 2014 - 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0621-3282-01 | Modernity, Revolution and Totalitarianism: the Stalinist Reg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
Course Description: creating a “new Soviet man” turned out to be a real challenge for the leaders of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Under Stalin this goal was promoted through the erasing by force of the old order while attempting to mold a new society ex-nihilo. In the course of this process the Soviet people were both the subjects and the objects of the endeavor: prominent leaders of the revolution could become its victims the next day and “he who was nothing could be everything.” Using letters, archival documents, memoirs, and other primary sources, we will try to identify the unique characteristics of Soviet totalitarianism. The seminar will trace different aspects of Stalinism, from Marxist ideology to Bolshevik practices and the political and social circumstances of the Russian Revolution. The course presents Stalin’s terror, his cult of personality, and the quest for a new men not as accidental and specific features of the Stalinist regime, or his implementation of Marxism, but as a possible version of the modernization process Europe was going through.