The book is an analysis of the dilemmas confronting the communist party after Stalin's death in 1953. It focuses on how ordinary citizens received and reacted to the policy of the party and the state. It is also the history of people who, driven by disillusion, despair and anger, either withdrew from the public sphere and thus demonstrated passive resistance to the regime or, on the contrary, chose to demonstrate actively in prisoners' rebellions and workers' unrest.Introduction The Closed Letter The Church and the State 'Give Us Decent Homes!' Economic Disobedience The 1961 Party Program Expulsions from the Party A Scientist Speaks Out Uprisings in the Camps Mass Unrest Conclusion Bibliography
'The cases are well chosen and the evidence cogent...Recommended.' - A. Ezergailis, Choice
ERIK KULAVIG is Head of the Department of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. He is co-editor of
Mechanisms of Power in the Soviet Union, Soviet Civilization between Past and Present, and author of
Russian Nationalism, 1986-92 and
Propaganda and Everyday Life in Russia, 1924-36.