A transnational history of leadership cultures and practices in the 20th Century (1890-1940) and the singular place of Stalinism

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In the four countries under scrutiny, France, Germany, Russia-Soviet Union and the United States, new and powerful discursive and operational practices of leadership were emerging since the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Nominally speaking, «leadership» did not exist as a problem before. The Interwar period experienced a huge endeavor to obtain obedience from the «masses» or the «crowds», not only in totalitarian states but also in liberal ones. The lecture will explore this appearance in all four countries and the circulations within which it was taking shape (circulations between countries, between domains as politics, industry, war, and education, between these domains and the social sciences as psychology and sociology). Bolshevism was one of these new practical discourses and practices focused on the building of an «organization of leaders» («oргaнизaция рyкoвoдитeлeй», Lenin, What is to be done?, 1902). It had its place in the broader landscape. Stalin developed an immense government by the heads where democracy was just a facade. Soviet Union was made a huge organization for the promotion of «нaчaльники» with a «Вoждь» as its head. The very action of Stalin as a «Вoждь» is studied from his handwritten office archive as well as an industrial case study is drawn from the archive of Red Putilov factory in Leningrad.

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