This book is a tribute to the memory of Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009), sociologist, émigré from the Soviet Union, Canadian citizen, public intellectual, and keen observer of Eastern Europe. In seventeen essays leading European, American and Russian scholars discuss the theory and the history of totalitarian society with a comparative approach. They revisit and reassess what Zaslavsky considered the most important project in the latter part of his life: the analysis of Eastern European - especially Soviet societies and their difficult “transition” after the fall of communism in 1989–91. The variety of the contributions reflects the diversity of specialists in the volume, but also reveals Zaslavsky's gift: he surrounded himself with talented people from many different fields and disciplines. In line with Zaslavsky's work and scholarly method, the book promotes new theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of totalitarianism for understanding Soviet and East European societies, and the study of fascist and communist regimes in general.
- Cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Introduction
- I. THEORY and DEBATE
- Movement, Formation, and Maintenance in the Soviet Union: Victor Zaslavsky’s Challenge to the Arendtian Theory of Totalitarianism
- European Liberalism in the Age of Totalitarianism
- Totalitarianism and Ideological Hubris
- Totalitarianism avant la lettre
- From Facts to Words: From Militia Party to Fascist Totalitarianism
- II. HISTORY and SOCIETY
- Stalin the Statesman: A Historian’s Notes
- Stalin’s Dictatorship: Priorities, Policies, and Results
- The “National Question” in the Soviet Union
- The Katyn Case: History and Articulation of Official Discourse in Russia
- Totalitarianism and Science: The Nazi and the Soviet Experience
- From Fascism to Communism: The History of a Conversion
- III. BEYOND TOTALITARIANISM
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Vasily Grossman: Slavophile and Westernizer Against the Totalitarian Soviet State
- “Without the free word, there are no free people": Lydia Chukovskaya’s Writings on Terror and Censorship
- The Transition from Totalitarianism to Authoritarianism in Russia
- Totalitarianism, Nationalism, and Challenges for Democratic Transition
- Public Memory and the Difficulty of Overcoming: the Communist Legacy: Poland and Russia in Comparative Perspective
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Back cover
Text
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