Law And Terror In Stalin's Russia

Description

The brooding figure of Joseph Stalin hovered over communist power in Russia for most of its 74 years. Despite its achievements, his regime practised lawlessness and terror over a wider span of territory and more people than had ever been known before. The question that arises is, how was he able to exercise dictatorial rule over 170 million people in the many countries making up the Soviet Union for so long? Stalin's Russia still has the power to evoke intense interest and the new information gradually being excavated from Soviet archives is forever bringing forth more appalling revelations of the depths to which men can sink. No longer is it widely believed that Stalin deviated from Lenin's model but, as John Hostettler shows, terror was inherent in the whole of Lenin's revolutionary career. In vivid detail the author plots the interaction of Marxist theory with the culturally backward legacy of autocratic Tsarist Russia that was played out in the minds of Lenin, Stalin and the other Bolshevik leaders. What is also established is that not only was law often ignored but was also twisted and used as a facade to enhance and legitimize appalling inhumanity. We see the growth of slave labour and the Gulag, of forced industrialization, and the almost unbelievable horrors of collectivization. The effects of the Great Terror in liquidating the Bolshevik Old Guard and millions of ordinary people caught up in the web of accusation, counter-accusation and the application to the whole Soviet empire of doublespeak are graphically illustrated. Finally, Hostettler questions whether a different road could have been taken after the Bolshevik Revolution had succeeded. He concludes that Stalin's Russia signals a warning against taking a wrong path in seeking human liberty and equality. Revolutionary law is no law at all and is no substitute for the rule of law. Title Copyright Contents Glossary Preface Introduction Background Stalin’s Russia Stalin’s Motives? Khrushchev - Opening Pandora’s Box CHAPTER 1. Law in the Aftermath of the October Revolution Marxist Theory Lenin on the State and Law Use of Force Perversion of Law during the Red Terror and War Communism (1917-1920) The Red Terror Bolshevik Policy The Cheka State Power Courts Basic Principles CHAPTER 2. Communist ‘Legality’ Insurrection The Impact of the New Economic Policy (1921-1928) Soviet Theory of Law Trial of Left Socialist Revolutionaries Criminal Codes The Procuracy The OGPU is Born Creation of the USSR CHAPTER 3. Stalin in Power The First Five-Year-Plan The Theory of Law in Flux Intensification of the Class Struggle under Socialism Attack on Bukharin Trials in Industry CHAPTER 4. War and Famine in the Countryside Agricultural Policy Collectivization Abuse of Law and Genocide CHAPTER 5. Law Legitimizing Terror The Notorious Article 58 The Smolensk Archives The Courts and Crime in Smolensk CHAPTER 6. Trial by Terror Assassination of Kirov The Moscow Show Trials Zinoviev and Kamenev The Trial of Pyatakov, Radek and Others CHAPTER 7. The Trial of Bukharin The Military Yezhov Takes Over The Culminating Trial Fantasy Bukharin’s Defiance ‘Plan to Assassinate Lenin’ Medieval Jurisprudence Bukharin’s Testament CHAPTER 8. Law as a Facade for Terror Coercion and Consent The Stalin Constitution Law Strengthened Jurist Traitors Vyshinsky’s ‘Law’ The Great Terror Subsides Confessions and Torture The War The Leningrad Affair The ‘Doctors’ Plot’ Legality CHAPTER 9. Afterword Appendix Brief Biographies of Key Figures of the Period Beria, Lavrenti Bukharin, Nikolai Kamenev, Lev Kirov, Sergei Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Pashukanis, Evgeny Rykov, Alexei Stalin, Joseph Stuchka, Pavel Ivanovich Trotsky, Lev Davidovich Vyshinsky, Andrei Yagoda, Genrikh Yezhov, Nicolai Zinoviev, Grigori Chronology Bibliography 1. Primary Sources 2. Newspapers Journals and Reports 3. Secondary Sources Index