Russia after Stalin: from Khrushchev to Putin

Aims

This course aims to:

•    introduce you to the main events that defined post-Stalinist Russia

•    foster an understanding of the forces that shaped the Soviet system and people after 
Stalin’s death

•    examine the changes and continuities in Russia after Stalin died and the USSR collapsed

Content

Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 saw the Communist Party under Nikita Khrushchev move to de-Stalinise the system. An intellectual thaw allowed limited freedoms to emerge and reforms to the secret police, welfare and housing helped to improve people’s lives. But the central elements of Stalinism remained, and a Stalin-shaped hole remained and proved difficult to completely fill. Even today, the legacy of the longest-serving leader of the Soviet Union continues to play a part in the life of Russia.

This course explores the changes and continuities in Russia after 1953. You will examine the social, economic, and political life of the country, and consider how Russians lived and survived. You’ll assess why the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and look at the problems that defined Russia as it worked through its transition from dictatorship to an incomplete democracy. The course concludes by focusing on the central elements of Putin’s Russia.

Presentation of the course 

This course will be taught through a mixture of lectures and seminar discussions.

Course sessions

1.    Change and continuity: Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation. This class assesses Khrushchev’s reforms and considers their impact on the Soviet system after Stalin’s death.

2.    The Brezhnev years: a golden age? This session considers Soviet Russia during the era 
of ‘Developed Socialism’.

3.    All change: Gorbachev and the end of the USSR. This class looks at Gorbachev’s reforms 
and examines why they led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

4.    Russia in transition: the 1990s. This class assesses the issues Russia had when attempting 
to establish a market-based democracy.

5.    Security and stability in 21st-century Russia. This session considers the Putin era and discusses what Putinism is.

Learning outcomes

You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.

The learning outcomes for this course are:

•    an appreciation of the changes and continuities in post-Stalinist Russia

•    an understanding of the development of Russian politics and society after Stalin

•    an ability to compare and contrast the Soviet and post-Soviet systems

Required reading

Read, Christopher, The Making and Breaking of the Soviet Union (Basingstoke: 
Palgrave, 2001)

Sakwa, Richard, Russian Politics and Society (London: Routledge, 2008, 4th edition)