Author: Molly Pucci
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300242573
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
A compelling examination of the establishment of the secret police in Communist Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Eastern Germany This book examines the history of early secret police forces in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. Molly Pucci delves into the ways their origins diverged from the original Soviet model based on differing interpretations of communism and local histories. She also illuminates the difference between veteran agents who fought in foreign wars and younger, more radical agents who combatted "enemies of communism" in the Stalinist terror in Eastern Europe.
Author: Edward Peterson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313075417
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302
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Book Description
The opening of the secret files of the East German Ministry of State Security after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 enabled this study. Most interesting are the reports from the thousands of spies at the local level, the analysis at the local and district levels, and the integration of nationwide reports in Berlin. These reports are surprisingly honest in describing the problems that would bring about the collapse of the Communist regime. They reveal advance knowledge among the Stasi operatives of the economic and political difficulties that plagued the state information that reached leaders who were powerless to change the system. The spy handlers conceded by September 1989 that in order to save socialism, they must change the GDR leadership. The coming of the Revolution of 1989 can be perceived in local spy reports as early as 1987. At the national level, reports highlight the negative effect of dependence on the Soviet Union, the role played by Mikhail Gorbachev, the collapse of the economy, the disastrous foreign debts, the refusal of Erich Honecker to reform, and the inability of his Politburo to remove him. At the local level, warnings point to the lack of incentive to produce, the ineptitude of central planning, the inability to acquire production resources, and the massive impact of West German television. Also instrumental were the brave citizens who kept pushing to leave, while others remained determined to stay and democratize the system, as well as the Protestant pastors who provided space for small groups that would eventually swell into hundreds of thousands.
Author: Fredric S. Zuckerman
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814796737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
Karakozov in 1866, Russian political life became trapped within a vicious circle of political reaction, growing disillusionment with the government and intensifying political dissent that increasingly manifested itself in acts of terrorism against Tsarist officials.
Author: Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674972066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
Introduction -- Prelude to revolution -- Rising crime before the October revolution -- Why did the crime rate shoot up? -- Militias rise and fall -- An epidemic of mob justice -- Crime after the Bolshevik takeover -- The Bolsheviks and the militia -- Conclusion
Author: Sheena Chestnut Greitens
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107139848
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347
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Book Description
This book explores the secret police organizations of East Asian dictators: their origins, operations, and effects on ordinary citizens' lives.
Author: Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438464649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366
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Book Description
Bronze Medalist, 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the World History Category Gold Winner, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the History category Major General Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev was chief of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in the two years preceding the 1917 Russian Revolution. This book presents his memoirs—translated in English for the first time—interposed with those of his wife, Sofia Nikolaevna Globacheva. The general's writings, which he titled The Truth of the Russian Revolution, provide a front-row view of Tsar Nicholas II's final years, the revolution, and its tumultuous aftermath. Globachev describes the political intrigue and corruption in the capital and details his office's surveillance over radical activists and the mysterious Rasputin. His wife takes a more personal approach, depicting her tenacity in the struggle to keep her family intact and the family's flight to freedom. Her descriptions vividly portray the privileges and relationships of the noble class that collapsed with the empire. Translator Vladimir G. Marinich includes biographical information, illustrations, a glossary, and a timeline to contextualize this valuable primary source on a key period in Russian history.
Author: Cristina Vatulescu
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804775729
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
The documents emerging from the secret police archives of the former Soviet bloc have caused scandal after scandal, compromising revered cultural figures and abruptly ending political careers. Police Aesthetics offers a revealing and responsible approach to such materials. Taking advantage of the partial opening of the secret police archives in Russia and Romania, Vatulescu focuses on their most infamous holdings—the personal files—as well as on movies the police sponsored, scripted, or authored. Through the archives, she gains new insights into the writing of literature and raises new questions about the ethics of reading. She shows how police files and films influenced literature and cinema, from autobiographies to novels, from high-culture classics to avant-garde experiments and popular blockbusters. In so doing, she opens a fresh chapter in the heated debate about the relationship between culture and politics in twentieth-century police states.
Author: Wael Ghonim
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547774044
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
The former Google executive and political activist tells the story of the Egyptian revolution he helped ignite through the power of social media. In the summer of 2010, thirty-year-old Google executive Wael Ghonim anonymously launched a Facebook page to protest the death of an Egyptian man at the hands of security forces. The page’s following expanded quickly and moved from online protests to a nonconfrontational movement. On January 25, 2011, Tahrir Square resounded with calls for change. Yet just as the revolution began in earnest, Ghonim was captured and held for twelve days of brutal interrogation. After he was released, he gave a tearful speech on national television, and the protests grew more intense. Four days later, the president of Egypt was gone. In this riveting story, Ghonim takes us inside the movement and shares the keys to unleashing the power of crowds in the age of social networking. “A gripping chronicle of how a fear-frozen society finally topples its oppressors with the help of social media.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Revolution 2.0 excels in chronicling the roiling tension in the months before the uprising, the careful organization required and the momentum it unleashed.” —NPR.org
Author: Rupert Butler
Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
ISBN: 1782743510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Illustrated with more than 100 black-and-white photographs and expertly written, Stalin’s Secret Police is a chilling history of the Soviet secret police from 1917 to the fall of Communism.
Author: Pavel Stepanovich Nazarov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Asia, Central
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
