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1937: Stalin's Year of Terror

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The reader travels to a time and place that is as exciting and intense as the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. Rogovin is our link to a part of Soviet history that was left buried for decades. I was one of about 200 who heard a lecture given by him in Lansing at the University of Michigan in 1995. He presented very complex ideas about the history of his homeland with great care and lucidity. This book provides many more details and far more insights. 1937 describes what happened to Stalin's opponents and why? During his lecture in 1995 the author exhibited an impeccable knowledge of Soviet history and contemporary events which were vaticinal. Particularly, in light of the recent stockmarket crisis in Russia and globally. This book is very graphic and therefore at times difficult to read. One is placed into the courtrooms, jail cells and homes of the persecuted and one listens to conversations as though a participant. Rogovin gives voice to those who were silenced over 60 years ago. He does what other historians fail to achieve. He makes sure we understand why this knowledge is relevent for the 20, 30, 40 or 50 year-old today! I would like to remember him as the Greek writing on the Rosetta Stone that served as modern man's link to Heiroglyphics and Ancient Egypt. His book serves as our link to what many hoped would remain a mystery to the most thoughtful. Details which were obscured in a maze of bureacratic indifference and hypocricy are made clear in "1937: Stalin's year of Terror". He has helped to light our path to the truth-- past and future. I appreciate amazon.com giving me access to historical literature of such high caliber. I look forward to his next translation due out this year.

Professor Rogovin's 1937: Stalin's Year of Terror is a surprisingly optimistic work. I say suprising because its subject is the greatest political genocide in history - the intimidation, frame-up and murder of leading Bolsheviks and socialist minded workers and intellectuals. Yet it is an essentially optimistic work because Professor Rogovin is able to lay bare the driving force behind this terror. He shows that it resulted, not from "mans inhumanity to man" or as the "inevitable result of revolution". Rather it was rooted in Stalin and the Soviet bureaucracy's attempt to destroy the socialist ideals and principles which had motivated the Russian Revolution. By 1934 Stalin understood that the only way to deal with the rising tide of socialist opposition to the bureaucracy's rule, was to destroy the Bolshevik Party. Starting with the "Trial of the Sixteen", which included Zinoviev and Kamenev, Professor Rogovin dissects the trials. There are new and sickening insights. He describes Stalin's hilarity when a fellow butcher recounts Zinoviev's horror when he realises he has again been betrayed and will be shot. Stalin used the trials to intimidate all those who were hostile to the terrible consequences of the bureaucracy's mismanagement of the economy and the growth of social inequality. At the centre of the opposition to Stalin was Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition. Professor Rogovin incorporates the exposure of the Moscow Trials frame-up by Trotsky's son, Leon Sedov. This is a welcome addition. The record of the socialist opponents of Stalin's regime have usually been expunged from all accounts of the USSR's history - in order to fit the false schema "Russia equals communism". As Professor Rogovin shows, the finest representatives of the Bolshevik party, were the most intransigent opponents of the Soviet bureaucracy. Above all it is an optimistic work because it shows that the fate of the USSR was not predetermined. The potential contained in such an insight! is enormous.

Professor Rogovin's work on the climax of Stalin's purges in the year 1937 is extraordinarily interesting and useful. He relates the essence of all the new Russian documentation on the period that has appeared since 1991, notably the records of Central Committee plenums, and the translation now brought out by Mehring Books makes this material internationally available. Rogovin's sympathies are distinctly with Trotsky, but this does not impede an objective account where the facts of the terror speak horribly for themselves. These events make it hard to sustain the notion that Stalinism proceeded directly from the earlier phases of the Russian Revolution; it was manifestly a "betrayal," even a counterrevolution (masked by ritualized ideology).THE END

1937: Stalin's Year of Terror is essential reading for anyone interested in the complex history of the former USSR. After countless books, journals and articles have portrayed the USSR's dismantling as the "collapse of communism", Professor Rogovin's work shows just how false these claims have been. Professor Rogovin is able to combine his obvious breadth of knowledge - and experience on this subject - with newly released information from the Soviet archives. Amongst the most important questions that he answers are: What motivated Stalin's terror?; Why did a supposedly communist regime execute numerous lifelong Bolsheviks?; Why were the Trotskyists singled out with particular zeal?; How did a society that was created on the principles of socialism and equality, end up becoming just the opposite? The USSR - its rise and fall - has dominated the 20th century. It is fair to say that in addressing these questions, Professor Rogovin has done us all the most valuable service in making our age more comprehensible. I can't recommend this book strongly enough. Read it - you certainly won't be disappointed.

