Vasilii Svarog (Vasilii Korochkin, 1883-1946), Stalin and Members of Politbureau in the midst of children in Gorky Park, 1939; what a happy scene! Doesn't this remind you of an earlier French painting?

• Read the textbook chapters 37 and 41 and pages 529-34 of chapter 38
• Check the remarks by Professor Blois and Professor Evans on the Stalin
• Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the week

• Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this week's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.

• Listen to the series of exchanges between Christopher Hitchens and Robert Service as they discuss the legacy of Trotskii, or whether there ever really was a Trotskiite alternative to Stalinism. This was part of the Uncommon Knowledge program (You might need to check the August 2009 archives).
  

• For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch Pokayaniye (Repentance) and write a one-page paper about its portrayal of Stalinism.
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch Utomlyonnye Solntsem (Burnt by the Sun) and assess its depiction of the early Stalinist purges in a one-page paper.
  
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read John Scott, Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel (1942) and write a one-page paper about this American's experiences in Stalinist Russia.
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Isaac Deutscher, Stalin, a Political Biography (1967) and write a one-page paper explaining Deutscher's understanding of Stalin's political "success."
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Amy Knight, Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant (1993) and write a one-page paper explaining the basic processes of the Great Terror.
• For 100 points maximum, do the wikipedia analysis paper on an entry connected to Russian history and culture.
• For 25 points maximum extra credit, read Stalin's "On the Industrialization of Russia" (*.pdf) and explain the main rationale for Stalin's policies in a paragraph.