Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev: The Phantom of a Well-Ordered State

"This exceptional volume breaks new ground in the field of Soviet history. The contributors explore how the Communist state used social control along with coercion to maintain its hold on the Soviet population. From Stalin’s extraordinarily brutal use of violence, the method of governing shifted to greater reliance on persuasion and law after his death. From investigations of how alimony was extracted from deadbeat dads to a deep dive into the mentality of a Georgian secret policeman, this innovative scholarship provides nuance and revelation to what we thought we knew about the Soviet experiment."

Ronald Grigor Suny, William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of History and Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan, and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History, University of Chicago

"Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev goes beyond state repression to explain how the Soviet state and its institutions interacted with each other and with individual citizens to exert social control in a myriad of fields, including housing, taxation, abortion, alimony, juvenile delinquency, criminality, and welfare provisions. The contributors demonstrate the limits of state control and the importance of individual agency. The result is a more realistic, less ideological approach to understanding Soviet state and society. This collection is an important contribution to the historiography."

Lynne Viola, University Professor Emerita of History, University of Toronto, and author of Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial