Architectural practice in the Stalinist USSR saw the sudden and rapid revival of historical forms and styles. One approach interprets this development as part of a reactionary shift in Soviet temporal culture, a “Great Retreat” across all spheres of social and political life. The rival conception sees in historicism an aesthetic of “timelessness” and “perfection,” which expressed Stalinism's self-characterization as an eternal, utopian present. This paper presents a third perspective, arguing that the revival of historicism stemmed, paradoxically, from a future-oriented impulse. This revolved around the charge that Stalinist architecture “immortalize the memory” of the era, to ensure posterity's gratitude and admiration. Accordingly, Stalinist architects drew upon supposedly enduring historical styles, which they expected to remain understandable to future generations. Further, time-tested traditional materials, forms, and decorative mediums were employed to ensure the physical durability of Stalinist architectural monuments. The paper concludes by situating this logic in the global context of interwar monumental architecture and considering some implications for our understanding of Stalinist temporality.

No spectacle in Soviet cities more troubled Russian and foreign observers during the 1920s than the millions of orphaned and abandoned children known as besprizornye. Whether portrayed as pitiable victims or as devious wolf-children preying on the surrounding population, they haunted the works of journalists, travelers and Communist Party members alike. “Every visitor sees it first,” a foreigner noted, “and is so shocked by the sight that the most widely known Russian youth are the … homeless children flapping along the main streets of cities and the main routes of travel like ragged flocks of animated scarecrows.” By 1922 the number of waifs reached the neighborhood of seven million, inundating cities and alarming officials that the country might soon amass enough inveterate delinquents to disrupt the socialist transformation of society.

Sheila Fitzpatrick's reflections make for illuminating reading as an autobiographical text. Two basic forces, she suggests, have shaped her as a researcher over the years and were present at the inception of a tremendously productive scholarly career. These two forces in combination may also better define her research agenda than the much used and abused term revisionism. One of them is positive; it is her belief in the archive as a repository of historical truth. From this belief flows her conviction that good historians are empiricists who engage in "lots of hard work on primary sources." Fitzpatrick herself has played a pivotal role in accessing ever new source materials and suggesting ways of making them speak; there are few Soviet historians who can match her first-hand archival expertise.

N. A. Dobroliubov's critical essays on Goncharov, Turgenev, Ostrovsky, and Dostoevsky, written in the brief period of two years preceding his death in 1861, established a reputation and influence second only to Belinsky's in the history of Russian literary criticism. Of these essays “What Is Oblomovism?” holds particular interest. Published in the May 1859 issue of Nekrasov's Sovremennik (The Contemporary), it was Dobroliubov's first major review and possibly his best. It is a central document in the history of the conflict between the liberals of the 1840s and the radicals of the 1860s, or, in the phrasing of Turgenev's title, between “fathers and sons.”

Few official changes of course in the Soviet Union have been as dramatic as the adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. Supplanting what had come to be called War Communism (1918-1920)—a boiling mixture of revolutionary euphoria, bitter civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse, and growing peasant unrest—NEP represented a new departure in many areas of Soviet life. First and foremost, eyewitnesses were struck by the legalization of a considerable amount of private economic activity, in contrast to the harsh measures adopted by the Bolsheviks against the private sector during War Communism.

While this change seemed an improvement to most foreigners on the scene (and undoubtedly to most Russians), revolutionaries of diverse hues regarded the legalization of private trade in 1921 as a clear signal that the Bolsheviks had jettisoned the ideals of the Revolution.

The causes and effects of the Soviet-Yugoslav dispute of 1948 are too well known to need repeating here. Various historians, military strategists, economists, and specialists in Communist affairs have established the basic facts and correctly pointed out the importance of that first break in the Soviet-controlled bloc. Vladimir Dedijer even wrote (supposedly quoting Henry Wallace) that Tito could be compared, though in a different field, to Martin Luther. The independent brand of communism recently proclaimed by the Italian, French, and Spanish Communists (the so-called Euro-Communists) definitely has its precedent in the astounding and courageous example of the Yugoslavs.

I shall limit my analysis mostly to Yugoslav writers and describe how they reacted toward this discord in the “socialist” camp. They all basically defend the same point of view, but they differ in their approach and, above all, in literary quality. The older writers, for example, were intimately involved in the Soviet-Yugoslav dispute, and they display a passionate hostility toward Stalin. To varying degrees, they often combine an excessive reverence for Tito, the perennial Yugoslav leader, with boastful self-approval. Recent works, though duly emphasizing the tragedy for thousands of citizens, avoid cliches and journalistic reporting.