Review of The Great Terror: A Reassessment by Robert Conquest - Book Report/Review Example

The previous version which was released in the year 1968 is based on unauthentic sources and Conquest had to rely upon unofficial records but still the book managed to get great laurels for its best analysis. It is considered to be one of the extraordinary writings that brought to the world the other side of the executions that happened in Soviet in the name of protecting the nation. Author Robert Conquest managed to come out with The Great Terror: A Reassessment in the year 1990 which has more authentic sources and official data to prove his stand on the purge and the related matters with regard to Soviet politics.

Great Purge is nothing but a kind of persecution and repression that was followed by Stalin in order to prevent anybody from taking the political helm. One of the highlights of the book is the fact that Conquest is the first western author to deal with such a sensitive subject and he triumphed over by handling it with ease. It covers one of the century’s most tragic period which has not been brought forth more elaborately by other writers. From the first few chapters, it becomes evident that the objective of the book is to bring forth the greatest form of political oppression that took place on the Soviet Union.

The crux of the book lies in providing information about Stalin’s Great purge that paved way for a greater political oppression on the whole. . Soviet Union has heaped praises on it and accepted this book to be the best depiction of the period. Soviet considers The Great Terror: a Reassessment as the most definitive account of the period which has derived the stance from various raw sources. In the second chapter, the author puts forth information regarding the Soviet government, Stalin and how the country was brought under the clutch of power.

Great Terror provided with some of the most shocking information and also concepts that was going on in Soviet Union. The book received lots of criticism when it got released but now by taking a complete study from the Soviet Union archive, the author contends his stand. A controversy arose with Conquest’s estimation of death toll which was considered to be an exaggeration but the author had made use of the facts from Soviet Union and has involved in the widely accepted form of surveys, using the best of methodologies to prove his stand.

In addition to the data derived out of the census, the author also made use of some primary historical data to validate his efforts. With a more thoroughly researched stand, the author argues over the execution of the great purge that was carried out in some camps created by the then Soviet government specifically for this purpose. In the third chapter and also in the coming chapters of the book, Robert Conquest managed to pull off successively by grabbing the attention of the readers in the form of flowing events and supporting evidences to Stalin’s purges.

It brought forth everything right from Moscow Trials that was held thrice, the execution of the writers who attempted to bring out the