From the Oval Office to the streets of Moscow, world leaders and ordinary citizens alike share interest and concerns about Russia. Can democracy survive there? What does the future hold for the once expansive and still powerful Russian nation? Is Soviet Communism truly dead? These are the kinds of questions diplomats struggle with every day. And now, through this series of 16 incisive lectures by an acclaimed scholar of Russian history, you can begin investigating them for yourself as you take a probing historical journey through the recent history and near future of a key world power. Whether your chief interest is Russian or world history, political theory, or international relations, you'll take away fresh knowledge and insight as Professor Hamburg examines the improbable origins of Communist rule in Russia, the ascent of the Red Star to its zenith, and its decline and apparent end in the wake of 1989's events. Using new material from previously sealed Soviet archives and covering recent controversial findings by both Russian and Western scholars, he begins with the failures of the czarist regime and the horrors of the First World War, then takes you through the bloody era of Josef Stalin's purges and beyond to Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika to offer you a thoroughgoing analysis of the Soviet experiment.
The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism: A History of 20th-Century Russia
01: Nicholas II and the Russian Empire
This opening lecture includes discussion of the problems facing Russian peasants and workers in the early 1900s. The Bolshevik seizure of power could have succeeded only in a country with a discredited government, ethnic resentments, and social antagonisms.
02: The Failure of Constitutional Government
Russia's failed constitutional experiment raises the fundamental question of whether such a government can ever succeed in a large, multinational empire.
03: Russia and the First World War
This lecture discusses Russia's entrance into the Great War, the military-political crisis of 1915, failure of the Brusilov offensive in 1916, and isolation of the tsar. The lecture also sketches the atmosphere in the imperial capital, Petrograd, just before Nicholas II was overthrown.
04: Lenin and the Origins of Bolshevism
An overview of Lenin's life and revolutionary strategies provides context for a detailed discussion of his contributions to Marxism and the "three roads" to Communism imagined by Russian Marxists.
05: Lenin Comes to Power
This lecture describes the two revolutions of 1917, the installation of a provisional government, and Lenin's successful efforts to undermine it.
06: Lenin and the Making of a Bolshevik State
The lecture focuses on significant Bolshevik policies between 1917 and 1921: imposition of partocracy, suppression of "bourgeois democracy" attempts to destroy the market system, and resolution of the nationalities problem.
07: The Twenties
The emergence of Stalin and his eventual victory in power struggles of the 1920s bring an end to Lenin's New Economic Policy and the start of ill-fated attempts to collective agriculture.
08: Stalin and the "Second October Revolution"
The first Five-Year Plan and the chaos it wrought in the industrial sector serve as the focus of this fast-paced lecture. Stalin's imposition of an artificial famine that cost millions of lives is also discussed.
09: Stalin and the "Great Terror"
Party purges and "show trials" from 1934 to 1938 are examined as key evidence of state terror during the Stalinist period.
10: Stalin, Hitler, and the Road to War
This lecture treats the diplomatic origins of World War II including Stalin's controversial German policy, Hitler's attitude toward the East and toward Bolshevism, and the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact.
11: The USSR at War
The war against Germany was a decisive test of Stalin's statesmanship - and he nearly failed.
12: Stalin's Last Years
This lecture analyzes the Soviet Union's painful reconstruction after World War II and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering occasioned by Stalin's death.
13: De-Stalinization
In the three decades after Stalin's death, Communist party leadership hesitantly distances itself from elements of the Stalinist system without ever abandoning the entire edifice that he had built.
14: Gorbachev and Perestroika
This lecture concentrates on the limits and internal contradictions of Gorbachev's plans for "perestroika." It also discusses the appearance of party opposition to "perestroika" and how that opposition was overcome.
15: The Disintegration of the USSR
Re-emerging national independence movements in major Soviet republics, previously hidden social antagonisms, and gradual exposure of the truth about Stalinism doom Gorbachev's plans to failure.
16: Rebirth of Russia or the Rebirth of the USSR?
Russia's prospects remain uncertain for prosperity, democracy, and the rule of law. But reasons for cautious optimism spur additional thought and analysis.
About
Dr. Gary Hamburg is Otto M. Behr Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College. He earned his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University. Dr. Hamburg received Fulbright grants for advanced research at Leningrad State University (now St. Petersburg University) and at Moscow University. He is the author of Politics of the Russian Nobility 1881-1905 and Boris Chicherin and Early Russian Liberalism, 1828-1866, and he edited and translated several books on modern Russian politics, including two volumes of P. N. Miliukov's history of the 1917 revolution. His articles have examined various issues in Russian social, political, and intellectual history.
