Publisher's Synopsis
The driving forces behind the enforcement of the dictatorship in Saxony were the Soviet occupying power and the communist party it controlled. They were primarily responsible for the establishment of a system of simulated democracy and later for the transition to an open dictatorship. This volume analyzes the role of the occupying power and its German instrument in the formation of a new political system and its police-state structures. The instruments and methods of enforcing the dictatorship are also highlighted, such as politically instrumentalized denazification, far-reaching purges and early attempts to mobilize the population comprehensively. An embedding of these processes in the German political and international events takes place on the basis of analyzes of the political-programmatic ideas of Stalin and the Soviet expansion efforts immediately after 1945.
