RUSSIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY Period, region, and approach: This one-semester course surveys the history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation, dating from the Revolution of 1905 until the present day. Within a general political framework, this course will investigate the major intellectual, cultural, social, and economic trends of both this region and, when appropriate, from outside the region.
1. Introduction. Map of Russia distributed in class. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (6th Edition, 2000), 23-28; 391-402 Prepare for map quiz on day 2.
2. A brief history of the Russian Empire prior to the 20th Century Map Quiz. Wortman, from Scenarios of Power, Volume II, pp. 159-195.
3. The Revolution of 1905. Figes, A People’s Tragedy, pp. 86-109.
4. The inter-revolutionary period, 1905-1917. Riasanovsky, 453-461; Suny; Figes and Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution Something else from A People’s Tragedy. Khalid, “Representations of Russia in Central Asian Jadid Discourse”, from Russia‟s Orient, pp. 188-202.
DISCUSSION SECTION #1: The inter-revolutionary period.
What was the nature of the inter-revolutionary government? Was it parliamentary, autocratic, or both? Did parliamentary constitutionalism ever have a chance in Russia? What factors led to the Revolutions?
5. The February Revolution.
1
Suny, The Soviet Experiment, 3-54.
6. The October Revolution. Suny, 56-120; Fitzpatrick, “The Civil War as a Formative Experience”, from Bolshevik Culture, pp. 57-76.
7. The Civil War. Suny, 140-194.
8. NEP Suny, 195-214; Richard Taylor, “The Birth of the Soviet Cinema”, from Bolshevik Culture, pp. 190-203; Fitzpatrick, “Sex and Revolution”, from The Cultural Front, pp. 65-90.
9. Culture and Society in the 1920‟s. Suny, 215-251; Kotkin, “Introduction: Understanding Revolution”, from Magnetic Mountain, pp. 1-23. the Russian
10. Stalin‟s Rise to Power & the Industrialization of Russia. Suny, 252-290; Barbara Evans Clements “The Birth of the New Soviet Woman”, from Bolshevik Culture, pp. 220-237.
11. The period of “High” Stalinism. Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism”, from Suny, Becoming National: A Reader, pp. 203-242; Bennigsen, “Russian Islam under the Soviet Regime”, from Islam in the Soviet Union, pp. 123-164.
12. Nationalities and Nationality Policies in the 1920‟s and 1930‟s.
2
Suny, 309-329; Zubkova, “The Political Temper of the Masses, 1945-48”, and “Something Must be Done”: The Intelligentsia and the Intellectual Mavericks, from Russia after the War, pp. 74-99.
DISCUSSION SECTION #2: Nationality policies in the USSR.
Why did the Soviet government adopt these sorts of nationality policies? How did Soviet nationality policies reflect larger conceptions of the Soviet project? What alternatives to these nationality policies existed?
13. Midterm Examination.
13. WWII and its aftermath. Suny, pp. 337-362; Charles Gati, “Burdens and Benefits of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe”, Occasional Paper, Kennan Institute for Advanced Studies.
14. The Soviet Union and the Cold War. Suny, 385-420; Richard Stites, “Springtime for Khrushchev 1953-1964”, from Russian Popular Culture, pp. 123-147.
15. Khrushchev and the „thaw‟. William Taubman, “The Unraveling”, from Khrushchev, pp. 578-621; Suny, 421-433.
DISCUSSION SECTION #3: The Khrushchev era.
What were Khrushchev’s reforms? What, if any, lasting impact did they have on Soviet society?
16. From Khrushchev to Brezhnev. Suny 435-446; Kotkin, “History‟s Cruel Tricks”, from Armageddon Averted, pp. 10-30; McDaniel, “Brezhnev: Normalcy or Stagnation”, from The Agony of the Russian Idea, pp. 134-147;
3
17. Economics and Foreign Policy under Brezhnev. English, “The Dynamics of New Thinking in the Era of Stagnation”, from Russia and the Idea of the West, pp. 117-158; “A Triumph of Ideological Hairdressing? Intellectual Life in the Brezhnev Era Reconsidered”, from Brezhnev Reconsidered, pp. 135-164;
18. “New Thinking” and the “Era of Stagnation”. Stites, “The Brezhnev culture wars, 1964-84”, from Russian Popular Culture, pp. 148-177. Watch film, “Moskva slezam ne verit”, (“Moscow doesn‟t believe in tears”).
19. Society and Culture in the 1970‟s. Suny, 447-468; Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs, pp. 3-116.
DISCUSSION SECTION #4 : Re-evaluating the ‘era of stagnation’.
Discuss the foreign policy and domestic social changes which took place during the Brezhnev era. Were the relative ‘good times’ enjoyed during the Brezhnev years the result of a conscious set of ‘policies’, or else the fortuitous result of a boom in oil prices? Was the ‘era of stagnation’ really a hothouse of ‘new thinking’?
20. The Gorbachev transition. Suny, 469-485; Kotkin, Armageddon Averted, pp. 31-85.
21. The End of the Cold War and the Breakup of the Soviet Union. Suny, 486-506. Watch film, “Anna”.
22. New Concerns of the Russian Republic. “National history and national identity in Ukraine and Belarus”, from Nationbuilding in the post-Soviet Borderlands, pp. 23-47; Olivier Roy, “From Independence to Emerging Nationalism”, from The New Central Asia, pp. 161-189.
4
DISCUSSION SECTION #5: The Breakup of the Soviet Union.
Why did the Soviet Union break up? What role did economics, nationalism, international diplomacy, and democratization play in the USSR’s demise? Could the union have been saved? If so, how?
23. The Successor States to the Soviet Union. 24. Final Exam.
5