B. Apor studied at Debrecen University, and is currently a postgraduate researcher at the European University Institute, Florence, where he is working on a thesis on the cult of Matyas Rakosi in Hungary. He is the author of A Rakosi-kultusz kialakulasa es megnyilvanulasai 1945 utan, Sic Itur Ad Astra. J.C. Behrends is Research Fellow at the Herder-Institut, Marburg, Germany. He specializes in the modern history of Germany, Poland and Russia, and in the comparative study of dictatorships. His publications include: (with Thomas Lindenberger and Patrice G. Poutrus, editors) Fremde unde Fremd-Sein in der DDR (Berlin, 2003); (with Gabor T. Rittersporn and Malte Rolf, editors) Spharen von Offentlichkeit in Gesellschaften Sowjetischen/The Public Sphere in Soviet-Type Societies (Frankfurt on Main, 2003); (with Patrice G. Poutrus and Arpad von Klimo, editors) Anti-Amerikanismus im Kalten Krief: Deutscglabnd in Europaischen Vergleich (Bonn, 2004). P. Jones received her DPhil from the University of Oxford for a dissertation on strategies of demythologisation in Post-Stalinism and Post-Leninism. She is a Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College Oxford, and is completing her PhD on the Stalin cult and de-Stalinisation. She is the author of From Stalinism to post-Stalinism: De-mythologising Stalin, 1953-56, in H. Shukman, ed., Redefining Stalinism (London, 2003). E.A. Rees is Professor of Eastern European History at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, and is currently on leave from the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham. He is the author of Political Thought from Machiavelli to Stalin: Revolutionary Machiavellism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). He is the editor of The Nature of Stalin's Dictatorship: The Politburo, 1924-1953 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Centre-Local Relations in the Stalinist State, 1928-1941 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), and Decision-Making in the Stalinist Command Economy, 1932-37 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1997).
