Stalin's Police: Public Order and Mass Repression in the USSR, 1926-1941

by Paul Hagenloh

Overview

Stalin’s Police offers a new interpretation of the mass repressions associated with the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s. This pioneering study traces the development of professional policing from its pre-revolutionary origins through the late 1930s and early 1940s. Paul Hagenloh argues that the policing methods employed in the late 1930s were the culmination of a set of ideologically driven policies dating back to the previous decade. Hagenloh’s vivid and monumental account is the first to show how Stalin’s peculiar brand of policing—in which criminals, juvenile delinquents, and other marginalized population groups were seen increasingly as threats to the political and social order—supplied the core mechanism of the Great Terror.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801891823
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2009
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Paul Hagenloh is an associate professor of history in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He was a Title VIII research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2004-5.

Table of Contents

List of Tables
Acknowledgments
A Note on Translation
Glossary
Introduction: Soviet Policing, Social Categories, and the Great Terror
1. Prerevolutionary Policing, Revolutionary Events, and the New Economic Policy
2. "Chekist in Essence, Chekist in Spirit": The Soviet Police and the Stalin Revolution
3. The New Order, 1932–1934
4. The Police and the "Victory of Socialism," 1934–1936
5. The Stalinist Police
6. Nikolai Ezhov and the Mass Operations, 1937–1938
7. Policing after the Mass Operations, 1938–1941
Conclusion
A Note on Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Mark Von Hagen

Stalin’s Police betrays a prodigious amount of work and knowledge and makes a great contribution to the literature on Stalinism and totalitarianism. It also helps us better understand a feature of everyday life under Stalin, namely the sweeps of arrests of targeted segments of the population and attendant insecurity and fear that those sweeps left with nearly all Soviet citizens.

Peter Solomon

This is an extraordinary book of cardinal importance to the history of Stalin’s USSR. Based on scrupulous original research in once secret archival documents, Stalin’s Police presents a magisterial and authoritative account of the struggles of Soviet leaders to control and manage their public.

From the Publisher

This is an extraordinary book of cardinal importance to the history of Stalin’s USSR. Based on scrupulous original research in once secret archival documents, Stalin’s Police presents a magisterial and authoritative account of the struggles of Soviet leaders to control and manage their public.
—Peter Solomon, University of Toronto

Stalin’s Police betrays a prodigious amount of work and knowledge and makes a great contribution to the literature on Stalinism and totalitarianism. It also helps us better understand a feature of everyday life under Stalin, namely the sweeps of arrests of targeted segments of the population and attendant insecurity and fear that those sweeps left with nearly all Soviet citizens.
—Mark Von Hagen, Arizona State University

Mark Von Hagen

Stalin’s Police betrays a prodigious amount of work and knowledge and makes a great contribution to the literature on Stalinism and totalitarianism. It also helps us better understand a feature of everyday life under Stalin, namely the sweeps of arrests of targeted segments of the population and attendant insecurity and fear that those sweeps left with nearly all Soviet citizens.

— Mark Von Hagen, Arizona State University

Editorial Reviews

The near torrent of works attempting to reconstruct and rectify the historical record of the Stalin era continues, and this one is a worthy example.
—Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

Hagenloh has written an important book on Soviet policing between Stalin's rise to power and the advent of WW II. It is a fresh, fascinating study.
—Choice

A very serious contribution to the field.
—Paul Monk, Australian Literary Review

Hagenloh's insightful and provocative examination of the Soviet police—civil (militsiia) and security (political)—fills a glaring gap in our understanding of the Stalin era . . . Such a study is long overdue.
—William J. Chase, Russian Review

This is a book that transcends disciplinary boundaries and deserves to be widely read by scholars of criminal justice.
—Matthew Light, Law and Politics Book Review

This is an important book, a first-class example of the current scholarship emerging from the detailed use of opened Russian archives of the Stalin era and a fascinating analysis of its machinery of policing and control.
—Mark Galeotti, Europe-Asia Studies

This is an excellent book, and like all good books its assertions (and assertiveness) will spark controversy.
—J. Arch Getty, Slavic Review

An impressive study.
—Melanie Ilic, Revolutionary Russia

An impressively researched and analytically ambitious monograph on the history of Stalinist policing.
—David Priestland, American Historical Review

Hagenloh's sophisticated and well-researched work is valuable reading.
—Alexander Hill, Journal of World History

Provides valuable material and insights.
—Robert W. Thurston, The Historian

Hagenloh's study is a major contribution not only to the history of the Stalinism, but also to the history of the modern state and its uses of violence to pursue social engineering.
—Rosaria Franco, European History Quarterly

From the Publisher

Provides valuable material and insights.

The Historian - Robert W. Thurston

The near torrent of works attempting to reconstruct and rectify the historical record of the Stalin era continues, and this one is a worthy example.

Foreign Affairs - Robert Legvold

A very serious contribution to the field.

Australian Literary Review - Paul Monk

This is an important book, a first-class example of the current scholarship emerging from the detailed use of opened Russian archives of the Stalin era and a fascinating analysis of its machinery of policing and control.

Europe-Asia Studies - Mark Galeotti

This is a book that transcends disciplinary boundaries and deserves to be widely read by scholars of criminal justice.

Law and Politics Book Review - Matthew Light

Hagenloh's study is a major contribution not only to the history of the Stalinism, but also to the history of the modern state and its uses of violence to pursue social engineering.

European History Quarterly - Rosaria Franco

An impressively researched and analytically ambitious monograph on the history of Stalinist policing.

American Historical Review - David Priestland

An impressive study.

Revolutionary Russia - Melanie Ilic

Hagenloh has written an important book on Soviet policing between Stalin's rise to power and the advent of WW II. It is a fresh, fascinating study.

Choice

This is an excellent book, and like all good books its assertions (and assertiveness) will spark controversy.

Slavic Review - J. Arch Getty

Hagenloh's insightful and provocative examination of the Soviet police—civil (militsiia) and security (political)—fills a glaring gap in our understanding of the Stalin era . . . Such a study is long overdue.

Russian Review - William J. Chase

Hagenloh's sophisticated and well-researched work is valuable reading.

Journal of World History - Alexander Hill

Provides valuable material and insights.

— Robert W. Thurston

The Historian

Hagenloh's sophisticated and well-researched work is valuable reading.

— Alexander Hill

Journal of World History

An impressively researched and analytically ambitious monograph on the history of Stalinist policing.

— David Priestland

American Historical Review

An impressive study.

— Melanie Ilic

Revolutionary Russia

This is an excellent book, and like all good books its assertions (and assertiveness) will spark controversy.

— J. Arch Getty

Slavic Review

This is an important book, a first-class example of the current scholarship emerging from the detailed use of opened Russian archives of the Stalin era and a fascinating analysis of its machinery of policing and control.

— Mark Galeotti

Europe-Asia Studies

This is a book that transcends disciplinary boundaries and deserves to be widely read by scholars of criminal justice.

— Matthew Light

Law and Politics Book Review

Hagenloh's insightful and provocative examination of the Soviet police—civil ( militsiia) and security (political)—fills a glaring gap in our understanding of the Stalin era... Such a study is long overdue.

— William J. Chase

Russian Review

A very serious contribution to the field.

— Paul Monk

Australian Literary Review

The near torrent of works attempting to reconstruct and rectify the historical record of the Stalin era continues, and this one is a worthy example.

— Robert Legvold

Foreign Affairs