During the Great Terror, colleagues and family had to publicly denounce those arrested as “enemies of the people” in order to avoid arrest themselves. Conspiracies conjured by Stalin’s prosecutors were always based on the ostensible culprits’ social and professional networks, making associations as such suspect. As the range of behavior deemed risky or suspicious broadened, citizens grew ever more likely to act as enforcers. Krugovaia poruka, which is often translated as “solidarity,” is, to the Russian ear, a neutral or even positive term, used to urge Soviet children to study harder and be
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