Between the summer of 1937 and November 1938, the Stalinist regime arrested over 1.5 million people for "counterrevolutionary" and "anti-Soviet" activity and either summarily executed or exiled them to the Gulag. While we now know a great deal about the experience of victims of the Great Terror, we know almost nothing about the lower- and middle-level Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD), or secret police, cadres who carried out Stalin's murderous policies. Unlike the postwar, public trials of Nazi war criminals, NKVD operatives were tried secretly. And what exactly happened in those courtrooms was unknown until now. In what has been dubbed "the purge of the purgers," almost one thousand NKVD officers were prosecuted by Soviet military courts. Scapegoated for violating Soviet law, they were charged with multiple counts of fabrication of evidence, falsification of interrogation protocols, use of torture to secure "confessions," and murder during pre-trial detention of "suspects" - and many were sentenced to execution themselves. The documentation generated by these trials, including verbatim interrogation records and written confessions signed by perpetrators; testimony by victims, witnesses, and experts; and transcripts of court sessions, provides a glimpse behind the curtains of the terror. It depicts how the terror was implemented, what happened, and who was responsible, demonstrating that orders from above worked in conjunction with a series of situational factors to shape the contours of state violence. Based on chilling and revelatory new archival documents from the Ukrainian secret police archives, Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial illuminates the darkest recesses of Soviet repression - the interrogation room, the prison cell, and the place of execution - and sheds new light on those who carried out the Great Terror.

Chechnya From Nationalism to Jihad James Hughes "James Hughes has produced the most comprehensive, thoroughly documented, and up-to-date study of the Chechen conflict available. This sophisticated and subtle analysis places Chechnya in the context of broader debates about nationalism and ethnic politics, theories of empire and secession, and the propensity of new democracies to go to war."--Matthew Evangelista, Cornell University "Hughes offers a new way of thinking about ethnopolitical conflict by examining conflict dynamics as part of the causation chain in a conflict."--"History: Reviews of New Books" "Does the book have value for the military historian? Absolutely."--"Journal of Military History " "an excellent starting point for anyone looking for insight into how the radical Sunni Salafi movement both evolved and commandeered the struggle in Chechnya, which could also serve as an example as to how Al-Qaeda could hijack other nationalist struggles in the future."--"International Affairs" "An exemplary case study. . . . Throughout, insights into the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reconstitution of a federated Russia, and the leadership of Vladimir Putin abound. . . . Highly recommended."--"Choice" The sheer scale and brutality of the hostilities between Russia and Chechnya stand out as an exception in the mostly peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union. "Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad" provides a fascinating analysis of the transformation of secular nationalist resistance in a nominally Islamic society into a struggle that is its antithesis, jihad. Hughes locates Chechen nationalism within the wider movement for national self-determination that followed the collapse of the Soviet empire. When negotiations failed in the early 1990s, political violence was instrumentalized to consolidate opposing nationalist visions of state-building in Russia and Chechnya. The resistance in Chechnya also occurred in a regional context where Russian hegemony over the Caucasus, especially the resources of the Caspian basin, was in retreat, and in an international context of rising Islamic radicalism. Alongside Bosnia, Kashmir, and other conflicts, Chechnya became embedded in Osama Bin Laden's repertoire of jihadist rhetoric against the "West." It was not simply Russia's destruction of a nationalist option for Chechnya, or "Wahabbist" infiltration from without, that created the political space for Islamism. Rather, we must look also at how the conflict was fought. The lack of proportionality and discrimination in the use of violence, particularly by Russia, accelerated and intensified the Islamic radicalization and thereby transformed the nature of the conflict. James Hughes is Professor of Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century 2007 296 pages 6 x 9 5 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-2030-8 Paper $26.50s 17.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0231-1 Ebook $26.5s 17.50 World Rights Political Science Short copy: The conflict in Chechnya involves many of the most contentious issues in contemporary international politics. By providing us with a persuasive and challenging study, Hughes sets out the indispensable lessons for other conflicts involving the volatile combination of insurgency and counterinsurgency, most notably the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On April 28, 2004, the Abu Ghraib photos of prisoner torture and humiliation appeared on 60 Minutes, setting off an international scandal. Less than seven weeks later, Susan L. Burke, a Philadelphia attorney, field a landmark lawsuit on behalf of the detainees, presenting a case against two private contractors, CACI International and Titan Inc. Burke set out to prove that contractors, soldiers, and officers worked together, or conspired, to torture and kill detainees. McKelvey examines how it is that many of the abusers can never be brought to justice, operating as they do outside the US system of criminal laws. Along the way she has tea with Saddam Hussein's mistress, meets with suspected terrorists, including a ghost detainee, and interviews victims from American detention centers, all the while uncovering vital sources touched upon by no other journalist. Following Burke's lawsuit through the courts, and drawing on interviews with current and former military personnel, translators, and interrogators, as well as listening to the harrowing personal stories of numerous detainee plaintiffs, McKelvey examines the many underreported, under-investigated crimes of Abu Ghraib.