This book is unique in many aspects. Not only is it based on the author's broad grasp of the events, but it sets out to pose and answer the question - why did Stalin exterminte virtually the entire generation that led the October Revolution in Russia?

Vadim Z. Rogovin is a well known Russian Marxist historian and the author of numerous scholarly works. On ths basis of his research Rogovin demonstrates that Stalin's purges were not simply the work of a madman, but possesed a definite political logic. Stalin set out ruthlessly to exterminate the genuine Marxists in the Soviet Union in order to consolidate his bureuacratic regime.

At the heart of Rogovin's thesis is the view that the Stalinist regime, far from being the logical continuation of the policies of the Russian Revolution, repressented a violent counterrevolution against the ideals of Lenin and Marx. This is demonstrated by the particular ferocity with which Stalin sought to crush the socialist opposition to his tyranny led by Leon Trotsky, the main target of the purge trials.

Rogovin refutes the claim that the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky was a personal contest for power. He shows that the Stalinist persecution of Trotskyism grew out of the Soviet regime's renunciation of the revolutionary traditions of Bolshevism, defended tenaciously by Trotsky and substantial numbers within the Soviet Union itself.

The vast majority of books on the purges suffer from a fundamental weakness, rooted in ideology. None treats seriously the role of Stain's main opponent, Trotsky. This flaw, based on the ideological needs of the cold war and the school of communism is dead, seriously detracts from the value of these works.

"1937: Stalin's Year of Terror" provides an answer to this school. It is an invaluable contribution to an understanding of the most tragic and fateful year in the history of the Soviet Union.

It is of course an "irony of history" that the disclosure of the Soviet archives benefited firstly anti-communist historians wont at writings "historical" - ie accusatory, chock-full with cheap moralizing commonplaces - narratives. For the last decade, the pioneering role in this field has been held by the notorious Richard Pipes and the no less notorious Volkongonov. The fact that a Russian historian with a Trotskyst viewpoint has chosen to profit from the same evidence is a good piece of news.

It is intersting that, although Rogovin had full access to the new materials (which he describes and quotes, although hampered by the clumsy use of "footnotes" as *end*-notes in the book) he does not write anything "new" about the period of the Great Purges that could not be already found in Trotsky's _The Revolution Betrayed_. In fact what he stresses is the fact that the growingt alienation of the Soviet party bureaucracy from the masses that had brought it to power meant that the individual members of that bureaucracy had growing access to privileges they were not prone to renounce, and - precisely because of this - they develped an ever increasing dependency, as far the maintenance of their political power positions was concerned, vis-a-vis the individual figure they had placed at the top, namely Joseph Stalin. Therefore the fact that they were to become sitting ducks to the same Stalin when the process of the purges started.

Once this is said, there's not much to be added to the picture, only that Rogovin, by following closely Trotsky in the matter, helps dispels Marxist illusions such as held by a Issac Deutscher of Stalin-as-the-modernizer-of backward-Russia; ; Rogovin's Stalin is , more than ever , a psychopatic serial killer. But then such a psychopath is put into an historical process that makes sense - and that is the main merit of this work.

This book is successful and excellent on so many levels. It is not often easy to write about history, particularly something as harrowing as Stalin's purges (and final destruction of the Bolshevik Revolution)in a fluid engaging style. Perhaps a tip o' the hat to the translator is also do here. This book does just that!

More importantly, however, is that the book's author recaptures Marxist analysis from facile, superficial historical writings that equate Stalinism with "communism". In fact, Stalinism had essentially nothing to do with either Marxism or Bolshevism. Most anti-Stalinist writings are nothing more than hysterical "anti-communist" screeds devoid of true historical perspective and simply propaganda defending capitalism or "Westdern culture" and using Stalin as the example of how awful "communism" is. While covering in depth the events of 1937, Ragovin also provides an intensive analsysis of Stalin's actions and motivations as well as those of his sychophants and those who opposed him on Marxist grounds. In fact, Ragovin explains in great detail how Stalin DID have much to fear from his opponents and argues effectively that Stalin's ultimate victory over the real Bolshevik/ Marxists was not a sure thing. Although the trials and administrative executions were carried out simply to eliminate his enemies, Stalin wasn't paranoid. There were still many Bolsheviks who wanted to create a real workers state, which, had they succeeded would have destroyed Stalin and his bureaucracy of brutal henchmen.

He descibes the heroism of the anti-stalinist Marxists as well as the depravity of the Stalinists in great detail. The almost unknown history of the incredible bravery of thousands of Trotsky's followers first consigned to brutal conditions in the Gulag and finally all executed after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union is particularly poignant.

