THE HISTORY OF THE SOVIET UNION 1917-1991

Unit Organiser: Professor Edward Acton

Seminar Tutor: Dr Francis King

Semester: Spring
Slot: C
Credit Value (ucu): 20

Assessment Mode and Weights used for the Aggregate Mark:
HISH2D84
[1] One essay of c. 2,500 words - Weight: 40%
[2] One seminar presentation and 9 supplementary contributions - Weight: 10%
[3] 2 hour examination - Weight: 50%

HISH2D84C
This is a coursework only option for students from outside the School of History;
[1] 2 x 2,500 word essays - Weight: 90%
[2] One seminar preparations and 9 supplementary contributions - Weight: 10%

Brief Description:
This unit surveys Soviet history from the revolutions of 1917 to the demise of the USSR. The central theme is the changing relationship between state and society. The unit begins with the Bolshevik victory in 1917 and the civil war and traces the political and economic development of the 1920s, Stalin's rise to power, and the programme of forced pace industrialisation in the 1930s; the Great Terror of 1936-39; and the experiences of the war years 1941-45. It then considers how Khrushchev and Brezhnev achieved a measure of stabilization in the two decades which followed Stalin's death; the array of economic, social, ideological and international problems which beset the system from the 1970s; Gorbachev's attempts at reform and limited democratization; the upsurge of minority nationalism; and finally the abortive coup of August 1991 and the collapse of Communist rule and Soviet unity.

skills:

ability to discriminate between conflicting interpretations and perspectives
capacity to test hypotheses against more detailed evidence, examples and case studies
ability to interpret and present socio-economic data in clear and intelligible manner
ability to communicate in clearly structured and argued manner, both in discussion and in prose, with particular emphasis on ability to construct sustained argument

LECTURES

1. Introduction and the October Revolution

2. Civil War and the consolidation of Bolshevik Power

3. Lenin's legacy, Stalin's 'great turn': from NEP to the First Five-Year Plan

4. Collectivization and Industrialization

5. Purges and the Terror

6. Comintern, Isolation and the Great Patriotic War

7. Cold War, post-war Stalinism and the Zhdanovshchina

8. Stabilization under Khrushchev and Brezhnev: the domestic context

9. Stabilization under Khrushchev and Brezhnev: the international context

10. Stagnation and decline, 1975-1985

11. Gorbachev, Perestroika and the Fall of the Soviet Union

12. The Meaning of the Soviet Experiment

SEMINARS

1. Introduction

2. The October Revolution and Civil War

'Having come to power through popular revolution, by 1921 the Bolshevik leadership had alienated popular support.' Consider this comment

a) why did the Provisional Government continue the war?
b) why did working-class support for the Bolsheviks grow in 1917?
c) describe the organisation and the social composition of the Bolshevik party during 1917
d) what was the significance of the Kornilov affair?
e) what light do the Constituent Assembly elections throw on the popularity of the October revolution?
f) how did the size and composition of the working class alter between October 1917 and 1921?
g) explain the origins and fate of the Poor Peasant Committees
h) what was 'war communism' and why did the Bolsheviks adopt it?
i) why did the CheKa grow so fast and become so powerful?
j) why did the Bolsheviks win the civil war?
k) assess the causes, goals and significance of the Kronstadt rising

3. NEP and the commitment to the First Five-Year Plan

Why was NEP adopted in 1921 and abandoned at the end of the decade?

a) what was new about NEP?
b) who were NEPmen and why were they significant?
c) was NEP effective as a policy for economic recovery?
d) when and why did Stalin adopt the slogan of 'socialism in one country'?
e) how do you explain Trotsky's defeat?
f) why was the post of General Secretary so influential?
g) how did the composition of the party alter between 1921 and 1927?
h) on what grounds did Bukharin defend NEP between 1921 and 1927?
i) what impact did foreign affairs have on the power struggle and economic
policy?
j) why was there a grain crisis in the late 1920s?
k) why did the party commit itself to such ambitious economic targets in the late
1920s?
l) why did the party adopt wholesale collectivisation?
m) did Bukharin hold out a viable alternative to 'extraordinary measures' and forced collectivisation?

4. Collectivisation and Forced-Pace Industrialisation

Weigh the achievements and support for the First Five-Year Plans (1928-41), and the price paid

a) who were the 'kulaks' and why did Stalin insist they be destroyed as a class?
b) who were the '25,000ers'? does their existence demonstrate working-class support for collectivisation?
c) did collectivisation damage or assist Soviet industrialisation?
d) account for the famine of 1932-34
e) assess the scale and impact of peasant resistance during collectivisation and
during the 1930s.
f) how did the size and social composition of the working class change in the
period?
g) did working-class living standards rise or fall in the period?
h) why was there such a rapid turnover of labour?
i) why was legislation on industrial discipline so harsh?
j) account for the 'cultural revolution' (1928-31) and its curtailment
k) why did social and family policy becoming more 'traditional' in the 1930s?
l) what groups supported the industrialisation drive?
m) what were the goals of 'Stakhanovism' and how far were they achieved?
n) account for the turn from 'cultural revolution' to more traditional social policies

5. The Great Terror

Account for the 'Great Terror' of 1937-38

a) why were there recurrent 'purges' of the party during the 1930s?
b) how significant was political opposition to Stalin during the 1930s?
c) what was the significance of Kirov's assassination?
d) assess conflicting estimates of the number of victims of the Terror
e) what groups were the prime victims of the Great Terror?
f) why did the command economy generate friction between centre and regional officials?
g) what was Stalin's motive for fostering the Terror?
h) why did the leading victims of the Show Trials confess?
i) why was the officer corps so heavily hit by the Great Terror?
j) what proportion of the Gulag population were arrested for political as opposed to civil offences?
k) did forced labour serve a rational economic purpose?
l) why did the Terror abate?

6. Isolation, 'collective security' and war

Consider how far the Soviet government was to blame for the USSR's isolation in the pre-war period and account for Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War.

a) why did Comintern attack social democrats in the late 20s and early 30s?
b) which side was more to blame for the absence of a Soviet-Western alliance in the late 1930s?
c) why and with what justification did the USSR sign the Nazi-Soviet pact?
d) how serious was the threat posed by Japan in the late 1930s?
e) why did Stalin allow the USSR to be taken by surprise in June 1941?
f) assess the scale of Soviet losses in the first 6 months of the war
g) how many Soviet citizens died during the war?
h) how far-reaching was the rapprochement Stalin made with the Church?
i) what was the significance of the dissolution of Comintern?
j) how far was the authoritarian nature of Communist rule responsible for Soviet victory?
k) how far was popular commitment responsible for Soviet victory?
l) how far was American aid to the USSR responsible for Soviet victory?
m) why did Stalin order the deportation of the 'punished peoples'?

7. The post-war USSR and the onset of the Cold War

'Soviet treatment of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II was the fundamental cause of the Cold War.' Assess this judgement.

a) what was the Zhdanovshchina?
b) how far did Soviet domestic policy shape post-war Soviet foreign policy?
c) how was Soviet rule imposed on the Baltic states and other newly incorporated areas after 1945?
d) what were the aims of Stalin's post-war foreign policy?
e) why did relations between Moscow and the Polish government in exile break down?
f) what impact did the discovery and use of atomic weapons have on East-West relations at the end of the war?
g) was the break-down of joint occupation in Germany the cause or consequence of East-West tension?
h) date and explain the communist take-over in Hungary.
i) date and explain the communist take-over in Czechoslovakia.
j) why did the USSR pull out of the Paris conference (1947) and Marshall Aid plan?
k) why did the USSR blockade Berlin?
l) what impact did the victory of the Chinese communists have on relations between the USSR and the West?
m) what impact did the Korean War have on relations between the USSR and the West?

