This work, written in 1948 during the Stalin era, manages, despite the references to Marxism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, to remain relatively objective.
The author, a university professor, presents in this second part an analysis of Russian society under the tsars from the late 17th century until 1900 with Nicholas II.
Originally intended for Soviet schoolchildren, in this book, the historian sheds light on the struggle against serfdom, the tsars’ desire to maintain it, and at the same time open Russia to the West and capitalism.
The 19th century is marked by peasant and worker revolts. The sociological study of society is described from a Marxist perspective. Knowing this, one appreciates this book for its historical, social, and economic work.
Russia, a giant awakening to the laws of the market, is faced with serious handicaps: autocracy, entire regions where people are closer to the Middle Ages than to the Age of Enlightenment. Censorship against the writings of philosophers, a call for freedom (quite strange under Stalin).
A. Pankratova also describes the intellectual life with writers, artists, the development of sciences, and scholars. The industrial society is booming in Russia, and power is extending into Asia, Siberia. The railway adventure.
A fascinating book, this history of the USSR, which mentions texts by Lenin and Stalin on the conditions of the proletarian revolution. The other interest of this work is the dialectic used against the class enemy bourgeoisie. One can sense the atmosphere of the era where the dictatorship of the proletariat was the rule, where the accusation of being an enemy of the people and counter-revolutionary was enough to exile you to the gulags.
Thierry Jan
