Suchergebnisse

"This volume offers a novel account of political trials that is empirically rigorous and theoretically sophisticated, linking state-of- the-art research on telling cases to a broad argument about political trials as a socio-legal phenomenon. All the contributors analyse the logic of the political in the courtroom. From archival research to participant observation, and from linguistic anthropology to game theory, the volume offers a genuinely interdisciplinary set of approaches that substantially advance existing knowledge about what political trials are, how they work, and why they matter"--

The "show trials" of the Soviet Stalinist era are analyzed; it is observed that the celebrated trials of the late 1930s were both preceded by similarly conceived trials during the Lenin administration & followed after WWII by Eastern block trials planned in all details by Soviet advisors. It is asserted that the goal of the trials was to mobilize mass support for certain goals, & the determination of defendants' guilt & punishment was of secondary significance. All of the trials were accompanied by extensive publicity & all were started by Joseph Stalin or by decision of the Politburo. The trials were not legal events but rather political theater masquerading as justice; early trials aimed at genuine opponents of the regime; later ones often invented "enemies of the state," & were characterized by trumped-up charges, inauthentic confessions, & total judicial arbitrariness. Dynamics within the Communist Party during the first & second stages of the show trials (the 1920s & 1930s), including the role of Stalin, are examined. It is noted that despite widespread post-Stalin pardons of those convicted, the trials have never been officially reviewed in the USSR; due to the major political status of victims of Soviet trials, their review would be likely to throw the current power structure into a state of confusion & possible reform, an unattractive prospect for those who would have to initiate reviews. J. Weber.