Rise & Fall of USSR

Catalog description

A survey of the major political, social, economic, and cultural events of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1881 to 1991. During this time, the lands of the Russian Empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, changed from an agricultural country to a technologically advanced superpower to fifteen new countries with diverse political and economic systems. The course will examine these developments through the decline of tsarism and the fall of the Romanov dynasty, the Russian revolutions and the foundation of the Soviet Union, Stalinism, Word War II, the Cold War, and the reforms under Gorbachev that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.