term describes individuals without conscience, with shallow emotions, who are able to impersonate fully developed human beings and mimic feelings of love, caring and other regarding impulses to fulfill their deviant goals be that stealing your money, stealing your heart or both This phenomenon becomes all thetoxic, and dangerous, when such individuals rise to national power and manage to create Psychopathy is usually analyzed as an individual psychological phenomenon As we ve seen, the term describes individuals without conscience, with shallow emotions, who are able to impersonate fully developed human beings and mimic feelings of love, caring and other regarding impulses to fulfill their deviant goals be that stealing your money, stealing your heart or both This phenomenon becomes all thetoxic, and dangerous, when suc...

• English
• 24 April 2017
Robert Conquest
• Paperback
• 584 pages
• 0195071328
• Robert Conquest
• The Great Terror