Historiography

I've collected some historiography for the entire course that has been organised in chronological order of leaderships, enjoy.

Stalin

Great Patriotic War

HARRISON: “If WWII was a test then the Soviet economy passed it.”

DAVIES: “The armaments industry of the 1930s was by far the most outstanding success of the Soviet pre-war economy”

OVERY: “The pre-war experience of economic planning and mobilisation helped the regime run a war economy on an emergency basis.”

PEARSON: “Stalin’s first, most fatal error was not to allow his troops to mobilise in time before impending Nazi disaster.”

DOCKRILL: [Stalingrad] “the beginning of the end for Germany”

NAGORSKI: [Kursk] “the turning point of WWII”

PEARSON: “Stalin played a pivotal role in every aspect of the war effort.”

OVERY: “The war effort was not the product of one man.”

ZHUKOV: “The USSR couldn’t have won the war without foreign aid.”

LAVER: “Stalin believed too strongly in the invincibility of the Red Army.”

LAVER: “Stalin was an effective symbol of resistance.”

Economic

NOVE: “agriculture, in Stalin’s final years, was characterised by excessive centralisation of decision, insufficient investment, extremely low prices and ill-judged intentions.”

KENEZ: “it is still indisputable that the speed of reconstruction was impressive.”

KENEZ: [agriculture] “the always neglected stepsister of industry”

Political

THATCHER: “aggressive foreign policy”

THATCHER: [Stalinism]

1. Dictatorship of one man

2. Dominant ideology

3. Cult of Personality

4. Use of terror

5. Aggressive foreign policy

6. Command economy

LAVER: [Cult of Personality] “Stalin disliked this, but recognised its ideological importance”

OVERY: “The Soviet state was transformed by this process [becoming superpower] and Communism, close to collapse in the Autumn of 1941, came to be a dominant political force”

LAVER: “Stalin was obsessed with a supposed national threat.”

LYNCH: “Paranoia had a large part to play in the Soviet politics at the time”

Khrushchev

Economic

FILTZER: “Khrushchev never attempted to remove the basic levers of Stalinism within the USSR; those of central planning.”

LAVER: “Khrushchev’s reforms did not really help the economy”

FILTZER: [decentralisation] “bureaucratic anarchy”

KENEZ: “He sometimes made it worse by creating confusion.”

KENEZ: [decentralisation] “It grew out of a general need, but was insufficiently considered, inadequately prepared, and ultimately created more problems than it saved.”

LAVER: [industry] “No clearly coordinated, coherent structure.”

KEEP: [agriculture] “Kept peasant affairs at the centre of attention for an entire decade.”

KEEP: “To challenge collectivisation would have been “heresy”.”

Political

FILTZER: “It was Khrushchev who placed the Party back at the centre of the political stage.”

LAVER: [De-Stalinisation] “The removal of Stalinist excesses, such as the cult of personality, from Soviet politics, post-1953.”

LAVER: “The essential features of Stalinism survived intact”

LAVER: “The party diehards would not easily forgive Khrushchev for placing such obstacles in the path of traditional Soviet communism.”

LAVER: “Through nationalist reform, the USSR was also discouraged”

MCCAULEY: [Khrushchev] “demanded and expected too much”

MCCAULEY: “hasty reforms due to optimism”

MCCAULEY: “The Khrushchev period was one of hope and despair”

KENEZ: “His failures showed that the problems he recognised were inherent in the system that he wanted to save.”

FILTZER: “Pushed through his policies bureaucratically and often with little foresight or planning.”

Social

MCCAULEY: “made life more comfortable”

Brezhnev

Economic

NOVE: “Economically speaking, the Brezhnev period has to be seen as a disaster.”

GENERAL: “Era of Stagnation”

Political

LAVER: “Brezhnev presided over a crucial period of Soviet Foreign Policy.”

LAVER: “Ideology had all but lost its meaning to many within the USSR by 1982.”

THOMPSON: “a man of the centre”

THOMPSON: “a cult without personality”

LAVER: “If there was a nationalist threat, then Brezhnev did not solve it.”

LAVER: “Let sleeping dogs lie”

KEEP: [The Party] “a refuge for nostalgias”

GENERAL: “Era of Conservatism”

Social

LAVER: [Developed Socialism] “unfortunately, the reality did not live up to the aspirations.”

LAVER: “no evidence of widespread dissatisfaction”

THOMPSON: “By the early 1980s the regime appeared to have crushed the dissident movement.”

Andropov and Chernenko

Andropov

LAVER: “Following in the footsteps of Khrushchev without the unpredictability.”

Chernenko

LAVER: “did not have coherent policy”

Gorbachev

Political

MARPLES: “Gorbachev refused to recognise that Yeltsin and the radicals were the future.”

VOLKOGONOV: [Gorbachev] “the last Leninist”

PRAVDA: [Glasnost] “the timely and frank release of information shows trust in the people, respect for their intelligence and their ability to assess events.”

LAVER: “Glasnost proved a double-edged sword for Gorbachev”

LAVER: “A style of leadership not seen before in the USSR.”

LAVER: [break-up] “It was difficult for any one man to prevent”

Economic

LAVER: “Perestroika appeared to be making things worse”

POPOLOV: [Perestroika] “It was done with slogans, not a programme of reform that ordinary Russians could understand”

GORBACHEV: “The old system collapsed before the new one could begin to function.”

LAVER: “If anything, alcoholism increased.”

LAVER: “A hotchpotch of initiatives.”

KEEP: “He undermined the old system before he had laid the foundations of a new one.”

KEEP: [Crisis] “had its roots in the decisions taken (or not taken) in the early phases of Perestroika.”

Nationalities

LAVER: “a time-bomb waiting to explode.”

WARD: “No one saw it coming”

BRESLAUR: “Gorbachev’s greatest error was not to reconcile the results of Glasnost with the rise of nationalism in the USSR”

LAVER: “Other fundamental problems made collapse inevitable”

LAVER: Gorbachev “never understood the strength of nationalist feelings and he never dealt with it effectively.”

Social

GORBACHEV: “There was a gradual erosion of ideological and moral values”

LAVER: “Over the previous decade or more, many people had increasingly benefitted from the existing system”