In this engrossing analysis, Cavanaugh contends that the Eucharist is the Church's response to the use of torture as a social discipline. The author develops a theology of the political which presents torture as one instance of a larger confrontation of powers over bodies, both individual and social. He argues that a Christian practice of the political is embodied in Jesus' own torture at the hands of the powers of this world. The analysis of torture therefore is situated within wider discussions in the fields of ecclesiology and the state, social ethics and human rights, and sacramental theology.

The book focuses on the experience of Chile and the Catholic Church there, before and during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, 1973-1990. Cavanaugh has first-hand experience of working with the Church in Chile, and his interviews with ecclesiastical officials and grassroots Church workers speak directly to the reader. The book uses this example to examine the theoretical bases of twentieth-century "social catholicism" and its inability to resist the disciplines of the state, in contrast to a truer Christian practice of the political in the Eucharist.

The book as a whole ties eucharistic theology to concrete eucharistic practice, showing that the Eucharist is not a "symbol" but a real cathartic summary of the practices by which God forms people into the Body of Christ, producing a sense of communion stronger than that of any nation-state.

The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Yukos oil company, on 25 October 2003, was a key turning point in modern Russian history. At that time Khodorkovsky was one of the world's richest and most powerful men, while Yukos had been transformed into a vast and lucrative oil company that was set to go global. On all counts, this looked like a success story, but it was precisely at this moment that the Russian authorities struck. After two controversial trials, attracting widespread international condemnation, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to fourteen years in jail. In this book, Richard Sakwa examines the rise and fall of Yukos, and the development of the Russian oil industry more generally. Sakwa analyses Russia's emergence as an energy superpower, and considers the question of the 'natural resource curse' and the use of energy rents to bolster Russia as a great power and to maintain the autonomy of the regime. Crucially this book also examines the relationship between Putin's state and big business during Russia's traumatic shift from the Soviet planned economy to the market system.It is a detailed analysis of one of the most dramatic confrontations between economic and political power in our era, full of human drama and moral dilemmas. It is also a study of political economy, with the market and state coming into confrontation. Above all, the 'Yukos affair' continues to shape contemporary Russian politics, with a weakened judiciary and insecure property rights. It traces the struggles of the Putin era as two visions of society came into conflict. The attack on Khodorkovsky had - and continues to have - far-reaching political and economic consequences but it also raises fundamental questions about the quality of freedom in Putin's Russia as well as in the world at large.

Lawrence R. Alschuler uses the ideas of Albert Memmi, Paulo Freire, and Jungian psychology to explain changes in the political consciousness of the oppressed. His analysis of the autobiographies of four Native people, from Guatemala and Canada, reveals how they attained "liberated consciousness" and healed their psychic wounds, inflicted by violence, exploitation, and discrimination. Their lessons and Alschuler's proposed public policies may be applicable to the oppressed in ethnically divided societies everywhere.

