93489 - Social And Political History Of The Soviet Union

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide an overview of the social and political evolution of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. At the end of the course students will be able to: - describe the main stages of social changes and political governance from the 1917 Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union - critically present the major scholarly debates on State/society relationships - contextualize Soviet social and political history in a broader frame, analyzing key junctures when Soviet international concerns or ambitions influenced its domestic agenda.

Course contents

The module offers an in-depth overview of Russian and Soviet social and political history from the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war and Revolution to Yeltsin's resignation in late 1999. It takes into account the knowledge acquired by the students during the first semester, notably in the course on “State Building and Nationalism” (85233) and “Modernity and Development in Eastern Europe” (85232). It complements the module “History of Soviet Union and Russian Foreign Policy” (85236) by offering a view focused on domestic policies and social changes. For the post-Soviet years, it limits itself to Russia in the 1990s, since specialized modules cover Ukraine-Belarus-Moldavia (93501), the Caucasus (90508) and Central Asia (90509).

Following a chronological line, the course aims to provide the most recent knowledge of political and social history of Russia/USSR in the XXth century. A first part of the course deals with Russia’s “continuum of crisis” (Holquist), that is extended here to the years of revolutions and wars from 1904 to 1921, outlining elements of change and continuity beyond the 1917 divide, and presenting in depth the links between war and revolution and their diverse interpretations by the scholarship. A shorter sequence examines the 1920s, connecting the theoretical and political debates studied in three of the courses mentioned above with social evolution and the establishment of a specific political culture throughout this paradoxical decade. The central part of the course is devoted to Stalinism: the scholarly debates, the discrete successive phases, and the radical changes operated on – and often brutally forced upon - society (sometimes labeled “social engineering”). Stalin’s mass repressions are studied in their various logics, forms and tragic consequences without eclipsing the complex relationships between a consolidating and bureaucratizing Party-State and the Soviet population at large. The next sequence focuses on the principles, forms and paradoxes of reforms undertaken during the first decade after Stalin’s death. The course shifts then to the years of “stagnation”, showing how the rigidity of the system – with a partial rehabilitation of Stalin’s legacy – coexists with a deepening alternative activism on the part of a segment of the society, while in the background a sort of ‘deal’ between social expectations and political power allows the system to persist, albeit in a dysfunctional and still repressive way. The responses of society to Gorbachev’s reforms ‘from above’ will constitute the penultimate segment of the course, that ends with the study of the radical changes experienced by Russian society in the 1990s.

Each class will be built around a set of primary documents (textual & graphic) or an academic article that deepens crucial aspects of the topic and is based on recent or pivotal first-hand research in the relevant post-Soviet archives, allowing us to tackle general issues and debates of Russian/Soviet history while presenting recent monographs on specific aspects and years.

During classes students are also expected to acquire or improve their skills in historical methodology in order to approach the most relevant events of the domestic policy of Russia and Soviet Union from 1905 to 2000. Students are particularly expected to develop a critical approach toward all kinds of historical sources, as well as a good mastery of essential scholarly interpretations and debates.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Overall studies of Russia in the XXth century offer the background of more precise studies (chapters and articles) that will be discussed during the classes. Specific monographs will be mentioned during the classes, or recommended to students for their presentation or written paper.

Therefore, students must read before the beginning of the classes, and refer regularly during the course, to these short general overviews:

(the content of which must be mastered in the main lines)

Edele, Mark. The Soviet Union. A Short History. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

Hoffmann, David L. The Stalinist Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2018.

OR Edele, Mark. Stalinist Society, 1928-1953. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Available online through AlmaRe.

AND

Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000. Oxford University Press, 2001. Available online through AlmaRe.

 

 

Recommended complementary readings:

Hosking, Geoffrey. “Power and the People in Russia.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modern Russian History, edited by Simon Dixon, Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Uploaded on the Virtuale of the course

Klumbyte, Neringa, and Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, eds. Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–1985. Lanham; Boulder; New York; Toronto; Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2013. Available online through AlmaRe.

Priestland, David. “Cold War Mobilisation and Domestic Politics: The Soviet Union.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 442–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.  Uploaded on Virtuale

Reese, Roger A. “The Military and the Revolutionary State.” In The Cambridge History of War, edited by Roger Chickering, Dennis Showalter, and Hans van de Ven, 352–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Uploaded on Virtuale

Rolf, Malte. “A Hall of Mirrors: Sovietizing Culture under Stalinism.” Slavic Review 68, no. 3 (2009): 601–30. Uploaded on Virtuale

Sanborn, Joshua. “The Genesis of Russian Warlordism: Violence and Governance during the First World War and the Civil War.” Contemporary European History 19, no. 3 (2010): 195–213. Uploaded on Virtuale

Smith, Mark B. “The Life of the Soviet Worker.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modern Russian History, edited by Simon Dixon, Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Zubok, Vladislav M. “The Collapse of the Soviet Union.” In The Cambridge History of Communism, 3 : Endgames? Late Communism in Global Perspective, 1968 to the Present, edited by Juliane Fürst, Silvio Pons, and Mark Selden, 250–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Uploaded on Virtuale

Teaching methods

The first two classes will be devoted to the presentation of the main academic questions that will be addressed during the course, the functioning of the course and the methods of analysis of primary sources and of critical reading and analysis of specialized literature. Students' specific interests will be taken into account in the choice of concrete primary sources and academic texts provided to them for reading and discussion in class.

Then teaching is organized in lectures combining the presentation by a student of primary sources or of an academic article, collective discussions and instructor’s feedbacks and synthesis. The students will therefore actively participate in class, improving their methodological skills in historical interpretation of sources and critical appraisal of scholarship, and acquiring essential knowledge of recent and contemporary Russia.

Primary sources or article/chapter scheduled for analysis will be uploaded on the Virtuale of the course.

Assessment methods

The mark of attending students will be composed of two parts:

1°/ Presentation, during class, of either

a) a topic chosen together with the instructor

b) a (set of) primary source(s) (method of the commentary of primary sources)

c) an analysis of an academic article chosen together with the instructor.

The grade assigned to the presentation will be based on both the methodology followed (depth of analysis – paraphrase is forbidden), the intelligibility of the presentation (structure and language skills) and the research made by the student to interpret the documents / article in their context (the bibliography s.he used)

2°/ Final oral exam. Students must be able to answer 2-3 questions related to the primary documents and academic articles studied during classes, as well as to the synthesis made by the instructor and the readings that were referred to. This entails a good mastery of the mandatory readings indicated above, as well as of those signaled for special attention during classes and marked by **

Please note: Students from other Italian programs or Exchange students are requested to follow MIREES rules: therefore, in order to take the exam, they MUST have attended at least 70% of lectures.

Teaching tools

During frontal lessons the instructor will make ample use of power point presentations.

After class, the powerpoint or word files will be uploaded the Virtuale of the course.

Office hours

See the website of Vanessa Voisin