Research on Socialist Practice in Russia

Author: Ye Shuzong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: For a long time, the study of Soviet history in China was dominated by a single book, "A Brief Course on the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)." Almost all arguments and historical materials drew from this "classic." Independent and scientific research on Soviet history in our country only began after the end of the Cultural Revolution. For better or worse, the lessons of the Cultural Revolution prompted historians in China to seriously reflect on and study the flaws and numerous issues of the Stalinist model. The mistakes were made by ourselves, but tracing back to the source, they were inseparable from the Stalinist model. As a result, starting in the late 1970s, some scholars in our country began the difficult yet pioneering research on Soviet history. The authors of this series, Professor Zheng Yifan, Professor Xu Tianxin, Professor Ye Shuzong, and Professor Yang Cuntang (pen name Liu Zhi) are among the more representative scholars. They share several common characteristics: they received formal historical education, have relatively solid foundations, are proficient in using Russian, are diligent in thinking, bold in exploration, and are dedicated to this discipline, willing to sit patiently on cold benches. Precisely because of this, when China began its reform and opening-up, inspired by the Third Plenary Session, they re-examined a series of issues in Soviet history. In newspapers, academic conferences, and other forums, they proposed many valuable new insights on various topics in Soviet history, such as the late thoughts of Lenin, the Stalinist model, the October Revolution, military communism, the New Economic Policy, the peasantry and agricultural collectivization, industrialization, modernization, foreign policy, the Great Patriotic War, the Great Purge, and the evaluations of historical figures like Bukharin, Trotsky, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. The articles selected for this collection are divided into seven thematic sections.