In this episode, Alisa talks with Lewis H. Siegelbaum, who, along with J. Arch Getty, edited Reflections on Stalinism (Northern Illinois University Press, 2024), a collection of essays by twelve prominent scholars in the field who, after decades of study, reflect on the 'hows' and 'whys' of Stalinism as an authoritarian dictatorship determined to build a version of socialism in the Soviet Union at all costs. The conversation explores the impetus behind the collection and its development, thematic approaches to studying Stalinism, memories of traveling to Soviet archives, and even reflections on mortality.

Other NBN episodes mentioned in this podcast include:

• Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile by Lewis H. Siegelbaum, hosted by Sean Guillory;
• Stuck on Communism: Memoir of a Russian Historian by Lewis H. Siegelbaum, hosted by Steven Seegel;
• To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans, hosted by Marshall Poe.

Alisa Kuzmina is a PhD Candidate at the University of Minnesota, specializing in Cultural Cold War history, with a focus on Soviet and American marriage policies and the social-cultural norms surrounding them.

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