LEADER 03701cam a2200361Ia 4500001 32277 005 20240621143845.0 008 990128s1994 xx r 000 0 eng d 035 (OCoLC)40694639 035 32277 049 LHMA 040 LHM |beng |erda |cLHM 090 D802.S75 |bS64 1994 100 1 Slepyan, Kenneth D. 245 15 "The people's avengers" : |bSoviet partisans, Stalinist society and the politics of resistance, 1941-1944 / |cby Kenneth D. Slepyan. 264 1 [Place of publication not identified] : |b[publisher not identified], |c1994. 300 2 volumes in 1 (viii, 539 pages) 336 text |btxt |2rdacontent 337 unmediated |bn |2rdamedia 338 volume |bnc |2rdacarrier 502 Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1994. 504 Includes bibliographical references (pages 523-539). 520 At the Second World War, the Soviet Union was militarily and politically unprepared to wage a large-scale partisan struggle. The precarious Soviet military position at the beginning of the war forced the Soviet leadership to overcome its general suspicions towards mass movements and facilitate a partisan movement. Officials had to solve two difficult, and at times, contradictory tasks: the maximization of partisan military effectiveness, and the maintenance of partisan political reliability and loyalty. This dissertation on the Soviet partisan movement explores the dynamics of power relations and the construction of social identities within the framework of Soviet political culture. Based on recently available archival materials from the former Soviet Union, including reports from partisans and Soviet officials, diaries, transcripts of partisan conferences and interviews, and unit personnel lists this project analyzes the partisan movement on three levels: how the Soviet leadership formulated policy towards the partisans; how state agencies--the Party, Red Army, and NKVD--interpreted and implemented these plans; and how the partisan detachments functioned as political, social and military communities. This project shows that the Soviet leadership sought to use the partisan movement as a means of legitimating the Soviet system and attempted to impose a uniform identity on the partisans. This uniform identity connected with partisan self-representations, which themselves were not uniform. The numerous contradictions within Soviet political culture enabled the partisans to embrace alternative visions of what it meant to be a partisan. Although the Soviet leadership used several methods in an effort to control the partisans, the partisans were still often able to evade these controls or manipulate the very structures that were intended to supervise them. And while the partisans identified themselves explicitly as "Soviet", they significantly altered the content of the Soviet institutions they replicated in the detachments. Thus, the partisans simultaneously accepted and rejected certain aspects of the prewar Soviet experience in their own communities. 530 Electronic version(s) |bavailable internally at USHMM. 533 Photocopy. |bAnn Arbor, Mich. : |cUMI Dissertation Services, |d1998. |e22 cm. 590 Dissertations and Theses 591 Record updated by Marcive processing 21 June 2024 650 0 World War, 1939-1945 |xUnderground movements |zSoviet Union. 856 41 |uhttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=741892101&sid=31&Fmt=6&clientId=54617&RQT=309&VName=PQD |zElectronic version from ProQuest 956 41 |uhttp://dc.ushmm.org/library/bib32277/9513485.pdf |zHosted by USHMM. 852 0 |bstacks |hD802.S75 S64 1994 852 |bwww 852 |bebook