Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s [Paperback]

Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by a leading authority on modern Russian history. Focusing on the urban population, Fitzpatrick depicts a world of privation, overcrowding, endless lines, and broken homes, in which the regime's promises of future socialist abundance rang hollowly. We read of a government bureaucracy that often turned life into a nightmare, and of how ordinary citizens tried to circumvent it. We also read of the secret police, whose constant surveillance was endemic at this time, and the waves of terror, like the Great Purges of 1937, which periodically cast society into turmoil.Here is a pioneering account of everyday life under Stalin, written by a leading authority on modern Russian history. Focusing on the urban population, Fitzpatrick depicts a world of privation, overcrowding, endless lines, and broken homes, in which the regime's promises of future socialist abundance rang hollowly. We read of a government bureaucracy that often turned life into a nightmare, and of how ordinary citizens tried to circumvent it. We also read of the secret police, whose constant surveillance was endemic at this time, and the waves of terror, like the Great Purges of 1937, which periodically cast society into turmoil.Sheila Fitzpatrickteaches modern Russian history at the University of Chicago. A former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and a co-editor ofThe Journal of Modern History, she is also the author ofThe Russian Revolution,Stalin's Peasants, and many other books and articles about Russia. She lives in Chicago. Fitzpatrick makes subtle use of the press and of police reports that assist in giving us one of the most comprehensive accounts of what it meant to live in Stalin's Russia in the 1930s. --Kirkus Reviews

A fine work--engrossing, well written, superbly documented, and much needed to boot....[The book's sources] make al3$