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Remembering Stalin's Victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR By Kathleen E. Smith. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. 219p. $29.95. Jeffrey W. Hahn, Villanova University
One of the most troubling questions for societies making a transition from authoritarian rule is how those in power will come to terms with acts of repression committed by the past regime. To ignore the question is impossible and risks the credibility and legitimacy of those who would liberalize the system; to seek to settle scores with those who committed the crimes threatens members of the old regime with whom one must negotiate a peaceful transfer of power. It may also raise unsettling questions about the extent of complicity in those crimes on the part of those who cooperated, even unwillingly, with the old regime. Kathleen Smith has produced a valuable study of how this issue has played a role in the transformation of the Soviet system. Drawing on research from the literature on transitions elsewhere, the author argues that the Russian experience in coming to grips with its Stalinist past is distinctive. Her argument is rooted in the contrast between authoritarian and totalitarian systems. Both may be equally repressive, but the former accommodates elements of civil society while the latter seeks to eradicate any pluralism; the Leninist party-state system claimed for itself a monopoly of truth. This distinction lies at the heart of the book's major thesis: What made Soviet leaders' efforts to come to grips with the past so difficult was reconciling their putative infallibility with the clear fact that serious mistakes had been made. To acknowledge the mistakes threatened the legitimacy of their claim...