Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times - Soviet Russia in the 1930s - Hardcover

Fitzpatrick, Sheila

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195050002 ISBN 13: 9780195050004

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, 1999

Synopsis

In the 1930s many Western intellectuals looked with hope and admiration at the great "Soviet experiment", the planned transformation of the economy that was supposed to lay the foundation for the world's first socialist society. Later, with the onset of the Cold War, the image of the "Evil Empire" predominated in the mind of Westerners. Yet what was it really like to be a citizen of Soviet Russia during this period? This text presents a history of everyday life in Soviet Russia. Rather than consider the history of the period from the perspective of the Soviet Party and its leaders, Sheila Fitzpatrick considers what life was like for ordinary people. It shows the ways of life, behaviours, and skills developed by citizens in order to cope with the extraordinary social and political change that Stalinism brought, ranging from scarcity of consumer goods, to the condemnation of religion, to bureaucratic red tape and state regulation of education, jobs, and career advancement.

About this title

Review

Of the two, Fitzpatrick is incomparably the finer historian . . . . There is no doubt abou the quality of Fitzpatrick's research . . . (THES, 12/04/2002)

"A fine work―engrossing, well written, superbly documented, and much needed to boot....[The book's sources] make absolutely fascinating reading....An assiduous scholar, Professor Fitzpatrick seems to have scrutinized every relevant scrap of paper. Her explication is a model of balance and judiciousness....Individual memoirs apart, most histories of this period were written from the top―that is, showing how the policies were shaped and implemented, rather than how they were perceived and experienced by their subjects. It is the latter...that constitutes the major distinction of Fitzpatrick's book."―Abraham Brumberg, The Nation

"The author's rich materials challenge readers to build their own model of Stalin's people, their complicity and resistance."―Wilson Quarterly

"A most welcome addition to the literature on Stalin's Russia....Fitzpatrick has used the entire range of sources available, from familiar memoirs and postwar interview material to contemporary research and an array of archival information....The book is a major contribution to understanding this extraordinary period. Its lucid prose and the inherent interest of its subject matter should make it accessible to undergraduates, as well as to more specialized readers."―Choice

"One of the most influential historians of the Soviet period describes what it was like to live under Stalin in the 1930s―the frantic, heroic, tragic decade of collectivization, forced-draft industrialization, and purges, when ordinary Russians struggled to a find a wearable pair of shoes and lined up in subzero weather at two o'clock in the morning in the hope of getting 16 grams of bread....They were years of unimaginable hardship and brutality but also of idealism, a surreal melange that [Fitzpatrick] captures with admirable matter-of-factness."―Foreign Affairs

"A fine crossover book for both upperlevel and introductory courses....Well written."―Roger W. Haughey, Georgetown University

"Everyday Stalinism should prove invaluable for any course on Soviet history. Knowing how a nation's people actually lived, thought, and felt is essential to any real understanding of the past. On this, Fitzpatrick―who has done more than any other scholar to make the complexities of the social history of the Stalin years come alive―delivers as no one else can."―John McCannon, Norwich University

Review from previous edition "Fitzpatrick makes subtle use of the press and of police reports that assist in giving us one of the most comprhensive accounts of what it meant to live in Stalin's Russia in the 1930's" (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author

Sheila Fitzpatrick teaches modern Russian History at the University of Chicago. A former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and a co-editor of The Journal of Modern History, she is also the author of Stalin's Peasants, The Russian Revolution, and many other books and articles about Russia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0195050002
• ISBN 13: 9780195050004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300