The "Special" World
Stalin’s Power Apparatus and the Soviet System’s Secret Structures of Communication
Distributed for Museum Tusculanum Press
1,153 pages
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2 volume set
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6 3/4 x 9 3/4
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© 2009
This groundbreaking two-volume study offers a comprehensive examination of some of the most secret structures of Soviet society–and in particular of Stalin’s power and control mechaninsms. Having gained personal access to formerly closed archives in the 1990s–partly opened in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union but subsequently subject to restricted access due to the new Russian leadership–Niels Erik Rosenfeldt presents a detailed description of the principles and procedures for secrecy in the Soviet System of the 1920s. Leaving no stone unturned, Rosenfeldt investigates and discloses a labyrinthine development of Stalin’s secret chancellery–the “Secret Department,” the “Special Sector”–from the early 1920s to the death of Stalin in 1953.
Contents
Volume I
Foreword
Translator's note
I. Introduction
Previous studies
The present challenge
General problems
A question of information
II. Secrecy: Principles and Procedures
The general significance of "conspiracy"
The bureaucratic system
Basic characteristics of the secret system
III. The Top of the Pyramid
The background
The secret Party chancellery: identifying the object of research
New sources and problems of interpretation
Stalin and the secret apparatus
The basic service apparatus
The Secretary General's men and women
The secret apparatus seen from inside
The Information Bureau
Control of cadres
The key features of the secret chancellery
IV. New Bureaucratic Constellations
Unrest in the secret apparatus
Mobilisation preparedness and consolidation of the "rear"
Mobilisation preparedness and the Communist Party's secret apparatus
A "special" Party office?
V. The Special Sector and its Sister Institutions
The prelude
The Special Sector in action
The internal structure of the Special Sector
The Organisation Bureau's technical secretariat
The Bureau of International Information—and the institutional context
The secret Party apparatus and the organisation of the Terror
Old and new faces
Changes in the secret apparatus
The red threads
VI. Patterns in the Decision-Making Process
The framework
The decision-making
The government apparatus versus the Special Sector: developments
The government apparatus versus the Special Sector: endgame
The overall picture
Volume 2
VII. Special Departments and Other Special Organs at the Headquarters of the State Security Service
The Special Department for coded communications and secret administration
The First Special Department
The Second Special Department (for operative techniques) and the Fourth Special Department (for laboratories)
Other special departments
Other "special" apparatuses
The position of the special departments
A related apparatus: the state security service's First Department (the Special Section)
The total complex
VIII. The Comintern's Secret Apparatus
The basic rules for conspiracy
Central chancellery functions at Comintern headquarters
The secret international communications apparatus
The "Secret Department" and the "Special Department"
Basic features of the Comintern's secret apparatus
Conclusion
The Central Structures
The "Special" List
Summary in Danish
Notes
Bibliography and Bibliographic Addendum
List of Abbreviations
Index of Names
Foreword
Translator's note
I. Introduction
Previous studies
The present challenge
General problems
A question of information
II. Secrecy: Principles and Procedures
The general significance of "conspiracy"
The bureaucratic system
Basic characteristics of the secret system
III. The Top of the Pyramid
The background
The secret Party chancellery: identifying the object of research
New sources and problems of interpretation
Stalin and the secret apparatus
The basic service apparatus
The Secretary General's men and women
The secret apparatus seen from inside
The Information Bureau
Control of cadres
The key features of the secret chancellery
IV. New Bureaucratic Constellations
Unrest in the secret apparatus
Mobilisation preparedness and consolidation of the "rear"
Mobilisation preparedness and the Communist Party's secret apparatus
A "special" Party office?
V. The Special Sector and its Sister Institutions
The prelude
The Special Sector in action
The internal structure of the Special Sector
The Organisation Bureau's technical secretariat
The Bureau of International Information—and the institutional context
The secret Party apparatus and the organisation of the Terror
Old and new faces
Changes in the secret apparatus
The red threads
VI. Patterns in the Decision-Making Process
The framework
The decision-making
The government apparatus versus the Special Sector: developments
The government apparatus versus the Special Sector: endgame
The overall picture
Volume 2
VII. Special Departments and Other Special Organs at the Headquarters of the State Security Service
The Special Department for coded communications and secret administration
The First Special Department
The Second Special Department (for operative techniques) and the Fourth Special Department (for laboratories)
Other special departments
Other "special" apparatuses
The position of the special departments
A related apparatus: the state security service's First Department (the Special Section)
The total complex
VIII. The Comintern's Secret Apparatus
The basic rules for conspiracy
Central chancellery functions at Comintern headquarters
The secret international communications apparatus
The "Secret Department" and the "Special Department"
Basic features of the Comintern's secret apparatus
Conclusion
The Central Structures
The "Special" List
Summary in Danish
Notes
Bibliography and Bibliographic Addendum
List of Abbreviations
Index of Names
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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