1. The Soviet and Nazi regimes have been linked in twentieth-century consciousness as twin pillars of "totalitarianism." Based on your knowledge of workers under communism and under Nazism, does the experience of working-class life under these regimes reflect a basic commonality? How is it that a regime dedicated to communism and a regime dedicated to wiping out communism would have similar features?

2. Let's look more closely at the features of each regime. What are the key elements of authoritarian labor relations in the USSR, as least as elaborated in the period of the civil war (1918-1921). You can use the Rosenberg article in the Kaiser volume as well as the Koenker article in the packet for evidence. Consider, for example, labor-management relations and the degree of worker autonomy in the work place.

3. How do these aspects of labor relations compare to those in Nazi Germany?

4. Compare the right of workers to organize and to protest under each regime. Are there /arenas of protest that are more available than others (for example, strikes, sit-downs, passive resistance, underground organization)?

5. Peukert documents much resistance, but also a great deal of sullen withdrawal from public life among German workers in the 1930s and 1940s. What does this tell you about the survival of "class consciousness" in Nazi Germany?

6. Another article about workers in Nazi Germany, by Alf Luedtke, is titled, "The Appeal of Exterminating 'Others'." The title conveys a sense of the content: some German workers participated in the racial politics of Nazi Germany. To what degree do the Soviet and Nazi experiences differ because of the inclusivity or exclusivity of definitions of members of the society? To what extent are divisions in each society based on class? Or on race? Or on political ideology?

II. Historical treatments compared

7. Consider the Koenker and Peukert articles as examples of the historian's craft? How does each author construct an argument? What principles of selection are used? What is the author's goal in writing the piece you have read? Keep in mind that the Koenker piece is an article in a collection of articles on "Making Workers Soviet," and that Peukert's is a chapter in his own book on Nazi Germany.

8. How do you determine whether these articles are "authoritative"? Look at the sources used by each (i.e. look at the footnotes): does each author use primary sources? in what languages? to what extent does each author engage with other scholarly interpretations.