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Shortest History
Kısa SSCB Tarihi
Rus devriminin üzerinden yüz yıldan uzun süre geçmesine rağmen Sovyetler Birliği’nin çalkantılı tarihi bizi büyülemeye ve küresel siyaseti etkilemeye devam ediyor.
1917 devrimine kadar Rus hükümetindeki radikal değişimi teşvik eden toplumsal gerilimleri ve siyasi tutarsızlıkları açıklayarak başlayan bu kısa tarih 1920’lerde yeni ekonomik politikalar ve Stalinist düzende kaydedilen ilerlemeyi kapsamlı şekilde aktarıyor. Stalin sonrası liderlerin Stalin’in yöntemlerini kullanmadan ancak geçmişi de açıkça reddetmeden Batı ile barış içinde yaşamak için nasıl mücadele ettiklerini gösteren bölümlerin ardından, rejimin beklenmedik çöküşüne ve Sovyet sisteminin bir ürünü olan Vladimir Putin’in yükselişine ışık tutuluyor.
“Eğer Stalinist olsaydım, bu kitabı okumayanları Gulag’a göndermeli demezdim ama bir iki yıl iyice yeniden-eğitmeli derdim.”
— Slavoj Žižek
1917 devrimine kadar Rus hükümetindeki radikal değişimi teşvik eden toplumsal gerilimleri ve siyasi tutarsızlıkları açıklayarak başlayan bu kısa tarih 1920’lerde yeni ekonomik politikalar ve Stalinist düzende kaydedilen ilerlemeyi kapsamlı şekilde aktarıyor. Stalin sonrası liderlerin Stalin’in yöntemlerini kullanmadan ancak geçmişi de açıkça reddetmeden Batı ile barış içinde yaşamak için nasıl mücadele ettiklerini gösteren bölümlerin ardından, rejimin beklenmedik çöküşüne ve Sovyet sisteminin bir ürünü olan Vladimir Putin’in yükselişine ışık tutuluyor.
“Eğer Stalinist olsaydım, bu kitabı okumayanları Gulag’a göndermeli demezdim ama bir iki yıl iyice yeniden-eğitmeli derdim.”
— Slavoj Žižek
248 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2022
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About the author
Sheila Fitzpatrick
46 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 - 30 of 188 reviews
May 8, 2025
3.75 stars
The title hits the mark. Sheila Fitzpatrick, an acknowledged Sovietologist, sets herself the challenging task of composing a concise history that covers the entire period of the Soviet Union's existence. The book is rather dry and at times reads like a textbook. The reader will find here the major milestones, names, achievements, crimes, and the briefly outlined fates of various figures.
For a reader who has chosen The Shortest History of the Soviet Union as a first cursory acquaintance, the narrative might seem a bit meandering and not very amenable. I am not sure if a reader with very little knowledge about Soviet history finds it easy to pinpoint the main points that should help better understand how the Bolsheviks were able to seize and secure power, and why all attempts to reform the Soviet state failed. It was not always easy for me to make sense of what was going on and connect the dots. Fitzpatrick believes that much depended on a particular set of circumstances and that nothing in Soviet history was predetermined.
Was the Bolshevik project doomed from the start? Or did the future of the country and its millions of people depend on the political will and decisions made at the top? Could this or that general secretary change the future of the Soviet Union? According to historian Kotkin, except for Brezhnev, every Soviet general secretary acted unpredictably and made history with his decisions.
Was the Soviet Union a colossus with feet of clay? Or a mighty power undermined from within by treachery at the top?
One of the advantages of the Bolsheviks was that they grasped the importance of the national question. Their strategy contrasted with the "Russia, one and indivisible" thesis of their opponents. Collectivization and famine claimed many lives. After Stalin's death, agrarian reforms were launched “to raise the woefully low standard of living in the countryside.” Competitive slogans in the spirit of "catching up" and "surpassing" the West were part of the public atmosphere. Significant improvements in access to education took place during the Soviet era. The adult literacy rate approached one hundred percent during the Khrushchev era. Urbanization processes were underway. Thus, by 1962, almost half of the population of the Soviet Union lived in cities. The coexistence of the traditions of having a vozhd (a leader in Russian) and what can be called collective leadership ("meaning a small group of party leaders whose members had curatorial responsibility for various sectors such as defence, trade and heavy industry, met frequently as a collective with the vozhd’ in the chair and did a lot of the heavy lifting of government").
The author discusses demographic issues and the attempts to create a unified Soviet identity, which ultimately failed. A growing importance of local ethnic identity can be observed. In the Soviet republics, local rulers sought more power, desiring greater freedom of action.
Also important are what might be called observations of everyday life. The gradually growing desire of people to have access to a wider range and higher quality of consumer goods led to the need to satisfy the growing demand. This seems to have created problems for the Soviet economy. The historian also notes that many Soviet women were tired of combining emancipation, which implied full-time work, with housework and childcare, still considered women's duties.
Nadezhda Krupskaya (Lenin's wife), "a teacher and educational theorist by vocation," evokes certain sympathy. She was concerned with the problems of public education, paying attention to schools, literacy classes, and libraries.
Dark sides are mentioned, such as mass repression and the Gulag, ethnic deportations, suppression of freedoms, and the difficulty of any attempt to reform the over-centralized state and transform it into a workable federation of republics.
Given the relatively slim size of the book, many important events are not discussed or are mentioned only en passant, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In conclusion, Fitzpatrick's account can help to update general knowledge on the history of the USSR, but perhaps one should not expect more from it.
The title hits the mark. Sheila Fitzpatrick, an acknowledged Sovietologist, sets herself the challenging task of composing a concise history that covers the entire period of the Soviet Union's existence. The book is rather dry and at times reads like a textbook. The reader will find here the major milestones, names, achievements, crimes, and the briefly outlined fates of various figures.
For a reader who has chosen The Shortest History of the Soviet Union as a first cursory acquaintance, the narrative might seem a bit meandering and not very amenable. I am not sure if a reader with very little knowledge about Soviet history finds it easy to pinpoint the main points that should help better understand how the Bolsheviks were able to seize and secure power, and why all attempts to reform the Soviet state failed. It was not always easy for me to make sense of what was going on and connect the dots. Fitzpatrick believes that much depended on a particular set of circumstances and that nothing in Soviet history was predetermined.
Was the Bolshevik project doomed from the start? Or did the future of the country and its millions of people depend on the political will and decisions made at the top? Could this or that general secretary change the future of the Soviet Union? According to historian Kotkin, except for Brezhnev, every Soviet general secretary acted unpredictably and made history with his decisions.