Protectors of Pluralism argues that local religious minorities are more likely to save persecuted groups from purification campaigns. Robert Braun utilizes a geo-referenced dataset of Jewish evasion in the Netherlands and Belgium during the Holocaust to assess the minority hypothesis. Spatial statistics and archival work reveal that Protestants were more likely to rescue Jews in Catholic regions of the Low Countries, while Catholics facilitated evasion in Protestant areas. Post-war testimonies and secondary literature demonstrate the importance of minority groups for rescue in other countries during the Holocaust as well as other episodes of mass violence, underlining how the local position of church communities produces networks of assistance, rather than something inherent to any religion itself. This book makes an important contribution to the literature on political violence, social movements, altruism and religion, applying a range of social science methodologies and theories that shed new light on the Holocaust.

Twenty truth commissions have completed their work of examining and reporting on the abuses of deposed regimes, leaving behind a wide variety of records: transcripts, video and audio recordings, e-mail and computer files, and artifacts. Why save such evidence? According to Trudy H. Peterson, preservation "completes the commission's work. Oppressive regimes try to impose a selective amnesia on society... Saving the records makes sure that amnesia does not prevail." Final Acts is a guide to questions of law, politics, physical preservation, and access regarding materials generated by truth commissions. For example, how do the records relate to the law that created the commission? Who owns the evidence? Are there political constraints on the preservation of, or access to, some records? Does the country have an institution professionally capable of maintaining the records? Final Acts also describes the truth commissions that have completed their work so far and the disposition, or in some cases the loss, of their records.

"Dissent in Dangerous Times" presents essays by six distinguished scholars, who provide their own unique views on the interplay of loyalty, patriotism, and dissent.
While dissent has played a central role in our national history and in the American cultural imagination, it is usually dangerous to those who practice it, and always unpalatable to its targets. War does not encourage the tolerance of opposition at home any more than it does on the front: if the War on Terror is to be a permanent war, then the consequences for American political freedoms cannot be overestimated.
""Dissent in Dangerous Times" examines the nature of political repression in liberal societies, and the political and legal implications of living in an environment of fear. This profound, incisive, at times even moving volume calls upon readers to think about, and beyond, September 11, reminding us of both the fragility and enduring power of freedom."
--Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union, and Professor of Law, New York Law School.

Contributors to this volume
Lauren Berlant
Wendy Brown
David Cole
Hugh Gusterson
Nancy L. Rosenblum
Austin Sarat

The question of the responsibility inherent in the unrivaled might of the U.S. military is one that continues to take up headlines across the globe. This award-winning group of reporters and scholars, including, among others, David Rieff, Peter Maass, Philip Gourevitch, William Shawcross, George Packer, Bill Berkeley and Samantha Power revisit four of the worst instances of state-sponsored killing--Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and East Timor--in the last half of the twentieth century in order to reconsider the success and failure of U.S. and U.N. military and humanitarian intervention.Featuring original essays and reporting, "The New Killing Fields" poses vital questions about the future of peacekeeping in the next century. In addition, theoretical essays by Michael Walzer and Michael Ignatieff frame the issue of intervention in terms of today's post-cold war reality and the future of human rights.

The British, Irish, Russian, American, German and Austrian contributors examine the intricate nature of the mass repression unleashed by the Stalinist leader of the USSR during 1937 38. The first part of the collection deals with annihilation policies against the Soviet elite and the Communist International. The second section of the volume looks at mass operations of the secret police (NKVD) against social outcasts, Poles and other 'hostile' ethnic groups. The final section comprises micro studies about targeted victim groups among the general population. FRIDRIKH FIRSOV Researcher, History of the Comintern WLADISLAW HEDELER Researcher, History of the Karaganda Gulag Complex OLEG KHLEVNIUK Department of Public Administration, Moscow State University, Russia NATALIA MUSIENKO Lecturer, German Language NIKITA PETROV Vice-Chairman, Board of Memorial, the most prominent Russian organization dedicated to uncovering the crimes of Soviet Communism ARSENII ROGINSKII Chairman, Board of Memorial HANS SCHAFRANEK Freelance Historian, Vienna DAVID SHEARER Associate Professor of History, University of Delaware, USA BERTHOLD UNFRIED Lecturer, Cultural Studies, Vienna University ALEKSANDR VATLIN S

This book analyzes the development of the Stalinist state of the 1930s from the perspective of the changing nature of center-local relations. It examines the trend toward greater central state control over the formation and implementation of economic policy and the shift toward increased state repression through a series of archive-based case studies of the center's interactions with its republican and regional bodies. The book provides the basis for a new conceptualization of the Stalinist state.