8. Stabilisation under Khrushchev and Brezhnev (1953-mid 1970s)

'Communist rule under Khrushchev and Brezhnev represented a profound shift from the coercion of Stalin's regime towards consent.' How far do you agree?

a) why did Khrushchev dissociate himself from and denounce Stalin?
b) how far did Khrushchev 'de-Stalinise'?
c) how far was the coercion of Stalin's day reduced?
d) how thorough was the cultural 'thaw' of Khrushchev's day? Did Brezhnev re-impose 'Stalinist' censorship?
e) why were attempts made to remove Khrushchev in 1957?
f) why was Khrushchev removed from office in 1964?
g) how far did living standards improve in the period?
h) how effective were attempts at economic reform from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s?
i) from what social groups did the regime derive support?
j) what role did party recruitment policy play in consolidating support?
k) how far did the system make room for interest-group politics?
l) what mechanisms did the regime employ to secure support from minority national elites and how far were they successful?
m) in what sense if any did international developments rally support behind Khrushchev and Brezhnev?

9. Foreign policy under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

Is it more accurate to describe the USSR between 1953 and 1985 as a defensive or an expansionary power?

a) why did relations with the West improve after the death of Stalin?
b) why were relations so unstable during the Khrushchev era?
c) why were there popular rebellions against Soviet influence in eastern Europe in the 1950s?
d) why did relations between the USSR and Communist China become so hostile?
e) explain Soviet action in the Cuban crisis.
f) why did the Soviet Union intervene in Hungary in 56 and Czechoslovakia in 68, but not in Poland in the era of Solidarity?
g) why did Brezhnev pursue détente?
h) what was the significance of the Helsinki accords in 1975?
i) how valid is the notion that a new Cold War began in 1979?
j) why did the USSR invade Afghanistan in 1979?
k) how successful was the USSR in its relations with the Third World?
l) what was the scale of the defence burden borne by the USSR between 1953 and 1985?

10. The Era of Stagnation, 1975-1985

'Despite declining rates of economic growth and military overstretch between the mid 1970s and mid 1980s, by 1985 the USSR and Communist rule remained thoroughly stable.' Consider this view.

a) how far is it appropriate to talk of 'stagnation' between 1975 and 1985?
b) why did the average age of the Politburo rise remorselessly?
c) why did attempts at economic reform make so little headway?
d) how far did military demands on the economy grow in the decade?
e) is there any sense in which foreign affairs destabilised the regime?
f) account for the level of the black market/second economy in the period.
g) in what sense and why did economic slow-down undermine the regime's legitimacy and authority?
h) what was the nomenklatura system and is it legitimate to equate it with a ruling class?
i) to what extent did Russian intellectual and artistic dissidents destabilise the system before 1985?
j) to what extent did nationalist dissidents and unrest destabilise the system before 1985?
k) what social group demonstrated most discontent before 1985?

11. The Momentum for reform: Gorbachev and perestroika

'Internally contradictory and doomed from the start.' How far do you agree with these comments on the reforms undertaken by Gorbachev between 1985 and 1991?

a) how did Gorbachev come to be leader?
b) on coming to power, what did Gorbachev see as the source of the Soviet Union's problems?
c) in the interests of what social groups was perestroika launched?
d) from what social groups did Gorbachev draw support?
e) why did Gorbachev place such emphasis on establishing good relations with the West?
f) why did Gorbachev launch his campaign against alcohol?
g) how did Gorbachev's approach to economic reform change between 1985 and 1991?
h) why were Gorbachev's economic reforms not more successful?
i) why did Gorbachev commit himself to glasnost?
j) why did Soviet history feature so much in the new public discussion?
k) why and in what sense did Gorbachev favour democratization in the soviets, party and industry? how far did he achieve it?
l) what issues of principle divided Gorbachev and Yeltsin?
m) account for upsurge in nationalism under Gorbachev
n) account for the coup in August 1991 and for its failure

12. Revision

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. General

Hosking G, A History of the Soviet Union (1992)
Suny R, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR and the Successor States (1998)
Sandle M, A Short History of Soviet Socialism (1999)
Sakwa R, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991 (1999)
Service R, A History of Russia in the Twentieth Century (1997)
Keep J, Last of the Empires (1996)
Andrle V A Social History of Twentieth-Century Russia (1994)
Kenez P, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (1999)
Freeze G (ed), Russia: A History (1998)
Hough J F & Fainsod M, How Russia is Governed (1979)
Hill R H & Frank P, The Soviet Communist Party (1981)
Brown A et al (eds), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (1993)
Ward C, Stalin's Russia [second edition, 1999]
Lewin M, The Making of the Soviet System (1985)
White S, Gorbachev and After (1992 edition)
Nove A, Stalinism and After (1989)
Carr E H, The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin (1989)

Economic History
Nove A, An Economic History of the USSR (1992)
Davies R W, Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev (1998)
Gregory P & Stuart R, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance (1990)
Munting R, The Economic Development of the USSR (1982)
Davies R W et al (eds), The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union (1994)

Links

British Library index of Russian internet sources

Bucknell University chronology 1917 - 1991

Bucknell University chronology 1991 - present

Don Mabry's Historical Text Archive

European University Institute (Florence) Russian History Index

Hokudai University (Japan) index of links

International Institute for Social History (Amsterdam) - Russian links

Khronos chronological index of 20th century documents (in Russian)

Roman Leibov's page of links to academic Russian Studies departments

National Politics Web Guide: Nations - chronologies of rulers of all sorts of places, including Russia and USSR

Russian and East European Studies Virtual Library - REESweb

Russian History Homepage - Durham University

Russian History on the Internet - James Seaman

Russian History on the Web - Marshall Poe

Sher's Russian Index

Soviet voices - recordings of Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, Gorbachev etc.

Sussex University index of electronic sources

University of Washington (Seattle) index of internet resources

2. Revolution and Civil War

Acton E et al (eds), Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution (1997)
Figes O, A Peoples Tragedy. The Russian Revolution (1996)
Mawdsley E, The Russian Civil War (1987)
Miller M (ed), The Russian Revolution. The Essential Readings (2001)
Read C, From Tsar to Soviets. The Russian Revolution, 1917-21 (1996)
Suny R G, 'Toward a Social History of the October Revolution', AHR 88 (1983), 31-52
Wade R, The Russian Revolution, 1917 (2000)
Service R, The Russian Revolution 1900-1927 (1986)
Fitzpatrick S, The Russian Revolution 1917-32 (1982)
Acton E, Rethinking the Russian Revolution (1990)
Ferro M, October 1917: a social history of the Russian revolution (1981)
Figes O, Peasant Russia, Civil War (1989)
Figes O 'The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920', Past and Present, no.129 (1990), 168-211
Kaiser D H (ed) The Workers' Revolution in Russia, 1917. The View From Below (1987)
Kingston-Mann J E, Lenin and the Problem of Marxist Peasant Revolution (1983)
Kochan L, Russia in Revolution, 1890-1918 (1966)
Koenker D (et al, eds) Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War (1989)
Lih L T, Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921 (1990)
Stone N, The Eastern Front (1975)
Medvedev R, The October Revolution (1979)
Pipes R, The Russian Revolution, 1899-1919 (1990)
Rabinowitch A, The Bolsheviks Come to Power (1976)
Roberts P C, 'War Communism: A Reexamination', SR 29 (1970), 238-61
Schapiro L, 1917: The Russian Revolutions and the Origins of Present-Day Communism (1984)
Shukman H (ed), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution (1988)
Service R, The Bolshevik Party in Revolution. A Study in Organizational Change (1979)
Service R, Lenin: A Political Life. Vol 2. Worlds in Collision (1990)
Service R (ed), Society and Politics in the Russian Revolution (1992)
Smith S, Red Petrograd. Revolution in the Factories, 1917-1918 (1983)

