Stuck on Communism: Memoir of a Russian Historian

by Lewis H. Siegelbaum

This memoir by one of the foremost scholars of the Soviet period spans three continents and more than half a century--from the 1950s when Lewis Siegelbaum's father was a victim of McCarthyism up through the implosion of the Soviet Union and beyond. Siegelbaum recreates journeys of discovery and self-discovery in the tumult of student rebellion at Columbia University during the Vietnam War, graduate study at Oxford, and Moscow at the height of d�tente. His story takes the reader into the Soviet archives, the coalfields of eastern Ukraine, and the newly independent Uzbekistan.

An intellectual autobiography that is also a biography of the field of Anglophone Soviet history, Stuck on Communism is a guide for how to lead a life on the Left that integrates political and professional commitments. Siegelbaum reveals the attractiveness of Communism as an object of study and its continued relevance decades after its disappearance from the landscape of its origin.

Through the journey of a book that is in the end a romance, Siegelbaum discovers the truth in the notion that no matter what historians take as their subject, they are always writing about themselves.

Genres: Memoir, Russia, History

216 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2019

About the author

Lewis H. Siegelbaum is Professor of History at Michigan State University.

Reviews

[Barry Smirnoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this autobiography. Lewis Siegelbaum is a Russian historian and a boomer. His experience as a college student during the Vietnam Era was very similar to my own. He was a couple of years ahead of me, which made a great difference in so far as his academic career is concerned. He had a very different background to mine. His family emigrated to this country decades after mine. His older relatives spoke Yiddish and his father had been a victim of the McCarthy era. He went to public schools on Long Island and did very well, going to Columbia during the SDS occupation there. At some point, he decided to concentrate on an academic career. He made contacts at Columbia that enabled him to get in to Oxford, where he was able to earn a doctorate in Russian History. He was able to get funding for his research from IREX, and then was able to get a teaching job in Australia. He was there for the Reagan era, and was able to get a tenure track position at Michigan State.
Most of the book is a rendition of his career in the shifting currents of academic fashion. He began as a Social historian of the Russian Industrial class during WWI but became caught up in the revisionist movement to overthrow the ColdWar Totalitarian theory of Russian History. He began to study the Russian working class during the Soviet period. He and his cohort began to incorporate other European methods at looking at class. They studied cultural history to incorporate new elements for a better understanding of the society. I feel some sense of loss, not having the experience that I may have had. But his commitment to social change seems to have had different outcome for him. His re-evaluation of the Soviet experience is interesting. The story concludes with his readjustment to retirement and watching Jeopardy. So we ended up in pretty much the same place. Too bad he did not know about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. It is now politically incorrect to like anything Russian. But he does and I do. Russian History for me never became a job, it has always been my passion.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent memoir of a senior scholar in the field of Soviet history. It covers his early life and career as he lived through formative years in the US, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe since the 1950s. Dr. Siegelbaum’s experiences are a treasure to read as a graduate student going through his own period of researching and writing. These memoirs show that it is important to be self reflexive about ones position in live and growth and development from internal and external factors.

[Dimitrii Ivanov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Милые профессиональные (т.е. со сносками) воспоминания, в основном о поле социальной истории труда, но с заездами и по соседству - соответственно исследовательским интересами автора. Много полезного о том, как была устроена профессия.