""Thank You, Comrade Stalin" illuminates the story of the rise and
demise of official public culture in the Soviet Union. In lively
and provocative prose, Jeffrey Brooks examines the Soviet press to
show how Party leaders constructed a vision of national identity
through their tight control over the dissemination of information.
This powerful book will spark new debates about the Cold War, and
will fascinate anyone who ever longed for a peek behind the 'iron
curtain'."--Elaine Tyler May, University of Minnesota
"Jeffrey Brooks demonstrates in fascinating detail what the term
'logocracy'--the rule of words--meant in the Soviet Union.
Concentrating on the press but also covering literature and the
arts, he shows how the public culture promoted by the communist
authorities from Lenin to Stalin to the exclusion of all
independent thought created its own false reality. It sustained the
dictatorship but in the long run also contributed to its decay and
collapse. The book is an important contribution to the
understanding of a regime that exerted such baleful influence on
the twentieth century."--Richard Pipes, Harvard University
"Jeffrey Brooks has lifted the curtain on a great mystery: how
did the makers of the official Soviet state construct their world
view? Through a splendid examination of the Soviet Press, Brooks
reveals that the rise of the cult of Stalin, Soviet anti-Semitism
and the great 'Great Patriotic War' against Fascism provided the
foundational myths of the new regime. As he details the unfolding
of the Soviet view of the Cold War, no longer will it be possible
for scholars to study the Cold War as only a diplomatic response to
the Soviets or an internal affair focusedon anti-communist purges
in the United States. Rather we have to understand the two great
powers in dialogue with each other, and that political and cultural
history are two sides of the same coin."--Professor Lary May,
University of Minnesota
"Professor Jeffrey Brooks's "Thank You, Comrade Stalin!" is one
of the very best books in any language on the Soviet Union and
system."--Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, University of California,
Berkeley
"Through a meticulous and exhaustive analysis of the daily
Soviet Press, Brooks traces the development of the media vocabulary
that provided the basic ideological ground informing relationships
between the state and its citizens. The Stalin who stands at the
center of this web of deceit is not first and foremost a monster
nor an ideologue, but rather an omnipresent textual reality, the
ultimate spinmeister."--Andrew Wachtel, Northwestern University
"The twentieth century knew other terrorist regimes, but the
character and tone of Stalinist discourse was unique. Stalinist
verbiage took the place of real discussions about the issues facing
society, and Brooks gives us the most thorough, most intelligent
analysis of that verbiage."--Peter Kenez, University of California,
Santa Cruz
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