Debates on Stalinism

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The years of Stalin's brutal reign over the Soviet Union - from the late 1920s to the dictator's death in 1953 - have produced enormous debate. Did 'Stalinism' form a system in its own right or was it a mere stage in the overall development of Soviet society? Was it an aberration from Leninism or the logical conclusion of Marxism? Was its violence the revenge of the Russian past or the result of a revolutionary mindset? Was Stalinism the work of a madman or the product of social forces beyond his control? Could it have been avoided? Could the war have been won without it? What was it like to live within it? The answers to such questions form the historiography of Stalinism.This transnational history of writing about Stalinism introduces advanced students of Russian, Ukrainian, Soviet, European and World History to major debates and the contributions of major historians during and after the Cold War. To readers of history more generally, it opens up the complexities of historiographical debates, where evidence, politics, personality and biography are strongly entangled. Moreover, as these debates are transnational, the politics of history change often dramatically by context, which adds further complexity to these debates. This book will allow readers to better understand not only the history of history writing, but also contemporary controversies and conflicts in the successor states of the Soviet Union, in particular Russia and Ukraine.