DOCSLIB.ORG

Origins of the Great Purges Soviet and East European

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Origins of the Great Purges Soviet and East European ORIGINS OF THE GREAT PURGES SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES Editorial Board JULIAN COOPER, MICHAEL KASER, ALISTAIR MCAULEY, MARTIN MCCAULEY, FRED SINGLETON, RON HILL, PAUL LEWIS The National Association for Soviet and East European Studies exists for the purpose of promoting study and research on the social sciences as they relate to the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. The Monograph Series is intended to promote the publication of works presenting substantial and original research in the economics, politics, sociology and modern his- tory of the USSR and Eastern Europe. For other titles in this series, turn to page 276. ORIGINS OF THE GREAT PURGES THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY RECONSIDERED, 1933-1938 J. ARCH GETTY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE LONDON NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE MELBOURNE SYDNEY Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia ® Cambridge University Press 1985 First published 1985 First paperback edition 1987 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Getty, J. Arch (John Archibald), 1950- Origins of the great purges. (Soviet and East European studies) Bibliography: p. 1. Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza - Purges — History. 2. Soviet Union — Politics and government - 1917-1936. 3. Soviet Union - Politics and government — 1936—1953. 4. Political purges — Soviet Union — History. I. Title. II. Series. JN6598.K7G43 1985 324.247'075'09 84-12718 ISBN 0 521 25921 5 hard covers ISBN 0 521 33570 1 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2003 Contents List of tables page vi Preface vii Introduction: the Great Purges as history 1 1 The Communist Party in the thirties 10 2 What was a purge? 38 3 The Verification of Party Documents of 1935: a case study in bureaucratic ineptitude 58 4 Radicalism and party revival 92 5 Radicalism and enemies of the people 113 6 The crisis matures: 1937 137 7 Epilogue: the Ezhovshchina 172 Conclusion: some observations on politics in the thirties 196 Appendix: the Kirov assassination 207 Bibliographic essay 211 Notes 221 Index 271 Tables 2.1 Incidence of purges in the 1920s page 46 2.2 Reasons for expulsion: 1929 purge 47 2.3 Reasons for expulsion: 1933 chistka 54 3.1 Targets of proverka denunciations, city of Smolensk, July 1935 69 3.2 Results of proverka denunciations, city of Smolensk, summer 1935 70 3.3 Numbers expelled in proverka, 1935 81 3.4 Incidence of purges, 1921-35: expulsion rates 82 3.5 Reasons for expulsion in proverka: Smolensk City Party Committee, 1935 83 3.6 Smolensk City Party Organization social composition, 1934 - October 1935 84 6.1 Primary party organizations whose work was judged unsatisfactory by the membership, April-May 1937 159 6.2 Electoral turnover of party committees, 1937 159 6.3 Electoral turnover in primary party organizations, 1937 160 7.1 Party expulsions by year 177 C.I Full Central Committee membership of regional party secretaries, 1927-39 197 VI Preface Until recently, political scientists and emigre journalists have done most of the work on Soviet political history. Some of their work has been very good, but it seemed to me that the subject could benefit from a historian's treatment. I therefore approached this study with a dis- trust of preconceived models and abstract constructs and with the goal of setting out exactly what happened in the Bolshevik Party in the thir- ties. Avoiding the standard concentration on Stalin's personality, this work aims to rationalize our understanding of the period by evaluating structural, institutional, and ideological factors. I have tried to provide an interpretive framework that reflects the available documentary evi- dence and accounts for the often mysterious events of the thirties. I be- lieve that it explains more and contradicts itself less than other reconstructions. Because of the nature of this field, no one can avoid speculations and guesswork about the origins and course of historical events. But in my view, interpretations based on critical use of the in- ternal records of the participants are better grounded than those that rely on the literary memoirs of courageous but exogenous victims of the process. Many of the people whose opinions I value were able to read and com- ment on all or parts of this study. I owe special thanks to my mentor and adviser Roberta Manning, whose energy, patience, and enthusi- asm lasted through several drafts of the work. Her help and support were unflagging, and her generous suggestion that I include some of her own unpublished archival data in this work speaks for itself. I have also benefited from conversations with my colleague Gabor Ritter- sporn, whose research on politics in the thirties proceeded simultane- ously with and independently of my own. Although we often reached different conclusions on the meanings of documents, we agreed on many of the broad outlines of Soviet political history in the thirties. viii Preface Even in those cases in which I disagreed with his interpretations, his unique, challenging, and sometimes brilliant insights stimulated con- stant reexamination of my own assumptions. Special thanks also go to my longtime friend Bill Chase for his sound advice and sense of humor. Other friends and colleagues who read all or parts of the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their suggestions include Kenneth Barkin, Paul Breines, Chester Dunning, Sheila Fitzpatrick, David