Reflections on Stalinism

Reflections on Stalinism distills decades of historical thought and research, bringing together twelve senior scholars of Soviet history who began their careers during the Cold War to examine their views of Stalinism. They present insights into the role of personality in statecraft, the social underpinnings of dictatorship and state terrorism, historians’ attachments to their subjects, historical causality, the applicability of Marxist categories to Soviet history, the relationship of Soviet history to post-Soviet Russia, and more. Essays address the transformation of a peasant country into a superpower and the causes and scale of domestic bloodshed. Reflections on Stalinism ultimately tackles an age-old question: Do powerful people make history or are they the product of it?

J. Arch Getty specializes in the Stalin period and the history of the Soviet Communist Party. He is Distinguished Research Professor of History at UCLA. He is the founder of Praxis International, and his articles and books on Stalinist politics and the Soviet Communist Party have been published throughout the world. His most recent book is Practicing Stalinism.

Lewis H. Siegelbaum is Jack and Margaret Sweet Professor Emeritus of History at Michigan State University where he taught from 1983 until 2018. He is the author of books on Soviet labor, material culture, migration, and consumption. His memoir, Stuck on Communism, was published in 2019.