Focusing on the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the last major conflict in Europe before the end of the Cold War, this study examines the political prisoners whose fate encapsulates the dramatic conflicts and contradictions of that dark era. Based on new sources such as prisoners' letters, memoirs, and official reports, the author describes the life of the prisoners and the effect the prison adminsitration and the prisoners' collective had on their personality. Drawing comparisons to political prisoners in Germany and Spain, the author sheds new light on our understanding of the ideologies and policies and their effect on individuals, which marked European history in the 20th century.

In addressing the asylum controversy in Europe today, much of the literature assumes that asylum policies result from the struggle between national interest arguing to tighten asylum and humanitarianism arguing to loosen it. This book challenges this simple tug-of-war image by examining asylum in Germany, Switzerland, and Britain from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s. The findings reveal the complex and often counter-intuitive roles national interest, international norms, and morality play in shaping asylum. It forces us to reconsider how we think about asylum and to explore alternatives to conventional assumptions.

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh to open a new and appalling chapter in the story of the twentieth century. On that day, Pin Yathay was a qualified engineer in the Ministry of Public Works. Successful and highly educated, he had been critical of the corrupt Lon Nol regime and hoped that the Khmer Rouge would be the patriotic saviors of Cambodia.

In Stay Alive, My Son, Pin Yathay provides an unforgettable testament of the horror that ensued and a gripping account of personal courage, sacrifice and survival. Documenting the 27 months from the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh to his escape into Thailand, Pin Yathay is a powerful and haunting memoir of Cambodia's killing fields.

With seventeen members of his family, Pin Yathay were evacuated by the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, taking with them whatever they might need for the three days before they would be allowed to return to their home. Instead, they were moved on from camp to camp, their possessions confiscated or abandoned. As days became weeks and weeks became months, they became the "New People," displaced urban dwellers compelled to live and work as peasants, their days were filled with forced manual labor and their survival dependent on ever more meager communal rations. The body count mounted, first as malnutrition bred rampant disease and then as the Khmer Rouge singled out the dissidents for sudden death in the darkness.

Eventually, Pin Yathay's family was reduced to just himself, his wife, and their one remaining son, Nawath. Wracked with pain and disease, robbed of all they had owned, living on the very edge of dying, they faced a future of escalating horror. With Nawath too ill to travel, Pin Yathay and his wife, Any, had to make the heart-breaking decision whether to leave him to the care of a Cambodian hospital in order to make a desperate break for freedom. "Stay alive, my son," he tells Nawath before embarking on a nightmarish escape to the Thai border.

First published in 1987, the Cornell edition of Stay Alive, My Son includes an updated preface and epilogue by Pin Yathay and a new foreword by David Chandler, a world-renowned historian of Cambodia, who attests to the continuing value and urgency of Pin Yathay's message.

At the end of World War II, a number of former American military pilots formed the "Flying Tiger Line, " which soon became the worlds leading airfreight company. Its motto of "Anything, anytime, anywhere" was especially applicable in its humanitarian projects. In 1975, the Flying Tigers took part in relief efforts for Cambodians surrounded by Khmer Rouge forces. The "Ricelift" exposed the Tiger pilots to enormous risk. Though they were technically "noncombatants, " all this really meant was that they couldn shoot back. This is the memoir of Larry Partridge who, in his plane, nicknamed "Nancy" after his wife, flew 52 missions into Phnom Penh, delivering rice and other supplies in hostile conditions. After the collapse of Saigon and the victory of the Khmer Rouge, the ricelifts ceased. This account, from a Tigers-eye view, includes both history and human drama in a remarkable but completely true story.