Joravsky, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Mary McAuley, Robert H. McNeal, Paul Ray- mond, Sharon Salinger, Bob Supansic, Irwin Wall, and Charles Wetherell. Any errors or mistakes in what follows are, of course, mine alone. I am also grateful for a Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, a Senior Fellowship from the Russian In- stitute at Columbia University in 1981, and a fellowship from the Rus- sian Research Center at Harvard University. I received generous financial and logistical support from the University of California, Riv- erside, Academic Senate Committee on Research and Laboratory for Historical Research. Reference librarians at several institutions made my work less diffi- cult. I am indebted to the reference staffs of the Butler and Interna- tional Affairs libraries at Columbia; the Houghton, Widener, and Russian Research Center libraries at Harvard; the New York Public Library; the Lenin Library in Moscow; the Firestone Library at Princeton; and the libraries of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolu- tion and Peace at Stanford University and the University of California, Riverside. Finally, I thank Slavic Review for permission to quote from my " Party and Purge in Smolensk: 1933-1937" (vol. 42, no. 1, Spring 1983, 60- 79). I am also grateful to the Houghton Library for permission to quote from the Trotsky Papers. I would never have been able to complete this work without the emo- tional and material help of my wife, Nancy. Her fresh criticism, typing, and proofreading help - cheerfully given at a time when she was work- ing and pursuing her own professional degrees - make her largely re- sponsible for any contribution that this study may make, and it is to her that I dedicate the work. J. ARCH GETTY Riverside, California Introduction: the Great Purges as history Each says something about the nature of the world, and, though individually he adds little or nothing to our understanding of it, still from the combination of all something considerable is accomplished. Aristotle Until Khrushchev's time, Soviet citizens were taught that the Commu- nist Party had uncovered a dangerous conspiracy in the mid-1930s. Ac- cording to the official Stalinist view, it had gradually come to light in 1934-6 that many of the party's prominent personalities had been un- dercover "enemies" of the party who had worked to undermine the party and the Soviet regime from the earliest days of Soviet power. Led primarily by Leon Trotsky, this "gang" of "fiends" included other longtime Bolsheviks Grigorii Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin, Lev Ka- menev, Aleksei Rykov, and others who had posed as Lenin's trusted comrades. These traitors had always been spies, saboteurs, and opposi- tionists who wanted to overthrow the socialist regime, split the party, and ultimately restore capitalism in the USSR. They plotted with the German Gestapo to overthrow the party leadership in a bloody coup that was timed to coincide with the invasion of the USSR by one or more fascist states. In a series of major public trials, these traitors were unmasked by the secret police and the party, whose vigilance had dis- covered the treason. The plotters admitted their guilt in open court, and the Soviet people were unanimous in their condemnation of the treason. The vigilant secret police justly uprooted the treason, followed proper judicial norms, punished only the guilty, and ultimately saved the Soviet government.1 Western specialists and Soviet dissidents have provided another ex- planation of these events that is more complicated but ultimately as Manichean as the Stalinist story.2 According to this view, Stalin in the 2 Origins of the Great Purges early thirties demanded the arrest and execution of oppositionists and dissidents for treason. He seems to have been opposed by a combina- tion of Politburo "moderates" consisting of S. M. Kirov (head of the Leningrad party organization) and Sergo Ordzhonikidze (commissar of heavy industry), who supposedly resisted the imposition of the death penalty upon party members and carried the day in the dispute. Kirov's elevation to the central party leadership in 1934 represented both a political and personal alternative to Stalin's leadership.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989
    FORUM The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989 ✣ Commentaries by Michael Kraus, Anna M. Cienciala, Margaret K. Gnoinska, Douglas Selvage, Molly Pucci, Erik Kulavig, Constantine Pleshakov, and A. Ross Johnson Reply by Mark Kramer and V´ıt Smetana Mark Kramer and V´ıt Smetana, eds. Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. 563 pp. $133.00 hardcover, $54.99 softcover, $54.99 e-book. EDITOR’S NOTE: In late 2013 the publisher Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield, put out the book Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989, edited by Mark Kramer and V´ıt Smetana. The book consists of twenty-four essays by leading scholars who survey the Cold War in East-Central Europe from beginning to end. East-Central Europe was where the Cold War began in the mid-1940s, and it was also where the Cold War ended in 1989–1990. Hence, even though research on the Cold War and its effects in other parts of the world—East Asia, South Asia, Latin America, Africa—has been extremely interesting and valuable, a better understanding of events in Europe is essential to understand why the Cold War began, why it lasted so long, and how it came to an end. A good deal of high-quality scholarship on the Cold War in East-Central Europe has existed for many years, and the literature on this topic has bur- geoned in the post-Cold War period.
