Sedition: Everyday Resistance in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and Brezhnev (Annals of Communism Series)

This book explores Soviet prosecution records to tell the hidden story of ordinary citizens who were arrested for expressing discontent during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years. Contents......Page 8 INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION: Popular Sedition in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union......Page 12 INTRODUCTION TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION: The Meaning of Sedition......Page 36 CHAPTER 1. Stalin Is Dead!......Page 76 CHAPTER 2. The Voice of the People......Page 106 CHAPTER 3. Heretics and Profaners......Page 164 CHAPTER 4. Get Out the Vote!......Page 178 CHAPTER 5. Lone Protesters......Page 200 CHAPTER 6. Leaflets and Anonymous Letters......Page 210 CHAPTER 7. Authors and Their Suggestions for the Improvement of Life......Page 262 CHAPTER 8. Underground Groups and Organizations......Page 295 Notes......Page 344 C......Page 396 D......Page 397 O......Page 398 V......Page 399 B......Page 400 C......Page 402 D......Page 403 G......Page 404 J......Page 405 K......Page 406 L......Page 408 M......Page 409 N......Page 410 P......Page 411 R......Page 413 S......Page 414 T......Page 416 V......Page 417 Z......Page 418 C......Page 419 G......Page 420 K......Page 421 M......Page 422 P......Page 423 T......Page 424 Z......Page 425 The attitudes of disgruntled common citizens become clear in these documents. Politically unsophisticated, unimpressed by the liberal-minded intelligentsia, resentful that Soviet goods were being exported while people at home were deprived and hungry, the everyday critics were sometimes caught in acts of "sedition." Their crimes were cursing their bosses, desecrating symbols of Soviet power, penning anonymous letters and leaflets, writing naive anti-Soviet treatises, and joining proto-political organizations. This book covers the gamut, from the death of Stalin to elections to individual and group acts of defiance. --Book Jacket Although dissident Soviet intellectuals in the post-Stalin era received wide international attention, ordinary people who opposed the regime rarely had their voices heard. This book is the first to tell the hidden story of popular discontent during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years. It draws on an extraordinary collection of arrest and prosecution records from the 1960s and 1970s found in Soviet Procuracy archives