This is a writing intensive course about Marxism and the history of the Russian Revolution in its formative years between the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and the Great Terror of 1937. The course will take us from the unraveling of the old order in Russia during the First World War to the Revolution and Civil War; from the “tactical retreat” of the NEP to the expedited “construction of socialism” through Collectivization; from the heated intra-party ideological struggles of the 1920s to the demonization of the Opposition in the 1930s leading to the bloodbath of the Great Purge. The course will touch on some of the main historiographical debates in the study of twentieth century communism: Were communist regimes totalitarian enterprises directed from above or were they more diffused phenomena fashioned through the interplay of multiple actors from below? Were the regimes’ excesses of violence a distortion of communist ideology or were they one of its logical conclusions? What was the role of Marxist ideology in fashioning the dynamics of the Revolution, and how did it interplay with other factors, such as socio-economic structure, geopolitics, Russian culture, personal ambition and sheer contingency?

Intended Audience:

First-year students; students who need to meet the FYWR.