Stalin's Terror

Now that THF has a substantial collection of podcasts on Soviet history, I wanted to canvas the opinion of our followers on a question of particular interest to me. To what extent to you think that fear helps explain the descent into dictatorship and terror, 1921-1938? I'm thinking of all sorts of fears: fear of invasion, fear of oppositionists, of the hostility of the peasantry and workers, of the disloyalty of bourgeois specialists. It's a way of thinking beyond cliches about Stalin as motivated solely by a lust for power, and Bolshevism as an ideology of violence. In connection with this, let me suggest that you keep your eye on the link in the title--it brings you to the website of a conference I'm organising for this summer. In the coming months it should have a growing range of resources for teachers, students and others interested in Stalin's Terror.

James Harris
University of Leeds