Making of the Soviet System

Moshe Lewin was born in Poland and served in the Russian army during World War II. One of the most respected scholars in his field, he has been a Fellow in Russian Studies at Columbia, Princeton, and the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the author of many books, including The Gorbachev Phenomenon and The Making of the Soviet System (reissued by The New Press). He is currently professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

• Social crises and political structures in the USSR; Part 1 The rural ways - mores and magic: rural society in 20th century Russia; popular religion in 20th century Russia; customary law and rural society in the post-reform era. Part 2 Collectivization - or something else?: the immediate background of Soviet collectivization; who was the Soviet Kulak?; "taking grain" - Soviet policies of agricultural procurements before the war; the Kolkhoz and the Russian Muzhik. Part 3 Different Leninisms and social change: Leninism and Bolshevism - the test of history and power; society, state and ideology during the first five-year plan; social relations inside industry during the prewar five-year plans, 1928-41; the social background of Stalinism; grappling with Stalinism.