![]() ![]() Using the NKVD files from these trials, she is able to reconstruct in detail what went on in the NKVD prisons as the perpetrators themselves became the targets of state violence. All of the men on trial were charged with violating socialist legality, and Viola does a masterful job of explaining why this charge was used against these men at this point in time and how they tried to defend themselves. What makes this such a surreal story is that the NKVD officers on trial were the very same officials who extracted false confessions from their victims and now found the very same tactics used against them. The book focuses on the secret trials of NKVD officers who carried out the purges in Ukraine in the late 1930s. Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine by Lynne Viola is an outstanding piece of historical scholarship. The 2018 Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History was awarded to Lynne Viola for Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine (Oxford University Press) ![]()
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