Was the Soviet Union a colossus with feet of clay? Or a mighty power undermined from within by treachery at the top?
One of the advantages of the Bolsheviks was that they grasped the importance of the national question. Their strategy contrasted with the "Russia, one and indivisible" thesis of their opponents. Collectivization and famine claimed many lives. After Stalin's death, agrarian reforms were launched “to raise the woefully low standard of living in the countryside.” Competitive slogans in the spirit of "catching up" and "surpassing" the West were part of the public atmosphere. Significant improvements in access to education took place during the Soviet era. The adult literacy rate approached one hundred percent during the Khrushchev era. Urbanization processes were underway. Thus, by 1962, almost half of the population of the Soviet Union lived in cities. The coexistence of the traditions of having a vozhd (a leader in Russian) and what can be called collective leadership ("meaning a small group of party leaders whose members had curatorial responsibility for various sectors such as defence, trade and heavy industry, met frequently as a collective with the vozhd’ in the chair and did a lot of the heavy lifting of government").
The author discusses demographic issues and the attempts to create a unified Soviet identity, which ultimately failed. A growing importance of local ethnic identity can be observed. In the Soviet republics, local rulers sought more power, desiring greater freedom of action.
Also important are what might be called observations of everyday life. The gradually growing desire of people to have access to a wider range and higher quality of consumer goods led to the need to satisfy the growing demand. This seems to have created problems for the Soviet economy. The historian also notes that many Soviet women were tired of combining emancipation, which implied full-time work, with housework and childcare, still considered women's duties.
Nadezhda Krupskaya (Lenin's wife), "a teacher and educational theorist by vocation," evokes certain sympathy. She was concerned with the problems of public education, paying attention to schools, literacy classes, and libraries.
Dark sides are mentioned, such as mass repression and the Gulag, ethnic deportations, suppression of freedoms, and the difficulty of any attempt to reform the over-centralized state and transform it into a workable federation of republics.
Given the relatively slim size of the book, many important events are not discussed or are mentioned only en passant, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In conclusion, Fitzpatrick's account can help to update general knowledge on the history of the USSR, but perhaps one should not expect more from it.
July 28, 2022
Written in the usual tongue in cheek style typical for the pro-US historians with every positive fact about the Union is quickly undermined with a "but" or a witty anecdote designed to shepherd the potential sympathisers away from socialism. "Open-minded and energetic, a good politician and consensus-builder, and an effective administrator" is her depiction of the man who managed to destroy the USSR and threw its remains to capitalist wolves in just 6 years.
This is, however, quite normal. Since the end of the Cold War the US foundations, Western universities spent millions on the researchers who dove into the Soviet archives and found evidence after evidence of the virtues of capitalism. An intellectual Cold War on the Soviet history is waged after 1991 and the balance of forces favours heavily the imperialist camp this time.
So, if you are not careful enough, Fitzpatricks will have you hating the Soviets who contributed to the global decolonization, women's emancipation, contemporary social, economic and educational rights we hold, and loving the imperialists that exploit, neocolonize, underdevelop and oppress the rest of the world.
This is, however, quite normal. Since the end of the Cold War the US foundations, Western universities spent millions on the researchers who dove into the Soviet archives and found evidence after evidence of the virtues of capitalism. An intellectual Cold War on the Soviet history is waged after 1991 and the balance of forces favours heavily the imperialist camp this time.
So, if you are not careful enough, Fitzpatricks will have you hating the Soviets who contributed to the global decolonization, women's emancipation, contemporary social, economic and educational rights we hold, and loving the imperialists that exploit, neocolonize, underdevelop and oppress the rest of the world.
May 22, 2024
تاریخ فشرده اتحاد شوروی ، کتابی ایست از شیلا فیتز پاتریک ، نویسنده و مورخ استرالیایی که به خاطر مطالعاتش در زمینه تاریخ اتحاد جماهیر شوروی و تاریخ روسیه مدرن، به ویژه دوره استالین و پاکسازی بزرگ، شناخته شده است . کتاب او که به تازگی منتشر شده گرچه تاریخ فشرده اتحاد شوروی نام گذاری شده اما او به سالهای پس از فروپاشی شوروی و تشکیل روسیه ، روی کار آمدن پوتین و حتی تسخیر کریمه هم پرداخته .
کتاب خانم پاتریک را می توان مقدمه ای سخت مختصر برای تاریخ پیچیده اتحاد جماهیر شوروی و سپس جمهوری روسیه دانست . کتاب او به سبب سادگی و دیدگاه متعادل و بی طرف برای افرادی ایست که می خواهند در مورد اتحاد جماهیر شوروی بیشتر بدانند.
تاریخ فشرده از دیدگاه خانم پاتریک نوعی از نگارش تاریخ است که محقق در آن به دنبال ارائه خلاصهای جامع و قابل فهم از یک دوره تاریخی طولانی، اغلب با تمرکز بر رویدادها، شخصیتها و روندهای کلیدی باشد. این نوع تاریخنگاری معمولاً از جزئیات غیرضروری صرف نظر میکند و به جای آن بر ارائه تصویری کلی از گذشته تمرکز میکند ، یعنی هدف از تاریخ فشرده، ارائه درکی اساسی از یک دوره تاریخی به خواننده، بدون غرق شدن در جزئیات پیچیده است .
با توجه به مفهوم فوق ، کتاب او را می توان به چهار بخش ، تاسیس ، تثبیت ، فروپاشی و ایجاد روسیه جدید تقسیم کرد .
این گونه او هم حوادث پرشمار و هم اقتصاد و سیاست شوروی و روسیه را از لنین تا پوتین با آمار و ارقام بررسی کرده .
او تلاش کرده تا نگاهی بی طرف به دست آوردهای رژیم کمونیستی داشته باشد ، کتاب او به خواننده یاد آوری می کند که روسیه قرن بیستم را در حالی شروع کرد که جامعه ای فقیر ، عقب مانده ، بی سواد و روستایی بود . اما پس از هفتاد سال حکومت کمونیست ها ، روسیه شوروی به یکی از دوابرقدرت جهان ، کشور صنعتی و باسواد و جامعه شهرنشین با طول عمری نزدیک به کشورهای پیشرفته غرب شده بود . گرچه که این پیشرفت به بهای جان ملیونها انسان و نابود کردن زندگی و آرزوهای میلونها نفر دیگر حاصل شد .