After isolated terrorist incidents in 2015, the Chinese leadership has cracked down hard on Xinjiang and its Uyghurs. Today, there are thought to be up to a million Muslims held in 're-education camps' in the Xinjiang region of North-West China. One of the few Western commentators to have lived in the region, journalist Nick Holdstock travels into the heart of the province and reveals the Uyghur story as one of repression, hardship and helplessness. China's Forgotten People explains why repression of the Muslim population is on the rise in the world's most powerful one-party state. This updated and revised edition reveals the background to the largest known concentration camp network in the modern world, and reflects on what this means for the way we think about China.

As part of the Eastern African Studies series, this text explores the uneasy relationship between the Protestant evangelical church, Mekane Yesus, established by the Oromo of Western Ethiopia early in the 20th century, and the central authorities of the Ethiopian state. North America: Ohio U Press; Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press

This memoir was written by the Russian scientist and historian of literature, Dmitry Likhachev. It not only covers his life but also includes a supplementary essay, written by him, giving his perception of Russian people - their culture and history. A prolific writer with strong views, Likhachev describes how his ideologies caught the attention of the KGB and, shortly after joining a furtive club of historians, led to his dramatic arrest and confinement within the prison island of Solovky. He recalls his story of imprisonment during the Stalin era and his chance survival during the construction of the pointless Belomorkanal link between the White and Baltic Seas. This book spans from the early twentieth century up to perestroika and glasnost, when Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to give political power to Likhachev.

Back in print again, this is the story of the "Forty-Eighters," political refugees who fled German-speaking countries in the aftermath of the failed revolutions of 1848. Among their numbers were Carl Schurz, later to become a U.S. senator and advisor to presidents Lincoln and Hayes, and his wife Margarethe Schurz, who founded the kindergarten movement in the United States. Many Forty-Eighters settled in and enormously influenced the growth of Watertown, Wisconsin, which was at one time the second largest city in the state. By consulting source materials in English and German, Charles Wallman has skillfully unraveled the threads that tie the Forty-Eighters and their descendents to the history of Watertown. He chronicles not only the Forty-Eighters who subsequently became prominent in the German-American community of the United States but also those who never moved again and helped make their new hometown a thriving site of cultural and intellectual activity in the nineteenth century."

Roaming the countryside in caravans, earning their living as musicians, peddlers, and fortune-tellers, the Gypsies and their elusive way of life represented an affront to Nazi ideas of social order, hard work, and racial purity. They were branded as "asocials," harassed, and eventually herded into concentration camps where many thousands were killed. But until now the story of their persecution has either been overlooked or distorted.
In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents--many never before used--from German and Austrian archives to provide the most comprehensive and accurate study available of the fate of the Gypsies under the Nazi regime. Lewy traces the escalating vilification of the Gypsies as the Nazis instigated a widespread crackdown on the "work-shy" and "itinerants." But he shows that Nazi policy towards Gypsies was confused and changeable. At first, local officials persecuted gypsies, and those who behaved in gypsy-like fashion, for allegedly anti-social tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to save those he considered "pure Gypsies" descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy contradicts much existing scholarship in showing that, however much the Gypsies were persecuted, there was no general program of extermination analogous to the "final solution" for the Jews.
Exploring in heart-rending detail the fates of individual Gypsies and their families, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies makes an important addition to our understanding both of the history of this mysterious people and of all facets of the Nazi terror.

Few regions of the world are riven with the variety of ethnic conflicts that stalk South Asia. These conflicts stem from the impact of colonial legacies, population movements across porous borders, the disruptive effects of modernisation forces and the exigencies of electoral politics. The costs of ethnic conflict in South Asia have been staggering.... In every state of South Asia, ethnic minorities - and sometimes majorities - have been hapless victims of violence. Today several major ethnic conflicts wrack the region.

