Повседневная жизнь советского города: Нормы и аномалии. 1920–1930 годы.

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In retrospect, the 20th Century seems to many of us first of all an age of excesses and false solutions, of murderous delusions and hare-brained scheming. At the same time it was ал age of unseen — and unforeseen — scientific and technical progress and social restructuring. Looking back into this not too distant past, nobody's eye can avoid meeting the phenomenon of Soviet socialism, which looms large in the centre of the political history of the period. Now, as we are approaching the 21st century, the Soviet Union exists no more and we may hope that the social system, which it had produced, never returns. This notwithstanding, the study of Soviet society remains very important. We must try to understand what happened in Russia during the long decades of Soviet power. We need this understanding not just in order to explain, why and how the communists took power and held it, although this is also a crucially important task. As scholars and as human beings we are also concerned about that reality, which was faced by the common man, the ordinary Soviet citizen, on whose body the immense social experiment was performed. During several past decades, scholars have been quarreling about the merits and setbacks of different models of explaining the Soviet society as a whole. The debate still continues and no final solutions are in sight. Anyway, our understanding of the Soviet society on all levels is rapidly improving. This is due to the unique quality and quantity of the files of source material, which the Soviet state (including the Communist party) collected and preserved. This material makes it possible not only to observe the networks and mechanisms of power and communication of this society.

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