Progress Guides to the Social Sciences

Written by prominent Soviet historians, this is a popular textbook intended for a wide range of readers beginning to study the history of the Soviet Union. The book is a very short account of the history of the USSR’s peoples from ancient times to our day. Attention is focused on the country’s contemporary history, ushered in by the Great October Socialist Revolution. The authors describe the principal stages in the country’s development and its role in world history.

Translated from the Russian by Sergei Sossinsky

You can get the book here and here

Contents

Introduction 5

Chapter 1. Slave-Owning States and the Communities of European and Asian Tribes on the Territory of the Soviet Union (First Millennium B.C.-Early Centuries A.D.) 7

Chapter 2. Early Feudal States in Transcaucasia and Central Asia 12

Chapter 3. Ancient Russia 17

Chapter 4. Years of Oppression by the Horde 27

Chapter 5. The Rise of Moscow 32

Chapter 6. The 17th Century: the Age of Rebellion 46

Chapter 7. The Early 18th Century in Russia; The Establishment of Absolute Monarchy. The Reforms of Peter the Great 52

Chapter 8. The Age of Palace Conspiracies. Russia in the Middle and Second Half of the 18th Century 59

Chapter 9. The First Half of the 19th Century in Russia. The Patriotic War of 1812. The Crisis of Serfdom 71

Chapter 10. Socio-Economic Development in Russia After the Reform 82

Chapter 11. From the Narodnik Movement to Marxism. The Beginning of Lenin’s Revolutionary Activities 87

Chapter 12. The Eve of the First Revolution in Russia. The Revolution of 1905-1907: the First Popular Revolution of the Imperialist Epoch 95

Chapter 13. From Reaction to a New Revolutionary Upheaval. Russia’s Culture in the Second Half of the 19th Century and the Early 20th Century 108

Chapter 14. The Years of the World War. The Second Revolution in Russia 118

Chapter 15. From the Fall of Autocracy to the Victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution 128

Chapter 16. The Building of the Soviet State and Its Creative Activities 138

Chapter 17. The Imperialist Intervention and Civil War. Elimination of Post-War Economic Ruin 155

Chapter 18. The Formation of the Multinational State—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 174

Chapter 19. Lenin’s Plan for Building Socialism in the USSR 179

Chapter 20. The USSR Becomes an Industrialised Power 182

Chapter 21. Socialist Transformations in the Soviet Village 195

Chapter 22. The Cultural Revolution in the USSR 206

Chapter 23. The Triumph of Socialism in the USSR 214

Chapter 24. The USSR in the Second World War and the Defeat of Fascism 226

Chapter 25. The Restoration and Further Development of the Country’s Socialist Economy 238

Chapter 26. The Rise of a Developed Socialist Society 246

Chapter 27. Extensive Communist Development in the USSR (1960s-1970s) 268

Chapter 28. The Constitution of a Developed Socialist Society 288

Chapter 29. Basic Trends in the Foreign Policy of the USSR in the Post-War Period 297