"An examination of the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union and that Union's eventual collapse. Topics include: the invention and unfolding of single-party revolutionary politics, the expansion of the machinery of state, the onset and development of Stalin's personal despotism, the violent attempt to create a noncapitalist society, the experiences and consequences of the monumental war with Nazi Germany, and the various postwar reforms. Special attention paid to the dynamics of the new socialist society, the connection between the power of the state and everyday life, global communism, and the 1991 collapse."
The Russian Revolution marked the opening of the “short twentieth century” (1917-1991), and its demise signaled that turbulent century’s end. During its lifetime, much of the world viewed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as the defining political experiment, the great modern challenge to liberalism, capitalism, imperialism, and fascism. This course is about the Soviet century.
We will trace the emergence of the Soviet Union from the ruins of a dynastic empire and its violent transformation into the showcase of the future. Lectures, readings, and recitations will explore the building of the world’s first socialist society and its attempts to recast human relations and human nature itself. Topics include the origins of the Revolutions of 1917, the role of ideology in state policy and everyday life, the Soviet Union as the center of world communism, the challenge of forging a new society from an ethnically diverse population, the Soviet Union’s epic defeat of Nazi Germany, its rise to the status of superpower, its various attempts to reform itself, and its sudden implosion in 1991. We will follow the rulers (from Nicholas II to Lenin, from Stalin to Gorbachev) as well as the ruled (peasants, workers, intellectuals; Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Latvians, Armenians, Georgians, Azeris, and many others).
Curiosity about Soviet history and a willingness to explore its drama and complexity are the only prerequisites for this course. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed.