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"Halfin, Igal"
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Stalinist confessions
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.
eBook
Intimate Enemies
Intimate Enemies is a brilliant study of the transformation of Bolshevik Party ideology, language, and power relations during the crucial period leading up to Stalin's seizure of power. Combining extensive research in recently opened Soviet archives with an insightful rereading of intra-Party struggles, Igal Halfin uncovers this evolution in the language of Bolshevism. This language defined the methods for judging true party loyalty-in what Halfin describes as an examination of the 'hermeneutics of the soul,' and became the basis for prosecuting the Party's enemies, particularly the \\u201cintimate enemies\\u201d within the Party itself. Halfin argues that Bolshevism-which claimed sole access to truth and morality-ultimately demonized its enemies, and became in effect a theology that facilitated a monumental power shift.
eBook
Intimate Enemies
Intimate Enemiesis a brilliant study of the transformation of Bolshevik Party ideology, language, and power relations during the crucial period leading up to Stalin's seizure of power. Combining extensive research in recently opened Soviet archives with an insightful rereading of intra-Party struggles, Igal Halfin uncovers this evolution in the language of Bolshevism. This language defined the methods for judging true party loyalty-in what Halfin describes as an examination of the 'hermeneutics of the soul,' and became the basis for prosecuting the Party's enemies, particularly the \"intimate enemies\" within the Party itself. Halfin argues that Bolshevism-which claimed sole access to truth and morality-ultimately demonized its enemies, and became in effect a theology that facilitated a monumental power shift.
eBook
Stalinist Confessions
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 \\u201cenemies of the people\\u201d (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Germans, capitalists) was unforgivable. The party now took to the task of purging itself with ever-increasing zeal.
eBook
Language and Revolution
This work examines the role of language in forging the modern subject. Focusing on the idea of the \"New Man\" that has animated all revolutionaries, the present volume asks what it meant to define oneself in terms of one's class origins, gender, national belonging or racial origins.
eBook
PANDEMONIUM AT COMMUNIST UNIVERSITY
From the official perspective, the enthusiasm with which the Party faithful met each and every proclamation of the Central Committee was excellent proof that they were ready to respond to the challenges that lay ahead. This does not have to be seen as coercion: the historical perspicacity of these larger-than-life individuals put them in a unique position to attempt a final assault on the historical peak called “classless society” in their own eyes as well. The intensification of the NKVD’s cleansing activities was not necessarily perceived by the rank and file as something to which they had to adjust but
Book Chapter
MESSIANIC TIMES
During the years of the Great Purge, the Party invested great effort in terminating the contest for the future; history was given closure, and a perfect society was said to be essentially already complete. Time had been consummated, and there was no further need for mediation between the historical now and the metahistorical beyond.
The world of the mid- to late 1930s was a world fully expressed. No longer split into the signifier and the signified, the language of the period rendered reality without any residue or remainder. Language was triumphant—it knew no obstruction, no obfuscations. Every truth was
Book Chapter
EPILOGUE
Who was responsible for the Great Purge? Who endorsed the notion that classless society could be reached only through the sacrifice of countless human lives? Archival materials suggest that there was a central agency behind the manslaughter—the destruction of the Party elite in 1936–38 was carefully orchestrated through decrees coming directly from Moscow. Still, the scope of violence was too wide, and the number of participants too great, to corroborate the notion that the violence was a result of Stalin’s conspiracy against a helpless Party. It is impossible to explain the magnitude of reprisals unless we advance a
Book Chapter