ÒEnemies of the PeopleÓ Under the Soviets: A History of Repression and Its Consequences

ÒEnemies of the PeopleÓ Under the Soviets: A History of Repression and Its Consequences
ISBN-10
0786496711
ISBN-13
9780786496716
Category
History
Pages
284
Language
English
Published
2015-03-13
Publisher
McFarland
Author
Peter Julicher

Description

The Soviet era was a time of social and economic upheaval in Russia's history as the Bolsheviks strove to build a socialist utopia based on the theories of Karl Marx. Central to this endeavor was the 25-year dictatorship of Josef Stalin, whose determination to make the Soviet Union a dominant industrial and military power created misery on a grand scale and caused death of untold numbers of people. Stalin arbitrarily invoked the specter of "enemies of the people" to destroy anyone who opposed the new socialist order. Millions of Soviet citizens were executed in continuous purges, and millions more perished in the slave labor camps of the Gulag. This book describes the fate of those citizens who were declared enemies of the people not because of what they had done but because of who they were. Stalin's repression not only destroyed the best and brightest, it prevented the development of a civil society in the Soviet Union which would have promoted economic justice, the rule of law and basic human rights for all.

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