The "new soviet person" the Bolsheviks were committed to creating was to be a creature willing and eager to subordinate his or her own interests to those of society. Both men and women would play a full role in the construction of socialism, but the model of the "new women" had an additional feature--she also had to reproduce the population. This book explores the ways in which the "new woman," in her various incarnations, was presented to female citizens of the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era in the pages of popular women's magazines, Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman).

A compendium of folkloric, literary, and critical texts that show how the Russian fairy tale acquired political and historical meanings during the Soviet era We were born to make fairy tales come true. As one of Stalinism's more memorable slogans, this one suggests that the fairy tale figured in Soviet culture as far more than a category of children's literature. How much more-and how cannily Russian fairy tales reflect and interpret Soviet culture, especially in its utopian ambitions-becomes clear for the first time in Politicizing Magic, a compendium of folkloric, literary, and critical texts that demonstrate the degree to which ancient fairy-tale fantasies acquired political and historical meanings during the catastrophic twentieth century. Introducing Western readers to the most representative texts of Russian folkloric and literary tales, this book documents a rich exploration of this colorful genre through all periods of Soviet literary production (1920-1985) by authors with varied political and aesthetic allegiances. Here are traditional Russian folkloric tales and transformations of these tales that, adopting the didacticism of Soviet ideology, proved significant for the official discourse of Socialist Realism. Here, too, are narratives produced during the same era that use the fairy-tale paradigm as a deconstructive device aimed at the very underpinnings of the Soviet system. The editors' introductory essays acquaint readers with the fairy-tale paradigm and the permutations it underwent within the utopian dream of Soviet culture, deftly placing each-from traditional folklore to fairy tales of Socialist Realism, to real-life events recast as fairy tales for ironiceffect-in its literary, historical, and political context.

Махно - один із найяскравіших лідерів українського народу, якого радянська пропаганда називала бандитом, а справу його замовчувала. Зараз Нестора Махна порівнюють з Робін Гудом, Спартаком, товаришем Че. Виходець з найбіднішого селянства, він у 29 років зумів зібрати під прапором анархії 100-тисячну армію і почав створювати на південному сході України анархістське суспільство - трудову федерацію, яка проіснувала 100 днів під постійними ударами білих і червоних. Через 70 років після смерті цей степовий вовк став культовою фігурою серед сучасної молоді Європи, а ідеї анархізму, які сповідував Махно, у наш час перекочували з робітничих бараків до арт-богемних тусовок. Ким же був Махно у реальному житті? На це питання і дає відповідь нова книга Віктора Савченка, що присвячена одному з найвідоміших українців ХХ ст.

When the Soviet Union pulled its forces out of Afghanistan, the American media had a simple explanation: Soviet troops had been hounded out of the mountains by U.S.-armed guerrillas--the skies cleared of Soviet aircraft by Stinger missiles--until the Kremlin was forced to cry uncle. But Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison shatter this image. Out of Afghanistan shows that the Red Army was securely entrenched when the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw: American weaponry and Afghan bravery raised the costs for Moscow, but it was six years of skillful diplomacy that gave the Russians a way out. Cordovez and Harrison provide the definitive account of the Soviet blunders that led up to the invasion and the bitter struggles over the withdrawal that raged in the Soviet and Afghan Communist parties and the Reagan Administration. The authors are particularly well-suited to their task: Cordovez was the United Nations mediator who negotiated the Soviet pullout, and Harrison is a leading South Asia expert with four decades of experience in covering Afghanistan. Their story of the U.N. negotiations is interwoven with a gripping chronicle of the war years, complete with palace shootouts in Kabul, turf warfare between rival Soviet intelligence agencies, and the CIA role in building up Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla leaders at the expense of Afghan moderates. Cordovez opens up his diaries to take us behind the scenes in his negotiations, and Harrison draws on interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and other key actors. The result is a book full of surprises. For example, the authors demonstrate that the Soviets intervened not out of a desire to drive to the Indian Ocean, but out of a fear of a U.S.-supported Afghan Tito. Rebuffs by hardline "bleeders" in the Reagan Administration undermined efforts by Yuri Andropov to secure a settlement before his death in 1983. Even more startling, Gorbachev resumed the search for a negotiated withdrawal more than a year before the first American-supplied Stinger missiles were deployed in the war. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was one of the pivotal events of recent history. Out of Afghanistan destroys many of the myths surrounding the Afghan war and will have a profound impact on the emerging debate over how and why the Cold War ended.

Details what ordinary life was like during the extraordinary years of the reign of Soviet Union. Thirty-six illustrations, thematic chapters, a glossary, timeline, annotated multimedia bibliography, and detailed index make it a sound starting point for looking at this powerful nation's immediate past. What was ordinary life like in the Soviet police state? The phrase daily life implies an orderly routine in a stable environment. However, many millions of Soviet citizens experienced repeated upheavals in their everyday lives. Soviet citizens were forced to endure revolution, civil war, two World Wars, forced collectivization, famine, massive deportations, mass terror campaigns perpetrated against them by their own leaders, and chronic material deprivations. Even the perpetrators often became victims. Many millions, of all ages, nationalities, and walks of life, did not survive these experiences. At the same time, millions managed to live tranquilly, work in factories, farm the fields, serve in the military, and even find joy in their existence. Structured topically, this volume begins with an historical introduction to the Soviet period (1917-1991) and a timeline. Chapters that follow are devoted to such core topics as: government and law, the economy, the military, rural life, education, health care, housing, ethnic groups, religion, the media, leisure, popular culture, and the arts. The volume also has two maps, including a map of ethnic groups and languages, and over thirty photographs of people going about their lives in good times and bad. A glossary, a list of student-friendly books and multimedia sources for classroom and/or individual use, and an index round out the work, making it a valuable resource for high school as well as undergraduate courses on modern Russian and Soviet history. Copious chapter endnotes provide numerous starting points for students and teachers who want to delve more deeply.

