Toward a social history of the Terror

a critical review of “Terror and democracy in the age of Stalin”, by Wendy Z. Goldman

Abstract

This essay is a critical review of the book Terror and democracy in the age of Stalin: the social dynamics of repression, by Wendy Z. Goldman. Along the essay, the author is briefly presented and the theoretical and methodological premises are described. The discussion about the primary sources considers the phenomenon known as the “revolution of archives” to contextualize the production of the book. Then, a critical analysis of the main topics approached by the author is presented: the social crisis of industrialization and what is known as the “Processes of Moscow”, a great purge that took place in the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. At the end, critical considerations about the importance of this book to researchers of the history of socialism, and related topics, like history of Marxism thought and social labor history, are presented, also are presented critical considerations about the contribution of the editorial work done by Lavrapalavra to Brazilian researches.