Introduction: Reflections on Villains, Victims and Violence

Smith, Steve

doi:10.1080/09668136.2013.842365

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…A variant to this argument is the hypothesis that the re-established apparatus functioned as a break on Stalin's violence (Baberowski 2012, p. 476). Whatever the answer to the question of why the Soviet state's behaviour was not brutalised, our focus in this article was less on the state's violence and more on the barbarity of nonstate collectives Smith 2013). It was groups of men, often only loosely organised and frequently uncontrollable by legally constituted authorities, who victimised many civilians in Soviet space during the mid-1940s.…”

Section: Collectivities Violence and The Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Violence from Below: Explaining Crimes against Civilians across Soviet Space, 1943–1947

Edele

Slaveski

2016

Europe-Asia Studies

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The end of World War II brought little relief to the lands its ravaged most. Mass wartime violence continued in the Soviet space beyond the 'false peace' of 1945. Historians have sought to explain this violence in terms of the 'wartime brutalisation' of state and citizens alike, though this approach is limited in explaining how and why violence continued after 1945. This article shifts focus from psychology to social history to argue that the disintegration of Soviet state control is central to explaining the enduring violence after 1945 and understanding its emergence as much 'from below' as 'from above'. AT THE FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS IN LATE 1941, THE ONCE quiet sanatorium town of Essentuki wasterrorised by soldiers convalescing in the local hospital. They fought against one another in the streets in drunken brawls, murdered the local militia boss with a fork, extorted drugs from medical personnel

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Section: Collectivities Violence and The Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Violence from Below: Explaining Crimes against Civilians across Soviet Space, 1943–1947

Edele

Slaveski

2016

Europe-Asia Studies

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“Mad Mongols”, Uncivilised Russians

Behringer

2022

Int. J. Mil. Hist. Historiogr.

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This article examines US military reactions to violence during the Russian Civil War in the Far East (1918 - 1922). Paying close attention to US descriptions of anti-Bolshevik-perpetrated atrocities, it demonstrates that American military officers fell back on stereotypes of Russians and other ethnicities as having an “Asiatic” propensity for barbarism. This reasoning caused some American observers to misunderstand the dynamics of violence in the Far Eastern theatre. By relying on these accounts to describe the violence of the Russian Civil War, historians of the US intervention have at times perpetuated myths and misunderstandings, rather than exploring the relationship between perceptions and violence. This article thus shows how a critical examination of primary sources that also analyses various forms of violence can improve our understanding of the Russian Civil War in the Far East.

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Introduction: Reflections on Villains, Victims and Violence

Cited by 2 publications

References 13 publications

Violence from Below: Explaining Crimes against Civilians across Soviet Space, 1943–1947

Violence from Below: Explaining Crimes against Civilians across Soviet Space, 1943–1947

“Mad Mongols”, Uncivilised Russians

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