Soviet Power and the Countryside

Soviet Power and the Countryside

Author: N. Melvin

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2003-11-04

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0230598528

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Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, Soviet Power and the Countryside offers a new approach to understanding the political dynamics that led to the collapse of the Soviet order. A detailed analysis of the design, implementation and collapse of Soviet policy toward the countryside is used to explore the implications of a broadening of participation in the policy process from the 1960s. Neil J. Melvin argues that the new knowledge about rural society created as a result of this process provided the basis for a fundamental change in the nature of power relations in the Soviet order, leading to the decay and eventual collapse of policy making institutions.


Book Synopsis Soviet Power and the Countryside by : N. Melvin

Download or read book Soviet Power and the Countryside written by N. Melvin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-11-04 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, Soviet Power and the Countryside offers a new approach to understanding the political dynamics that led to the collapse of the Soviet order. A detailed analysis of the design, implementation and collapse of Soviet policy toward the countryside is used to explore the implications of a broadening of participation in the policy process from the 1960s. Neil J. Melvin argues that the new knowledge about rural society created as a result of this process provided the basis for a fundamental change in the nature of power relations in the Soviet order, leading to the decay and eventual collapse of policy making institutions.


Inventing a Soviet Countryside

Inventing a Soviet Countryside

Author: James W. Heinzen

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2004-02-01

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0822970783

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A balanced, thorough examination of the political, social, and cultural aspects of the Bolsheviks’ efforts to modernize the Russian peasantry.


Book Synopsis Inventing a Soviet Countryside by : James W. Heinzen

Download or read book Inventing a Soviet Countryside written by James W. Heinzen and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2004-02-01 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A balanced, thorough examination of the political, social, and cultural aspects of the Bolsheviks’ efforts to modernize the Russian peasantry.


The Nature of Soviet Power

The Nature of Soviet Power

Author: Andy Bruno

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-04-11

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 110714471X

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This in-depth exploration of five industries in the Kola Peninsula examines Soviet power and its interaction with the natural world.


Book Synopsis The Nature of Soviet Power by : Andy Bruno

Download or read book The Nature of Soviet Power written by Andy Bruno and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This in-depth exploration of five industries in the Kola Peninsula examines Soviet power and its interaction with the natural world.


Face to the Village

Face to the Village

Author: Tracy McDonald

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2016-11-14

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 1487514085

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In the summer of 1924, the Bolshevik Party called on scholars, the police, the courts, and state officials to turn their attention to the villages of Russia. The subsequent campaign to 'face the countryside' generated a wealth of intelligence that fed into the regime's sense of alarmed conviction that the countryside was a space outside Bolshevik control. Richly rooted in archival sources, including local and central-level secret police reports, detailed cases of the local and provincial courts, government records, and newspaper reports, Face to the Village is a nuanced study of the everyday workings of the Russian village in the 1920s. Local-level officials emerge in Tracy McDonald's study as vital and pivotal historical actors, existing between the Party's expectations and peasant interests. McDonald's careful exposition of the relationships between the urban centre and the peasant countryside brings us closer to understanding the fateful decision to launch a frontal attack on the countryside in the fall of 1929 under the auspices of collectivization.


Book Synopsis Face to the Village by : Tracy McDonald

Download or read book Face to the Village written by Tracy McDonald and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1924, the Bolshevik Party called on scholars, the police, the courts, and state officials to turn their attention to the villages of Russia. The subsequent campaign to 'face the countryside' generated a wealth of intelligence that fed into the regime's sense of alarmed conviction that the countryside was a space outside Bolshevik control. Richly rooted in archival sources, including local and central-level secret police reports, detailed cases of the local and provincial courts, government records, and newspaper reports, Face to the Village is a nuanced study of the everyday workings of the Russian village in the 1920s. Local-level officials emerge in Tracy McDonald's study as vital and pivotal historical actors, existing between the Party's expectations and peasant interests. McDonald's careful exposition of the relationships between the urban centre and the peasant countryside brings us closer to understanding the fateful decision to launch a frontal attack on the countryside in the fall of 1929 under the auspices of collectivization.


