HIST 386. The Soviet Union: A Socialist Experiment

Credits 3.00 PeopleSoft Course ID 005271

In 1917, a party of revolutionaries established the world’s first socialist state. Although inspired by the goals and lessons of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the lived experience of Soviet socialism was characterized by enormous suffering, violence and death. Yet during the more than 70 years of its existence, the Soviet Union also accomplished much that was good, even extraordinary. This course examines the main features, successes and failures of the Soviet socialist experiment from its revolutionary origins in the 1860s through its collapse in 1991.