Professor McBride is a great lecturer and knows what he is talking about. I never find his lectures boring, and think that his workload is perfectly reasonable. I personally did a majority of the readings but think that not reading some of the novels would not hurt you, as the work in the class is mainly contingent on the lecture material. Would suggest taking this class!

I really love this cluster series and the way the seminars are taught is far less boring as I would have suspected from a three hour class. The material is engaging and not too hefty, just do the readings and you will be fine.

This review is mostly about the TA Sharon, since TA's determine your grades for this cluster. She is most possibly the harshest TA I have ever had. I am pretty sure she has no soul and expects you to write at a PhD level, because she completely lacks consideration. Her pea sized brain doesn't consider the fact that this is only our second quarter in college and that this entire course is meant to be a GE not a major required class!! Also, when you try to seek out help from her, she will give you some vague advice or only help you with a small thing such as a thesis, and won't really help you overall. Then, when you do apply the advice, it's still not good enough for an A. She also expects us to be lively during discussion but to be fair she's not really much of an exciting person herself, and I'm pretty sure everybody's quiet because they don't like her enough to feel bad and say something. My first quarter TA, Cardozo, was quite literally the nicest person ever. As long as we said one thing during class he gave us full participation, and his advice and help was actually useful. Anyways, pick your TA wisely because your grade depends on them lol. Take this class if you can get a good TA and don't pick Sharon. Professors/lectures/ topics themselves were interesting.

Professor McBride was great but this is more of a review of the class itself. Definitely not as easy as the previous years of reviews make it seem like. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET SWAMPED WITH WRITING AND READING. Readings aren't used until the end when the final paper requires you to use past readings. The cluster also traps you by making you take all three quarters to get the extra GE and writing II, but in the end its not worth it, so go with the freedom and take GEs whenever you want. If you get a good TA like Cucharo, then class is manageable but with a worse TA like Glasberg, it's definitely not worth it. Honestly, one of my most regretful decisions so far in college is taking this cluster.

More details about the class if you want to read:
Fall quarter - about 60-100 pages of readings a week along with 4 one page response papers every week in first half, one 5-6 page paper in second half, and two 3-4 page papers given and due within finals week (hated my life when I was writing these).
Winter quarter - roughly the same amount of reading, two 5-6 page papers for each half, same thing for final
Spring quarter - not done yet but its been alright compared to the past two quarters, but still wish I hadn't even gotten to this point.

I seriously enjoyed this class. The amount of reading is fairly heavy, however a majority of the readings were primary sources and fun to pick apart and dissect (on top of being short). The books assigned can be long, although they are still entertaining in how they are stories giving an insight into Soviet Russia rather than a long and dry textbook.
The lectures are invaluable to the course and will be needed for the in class mid-term and take home final. If you do the readings, attend lectures, and study the material to fill in an hour and a half of testing, you should do just fine.
If you are at all interested in Soviet history, I HIGHLY recommend taking his course.