Provincial Landscapes

Provincial Landscapes

Author: Donald J. Raleigh

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2001-09-01

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 0822970619

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The closed nature of the Soviet Union, combined with the West’s intellectual paradigm of Communist totalitarianism prior to the 1970s, have led to a one-dimensional view of Soviet history, both in Russia and the West. The opening of former Soviet archives allows historians to explore a broad array of critical issues at the local level. Provincial Landscapes is the first publication to begin filling this enormous gap in scholarship on the Soviet Union, pointing the way to additional work that will certainly force major reevaluations of the nation’s history. Focusing on the years between the Revolution and Stalin’s death, the contributors to this volume address a variety of topics, including how political events and social engineering played themselves out at the local level; the construction of Bolshevik identities, including class, gender, ethnicity, and place; the Soviet cultural project; and the hybridization of Soviet cultural forms. In showing how the local is related to the larger society, the essays decenter standard narratives of Soviet history, enrich the understanding of major events and turning points in that history, and provide a context for the highly visible socio-political and cultural role individual Russian provinces began to play after the breakup of the Soviet Union.


Book Synopsis Provincial Landscapes by : Donald J. Raleigh

Download or read book Provincial Landscapes written by Donald J. Raleigh and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2001-09-01 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The closed nature of the Soviet Union, combined with the West’s intellectual paradigm of Communist totalitarianism prior to the 1970s, have led to a one-dimensional view of Soviet history, both in Russia and the West. The opening of former Soviet archives allows historians to explore a broad array of critical issues at the local level. Provincial Landscapes is the first publication to begin filling this enormous gap in scholarship on the Soviet Union, pointing the way to additional work that will certainly force major reevaluations of the nation’s history. Focusing on the years between the Revolution and Stalin’s death, the contributors to this volume address a variety of topics, including how political events and social engineering played themselves out at the local level; the construction of Bolshevik identities, including class, gender, ethnicity, and place; the Soviet cultural project; and the hybridization of Soviet cultural forms. In showing how the local is related to the larger society, the essays decenter standard narratives of Soviet history, enrich the understanding of major events and turning points in that history, and provide a context for the highly visible socio-political and cultural role individual Russian provinces began to play after the breakup of the Soviet Union.


Empire of Friends

Empire of Friends

Author: Rachel Applebaum

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-04-15

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1501735586

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The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends, Rachel Applebaum shows how the Soviet Union simultaneously promoted a policy of transnational friendship with its Eastern Bloc satellites to create a cohesive socialist world. This friendship project resulted in a new type of imperial control based on cross-border contacts between ordinary citizens. In a new and fascinating story of cultural diplomacy, interpersonal relations, and the trade of consumer-goods, Applebaum tracks the rise and fall of the friendship project in Czechoslovakia, as the country evolved after World War II from the Soviet Union's most loyal satellite to its most rebellious. Throughout Eastern Europe, the friendship project shaped the most intimate aspects of people's lives, influencing everything from what they wore to where they traveled to whom they married. Applebaum argues that in Czechoslovakia, socialist friendship was surprisingly durable, capable of surviving the ravages of Stalinism and the Soviet invasion that crushed the 1968 Prague Spring. Eventually, the project became so successful that it undermined the very alliance it was designed to support: as Soviets and Czechoslovaks got to know one another, they discovered important cultural and political differences that contradicted propaganda about a cohesive socialist world. Empire of Friends reveals that the sphere of everyday life was central to the construction of the transnational socialist system in Eastern Europe—and, ultimately, its collapse.


Book Synopsis Empire of Friends by : Rachel Applebaum

Download or read book Empire of Friends written by Rachel Applebaum and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends, Rachel Applebaum shows how the Soviet Union simultaneously promoted a policy of transnational friendship with its Eastern Bloc satellites to create a cohesive socialist world. This friendship project resulted in a new type of imperial control based on cross-border contacts between ordinary citizens. In a new and fascinating story of cultural diplomacy, interpersonal relations, and the trade of consumer-goods, Applebaum tracks the rise and fall of the friendship project in Czechoslovakia, as the country evolved after World War II from the Soviet Union's most loyal satellite to its most rebellious. Throughout Eastern Europe, the friendship project shaped the most intimate aspects of people's lives, influencing everything from what they wore to where they traveled to whom they married. Applebaum argues that in Czechoslovakia, socialist friendship was surprisingly durable, capable of surviving the ravages of Stalinism and the Soviet invasion that crushed the 1968 Prague Spring. Eventually, the project became so successful that it undermined the very alliance it was designed to support: as Soviets and Czechoslovaks got to know one another, they discovered important cultural and political differences that contradicted propaganda about a cohesive socialist world. Empire of Friends reveals that the sphere of everyday life was central to the construction of the transnational socialist system in Eastern Europe—and, ultimately, its collapse.


