Changes to the syllabus may be made throughout the semester.  It is your responsibility to check this web-site frequently.

This class meets Wednesdays, 3:10-5:40 pm, History Room 156.

A seminar, ideally, is a course in which students learn primarily through reading, discussing what they have read, doing research, and writing.  Lecturing plays a minimal role in a history seminar; in this course I will lecture occasionally but not extensively.  The History Department Proseminar is a W3 course; this means that students will do a substantial amount of writing during the semester.  Shorter papers (3-6 pages) throughout the semester, including a primary source analysis, a book review, and an historiographical essay will comprise building blocks for a final research paper (20-25 pages).  Student attendance at every class session is expected, as is active and informed participation in every discussion.  Each student will also make a final presentation of his/her research to the class, and will make brief presentations on work in progress.

There are three required books for this course.  After the first 5 weeks of class, most reading assignments will be articles or book chapters, but there is no course packet.  Most articles will be available to you through links from the syllabus, but to read them on-line you will need to use the Acrobat Reader, and the following password: ________.  If your home computer does not have adequate access for on-line reading, you may want to print or download text files using a computer on campus.  I will place photocopies of some of these articles on Reserve.  Nearly all required articles and chapters are available in hard copy in Coe Library journals or books. 

Books for this course can be purchased at the UW Bookstore.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Russian Revolution.  Second Edition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press 1994.

Kowalski, Ronald, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921.  Routledge Sources in History.  London: Routledge 1997.

Pipes, Richard, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution.  New York: Vintage 1995.

In addition, I recommend that your order the following for your own use:

Turabian, Kate L., A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1996.  I recommend the sixth edition (1996) because it includes guidelines for citation from electronic sources as well as print sources.  

Bibliography:  This is a thematically-grouped bibliography of major, and mostly recent, books related to the February and October Revolutions of 1917 and what followed.  This bibliography should serve as a place to start when you are thinking about possible topics for your own research.

Written work for this class:

Parameters: Papers can be turned in via email (as an attachment) before class on the due date, or brought to class on the due date. No late papers or assignments, with the exception of one 5- day extension.  A student who chooses to take this extension must notify me by email of that decision by the paper's due date. Each student is allowed one opportunity to rewrite a paper to raise grade. 

Grading Scale:  In this course, you earn your grades through writing and participation in discussion.  Discussion is 30% of the total grade.  

Journal:  I will ask you to write and submit journal entries for the first 5 weeks of class, and then we will discuss whether to continue this.  The purpose of the journal is to help you to read thoughtfully and come to class prepared for discussion.  Journal entries are part of the discussion grade.

Essays:  Primary Source Analysis; Book Analysis; Historiographic Essay.

Annotated Bibliography

Research Paper 

Week 1,  Sept 5:  Introduction.  Explain course.  Open discussion: What is a revolution?  Library session on research.  Brief overview of the Russian Revolution.

For next week:  Read Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, pp. 1-119.  Journal questions:  [Answers are to be submitted to me by email no later than 1 pm, Wednesday, Sept. 12.]  

1.  According to Fitzpatrick's understanding, when does the Revolution begin and end, and why? (that is, why does the Revolution begin and end, and what understanding of the idea "revolution" does Fitzpatrick use that allows her to see these points as the beginning and end of the revolution?) 

2.  Fitzpatrick outlines three themes in her introduction.  Focus on the discussion of one of those themes in the book's main chapters.  In what ways does this theme help to explain the changes that took place during the revolutionary period, either as a cause of change, or evidence of change?  Be specific; give examples.   

Week 2, Sept 12:  Discuss Fitzpatrick.  What is a primary source?  Film: "October: Ten Days that Shook the World."

For next week: Read Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, pp. 119-172.  Read Kowalski, The Russian Revolution, 17-64. 

Journal:  two specific questions

1) Fitzpatrick outlines three themes in her introduction.  Focus on the discussion of one of those themes in the book's main chapters.  In what ways does this theme help to explain the changes that took place during the revolutionary period, either as a cause of change, or evidence of change?  Be specific; give examples.

2) Kowalski: examining the documents in Chapter 4, how would you compare the ideals and statements of the Provisional Government with those of the Bolsheviks?   

Essay:  Primary Source analysis, using partial documents in Kowalski, or others of your choosing. 

The V. I. Lenin Internet Library

Lenin Works Archive

Albert Rhys-Williams "Mercy or Death to the Whites?" in Storming the Heavens: voices of October, ed. Mark Jones. London: Zwan Publications, 1987.

Week 3 Sept. 19  Primary Source Analysis ESSAY DUE  Discuss Fitzpatrick and Kowalski.  Presentations on primary sources.

For next week:  Read Brinton, Ch. 1 and Ch. 7; and Skocpol.  Journal questions:  Brinton's understanding of revolution; Skocpol's understanding of revolution--compare with Fitzpatrick and Kowalski's approaches to the Russian Revolution

Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution.  New York: Vintage Books: 1965.  [First edition 1932, subsequent editions 1952, 1965]. 

Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions:  a comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1979. 

Week 4 Sept 26 Discuss Skocpol and Brinton and revolutions

For next week:  Kowalski, 3-13 and Pipes, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution, pp. xii-210.  Journal questions:  comparing Pipes and Fitzpatrick on revolution

Choose book for book review essay, due Oct. 10.

