Stalin and Hitler or "Red” vs “Brown”: Historical Issues
in Cultural and other Perspectives
This course is intended as a broad treatment
of issues that dominated the twentieth century: the rise of fascism out of the
carnage of World War One and the Bolshevik revolution to which the war and
Czarist Russia's involvement in it contributed. It is intended to be both
interdisciplinary in its use of political and philosophical, historical,
literary, documentary, and memoir texts as well as innovative in the search for
the important connections that relate political, ideological, historical, and
cultural developments in both the German and Russian or Soviet setting to each
other. A number of films will also be shown that lend themselves to a variety
of classroom purposes. Because propaganda played such an important role both in
Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, we will look at examples of films from
the two ostensibly antithetical political systems in order to discuss the role
and effectiveness of film propaganda in general, to see what distinguishes them
from each other, and to ascertain what they may have in common. Some of these
films we will also consider both in terms of their artistic innovativeness as
well as the careers of the controversial filmmakers, like Riefenstahl and
Eisenstein, who created them. A few Western films — Dr. Zhivago, Reds,
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1984 — will figure either as film
treatments of literary masterpieces or as artistic depictions of historical
celebrities like John Reed. At the center of much of this figure singular
personalities like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, and we will examine the role
played by these key figures in historical events of this magnitude. Passing
consideration will be given to that brief period in which these two systems
colluded, 1939 through 1941, in order to ask how such collusion was possible
given each system’s ideologically embedded hostility toward the other; why that
collusion ended, whether the end was inevitable, and which side was responsible
for it (was Stalin really planning a preventive war against Hitler on
the eve of “Barbarossa,” the German invasion, and why did Stalin ignore the
warnings of impending attack?). From there we will proceed to a discussion of
the titanic clash between the two countries and their militaries, raise some
important questions with regard to the emerging implications of the Red Army’s
march westward after Stalingrad, talk a bit about Yalta, consider the fall of
Berlin, and take a look at the importance of victory in Soviet political and
ideological thinking (and mythology). More towards the end of the semester, we
will consider the situation created in Western and
Teaching Methodology
The Covid pandemic,
which in spring 2020 led to a sudden disruption of in-class teaching and a
shift to remote instruction, necessitated a major alteration in the way I teach
my classes. As you will have inferred from my initial pre-semester email to you
all, that earlier approach revolved around a loosely structured, always
germane, but improvisational, associative presentation of issues vital to the
course. I do not adhere slavishly to a rigid syllabus. Additionally, you will
be periodically sent links to articles and news stories related to the inherent
subject matter of our course. You will soon come to understand that this
course, as do all courses I teach, raises issues that cannot be in some rigid
historically compartmentalized, with neat beginnings and neat ends. Your world,
the world you live in, remains vitally affected, to this day, by the
experiences of the two totalitarianisms: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Our
operating principle can be summed up by Shakespeare’s lines in The Tempest,
“The Past is Prologue,” and/or Faulkner’s line “The past is never dead. It's
not even past.” Or…. To employ the title plus addendum from a novel published
in 2005, which resulted in a film of the same name, “Everything is Illuminated
[by the light of the past].” This could be put slightly differently: [knowing
about and understanding] the past sheds light on the present and is the only
way to place the present in a context that enables understanding of the “era”
we live in; but the present, if you are informed about it and ponder it
sufficiently to grasp some of its essences, provides a critically important
window into grasping the past more fully. You will come to understand that
various things we experience or are experiencing are not new. To quote Yogi
Berra (google the name), it’s déjà vu all over again…. Making
these connections is part and parcel of understanding the subjects we are
studying this semester.
