Rights statement: © 2014 Copyright the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and appears here with the permission of the publisher.
Final published version, 218 KB, PDF document
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Politics, law and justice in people's Poland
T2 - the Fieldorf file
AU - Fijalkowski, Agata
N1 - © 2014 Copyright the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and appears here with the permission of the publisher.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - This article examines the case against the Polish resistance fighter August Emil Fieldorf and his subsequent trial. Judicial officials within, or working intimately with, the Soviet secret police made decisions affecting many lives in Poland in 1944–1956. A consideration of the trial proceedings and the backgrounds of selected judicial officials provide a better understanding of the nature of Stalinist justice. Key issues underpinning the trial, related to political contexts, legal maneuverings, and broader considerations surrounding the defendant through the eyes of his persecutors, shed light on the hidden mechanism of Stalinist justice in operation and what constitutes a judicial crime. While its focus is Fieldorf, this article argues that the Polish case study can be instructive in analyzing the ways in which the law was used as a political weapon in other states and regions with similar experiences of totalitarian rule.
AB - This article examines the case against the Polish resistance fighter August Emil Fieldorf and his subsequent trial. Judicial officials within, or working intimately with, the Soviet secret police made decisions affecting many lives in Poland in 1944–1956. A consideration of the trial proceedings and the backgrounds of selected judicial officials provide a better understanding of the nature of Stalinist justice. Key issues underpinning the trial, related to political contexts, legal maneuverings, and broader considerations surrounding the defendant through the eyes of his persecutors, shed light on the hidden mechanism of Stalinist justice in operation and what constitutes a judicial crime. While its focus is Fieldorf, this article argues that the Polish case study can be instructive in analyzing the ways in which the law was used as a political weapon in other states and regions with similar experiences of totalitarian rule.
KW - Stalinist justice
KW - Poland
KW - Fieldorf
KW - misadministration of justice
KW - judicial crime
M3 - Journal article
VL - 73
SP - 85
EP - 107
JO - Slavic Review
JF - Slavic Review
SN - 0037-6779
IS - 1
ER -