Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
This is part four of my series of reminiscences, discussing various events in my life with Karissa Tauber. All four parts are in the Personal Narratives Playlist. This part focuses on Russian the 1990s, where I spent 1993-1994 as an American researcher working in the archives and observing the drama of post-Communist collapse of the Russian state and society. I then discuss my book Russia After Lenin in which I try to explain the reasons for the Stalinist terror and why my conclusions remained out of the mainstream of American studies of Soviet Russia. And finally I discuss the evolution of Soviet studies in America from whitewashing Stalinism by the so called revisionists to hawkish hatred of Russia under President Putin.
This is part four of my series of reminiscences, discussing various events in my life with Karissa Tauber. All four parts are in the Personal Narratives Playlist. This part focuses on Russian the 1990s, where I spent 1993-1994 as an American researcher working in the archives and observing the drama of post-Communist collapse of the Russian state and society. I then discuss my book Russia After Lenin in which I try to explain the reasons for the Stalinist terror and why my conclusions remained out of the mainstream of American studies of Soviet Russia. And finally I discuss the evolution of Soviet studies in America from whitewashing Stalinism by the so called revisionists to hawkish hatred of Russia under President Putin.
