Ebook: National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931-1956

During the 1930s, Stalin and his entourage rehabilitated famous names from the Russian national past in a propaganda campaign designed to mobilize Soviet society for the coming war. Legendary heroes like Aleksandr Nevskii and epic events like the Battle of Borodino quickly eclipsed more conventional communist slogans revolving around class struggle and proletarian internationalism. In a provocative study, David Brandenberger traces this populist national Bolshevism into the 1950s, highlighting the catalytic effect that it had on Russian national identity formation.