The Russian Revolution

Stalin and Stalinism

Background Reading
Merriman, History of Modern Europe, vol. 2 on Russian Revolution (pp. 1017-1045, especially pp. 1033-1045) and on Stalin and his rule (pp. 1045-1056).

Discussion: 11-12 March 2009, Better Living through Revolution
Students whose last names begin with A-H must submit written answers to Reading Questions this week.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Palaces on Monday," chapter 3 of her Everyday Stalinism (1999); available on e-reserves.

Letter to a close friend of Stalin's, describing conditions on the kolkhozes or collective farms (1932), on-line.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, "My Soviet Passport" (1929), available on-line.

Further Reading
Barbara Evans Clements, Bolshevik Women (1997).

Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution (1997).

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism (1999).

Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on my Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (2006).

Geoffrey Hosking, The First Socialist Society (1985; 1992).

Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (1995).

Catherine Merridale, Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century
Russia (2001).

Robert Service, The Russian Revolution, 1900-1927 (1986).

Rex A. Wade, The Russian Revolution, 1917 (2000).