Cultural Developments
Read C, Culture and Power in Revolutionary Russia. The Intelligentsia and the Transition from Tsarism to Communism (1990)
Burbank J, Intelligentsia and Revolution: Russian Views of Bolshevism, 1917-1922 (1996)
Stites R, Revolutionary dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (1989)
Gleason A et al (eds), Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution (1985)

Links

Abdication of Nicholas II

Abdication of Nicholas II

Abdication of Nicholas II and other documents

American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1919

Antonov rebellion, Tambov province: Programme of the insurgent Union of Toiling Peasants 1920

V Bazarov - What is needed for socialism? Polemic against Bolshevik rule, December 1917

Count Paul Benckendorff - Last days at Tsarskoe Selo: personal notes and memories

Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 1918

N I Bukharin and E A Preobrazhensky - ABC of Communism (excerpts) 1919

G V Chicherin - Two years of Soviet Russia's foreign policy - 1919

Mustafa Chokaev - The National Movement in Central Asia (memoir of events of 1917)

Composition and declaration of the First Provisional Government, March 1917

Constitution of the RSFSR, 1918

Fedor Dan on British Workers' Delegation to Russia, May 1920

Declaration of the Rights of Toiling and Exploited People (Bolshevik declaration for Constituent Assembly 1918)

Decree on Peace - October 1917

Orlando Figes - brief comments on "The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century" website

Finland - documents granting independence, 1917

Finland - restoration of the rights of the Grand Duchy, 1917

First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (June 1917) - resolutions

Formation of the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) - December 1917

Rafail Grigor'ev - The Disintegration of the Minority (analysis of the collapse of Menshevism, September/October 1917)

Growing Arrogance Of The Reactionaries (September - October 1917)

Izvestiya: The Function of the Soviets is Ended (28 September 1917)

Aleksandra Kollontai - memoir of October

Aleksandra Kollontai - International Women's Day, 1920

Kronstadt uprising, March 1921. Izvestiya of the Kronstadt Soviet

P A Kropotkin - letter to Lenin on starvation among workers in his region, 4 March 1920

P A Kropotkin - letter to Lenin against the practice of hostage-taking, December 1920

O. V. Kozerod, S. Ya. Briman - A. I. Denikin's regime and the Jewish Population of Ukraine in 1919-1920

Ya. Lachugin, sailor: Letter to Lenin on popular mood in Shuya, Ivanovo-Vosnesensk province, April 1920

V I Lenin - April Theses (1917)

V I Lenin - Letter to A M Gorky on Soviet policy towards the intelligentsia, 15 September 1919

V I Lenin - Letter to A M Gorky on Soviet policy towards the intelligentsia, 15 September 1919 (mirror site)

Yu. O. Martov - Down with the Death Penalty! (1918)

The "Nakaz" To Skobelev (October 1917)

Appeal by Nikon, Bishop of Eniseysk and Krasnoyarsk, for support for the new authorities, 3/16 March 1917

Maurice Paléologue - An Ambassador's Memoirs (Last French Ambassador to the Russian Court)

Petrograd Okhranka report on disturbances in the capital, 26 February 1917

The Post-War Soviet / U.S. Agreement on Food Shipments to Russia, 19 October, 1920

Privileged rations at the end of 1920 - resolution of Sovnarkom

John Reed - Ten Days That Shook the World

Documents from John Reed's Ten Days That Shook The World (collection)

Theses of the Right Mensheviks for the RSDRP conference, August 1919

RSDRP (Mensheviks) draft resolution on economic policy for VII Congress of Soviets, December 1919

The Russian Revolution in Dates

Russian Soldiers In France - Official Report of the Provisional Government (autumn 1917)

Heather-Noel Schwartz - The Makhnovists and the Russian Revolution (includes some translations of documents)

Socialist-Revolutionary-Internationalists' justification of the July demonstrations in Petrograd

M I Tereshchenko's Speech at the Preparliament, 16/29 October 1917

Leon Trotsky - History of the Russian Revolution (1930) (online book)

Trotsky's Speech At The Council Of The Russian Republic (September/October 1917)

Ufa Directory Constitution - the Provisional All-Russian Government, September-November 1918

Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution

Alan Woods - Bolshevism: the road to revolution (a Trotskyist history)

3. NEP and the Commitment to the First Five-Year Plan

Carr E H, The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin (1979)
Ward C, Stalin's Russia (1993)
Nove A, An Economic History of the USSR (1992) chs 4 & 5
Davies R W (ed), From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy (1994)
Bandera V N "The NEP as an economic system" JPE 1965
Lewin M, Lenin's Last Struggle (1969)
Ball A, Russia's Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921-1929 (1987)
Service R, The Russian Revolution 1900-1927 (1986)
Harrison M, "Why did NEP Fail?" Economics of Planning (1980)
Pethybridge R, The Social Prelude to Stalinism (1974)
Pipes R, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, 1919-1924 (1994)
Davies R W 'Economic and Social policy in the USSR 1917-1941', in Cambridge Economic History of Europe, VIII (1989)
Deutscher I, The Unfinished Revolution, chs 1-3 (1967)
Deutscher I, Trotsky: The Prophet Armed 1879-1921 (1954)
Deutscher I, Trotsky: The Prophet Unarmed (1954)
Fitzpatrick S et al (eds), Russia in the Era of NEP (1991)
Gill G, The Origins of the Stalinist Political System (1990)
Cohen S, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (1973)
Hatch J 'The "Lenin Levy" and the social origins of Stalinism: workers and the Communist Party in Moscow 1921-1928', SR 48 (1989), 558-77
Kemp-Welch A (ed), The Ideas of Nikolai Bukharin (1992)
Siegelbaum L, 'State and society in the 1920s', in Crummey R O, ed., Reform in Russia and the USSR (1989)
Siegelbaum L, Soviet State and Society between Revolutions, 1918-1929 (1992)
Sontag J P, 'The Soviet war scare of 1926-1927', RR 34 (1975)
Stites R, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Visions and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (1989)
Ward C, Russian Cotton Workers and the New Economic Policy (1990)
Chase W, Workers, Society and the Soviet state: Labor and Life in Moscow, 1918-1929 (1987)

Debates on Industrialisation Policy
Day R, Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation (1973)
Erlich A, The Soviet Industrialization Debate 1924-1928 (1960)
Spulber N, Soviet Strategy for Economic Growth (1964)
Davies R W, "Aspects of Soviet Investment Policy" in Feinstein C H (ed), Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth (1967)
Schlesinger R, "A Note on the Context of Early Soviet Planning" SS vol 16
Jasny N, Soviet Economists of the Twenties (1972)
King F, "The Russian Revolution and the Idea of a Single Economic Plan", in Revolutionary Russia, June 1999
Day R, "Preobrazhensky and the Theory of the Transition Period" Soviet Studies April 1975
Day R, N. Bukharin: Selected Writings (1982)
Willetts H, "Lenin and the Peasants" in Schapiro L (ed), Lenin, the Man, Theorist, Leader (1967)
Gregory P & Stuart R, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, (1990) ch. 4

