Download or read book A Normal Totalitarian Society written by Vladimir Shlapentokh and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.