麻省理工学院“开放式课程网页” | 政治学 | 17.57J 2003春季课程：苏联政治与社会：1917-1991

前苏联广大的领土的范围占了地球陆地面积的1/6。它横跨十一个时区，并且容纳一百多个不同的民族，其中二十二个的民族的人数超过百万。从1917年十月革命至1991年共产主义垮台的74年里，苏维埃社会主义共和国联邦的领导者及其人民过去面对诸多如下的艰难挑战：推翻俄帝政权、建立新国家、四年内战、饥荒、过渡成为混和经济、列宁死后的政治斗争、工业化、集体化、另一次的饥荒、政治上的困顿、二次大战、战后的重建和镇压、史达林死后的“解冻（缓和）”、赫鲁雪夫的实验政策和戈巴契夫的衰落。每一种挑战皆引导出新的解决方法与变化，简单来说这种变化可称之为“苏维埃制度”的进化。

At its greatest extent the former Soviet Union encompassed a geographical area that covered one-sixth of the Earth's landmass. It spanned 11 time zones and contained over 100 distinct nationalities, 22 of which numbered over one million in population. In the 74 years from the October Revolution in 1917 to the fall of Communism in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, its leaders and its people, had to face a number of difficult challenges: the overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy, the establishment of a new state, four years of civil war, a famine, transition to a mixed economy, political strife after Lenin's death, industrialization, collectivization, a second famine, political Show Trials, World War II, post-war reconstruction and repression, the "Thaw" after Stalin's death, Khrushchev's experimentation, and Brezhnev's decline. Each of these challenges engendered new solutions and modifications in what can be loosely called the evolving "Soviet system."