Rewriting history in soviet Russia : the politics of revisionist historiography, 1956-1974

Stalin's death and denunciation at the 1956 Twentieth Party Congress unleashed a furor among soviet historians. Despite attempts of Stalinist apparatchiks to stem the tide of historical revision, in the 1960s a small group of anti-Stalinist historians continued to fight for historical truth, setting them on a collision course with the party political elite. Using intensive interviews and original manuscript material, Markwick provides a unique, insiders' account of the battle for the Soviet past in the 1960s which paved the way for the dramatic upheavel in Soviet historical writing occcasioned by perestroika . Booknews Based on interviews and original manuscripts, including an unpublished history of collectivization, Markwich (modern European history, U. of Newcastle, Australia) examines the rush of historical revisionism after the death of Stalin. He shows how historians, reviving the tradition of the Russian intelligentsia, began reconsidering Soviet history and historical writing in such a manner that collision with the party elite was inevitable. Their efforts during the 1960s, he says, paved the way for the historical writing occasioned by . The CiP shows the title as with the same subtitle. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) This book explores the political significance of the development of historical revisionism in the USSR under Khrushchev in the wake of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU and its demise with the onset of the 'period of stagnation' under Brezhnev. On the basis of intensive interviews and original manuscript material, the book demonstrates that the vigorous rejuvenation of historiography undertaken by Soviet historians in the 1960s conceptually cleared the way for and fomented the dramatic upheaval in Soviet historical writing occasioned by the advent of perestroika. 1_2......Page 1 3......Page 52 4......Page 70 5......Page 92 6......Page 113 7......Page 132 notes......Page 139 bibliography_index......Page 164