Everyday Life and the "Reconstruction" of Soviet Russia During and After the Great Patriotic War, 1943-1948

Everyday Life and the "Reconstruction" of Soviet Russia During and After the Great Patriotic War, 1943-1948 reminds us of how little we know about the end of the war and the immediate post-war era in the Soviet Union. Jones uses the case of Rostov-on-Don, totally devastated by the vast battles that raged around it, to reveal how people and party responded to the grim task that confronted them after the German forces were expelled. Society and state both strived to rebuild but comprehended the process differently. In the official "reconstruction" mythology, state and party leaders portrayed themselves as a vanguard, whereas local populations, mostly workers, saw them as a privileged elite. The chapters revolve around these conflicting interpretative ideologies, as expressed through official public sources, internal documents, police reports on the population, and interviews and memoirs. What emerges is a portrayal, compelling and persuasive, of the physical realities of rebuilding the infrastructures of modern life and the ways various elements of society perceived the process. The author makes a strong case for identifying a unified period, "the reconstruction," as every bit as important in our understanding of Soviet history as "the NEP" or "The First Five-Year Plan," not only due to its uniqueness but also due to the discursive weight the regime placed on it. Jones' study will help define our approaches to chronicling post-war Soviet life, the most exciting new field in Russian historiography.