Crucibles of Power

Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule

Michael David-Fox

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Hardback

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English

Harvard University Press
17 June 2025

History; European history

An illuminating new history of World War II–era Smolensk, a region at the crossroads of the two great dictatorships of the twentieth century.

During the Cold War, the Smolensk Archive held the only collection of Communist Party documents available to Western scholars, becoming the foundation for generations of scholarship on Soviet history. Crucibles of Power returns to the Smolensk Region with fresh eyes and fresh sources. Prizewinning historian Michael David-Fox traces the experiences of Smolensk residents between the interwar years and the end of World War II, a period during which the city and region passed from Stalinist rule to Nazi occupation and back. The result is a revelatory examination of choice and power under dueling forms of murderous totalitarianism.

Exploring the life-and-death decisions of a fascinating cast of characters-from young women in the Communist Youth League to a defense lawyer during Stalin's Great Terror who became Smolensk's collaborationist mayor during the German occupation-David-Fox shows how deeply the Stalinist and Nazi regimes relied on the cooptation of average citizens motivated by greed and need, but always within the orbit of ideology. Challenging today's Russian nationalist narrative of heroic WWII resistance, he finds that large numbers of Russians aided the Nazi occupation of Smolensk in order to protect themselves, secure their own self-interest, or pursue vendettas against a Soviet state they found no less corrupt or oppressive than its German foe.

At a time when much of the world is tilting away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism, Crucibles of Power masterfully unravels the threads of dictatorial rule. Smolensk emerges as a laboratory for understanding the mechanics of both outright coercion and subtler forms of power, as well as the enabling behavior of ordinary citizens acquiescing to extraordinary crimes.

By: Michael David-Fox
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 33mm
Weight: 902g
ISBN: 9780674247468
ISBN 10: 0674247469
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 17 June 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Michael David-Fox is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union and Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921–1941. He is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies and Professor of History at Georgetown University.

Reviews for Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule

In this examination of the Smolensk Archives, which laid the foundation for American understandings of Soviet power, Michael David-Fox offers a much more complicated and comprehensive presentation of Soviet power relations than previously available. Crucibles of Power is a masterpiece of historical analysis and narration, and a sterling example of how new methodologies and new archives can come together to change our understanding of the past. -- Serhii Plokhy, author of The Gates of Europe With the erudition of a historian and the acuity of a master storyteller, David-Fox puts us in the company of people who lived then and there. An essential book for anyone curious about life under totalitarian power. -- John Connelly, author of From People into Nations Smolensk is a kind of sacred land for American historiography. Drawing on a huge amount of new material from Russian archives, this book examines Smolensk primarily during World War II, when the inhabitants of this westernmost region of Russia had to endure two changes of power and compare the effects of Nazism and Stalinism on their own skin. Crucibles of Power will appeal not only to professional historians but also to a much wider range of readers. -- Oleg Budnitskii, author of Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917–1920 An examination of power dynamics in radically illiberal regimes, Crucibles of Power is a masterful study of a past full of unsettling resonances with the present. Deeply theorized yet fluently written, this book guides us through the histories of Stalinism, Nazism, the Holocaust, and World War II in Russia’s Smolensk Region. -- Mark Edele, author of Russia’s War against Ukraine A true tour de force. This book deserves to be read by anyone interested in the war in the East, Soviet rule, or the twentieth century more broadly. -- Peter Holquist, author of Making War, Forging Revolution