Department of Slavonic Studies

Paper Ru 8

Socialist Russia 1917-1991

Course Adviser: Dr Chris Ward

 

The Paper

Everyone knows something about modern Russian history: just as the French Revolution changed once and for all the way people thought about their relationships to each other and the nature of society and the state, so Russia’s upheavals have fundamentally conditioned all our lives and all our thinking. Without revolution in 1917 it is probable that there would have been no fascism in Europe, no Second World War, no socialist states in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Central America, and none of the American bases which, until very recently, were scattered around Cambridge.

And yet it remains the case that the history of modern Russia is encrusted with myth. Few people are aware, for instance, that Bolshevik intellectuals never imagined that they were part of a specifically ‘Russian’ revolution, or that perestroika and glasnost’ were first canvassed as far back as 1918. Much of this can be put down to prejudice and misunderstanding. Additionally, Soviet history has always been an ideological battleground. Historians still cannot approach consensus on the events of 1917, there is still no adequate history of the Revolution, and serious investigation of many topics — the Stalin phenomenon, the purges, and the Great Patriotic War, for example — has only now started. There are, therefore, no comfortable answers to be found on this course, and certainly no ‘correct’ interpretations. Instead we shall be trying to come to some tentative conclusions based on very imperfect evidence.

Texts and Topics

For 2013-14:

• The ‘Great October’
• The crises of 1918-21
• NEP and its discontents
• Foreign policy and the Comintern
• The rise of Stalin
• The пятилетка
• Collectivization
• Culture and society
• The problem of the ‘purges’
• Foreign policy and the Comintern
• The Great Patriotic War
• Late Stalinism
• The limits to reform
• ‘Developed socialism
• The unfinished revolution

 

• В. И. Ленин, Апрельские тезисы.
• Заседание ЦК РСДРП(б)января и февраля 1918 г.
• И. В. Сталин, О задачах хозяйственников.
• Н. С. Хрущев, Доклад на закрытом заседании XX съезда КПСС.
  

See the course handbook for full details (available in July 2013)

Preparatory Reading

• Hobsbawm, E. J. The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 (1994)
• Service, R. A History of Twentieth-Century Russia (1997)
• Stone, N. World War One: A Short History (2007)
• Westwood, J. Endurance and Endeavour: Russian History 1812-1917 (4th ed., 1993)

Teaching

Sixteen lectures one-hour lectures once a week, eight in Michaelmas and eight in Lent, plus four one-hour seminars in Easter, also once a week, and ten one-hour supervisions bi-weekly, four in Michaelmas, four in Lent and two in Easter.

See course handbook for full details.

Assessment

Three-hour unseen paper divided into three sections. All candidates must answer three questions, one from each section. See course handbook for full details.

Individuals with Raven passwords may download copies of recent examination papers from the Faculty CamTools site here.

Course Contacts

Dr Chris Ward, cew23@cam.ac.uk