    [Show full text]
  • "Mein Leben" – "Моя Жизнь" Trockijs Autobiographie Essay
    "Mein Leben" – "Моя Жизнь" Trockijs Autobiographie Essay "Mein Leben" – "Моя Жизнь" Ein Essay über Trockijs Autobiographie und den jungen Trockij (1879-1904) von Wolfgang und Petra Lubitz, 2018/19 ________________________________________________________________________ Dieser Essay erscheint als Teil von Lubitz' TrotskyanaNet Inhaltsverzeichnis (1) Einleitung, Vorbemerkungen.............................................................................3 Zum Thema........................................................................................................................3 Zum Inhalt.........................................................................................................................3 Formale Hinweise.................................................................................................................4 (2) "Mein Leben" – Bibliographisch-buchhistorisches und Kurioses........................5 Einleitung...........................................................................................................................5 Buchbeschreibung der deutschen Erstausgabe.........................................................................5 Die russische Erstausgabe.....................................................................................................8 Vorabdrucke........................................................................................................................8 Online-Ausgaben.................................................................................................................8
    [Show full text]
  • The New Kremlinology: Understanding Regime Personalisation in Russia
    The New Kremlinology: Understanding Regime Personalisation in Russia In the post-Cold War period, many previously democratising countries experienced authoritarian reversals whereby incumbent leaders took over and gravitated towards personalist rule. Scholars have predom- inantly focused on the authoritarian turn, as opposed to the type of authoritarian rule emerging from it. In a departure from accounts cen- tred on the failure of democratisation in Russia, this book’s argument begins from a basic assumption that the political regime of Vladimir Putin is a personalist regime in the making. How do regimes turn personalist? How do their rulers acquire and maintain personal control? Focusing on the politics within the Russian ruling coalition since 1999, The New Kremlinology explains the process of regime personalisation, that is, the acquisition of personal power by a political leader. The investigation is based on four components of regime personalisation: patronage networks, deinstitutionalisation, media personalisation, and establishing permanency in office. Drawing from comparative evidence and theories of personalist rule, the book explains how Putin’s patron- client network became dominant and how, subsequently, the Russian ruler elevated himself above his own ruling coalition. The lessons of the book extend beyond Russia and illuminate how other personalist regimes emerge and develop. Furthermore, the title of the book, The New Kremlinology, is chosen to emphasise not only the subject mat- ter, the what, but also the how — the battery of innovative methods employed to study the black box of non-democratic politics. Alexander Baturo is Associate Professor of Government at Dublin City University and Johan A. Elkink is Associate Professor in Social Science Research Methods at University College Dublin.