Agriculture in the 1920s
Miller R F, "Soviet Agricultural Policy in the 1920s: the failure of cooperation" SS 1975
Wesson R, Soviet Communes (1963)
Taniuchi Y, The Village Gathering in the 1920s (1968)
Male D, Russian Peasant Organisation before Collectivisation (1971)
Channon J, "Tsarist Landowners after the Revolution" SS 1987
Atkinson D, The End of the Russian Land Commune, 1905-30 (1983)
Danilov V P, Rural Russia under the New Regime (1988)

Links

Alan Ball - And Now My Soul is Hardened - abandoned children in Soviet Russia 1918-1930 (online book)

Letter of complaint from peasant Ivan Khomich concerning peasants' conditions

V I Lenin - Letter to Molotov on anti-religious campaign 1922

V I Lenin - Letter to Molotov on anti-religious campaign 1922 (mirror site)

J V Stalin - Trotskyism or Leninism? (1924)

J V Stalin - Trotskyism or Leninism? (1924) (mirror site)

Treaty of Rapallo, concluded between Soviet Russia and Germany, 16 April 1922

Leon Trotsky - The New Course (1923)

4. Collectivisation and Forced-Pace Industrialisation

Ward C, Stalin's Russia (second edition, 1999) ch. 2
Hosking G, A History of the Soviet Union (1992) chs. 6, 7, 8
Nove A, An Economic History of the USSR (1992) chs. 7, 8
Gregory P & Stuart R, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance (1990) ch. 5
Carr E H & Davies R W, Foundations of a Planned Economy (1969)
Davies R W, The Socialist Offensive (1980)
Davies R W, The Soviet Economic Turmoil (1989)
Lewin M, The Making of the Soviet System (1985)
Mawdsley E, The Stalin Years. The Soviet Union, 1929-1953 (1998)
Medvedev R, Let History Judge (1989)
Wheatcroft S G et al, "Soviet Industrialisation Reconsidered" EcHR 39, 1986
Davies R W (ed), Soviet Investment and Planned Industrialisation 1929-37
Davies R W, Crisis and Progress in the Soviet Economy, 1931-1933 (1996)
Grinko G, The Five Year Plan of the Soviet Union (1930)
Jasny N, Soviet Industrialisation 1928-52 (1961)
Hunter H et al, SR 32, 1973 - Discussion on Early Planning
Davies R W "Further Thoughts on the FYP" SR 34, 1975
Wheatcroft S G & Brower D R, 'The Smolensk Scandal and the end of NEP', SR 45 (1986), 689-706
Cohen S, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: a political biography 1888-1938 (1974)
Cohen S, Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History since 1917 (1985)
Siegelbaum L, Soviet state and society between revolutions (1992)
Dohan M R, "The Economic Origins of Soviet Autarky, 1927/8-34" SR 35, 1976

Collectivisation of Agriculture
Ward C, Stalin's Russia [second edition, 1999] ch. 2
Millar J and Nove A, 'Was Stalin really necessary? A debate on collectivisation' Problems of Communism 25, 1976
Millar J R, 'Soviet Rapid Development and the Agricultural Surplus Hypothesis' SS vol 22, 1970
Millar J R, 'Reply to A. Nove' SS vol 23, 1971
Millar J R, 'Mass Collectivisation and the Contribution of Agriculture to the FYP' SR 1974
Nove A, 'Comment on J. R. Millar's article' SS vol 22, 1971
Nove A, 'Reply to the Reply' SS vol 23, 1971
Ellman M, 'Did the Agricultural Surplus Provide the Resources for the increase in investment in the FYP?' Economic Journal 85, Dec 1975
Lewin M, Russian Peasants and the Soviet Power (1986)
Lewin M, 'Taking Grain' in Abramsky C (ed) Essays in Honour of E. H. Carr (1974)
Lewin M, 'The Immediate Background to Collectivisation' SS vol 17, (1966)
Davies R W, The Socialist Offensive 1929-30 (1980)
Viola L, The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivisation (1987)
Atkinson D, The End of the Russian Land Commune 1905-1930 (1983)
Fitzpatrick S, Stalin's Peasants (1994)

Collective Agriculture and Structure
Davies R W, The Soviet Collective Farm 1929-30 (1980)
Medvedev Zh, Soviet Agriculture (1987)

Labour and Society in the 1930s
Andrle V, Workers in Stalin's Russia: Industrialization and Social Change in a Planned Economy (1988)
Bailes K E, Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia 1917-1941 (1978)
Barber J, 'The establishment of intellectual orthodoxy in the USSR 1928-1934', Past and Present (1969)
Fitzpatrick S, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934 (1979)
Fitzpatrick S, 'Stalin and the making of a new elite, 1928-1939', SR 38 (1979), 372-402
Siegelbaum L H, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935-1941 (1988)
Filtzer D, Soviet Workers and Stalinist Industrialisation (1986)
Kuromiya H, Stalin's Industrial Revolution (1988)
Siegelbaum L, Suny R (eds), Making Workers Soviet: Power, Class and Identity (1994)
Hosking G A, History of the Soviet Union (1992) ch. 7
Kotkin S, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (1995)

Women in Economy and Society
Clements B, 'The utopianism of the Zhenotdel', SR, 51, 1992
Atkinson D et al. (eds), Women in Russia (1978)
Buckley M, Women and Ideology in the USSR (1989)
Lapidus G W, Women in Soviet Society (1978)
Holland B (ed), Soviet Sisterhood (1985)
Dodge N T, Women in the Soviet Economy (1977)
Borboff A, 'The Bolsheviks and working woman', SS 26 (1974), 540-67
Bridger S (ed), Women in the Soviet Countryside: Women's Roles in Rural Development in the Soviet Union (1987)
Farnworth B B, 'Bolshevik alternatives and the Soviet family: the 1926 Marriage Law debate', in Atkinson D et al (eds), Women in Russia (1978)
Farnworth B B, 'Bolshevism, the woman question and Alexandra Kollontai', AHR 81 (1976)
Stites R, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia (1978)
Walters E, 'The modernization of Russian motherhood, 1917-1937', SS, 44 (1992), 123-35

Aspects of Welfare
Ryan H, The Organisation of Soviet Medical Care (1978)

Cultural Developments
Fitzpatrick S (ed), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-31 (1978)
David-Fox M, 'What is Cultural Revolution?' RR 58, 2 (1999)
Fitzpatrick S, The Commissariat of Enlightenment (1970)
Hayward M, Writers in Russia, 1917-1978 (1983)
Pospielovsky D V, The Russian Church under the Soviet Regime, 1917-1982, two vols, (1984)
Clark K, The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual (1981)
Barber J, Soviet Historians in Crisis, 1928-32 (1981)
Kemp-Welch A, Stalin and the Literary Intelligentsia, 1928-1939 (1991)
Dunham V, In Stalin's Time. Middle Class Values in Soviet Fiction (1976)
Gunther H (ed), The Culture of the Stalin Period (1990)
Stalin J et al., History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) (Short Course) (1939)

Links

Collectivisation of agriculture - sample archive document

Feigin - Letter to S Ordzhonikidze on the results of collectivisation, 1932 (translated archive document)

Jana Howlett, Oleg Khlevniuk, Liudmila Kosheleva and Larisa Rogovaia - The CPSU's Top Bodies Under Stalin - their operational records and structure of command

J V Stalin biographical chronicle - lots of nice Stalin pictures

J V Stalin - Dialectical and Historical Materialism (1938)

J V Stalin - "Dizzy with Success" (1930)

J V Stalin - Grain Procurements and the Prospects for the Development of Agriculture (1928)

