An Analysis of Sheila Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s

Victor Petrov, Riley Quinn

• Publisher: Macat Library
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351352222
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: History

How was the Soviet Union like a soup kitchen? In this important and highly revisionist work, historian Sheila Fitzpatrick explains that a reimagining of the Communist state as a provider of goods for the 'deserving poor' can be seen as a powerful metaphor for understanding Soviet life as a whole. By positioning the state both as a provider and as a relief agency, Fitzpatrick establishes it as not so much a prison (the metaphor favoured by many of her predecessors), but more the agency that made possible a way of life.

Fitzpatrick's real claim to originality, however, is to look at the relationship between the all-powerful totalitarian government and its own people from both sides – and to demonstrate that the Soviet people were not totally devoid of either agency or resources. Rather, they successfully developed practices that helped them to navigate everyday life at a time of considerable danger and multiple shortages. For many, Fitzpatrick shows, becoming an informer and reporting fellow citizens – even family and friends – to the state was a successful survival strategy.

Fitzpatrick's work is noted mainly as an example of the critical thinking skill of reasoning; she marshals evidence and arguments to deliver a highly persuasive revisionist description of everyday life in Soviet time. However, her book has been criticized for the way in which it deals with possible counter-arguments, not least the charge that many of the interviewees on whose experiences she bases much of her analysis were not typical products of the Soviet system.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• The Macat Library
• Critical Thinking and Everyday Stalinism
• About the Author of the Original Work
• Dedication
• Ways in to The Text
• 1 Influences
• Module 1 The Author and the Historical Context
• Module 2 Academic Context
• Module 3 The Problem
• Module 4 The Author’s Contribution
• 2 Ideas
• Module 5 Main Ideas
• Module 6 Secondary Ideas
• Module 7 Achievement
• Module 8 Place in the Author’s Work
• 3 Impact
• Module 9 The First Responses
• Module 10 The Evolving Debate
• Module 11 Impact and Influence Today
• Module 12 Where Next?
• Glossary
• People Mentioned in the Text
• WORKS CITED
• The Macat Library by Discipline