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In Making Sense of War, Amir Weiner reconceptualizes the entire historical experience of the Soviet Union from a new perspective, that of World War II. Breaking with the conventional interpretation that views World War II as a post-revolutionary addendum, Weiner situates this event at the crux of the development of the Soviet--not just the Stalinist--system. Through a richly detailed look at Soviet society as a whole, and at one Ukrainian region in particular, the author shows how World War II came to define the ways in which members of the political elite as well as ordinary citizens viewed the world and acted upon their beliefs and ideologies. The book explores the creation of the myth of the war against the historiography of modern schemes for social engineering, the Holocaust, ethnic deportations, collaboration, and postwar settlements. For communist true believers, World War II was the purgatory of the revolution, the final cleansing of Soviet society of the remaining elusive "human weeds" who intruded upon socialist harmony, and it brought the polity to the brink of communism. Those ridden with doubts turned to the war as a redemption for past wrongs of the regime, while others hoped it would be the death blow to an evil enterprise. For all, it was the Armageddon of the Bolshevik Revolution. The result of Weiner's inquiry is a bold, compelling new picture of a Soviet Union both reinforced and enfeebled by the experience of total war.

Communism --- Propaganda, Soviet --- World War, 1939-1945 --- History. --- Moral and ethical aspects --- Propaganda. --- Psychological aspects. --- Social aspects --- Vinnyt͡si͡a Region (Ukraine) --- History --- Soviet propaganda --- European War, 1939-1945 --- Second World War, 1939-1945 --- World War 2, 1939-1945 --- World War II, 1939-1945 --- World War Two, 1939-1945 --- WW II (World War, 1939-1945) --- WWII (World War, 1939-1945) --- History, Modern --- Vinnyt︠s︡i︠a︡ Region (Ukraine) --- Abwehr. --- Allied-occupied Germany. --- Anti-fascism. --- Antisemitism (authors). --- Antisemitism. --- Banditry. --- Battle cry. --- Battle of Moscow. --- Battle of Stalingrad. --- Bolsheviks. --- Central Committee. --- Civil war. --- Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II. --- Collective punishment. --- Colonial war. --- Combatant. --- Communism. --- Counter-revolutionary. --- De-Stalinization. --- Decossackization. --- Dekulakization. --- Demagogue. --- Demoralization (warfare). --- Denazification. --- Deportation. --- Destruction battalions. --- Einsatzgruppen. --- Einsatzkommando. --- German war crimes. --- Great Patriotic War (term). --- Guerrilla warfare. --- Hitler's Willing Executioners. --- Home front during World War II. --- Imperialism. --- Insurgency. --- Invasion of Poland. --- Jews. --- Kolkhoz. --- Kosovo Myth. --- Lazar Kaganovich. --- Militarism. --- Militarization. --- Military occupation. --- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. --- Napoleonic Wars. --- National Reconciliation. --- Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War). --- Nazi Party. --- Nazi propaganda. --- Nazism. --- Nikita Khrushchev. --- Nuremberg trials. --- On Revolution. --- On War. --- On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences. --- Operation Barbarossa. --- Partisan (military). --- Partitions of Poland. --- Pavlik Morozov. --- People's Army. --- Persecution. --- Pogrom. --- Prisoner of war. --- Radicalization. --- Religious war. --- Reprisal. --- Resistance during World War II. --- Revolutionary terror. --- Russian Civil War. --- Russification. --- Schutzstaffel. --- Separatism. --- Soviet Union in World War II. --- Soviet Union. --- Soviet partisans. --- Stalinism. --- Terrorism. --- The German War. --- The Great Terror. --- The Origins of Totalitarianism. --- The Revolution Betrayed. --- Total war. --- Totalitarianism. --- Treason. --- Ukrainians. --- Untermensch. --- Victor Kravchenko (defector). --- Vinnytsia. --- Violent Struggle. --- War correspondent. --- War crime. --- War effort. --- War song. --- War. --- Warfare. --- Wilhelm Canaris. --- World War I. --- World War II. --- Yad Vashem. --- Zionism. --- Vinnyt︠s︡ʹka oblastʹ (Ukraine)