نویسنده معماران این رشد اقتصادی بالا را استالین ، خروشچف و برژنف می داند . به خصوص در دوران خروشچف و برژنف ، عملا دولت رفاه هم تشکیل شده بود و خدمات قابل توجه ای به سبک دولت های غربی به مردم ، به ویژه به بازنسشتگان و افراد بیمار می داد . اما بر خلاف غرب ، منبع مالی خدمات دولت به ویژه در زمان برژنف ، نه مالیات بلکه قیمت بالای نفت در دهه 70 بوده .
کتاب خانم پاتریک تا اندازه ای کوتاه و فشرده است که تنها اشاره ای مختصر به دبیران حزب کمونیست پس از برژنف ، یعنی یوری آندره پوف و کنستانتین چرنینکو شده . دورانی بسیار مهم که به قدرت گرفتن گورباچف و اصلاحات ناکام او و سپس زوال و فروپاشی شوروی انجامیده . نویسنده با پرداختن به دوران گورباچف و روند نسبتا طولانی جان دادن شوروی و تشکیل کشور روسیه و قدرت گرفتن پوتین و اختلاف عمیق روسیه با غرب ، کتاب خود را به پایان رسانده .
تاریخ فشرده اتحاد شوروی، علیرغم حجم اندک، اثری ارزشمند است که به ارائه تصویری متعادل از ابرقدرت سابق میپردازد. این کتاب ضمن برجسته کردن دستاوردهای قابل توجه شوروی، از جمله پیشرفتهای علمی و صنعتی چشمگیر، به چالشهای اساسی و تاریکیهای این رژیم نیز میپردازد. روایت فشرده و صریح نویسنده، خواننده را به کاوش عمیقتر در تاریخ پیچیده و پرفراز و نشیب اتحاد شوروی ترغیب میکند.
کتاب خانم پاتریک را می توان مقدمه ای سخت مختصر برای تاریخ پیچیده اتحاد جماهیر شوروی و سپس جمهوری روسیه دانست . کتاب او به سبب سادگی و دیدگاه متعادل و بی طرف برای افرادی ایست که می خواهند در مورد اتحاد جماهیر شوروی بیشتر بدانند.
تاریخ فشرده از دیدگاه خانم پاتریک نوعی از نگارش تاریخ است که محقق در آن به دنبال ارائه خلاصهای جامع و قابل فهم از یک دوره تاریخی طولانی، اغلب با تمرکز بر رویدادها، شخصیتها و روندهای کلیدی باشد. این نوع تاریخنگاری معمولاً از جزئیات غیرضروری صرف نظر میکند و به جای آن بر ارائه تصویری کلی از گذشته تمرکز میکند ، یعنی هدف از تاریخ فشرده، ارائه درکی اساسی از یک دوره تاریخی به خواننده، بدون غرق شدن در جزئیات پیچیده است .
با توجه به مفهوم فوق ، کتاب او را می توان به چهار بخش ، تاسیس ، تثبیت ، فروپاشی و ایجاد روسیه جدید تقسیم کرد .
این گونه او هم حوادث پرشمار و هم اقتصاد و سیاست شوروی و روسیه را از لنین تا پوتین با آمار و ارقام بررسی کرده .
او تلاش کرده تا نگاهی بی طرف به دست آوردهای رژیم کمونیستی داشته باشد ، کتاب او به خواننده یاد آوری می کند که روسیه قرن بیستم را در حالی شروع کرد که جامعه ای فقیر ، عقب مانده ، بی سواد و روستایی بود . اما پس از هفتاد سال حکومت کمونیست ها ، روسیه شوروی به یکی از دوابرقدرت جهان ، کشور صنعتی و باسواد و جامعه شهرنشین با طول عمری نزدیک به کشورهای پیشرفته غرب شده بود . گرچه که این پیشرفت به بهای جان ملیونها انسان و نابود کردن زندگی و آرزوهای میلونها نفر دیگر حاصل شد .
نویسنده معماران این رشد اقتصادی بالا را استالین ، خروشچف و برژنف می داند . به خصوص در دوران خروشچف و برژنف ، عملا دولت رفاه هم تشکیل شده بود و خدمات قابل توجه ای به سبک دولت های غربی به مردم ، به ویژه به بازنسشتگان و افراد بیمار می داد . اما بر خلاف غرب ، منبع مالی خدمات دولت به ویژه در زمان برژنف ، نه مالیات بلکه قیمت بالای نفت در دهه 70 بوده .
کتاب خانم پاتریک تا اندازه ای کوتاه و فشرده است که تنها اشاره ای مختصر به دبیران حزب کمونیست پس از برژنف ، یعنی یوری آندره پوف و کنستانتین چرنینکو شده . دورانی بسیار مهم که به قدرت گرفتن گورباچف و اصلاحات ناکام او و سپس زوال و فروپاشی شوروی انجامیده . نویسنده با پرداختن به دوران گورباچف و روند نسبتا طولانی جان دادن شوروی و تشکیل کشور روسیه و قدرت گرفتن پوتین و اختلاف عمیق روسیه با غرب ، کتاب خود را به پایان رسانده .
تاریخ فشرده اتحاد شوروی، علیرغم حجم اندک، اثری ارزشمند است که به ارائه تصویری متعادل از ابرقدرت سابق میپردازد. این کتاب ضمن برجسته کردن دستاوردهای قابل توجه شوروی، از جمله پیشرفتهای علمی و صنعتی چشمگیر، به چالشهای اساسی و تاریکیهای این رژیم نیز میپردازد. روایت فشرده و صریح نویسنده، خواننده را به کاوش عمیقتر در تاریخ پیچیده و پرفراز و نشیب اتحاد شوروی ترغیب میکند.
July 12, 2022
Rounded up from 3.5 stars.
I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to. Although her starting point is broadly anti-Soviet, Fitzpatrick is a serious historian, not simply a purveyor of nutty Cold War-era slander, and her analysis is at times surprisingly insightful. Needless to say I think she's wrong about many of her assertions, but she's done the research, listened to a variety of opinions, and put together a fairly cohesive and interesting narrative.
Whizzed through it while down with Covid. Pretty easy reading.
I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to. Although her starting point is broadly anti-Soviet, Fitzpatrick is a serious historian, not simply a purveyor of nutty Cold War-era slander, and her analysis is at times surprisingly insightful. Needless to say I think she's wrong about many of her assertions, but she's done the research, listened to a variety of opinions, and put together a fairly cohesive and interesting narrative.
Whizzed through it while down with Covid. Pretty easy reading.
