The Lost Politburo Transcripts: From Collective Rule to Stalin's Dictatorship

Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes

by Paul R. Gregory (Editor)

In this groundbreaking book, prominent Western and Russian scholars examine the “lost” transcripts of the Soviet Politburo, a set of verbatim accounts of meetings that took place from the 1920s to 1938 but remained hidden in secret archives until the late 1990s. Never intended for publication or wide distribution, these records (known as stenograms in Russia) reveal the actual process of decision making at the highest levels of the Soviet communist party. The transcripts also provide new, first-hand records of the rise of Stalin’s dictatorship.

 

The contributors to the volume explore the power struggles among the Politburo members, their methods of discourse and propaganda, and their economic policies. Taken as a whole, the essays shed light on early Soviet history and on the individuals who supported or opposed Stalin’s consolidation of power.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 18, 2008

Reviews

[GreyAtlas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. one good chapter with translations of specific wording used to gaslight politburo members, the rest was heavy economics that wasnt interesting