THE RISE & FALL OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE: RUSSIA & THE SOVIET UNION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Soviet Union cast a long shadow over the twentieth century. As the first modern socialist state, it inspired (and terrified) women and men from all over the world as a model for a new type of socialist state and society. Even today, over twenty years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, peoples within the former Soviet Empire and its satellite states are attempting to come to terms with its legacy. Moreover many of the tensions of contemporary global politics have deep roots in the relentless global competition between the United States and the Soviet Union known as “the Cold War.” This course will examine the rise and fall of the Soviet Union from its emergence out of the crucible of war and revolution in early twentieth-century Russia through the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922, and its ultimate disintegration in 1991. Particular attention will be paid to the following questions: What did “the Soviet experiment” mean for those who participated in it? In what ways was this experiment rooted in broader trends in Russian and European history and to what extent was it unique? How and to what extent did the Soviet state and society change over time? Finally, what is its legacy for Russia and the world? Crucial themes for the course include: the relationship between state and society; the relationship between federal, national, regional, religious and ethnic identity; the influence of the concepts of race, gender, and class; state- and empirebuilding; the influence of Bolshevik ideology and realpolitik; and Russia’s complex relationship between the ideas of “the West” and “the East.” The goal of the course is both to provide a basic introduction to the major events, personages, and periods of revolutionary Russian and Soviet history and to provide a framework for understanding the legacy of the “Soviet experiment.”