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School of History · ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
In October 1917, a small band of Marxist revolutionaries called the Bolsheviks seized control of the largest country in the world, Russia, and declared they were building a new civilization. Just before its collapse in 1991, this “civilization” encompassed a third of the globe and its shadow continues to frame, indeed, haunt munch of it. How did this small band of radicals achieve this remarkable goal? This course traces how the Bolsheviks maintained and expanded their rule through civil war, rapid industrialization, colossal loss of life to famine and terror, Nazi invasion and the Cold War before the Soviet Empire collapsed in a remarkably bloodless dissolution in 1991. Some of the questions the course asks include: What was Communism and how did it triumph? How did the Bolsheviks go about creating their new civilization in an ancient and multiethnic Empire and then across the world? Who opposed them and what happened to them? What was life like before, under and after Stalin? Did a regime that had withstood civil war, invasion and cold war simply resign itself so meekly to the dustbin of history in 1991, as many thought at the time, or has more recent developments in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet space cast doubt on this thesis?
Research Essay ( 2,500 words)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3
Final Exam, Take Home
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
Class Participation
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 4
130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: 24 hours of lectures and 12 hours of tutorial and tutorial-like activities; and b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing.
Not required Preliminary Reading Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Shortest History of the Soviet Union'. Black Inc. 2022. M. Lewin, The Soviet Century. (G. Elliot, Ed.). New York: Verso, 2016. David Hoffmann, ed., Stalinism: The Essential Readings, Blackwell, 2003. R. G. Suny, The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.