The Elitist Aspect of "The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics"

The work of the renowned Australian-American historian and Sovietologist Sheila Fitzpatrick, devoted to the study of the features and logic of political decision-making in the Soviet Union from the late 1920s to 1953, draws attention for its attempt at an objective analysis of the motives behind the actions of the "Stalin team". Unlike a significant number of ideologically driven and emotionally charged works on the Stalin era, Sheila Fitzpatrick - an honorary professor at the University of Sydney and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, who also taught Soviet Union history at the University of Texas at Austin - searches for rational reasons behind the actions of the top Soviet political leadership. She convincingly shows that the tragic pages of Stalin's terror had not only subjective, but also significant objective real-political grounds. The historian concludes that despite the constant purges of the party apparatus, a careful analysis of the activities of I.V. Stalin's closest associates demonstrates an unexpected consistency and effectiveness, as evidenced by three decades of joint work and the ability of the "team" to manage the transition of power even after the leader’s death.