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Stalinism: New Directions
Stalinism is a provocative addition to the current debates related to the history of the Stalinist period of the Soviet Union. Sheila Fitzpatrick has collected together the newest and the most exciting work by young Russian, American and European scholars, as well as some of the seminal articles that have influenced them, in an attempt to reassess this contentious subject in the light of new data and new theoretical approaches.
The articles are contextualized by a thorough introduction to the totalitarian/revisionist arguments and post-revisionist developments. Eschewing an exclusively high-political focus, the book draws together work on class, identity, consumption culture, and agency. Stalinist terror and nationalities policy are reappraised in the light of new archival findings. Stalinism offers a nuanced navigation of an emotive and misrepresented chapter of the Russian past.
The articles are contextualized by a thorough introduction to the totalitarian/revisionist arguments and post-revisionist developments. Eschewing an exclusively high-political focus, the book draws together work on class, identity, consumption culture, and agency. Stalinist terror and nationalities policy are reappraised in the light of new archival findings. Stalinism offers a nuanced navigation of an emotive and misrepresented chapter of the Russian past.
396 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 1999
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About the author
Sheila Fitzpatrick
45 books161 followersSheila Fitzpatrick (born June 4, 1941, Melbourne) is an Australian-American historian. She teaches Soviet History at the University of Chicago.
Fitzpatrick's research focuses on the social and cultural history of the Stalinist period, particularly on aspects of social identity and daily life. She is currently concentrating on the social and cultural changes in Soviet Russia of the 1950s and 1960s.
In her early work, Sheila Fitzpatrick focused on the theme of social mobility, suggesting that the opportunity for the working class to rise socially and as a new elite had been instrumental in legitimizing the regime during the Stalinist period. Despite its brutality, Stalinism as a political culture would have achieved the goals of the democratic revolution. The center of attention was always focused on the victims of the purges rather than its beneficiaries, noted the historian. Yet as a consequence of the "Great Purge", thousands of workers and communists who had access to the technical colleges during the first five-year plan received promotions to positions in industry, government and the leadership of the Communist Party.
According to Fitzpatrick, the "cultural revolution" of the late 1920 and the purges which shook the scientific, literary, artistic and the industrial communities is explained in part by a "class struggle" against executives and intellectual "bourgeois". The men who rose in the 1930s played an active role to get rid of former leaders who blocked their own promotion, and the "Great Turn" found its origins in initiatives from the bottom rather than the decisions of the summit. In this vision, Stalinist policy based on social forces and offered a response to popular radicalism, which allowed the existence of a partial consensus between the regime and society in the 1930s.
Fitzpatrick was the leader of the second generation of "revisionist historians". She was the first to call the group of Sovietologists working on Stalinism in the 1980s "a new cohort of [revisionist] historians".
Fitzpatrick called for a social history that did not address political issues, in other words that adhered strictly to a "from below" viewpoint. This was justified by the idea that the university had been strongly conditioned to see everything through the prism of the state: "the social processes unrelated to the intervention of the state is virtually absent from the literature." Fitzpatrick did not deny that the state's role in social change of the 1930s was huge. However, she defended the practice of social history "without politics". Most young "revisionists" did not want to separate the social history of the USSR from the evolution of the political system.
Fitzpatrick explained in the 1980s, when the "totalitarian model" was still widely used, "it was very useful to show that the model had an inherent bias and it did not explain everything about Soviet society. Now, whereas a new generation of academics considers sometimes as self evident that the totalitarian model was completely erroneous and harmful, it is perhaps more useful to show than there were certain things about the Soviet company that it explained very well."
Fitzpatrick's research focuses on the social and cultural history of the Stalinist period, particularly on aspects of social identity and daily life. She is currently concentrating on the social and cultural changes in Soviet Russia of the 1950s and 1960s.
In her early work, Sheila Fitzpatrick focused on the theme of social mobility, suggesting that the opportunity for the working class to rise socially and as a new elite had been instrumental in legitimizing the regime during the Stalinist period. Despite its brutality, Stalinism as a political culture would have achieved the goals of the democratic revolution. The center of attention was always focused on the victims of the purges rather than its beneficiaries, noted the historian. Yet as a consequence of the "Great Purge", thousands of workers and communists who had access to the technical colleges during the first five-year plan received promotions to positions in industry, government and the leadership of the Communist Party.
According to Fitzpatrick, the "cultural revolution" of the late 1920 and the purges which shook the scientific, literary, artistic and the industrial communities is explained in part by a "class struggle" against executives and intellectual "bourgeois". The men who rose in the 1930s played an active role to get rid of former leaders who blocked their own promotion, and the "Great Turn" found its origins in initiatives from the bottom rather than the decisions of the summit. In this vision, Stalinist policy based on social forces and offered a response to popular radicalism, which allowed the existence of a partial consensus between the regime and society in the 1930s.
