This article contributes to a journal discussion of Michael David-Fox's new book, Crucible of Power. The book brings together the major phenomena of the 20th century: Stalinism, Nazism, WWII and the Holocaust. Emphasizing the richness of material and thought, the article focuses on such key points of the book as the dilemma of choice in people's decisions to either resist or collaborate, the role of Nazi ideology in the self-destruction of the Nazi regime and the synergy of waves of colossal Nazi crimes. In its critical comments, the article notes a marginalization of economic issues. To further conceptualize the socio-economic narrative presented in the book, the article proposes a reinterpretation of the nature of the Stalinist/Soviet economy as a symbiosis of state regulations and the market, thereby challenging the rigid bipolar vision entrenched in Cold War terminology and narratives.
This article focuses on the use of the terms "deaf" and "deaf-mute" in the interwar Romanian press to explore the multiplicity of meanings attached to this condition in different types of public discourse. My aim is to place in the larger context of that period what meanings become most prominent in newspapers and other forms of popular press, why, and with what consequences. I offer an exploration of these discourses to better appreciate how the reading public, both able-bodied and disabled, saw disability represented. Rendering the very multiplicity of meanings attached to "deafness" visible in the relevant context is an important goal for this essay; it allows us to better understand the continued imprecision and stigmatizing framework in how Romanian society engaged with the deaf. I also explore what space existed for the deaf community to shape their own self-representations. Placing ableist discourses in dialogue with the voices of the deaf community is an important aim, as a method to de-essentialize the predominant ableist discourses and normalize accounting for disability as a significant element of modern history.
The introduction to the cluster on disability history in eastern Europe and Russia provides a framework for situating the three case studies within the larger development of the field. The introduction highlights important themes and arguments presented by the three authors.
This article examines the Russian Fund for Invalids of the War in Afghanistan (RFIVA), a post-Soviet disability organization whose disabled veteran members became involved in organized crime after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ultimately culminating in the 1996 Kotliakovskoe Cemetery bombing. When the Soviet state vanished, disabled people felt the effects of its absence most harshly. But disabled veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War, who had constructed a shared identity around violent disabled masculinity, found both solidarity and profit in the sale of violence in the hyper-capitalist, neoliberal Russia. During Russia's transition to a market economy, a small part of the Afghan veteran's movement formed into criminal and semi-criminal organizations, including the Russian Fund for Invalids of the Afghan War (RFIVA). The organization eventually splintered over disagreements regarding its obligations to provide care for disabled veterans: a reflection of broader questions over the relationship of disabled veterans to Russian society.
This lead article introduces the Crucibles of Power forum, highlighting Michael David-Fox's groundbreaking study of Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi rule. Crucibles of Power offers a model social history of occupation, weaving together Soviet and German sources, survivor testimonies, and decades of scholarship to dismantle binary frameworks of totalitarian theory. By reframing power as a fractured and negotiated process, David-Fox reveals how overlapping regimes shaped individual choices, collaboration, and violence. Key themes-such as 'biographical logics,' the entanglement of Nazi and Soviet systems, and the performative dimensions of fear, rumor, and denunciation-anchor this forum's discussions by Jochen Hellbeck, Elena Osokina, and Anna Krylova, alongside David-Fox's own response. Read against the present, this book warns how authoritarian regimes are assembled, naturalized, and remembered. The article argues that Crucibles of Power not only reshapes our understanding of Stalinism and Nazism but also calls for new comparative histories of violence, emotion, and survival across Eastern Europe.
