The Stalinist Era

Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.

David L. Hoffmann (Author)

9781107007086, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 November 2018

216 pages, 22 b/w illus. 3 maps
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.4 cm, 0.46 kg

'This is an excellent, clear, concise and up-to-date textbook on Soviet history during the reign of Stalin that deserves to be used widely in undergraduate classrooms … As a textbook and synthesis of current scholarship on Stalinism and the Stalin era, this book is unlikely to be surpassed for some time.' James Harris, Revolutionary Russia

Placing Stalinism in its international context, David L. Hoffmann presents a new interpretation of Soviet state intervention and violence. Many 'Stalinist' practices - the state-run economy, surveillance, propaganda campaigns, and the use of concentration camps - did not originate with Stalin or even in Russia, but were instead tools of governance that became widespread throughout Europe during the First World War. The Soviet system was formed at this moment of total war, and wartime practices of mobilization and state violence became building blocks of the new political order. Communist Party leaders in turn used these practices ruthlessly to pursue their ideological agenda of economic and social transformation. Synthesizing new research on Stalinist collectivization, industrialization, cultural affairs, gender roles, nationality policies, the Second World War, and the Cold War, Hoffmann provides a succinct account of this pivotal period in world history.

Introduction
1. Prelude to Stalinism
2. Building socialism (1928–33)
3. Socialism attained (1934–38)
4. The Second World War (1939–45)
5. The postwar years (1946–53)
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD], General & world history [HBG]