As the Pizza Hut ad we watched today suggested, Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership ushered in an era of increased freedom, opportunity, and hope for Soviet citizens, even as it fostered economic uncertainty, political instability, and the threat of chaos. For your final blog post, please choose a topic that gives you some insight on the collapse of Soviet communism and the social transformation that accompanied it. 

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Rock music, new modes of consumerism, expanding television and film offerings, and guitar poets shaped the Soviet seventies, as did the dissident movement, the campaign to clean up the Aral sea, and the invasion of Afghanistan.  Despite it’s reputation for “stagnation,” this decade was anything but boring! For this post, we will use the modules on 1973 and 1980 from Seventeen Moments in Soviet History.  Please also consult and use the Current Digest of the Soviet Press and cite the articles you use from this collection.  Feel free to explore any other relevant topic from this period as well.  There are good suggestions for primary materials on the Soviet History Resources Page as well.

The second half of Chapter 13 in the Freeze text may be helpful as well. You may focus on an event, a development or an individual. Your post should use (and cite) primary sources (texts, music, or images). You may also use a particular image or primary document as a focal point for your post.

Image source: http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&show=images&SubjectID=1980moscow&Year=1980&navi=byYear

This week we turn our attention to The Great Patriotic War (aka World War II) and the immediate post-war period.  Please use one of the modules from 1943 or 1947 in Seventeen Moments in Soviet History on-line archive. You may also use the module on Soviet Territorial Annexations from 1939.  You should consult  Ch. 12 in the Freeze text. If you are writing about something specific to the war, it would be worth considering William C. Fuller’s discussion on pp. 383-392 of Freeze about the reasons for Soviet victory. You may focus on an event, a development or an individual. Your post should use (and cite) primary sources (texts, music, or images). You may also use a particular image or primary document as a focal point for your post.  There’s plenty of action, drama, and complexity to keep us all engaged this week.  Не шагу назад!

Welcome back to the Motherblog!  The thirties await our attention and as good Rockin’ Shockworkers, we will bring our best, most enthusiastic and most astute energies to the task at hand. No “False Shockworkers” in our collective!

For this week’s post, please choose a topic from the 1934, 1936 or 1939 section of Seventeen Moments of Soviet History and use it to examine the political, social, economic and cultural dynamics of the Soviet thirties.  (Please save the module on “Territorial Annexations” for next week, as it is directly connected to World War II.) You should also consult second part of Ch. 11 (pp. 358-373) in the Freeze text. You may focus on an event, a development or an individual. Your post should use (and cite) primary sources (texts, music, or images). You may also use a particular image or primary document as a focal point for your post.

For your fourth blog post, use the resources in Seventeen Moments of Soviet History (1921 and 1924) to examine a significant aspect of the Russian Revolution.  You should also consult the Freeze text (the rest of Chapter 9 and Chapter 10).

You may focus on an event, a development or an individual. Your post should use (and cite) primary sources (texts, music, or images). You may also use a particular image or primary document as a focal point for your post. In any case, your post should address some aspect of one the following questions:

How did the Bolsheviks prevail in the Civil War?

How did the Bolsheviks negotiate the transition from being revolutionaries to being rulers?

What role did nationality and religion play in the formation of the Soviet State?

How were politics and economics connected in this period (1917-24)?