Such examples could easily be multiplied. Stalin consciously modeled himself on the sixteenth-century Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and Soviet propagandists at the time of the Second World War reminded Russians how Teutonic (i.e., German) warriors had behaved in the thirteenth century. Church historians, for example, have shown that some unique tenets of the Orthodox faith and ideas held by such major authors as Tolstoi and Dostoevskii reﬂect features of Russian paganism, even though the people had converted to Christianity over one thousand years ago. But at the same time, there are trends and mental attitudes which continue for a long, long time. Modern Russia is not what it was a hundred or two hundred years ago, and to believe that Russians are condemned to repeat the past forever is a crude error. Obviously both change and continuity are real. We know that history never starts completely anew and that the past not only matters, but sometimes weighs heavily on the present. Of course Leibnitz lived in an age more innocent than ours, and no one today would make such a naive statement. His line of reasoning was based on the assumption that people and institutions are infinitely malleable. He argued that because Russia had neither civilization nor history, the reforming tsar, Peter, could start with a tabula rasa. Leibnitz, the great German philosopher and scientist, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, once expressed his envy of Russia. I am grateful to my friends Professors Norman Pereira, Denise Young-blood and Hugh Ragsdale, who read the entire manuscript and made helpful comments.

First published in print format 2006 isbn-13 isbn-10ĩ78-0-4 eBook (NetLibrary) 0-2 eBook (NetLibrary)Ĭambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. PETER KENEZ University of California, Santa CruzĬambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: © Peter Kenez 1999, 2006 This publication is in copyright. He is currently Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.Ī History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End Second Edition He is the author of many articles and books, including Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917–1953, and Varieties of Fear. In this new edition, he also examines the post-Soviet period, tracing Russia’s development up to the present day. He shows how post-Stalin Soviet leaders struggled to ﬁnd ways to rule the country without using Stalin’s methods but also without openly repudiating the past, and to negotiate a peaceful but antipathetic coexistence with the capitalist West.

Kenez traces the development of the Soviet Union from the Revolution, through the 1920s, the years of the New Economic Policies – which he sees as crucial to any interpretation of the history of the Soviet Union – and into the Stalinist order. Kenez envisions that revolution as a crisis of authority that posed the question, “Who shall govern Russia?” This question was resolved with the creation of the Soviet Union. The book identiﬁes the social tensions and political inconsistencies that spurred radical change in the government of Russia, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, culminating in the revolution of 1917. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End Second Edition Peter Kenez’s A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End examines not only political change but also social and cultural developments.

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