De-Stalinization Reconsidered

Joseph Stalin's death was a defining event in Soviet history. In its aftermath, the state was forced to reconceive its political, economic, social, and cultural identity. This volume critically engages with this period of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union. It offers fresh perspectives not just on Scalinism, but also on questions of change and continuity in Soviet politics, modernization, and society more generally, moving broad-scale processes such as urbanization into the center of interpreting Soviet history. And in so doing, De-Stalinization Reconsidered makes clear that the Soviet history of the 1950s and '60s is crucial for understanding not only glasnost and perestroika, but contemporary Russia, as well.