"Special" World

2 books. This doctoral dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of Stalin's secret Party chanceller and of several other secret structures within the Soviet Communist Party, the Soviet State Security Service and the headquarters of the Communist International. Stalin's chancellery numbered approximately 100 staff members from the mid-1920s and functioned as a kind of invisible service organ through which Stalin's decisions -- whether on social-economic change or on police matters and terror -- were implemented. When the Soviet Union collapsed the formerly closed archives were to a certain degree opened for research. Since the mid-nineties Niels Erik Rosenfeldt has on several occasions visited these archives. Partly based on this research he here presents a thorough and groundbreaking study of some of the most secret structures of Soviet society. As a starting point a detailed description is given of the principles and procedures for secrecy in the Soviet System of the 1920s. This is followed by an investigation of the development of Stalin's secret chancellery, from the early 1920s to the death of Stalin in 1953, and of the various internal and external factors affecting the growth and shape of the secret apparatus during the same period. More specifically there is a lengthy discussion of the role of the secret chancellery in the Soviet decision-making process. In the analysis of the Soviet State Security Service the main emphasis is put on the network of the ultra-secret "special departments" and "special sections". The examination of the apparatus of the Communist International focuses on the clandestine chancellery and communication departments which can -- more or less directly -- be compared to the structural pattern of Stalin's secret chancellery and related offices in the Soviet Communist Party.

"Rosenfeldt (Univ. of Copenhagen) has written a thorough, heavily documented book on the secret processes, agents, and agencies making the decisions in Stalin's totalitarian system. With impressive access to the Russian archives that opened after the fall of the Soviet Union, Rosenfeldt has built an impressive two-volume edifice showing the guiding principles and structures of Stalin's secret directory, or chancellery, which operated under his purview and outside of normal governmental agencies. ... A major contribution to the literature of the Stalinist era. Summing Up: Highly recommended. - D.J. Dunn, CHOICE, Vol. 46, No. 11, 2009, "Rosenfeldt's work can be recommended not only for its insights into the history of the Russian revolution and government under Stalin. It is also fascinating as an insight into the process of research." - Ian D. Thatcher, Brunel University, European History Quarterly, Vol. 40 No. 2, 2010, "THIS WORK REPRESENTS THE CULMINATION OF MORE THAN 30 years of Rosenfeldt's research into the secret structures and bases of Stalin's power. As such this is truly a life's work; but it may also fairly be described as a masterwork, for nobody has described, let alone analysed in such overpowering and meticulous detail, the comprehensive sweep of the Stalinist control mechanisms from their inception to the death of Stalin and in some cases beyond that...this work is going to be indispensable to any serious effort to analyse Stalin and his state for years to come. While it is probable that new discoveries and arguments will come to challenge this work, so that it cannot be considered the last word on the subject, it will be the first, if not the only word on many of the issues and agencies analysed here for the foreseeable future." - Stephen J. Blank, Europa-Asia Studies, Vol. 63, Issue 1.

Niels Erik Rosenfeldt is Associate Professor at the East European Department at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Stalin and Russia/the Soviet Union.