Kotkin- Stalinism as a civilization

Question 1

What is the historical context behind Stalinism?

Answer 1

• Stalinism is not an anomalous product of factors unique to the Soviet Union but rather as a particular incarnation of more general intellectual and political developments in modern Europe
• Developments like new forms of social science and medical knowledge which prompted European reformers to reconceptualize the population as a social entity to be rationally studied and managed.
• this created the belief that populations and newly identified social problems could be understood and acted upon scientifically gave rise to a new ethos of social intervention.
• the very idea of reshaping society originated with eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers, who believed they could apply science to create a rational social order
• The French Revolution, in turn, gave this idea force by demonstrating that revolutionary politics could bring about social transformation.
• Revolutionaries in Russia drew inspiration from the French Revolution, and after they themselves came to power in 1917, they pursued their own version of a rational and just social order – one which sought to eliminate capitalist exploitation and social classes