Russian Peasants and Soviet Power

Russian Peasants and Soviet Power

Author: Moshe Lewin

Publisher: CNIB, [197-]

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 9780393007527

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"A most important and pioneering book--the only full-scale study of the Russian revolution and the peasant from 1917 through the first wave of mass collectivization in 1930." --Stephen F. Cohen


Book Synopsis Russian Peasants and Soviet Power by : Moshe Lewin

Download or read book Russian Peasants and Soviet Power written by Moshe Lewin and published by CNIB, [197-]. This book was released on 1975 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A most important and pioneering book--the only full-scale study of the Russian revolution and the peasant from 1917 through the first wave of mass collectivization in 1930." --Stephen F. Cohen


Women in the Soviet Countryside

Women in the Soviet Countryside

Author: Susan Bridger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-01-28

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780521057479

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This book presents the first substantive western treatment of the role of women in Soviet rural development. It analyzes both the gains made and the problems still faced by rural women in a society where development policies have been accompanied by formal commitment to sexual equality. Dr. Bridger first considers the impact upon rural women of social, economic, and political transformation from 1917 until the Kruschev era, and then examines in depth contemporary changes in women's roles and status. Issues such as the nature of women's work, the extent of female participation in the labor force, changing family and demographic structures, and the educational, political and cultural experience of Soviet women are discussed in detail. The problems of unequal access to mechanized work, poor promotion prospects, and inequalities within the marriage that emerge from this analysis are among the topics discussed in Dr. Bridger's conclusion, where she identifies the principal unresolved dilemmas facing rural women, and summarizes the role played by the Soviet government in both advancing and retarding possible solutions.


Book Synopsis Women in the Soviet Countryside by : Susan Bridger

Download or read book Women in the Soviet Countryside written by Susan Bridger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the first substantive western treatment of the role of women in Soviet rural development. It analyzes both the gains made and the problems still faced by rural women in a society where development policies have been accompanied by formal commitment to sexual equality. Dr. Bridger first considers the impact upon rural women of social, economic, and political transformation from 1917 until the Kruschev era, and then examines in depth contemporary changes in women's roles and status. Issues such as the nature of women's work, the extent of female participation in the labor force, changing family and demographic structures, and the educational, political and cultural experience of Soviet women are discussed in detail. The problems of unequal access to mechanized work, poor promotion prospects, and inequalities within the marriage that emerge from this analysis are among the topics discussed in Dr. Bridger's conclusion, where she identifies the principal unresolved dilemmas facing rural women, and summarizes the role played by the Soviet government in both advancing and retarding possible solutions.


Soviet Culture and Power

Soviet Culture and Power

Author: Katerina Clark

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 0300106467

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Leaders of the Soviet Union, Stalin chief among them, well understood the power of art, and their response was to attempt to control and direct it in every way possible. This book examines Soviet cultural politics from the Revolution to Stalin’s death in 1953. Drawing on a wealth of newly released documents from the archives of the former Soviet Union, the book provides remarkable insight on relations between Gorky, Pasternak, Babel, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, Eisenstein, and many other intellectuals, and the Soviet leadership. Stalin’s role in directing these relations, and his literary judgments and personal biases, will astonish many. The documents presented in this volume reflect the progression of Party control in the arts. They include decisions of the Politburo, Stalin’s correspondence with individual intellectuals, his responses to particular plays, novels, and movie scripts, petitions to leaders from intellectuals, and secret police reports on intellectuals under surveillance. Introductions, explanatory materials, and a biographical index accompany the documents.


