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Inside Lenin's Government
Lara Douds examines the practical functioning and internal political culture of the early Soviet government cabinet, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), under Lenin. This study elucidates the process by which Sovnarkom's governmental decision-making authority was transferred to Communist Party bodies in the early years of Soviet power and traces the day-to-day operation of the supreme state organ. The book argues that Sovnarkom was the principal executive body of the early Soviet government until the Politburo gradually usurped this role during the Civil War. Using a range of archival source material, Lara Douds re-interprets early Soviet political history as a period where fledg...
The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution
How did a regime that promised utopian-style freedom end up delivering terror and tyranny? For some, the Bolsheviks were totalitarian and the descent was inevitable; for others, Stalin was responsible; for others still, this period in Russian history was a microcosm of the Cold War. The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution reasons that these arguments are too simplistic. Rather, the journey from Bolshevik liberation to totalitarianism was riddled with unsuccessful experiments, compromises, confusion, panic, self-interest and over-optimism. As this book reveals, the emergence (and persistence) of the Bolshevik dictatorship was, in fact, the complicated product of a failed democratic transition. Drawing on long-ignored archival sources and original research, this fascinating volume brings together an international team of leading scholars to reconsider one of the most important and controversial questions of 20th-century history: how to explain the rise of the repressive Stalinist dictatorship.
The Russia Anxiety
Russia is not unknowable--and its past might offer hints into its future and place in the world, one that reaches beyond crisis and confrontation
Vladimir Lenin
In his book Lenin: How to Become a Leader, Vladlen Loginov, one of Russia's leading authorities on Vladimir Lenin, discusses the revolutionary leader’s early years, his family, his political awakening and subsequent activities. He reveals the beginnings of the creator of the world’s first socialist country, as well as the source of the future statesman's incredible willpower, his ability to influence people, his drive to succeed and his leadership qualities. All of these, the book demonstrates, were intrinsic to Lenin's character from a young age. In his research, Loginov uses new sources and previously unknown documents and memoirs, as well as archives of Russians in exile. Edited and introduced by Professor Geoffrey Swain.
Building Socialism
Provides the first detailed examination of rank-and-file communist party activism as an element of governance in the Soviet system, offering an empirical account of the bottom level of the apparatus of the Soviet Communist Party in its formative years.
Lenin Lives?
A lively, accessible and wide-ranging account of one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. Through a brief but stimulating and penetrating account of his life and chief ideas the study examines how 'Leninism' emerged and became a global force.
Reflections on Stalinism
Reflections on Stalinism distills decades of historical thought and research, bringing together twelve senior scholars of Soviet history who began their careers during the Cold War to examine their views of Stalinism. They present insights into the role of personality in statecraft, the social underpinnings of dictatorship and state terrorism, historians' attachments to their subjects, historical causality, the applicability of Marxist categories to Soviet history, the relationship of Soviet history to post-Soviet Russia, and more. Essays address the transformation of a peasant country into a superpower and the causes and scale of domestic bloodshed. Reflections on Stalinism ultimately tackles an age-old question: Do powerful people make history or are they the product of it?
Stalin's World
Drawing on declassified material from Stalin’s personal archive, this is the first systematic attempt to analyze how Stalin saw his world—both the Soviet system he was trying to build and its wider international context. Stalin rarely left his offices and viewed the world largely through the prism of verbal and written reports, meetings, articles, letters, and books. Analyzing these materials, Sarah Davies and James Harris provide a new understanding of Stalin’s thought process and leadership style and explore not only his perceptions and misperceptions of the world but the consequences of these perceptions and misperceptions.
What Was Bolshevism?
How did the Bolsheviks see themselves? What grand narrative gave meaning to their revolutionary aspirations? The leading Western expert on Bolshevism, Lars T. Lih, answers these questions in the first-ever study of the Bolshevik outlook from Lenin to perestroika. Sharply focused case studies allow individual leaders – Lenin, Stalin, Bukharin, Trotsky, Zinoviev – to come alive and speak in their own voices, with surprising results that challenge conventional narratives left and right. What Was Bolshevism? uses novels, plays, literary criticism, photographs, statues, poetry, history textbooks, songs, and film to paint an indispensable self-portrait of Soviet civilization.
A World of Empires
Edyta Bojanowska uses Ivan Goncharov's gripping travelogue--a bestseller in nineteenth-century Russia--as a unique eyewitness account of empire in action. Slow to be integrated into the standard narrative on European imperialism, Russia emerges here as an assertive empire eager to emulate European powers and determined to define Russia against them.--
