Stalinism as a Culture Research on has boomed during the last ten years following collapse of Soviet Union.Scholars have been inspired not only by opening formerly closed archives, but also changes interest and new approaches in general history.Younger historians particular

Drawing on newly-opened Soviet archives, especially the letters of complaint and petition with which peasants deluged authorities in 1930s, Stalin's Peasants analyses peasants' strategies resistance survival new world collectivized village. is a story struggle between transformationally-minded Communists traditionally-minded over terms collectivization: opposing practices, not either side clearly articulated its position. But it also about impact collectivization internal social relations...

Cultural revolution, as defined by contemporary Soviet historians, is a necessary part of the transition to socialist society. Its occurrence conforms general law governing development socialism.1 prerequisite political revolution which Marxist-Leninist party takes power. The party, having taken power, initiator cultural whose characteristics are democratization cul-

List of tables Acknowledgements Part I: 1. Education and Soviet society 2. The new school 3. education system: problems mobility specialization 4. Professors power II: 5. 'great turning-point' 1928-1929 6. Cultural Revolution the schools 7. Mass in countryside 8. making a proletarian intelligentsia III: 9. restoration order: policies education, 1931-1934 10. 'New Class': social under Stalin Notes Bibliography Index.

“Cadres decide everything,” Stalin proclaimed in 1935. The slogan is familiar, as the image of a politician skilled selection and deployment personnel. But who were his cadres? literature on prewar period tells us little even about closest political associates, let alone those one step down hierarchy—Central Committee members, people's commissars their deputies, obkom secretaries—or key industrial posts. Only Old Bolsheviks military leaders seem to emerge individuals. rest are relegated that...

“Which one of us had never written letters to the supreme powers…If they are preserved, these mountains will be a veritable treasure trove for historians.” So wrote Nadezhda Mandelstam, always sharp-eyed anthropologist Soviet everyday life. Historians who have encountered this in archives newly opened over past few years likely agree. The great volume public letter-writing–the “mountains” complaints, denunciations, statements opinion, appeals, threats and confessional outpourings that...

When Lenin asked, Who will beat whom? (Kto kogo?), he had no plan to wage revolutionary class war in culture. Many young Communists thought differently, however. Seeking the name of proletariat wrest cultural hegemony from intelligentsia, they turned culture into a battlefield 1920s. But was this, as Communist militants thought, genuine struggle between proletarian and bourgeois intelligentsia? Or it, intelligentsia believed, an onslaught by ruling Party on eternal principles autonomy...

List of Illustrations ix Preface and Acknowledgments xi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: Becoming Soviet 3 PART I. Class Identities 27 TWO: The Bolshevik Invention 29 THREE: in NEP Society 51 FOUR: Soslovie 71 II. Lives 89 FIVE: under Fire 91 SIX: Two Faces Anastasia 102 SEVEN: Story a Peasant Striver 114 EIGHT: Women's 125 III. Appeals 153 NINE: Supplicants Citizens 155 TEN: Patrons Clients 182 IV. Denunciations 203 ELEVEN: Signals from Below 205 TWELVE: Wives' Tales 240 V. Impostures 263...