Book Synopsis Soviet Culture and Power by : Katerina Clark

Download or read book Soviet Culture and Power written by Katerina Clark and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leaders of the Soviet Union, Stalin chief among them, well understood the power of art, and their response was to attempt to control and direct it in every way possible. This book examines Soviet cultural politics from the Revolution to Stalin’s death in 1953. Drawing on a wealth of newly released documents from the archives of the former Soviet Union, the book provides remarkable insight on relations between Gorky, Pasternak, Babel, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, Eisenstein, and many other intellectuals, and the Soviet leadership. Stalin’s role in directing these relations, and his literary judgments and personal biases, will astonish many. The documents presented in this volume reflect the progression of Party control in the arts. They include decisions of the Politburo, Stalin’s correspondence with individual intellectuals, his responses to particular plays, novels, and movie scripts, petitions to leaders from intellectuals, and secret police reports on intellectuals under surveillance. Introductions, explanatory materials, and a biographical index accompany the documents.


Thank You, Comrade Stalin!

Thank You, Comrade Stalin!

Author: Jeffrey Brooks

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1400843928

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Thank you, our Stalin, for a happy childhood." "Thank you, dear Marshal [Stalin], for our freedom, for our children's happiness, for life." Between the Russian Revolution and the Cold War, Soviet public culture was so dominated by the power of the state that slogans like these appeared routinely in newspapers, on posters, and in government proclamations. In this penetrating historical study, Jeffrey Brooks draws on years of research into the most influential and widely circulated Russian newspapers--including Pravda, Isvestiia, and the army paper Red Star--to explain the origins, the nature, and the effects of this unrelenting idealization of the state, the Communist Party, and the leader. Brooks shows how, beginning with Lenin, the Communists established a state monopoly of the media that absorbed literature, art, and science into a stylized and ritualistic public culture--a form of political performance that became its own reality and excluded other forms of public reflection. He presents and explains scores of self-congratulatory newspaper articles, including tales of Stalin's supposed achievements and virtue, accounts of the country's allegedly dynamic economy, and warnings about the decadence and cruelty of the capitalist West. Brooks pays particular attention to the role of the press in the reconstruction of the Soviet cultural system to meet the Nazi threat during World War II and in the transformation of national identity from its early revolutionary internationalism to the ideology of the Cold War. He concludes that the country's one-sided public discourse and the pervasive idea that citizens owed the leader gratitude for the "gifts" of goods and services led ultimately to the inability of late Soviet Communism to diagnose its own ills, prepare alternative policies, and adjust to new realities. The first historical work to explore the close relationship between language and the implementation of the Stalinist-Leninist program, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! is a compelling account of Soviet public culture as reflected through the country's press.


Book Synopsis Thank You, Comrade Stalin! by : Jeffrey Brooks

Download or read book Thank You, Comrade Stalin! written by Jeffrey Brooks and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thank you, our Stalin, for a happy childhood." "Thank you, dear Marshal [Stalin], for our freedom, for our children's happiness, for life." Between the Russian Revolution and the Cold War, Soviet public culture was so dominated by the power of the state that slogans like these appeared routinely in newspapers, on posters, and in government proclamations. In this penetrating historical study, Jeffrey Brooks draws on years of research into the most influential and widely circulated Russian newspapers--including Pravda, Isvestiia, and the army paper Red Star--to explain the origins, the nature, and the effects of this unrelenting idealization of the state, the Communist Party, and the leader. Brooks shows how, beginning with Lenin, the Communists established a state monopoly of the media that absorbed literature, art, and science into a stylized and ritualistic public culture--a form of political performance that became its own reality and excluded other forms of public reflection. He presents and explains scores of self-congratulatory newspaper articles, including tales of Stalin's supposed achievements and virtue, accounts of the country's allegedly dynamic economy, and warnings about the decadence and cruelty of the capitalist West. Brooks pays particular attention to the role of the press in the reconstruction of the Soviet cultural system to meet the Nazi threat during World War II and in the transformation of national identity from its early revolutionary internationalism to the ideology of the Cold War. He concludes that the country's one-sided public discourse and the pervasive idea that citizens owed the leader gratitude for the "gifts" of goods and services led ultimately to the inability of late Soviet Communism to diagnose its own ills, prepare alternative policies, and adjust to new realities. The first historical work to explore the close relationship between language and the implementation of the Stalinist-Leninist program, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! is a compelling account of Soviet public culture as reflected through the country's press.