The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (Russian and East European Studies)

The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (Russian and East European Studies)

Michael David-Fox (Editor)
$62.50
Publication Date: October 24th, 2023
Publisher:
University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN:
9780822948025
Pages:
432
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Description

A Penetrating Exploration of the Soviet Secret Police Apparatus

Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world’s most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin’s Russia today. 

About the Author

Michael David-Fox is director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University, where he is also professor in the School of Foreign Service and Department of History. He is a founding and executive editor at Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History and author or editor of thirteen books on Russian, Soviet, and modern history. His most recent book is Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union. 

Praise for The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations (Russian and East European Studies)

“This collection of thirteen essays interrogates interrogators, and is the must-read for understanding not only of the Soviet past of Europe and Eurasia but also of Russia’s post-Soviet present.”
—Serhii Plokhy, author of The Man with the Poison Gun: A Cold War Spy Story 

“There are many excellent studies of the Soviet political police, but none cover the range of topics, geography, and time span that the essays in this collection do. A number of contributions delve into subjects previously untouched and are based on regional as well as central archives that have long been underutilized. The collection brings together the work of scholars from numerous countries, and an insightful introduction weaves together the strands that run through the essays.” —David Shearer, coeditor of Stalin and the Lubianka: A Documentary History of the Political Police and Security Organs in the Soviet Union, 1922–1953 

“The study of the history of Soviet terror has received a significant new impetus in recent years. Its driving force was the massive opening of the archives of Soviet state security in Ukraine and other countries of the former USSR. This book presents the impressive results of creating a new history of terror in all its manifestations. Researchers are paying more and more attention to victims and perpetrators of terror, secret police institutions and practices, and traditions of violence that have persisted down until the present day.” —Oleg Khlevniuk, author of Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator. 

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