Does "Stalinism" Have a Future?

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Stalinism would seem to have fallen on hard times. The word continues to figure in popular and polemical discourses, but it appears to have retreated as an analytical category from the works of historians, political scientists, and scholars in cultural studies. In , a recently published volume of twelve essays, senior scholars were asked to reflect upon why they took up the subject of Stalinism, what was the main point(s) they were trying to get across, and whether they now would want to amend what they had written.

The question is where to go from here. Has the utility of Stalinism been exhausted? Has it been replaced by other categories and concerns? Or, rather, are there still un(der)explored dimensions of the subject that might help to better situate that period of Soviet history – the mid-1920s to the early 1950s – within the longue durée of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? And, vice versa, have recent developments shed new light on aspects of those middle decades that previously were overlooked? For example, has the new emphasis on the imperial or colonial aspects of the Soviet project fundamentally altered our understanding of political ideology and practice under Stalin? Does heightened attention to the Anthropocene suggest greater similarity between the Stalinist mania for catching up to and surpassing the advanced capitalist countries and those countries? These are only some of the possibilities waiting to be explored. What are some others and how would we go about doing so?

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Lewis Henry Siegelbaum, Michigan State U

Roundtable Members

• Wendy Z. Goldman, Carnegie Mellon U

• Ronald Grigor Suny, U of Michigan

• Lars Thomas Lih, Independent Scholar