A History of the Soviet Union, 1917-91	Dickinson State University
History 350 – Political Science 350

Course Description

An upper-division course in modern European history, A History of the Soviet Union addresses the origins, course, and eventual demise of the Soviet Union. Beginning with the final decades of the Romanov dynasty, this course delves into the political movements leading to the emergence of a generation of Russian revolutionaries and the environment in which they operated. Lenin's modifications of Marxism provide him and his followers with unique vision on Russia's political future. The success of the revolution, however, is determined by the outcome of the civil war which drags into the early 1920's. Lenin's declining health subsequently opens the door to Stalin's rise. Stalin's aggressive elimination of his political rivals is equaled by his drive to modernize the state. Despite the high costs, Stalin's Russia is only moderately prepared to meet the challenge presented by Hitler's Germany. Stalin's death in 1953 results in a major turn in Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Post-Stalinism is plagued by the shadows of Stalin's abuse of power but also by the relative inability of the state to develop a successful economic plan to endow its ideology with greater legitimacy. Spiraling costs to sustain its military within the Cold War era preclude significant investment in domestic consumer goods, undermining the potential for a significant improvement in the overall standard of living compared with that enjoyed in the West. Combined with a growing loss of faith in its ideological framework, the Soviet Union collapsed, one might say, as a result of its own internal contradictions.

Course Requirements

All students will have their final grades based on at least the following factors: First, each student will compose ten semi-weekly two-page (minimum) typed reports on the materials covered in lecture and in the assigned readings for a total of 300 points. Each paper will be due on the first class-day after the assignment is given. Each student will also be required to write an analytical essay based on a significant figure in Soviet history, agreed upon by the instructor, and due on the last class day of April (150 points). No two students will be allowed to write on the same individual. Each paper will be a minimum of ten pages double-spaced typed in length and demonstrate a competent use of a minimum of three additional sources outside assigned textbooks. Finally, each student will write a five-page book review of John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World (75 Points).

A = 450-500 Points
B = 400-449 Points
C = 350-399 Points
D = 300-349 Points
F = 000-299 Points

Policy on Late Papers and Make-up Examinations

The dates on which your reports are due will be announced in class usually one week in advance. Students would do well to hand in their papers ahead of the deadline and thus avoid possible last minute emergencies. Take note, late papers will not be accepted without a written valid excuse such as a medical excuse. Similarly, students will not be given make-up examinations without such a valid excuse. Make-up examinations with a valid excuse will in no case be given prior to the announced time of an examination.

Policy on Academic Misconduct

Dickinson State University does not sanction or tolerate academic misconduct by students. Academic misconduct such as cheating on exams, plagiarism, et cetera, are defined in the Dickinson State University Student Guide under Article III.A. - Academic Misconduct. When the instructor has substantiated evidence that such an academic misconduct has occurred, the instructor can determine the degree of penalty ranging from loss of points to receiving an "F" as the semester grade.
Back-Up Copies of Papers and Graded Materials

Students are asked to retain copies of all papers which they submit as insurance against lost or misplaced papers. Graded materials returned to you should be carefully stored away as insurance against an incorrect or incomplete grade at the conclusion of the semester. You may be called upon to return some graded materials to the instructor from time to time. Students are encouraged to study their graded materials in order to improve their performance during the course of the semester.

Student Learning Outcomes (Institutional, Program, and Course Outcomes)

Institutional Student Learning Outcomes

Consistent with Dickinson State University's six Institutional Student Learning Outcomes, this course will develop higher order and critical thinking skills by comparing and contrasting the perspectives offered from a wide variety of politicians, thinkers and writers from those events perpetuated over the centuries regarding the course and consequences of the history of the Soviet Union from 1917 through the present. Second, students will be expected to demonstrate the aforementioned skills through two in-class written examination as well as through three in-depth book reviews. Third and fourth, history as an essential liberal arts discipline serves to enhance these values while this course reinforces the student's depth of knowledge in the field of history. Fifth and sixth, this type of course is essential to developing substantial depth of knowledge in a content area, in the pursuit of advanced degrees in history, and in preparing the student to handle a wider array of changes relevant to the use of history in everyday life.

Program Student Learning Outcomes

Specifically, the History of Russia serves the various history majors and minor fields. It provides the student with an upper-division class designed provide the student with the a more in depth study of Russian history in the fulfillment of graduation requirements for the major/minor in question. Its unique contribution is in the presentation of unique elements of historical analysis and research which have had a dynamic impact on the course of world history.

