Conflict and Revolution | School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Rebuilding Socialism: The Reconstruction of the Soviet Union and its Official Ideology through the Lens of Post-War Published Sources

Dr Rob Dale has been awarded a AHRC International Placement Scheme Fellowship to spend three months between July and September 2018 researching at the Library of Congress in Washington DC on a project entitled 'Rebuilding Socialism: The Reconstruction of the Soviet Union and its Official Ideology through the Lens of Post-War Published Sources'.

The project seeks to build on Dr Dale’s previous work on the post-war reconstruction of the Soviet Union, and the transition from war to peace in the late Stalinist period (1945–1953). Historians have long examined the Great Patriotic War’s profound effects upon Stalinism. In the wake of war, Soviet citizens anticipated that wartime sacrifice would be rewarded by the advent of a more responsive system. Hopes of reform, however, quickly turned to disappointment as the Stalinist system reversed wartime compromises. The project explores how the Soviet Union’s physical infrastructure was rebuilt in the wake of the Great Patriotic War, by a re-examination of Soviet published sources, particularly newspapers and official ideological journals. Physical reconstruction proceeded in parallel with the political, social, ideological and cultural re-imposition of Stalinism. The project examines the mechanisms by which Soviet propagandists rebuilt socialism on the pages of newspapers and journals published between 1945 and 1955. It examines how the physical reconstruction of Soviet society was connected to a post-war relaunch of socialism. It considers how the social and cultural process of rebuilding cities, towns, and villages, also drew people into the wider ideological and political project. In rebuilding the fabric of urban and rural society, Soviet citizens were also creating the future edifice of Socialism.

Dr Dale will be blogging on the progress of his research during his Fellowship throughout the duration of the award in the summer of 2018 at 

War, Revolution and Empire in Russian History: A Workshop in Honour of Professor David Saunders.

This Workshop on 10 May is to mark Professor David Saunders’ retirement at the end of this academic year and speaks to some of the key themes that run through his rich and diverse career. Professor David Saunders is amongst the longest serving members of staff in the school of History, Classics and Archaeology (he has been working here since 1979 – that’s 38 years!) and to mark his retirement the school will be holding an afternoon of discussions around these themes. The War, Revolution and Empire workshop details are here.

Workshop: Re-assessing R. I. Moore's Formation of a Persecuting Society (1987)

This event on 15 September intends to celebrate and assess the contemporary relevance of R. I. Moore’s ‘Formation of a Persecuting Society’, first publishes in 1987, for the current historiography of mediaeval and early-modern Europe. The workshop will be divided into four sessions: firstly on the relevance of the concept of a persecuting society in contemporary mediaeval studies; second its impact on the scholarship of early-modern Europe; third on the use of the concept beyond the chronology and geography of the original work; and finally on the legacy of R. I. Moore’s scholarship on the historiography of exclusion, orthodoxy / heterodoxy and identity politics in general. The event celebrates Newcastle's contribution to these fields of scholarship, and the continued importance of a retired member of the School, his contribution to scholarship worldwide, and the impact of his work through translation and adaptation in other contexts than mediaeval history.

Speakers include: Professor R. I. Moore (Newcastle, Emeritus), Professor Mark Pegg (Washington, St Louis), Professor Robin Briggs (Oxford, Emeritus), Professor Mark Greengrass (Sheffield, Emeritus), Dr Julien Théry-Astruc (Lyon II), and Dr Simon Yarrow (Birmingham).

For more information please email Luc Racaut ()