Everyday Stalinism

In the 1930s many Western intellectuals looked with hope and admiration at the great "Soviet experiment", the planned transformation of the economy that was supposed to lay the foundation for the world's first socialist society. Later, with the onset of the Cold War, the image of the "Evil Empire" predominated in the mind of Westerners. Yet what was it really like to be a citizen of Soviet Russia during this period? This text presents a history of everyday life in Soviet Russia. Rather than consider the history of the period from the perspective of the Soviet Party and its leaders, Sheila Fitzpatrick considers what life was like for ordinary people. It shows the ways of life, behaviours, and skills developed by citizens in order to cope with the extraordinary social and political change that Stalinism brought, ranging from scarcity of consumer goods, to the condemnation of religion, to bureaucratic red tape and state regulation of education, jobs, and career advancement.