Let history judge : the origins and consequences of Stalinism

The most comprehensive and revealing investigation of Stalinism and political developments in the Soviet Union from 1922-1953, this edition is an extensively revised and expanded version of a classic work. The internationally known historian Roy Medvedev has included more than one-hundred new interviews, unpublished memoirs, and archives from survivors of Stalin's death camps. This updated version of a classic work was written during a time of great change in the Soviet Union. With the advent of perestroika and glasnost, more progressive leadership has sought to demolish the Stalinist system which had finally crippled the Soviet Union and incited public discontent. Let History Judge contains new material on purges in 1929-1931 and terror against the peasantry; the Kirov assasination and show trials; the "great terror" from 1936-1938, which caused irreparable damage to the Soviet Union and left it vulnerable for Hilter's attack in 1941; the trial of Bukharin; Trotsky's revolutionary activity and Stalin's involvement with his murder in Mexico; Stalin's miscalculations and errors during the war, which cost the Soviet Union nearly 25 million in casualties; new purges from 1946-1953; and the actual vote of the Seventeenth Congress, which decided Stalin's candidacy. Since the first edition was finished by the author in 1969 and published in 1971, dozens of new informants have come forward to give their evidence to Roy Medvedev. Distinguished Soviet literary, cultural, and political figures like the late Alexander Twardovsky, Ilja Ehrenburg, Konstantin Simonov, Yuri Trifono, Mikhail Romm and many others have accumulated documentary records of Stalinism in anticipation of an expanded version. On pp. 786-788 and pp. 802-807 (entitled "Official Anti-Semitism"), summarizes Stalin's postwar antisemitic policy as part of his increasing chauvinism and his cult of the Russian nation. Mentions the annihilation of well-known Jewish intellectuals and writers who belonged to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the discriminatory measures against Jewish members of the party apparatus and the officers' corps, and the imposition of a restrictive Jewish quota for cultural and academic institutions. Notes that in his last years Stalin initiated antisemitic and anti-Zionist campaigns and repressions, such as the struggle against "cosmopolitanism" and the Doctors' Plot, and prepared a mass deportation of Soviet Jews to remote areas. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism)

The most comprehensive investigation of Stalinism and political developments in the Soviet Union from 1922-1953, this is an extensively revised version of a classic. Medvedev has included more than one hundred new interviews, unpublished memoirs, and archives from survivors of Stalin's death camps — with distinguished Soviet literary, cultural, and political figures including the late Alexander Twardovsky, Ilja Ehrenburg, Konstantin Simonov, Yuri Trifono, Mikhail Romm and many others.

Harrison Salisbury

A milestone in the understanding of nearly fifty years of Russian history.

Presents the comprehensive and revealing investigation of Stalinism and political developments in the Soviet Union from 1922-1953. This book contains material on: purges in 1929-1931 and terror against the peasantry, the Kirov assassination and show trials, and, Trotsky's revolutionary activity and Stalin's involvement with his murder in Mexico.