April 10, 2023
Шейла Фицпатрик написала крошечную книжку с намеком на невозможный конечно всеохват
автор - историк и может себе позволить оставаться бесстрастной, рассказывать историю, не скатываясь в истерики, обиды, праведный гнев. частично похоже на взгляд из далекого будущего, когда по большому счету уже все равно. вдруг такое будущее и правда наступит
некоторые нюансы - пронзительные. о некоторых важных вещах упоминается совсем вскользь. несмотря на опыт работы с историей повседневности, здесь вместо неё зачастую выступает статистика о количестве телевизоров на душу населения. есть и анекдоты, и географические карты
совершенно не учебник истории, но позволяет посмотреть на ХХ век одной шестой суши отстранённым взглядом. интересный опыт
автор - историк и может себе позволить оставаться бесстрастной, рассказывать историю, не скатываясь в истерики, обиды, праведный гнев. частично похоже на взгляд из далекого будущего, когда по большому счету уже все равно. вдруг такое будущее и правда наступит
некоторые нюансы - пронзительные. о некоторых важных вещах упоминается совсем вскользь. несмотря на опыт работы с историей повседневности, здесь вместо неё зачастую выступает статистика о количестве телевизоров на душу населения. есть и анекдоты, и географические карты
совершенно не учебник истории, но позволяет посмотреть на ХХ век одной шестой суши отстранённым взглядом. интересный опыт
April 4, 2022
Fitzpatrick is considered to be a social historian, writing revisionist ‘history from below’. In other words, she focused on the historical narrative as viewed by ordinary people, the marginalised, oppressed, poor, or disenfranchised, as opposed to the leaders. Soviet history and social identity under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin has been her field of expertise.
She has had an impressive career. Born in Melbourne in 1941, she completed a BA in Soviet music (she played violin for the Australian Youth Orchestra, 1957-59) and history from the University of Melbourne in 1961 followed by a PhD from Oxford in 1969 on Soviet education. From 1969 -1972 Fitzgerald was a Research Fellow at the London School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
Over the next 40 years, she lived, taught, lectured and carried out research in universities in Birmingham, New York, Chicago and Texas as well as spending some time in Moscow. She moved back to Australia in 2012 where her research has focused on displaced persons after WWII.
In light of current events in the Ukraine, the arrival of this ARC at work a couple of weeks ago, was very timely. Trying to untangle the various states within Tsarist Russia and then again during the time of the revolution and into the creation of the USSR is not easy. Loyalties were divided, not necessarily along racial or ethnic grounds either. Rural peasants did not feel that the Bolsheviks understood them or their needs and during the Civil War, the Ukrainian peasant army led by Nestor Makhno, was one such group, where they fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites.
Full response here - https://bronasbooks.com/2022/03/06/th...
She has had an impressive career. Born in Melbourne in 1941, she completed a BA in Soviet music (she played violin for the Australian Youth Orchestra, 1957-59) and history from the University of Melbourne in 1961 followed by a PhD from Oxford in 1969 on Soviet education. From 1969 -1972 Fitzgerald was a Research Fellow at the London School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
Over the next 40 years, she lived, taught, lectured and carried out research in universities in Birmingham, New York, Chicago and Texas as well as spending some time in Moscow. She moved back to Australia in 2012 where her research has focused on displaced persons after WWII.
In light of current events in the Ukraine, the arrival of this ARC at work a couple of weeks ago, was very timely. Trying to untangle the various states within Tsarist Russia and then again during the time of the revolution and into the creation of the USSR is not easy. Loyalties were divided, not necessarily along racial or ethnic grounds either. Rural peasants did not feel that the Bolsheviks understood them or their needs and during the Civil War, the Ukrainian peasant army led by Nestor Makhno, was one such group, where they fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites.
Full response here - https://bronasbooks.com/2022/03/06/th...
March 18, 2022
Meh. Sheila Fitzpatrick is a great author and I enjoy her books immensely but even she with her expertise couldn’t really accomplish this project to 5 star standard. It’s impossible really to write an 80 yr history of a 140 million country in 200 pages. Must say it’s a good attempt but if you really want a history of the Soviet Union in one book go to Volkogonov or Lewin. It’ll be slightly more involved but just higher in quality. From Sheila Fitzpatrick’s books I’d recommend ‘A spy in the archives’ and ‘Everyday stalinism’ which are both brilliant.
Fun starter for those entirely new to this though, the ‘Shortest History’ are a great series, well done to Old St Publishing.
Fun starter for those entirely new to this though, the ‘Shortest History’ are a great series, well done to Old St Publishing.
June 30, 2023
I’ve always wanted to know more about Russian history and when I saw this as part of the buy one get one half price at the airport I said let’s gooooo.
Admittedly my knowledge of history is practically nil so it did take me a while to get into the book as there was a decent amount of assumed prior knowledge (I had to keep googling things and rereading passages and flipping back to earlier parts of the book). It was, as promised, a shortened history, and I feel I’ve come away with a good summary of the main events and figures from this period, which is what l was hoping to achieve. I’d need to reread it a second time to actually remember the details but this will do for now. Will be checking out the other books in this series (China is next!!!)
Admittedly my knowledge of history is practically nil so it did take me a while to get into the book as there was a decent amount of assumed prior knowledge (I had to keep googling things and rereading passages and flipping back to earlier parts of the book). It was, as promised, a shortened history, and I feel I’ve come away with a good summary of the main events and figures from this period, which is what l was hoping to achieve. I’d need to reread it a second time to actually remember the details but this will do for now. Will be checking out the other books in this series (China is next!!!)
May 8, 2023
A good, succinct overview of the complex history of the Soviet Union. I wish there more explanations of some of the technical language as it pertains to USSR history and less of an assumption that the reader had preexisting knowledge.
April 3, 2023
i loved carrying this around in public ! (this is sarcasm)
September 12, 2025
I have always wanted, but dreaded, to learn 1900 history. I may not have taken much in, with key politicians amongst ideological life. I will continue to read about Russia.
February 5, 2025
A delightful, brisk overview— O curiosity, you Soviet era.
February 6, 2023
Mercifully free of both military details and cliches about totalitarianism.
December 23, 2022
First encountered Fitzpatrick in the endnotes of Hobsbawm. If I remember correctly she was one of the most cited scholars when Hobsbawm was discussing the Soviet Union in Age of Extremes. I bookmarked Everyday Stalinism to read but have not yet gotten around to it.
I think I’ve encountered most of this stuff in this book before, but it’s nice to work through a lot of it in this concisely formatted way. It’s basically pre-revolutionary context, revolution, Lenin, Stalin, WW2, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and collapse. I still struggle to organize this history in my head well in a way that I could hold a substantive conversation on it. But I find this history very interesting. Most of my remarks from here on will move unsystematically through the book, largely by way of excerpts.
