One of the main themes in Soviet history is the people’s attitude toward I.V. Stalin. Why did the people support him despite harsh policies toward peasantry, despite repression, despite heavy losses in the Great Patriotic War? Liberal-minded historians explain it as a “slave psychology” of the Russian people—their habit of worshiping the supreme ruler. The author of this book has a different opinion.
Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov, a Russian historian and Doctor of Historical Sciences, back in the late 1980s gained access to statistical reports of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB. The data he collected has no analogues in history; therefore, for the last twenty years, V.N. Zemskov has been the leading specialist on this question.
In the book presented to your attention, Zemskov provides and analyzes data from the closed archives of Soviet state security from the early 1930s to the late 1940s concerning the “Great Break” (collectivization), the repression of 1937, the state of society on the eve of the war and during the war—and much more. As a result, a complete and objective picture of the people’s life under Stalin is created; the reasons why the people trusted him become clear.