- Title
- Introduction: Stalinism as state building
- Creator
- Gill, Graeme; Markwick, Riger D.
- Relation
- Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 71, Issue 6, p. 883-891
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2019.1634864
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- STALINISM, PARTICULARLY THE PERIOD OF STALIN’S RULE in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), must be one of the most investigated topics in the field of Soviet studies. Most of those studies, while enriching our empirical knowledge of Stalinism, especially in the wake of the so-called ‘archival revolution’, focusing primarily on the phenomenon as it unfolded in the Soviet Union, have eschewed locating Stalinism in broader typologies of the state. Of course, at the height of the Cold War, comparisons with Nazism invoking the ‘totalitarian’ paradigm, with their explicit contrast with liberal-democratic states, prevailed.1 Such comparisons with Nazism have continued in the post-Soviet era (Kershaw & Lewin 1997; Rousso 2004; Geyer & Fitzpatrick 2009). Similarly, there is a well established and continuing tradition of comparing Stalin and his system with other major dictators and their systems, mainly Hitler but also Mao (Bullock 1991; Overy 2004; Gellately 2007; Bianco 2018). Such studies can throw valuable comparative light on Stalinism, but their focus on the state, irrespective of the particular socio-economic system which it commanded and its place in the international political economy, have their limits. In this regard, a promising alternative approach is to frame Stalinism as a major exemplar of state-building. The literature in Soviet studies has generally not sought to speak to the state-making literature, while the scholars who focus upon the state have usually not embraced the Soviet experience as a potential example of state-building.2 This could be a fruitful path of inquiry to take, offering a different perspective from most studies and enriching both the Soviet studies and state development literatures. The essays in this collection seek to explore a range of aspects of this question.
- Subject
- Stanlinism; Soviet society; socio-economic
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1463826
- Identifier
- uon:46846
- Identifier
- ISSN:0966-8136
- Language
- eng
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