    [Show full text]
  • Khrushchev Era Politics and the Investigation of the Kirov Murder, 1956-1957
    Title Khrushchev Era Politics and the Investigation of the Kirov Murder, 1956-1957 Author(s) Lenoe, Matthew Citation Acta Slavica Iaponica, 24, 47-73 Issue Date 2007 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/39515 Type bulletin (article) File Information ASI24_003.pdf Instructions for use Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers : HUSCAP Acta Slavica Iaponica, Tomus 24, pp. 47-73 Khrushchev Era Politics and the Investigation of the Kirov Murder, 1956-1957 Matthew Lenoe The assassination of Sergei Kirov, Leningrad party chief, on December 1, 1934, was a political sensation inside and outside the USSR. Although the kill- er, a disgruntled Communist named Leonid Nikolaev, insisted in early interro- gations that he had acted alone, Soviet police could not accept this. In a Soviet culture where even rotten vegetables on store shelves could signal counter- revolutionary sabotage, investigators interpreted the murder as a conspiracy by hostile capitalist powers, internal “class enemies,” or both. Under Stalin’s direction, senior officers of the security police (NKVD/UGB) pinned the blame for the assassination on Stalin’s former rivals in the Communist Party leader- ship, the so-called “Left” and “Right” oppositionists. Within four weeks of the killing, a Soviet military tribunal sentenced to death Nikolaev and thirteen alleged co-conspirators, almost all of them former members of the so-called “Zinovievite Opposition” in Leningrad. Then in January 1935 Soviet courts convicted Grigorii Zinoviev and one-time ally Lev Kamenev of “moral com- plicity” in Kirov’s murder, supposedly because they had fostered oppositionist moods within the party. These trials, of the so-called “Leningrad Center” and “Moscow Center” respectively, began a brutal purge of the party leadership.1 In the four years that followed, Stalin and his security men used torture, blackmail, and threats to develop “evidence” against nearly all of Stalin’s past opponents among the party leaders.
    [Show full text]
  • The Thirst for Power
    “Thirst for Power” A short chapter written for a book. January 3, 1937. by Leon Trotsky Basic Translation by A.L. Preston (1970). Corrected in accord with the Russian original published in the book Prestupleniia Stalina. Basic translation copyright © 1978 by Pathfinder Press, New York. Introduction and footnotes copyright © 2002 by Tim Davenport. 1 2 Introduction This pamphlet, “Thirst for Power,” was originally one of 26 small com- ponent chapters of one of Leon Trotsky’s most interesting books, Prestupleniia Stalina [The Crimes of Stalin]. This little-known work was written on board the ship which carried Trotsky and his wife from de facto house arrest in Norway to political asylum in Mexico late in December of 1936. Along with commentary about his troubled personal situation, Trotsky’s book addressed various aspects of the first of the “Great Purge Tr ials” held in Moscow that August and marked a first formal response to the charges against him emerging from that proceeding.1 Although grand plans were announced in Biulleten’ oppozitsii, the central journal of the Trotskyists, for Prestupleniia Stalina to appear “in a short time. .in all the European languages,” the rapid pace of events in the USSR and the strategic decision of Trotsky to organize a “counter- trial” seems to have rendered this project impractical. Only two versions of the book saw print in Trotsky’s lifetime: a French edition which appeared in Paris in 1937 and a Spanish edition released in Santiago, Chile in 1938. While an Italian edition was released in 1966, it was not until the 1970 first edition of Writings of Leon Trotsky that the material was finally trans- lated into English, the language of the largest national segment of the Trotskyist movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy
    TROTSKY AND THE PROBLEM OF SOVIET BUREAUCRACY by Thomas Marshall Twiss B.A., Mount Union College, 1971 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 1972 M.S., Drexel University, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2009 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Thomas Marshall Twiss It was defended on April 16, 2009 and approved by William Chase, Professor, Department of History Ronald H. Linden, Professor, Department of Political Science Ilya Prizel, Professor, Department of Political Science Dissertation Advisor: Jonathan Harris, Professor, Department of Political Science ii Copyright © by Thomas Marshall Twiss 2009 iii TROTSKY AND THE PROBLEM OF SOVIET BUREAUCRACY Thomas Marshall Twiss, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2009 In 1917 the Bolsheviks anticipated, on the basis of the Marxist classics, that the proletarian revolution would put an end to bureaucracy. However, soon after the revolution many within the Bolshevik Party, including Trotsky, were denouncing Soviet bureaucracy as a persistent problem. In fact, for Trotsky the problem of Soviet bureaucracy became the central political and theoretical issue that preoccupied him for the remainder of his life. This study examines the development of Leon Trotsky’s views on that subject from the first years after the Russian Revolution through the completion of his work The Revolution Betrayed in 1936. In his various writings over these years Trotsky expressed three main understandings of the nature of the problem: During the civil war and the first years of NEP he denounced inefficiency in the distribution of supplies to the Red Army and resources throughout the economy as a whole.
