Late Stalinist Russia - Society Between Reconstruction and Reinvention (Hardcover)

The late Stalinist period, long neglected by researchers more interested in the high-profile events of the 1930s, has recently become the focus of new and innovative research. This book examines late Stalinist society's interaction with ideology, state policy and national and international politics. It dispels the notion of late Stalinism as the apogee of Stalin's rule. Rather than being cowed by terror and control, Soviet post-war society emerges as highly diverse and often contradictory. The analysis of issues such as the impact of demographic changes, shifts in popular opinion, the rise of new generations and the construction of post-war spaces demonstrates that alongside the needs of reconstruction, a strong desire for reinvention existed. The late Stalinist years are thus shown to be a crucial turning point between the Soviet Union's revolutionary origins and its later appearance as a mature and consolidated empire beset by problems of stagnation and corruption. It was in this time that the Soviet Union acquired many of the characteristics that gave it the face it was to have until its demise.