Fitzpatrick does unequivocally state she sees the famine in Ukraine known as ‘Holodomor’ (reinterpreted as genocide by Ukrainians according to Fitzpatrick) not as a deliberate plan by Stalin to starve Ukrainians but a failure of the way collectivisation was executed. She mainly thinks so because there were famines of equal order during this time in other parts of the Soviet Union like southern Russia and Kazakhstan. The issue for Fitzpatrick was that the state was trying to maximize grain exports from peasant producers but there was very poor quality information and local officials never trusted quantities reported by peasants. They were perpetually suspicious that peasants were hiding grain in secret reserves. Stalin eventually did come to generally believe peasant-reported numbers but by then it was too late, and many people had already died.
Fitzpatrick also elaborates on the really horrible conditions that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, noting that: “Margaret Thatcher, scarcely a friend of socialists, declared that she liked Gorbachev and they could do business together.”
Another illuminating comment by Fitzpatrick on this period of collapse:
“Gorbachev thought that he had secured verbal assurances from German foreign minister Kohl and US secretary of state James Baker that US-led NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe in the wake of the unravelling of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, not even into a newly unified Germany. Perhaps he had, but Gorbachev should have remembered never to trust the capitalists – and, as a lawyer, he should have known that you get your assurances in writing. By October 1990, the former German Democratic Republic was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany and became, ipso facto, a part of NATO.”
This is also an interesting overview of public perception of ‘western democracy’ in Russia in the 90s:
“No more than a fifth of respondents to opinion polls in the 1990s thought that Russia would benefit from ‘democracy’ in its Western forms, and observation of post-Soviet political practice generated widespread negative reactions to the word itself, along with ‘freedom’ and ‘elections’. In response to a 1999 poll asking Russians which of thirteen variables were most important to them, ‘democracy’ came in second last, less popular than any of the options except ‘freedom of entrepreneurship’. Top choices were ‘stability’ and ‘social welfare’.”
Finally I just wanted to leave this interesting comment on an interesting shift in Western academic scholarship on the Soviet Union that Fitzpatrick makes much earlier on in the book, which I think outlived the Soviet Union’s collapse in some ways:
“The West had made a totalitarian bogeyman out of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, equating Communism with Nazism as the antithesis of Western democracy, and one of the tenets of this theory was that a totalitarian regime, once in place, was immutable and could be overthrown only by external force. But that idea seemed less plausible when, after Stalin’s death, the regime not only failed to collapse but also showed itself capable of radical change. By 1980, ‘totalitarianism’, although remaining a powerful and emotive image for the Western public, had lost its appeal for scholars, American political scientists Stephen F. Cohen and Jerry Hough being among its challengers. Even in conservative quarters, hopes that had been cherished for more than sixty years about the imminent collapse of the Soviet regime were being quietly abandoned.”
I think I’ve encountered most of this stuff in this book before, but it’s nice to work through a lot of it in this concisely formatted way. It’s basically pre-revolutionary context, revolution, Lenin, Stalin, WW2, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and collapse. I still struggle to organize this history in my head well in a way that I could hold a substantive conversation on it. But I find this history very interesting. Most of my remarks from here on will move unsystematically through the book, largely by way of excerpts.
Fitzpatrick does unequivocally state she sees the famine in Ukraine known as ‘Holodomor’ (reinterpreted as genocide by Ukrainians according to Fitzpatrick) not as a deliberate plan by Stalin to starve Ukrainians but a failure of the way collectivisation was executed. She mainly thinks so because there were famines of equal order during this time in other parts of the Soviet Union like southern Russia and Kazakhstan. The issue for Fitzpatrick was that the state was trying to maximize grain exports from peasant producers but there was very poor quality information and local officials never trusted quantities reported by peasants. They were perpetually suspicious that peasants were hiding grain in secret reserves. Stalin eventually did come to generally believe peasant-reported numbers but by then it was too late, and many people had already died.
Fitzpatrick also elaborates on the really horrible conditions that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, noting that: “Margaret Thatcher, scarcely a friend of socialists, declared that she liked Gorbachev and they could do business together.”
Another illuminating comment by Fitzpatrick on this period of collapse:
“Gorbachev thought that he had secured verbal assurances from German foreign minister Kohl and US secretary of state James Baker that US-led NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe in the wake of the unravelling of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, not even into a newly unified Germany. Perhaps he had, but Gorbachev should have remembered never to trust the capitalists – and, as a lawyer, he should have known that you get your assurances in writing. By October 1990, the former German Democratic Republic was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany and became, ipso facto, a part of NATO.”
This is also an interesting overview of public perception of ‘western democracy’ in Russia in the 90s:
“No more than a fifth of respondents to opinion polls in the 1990s thought that Russia would benefit from ‘democracy’ in its Western forms, and observation of post-Soviet political practice generated widespread negative reactions to the word itself, along with ‘freedom’ and ‘elections’. In response to a 1999 poll asking Russians which of thirteen variables were most important to them, ‘democracy’ came in second last, less popular than any of the options except ‘freedom of entrepreneurship’. Top choices were ‘stability’ and ‘social welfare’.”
Finally I just wanted to leave this interesting comment on an interesting shift in Western academic scholarship on the Soviet Union that Fitzpatrick makes much earlier on in the book, which I think outlived the Soviet Union’s collapse in some ways:
“The West had made a totalitarian bogeyman out of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, equating Communism with Nazism as the antithesis of Western democracy, and one of the tenets of this theory was that a totalitarian regime, once in place, was immutable and could be overthrown only by external force. But that idea seemed less plausible when, after Stalin’s death, the regime not only failed to collapse but also showed itself capable of radical change. By 1980, ‘totalitarianism’, although remaining a powerful and emotive image for the Western public, had lost its appeal for scholars, American political scientists Stephen F. Cohen and Jerry Hough being among its challengers. Even in conservative quarters, hopes that had been cherished for more than sixty years about the imminent collapse of the Soviet regime were being quietly abandoned.”
September 27, 2025
Helpful for being what it claims- brief and stuff. I didn’t like the frequent references to random bits of USSR history as if the reader of such a beginner book (me) would know what she’s talking about
November 24, 2024
Speedy, zippy, succinct. Focused a lot on the leaders rather than from below life in the Union. I'd have preferred a bit more of that but this book had a job to do and it did it.