Equally devastating is his accounting of the arrest torture and executions of outstanding individuals like Russian Civil War hero Marshal Tukachevsky. He also provides a thoroughly convincing analysis of their intellectual destruction prior to signing confessions to the trumped up charges, on the one hand, while also pointing out that Stalin was correct in his mistrust of these people. If given more opportunity they most certainly would have deposed Stalin.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the real history of the Soviet Union unencumbered by "anti-communist" propaganda. Apparently Ragovin has a number of other books about the Soviet Union written on individual years concerning the events transpiring in those years, but as yet they have not been translated into English. Hopefully, they will be avaialble soon. We need much more of this accurate information on the events of those years, and how those events molded the Soviet Union and the rest of the world.

With meticulous detail, Rogovin details the unfolding of Stalin's terror in 1937. Having lived under the last years of Stalinist rule, Rogovin has intimate acquaintance with resources from the years of Stalin's terror. He uses this knowledge, memoirs of survivors, and archival material that has only been available in the last few years to detail how Stalin and the privileged bureaucracy he represented planned and carried out the terror. What struck me is how weak the bureaucracy was, that none of what came about was inevitable. Tracing the evolution of the terror of 1937 week by week, month by month, Rogovin recounts how Stalin was able to plan and carry out the liquidation of any opponents. Above all, this book gives the lie to current opinion in the media and academia that Stalinism was the inevitable result of the Russian Revolution. It was, in fact the opposite. The Revolution that inspired so much hope around the world could only be destroyed by having its leadership physically liquidated and its moral authority destroyed through the terror. Rogovin gives many biographies describing how and why dedicated revolutionaries were morally destroyed and then executed. He describes the massive opposition to Stalinism that existed in the Soviet Union in the `30's and why Stalin launched the terror to put it down. He also details how the terror was spread internationally, particularly in the Spanish Revolution. The book irrefutably shows that Stalinism was not a continuation of the Russian Revolution, it was its betrayal. This book shows humanity at its best and worst!

This book analyses the mode of governance of Joseph Stalin. The bureaucracy seems to have been the abode of obscurantists.Full credit to the author,as he was successful in empathizing with the unfotunate Russians of those times.

This is a history of the Soviet Union in the year 1937. It is by a Russian historian who has socialist leanings and has been advertised on that basis. All in all I found the book disappointing. To explain why it is perhaps briefly to talk about the period. Stalin seized power after the death of Lenin. He was not particularly well known at the time and most expected others such as Trotsky or Zinoviev to succeed Lenin. Stalin's main ability was as a political numbers man and he benefited in not being held back by any scruples.

Initially an economic conservative Stalin in the late 20's and 30's adopted a policy of forced collectivization to enable the export of primary products to finance a rapid industrialization program.

From this point on Soviet Russia descended into the living hell that has been portrayed so well by George Orwell. The year 1937 was a year which saw the height of the purges directed against the ruling communist party and army and is of tremendous interest to any historians of Russia and Communism.

Rogovin has apparently written a multi volume history of the Soviet Union of which so far this is the only volume to be translated into English. Effectively the book relies on a lot of old material rather than using the newly available archives which had led to other historians revealing things that we did not know in the past. Rogovin uses a lot of old sources for his work. Thus in establishing the sorts of problems faced in the growth of industry in the period the author quotes a book written by an American in the 1940's. A lot of the material quoted is very old, Khrushchev's memoirs and Trotsky's writings for instance. When he is able to able to quote new material what he says is of some interest. For instance it would appear that the reason that one group of defendants confessed to non existent crimes was a personal meeting with Stalin in which he promised them to let them live.

In general terms what he says is unremarkable and it is what has been said about the period by many including Trotsky. The forced collectivization of agriculture with all the criminal behavior involved meant that Stalin was unpopular and there would have been a high probability of either him or his regime being removed. The framing of the higher members of the ruling elite with non existent crimes was a way of spreading terror and preventing any opposition growing. The campaigns against wrecking, that is to say the trial of those who were responsible for accidents during the period of development was a way of covering up the appalling way the economy was run.

Historians in the period have debated to what extent the polices of the time were simply due to Stalin's alleged mental instability. One virtue of the book is to show that rather than reflecting any instability all of the crimes were carefully calculated acts by Stalin to achieve his ends.

In summary however the book is not so much a new work of research but more an ideological spin on material derived from fairly old secondary sources. The structure of the book is rather formless and drifts all over the place and would not be an easy read for anyone who was not familiar with the area. It is very much a book for people interested in the period rather than being an easy introduction to it.