This course, a continuation of last year’s course on early Twentieth-Century Russian History: Revolutions, will focus on the period from the Civil War to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, one of the most significant periods in twentieth-century Russian history: these were the formative years for the creation of the Soviet system of government, values, and the basis for its dialogue with the outer world. The course will prompt students to explore why Stalinism in the Soviet Union could take the form of a stable and efficiently working system whose domestic characteristics and trends contributed to the prolonged existence of its values among Soviet citizens. Though broad in its coverage of social, cultural, economic and ethnic deformations characteristic of the Stalinist system, the course will focus on the reasons why ‘Stalinism’ turned out to be so appealing to the society of that time. This issue is even more important in light of rising public interest in both Stalin’s personality and the processes which characterized his time. A great deal of this course will be devoted to international issues, since this period includes both the World War II period and the first steps towards bipolar confrontation. The course will be accompanied by literary texts and documentary films and will include a thorough study of transformations in political vocabulary and colloquial Russian. Students will be required to participate actively in class discussions and comment on assigned readings, to make an in-class presentation, and to write brief assignments and a final exam or paper.