The War Against the Peasantry, 1927-1930 : The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside, Volume one

This is to be a groundbreaking four-volume account of the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union, based on newly available documents from the archives of the Soviet State, the Communist Party, and the secret police.

The collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the late 1920s and 1930s forever altered the country's social and economic landscape.

A massive social engineering project, collectivization became the first of a series of bloody landmarks that would come to characterise and define Stalinism.

In this revelatory book the most important primary Soviet documents dealing with the brutal economic and cultural subjugation of the Russian peasantry are presented with analysis and commentary.

Drawn from previously unavailable and in many cases unknown archives, these harrowing documents provide for the first time an unimpeded view of the experience of the peasantry during the years 1927-1930.

The book, the first of four in the series, covers the background of collectivization, its violent implementation, and the mass peasant revolt that ensued. The documents reveal how repression evolved as a basic tool of governance and how Stalinist policies toward the peasantry developed and were opposed.

For its insights into the horrific fate of the Russian peasantry and into Stalin's dictatorship, The War Against the Peasantry takes its place an as unparalleled resource. "This volume - one of the most exciting in the Annals of Communism series - uncovers the Stalinist decision- and policy-making processes at work on momentous new directions for the countryside.

A remarkable achievement!" Mark von Hagen, Columbia University