    [Show full text]
  • The End of the Cold War and Why We Failed to Predict It
    www.ssoar.info 1989 and why we got it wrong Cox, Michael Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Arbeitspapier / working paper Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Cox, M. (2008). 1989 and why we got it wrong. (Working Paper Series of the Research Network 1989, 1). Berlin. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-16282 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de Working Paper Series of the Research Network 1989 Working Paper 1/2008 ISSN 1867-2833 1989 and why we got it wrong Michael Cox IDEAS and the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom Abstract The Cold War generated more discussion and controversy than any other topic since 1945. Yet, the possibility that the Cold War might end was neither on the radar of scholars nor of politics and the military. This essay seeks to explain why ‘we’ got it wrong by focusing in the main on how ‘we’ in the West understood the Soviet system. Part one thus deals with the Cold War itself and its impact on what came to be known as western ‘Soviet Studies’. Part two then looks at the way in which the USSR was understood by an emerging group of new social scientists in the 1970s and 1980s.
    [Show full text]
  • Martial Law and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, 1959–1974
    Crisis of Revolutionary Leadership: Martial Law and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, 1959–1974 By Joseph Paul Scalice A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in South and Southeast Asian Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Associate Professor Jerey Hadler, Chair Professor Peter Zinoman Professor Andrew Barshay Summer 2017 Crisis of Revolutionary Leadership: Martial Law and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, 1957-1974 Copyright 2017 by Joseph Paul Scalice 1 Abstract Crisis of Revolutionary Leadership: Martial Law and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, 1959–1974 by Joseph Paul Scalice Doctor of Philosophy in South and Southeast Asian Studies University of California, Berkeley Associate Professor Jerey Hadler, Chair In 1967 the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (pkp) split in two. Within two years a second party – the Communist Party of the Philippines (cpp) – had been founded. In this work I argue that it was the political program of Stalinism, embodied in both parties through three basic principles – socialism in one country, the two-stage theory of revolution, and the bloc of four classes – that determined the fate of political struggles in the Philippines in the late 1960s and early 1970s and facilitated Marcos’ declaration of Martial Law in September 1972. I argue that the split in the Communist Party of the Philippines was the direct expression of the Sino-Soviet split in global Stalinism. The impact of this geopolitical split arrived late in the Philippines because it was initially refracted through Jakarta.
    [Show full text]
  • Stalin's Show Trials
    Subject Support History Teaching the case study, Stalin’s show trials: exploring causation with students February, 2014 Efforts have been made to trace and acknowledge copyright holders. In cases where a copyright has been inadvertently overlooked, the copyright holders are requested to contact the Cultural and Environmental Education Administrator, Angie Grogan, [email protected] © 2014 Cultural and Environmental Education, Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST), Dublin West Education Centre, Tallaght, Dublin 24 01-4528018, 01-4528010, [email protected], www.pdst.ie © PDST, 2014 1 Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) Subject Support History Contact details Administrator Angie Grogan Telephone 01-4528018 Fax 01-4528010 E-mail [email protected] Address Dublin West Education Centre, Tallaght, Dublin 24. Note: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the historical data contained herein. Any inadvertent errors are regretted. © PDST, 2014 2 CONTENTS Page Stalin’s show trials: exploring causation with students 4 The enquiry-focused approach 4 Linking your work on the case study to the National Literacy Strategy 5 A contextual overview of the case study 6 Glossary of important terms 7 Biographical notes 9 Timeline of important developments 15 Maps of Russia and the Soviet Union 16 Stalin’s show trials: possible lines of enquiry 17 A possible hook: an online film clip 17 Transcript of the film clip 18 Worksheet: analysis of the film clip 19 Enquiry, Step 1: What prompted the holding of the first show trial in Moscow in August 1936? 20 Enquiry, Step 2: Why was a second show trial held in Moscow in January 1937? 26 Enquiry, Step 3: What factors lay behind the holding of the ‘Great Purge Trial’ in March 1938? 31 A critical skills exercise 38 Historians’ views about Stalin’s show trials 42 Interrogating the historians 43 Your conclusions on the enquiry 44 © PDST, 2014 3 Stalin’s show trials: exploring causation with students In exploring the case study, “Stalin’s show trials”, students are following a narrative of events.
