The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World

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This book, however, presumes an extensive pre-existing knowledge of the history of the Russian Revolution, the Stalinist 1930s, the Second World War and the Cold War. Lewin sheds light on so many hitherto unknown aspects of the history, he simply doesn't bother to repeat such things as are already fairly common knowledge from a historians perspective - a problem if you are not a historian! A reader looking for a colourful ‘big picture’ description of the Soviet project may well find this book a boring, baffling history of Russian bureaucracy. The most intriguing and exciting elements of The Soviet Century will only be apparent to people with an already good knowledge of the Soviet century. Also, I kinda feel like the son of a Wehrmacht soldier should show a little more humility to the people his father's generation tried to exterminate off the face of the Earth, but that's just me. Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil. La estructura del libro es un verdadero desastre. Sin paliativos. Arranca con el ascenso de Stalin (circa 1923) y dedica una buena cantidad de páginas a ello. Del Imperio Ruso, la Revolución y Lenin apenas se dice nada (si quiere saber algo sustancial sobre todo esto tendrá que esperarse a la página 300 del libro). A mitad de libro hay una sección de "biografías"... Me dio la impresión de que el autor había cogido artículos suyos y los había ensamblado en forma de libro, resultando todo ello en un extraño collage.

Before you rush in to correct me that it was not the Soviet Union but Russia that brutally invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, let me assure you that this isn't a Freudian (or any other) slip on my part. My 'mistake' is deliberate - having spent 35 years of my life in that very 'USSR' I have good reason to assert that modern Russia is a logical successor and a legitimate heir of the Soviet Union, differing only in its somewhat diminished territory as well as its official name. It took me a couple of weeks to read this weighty volume, and even longer to convince myself to sit down and write this review. Why? Because, like many of my fellow Ukrainians, I now tend to instinctively recoil from anything related to the Soviet Union and/or Russia. The sensation is probably similar to the anti-German sentiment that prevailed in Britain during and immediately after the Blitz. An obvious knee-jerk reaction, but hard to contain when Ukrainians are being murdered daily in their hundreds by the invaders. I really do have to commend Moshe Lewin for providing an accurate and not demonizing the USSR in his book, The Soviet Century, however you clearly saw his acrimony for Stalin in many of the opening chapters. Lewin only lived in the USSR for a few years during WWII before returning to Poland and emigrating to France. So while he didn't see first-hand most of the Stalin-ism atrocities, he did focus heavily on them during the first half of Soviet Century.I was pretty surprised that there's no citation of this speech since all of the writings and speeches of Stalin are published somewhere. If it's a quote from an archive, I would still expect a citation. But this quote also stands out because Lewin extrapolates a lot of Stalin's character traits from it. It's mentioned over and over again so I decided to try and find it myself. By the fortune of me speaking in Russian, I've tried to google something akin to "speech Stalin Sverdlov Party University 1924". As it turns out, it's not a speech, but a series of lectures called "Foundations of Leninism", that Stalin gave at the aforementioned university in 1924. These lectures do not contain the said quote. If it's a thing from memoirs, why not mention who wrote the memoir or whatever the source might be? How should the reader verify that the quote even exists if it's ungooglable and basically impossible to verify? A superb blend of social history and material culture, essential for students of 20th-century geopolitics. This book is not a conventionally structured history of the Soviet Union, but is rather more like a series of essays exploring many different aspects of life in the USSR. Topics include Soviet mega-projects (the Dneproges dam, the Belomor canal, the city of Magnitogorsk, the Palace of Soviets), artistic and architectural movements, Soviet atrocities like the Gulag and the Great Terror--but my favorite topics deal with more mundane aspects of everyday life in the Soviet Union. How were the conditions in the public bathrooms of the Soviet Union, or the stairwells of apartment complexes? How much garbage did Soviet citizens throw out, and how was it disposed of? What was it like to live with randomly assigned strangers in a communal apartment, or to then move into a concrete prefab Khrushchyovka? How much time did Soviet citizens spend waiting in line, and how did the Soviet state use these lines for intelligence gathering purposes? What happened to all the privately owned pianos after the Revolution? Why did the Bolsheviks have such a thing for palm trees?

In a work of remarkable range and quality, Karl Schlögel explores the everyday life and material culture of the Soviet Union in ways that show the communist experiment in a compellingly fresh light. One of the most innovative books on Soviet history to appear since the state’s collapse in 1991."—Tony Barber, Financial Times

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The Soviet Century is an interesting analysis of the Soviet Union focusing on the parallel evolution of the bolshevik party and the state bureaucracy. I find his rejection of the ideologically based "stalinization" and "gulagization" of Soviet history, and his handling of the USSR on its own premises to be commendable. He is not afraid to demonstrate the positive progress of the Soviet system, nor does he shy from the repression and corruption. Interesting and insightful analysis into the nature and dynamics and history of the Soviet Union. The primary argument that runs throughout the book is that the Soviet government was not a monolithic, unchanging, all-powerful totalitarian state, but one that changed dramatically at different points, and which often was responding (often impotently) to societal changes, rather than imposing its own will on Soviet/Russian society. This may seem like an obvious point, but as the author points out, this is in fact often lost in traditional narratives of the USSR that are overly influenced by the propaganda wars of the Cold War. There's lot of information on how the bureaucrats keep the state functioning, on spite of the parasitic caste themselves, from collectivisations in the countryside and forced industrialisation -via the Gulags- to urbanisation and cities growth, until Khrushchev started a failed destalinization process that ultimately ended in the restoration of capitalism, by the appropriation of the state assets by the nomenklatura bureaucrats. Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman. Lewin's other concern is in differentiating Stalinism from other, very different, stages of Soviet history. Kruschev's reforms may have largely failed, but his immediate move to begin dismantling of the key aspects of Stalinism succeeded. Political repression may have remained a part of Soviet policy but mass terror never returned, and the infamous gulag system disappeared entirely by the late 50's. One of the interesting details Lewin uncovered was the seemingly widespread policy of “prohylaxis”, wherein the KGB would identify dissidents and, instead of arresting them, throwing them in prison or simply shooting them in the head, would essentially give them a stern talking to and a warning to cut it out. While still obviously oppressive, this policy, which Andropov, the secretly liberal KGB chief in the 60's and 70's was apparently a big proponent of, is a pretty far cry from the menacing reputation the KGB had in the West, and is massively different from the arbitrary way the NKVD operated under Stalin.