How do you promote the disadvantaged? Is the goal equality before the law? Or is it about justice, that is, equal opportunities for the disadvantaged? These questions are considered here on the basis of Soviet experience. The Bolsheviks launched a campaign in 1924 to promote the disadvantaged to leadership positions. The old /"bourgeois/" specialists were considered unreliable and were replaced by new, half-educated upstarts. How was this social experiment carried out? What mentality did the upstarts have? How did they define their role? Were they able to fulfill their task? Are their experiences relevant to today's world and to the United States?
Dr. Brovkin is an American historian born in the Soviet Union and now retired. He received his PhD from Princeton in 1984 and was an associate professor of Soviet history at Harvard University in the 1990s. He has been an editor, consultant and teacher and has lived in Morocco, Germany and France. He is the author of 7 books on the history of Russia; the most recent can be found here: From Vladimir Lenin to Vladimir Putin: Russia in Search of Its Identity (London; Routledge 202); and Russia After Lenin, and Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia (Princeton U Press 1989). All of these books are available from the publisher or from Amazon. One book has been published in Russia and in Russian: Velikaya Oktiabrskaya Katastrofa, available from Blue Berries.ru or Ozon.ru. or Litres.ru

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