April 22, 2024
"I'd rather have 100 friends than 100 roubles"
March 19, 2022
Fitzpatrick does a nice job giving a succinct historical narrative of the Soviet Union's history, from the Russian Revolution through its fall. I was a little ambivalent that such a detailed and complex history could be told in less than 200 pages, but she is able to pull it off well. The biggest strength of the book is Fitzpatrick's ability to deftly explain the Russian Revolution and the rise of socialism in Russia, both on the theoretical and political organizing side. It's a great place to start learning this history, and I would recommend to several students who want to learn more about it but don't want to be overwhelmed by academic scholarship.
December 15, 2023
Short and concise. However was more focused on its leaders than the nation and its people
Was a bit dry, like a typical Russian.
Was a bit dry, like a typical Russian.
August 19, 2022
What it says on the label. Love these shortest histories from Black Inc. They provide quick, digestible context for a lot of the current conflict that is happening in the world. And some of us had half arsed educations, especially in history, that leaves us short on completely understanding the world we occupy.
Also, I mentioned this in my reading update, but even though I watched the Death of Stalin, I was for some completely unreasonable reason, under the impression that Stalin lived and ruled for far longer than he did? Funny how our brain just makes up things.
Informative.
Also, I mentioned this in my reading update, but even though I watched the Death of Stalin, I was for some completely unreasonable reason, under the impression that Stalin lived and ruled for far longer than he did? Funny how our brain just makes up things.
Informative.
June 2, 2023
I wanted a brief overview, but then I got frustrated by important events that were overlooked. You cant have it both ways, I suppose! This wasn’t particularly dry, but for a book that sells itself as being “read in a day”, it was surprisingly hard going.
This book was rather more balanced and even-handed than many of the others that I’ve read.
This book was rather more balanced and even-handed than many of the others that I’ve read.
May 29, 2023
I am probably not the right audience for this I don’t know why I bought a beginners book on this topic I am not a beginner. Did relearn some things I’d forgotten though
June 23, 2022
On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine. Two days before, Vladimir Putin gave his version of history during a speech in which he declared Ukraine "an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space." He blamed Lenin for the establishment of modern Ukraine, with further gifts of land by Stalin and Khrushchev. But rather than believe an unhinged thug, why not read an account of history not fabricated by someone trying to justify a disgusting and doomed war?
The book spans the years 1922 to 1991, but Fitzpatrick begins in 1980 in Brezhnev's USSR, when a conference of American Sovietologists confidently declared that the Soviet Union would not become a political democracy, nor would it collapse in the foreseeable future. They were wrong. Within ten years it was gone. The abruptness of this development reflects Fitzpatrick's view that there are few certainties throughout history (certainly in the Soviet Union, and perhaps in general):
"Historians’ narratives tend, by their nature, to make events seem inevitable…. But this is not my intention with this Shortest History. My view is that there are as few inevitabilities in human history as there are in the individual lives that compose it. Things could always have turned out differently but for accidental encounters and global cataclysms, deaths, divorces and pandemics...."
"The many ‘accidental’ changes of course and ‘spontaneous’ diversions along the way were simply irrelevant to this grand scheme, although they will play a large part in my Shortest History. They were not irrelevant to the life of people living in the Soviet Union, of course, and the gap between official rhetoric and lived experience was the stuff of the distinctively Soviet genre of political jokes (anekdoty) that bubbled under the surface as a constant, irreverent commentary. The contrast between ‘in principle’ (a stock Soviet phrase provoking immediate distrust, like ‘frankly’ in the West) and ‘in practice’ was one of the staples of the Soviet anekdot." (pp. 11, 13)
There are seven chapters in the book, and then a conclusion. As the title indicates, the book is about the Soviet Union, not the Tsarist Russia that preceded it, and it goes up to the fall of the Soviet Union. The conclusion is about post-USSR events. Fitzpatrick has an eye for detail and a wry sense of humor that shines through even in politics-heavy discussions, and it makes for an enjoyable read even for those who are not Russia-specialists. Definitely worth adding to the TBR.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
The book spans the years 1922 to 1991, but Fitzpatrick begins in 1980 in Brezhnev's USSR, when a conference of American Sovietologists confidently declared that the Soviet Union would not become a political democracy, nor would it collapse in the foreseeable future. They were wrong. Within ten years it was gone. The abruptness of this development reflects Fitzpatrick's view that there are few certainties throughout history (certainly in the Soviet Union, and perhaps in general):
"Historians’ narratives tend, by their nature, to make events seem inevitable…. But this is not my intention with this Shortest History. My view is that there are as few inevitabilities in human history as there are in the individual lives that compose it. Things could always have turned out differently but for accidental encounters and global cataclysms, deaths, divorces and pandemics...."
"The many ‘accidental’ changes of course and ‘spontaneous’ diversions along the way were simply irrelevant to this grand scheme, although they will play a large part in my Shortest History. They were not irrelevant to the life of people living in the Soviet Union, of course, and the gap between official rhetoric and lived experience was the stuff of the distinctively Soviet genre of political jokes (anekdoty) that bubbled under the surface as a constant, irreverent commentary. The contrast between ‘in principle’ (a stock Soviet phrase provoking immediate distrust, like ‘frankly’ in the West) and ‘in practice’ was one of the staples of the Soviet anekdot." (pp. 11, 13)
There are seven chapters in the book, and then a conclusion. As the title indicates, the book is about the Soviet Union, not the Tsarist Russia that preceded it, and it goes up to the fall of the Soviet Union. The conclusion is about post-USSR events. Fitzpatrick has an eye for detail and a wry sense of humor that shines through even in politics-heavy discussions, and it makes for an enjoyable read even for those who are not Russia-specialists. Definitely worth adding to the TBR.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
June 5, 2025
Just finished The Shortest History of the Soviet Union by Sheila Fitzpatrick and found it a quick yet fascinating read.
My intention was to gain a broad overview of the USSR, and I felt this book delivered well on that. In fact, it somewhat changed my perception of the USSR from a simple totalitarian regime to something more nuanced. Fitzpatrick outlines how every period of the regime is different from the one before, from the chaotic pre-WW2 phase to the heavy Stalinist years, to the relaxing reforms of the post-Stalinist era.
Some unexpected things:
- While quality of life wasn't up to Western standards of the time, it eventually became decent enough considering how late the USSR industrialised and the availability of state services.
- Contrary to belief, the USSR actually economically subsidised its Central Asian states and encouraged their indigenous heritage and culture. It could be the case that modern Central Asian nationalities wouldn't exist if not for the USSR. However, there were periods where religion was definitely clamped down on. As a Muslim, I need to research this further.
- Birthrates were also rapidly declining in the USSR as women struggled to work outside the home and be homemakers at the same time, a global phenomenon now.
I'm sure she has her biases but as a newfound onlooker, it did feel like she gave a balanced overview.