5. Purges, Terror, GULag and Famine

Purges and Terror
Wheatcroft S, 'More light on the Scale of Repression', SS 42 (1990), 355-68
Nove A, 'How Many Victims in the 1930s?', SS 42 (1990), 369-73 and 811-14
Wheatcroft S G, 'The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-1945', EAS 48 (1996), 1319-53
Thurston R W, 'The Soviet family during the Great Terror, 1935-41', SS 43, 1991
Thurston R, Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941 (1996)
Conquest R, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (1990)
Medvedev R, Let History Judge (1989)
Fitzpatrick S (et al.), 'New Perspectives on Stalinism', RR 45 (1986), 46 (1987)
Friedrich C & Brzezinski Z, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (1965)
Getty J A, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 (1985)
Getty J A, 'Party and purge in Smolensk 1933-1937' (and debate), SR (1983)
Getty J A & Manning R T, Stalinist Terror (1993)
Holquist P 'State Violence as Technique: The Logic of Violence in Soviet Totalitarianism', in A. Weiner, ed., Modernity and Population Management (2000)
Khevniuk O, 'The Objectives of the Great Terror 1937-1938', in Cooper J, ed, Soviet History, 1917-1953: Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies (1995)
Rittersporn G T, Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications, Social Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR, 1933-1953 (1991)
Hughes J R, The Great Urals. Regionalism and the Evolution of the Soviet System (1999)
Davies S, Popular Opinion in Stalin's Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent (1997)
Hellbeck J, 'Speaking Out: Languages of Affirmation and Dissent in Stalinist Russia', Kritika 1 (2000)

GULag
Rosefielde S, 'An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labour' SS 33, 1981
Wheatcroft S G, 'On assessing the size of forced concentration camp labour in the Soviet Union 1929-56' SS 33, 1981
Conquest R, 'Excess deaths and camp numbers; some comments', SS 44, 1 1992
Conquest R, 'Forced labour statistics: some comments' SS 34 (1982), 434-39
Wheatcroft S, 'Towards a thorough analysis of Soviet forced labour statistics', SS 35 (1983), 223-37
Rosefielde S, 'Incriminating evidence: excess deaths and forced labour supply under Stalin: a final reply to criticism', SS 39 (1987), 292-313
Conquest R, 'Excess Deaths and Camp Numbers: Some Comments', SS 43 (1991), 949-52
Bacon E, The Gulag at War (1994)
Getty J A et al., 'Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years', AHR 1993, pp.1017-49.
Scherer J & Jakobson M, 'The collectivisation of agriculture and the Soviet prison camp system', EAS, 45 1993

Famine
Tauger M, "The 1932 harvest and the famine of 1933", SR, 50, 1991
Ellman M, 'A note on the number of 1933 famine victims', SS, 42 1991
Dalrymple D, 'The Soviet Famine of 1932-34' SS 15, 1964
Conquest R, The Harvest of Sorrows: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (1986)

Links

N I Bukharin's last plea (from the 1938 Trial of the Bloc of Rights and Trotskyists)

Forced Labour Camps - online exhibition

Ludo Martens - Another View of Stalin (Stalin apologist makes his case)

"Memorial" Society English webpage

Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre (1936 show trial - published proceedings)

Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre - commentary by Gudrun Persson

6. Isolation, 'Collective Security' and War

Bell P M H, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe (1986)
Bialer S, Stalin and his Generals (1969)
Bullock A, Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives (1991)
Carley M J 'End of the "Low, Dishonest Decade": Failure of the Anglo-Franco Soviet Alliance in 1939', Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1991 (1994) EAS 45, No.2 (1993)
Carr E H, Twilight of the Comintern (1982)
Dallin A, 'Stalin and the German Invasion', Soviet Union, XVIII (1991), pp.19-38.
Djilas M, Conversations with Stalin (1962)
Gorodetsky G, Grand Delusion. Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (1999)
Gorodetsky G, (ed) Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1991 (1994)
Leaman J, 'The Treaty of Non-Aggression Between Germany and the USSR, August 1939 - Old Myths, New Myths and Reinterpretations', German History, 12 (1994) no.2
Haslam J, Soviet Foreign Policy 1930-1933 (1984)
Haslam J, The Soviet Union and the struggle for collective security 1933-1939 (1984)[SL]
Haslam J, The Soviet Union and the Threat from the East, 1933-1941 (1992)
Haslam J, 'Soviet Foreign Policy, 1939-41', Soviet Union XVIII (1991), 103-121
Roberts G, 'The Soviet decision for a Pact with Nazi Germany', SS, 44, 1992
Watt D C, How war came: the immediate origins of World War II (1989)

The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945
Ward C, Stalin's Russia [second edition, 1999] ch. 5
Roberts C A, 'Planning for War: the Red Army and the Catastrophe of 1941' EAS 47, Dec. 1995.
Dallin D, 'Stalin and the German invasion', Soviet Union, 18, 1991
Harrison M & Barber J, The Soviet Home Front, 1941-45 (1991)
Davies R W, 'Soviet military expenditure and the armaments industry, 1929-33. A Reconsideration', EAS, 45, 1993
Davies R W & Harrison M, 'The Soviet Military-Economic Effort in the second five year plan, 1933-1937', EAS, 49, 1997
Erickson J, Stalin's War with Germany: I. The Road to Stalingrad; 2. The Road to Berlin (1975, 1983)
Erickson J (ed), Barbarossa: the Axis and the Allies (1994)
Glanz D M, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (1995)
Hosking G, A History of the Soviet Union (1992), ch. 10
Harrison M, Soviet Planning in Peace and War 1938-45 (1985)
Harrison M, Accounting for war (1996)
Voznesensky N A, The War Economy of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (1948)
Werth A, Russia at War (1964)
Overy R, Russia's War (1998)
Zaleski E, Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth 1933-52 (1980)
Saraydar E, 'The Cost of World War II to the Soviet People', JEcH 40, 1980
Millar J R, 'Financing the Soviet effort in WWII', SS 32, 1980
Millar J & Linz S, 'The Cost of World War II to the Soviet People', JEcH 40, 1980
Moskoff W, The Bread of Affliction (1990)
Munting R, 'Lend-Lease and the Soviet War Effort', JCH, July 1984
Munting R, 'Soviet Food Supply and Allied Aid in the War 1941-45' SS, 36, 1984
Linz S (ed), The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (1985)
Newth J A, 'The Soviet Population: Wartime losses and the post-war recovery', SS 15, 1964

Links

L Beria's note to Stalin about Polish officers in the USSR, 5 March 1940 (authorisation of Katyn massacre)

A K Cajander, Finnish Prime Minister, on Soviet attack (November 1939)

Georgi Dimitrov - Main Report to the 7th World Congress of the Communist International (1935)

V M Molotov - The Foreign Policy of the Government, speech, 29 March 1940

The Moscow Conference; October 1943 - Joint Four-Nation Declaration

Soviet-Finnish treaty, 1932

Soviet-Finnish treaty prolonged, 1934

Soviet-Finnish Winter War, 1939 - Soviet leaflet

Stalin-Hitler pact, 1939

Tehran Conference, 28 November - 1 December 1943

The Yalta Conference, February 1945

7. The post-war USSR and the onset of the Cold War

Dunmore T, Soviet Politics, 1945-1953 (1984)
McCauley M, The Soviet Union Since 1917 (1981)
Cohen S, Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History since 1917 (1985)
Nove A, Stalinism and After (3rd edn 1989)
Laqueur W, Stalin. The Glasnost Revelations (1990)
Deutscher I, Stalin: A Political Biography (1966)
de Jonge A, Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union (1987)
Knight A, Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant (1993)
McNeal R H, Stalin: Man and Ruler (1988)
Volkogonov D, Stalin. Triumph and Tragedy (1991)
Carrere d'Encausse H, Stalin - Order Through Terror (1981)
Medvedev R, Let History Judge (revised ed. 1989)
Lewis J & Whitehead P, Stalin: A Time for Judgement (1990)
Ward C, Stalin's Russia (1993)
Djilas M, Conversations with Stalin (1962)
Khrushchev N, Khrushchev Remembers 2 vols, (1971, 1974)
Linz J (ed), The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (1985)
Nekrich A M, The Punished Peoples. The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War (1978)