Though this approach of mine has in the past
struck students as unorthodox, unconventional, my experiences with outstanding
students, their evaluations, written work, emails, conversations, etc. produced
a record of confirmation of the effectiveness of this approach and a broad
consensus of student endorsements. I grant you that, for some students, it can
take a week or two or perhaps even three to get used to. But, in the beginning,
there is no reason for anyone to be unsettled about this. Sooner or later
(usually sooner!), you will grasp the approach and understand what it can
achieve. However…. This approach was, of course,
impossible under any conceivable remote circumstances. I do not, and will not,
use Zoom – that’s a class killer in any case. What I hit upon beginning in
March 2020 ultimately generated an abundance of evidence from my students that
my “remote” approach worked and worked well. I surprised myself. Given the
enormous enrollments in my classes (this, too, is a phenomenon of the last 4-5
years, when my enrollments began skyrocketing), I will divide each class into
GROUPS. The Freshman Seminar (FYS), with a current enrollment of 25-27, will
result in two separate groups. For any given assignment, alternating groups
will EMAIL to me and the rest of the class, a substantive, but succinct
“impression” of a few paragraphs of the assignment. With each specific
assignment, a specific group will be given a deadline to disseminate
impressions. Everyone in class is expected to read these impressions carefully
and be ready to discuss some of the major points in class. Those of you not
belonging to a specific group disseminating these “impressions” of any specific
assignment are nonetheless also required to write your own impression of that
assignment and save it. At midterm time, everyone in class compiles their
collected impressions and sends them to me as a WORD or PDF document. Same
thing the end of the semester. These impressions form the largest basis of your
grade, and, importantly, everyone of you can and
should be comparing what you write in the way of your impressions with what
other students disseminate. Though it doesn’t work this way, in theory you
ought to be able to grade yourselves by comparing the quality of your thought
and the quality of your writing with that of others in the class.
There are no other written assignments, but
there will be a final exam. During our remote semesters, I responded
voluminously to the disseminated impressions: I called them my “covid lectures.” Just to give you an example, counting my
“responses” as well, my course last spring “Auschwitz and Gulag” generated close
to 1,000 emails. It was one of the best courses I’ve ever taught and included
some of the finest students I’ve ever had. This approach brought out their
best.
What I will be attempting to do this semester
is to hybridize, combine, what has worked best in my teaching approaches – the
one practiced for years in the form of free-wheeling classroom presentations of
essential issues related to the class, and my recent “remote” practice of
student “impressions.”
It is up to you to organize these emails;
print them out, put them in a loose-leaf notebook, make dedicated folders in
your email – I don’t care how, but keep track of them, and any responses I
elect to make by email. I will be reading ALL of your impressions, as will you,
but rather than commenting upon them in writing by email, as I did during our
remote semesters, I will attempt to engage some of the best insights from the
impressions in class. I may or may not elect in additional to respond by email
to this or that especially good point in an impression. We’ll see.
Importantly: I do not yet know how, if at
all, to handle questions from you. You are all required to be masked. I asked
the administration whether this or that student can lower a mask to ask a
question; if you cannot, then I will not be able to understand you, sadly, and
questions posed in class will not take place. Unsurprisingly, the
administration has not answered my question, and likely will leave it
unanswered – that’s the way they do things. Either way, we will have to find
ways of being flexible under, at best, trying circumstances.
As indicated in my earlier email, you are all expected
to install the Check-In app on your Android phone or iPhone and, before each
class meeting, use it to check-in to that class session.
Attendance is absolutely mandatory; if you must be
absent, you are allowed, for acceptable reasons, only two excused absences. Each subsequent absence lowers the
grade otherwise earned by a half grade point - i.e., a third absence takes an A
to an A-, a fourth from an A- to a B+, and so on. There are no automatically
excused absences. If you must miss class, you are expected to email me in
advance with your reason. These policies adhere closely to university
"Academic Procedures," which are outlined in the Undergraduate Bulletin
and which you are expected to be familiar with.
** Absolutely NO mobile phones, iPhone or otherwise, are allowed in class. Not in your hand, not on your desk. This is a policy to be strictly adhered to, and violations of it may be considered by me to be honor code violations. The same thing goes for recording of any kind without my express permission. Equally so, NO open computers are allowed in class.
Tentative Course Outline
Week One
Week Two
Film: Reds
Week Three
John Reed, Selections from Ten Days that Shook the World;
Films: Ten Days that Shook the World
Film: The Three Penny Opera
Kurt Weill, Songs from the Three Penny Opera (Lotte Lenya; Louie Armstrong)
Week Four
Brecht, Three Penny Opera
Film: The Three Penny Opera; Songs from Three Penny Opera
Week Five
Film: “The wonderful horrible life of Leni Riefenstahl”
Week Six
Film: 1984
Week Seven
Georg Buechner, Danton's Death
Week Eight
Week Nine
Week Ten
Week Eleven
Reading: Steiner, The
Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.