The ‘Stalinist Self’ II

• How do rituals of criticism and self-criticism work?
• Analyse Bukharin's last letter to Stalin.
• How do you explain Bukharin's strategy during his trial?

Sources

Bukharin's last plea (Moscow Trials)

Bukharin's letter to Stalin, Getty/Naumov, The Road to Terror, pp. 553-568 Link

Essential Reading

Halfin, Igal, ‘Looking into the Oppositionists’ Soul: Inquisition Communist Style;’ Hellbeck, Jochen, ‘Working, Struggling, Becoming: Stalin-era Autobiographical Texts'; Naiman, Eric, ‘On Soviet Subjects and the Scholars who make them.’, Russian Review, 60 (2001), pp. 307-359.

Gregory, Paul R., 'Martyred for Communism', Hoover Digest 2010, no. 3.

Recommended Reading

Gregory, Paul R., Politics, murder, and love in Stalin's Kremlin: the story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina (Stanford, 2010)

Kojevnikov, Alexei, 'Rituals of Stalinist Culture at Work: Science and the Games of Intraparty Democracy circa 1948', Russian Review, 57 (1998), pp. 25-52

'Party Discipline and the Fall of Bukharin' (primary sources), Getty/Naumov, The Road to Terror, pp. 364-413. Link

Further Reading

Schlögel, Karl, Moscow 1937 (Cambridge, 2012)

Carmichael, Joel, Stalin's masterpiece: the show trials and purges of the thirties, the consolidation of the Bolshevik dictatorship (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976)