LAUSR

Chapter 3 shows how the border was used in the framework of the Piedmont principle as a showcase window for projecting Soviet influence abroad in 1920s, and how it was transformed into a border of a besieged fortress in early 1930s, when hopes for world revolution gave way to fear of foreign influences. The fourth chapter describes how in the second half of the 1930s the border zone was transformed into a “no man’s land” by deportations, resettlements, and the denunciation of treaties about trans-border relations concluded in 1920s. Deportations on ethnic bases in 1937–38 were supplemented by mass arrests and executions based on ethnic and social criteria, while the border zone became extended from 7.5 to 25 kilometers. The final chapter describes the moving of Soviet borders westward in 1939–1940, as the result of annexations of parts of the territories of Finland, Poland, and Romania. These events combined as the Soviet drive for revanche, their new concept of control of the outer spaces as security measures and the implementation of ethnic principles. The book offers rich illustrative material and often rare archival photographs. Sabine Dullin has written a conceptually rich, highly-informative, and well-narrated book, which should become an important addition to the syllabi of many courses on Soviet and east European interwar history.