My intention was to gain a broad overview of the USSR, and I felt this book delivered well on that. In fact, it somewhat changed my perception of the USSR from a simple totalitarian regime to something more nuanced. Fitzpatrick outlines how every period of the regime is different from the one before, from the chaotic pre-WW2 phase to the heavy Stalinist years, to the relaxing reforms of the post-Stalinist era.
Some unexpected things:
- While quality of life wasn't up to Western standards of the time, it eventually became decent enough considering how late the USSR industrialised and the availability of state services.
- Contrary to belief, the USSR actually economically subsidised its Central Asian states and encouraged their indigenous heritage and culture. It could be the case that modern Central Asian nationalities wouldn't exist if not for the USSR. However, there were periods where religion was definitely clamped down on. As a Muslim, I need to research this further.
- Birthrates were also rapidly declining in the USSR as women struggled to work outside the home and be homemakers at the same time, a global phenomenon now.
I'm sure she has her biases but as a newfound onlooker, it did feel like she gave a balanced overview.
May 17, 2025
Apesar de partir de uma perspectiva historiográfica liberal, Sheila Fitzpatrick apresenta nesta, adequadamente intitulada, breve história da União Soviética, um bom, honesto e rigoroso panorama da experiência soviética ao longo do século XX, apresentando de forma didática os principais processos históricos desta e, em contramão a historiografia anglófona e liberal dominante, evita lugares comuns que reduzem toda experiência histórica a seus muitos erros e eventuais crimes ou ao conceito abstrato de totalitarismo, rejeitando a redução da história de um país (ou mais adequadamente 15) a um "inferno na Terra". Estas escolhas por parte da autora apresentam uma narrativa que não possui nada de laudatória da história soviética, apresentando profundas criticas a todas suas lideranças (sendo em minha opinião muitas corretas, mas outras reflexos de sua perspectiva liberal), mas também uma leitura que permite uma compreensão justa com a complexidade e os nuances de seu objeto.
Minha crítica central ao livro esta ao fato de que se mostra excessivamente breve, com eventos e processos importantes recebendo menos atenção que necessário ou em casos pontuais ignorados, fora isso, um ótimo livro introdutório.
Minha crítica central ao livro esta ao fato de que se mostra excessivamente breve, com eventos e processos importantes recebendo menos atenção que necessário ou em casos pontuais ignorados, fora isso, um ótimo livro introdutório.
November 28, 2024
SSCB tarihinin başından sonuna, liderler ve dönemleri açısından ele alan kronolojik bir çalışma. Spesifik olarak Sovyet tarihinin tamamını ele alan Türkçe'ye çevrilmiş neredeyse başka hiçbir eser olmaması nedeniyle, şu an için okunabilecek tek kaynak gibi duruyor. Genel Rusya tarihi kitapları içindeki ilgili bölümlere de kuşkusuz bakılabilir.
Kitap bence oldukça özet nitelikte ve özellikle çözülüş sürecinin dinamikleri hakkında sadece olgu ve olayları veriyor. Sürecin hangi aşamada çözülüşe sürüklendiği ve eski SSCB liderliğinin nelerin sonucunda kapitalist ideolojiyi benimsediği hakkında hiçbir veri veya görüş sunmuyor. Bu bence ciddi bir boşluk.
Aynı yazarın Rus Devrimi hakkındaki çalışmasını geçtiğimiz aylarda okumuş ve beğenmiştim. Bu çalışma ilk kitabın gerisinde kalıyor.
Çeviri genel olarak iyi olmakla birlikte, böyle bir kitabın çevirmeninin sol kültüre aşina olmasını ve "Tüm İktidar Sovyetlere" sloganını doğru çevirmesini ümit etmenin hakkımız olduğuna inanıyorum. Çeviri "Sovyetlere Tam Güç" diye yapılmış ve olmamış.
Kitap bence oldukça özet nitelikte ve özellikle çözülüş sürecinin dinamikleri hakkında sadece olgu ve olayları veriyor. Sürecin hangi aşamada çözülüşe sürüklendiği ve eski SSCB liderliğinin nelerin sonucunda kapitalist ideolojiyi benimsediği hakkında hiçbir veri veya görüş sunmuyor. Bu bence ciddi bir boşluk.
Aynı yazarın Rus Devrimi hakkındaki çalışmasını geçtiğimiz aylarda okumuş ve beğenmiştim. Bu çalışma ilk kitabın gerisinde kalıyor.
Çeviri genel olarak iyi olmakla birlikte, böyle bir kitabın çevirmeninin sol kültüre aşina olmasını ve "Tüm İktidar Sovyetlere" sloganını doğru çevirmesini ümit etmenin hakkımız olduğuna inanıyorum. Çeviri "Sovyetlere Tam Güç" diye yapılmış ve olmamış.
July 21, 2025
Tiene algunos fallos (confunde al Ejército Verde campesino con el Ejército Negro de Makhno en el apartado correspondiente de la Revolución Rusa), pero, por lo general y aunque quizás un tanto parcial, la información es bastante buena para hacerse una idea general de lo que fue la Unión Soviética.
A destacar sobre todo de entre sus apartados, la conexión de continuidad que se traza de un dirigente soviético a otro (de Stalin a Kruschov, de Kruschov a Brézhnev, de Brézhnev a Andrópov/ Chernenko y finalmente el binomio Gorbachov/Yeltsin hasta fechas más recientes, concluyendo definitivamente en el periodo de la Rusia actual de Putin).
Lectura recomendable para comprender someramente lo que supuso en la historia el modelo soviético, no sin hacer un análisis crítico posterior contrastando la información ofrecida en esta obra con la de otras. Es una lectura que da pie a iniciar un buen estudio de eso que llaman "sovietología"
A destacar sobre todo de entre sus apartados, la conexión de continuidad que se traza de un dirigente soviético a otro (de Stalin a Kruschov, de Kruschov a Brézhnev, de Brézhnev a Andrópov/ Chernenko y finalmente el binomio Gorbachov/Yeltsin hasta fechas más recientes, concluyendo definitivamente en el periodo de la Rusia actual de Putin).
Lectura recomendable para comprender someramente lo que supuso en la historia el modelo soviético, no sin hacer un análisis crítico posterior contrastando la información ofrecida en esta obra con la de otras. Es una lectura que da pie a iniciar un buen estudio de eso que llaman "sovietología"
June 27, 2022
Sheila Fitzpatrick, sağlam kökleri olan bir sovyetolog. Kısa bir kitapta, SSCB'nin kuruluşu öncesinden başlayarak, yıkılışı ve Putin'i doğuran süreci özetliyor.