Course Student Learning Outcomes

These outcomes follow closely the materials outlined within the table of contents of your textbook and in the items described in class. The definition of the items listed and their historical significance is the intended subject of the course and constitutes the core of the lectures presented during the class. Given the limitations of student knowledge of foreign languages and relative inability to access the materials through either the Internet or through published works, lectures will provide the key means by which students will develop a proper understanding of the materials over which they will be tested.

Textbooks

RD -- Robert V. Daniels, editor, A Documentary History of Communism in Russia From Lenin to Gorbatchev (London: University Pres of New England, 1993).
JR -- John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World.
HR -- David MacKenzie and Michael W. Curran, A History of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Beyond. 6th Edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002).
VS -- Vladimir Shlapentokh, A Normal Totalitarian Society. How the Soviet Union Functioned and How It Collapsed (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2001).

Approximate Reading Assignments (Two Per Week)

1. Introduction
2. Roots: Imperial Russia, HR:27-28
3. Roots: Marxism-Leninism, HR:29, RD:1
4. Roots: Nationalities Question
5. War and Revolution, HR:30-31, RD:2
6. Civil War, HR:32
7. War Communism, HR:32, RD:2
8. Foreign Policy
a. Conduct and Control
b. External Environment
c. International Communism
9. New Economic Policy (NEP), HR:33, RD:2
10. 1920's, RD:2-3
11. Stalin and the Party, HR:34, RD:4
12. Patterns of Soviet Foreign Policy before the Rise of Hitler, HR:37
13. Economic Planning, HR:35
14. Purges, HR:34
15. Patterns of Soviet Foreign Policy after the Rise of Hitler
16. World War II, HR:38, RD:4
17. High Stalinism or "Who started the Cold War?"
18. Stalin's Demise
19. Economy
20. Nationalities
21. Society
22. Culture, HR:36 & 43
23. Khrushchev, HR:39, RD:5
a. Peaceful Coexistence
b. Global Strategies
24. Brezhnev, HR:40, RD:6
a. Detente
b. Growth of Military Strength
25. Andropov-Chernenko Interregnum, HR:41, RD:6
26. Conflicts within the "Socialist Camp"
a. Titoism
b. 1956
c. Soviet-Albanian Relations
d. Sino-Soviet Relations
e. Reforging Soviet Hegemony in Eastern Europe
f. Poland and Soviet-East European Relations
27. Soviet Policies Towards the Third World
a. Roots of Soviet Involvement
b. Sino-Soviet Conflict and Underdeveloped Countries
c. Foreign Aid, Foreign Trade, and the Quest for Soviet Political Influence
d. Afghanistan, the Gulf, and the Middle East
28. Gorbatchev, HR:42, RD:7
29. Yeltsin, HR:44-45
30. Putin and The Future, HR:46

Political Jokes

American style of risk:
Racing in cars. One out of ten cars has a bad engine.
Risk - a la France:
Unprotected sex with a group of women. One out of ten women in the group has AIDS.
Russian style:
Telling political jokes to a group of ten people, one of whom is an informer. A story-teller knows who the informer is, but tells his jokes anyway.

A speaker tells his listeners, "The communist ideal is already on the horizon."
The audience wonders quietly, "What IS a horizon?"
-Answer: an imaginary line where the sky comes together with the earth; it moves off when you try to get closer.

Is it true that under communism people could order food by phone?
--Yes, but the delivery was by TV.

Is it possible to build communism in Israel?
--Why would such a small country need such big happiness?

Is communism a science? -No. If it were, they would've tried it on dogs first.

Why did Stalin wear knee boots while Lenin's were much shorter?
--Because during Lenin's time, Russia was polluted only up to ankle.

Someone asks a guide in hell: "Why does Hitler stand up to his neck in shit, while Stalin is only up to his waist?" -He answers, "Because Stalin is standing on Lenin's shoulders."
What has 40 teeth and 4 legs? -A crocodile.
What has 4 teeth and 40 legs? -The Central Committee of the Communist Party.

Television tells us that our country abounds in food, and yet my refrigerator is empty. What's wrong with it? Simple -- just hook up your refrigerator to a TV cable.

A speaker explains the advantages of communism to the residents of a lunatic asylum. Everybody applauds except for one guy standing at a distance.
-"Why aren't you clapping," asks the speaker.
-"I'm a nurse," he answers, "not a madman."

What was the nationality of Adam and Eve?
-Russian of course. Why else would they think they're in Paradise when they were homeless, naked, and just had one apple for both of them?

When was the first Russian election held?
-The time that God set Eve in front of Adam and said, "Go ahead, choose your wife."

Chernenko is dying. At the last moment, the spirit of Brezhnev appears in front of him and says:
- Your term on earth has expired. You'll be transferred to another world soon. One thing I'd recommend to you though: take a spoon and fork with you.
- Is there a shortage of such things in that world? asks Chernenko.
- No, no, said Brezhnev. Normally not. However, when Hitler takes charge of the cafeteria there, he'll no doubt remove all utensils and force everyone to eat with a sickle and hammer.