(This book) is a dispassionate and painstaking analysis of many of the ethnic problems that plague South Asia. Ishtiaq Ahmed carefully traces the historical origins of these various conflicts and discusses their contemporary dimensions. He also provides a succinct summary of a substantial body of literature on ethnicity and state-formation.....a useful analysis of a range of conflicts that continue to punctuate the South Asian political landscape....will be of particular use to scholars and policy-makers interested in understanding the origins of ethnic conflict in South Asia.' Survival

'a major compendium of theoretical, historical and political literature interspersed with rich empirical data.' International Affairs

A comprehensive analysis of the role that prison policy can play in the reduction of terrorism, this book examines the experience of three western Europe jurisdictions: Northern Ireland, Italy and the Spanish Basque Country. It looks at the role of the prisons both as tools for counter-insurgency and as part of a process of conflict resolution. It looks in detail at each jurisdiction and then compares the experience of the three conflicts.

"Wyman's book is the only one that comprehensively, and sensitively, depicts the plight of the postwar refugees in Western Europe." M. Mark Stolarik, University of Ottawa "This is a fascinating and very moving book." International Migration Review "Wyman has written a highly readable account of the movement of diverse ethnic and cultural groups of Europe's displaced persons, 1945-1951. An analysis of the social, economic, and political circumstances within which relocation, resettlement, and repatriation of millions of people occurred, this study is equally a study in diplomacy, in international relations, and in social history. . . . A vivid and compassionate recreation of the events and circumstances within which displaced persons found themselves, of the strategies and means by which people survived or did not, and an account of the major powers in response to an unprecedented human crisis mark this as an important book." Choice "Wyman interviewed some eighty DPs as well as employees of various agencies who served them; he cites a broad range of published primary sources, secondary sources, and some archival material. . . . This book presents a useful overview and should stimulate further research." Journal of American Ethnic History"

"You must stay alive!"

With his mother's parting words ringing in his ears, fourteen-year-old Solomon Perel set out from Nazi-occupied Poland hoping to find safety across the new Soviet frontier. Like large numbers of other Jews fleeing the Germans, Perel faced staggering odds against his survival. What actually transpired was far different from what anyone could have imagined. By a startling twist of fate, the young Jew found unexpected refuge . . . as a student in an elite Hitler Youth school. Now this extraordinary and true story appears in English translation for the first time. With searing power and passion, Europa, Europa recounts Solomon Perel's harrowing struggle living a nightmare from which there seemed no escape.

By the time Solly, as he was called by his family, left Poland that night in 1939, he was already an experienced refugee. Sensing the oncoming Nazi terror, his family had fled Germany several years before. This time, however, the family could not stay together and the youngster would soon be on his own.

Reaching the Soviet shore after a dramatic river crossing, Perel was placed in a Russian orphanage, where he was accepted into the Komsomol, the Communist organization for young people. Then came June 22, 1941. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union Perel was ordered, along with the other Jewish children, to flee into the interior. He fell into the hands of the German forces. Paralyzed by fear, and with a courage born of despair, Perel told his captors that he was, in reality, an ethnic German. To his astonishment, he was believed, and from that point on, his survival centered on his ability to conceal his true identity.

Taken under the wing of the Wehr-macht unit, Perel experienced combat, and was lauded as a model of German youth contributing at the front. Then, in an extraordinary turn of events, Perel was transferred back to Germany, and awarded a coveted spot in an exclusive boarding school training Hitler Youth to face the challenges of the Fúhrer's vision of postwar Europe. Tormented by the ethical struggle of his position—in effect, joining the ranks of those attempting to exterminate his people—at the same time Perel lived in terror of what seemed the inevitable discovery of his real identity.

Europa, Europa is a profound, unflinching, and unforgettable account of a young boy's perilous journey toward manhood, trapped in a world gone mad, and tortured by the role he played. Solomon Perel's inner turmoil, remarkable courage and resourcefulness, and above all, his fierce determination to survive come across with searing force. This deeply moving memoir is an important and controversial contribution to our understanding of the complexity of life under the Third Reich.

"The kernel virtue of this book is its honesty and scrupulous self-examination of one who survived through a deception. Remarkable and memorable." — Rheinische Post

"This book will move human hearts." —Berliner Morgenpost

"The book gets under one's skin. It is a . . . book that penetrates into the essence of humanity." —Peiner Allegemeine Zeitung