Kitap bir giriş kitabı olarak önerilmesi gereken, okuyunca bazı şeyleri daha derinlemesine araştırmaya yönlendiren, üstelik bakış açısı anti-sovyetik ya da sovyetik olmadığı için bilimsel yaklaşımdan uzaklaşmamış bir eser.
Kitabın Türkçe baskısında, çevirmenin, sol söylem ve jargona pek hakim olmaması gibi bir sorunun altı çizilebilir. Her yerde değil ama özellikle bazı slogan ve söylemlerin Türkçeleştirilirken çevirmenin bu eksikliğinin hissedildiğini söyleyebilirim. (Örneğin, Lenin'in [вся власть Советам] "Tüm iktidar sovyetlere" sloganı, "Sovyetlere tam güç" gibi mekanik bir çeviri ile karşımıza çıkıyor.)
Kitap bir giriş kitabı olarak önerilmesi gereken, okuyunca bazı şeyleri daha derinlemesine araştırmaya yönlendiren, üstelik bakış açısı anti-sovyetik ya da sovyetik olmadığı için bilimsel yaklaşımdan uzaklaşmamış bir eser.
Kitabın Türkçe baskısında, çevirmenin, sol söylem ve jargona pek hakim olmaması gibi bir sorunun altı çizilebilir. Her yerde değil ama özellikle bazı slogan ve söylemlerin Türkçeleştirilirken çevirmenin bu eksikliğinin hissedildiğini söyleyebilirim. (Örneğin, Lenin'in [вся власть Советам] "Tüm iktidar sovyetlere" sloganı, "Sovyetlere tam güç" gibi mekanik bir çeviri ile karşımıza çıkıyor.)
January 9, 2023
In a world where specialized research has reached absurd levels and everything has become discursive, we badly need historians who will tell us an answer to the old fashioned question - "what happened?". And we need historians who can draw the big picture, write a meaningful narrative based on secondary sources, without forgetting the most important attribute of the old-fashioned scholar - balance of judgement. I know I am sounding like a man from the modern era, which is of course now the "medieval" era ("Oh my God, look he is modern!"). Anyway, jokes apart, this is a terrific book. Go for it.
August 1, 2024
小册子翻一翻，的确觉得USSR的地板是PRC的天花板。“为缔造和维持苏联而流了大量的血——有理想主义者的血，有流氓和野心家的血，但流最多血的是只关心生存的普通人。”
1. 红军比白军能征到更多的兵是因为农民加入红军比较随意，而且内战并不血腥没有吓倒这些庄稼汉。而白军不接地气+协约国给的物资不够但却激发了俄国民众对“境外势力”的反感；
2. 最早的“文化革命”由斯大林发起，中国是学生揪斗学术权威，苏联是工人揪斗德高望重工程师。红小将共青团主要用来打击宗教势力，然而“俄國農民在教會受到這種攻擊以前對基督的信仰有多深是可爭論的，但迫害斷然加強了他們的信仰”；
3. 对于知识分子，三十年代政治恐怖比纳粹德国还可怕。大清洗是没有敌人却要在内部找到敌人，希特勒的出现让他们有了真正的敌人；
4. “谦逊”的斯大林——（二战胜利后）他在克里姆林宮告訴一群軍事將領，有鑑於他早前所犯的錯誤和德國人對這個國家很多地方的占領，「換成另一批人民的話，他們也許會對政府說：『你有負我們的所望，滾吧，我們將會成立另一個政府。』……但我們的蘇聯人民，特別是俄羅斯人民，並沒有那樣做。」以難得的謙遜，史達林向俄羅斯人民祝酒，表示感謝他們的「信賴」；
5. 贝利亚是为斯大林时代翻篇的替罪羊，类似四人帮之于文革——（赫鲁晓夫等领导人）要避開那個棘手的問題：他們和他們的舊老闆史達林是什麼關係？他們和史達林的血腥統治是什麼關係？除掉貝利亞有助於解決這個問題，因為做為保安頭子，他可以被醜化為史達林的邪惡教唆者，讓他為恐怖行動負責。不過很難把集體化的過火也歸咎給他，因為他當喬治亞書記時曾經成功大力抑制集體化；也很難把大清洗歸咎給他，因為他是在大清洗快結束之時才被調到莫斯科收拾善後。
6. 勃列日涅夫时期的确乏味，苏联社会严重依赖黑市经济维持正常运转，而黑市伴随着腐败和犯罪（在第二經濟體販賣的商品通常是從第一經濟體偷來）
1. 红军比白军能征到更多的兵是因为农民加入红军比较随意，而且内战并不血腥没有吓倒这些庄稼汉。而白军不接地气+协约国给的物资不够但却激发了俄国民众对“境外势力”的反感；
2. 最早的“文化革命”由斯大林发起，中国是学生揪斗学术权威，苏联是工人揪斗德高望重工程师。红小将共青团主要用来打击宗教势力，然而“俄國農民在教會受到這種攻擊以前對基督的信仰有多深是可爭論的，但迫害斷然加強了他們的信仰”；
3. 对于知识分子，三十年代政治恐怖比纳粹德国还可怕。大清洗是没有敌人却要在内部找到敌人，希特勒的出现让他们有了真正的敌人；
4. “谦逊”的斯大林——（二战胜利后）他在克里姆林宮告訴一群軍事將領，有鑑於他早前所犯的錯誤和德國人對這個國家很多地方的占領，「換成另一批人民的話，他們也許會對政府說：『你有負我們的所望，滾吧，我們將會成立另一個政府。』……但我們的蘇聯人民，特別是俄羅斯人民，並沒有那樣做。」以難得的謙遜，史達林向俄羅斯人民祝酒，表示感謝他們的「信賴」；
5. 贝利亚是为斯大林时代翻篇的替罪羊，类似四人帮之于文革——（赫鲁晓夫等领导人）要避開那個棘手的問題：他們和他們的舊老闆史達林是什麼關係？他們和史達林的血腥統治是什麼關係？除掉貝利亞有助於解決這個問題，因為做為保安頭子，他可以被醜化為史達林的邪惡教唆者，讓他為恐怖行動負責。不過很難把集體化的過火也歸咎給他，因為他當喬治亞書記時曾經成功大力抑制集體化；也很難把大清洗歸咎給他，因為他是在大清洗快結束之時才被調到莫斯科收拾善後。
6. 勃列日涅夫时期的确乏味，苏联社会严重依赖黑市经济维持正常运转，而黑市伴随着腐败和犯罪（在第二經濟體販賣的商品通常是從第一經濟體偷來）
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