Brezhnev complains to Gromiko that he can't get used to summer and winter time changes.
- It's simple, replies Gromiko. Just move the hands on your clock one hour ahead in spring, and then move them one hour back in autumn.
- Well, says Brezhnev, that sounds really simple. Nevertheless, when I sent a telegram of my condolences to Egypt regarding Anwar Sadat's assassination last summer, it arrived one hour before his death.

Brezhnev asks the Pope
- Why do people believe in your paradise in heaven, but refuse to believe in the communist paradise?
- That's because we never show ours, says the Pope.

Brezhnev's nightmare: Czechs sitting in Red Square and eating matso with chopsticks.
Brezhnev rebukes his speech-writer:
- I asked you for a 15 min speech, but you made it 1 hour.
- No, sir, it was written exactly for 15 min - you just read all four copies.

Brezhnev gives his radio address to the Russian people:
Comrades! I have 2 important announcements for you - one joyful and one wistful. The wistful news is that during the next 7 years we'll eat nothing but shit. And the joyful one is that there will be an abundance of it.

Brezhnev asks Kosigin:
- How many Jews live in our country?
- Approximately 3-4 million.
- And how many would leave if we let them go?
- About 10-15 million...

Nixon asks God:
- When will unemployment go down in the US?
- In 20 years.
- Too bad that it won't happen during my lifetime, regrets Nixon. Brezhnev asks:
- When will the Russian people get a happy life?
- I regret it won't be during my lifetime, says God.

A teacher asks:
- Vovochka, who is your father?
- Comrade Stalin.
- Well, who is your mother?
- Our Soviet motherland.
- And what do you want to be?
- An orphan....

Possible Topics for Semi-Weekly Reports

Based on your readings, the lectures, and whatever, analyze and discuss the conflicting interpretations involved in the two statements below. Pay special attention to the interrelationships between state, party, and workers' organizations.

"The exigencies of economic ruin and Civil War compelled Lenin to take uncharacteristic measures both within the Party and with regard to worker organizations in the years from 1917 to 1921."

"The formation of the Soviet state from 1917 to 1921 clearly reveals the character of Leninism."

The Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union

In reviewing your materials, you should pay attention to concepts and issues as well as events and dates. The following listing of various important items cannot be considered exhaustive:

I. Concepts and Issues

traditional factors in Soviet foreign policy
balance of power politics
Lenin's Imperialism
"the leading role of the Party"
"democratic centralism"
the formulation of foreign policy in the Soviet system
"socialism in one country" – "capitalist encirclement"
collective security (the 1930s)
origins, motivations, and conduct of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
issues in the Grand Alliance of the Second World War
interpretations of origins of the Cold War
bipolarity and the Zhdanov-Stalin doctrine of "two camps"
Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR
Soviet doctrine of "peaceful coexistence"
Khrushchev's concept of the international system
"zone of peace" – "national democratic state"Soviet concept of "detente"
war in Soviet doctrine (under Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev)
Brezhnev Doctrine
Soviet conceptions of "national security"

II. Some Key Items (with dates)

Brest-Litovsk
Comintern
Rapallo
Munich Agreement
Litvinov
Molotov
Tripartite Pact
Katyn Forest
Warsaw Uprising
Yalta
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Cominform
Zhdanovshchina
Berlin Blockade
Vyshinsky
Korean War
"doctors' plot"
Malenkov
Beria
NATO
WTO (Warsaw Pact)
Geneva summit conference
Twentieth Soviet Party Congress
Gromyko
launching of Sputnik
Berlin crisis
U-2 incident
Zhukov
Kosygin
SALT I
KGB
Shevardnadze

Russia's revolutionaries were hardly of one mind either prior to or during the revolutions of 1917. For example, consider the writings of Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938), V.I. Lenin (1870-1924), Karl Marx (1818-1883), Leon Trotsky (1879-1940). (Additional sites/topics would include Marxism and Leninism.) For a more cultural perspective, review the various Russian Myths or investigate Russian Humor, the Russian Language Resource Page [study tools, dictionaries], Russian Literature, or Russian literature files and Russian software [all levels] On the more aristocratic side, there are also the the Treasures of the Czars.

After looking into the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and its Cast of Characters (The Monarchy), students might move on to consider the fateful events in 1921 related to the Kronstadt Uprising, at which point Russia's new elite demonstrated its unwillingness to tolerate so-called counter-revolutionaries.

Russian Daily News [useful news summaries]

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Soviet History Study Guides