A Normal Totalitarian Society

This study analyzes the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-Soviet decade. Without overlooking the USSR's repressive character, the author treats it as a "normal" system that employed socialist and nationalist ideologies. Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.