Week 5 Oct 3.  Discuss Pipes and Kowalski.  

For next week:  Pipes 210-406.  Journal questions:  Pipes and theories of revolution.  Examining Pipes, Fitzpatrick, Kowalski, what topics come into discussion of the Russian Revolution, depending on how one understands revolution?  

Week 6 Oct 10:  CLASS CANCELLED. BOOK REVIEW ESSAY DUE

Submit book review essays either by dropping off a hard copy in the office, or by sending the paper in as an email attachment.

Week 7 Oct 17  

Discuss Pipes to end.  

For next week:  Journal questions:  Kowalski discusses the Party and politics in the revolution and the 1920s, and so do each of the following articles.  What is the major point that each of the three authors below (Service, Merridale, von Hagen) is making?  Are there similarities or differences in their views of the way that the Party and political power in general worked? Do they support or contradict what Kowalski says?  How would you describe the Party and its authority? 

Kowalski 99-127, 193-241.    

Robert Service Chapter 6 from The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organizational Change 1917-1923.  Barnes and Noble, 1979.

Catherine Merridale, Moscow Politics and the Rise of Stalin: The Communist Party in the Capital, 1925-32.  New York: St. Martin's Press 1990, pp. 21-46.

Mark von Hagen, "Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: From Defending the Revolution to Building Socialism," in Russian in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, eds. S. Fitzpatrick, A. Rabinowitch and R. Stites.  Indiana University Press 1991, pp.156-173.

Week 8 Oct 24

Discuss: The Party and Politics

For next week, read Kowalski 131-165.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization.  Oxford University Press 1994.  Pp. 37-79.

Kuromiya, Hiroaki, Stalin's Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928-1932.  Cambridge University Press 1988.  Pp. 3-23.

Individual readings from: Beyond the Urals, In the Shadow of Revolution, Magnetic Mountain, Harvest of Sorrow, Peasant Rebels.

Annotated Bibliography, due Oct. 31

Week 9 Oct 31 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE.  

Economics:   NEP, Collectivization, Industrialization. Discussion: Kowalski, Fitzpatrick, Kuromiya plus your individual reading.

When reading the two on-line articles, think about what significant changes take place for workers and peasants between the early revolutionary period (Kowalski) and the late 1920s (Fitzpatrick and Kuromiya).  You each have one individual reading.  You will need to present that reading to your classmates, focusing first on the content and the central themes that your reading addresses, and then discussing how this changes or shapes the understanding of collectivization or industrialization that in presented in the Fitzpatrick and Kuromiya articles above.  

Film: Turk-Sib   

For next week, read:

Anne Gorsuch, "NEP be Damned! Young Militants in the 1920s and the Culture of Civil War," in Russian Review 56 (October 1997): 564-80.

Eric Selbin, "Bringing Agency Back In," in Theorizing Revolutions, ed. John Foran.  London, Routledge, 1997, 123-136.

Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Visions and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press 1989. Chapter 5, pp. 100-123.

Central Committee, RKP, "On Anti-Religious Propaganda among Women Workers and Peasants," and The Editors of Bezbozhnik, "Calling All Believers," "Science or Religion?" "Without God, With Man," in Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, Vol. 1, ed. William Rosenberg.  University of Michigan Press 1990, pp. 242-252.

N. Malkov, "Music and the Cultural Revolution" in Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, Vol. 2, ed. William Rosenberg.  University of Michigan Press 1990, pp. 264-268.

Week 10 Nov 7

Culture and Religion.  Read Selbin, Gorsuch,  Stites, Malkov, Central Committee

In class: discuss the above texts.  Talk about historiographic essay.  Discuss author sources.

Historiographic Essay

Week 11 Nov 14  HISTORIOGRAPHIC ESSAY DUE

Women

Valentine Moghadam, "Gender and Revolutions,"  in Theorizing Revolutions, ed. John Foran.  London, Routledge, 1997, 137-166.

Alexandra Kollontai , "Women and Revolution," in Storming the Heavens: Voices of October, ed. Mark Jones.  Atlantic Highlands: Zwan 1987, 157-169.

Wendy Z. Goldman, Women, the State, and Revolution:  Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936.  Cambridge University Press 1993, 101-143.

Week 12 Nov 28

Nationalities

Read:  Kowalski, 166-175.

Ronald G. Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union.  Stanford University Press 1993. Ch. 3 (partial), pp. 84-117.

Individual readings on Ukraine, Siberia, and Armenia

Week 13 Dec 5  NO CLASS

Presentations:  Read your classmates' rough drafts before coming to class.  Prepare your own comments on classmates papers.  

Week 14 Dec 12

Presentations: Read rough drafts

Ahlers, "Diplomatic Implications Concerning the Non-Recognition of Russia, 1917-1920"

Bailey, on Jews in the Soviet Union after the Revolution

Braaton, "The Red Army in the Interwar Period, 1918-1938"

Cushing, on NEP's social impact

George, "Revolutionary Film in Russia"

Madewell, "American-Russian Relations During the Russian Revolution"

Shah, "Muslim Women in Soviet Central Asia: an Examination of Hujum and Cultural Resistance"

Week 15 Finals week, RESEARCH PAPERS DUE.