Genocide has been with us since the beginning of history and is a key feature to the study of world history at nearly every level. The most widely-studied and catastrophic examples are, however, historically close to the present day: the Nazi Holocaust, "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, tribal warfare in Rwanda and more. The Encyclopedia spans the globe to explain the issues behind crimes against humanity and human rights issues as they relate to individual countries and the world at large. It traces the history of events that qualify as genocide and crimes against humanity, profiles perpetrators and heroes, and explains international laws and law proceedings aimed at ending genocide and crimes against humanity. It also delves into depictions and manifestations of the phenomenon, such as propaganda, sociological and philosophical explanations, literature and film.

"Stalin's last generation" was the last generation to come of age under Stalin, yet it was also the first generation to be socialized in the post-war period. Its young members grew up in a world that still carried many of the hallmarks of the Soviet Union's revolutionary period, yet their surroundings already showed the first signs of decay, stagnation, and disintegration. Stalin's last generation still knew how to speak "Bolshevik," still believed in the power of Soviet heroes and still wished to construct socialism, yet they also liked to dance and dress in Western styles, they knew how to evade boring lectures and lessons in Marxism-Leninism, and they were keen to forge identities that were more individual than those offered by the state. In this book, Juliane Furst creates a detailed picture of late Stalinist youth and youth culture, looking at young people from a variety of perspectives: as children of the war, as recipients and creators of propaganda, as perpetrators of crime, as representatives of fledgling subcultures, as believers, as critics, and as drop-outs. In the process, she illuminates not only the complex relationship between the Soviet state and its youth, but also provides a new interpretative framework for understanding late Stalinism -- the impact of which on Soviet society's subsequent development has hitherto been underestimated, including its role in the ultimate demise of the USSR.

Under Stalin's leadership, the Soviet government carried out a massive number of deportations, incarcerations, and executions. Paradoxically, at the very moment that Soviet authorities were killing thousands of individuals, they were also engaged in an enormous pronatalist campaign to boost the population. Even as the number of repressions grew exponentially, Communist Party leaders enacted sweeping social welfare and public health measures to safeguard people's well-being. Extensive state surveillance of the population went hand in hand with literacy campaigns, political education, and efforts to instill in people an appreciation of high culture. In Cultivating the Masses, David L. Hoffmann examines the Party leadership's pursuit of these seemingly contradictory policies in order to grasp fully the character of the Stalinist regime, a regime intent on transforming the socioeconomic order and the very nature of its citizens. To analyze Soviet social policies, Hoffmann places them in an international comparative context. He explains Soviet technologies of social intervention as one particular constellation of modern state practices. These practices developed in conjunction with the ambitions of nineteenth-century European reformers to refashion society, and they subsequently prompted welfare programs, public health initiatives, and reproductive regulations in countries around the world. The mobilizational demands of World War I impelled political leaders to expand even further their efforts at population management, via economic controls, surveillance, propaganda, and state violence. Born at this moment of total war, the Soviet system institutionalized these wartime methods as permanent features of governance. Party leaders, whose dictatorship included no checks on state power, in turn attached interventionist practices to their ideological goal of building socialism.

Despite the tendency of history to repeat itself, some eras are truly unique, the Chinese Cultural Revolution being a case in point. This was not a revolution, nor was it a civil war; it probably came closer to a free-forall. There were different sides, but the membership constantly changed, new ruling class against old ruling class, have-nots against haves, young against elders, uneducated against educated, countryside against city— just some of the dividing lines. This was exacerbated by ideology, but power was an even stronger drive. Some of the slogans of the time probably defi ne it just as well, such as “turning the world upside down to create a new world,” and it did look as if the monkey god had been let loose. Yet, even then, someone was pulling the strings and this someone was an aging Mao Zedong, unwilling to tolerate any rival and even to trust old comrades. For the greater part of the decade 1966–1976, the Cultural Revolution wreaked havoc in the world’s largest society, undermining the party, government, and army, weakening the economy, society, and culture, and affecting China’s 800 million people and harming or destroying an eighth of the population. The strongest hope among most of the survivors was never to live through such a period again and to make it truly unique. Given the confusion that reigned at the time and the uncertainty about many events that still prevails today, it is essential to have a book like this Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution to help clear up some of the points. This book does not claim to be the last word, which is defi nitely in its favor, but it brings us another step closer to understanding what still remains an extremely convoluted and confusing era. This it does, fi rst, through a chronology tracing the events showing at least what happened and when. The introduction then endeavours to fl esh out the chronology by putting events and people in their places and showing how these events and people relate to one another. The countless details are extensively elucidated in entries on signifi cant persons, places and institutions, the more momentous events, the political and ideological movements, and much more. Since this did take place in China, the glossary is a useful tool for those researching it in Chinese. For those who want to know more, the bibliography is an excellent starting point.

This is a comprehensive study of a group of avant-garde Soviet writers active in Leningrad in the 1920s and 1930s who styled themselves OBERIU, 'The Association for Real Art'. Graham Roberts re-examines commonly held assumptions about OBERIU, its identity as a group, its aesthetics and its place within the Russian and European literary traditions. He focuses on the prose and drama of group members Daniil Kharms, Aleksandr Vvedensky, and Konstantin Vaginov; he also considers work by Nikolay Zabolotsky and Igor Bakhterev, as well as the group's most important 'fellow-traveller', Nikolay Oleinikov. He places OBERIU in the context of the aesthetic theories of the Russian formalists and the Bakhtin circle. Roberts concludes by showing how the self-conscious literature of OBERIU - its metafiction - occupies an important transitional space between modernism and postmodernism.