Magnetic Mountain + Steeltown, USSR

[ChrisD(RJ)]

Yoshie:
Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for 
enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new 
civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to 
which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship 
of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the 
substance of this fascinating story.
---
People believed in Stalinism. Passionately. BTW, the most popular post-1917
Russian/Soviet leaders (I don't count Lenin), in descending order of
popularity, are:

1. Stalin, by far beating out everybody else (beat Hitler, made USSR into a
superpower, justifies everything else in the minds of many people)
2. Putin
3. Andropov
4. Brezhnev
5. Khrushchev
6. Gorbachev
7. Yeltsin

Chernenko wasn't in power long enough for people to form an opinion about
him.