Capstone Seminar: Russia-USSR-Russia: History of Communism

The seminar offers an in-depth engagement with Russian modern history. Starting in the late 19th century, the seminar examines the formation of Russian Communist movement and communist regime as national and transnational phenomena of the 20th Century. A comparative perceptive allows students to analyze Russian appropriations of Marxist theory, the Russian Revolution, the making of the Stalinist state, de-Stalinization of the post-World War II period in the context of European and US labor movements and socialist experimentations, on the one hand, and anti-Communist sentiments and Cold War politics, on the other, while engaging with ethical issues raised by conflicting perspectives on the value and meaning of freedom and happiness and the means of achieving it.