What happens when a Nation embraces Stalinist Communism
 
What: Carol Any, associate professor of language and culture studies, will deliver a lecture entitled, Faith and Doubt: Confessions of a Bolshevik True Believer. The lecture is based on a book in progress about writers and literary politics under Joseph Stalin, one of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history. Stalin was the undisputed leader of the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953. The event is co-sponsored by the Faculty Research and the Common Hour Events committees.
 
When: Tuesday, February 24 from 12:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
 
Where: Rittenberg Lounge in Mather Hall on the Trinity campus.
 
Background: In her lecture, Any will answer the question: What happens when a nation replaces faith in God with faith in a political party?
 
The Russian Revolution, which toppled the tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union in the early part of the 20th century, "promised to bring about a just society and a new, better kind of human being," said Any. "So powerful was this vision that many people embraced the Communist Party as the Infallible, to be adored in a community of believers."
 
In the 1930s, as Stalin transformed the Soviet Union from an egalitarian, revolutionary movement into a brutal dictatorship, frequent shifts in the party line were often sudden and unexplained, according to Any. Thus, these perplexing turnabouts caused distress not only among those who privately rejected Stalin¹s version of Communism, but among the party faithful, who were visited by frightening doubts that threatened their core beliefs.
 
Indeed, Stalin's regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions. He also exiled millions to the gulag system of slave labor camps.
 
How did the faithful resolve their doubts? Says Any: "I examine the struggle of one party loyalist, a mid-level editor of a literary magazine, as he tried to justify these repeated and seemingly arbitrary reversals in cultural policy, beginning with the public disgracing in 1936 of [the renowned composer] Dmitri Shostakovich and his music."

One of the towering figures in world politics in the 20th century, Stalin remains one of the least known, primarily because of the traditional secrecy surrounding Soviet leaders. His personality and rule were -- and still are
-- highly controversial.
 
This is event is open to the Trinity community.  Lunch will be provided. To reserve your bag lunch, please email:
megan.fitzsimmons@trincoll.edu.

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