General Readings on the Soviet Union
1. Gregory Freeze, Russia: A History, (Oxford University Press, 1997)
2. J. L. Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States (2nd ed., New York,
1990) (an overview of Soviet-American relations)
3. M. Lewin, The Making of the Soviet System, (New York, 1985)
4. R. Stites, Revolutionary Dreams (New York, 1991),
5. _______ , Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since 1900,
(Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Russia in War and Revolution, 1914, 1921
6. E. Acton, Rethinking the Russian Revolution (London, 1990) (critical analysis of
historiography on 1917)
7. E. N. Burdzhalov, Russia’s Second Revolution: the February 1917 Uprising in
Petrograd (Bloomington, Ind., 1987)
8. W. H. Chamberlain, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (2 vols, Princeton, 1987)
9. O. Figes, A People’s Tragedy: the Russian Revolution, 1891-1924
10. Same, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917.
11. J.L.H. Keep, The Russian Revolution: A Study in Mass Mobilization (New York,
1976)
12. Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State.
13. Rubinowitch, Prelude to Revolution (Bloomington, Ind., 1968)
14. Rex Wade. The Russian revolution.
15. J.D. White, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (London, 1994) – as a recent
study
The New Economic Policy and the Revolutionary Experiment, 1921-1929
M Ball, Russia’s Last Capitalists (Berkley, 1987)
16. S. Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934
(Cambridge, 1979)
17. S. Fitzpatrick, Russia in the Era of NEP.
18. J. Hughes, Stalin, Siberia, and the Crisis of the New Economic Policy
(Cambridge, 1991)
19. R. Pethybridge, The Social Prelude to Stalinism (New York, 1974)
20. Gladkov, Cement
Building Stalinism, 1929-1941
21. Robert Conquest, The Great Terror
22. Robert W. Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia
23. J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov The Road to Terror: Stalin and the SelfDestruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939
24. Hiroaki Kuromiya, “Accounting for the Great Terror”
25. Rogovin, Stalin’s NeoNEP
26. Svetlana Allilueva, Twenty Letters to a Friend.
27. Chase, William J. Enemies Within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist
Repression, 1934-1939.
28. Eugenia Ginzburg. Journey Into the Whirlwind.
29. Sar Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia
30. Lars Lih, Stalin’s Letters to Molotov
31. Dimitrov and Stalin, 1934-1943
32. Lewis Siegelbaum, Stalinism as a Way of Life
33. Getty / Manning, Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives
The Great Patriotic War and Late Stalinism, 1941-1953
34. J. Barber and M. Harrison, The Soviet Home front, 1941-45 (London, 1991)
35. O. Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941-45 (New York, 1986)
36. R.W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (Bloomington, Ind.,
1989) (on the historiography of war)
37. M. Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (New York, 1962) (Stalin and Yugoslav
Communists)
38. J. Garrard and C. Garrard, eds., World War II and the Soviet People (London,
1993)
39. George Kennan, Russian and the West under Lenin and Stalin
40. Yergin, The Shattered Peace
41. Jensen, Origins of the Cold War (“Long Telegrams”),
42. Stalin and Politburo in Carl Beck Papers
43. Zybov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War
44. Bechloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev
45. Lebow and Stein, We All Lost the Cold War
46. Muphy, Kondrashev. Battleground Berlin.
47. Bauer, Vladimir, and Tatiana Ilarionova. Rossiiskie nemtsy: pravo na nadejdu.
Moskva: “Respublica”, 1995.
48. Bougai, Nikolai. The Deportation of Peoples in the Soviet Union. New York:
Nova Science Publishers, 1996.
49. Dolian, P.M. Ne po svoei vole – istoria I geografia prinuditel’nikh migratsii v
SSSR.
50. Goldhagen, Erich. Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union. New York: Frederick A.
Praeger Publishers, 1968.
51. Helton, Arthur. Forced displacement and human security in the former Soviet
Union: law and policy. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2000.
52. Lukov, Valerii Andreevich. Vynuzhdennaia migratsia: sotsialnye posledstvia
mezhnatsionalnykh konfliktov. Moskva: Sotsium, 2000.
53. Medvedev, Zhores. Soviet Agriculture.
54. “Mobilizovat’ nemtsev v rabochie kolonny… I. Stalin.” Sbornik dokumentov
(1940-e gody). Moskva: “Gotika”, 1998.
55. Pohl, Otto. The Stalinist Penal System: a statistical history of Soviet repression.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.
56. Slavgorodskaia, L.B., ed. at al. Nemtsy v Rossii: Ludi I sud’by. Kollektsia statei.
St.Petersburg: Rossiiskaia Akademia Nauk Press, 1998.
From Stalinism to Stagnation, 1953-1985
57. J.L.H. Keep, Last of the empires (Oxford, 1995)
58. R. Medvedev, Khrushchev (Garden City, NY, 1984)
59. N.S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (part on Childhood)
60. J. Millar, ed., Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR (New York, 1987)
61. M.J. Sodaro, Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev
(Ithaca, NY, 1990)
62. Amalrik, Andrei. Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?
63. Bergman, Jay. “Soviet Dissidents on the Russian Intelligentsia, 1956-1986: The
Search for a Usable Past”
64. Grigorenko, Peter. Memoirs.
65. Marchenko, Anatoly. Live Like Everyone.
66. __________ , My Testimony.
67. Sakharov, Andrei. My Country and the World.
68. ________ , Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom.
69. ________ , Memoirs.
70. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. The Exhausted West; Letter to the Soviet Leaders;
Warning to the West; Rebuilding Russia; Russian Question. I’ve also read his
Cancer Ward and Archipelago GULAG, but that was a while ago, I will have to
reread if you would want me to include these.
71. Tertz, Abram (Andrei Sinyavsky) The Trial Begins.
72. ________ , On Social Realism.
73. Tokes, Rudolf, Dissent in the USSR.
Perestroika and the Collapse of the Soviet Union
74. Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000, (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
75. Martin Malia. The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991.
76. Hillel Ticktin, Origins of the Crisis in the USSR: Essays on the Political Economy
of a Disintegrating System, (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1992).
77. Michael Ellman and Kontorovich, Vladimir (eds.), The Disintegration of the
Soviet Economic System, (New York: Routledge, 1992).
78. Rasma Karklins, “Explaining Regime Change in the Soviet Union,” (Europe-Asia
Studies 4, 1, 1994): 29-45.
79. Peter Reddaway, “The Role of Popular Discontent,” (The National Interest,
Spring 1993): 57-63.
80. David M. Kotz and Fred Weir, Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet
System, (New York: Routledge, 1997.)
81. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, “China as a Factor in the Collapse of the Soviet
Empire,” (Political Science Quarterly, 110, 4, Winter 1995-1996): 501-518.