The Economy
Harrison M, Accounting for War (1997)
Munting R, The Economic Development of the USSR (1982)
Zaleski E, Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth (1980)
Dunmore T, The Stalinist Command Economy. The Soviet State Apparatus and Economic Policy, 1945-53 (1980)
Gregory P & Stuart R, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance (1990)
Nove A, The Soviet Economic System (1986)
Rutland P, The Myth of the Plan (1985)

Foreign Policy
Mastny V, Russia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare and the Politics of Communism 1941-1945 (1979)
Nogee J L & Donaldson R H, Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II (1988)
Wolfe T W, Soviet Power and Europe, 1945-1970 (1970)
McCauley M, Communist Power in Europe, 1944-1949 (1977)
McCagg Jr W O, Stalin Embattled, 1953-1948 (1978)
Hahn W G, Postwar Soviet Politics. The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 1946-1953 (1982)
Ra'anan G D, International Policy Formation in the USSR. Factional 'Debates' During the Zhdanovshchina (1983)
Zeman Z A B, Pursued by a Bear: The Making of Eastern Europe (1989) (last two chapters)
Nekrich A M, The Punished Peoples. The deportation and fate of Soviet minorities at the end of the Second World War (1978)
Molotov V M, Molotov Remembers. Inside Kremlin politics. Conversations with Felix Chuev (1993)

Links

Csaba Bekes - Soviet Plans to Establish the Cominform in Early 1946: New Evidence from the Hungarian Archives

D W Boose Jr. - Portentous Sideshow: The Korean Occupation Decision - US Military perspective on prelude to Korean War

Documents and essay on Moscow, Beijing and the Korean War

Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy - The Cold War (massive collection of links)

Leonid Gibianskii - The Soviet Bloc and the Initial Stage of the Cold War: Archival Documents on Stalin's Meetings with Communist Leaders of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, 1946-1948

Interim Meeting of US, UK and Soviet Foreign Ministers, December 1945

Krystyna Kersten - Poles' Responses to the Realities of 1944-1947: Questions for Consideration

William R. Keylor - The Formation of the Bipolar World in the Truman-Stalin Era, (1945-1953)

Paul Lashmar - "Stalin's 'Hot' War". Article on origins of Korean War

Douglas J. Macdonald - "Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War: Challenging Realism, Refuting Revisionism" - (traditionalist US perspective)

Nikolai Novikov, Soviet Ambassador in Washington - Telegram, September 1946

The Potsdam Conference, 17 July - 2 August 1945

Soviet and Yugoslav Transcripts of the Tito-Stalin Conversation of 27-28 May 1946

J V Stalin - Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (1952)

J V Stalin - Reply to Churchill, 1946

J V Stalin - Speech to voters in Stalin electoral district, Moscow (1946)

8 & 9. Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Stabilization

Politics
McAuley M, Politics and the Soviet Union (1977)
Cohen S, Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917 (1985)
Nove A, Stalinism and After (1975)
Hough J & Fainsod M, How the Soviet Union is Governed (1979)
Smith J B, Soviet Politics. Continuity and Contradiction (1988)
Bialer S, Stalin's Successors: Leadership, Stability and Change in the Soviet Union (1980)
Medvedev R, Khrushchev (1982)
Crankshaw E, Khrushchev: a Biography (1968)
Khruschchev N S, Khrushchev Remembers (1974)
Breslauer G W, Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics (1982)
Rigby T H (ed), Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR (1982)
Hough J H, Soviet leadership in Transition (1980)
Tucker R C, Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev Constitutional Development in the USSR (1981)
Unger A L, Constitutional Development in the USSR (1981)
Brown A & Gray J (eds), Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States (1979), chaps. 1 & 2
Shlapentokh V, 'Two levels of public opinion: the Soviet case', Public Opinion Quarterly, 1985
Filtzer D, The Khrushchev Era (1993)
McCauley M (ed), Khrushchev and Khrushchevism (1987)
Sobel L A (ed), Russia's Rulers: The Khrushchev Period (1971) (includes Secret Speech, 1961 Party Programme)
Linden C, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership 1957-1964 (1966)
Kelley D R (ed), Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era (1980)
Silver B D, 'Political beliefs of the Soviet citizen: Sources of support for regime norms', in Millar J R (ed), Politics, Work and Daily Life in the USSR (1987)
Silver B D 'Soviet Citizen Participation on the Eve of Democratization', American Political Science Review, 84 (1990) pp. 821-47

The Economy
Nove, A, The Soviet Economic System (1986)
Millar J R 'Post-Stalin Agriculture', in Cohen S et al (eds), The Soviet Union Since Stalin (1980)
Brown A & Kaser M, The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev (1978), esp articles by Kaser M
Bergson A, Productivity and the Social System: The USSR and the West (1978)
Clarke R A, 'Soviet Agricultural Reforms since Khrushchev', SS 20 (1969), pp. 159-78
Medvedev Zh, Soviet Agriculture (1987)
Grossman G, 'The "Second Economy" of the USSR', Problems of Communism, 26, Sept/Oct 1977, pp. 25-40
Shaffer H G (ed), Soviet Agriculture. An Assessment of Its Contribution to Economic Development (1977)
Yanov A, The Drama of the Soviet 1960s: A Lost Reform (1984)
Gregory P & Stuart R, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance (1990)

Society
Nove A, 'Is there a ruling class in the USSR?', SS 27, pp. 615-38
Voslensky M, Nomenklatura: An Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class (1984)
Pravda A, 'Is there a Soviet Working Class?', Problems of Communism, 31 (1982), no 6, pp. 1-24
Harding N, 'Socialism, Society and the Organic Labour State', in Harding N ed., The State in Socialist Society (1984)
Lane D, Politics and Society in the USSR (1978)
Simis S M, USSR: Secrets of a Corrupt Society (1982)
Zaslavsky V, The Neo-Stalinist State. Class, Ethnicity and Consensus in Soviet Society (1982)
George V & Manning N, Socialism, Social Welfare and the Soviet Union (1980)
McAuley A, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union (1979)
Kerblay B, Modern Soviet Society (1983)
Lane D, The End of Social Inequality? (1982)
Connor W D, Socialism, Politics and Equality. Hierarchy and Change in Eastern Europe and the USSR (1979)
Kerblay B, Modern Soviet Society (1983)
Matthews M, Class and Society in the USSR (1972)
Matthews M, Privilege in the USSR (1978)
Lapidus G W, Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development and Social Change (1978)
Green C, Soviet Women (1989)
Marsh R (ed), Women in Russia and Ukraine (1996)
Binyon M, Life in Russia (1983)
Smith H, The Russians (1976)
McAuley M, Labour Disputes in Soviet Russia, 1957-1965 (1969)
Yanowitch M & Fisher W (eds), Social Stratification and Mobility in the USSR (1973)
Yanowitch M (ed), Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union (1977)
Beissinger M R, Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power (1988)

