1 - Reading Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century: how the ‘West’ wrote its history of the USSR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
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Summary
From its very beginnings the historiography of Russia in the twentieth century has been much more than an object of coolly detached scholarly contemplation. Many observers saw the USSR as the major enemy of Western civilisation, the principal threat to the stability of nations and empires, a scourge that sought to undermine the fundamental values of decent human societies. For others the Soviet Union promised an alternative to the degradations of capitalism and the fraudulent claims of bourgeois democracy, represented the bulwark of Enlightenment values against the menace of Fascism, and preserved the last best hope of colonised peoples. In the Western academy the Soviet Union was most often imagined to be an aberration in the normal course of modern history, an unfortunate detour from the rise of liberalism that bred its own evil opposite, travelling its very own Sonderweg that led eventually (or inevitably) to collapse and ruin. The very endeavour of writing a balanced narrative required a commitment to standards of scholarship suspect to those either militantly opposed to or supportive of the Soviet enterprise. At times, as in the years just after the revolution or during the Cold War, scholarship too often served masters other than itself. While much worthy analysis came from people deeply committed to or critical of the Soviet project, a studied neutrality was difficult (though possible) in an environment in which one’s work was always subject to political judgement.
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- The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 5 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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