CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Lopatina, Sofia Leonidovna |
|---|---|
| Title | From Komsomol Activists to Underground Reformists: The Leningrad Group Kolokol, 1954-1965 |
| Summary | In this thesis, I reconstruct the history of the group Kolokol, its formation, crystallization, and dissolution that took place in 1954-1965 in Leningrad. I examine the transformation of the group from Komsomol members that were mobilized by various Thaw-era campaigns, to underground publishers and distributors of their theoretically grounded Marxist critique of the Soviet political system, and finally to political prisoners. By organizing underground writing, publishing, and distributing activities, the group was “playing at revolution.” It is difficult to univocally define whether the group supported or opposed the Soviet authorities; nevertheless, their aspirations were reformist “from-within” the Communist ideology. The thesis will show the discrepancies between the group members’ and the KGB officials’ interpretations of the group’s actions that I consider as the two main agents in this conflict. Therefore, I also trace the process of investigation and analyze how the KGB officials categorized an informal group of close friends in terms of conspiratorial ‘anti-Soviet underground organization’, how they mastered the language of accusation and how they constructed the offense with which they charged the group. |
| Supervisor | Siefert Marsha |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/lopatina_sofia.pdf |
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