Dissent
Reddaway P (ed), Uncensored Russia: The Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union (1982)
Reddaway P, 'The Development of Dissent and Opposition', in Brown A & Kaser M, eds, The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev (1978)
Kagarlitsky B, The Thinking Reed: Intellectuals and the Soviet State (1988)
Rothberg A, The Heirs of Stalin: Dissidence and the Soviet Regime, 1953- 1970 (1972)
Grigorenko P, Memoirs (1983)
Hayward M, Writers in Russia, 1917-78 (1983)
Shtromas A, 'Dissent and Political Change in the Soviet Union', in Hoffmann E P and Laird R F (eds), The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era (1984), 717-24
Barghoorn F C, 'Factional, Sectoral and Subversive Opposition in Soviet Politics', in Dahl R A (ed), Regimes and Oppositions (1973), 39-40, 70-82
Alekseeva L, Soviet Dissent. Contemporary Movements for National, Religious and Human Rights (1985)
Gerstenmaier C I, 'Dissidents', in Veen H J (ed), From Brezhnev to Gorbachev: Domestic Affairs and Soviet Foreign Policy (1987), 172-7
Medvedev R, On Soviet Dissent (1980)
Shatz M S, Soviet Dissent in Historical Perspective (1980)
Biddulph H L, 'Protest Strategies of the Soviet Intellectual Opposition', in Tökés R L (ed), Dissent in the USSR (1975)
Rubinstein J, Soviet Dissidents. Their Struggle for Human Rights (1985)
Barghoorn F C, 'The Post-Khrushchev Campaign to Suppress Dissent: Perspectives, Strategies, and Techniques of Repression', in Tökés R L (ed), Dissent in the USSR (1975)
Reddaway P, 'Dissent in the USSR', Problems of Communism, 32 (1983) no.6, pp.1-15
Feifer G, 'No Protest: the Case of the Passive Minority', in Tökés R L (ed), Dissent in the USSR (1975) pp.418-37
Spechler D R, Permitted Dissent in the USSR: 'Novy mir' and the Soviet Regime (1982)
Tökés R L, 'Varieties of Soviet Dissent: An Overview', in Tökés R L (ed), Dissent in the USSR (1975)
Teague E, Solidarity and the Soviet Worker. The Impact of the Polish Events of 1980 on Soviet Internal Politics (1988)

Nationalities
Lapidus G W, 'Ethnonationalism and political stability: the Soviet case', World Politics, July 1984
Gitelman Z, 'Are nations merging in the USSR?', Problems of Communism, Sept-Oct 1983
McAuley M, 'Nationalism and the Soviet Multi-ethnic State', in Harding N, ed., The State in Socialist Society (1984)
Azrael J R (ed), Soviet Nationality Policy and Practices (1978)
Rakowska-Harmstone T, 'The Dialectics of Nationalism in the USSR', Problems of Communism, May-June 1974
Smith G (ed), The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (1990), esp. ch. 1
Allworth E, 'A Theory of Soviet Nationality Policies' in Huttenbach H. (ed), Soviet Nationality Policies (1990)
Allworth E (ed), Ethnic Russia in the USSR: The Dilemma of Dominance (1980)

Foreign Policy
Nogee J L & Donaldson R H, Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II (1981), esp. chs 4-8
Edmonds R, Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years (1983)
Bialer S (ed), The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy (1981)
Bialer S, The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline (1986)
Holloway D, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983)
Steele J, The Limits of Soviet Power. The Kremlin's Foreign Policy (1983)
Hough J, The Struggle for the Third World (1985), ch. 9
Alford J (ed), The Soviet Union: Security Policies and Constraints (1985), esp essays 1 & 4
Laird R F & Hoffmann E P (eds), Soviet Foreign Policy in a Changing World (1986), esp 'Soviet geopolitical momentum: myth or menace?', pp. 701-12
Hutchings R L, Soviet-East European Relations: Consolidation and Conflict, 1968-80 (1983)
Crummey R O (ed), Reform in Russia and the USSR (1989) (articles on Khrushchev's foreign policy by Taubman W, Yanov A, Minde G F & Hennessey M)
Jacobsen C J (ed), The Soviet Defence Enigma (1987)

Links

"Brezhnev doctrine" on limited sovereignty, 1968

L I Brezhnev timeline with samples of his writings, poetry, speeches. Has other links

N S Khrushchev - Speech at the Closed Session of the 20th Congress of the CPSU - excerpts

N S Khrushchev - Speech at the Closed Session of the 20th Congress of the CPSU - in full

N S Khrushchev timeline

Mark Kramer on the Prague Spring and the invasion of Czechoslovakia

M A Suslov timeline

V M Zubok on Khrushchev-Mao conversations 1958-59

10. Brezhnev's Last Years, 'Stagnation' and the 'Interregnum'

Bialer S, The Soviet Paradox. External Expansion, Internal Decline (1986) , chs 3-6
White S, Gorbachev in Power (1990), ch.1
Lewin M, The Gorbachev Phenomenon. A Historical Interpretation (1989)
Zaslavskaia T, 'Novosibirsk Report', Survey (Spring 1984), pp. 88-108
Goldman M I, USSR in Crisis. The Failure of an Economic System (1983)
Simis K, USSR: Secrets of a Corrupt Society (1982)
Simis K, 'Government and Shadow Economy in the Soviet Union', SS, no. 4, 1984, pp. 528-43
Lane D 'The roots of political reform: the changing social structure of the USSR', in Merridale C & Ward C, eds., Perestroika. The Historical Perspective (1991)
Voslensky M, Nomenklatura (1984)
Lampert N, Whistleblowing in the Soviet Union. Complaints and Abuses under State Socialism (1985)
Medvedev Zh, Andropov (1983)
Steele J & Abraham E, Andropov in Power (1983)
Brown A (ed), Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (1989)
Brown A & Kaser M (eds), Soviet Policy for the 1980s (1982)
McCauley (ed), The Soviet Union after Brezhnev (1983)
Hoffmann E & Laird R (eds), The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era (1984)
Bloomfield J (ed), The Soviet Revolution (1989)
Steele J, The Limits of Soviet Power. The Kremlin's Foreign Policy (1983)
Halliday F, The Making of the Second Cold War (1983)
Holloway D, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983)
Jones R A, The Soviet Concept of 'Limited Sovereignty' from Lenin to Gorbachev. The Brezhnev Doctrine (1990), ch 9, on Afghanistan
Cohen S F, 'The Friends and Foe of Change', SR 38, 1979
Waker M, The Walking Giant: Gorbachev's Russia (1986)
Dunlop J, The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (1983)
Holmes L, The End of Communist Power: Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis (1993)
Westad O A, The Fall of Détente. Soviet-American relations during the Carter Years (1997)

