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Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to his death in 1953, often invoked th... more Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to his death in 1953, often invoked the specter of war. For some reason, however, we have never taken those invocations seriously. We have always understood them as a manipulative device, either to gain political advantage over his opponents, to mobilize the population, to deflect blame for ill-advised and extreme policies, or in some other way to consolidate the dictator's power. This article argues that the dictator's expectations of war were not just discursive or rhetorical, as most histories argue. In fact, Stalin's perceptions of external threat were inextricably intertwined with internal policies of mass repression, as well as campaigns of industrial mobilization. This article examines the patterns of radicalized internal violence that so characterized the Stalinist regime, and connects them to the dictator's perceptions of war and foreign threat. Discussion focuses on the crisis years 1927–1932, 1936–1939, the Great Patriotic War, and the last war crisis period, 1946–1952. Violent repressions under Stalin were cyclical, peaking and ebbing but, in each case, they were linked to Stalin's expectation of war and invasion, and they followed a pattern established during the dictator's experience as a military commander in the Russian revolutionary and civil wars, from 1918 to 1920. This article examines those links, and it compares the cyclical character of Stalinist repression to the pattern of cumulative radicalization of violence under the German National Socialist regime. Also available online: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/fsv/jgo;jsessionid=2q8is6dk6l7h1.x-ic-live-03
Political Violence under Stalin, 2013
In the past years, much has been written about repression and state violence in the Soviet Union,... more In the past years, much has been written about repression and state violence in the Soviet Union, especially under the regime of Joseph Stalin, and especially during the 1930s. State violence during this era has been described in many and contradictory ways--as spontaneous and irrational, and as rational, and even planned. It is seen as the reflection of a weak state and an insecure regime, and as a reflection of a strong state, and a strong dictator. 1 Some have seen the use of state violence as a reflection, simultaneously, of both a weak and a strong state. 2 Stalin's use of violence has been described as part of a modernizing state, employing, in the extreme, methods of social engineering common to many European states, and it has been described as characteristic of a degenerative or at least a neo-traditional state. 3 Scholars have attributed the violence of the Stalinist era to the peculiar and essential culture of Bolshevism, and the exigencies of war and revolution, and some scholars attribute the violence of the 1930s ultimately, if not solely, to Stalin and his own peculiar personality and paranoia. 4
Cahiers du monde russe : Russie, Empire russe, Union soviétique, États indépendants, 1998
... Further, writes Hobsbawm, it was the regime placed in power by the Russian Revolution that sa... more ... Further, writes Hobsbawm, it was the regime placed in power by the Russian Revolution that saved the ... Council, which had provided major support for Soviet historical studies, began to give less money for historical ... SOVIET HISTORY IN BRITAIN AND NORTH AMERICA 571 ...
Cahiers du monde russe, 2001
This paper examines the origins of mass repression during the 1930s by focusing on the evolving p... more This paper examines the origins of mass repression during the 1930s by focusing on the evolving policies of the People's Commissariat of Internal affairs, the NKVD (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del). The NKVD included both the regular police--the militsiia-- ...
The Journal of Modern History, 2005
Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 1991
Page 1. DAVID R. SHEARER THE LANGUAGE AND POLITICS OF SOCIALIST RATIONALIZATION Productivity, ind... more Page 1. DAVID R. SHEARER THE LANGUAGE AND POLITICS OF SOCIALIST RATIONALIZATION Productivity, industrial relations, and the social origins of Stalinism at the end of NEP* Introduction The fifteenth communist party ...
Cahiers du monde russe : Russie, Empire russe, Union soviétique, États indépendants, 1998
Cahiers du monde russe : Russie, Empire russe, Union soviétique, États indépendants, 1995
The story of rapid industrialization and the transition from NEP to a bureaucratically administer... more The story of rapid industrialization and the transition from NEP to a bureaucratically administered economy in the late 1920's and early 1930's is often told as if it was an inevitable process. The history of the syndicated trade movement in Soviet industry shows ...
Book Reviews by David Shearer
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2011
Review essay
Papers by David Shearer
The question as to why the leaders of the Soviet Union murdered hundreds of thousands of Soviet c... more The question as to why the leaders of the Soviet Union murdered hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens during the Great Purges is one of the most important of modern history, primarily because it shapes what we are likely to think about communism. There are two schools of thought. ...
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Books by David Shearer
Articles and Papers by David Shearer
Book Reviews by David Shearer
Papers by David Shearer