Conscience on Trial

'Conscience on Trial once again confirms Hiroaki Kuromiya as an excellent storyteller, as well as a major authority on the Stalin period known widely for his solid, archival-based work. Kuromiya's lucidly written and highly engaging new book tells the fascinating story of the inner world of Soviet citizens and the workings of the Stalinist repressive apparatus - an interesting and important topic that has received little coverage in the literature. In a manner reminiscent of Carlo Ginzburg's celebrated The Cheese and the Worms, this excellent book unfolds as a human-interest narrative with many elements of mystery.' -- Serhy Yekelchyk, Department of History, University of Victoria

Kuromiya convincingly elucidates the mechanism of the Soviet secret police and explores the minds of non-conformist believers -precursors to the revival of dissidence after Stalin's death in 1953.

Conscience on Trial reveals the startling story, kept secret for sixty years, of ordinary citizens caught up in the elaborate machinery of political terror in Stalinist Ukraine. In 1952, fourteen poor, barely literate Seventh-Day Adventists living on the margins of Soviet society were clandestinely tried for allegedly advocating pacifism and adhering to the Saturday Sabbath. The only written records of this trial were sealed in the KGB archives in Kiev, and this harrowing episode has until now been unknown even within the Ukraine.

Hiroaki Kuromiya has carefully analyzed these newly discovered documents, and in doing so, reveals a fascinating picture of private life and religious belief under the atheist Stalinist regime. Kuromiya convincingly elucidates the mechanism of the Soviet secret police and explores the minds of non-conformist believers -precursors to the revival of dissidence after Stalin's death in 1953.