Links

Yu V Andropov timeline

K V Chernenko timeline

Documents on the Afghan war

Constitution of the USSR, 1977

11. The Gorbachev Revolution

Perestroika, Glasnost, Democratisation, International Relations
White S, Gorbachev and After (1992)
Daniels R, The End of the Communist Revolution (1993)
Lane D, Soviet Society Under Perestroika (1992)
Brown A, The Gorbachev Factor (1996)
Galeotti M, Gorbachev and his Revolution (1995)
Sakwa R, Gorbachev and his Reforms, 1985-1990 (1990)
Federal Institute for Soviet and International Studies, The Soviet Union, 1987-1989. Perestroika in Crisis? (1990)
Hosking G, The Awakening of the Soviet Union (1990)
Merridale C & Ward C (eds), Perestroika. The Historical Perspective (1991)
McCauley M (ed), Gorbachev and perestroika (1990)
Medvedev Zh, Gorbachev (1988)
Gorbachev M S, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (1988)
Davies R W, 'Gorbachev's socialism in historical perspective', New Left Review, no. 179 (Jan-Feb 1990)
Nove A, Glasnost in Action. Cultural Renaissance in Russia (1989)
Cerf C & Albee M, Voices of Glasnost (1990)
Davies, R W, Soviet Historians in the Gorbachev Revolution (1989)
Brown, A, 'Political Change in the Soviet Union', World Policy Journal, vol. 6, no. 3, 1989, pp. 469-501
White S, Pravda A & Gitelman, Z (eds), Developments in Soviet Politics (1990)
Bloomfield J (ed), The Soviet Revolution (1989)
Wilson A & Bachkatov N, Living with Glasnost. Youth and Society in a Changing Russia (1988)
White S et al (eds), The Politics of Transition. Shaping a Post-Soviet Future (1993)
Sakwa R, Russian Politics and Society (1993)
Bialer S (ed), Politics, Society, and Nationality Inside Gorbachev's Russia (1989)
Lane D (ed), Russia in Flux (1992)
White S et al (eds), The Soviet Transition: From Gorbachev to Yeltsin (1993)
Hosking G, Aves J & Duncan P, The Road to Post-Communism. Independent Political Movements in the Soviet Union, 1985-1991 (1992)
Daniels R V, The End of the Communist Revolution (1993)
Pipes R, Communism: The Vanished Spectre (1994)
Kagarlitsky B, The Disintegration of the Monolith (1992)
Cohen S & vanden Heuvel K (eds), Voices of Glasnost': Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers (1989)
Brumberg A (ed), Chronicle of a revolution: A Western-Soviet Inquiry Into Perestroika (1990)
Kaiser R G, Why Gorbachev Happened. His Triumphs and His Failures 1991)
Walker M, The Waking Giant: Gorbachev's Russia (1986)

Support and opposition
Gregory P R, 'Soviet Bureaucratic Behaviour: Khozyaistvenniki and Apparatchiki', SS, 41 (1989), pp. 511-25
Andreeva N 'I, Cannot Forgo My Principles', in Lane D, Soviet Society under Perestroika (1990), pp. 108-117
Mandel D, 'The Social Basis of Perestroika', in White S et al (eds), Developments in Soviet Politics (1990)
Mandel D, 'Economic Reform and Democracy in the Soviet Union', in Miliband R et al (eds), The Socialist Register 1988
Kagarlitsky B, The Dialectic of Change (1990)
Kagarlitsky B, Farewell Perestroika (1990)
Lane D, 'The roots of political reform: The changing social structure of the USSR', in Merridale C (ed), Perestroika. The Historical Perspective (1991)
Clarke C et al (eds), What About The Workers? Workers and the Transition to Capitalism in Russia (1993)
Buckley M (ed), Perestroika and Soviet Women (1992)
Robinson N, 'Parliamentary Politics under Gorbachev: Opposition and the Failure of Socialist Pluralism' in White S et al (eds), The Soviet Transition (1993)
Cappelli O, 'The Short Parliament 1989-91: Political Elite, Societal Cleavages and the Weakness of Party Politics', in White S et al (eds), The Soviet Transition (1993)
Teague E 'Workers' Reactions to Perestroika and Glasnost', in White S et al (eds), The Soviet Transition (1993)
Mitrokhin S & Urban, M E, 'Social Groups, Party Elites and Russia's New Democrats', in Lane D (ed), Russia in Flux (1992)
Urban M E, 'Party Formation and Deformation on Russia's Democractic Left', in Huber R T & Keely D R (eds), Perestroika-era Politics: The New Legislature and Gorbachev's Political Reforms (1991)
Holmes L, The End of Communist Power: Anti-Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis (1993)

Yeltsin and Perestroika
Yeltsin B Against the Grain (1990)
'Plenary meeting of the CPSU Central Committee, October 1987', Political Archives of the Soviet Union, I, No. 1, 1990,
pp. 57-126
Yeltsin's election platform, March 1989, in Lane D, Soviet Society under Perestroika (1990), pp. 85-8
Morison J, Boris Yeltsin: From Bolshevik to Democrat (1991)

The Economy
Aslund A, Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform (1991)
Goldman M I, What Went Wrong With Perestroika (1992)
White S, Gorbachev and After (1991), ch. 4
Sakwa R, Gorbachev and His Reforms, 1985-1990 (1990), ch. 7
Hewett E A, Reforming the Soviet Economy: Equality versus Efficiency (1988)
Nove A, Glasnost in Action (1989), ch 8
Boettke P J, Why Perestroika Failed. The Politics and Economics of Socialist Transformation (1993)

Nationalism and nationalities
Hosking G, The Awakening of the Soviet Union (1990)
Lapidus G W et al. (eds), From Union to Commonwealth. Nationalism and Separatism in the Soviet Republics (1992)
Denver R (ed), The Soviet Nationality Reader: the Disintegration in Context (1992)
Lane D, Soviet Society under Perestroika (1990), ch. 6
White S, Gorbachev in Power (1990), ch. 5
Smith G (ed), The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (1990)
Gorbachev M S, Perestroika: New Thinking for our Country and the World (1988), pp. 118-22
Goble P, 'Ethnic politics in the USSR', Problems of Communism, July-Aug, 1989, pp. 1-15
Nahajlo B & Swoboda V, Soviet Disunion. A History of the Nationalities Problem (1990)
Sakwa R, Gorbachev and his Reforms, 1985-1990 (1990), ch. 6
Szporluk R, 'Dilemmas of Russian Nationalism', Problems of Communism, July-Aug, 1989, pp. 15-36
Yanov A, The Russian Challenge, Radio Liberty, Special Bulletin, 1988, 19 Dec, 'Russian Nationalism Today'
Ogden D, 'A Union of a New Type', in Bloomfield J (ed), The Soviet Revolution (1989), pp. 176-202
Gitelman Z, 'The nationalities', in White S et al (eds), Developments in Soviet politics (1990)
Glebov O & Crowfoot J, The Soviet Empire: Its Nations Speak Out (1989) (People's Congress & Supreme Soviet 1989)
Simon G, Nationalism and Policy Towards the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society (1991)
Carter S K, Russian Nationalism: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (1990)
Hill R J, 'Managing Ethnic Conflict' in White S et al (eds), The Soviet Transition (1993)
Mandelbaum M, (ed) The Rise of Nations in the Soviet Union: American Foreign Policy and the Disintegration of the USSR (1991)
Hughes M, 'The Never-Ending Story: Russian Nationalism National Communism and Opposition to Reform in the USSR and Russia' in Journal of Communist Studies, 9, 2, 1993.

Links

Chronology of August 1991 coups

Chronology of August 1991 coups and article by Sam Greene

Documents on the Afghan war

M S Gorbachev's latest website

M S Gorbachev pictures

M S Gorbachev timeline

Hungary - chronology of 1987-1990 events

David R Marples - article on effects of Chernobyl on Belarus and Ukraine

Perestroika - official definition of the term, 1987

David Remnick interview with Gorbachev, 1996

State Council for the State of Emergency, August 1991. Details of members

January 2002

ABBREVIATIONS

AHR American Historical Review
ASEER American Slavic and East European Review (nb: in the 1950s this changed its name to: SR Slavic Review)
EcHR Economic History Review
JCH Journal of Contemporary History
JEcH Journal of Economic History
JPE Journal of Political Economy
RR Russian Review
SS Soviet Studies (nb: in 1993 this changed its name to: EAS Europe Asia Studies)