    [Show full text]
  • Trilateral Meeting
    TRILATERAL MEETING Dialogue with Members of the U.S. Congress, The Russian Duma and the German Bundestag: Addressing Mutual Foreign Policy Challenges April 30-May 4, 2016 Briesen, Germany TRILATERAL MEETING Dialogue with Members of the U.S. Congress, The Russian Duma and the German Bundestag: Addressing Mutual Foreign Policy Challenges April 30-May 4, 2016 Vol. 31, No. 2 Dan Glickman Vice President, Aspen Institute Executive Director, Congressional Program Washington, DC This project was made possible by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York with supplemental support from the Democracy Fund, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Holthues Family Trust, the Henry Luce Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Copyright @ 2016 by The Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute One Dupont Circle, NW Washington, DC 20036-1133 Published in the United States of America in 2016 by The Aspen Institute All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 0-89843-648-6 Pub # 16/011 Table of Contents Rapporteur’s Summary ............................................................................................................................... 1 Peter Eitel Ukraine’s Impasse: Beyond a Protracted Frozen Conflict, Searching for a Viable Security Structure ..... 9 Sharyl Cross Helsinki Plus or Helsinki Minus? .............................................................................................................. 17 Alexey
    [Show full text]
  • Kremlinology 2.0: Deconstructing Russian Grand Strategy
    21 November 2014 Kremlinology 2.0: Deconstructing Russian Grand Strategy How has Russia’s grand strategy evolved during Vladimir Putin’s second term as President? Samir Tata thinks the evolution is a partial one. Moscow now accepts the realities of an increasingly multipolar world, but it’s also hell bent on preserving what it sees as its vital spheres of influence. By Samir Tata for ISN Since the end of September, and just six months after the re-annexation of Crimea, Moscow has started to signal that it thinks the time is right for a reset in NATO-Russia relations. But are such overtures merely a rhetorical smokescreen to hide Russian revanchism or a serious call for a return to realism and pragmatism? It’s an important question, bearing in mind that NATO will need to decipher Russia’s grand strategy before crafting its response. What also hangs in the balance is whether Russia and the West become embroiled in Cold War 2.0 or embark upon a new era of détente. Neither Tsarist nor Soviet So what key points should NATO and the West revisit when trying to understand Russia’s contemporary grand strategy? The first point to make is that Vladimir Putin now accepts the realities of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Russia lost the Cold War and, as a result, lost virtually all of the gains it made in the aftermath of World War II. Moscow also recognizes that it has no chance of resurrecting the Tsarist Russian Empire. In a remarkably candid speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin signaled that Russia would craft a new grand strategy that reflects the new circumstances of the emerging multipolar world.
    [Show full text]
  • The State-Is It Us? Memoirs, Archives, and Kremlinologists Author(S): Stephen Kotkin Source: Russian Review, Vol
    The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review The State-Is It Us? Memoirs, Archives, and Kremlinologists Author(s): Stephen Kotkin Source: Russian Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 35-51 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2679502 . Accessed: 01/10/2011 16:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Blackwell Publishing and The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Russian Review. http://www.jstor.org The State Is It Us? Memoirs,Archives, andKremlinologists STEPHEN KOTKIN People who are oftenwritten about but rarely heard from have hereleft detailed accountsof their lives.... Even when the respondents are barely literate ... theystill knowthe names and biographies of their neighbors, they know who did what and sometimescan also tellwhy, and they remember trivial details, gossip, and scraps ofconversation. Through these biographies we can observethe application of So- vietpower ... JanGross, Revolution from Abroad Lately,from what Pravda and other newspapers are printing, our chiefs appear to havesupport in highplaces ..
    [Show full text]