Fitzpatrick was the leader of the second generation of "revisionist historians". She was the first to call the group of Sovietologists working on Stalinism in the 1980s "a new cohort of [revisionist] historians".
Fitzpatrick called for a social history that did not address political issues, in other words that adhered strictly to a "from below" viewpoint. This was justified by the idea that the university had been strongly conditioned to see everything through the prism of the state: "the social processes unrelated to the intervention of the state is virtually absent from the literature." Fitzpatrick did not deny that the state's role in social change of the 1930s was huge. However, she defended the practice of social history "without politics". Most young "revisionists" did not want to separate the social history of the USSR from the evolution of the political system.
Fitzpatrick explained in the 1980s, when the "totalitarian model" was still widely used, "it was very useful to show that the model had an inherent bias and it did not explain everything about Soviet society. Now, whereas a new generation of academics considers sometimes as self evident that the totalitarian model was completely erroneous and harmful, it is perhaps more useful to show than there were certain things about the Soviet company that it explained very well."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 26, 2024
Stalinism: New Directions is a highly detailed analysis of the Soviet political situation of the Stalin-era. As someone who was searching for an in-depth analysis like this, I enjoyed reading it. Sheila Fitzpatrick set out to provide a new, and much more nuanced look at the complex issues of the time, and she certainly accomplished this, even examining issues outside of politics, including aspects of the market and everyday life. Fitzpatrick provides a multitude of credible sources to support her claims, and uses them to create quite the thought-provoking read. I agreed with most of the stances she takes on the issues presented and believe that is a good read for any leftist political scientist.
July 27, 2019
If you ever wonder how history can be more politics than science, Soviet History is a good start.
I became interested in Stalinist Russian after listening to Rev Left Radio's episode on Stalin (https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn...). It helped set the framework for reading this book since it was such a heavily Marxist-Leninist perspective that I knew what unabashed respect for the early USSR looked like - and as an American, I'm more than aware of what an unabashed hatred for the early USSR looks like.
This collection is nestled firmly, and at times uncomfortably, in the middle of this spectrum. The best essays - Paul M Hagenloh's and James R Harris' - are especially reflecting as they bring what we normally consider as an abstract evil into a familiar light. The Terror, they essentially agree, was an unplanned and chaotic campaign that stemmed from a simultaneous lack of oversight and surplus of judiciary power. Stop me if you've heard this one before: it was, in Hagenloh's words, a "radicalization of policing practices."
That said, all the essays are worth reading if you're interested in the cultural/political complexes the early USSR was working in and trying to develop from, and if you want to consider how Tsarist Russia -> USSR -> Russia is a continuum of gestating notions.
I became interested in Stalinist Russian after listening to Rev Left Radio's episode on Stalin (https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn...). It helped set the framework for reading this book since it was such a heavily Marxist-Leninist perspective that I knew what unabashed respect for the early USSR looked like - and as an American, I'm more than aware of what an unabashed hatred for the early USSR looks like.
This collection is nestled firmly, and at times uncomfortably, in the middle of this spectrum. The best essays - Paul M Hagenloh's and James R Harris' - are especially reflecting as they bring what we normally consider as an abstract evil into a familiar light. The Terror, they essentially agree, was an unplanned and chaotic campaign that stemmed from a simultaneous lack of oversight and surplus of judiciary power. Stop me if you've heard this one before: it was, in Hagenloh's words, a "radicalization of policing practices."
That said, all the essays are worth reading if you're interested in the cultural/political complexes the early USSR was working in and trying to develop from, and if you want to consider how Tsarist Russia -> USSR -> Russia is a continuum of gestating notions.
June 24, 2021
A good introduction to some of the most influential 20th century scholarship on Stalinism, as a political system, a civilisation (although S. Kotkin did not contribute), terror machine, etc. A collection of papers, chapters (including from dissertations), with introductions and reading guides.
June 26, 2025
The compilation of essays in this book is wonderful and really gives a great introduction to revisionist/post-revisionist takes on Stalinism as well as the degree Stalinism affected everyday life in the Soviet Union. Super interesting!
March 1, 2017
This is an excellent introduction to the history of Stalinism for upper level undergraduate students and for graduate students just getting acquainted with the field. I am the latter. It is a collection of essays by (then) young cultural historians of the Stalinist period. Fitzpatrick's introduction is almost like a battle cry for her generation of Soviet historians influenced by Derrida, Foucault, Habermas, Weber, de Certeau, and Bourdieu, just to name a few. Regardless of your personal interests, there is bound to be at least a few essays in here that are of interest to you. I was struck by several in particular. The book is actually kind of dated at this point, but it doesn't really feel like it. Many of these authors went on to write some good monographs, as well, but this is a good starting point.
July 15, 2009
A great collection of essays, but for some reason, I had a harer time with this text. I generally enjoy reading and learning more about soviet history, but this was a difficult read. Unfortunately, it has been 8 or 9 years and I don't remember why...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews