Stalin's Defectors

Stalin's Defectors PDF Author: Mark Edele
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019251914X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Stalin's Defectors is the first systematic study of the phenomenon of frontline surrender to the Germans in the Soviet Union's 'Great Patriotic War' against the Nazis in 1941-1945. No other Allied army in the Second World War had such a large share of defectors among its prisoners of war. Based on a broad range of sources, this volume investigates the extent, the context, the scenarios, the reasons, the aftermath, and the historiography of frontline defection. It shows that the most widespread sentiments animating attempts to cross the frontline was a wish to survive this war. Disgruntlement with Stalin's 'socialism' was also prevalent among those who chose to give up and hand themselves over to the enemy. While politics thus played a prominent role in pushing people to commit treason, few desired to fight on the side of the enemy. Hence, while the phenomenon of frontline defection tells us much about the lack of popularity of Stalin's regime, it does not prove that the majority of the population was ready for resistance, let alone collaboration. Both sides of a long-standing debate between those who equate all Soviet captives with defectors, and those who attempt to downplay the phenomenon, then, over-stress their argument. Instead, more recent research on the moods of both the occupied and the unoccupied Soviet population shows that the majority understood its own interest in opposition to both Hitler's and Stalin's regime. The findings of Mark Edele in this study support such an interpretation.

Stalin's Defectors

Stalin's Defectors PDF Author: Mark Edele
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019251914X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
Stalin's Defectors is the first systematic study of the phenomenon of frontline surrender to the Germans in the Soviet Union's 'Great Patriotic War' against the Nazis in 1941-1945. No other Allied army in the Second World War had such a large share of defectors among its prisoners of war. Based on a broad range of sources, this volume investigates the extent, the context, the scenarios, the reasons, the aftermath, and the historiography of frontline defection. It shows that the most widespread sentiments animating attempts to cross the frontline was a wish to survive this war. Disgruntlement with Stalin's 'socialism' was also prevalent among those who chose to give up and hand themselves over to the enemy. While politics thus played a prominent role in pushing people to commit treason, few desired to fight on the side of the enemy. Hence, while the phenomenon of frontline defection tells us much about the lack of popularity of Stalin's regime, it does not prove that the majority of the population was ready for resistance, let alone collaboration. Both sides of a long-standing debate between those who equate all Soviet captives with defectors, and those who attempt to downplay the phenomenon, then, over-stress their argument. Instead, more recent research on the moods of both the occupied and the unoccupied Soviet population shows that the majority understood its own interest in opposition to both Hitler's and Stalin's regime. The findings of Mark Edele in this study support such an interpretation.

Soviet Defectors

Soviet Defectors PDF Author: Vladislav Krasnov
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 9780817982331
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
The topic of defection is taboo in the USSR, and the Soviets, are anxious to silence, downplay, or distort every case of defection. Surprisingly, Vladislav Krasnov reports, the free world has often played along with these Soviet efforts by treating defection primarily as a secretive matter best left to bureaucrats. As a result, defectors' human rights have sometimes been violated, and U.S. national security interests have been poorly served.

Stalin's Defectors

Stalin's Defectors PDF Author: Mark Edele
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198798156
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
The first systematic study of the phenomenon of frontline surrender to the Germans in the Soviet Union's 'Great Patriotic War' against the Nazis in 1941-1945, showing that while people were disgruntled with Stalin's rule, most attempts to cross the frontline stemmed from a wish to survive this war, rather than a desire to support Hitler's regime

Soviet Defectors

Soviet Defectors PDF Author: Kevin Riehle
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474467253
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
When intelligence officers defect, they take with them privileged information and often communicate it to the receiving state.

Soviet Defectors

Soviet Defectors PDF Author: Kevin Riehle
Publisher: Intelligence, Surveillance and Secret Warfare
ISBN: 9781474467247
Category : Defectors
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
When intelligence officers defect, they take with them privileged information and often communicate it to the receiving state.

Soviet Defectors

Soviet Defectors PDF Author: Vladislav Krasnov
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817982337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The topic of defection is taboo in the USSR, and the Soviets, are anxious to silence, downplay, or distort every case of defection. Surprisingly, Vladislav Krasnov reports, the free world has often played along with these Soviet efforts by treating defection primarily as a secretive matter best left to bureaucrats. As a result, defectors' human rights have sometimes been violated, and U.S. national security interests have been poorly served.

The Kravchenko Case

The Kravchenko Case PDF Author: Gary Kern
Publisher: Enigma Books
ISBN: 1929631731
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 671

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Book Description
Victor Kravchenko--the most discussed Soviet defector at the height of the Cold War.

Federal Government's Handling of Soviet and Communist Bloc Defectors

Federal Government's Handling of Soviet and Communist Bloc Defectors PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Asylum, Right of
Languages : en
Pages : 1012

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Book Description


The Red Army and the Great Terror

The Red Army and the Great Terror PDF Author: Peter Whitewood
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700621172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
On June 11, 1937, a closed military court ordered the execution of a group of the Soviet Union's most talented and experienced army officers, including Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskii; all were charged with participating in a Nazi plot to overthrow the regime of Joseph Stalin. There followed a massive military purge, from the officer corps through the rank-and-file, that many consider a major factor in the Red Army's dismal performance in confronting the German invasion of June 1941. Why take such action on the eve of a major war? The most common theory has Stalin fabricating a "military conspiracy" to tighten his control over the Soviet state. In The Red Army and the Great Terror, Peter Whitewood advances an entirely new explanation for Stalin's actions—an explanation with the potential to unlock the mysteries that still surround the Great Terror, the surge of political repression in the late 1930s in which over one million Soviet people were imprisoned in labor camps and over 750,000 executed. Framing his study within the context of Soviet civil-military relations dating back to the 1917 revolution, Whitewood shows that Stalin sanctioned this attack on the Red Army not from a position of confidence and strength, but from one of weakness and misperception. Here we see how Stalin's views had been poisoned by the paranoid accusations of his secret police, who saw spies and supporters of the dead Tsar everywhere and who had long believed that the Red Army was vulnerable to infiltration by foreign intelligence agencies engaged in a conspiracy against the Soviet state. Recently opened Russian archives allow Whitewood to counter the accounts of Soviet defectors and conspiracy theories that have long underpinned conventional wisdom on the military purge. By broadening our view, The Red Army and the Great Terror demonstrates not only why Tukhachevskii and his associates were purged in 1937, but also why tens of thousands of other officers and soldiers were discharged and arrested at the same time. With its thorough reassessment of these events, the book sheds new light on the nature of power, state violence, and civil-military relations under the Stalinist regime.

Stalinism at War

Stalinism at War PDF Author: Mark Edele
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350153532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Stalinism at War tells the epic story of the Soviet Union in World War Two. Starting with Soviet involvement in the war in Asia and ending with a bloody counter-insurgency in the borderlands of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics, the Soviet Union's war was both considerably longer and more all-encompassing than is sometimes appreciated. Here, acclaimed scholar Mark Edele explores the complex experiences of both ordinary and extraordinary citizens – Russians and Koreans, Ukrainians and Jews, Lithuanians and Georgians, men and women, loyal Stalinists and critics of his regime – to reveal how the Soviet Union and leadership of a ruthless dictator propelled Allied victory over Germany and Japan. In doing so, Edele weaves together material on the society and culture of the wartime years with high-level politics and unites the military, economic and political history of the Soviet Union with broader popular histories from below. The result is an engaging, intelligent and authoritative account of the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1949.