ebooks Tropical Zion: General Trujillo; FDR; and the Jews of Sosúa (American Encounters/Global Interactions) by Allen Wells in History

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During Stalin's Great Terror; accusations of treason struck fear in the hearts of Soviet citizens-and lengthy imprisonment or firing squads often followed. Many of the accused sealed their fates by agreeing to confessions after torture or interrogation by the NKVD. Some; however; gave up without a fight.In Stalinist Confessions; Igal Halfin investigates the phenomenon of a mass surrender to the will of the state. He deciphers the skillfully rendered discourse through which Stalin defined his cult of personality and consolidated his power by building a grassroots base of support and instilling a collective psyche in every citizen. By rooting out evil (opposition) wherever it hid; good communists could realize purity; morality; and their place in the greatest society in history. Confessing to trumped-up charges; comrades made willing sacrifices to their belief in socialism and the necessity of finding and making examples of its enemies.Halfin focuses his study on Leningrad Communist University as a microcosm of Soviet society. Here; eager students proved their loyalty to the new socialism by uncovering opposition within the University. Through their meetings and self-reports; students sought to become Stalin's New Man.Using his exhaustive research in Soviet archives including NKVD records; party materials; student and instructor journals; letters; and newspapers; Halfin examines the transformation in the language of Stalinist socialism. From an initial attitude that dismissed dissent as an error in judgment and redeemable through contrition to a doctrine where members of the opposition became innately wicked and their reform impossible; Stalin's socialism now defined loyalty in strictly black and white terms. Collusion or allegiance (real or contrived; now or in the past) with “enemies of the people” (Trotsky; Zinoviev; Bukharin; Germans; capitalists) was unforgivable. The party now took to the task of purging itself with ever-increasing zeal.