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Fu Binchang, the last ambassador General Chiang Kai-shek sent to Soviet Russia was stationed in Moscow from 1943 to 1949. During his more than six-year residency in Moscow, Fu recorded the details of his political and operational dealings as a full and active participant of the diplomatic corps on the very doorstep of the Kremlin. This paper analyses Fu's role in the gathering of intelligence and timing of information leaked to the Chinese embassy about the Far Eastern Agreement - a secret agreement concluded by China's Big Three allies at the Crimea Conference of 1945. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Finnish industrial and trade fairs held in the Soviet Union in the context of Finnish-Soviet trade and scientific-technical cooperation in the 1950s and 1960s. While primarily focused on fairs, italso discusses different activities that accompanied them, such as lectures, visits, and negotiations between Finnish traders and Soviet officials and specialists. This study illustrates how such first-hand contact played an important role in Finnish-Soviet communications. First, they helped Finnish producers showcase their goods and technologies directly to Soviet buyers in various ministries and organizations. Second, these contacts included diverse activities such as face-to-face contacts, lectures, and seminars, being a means of technology transfer from Finland to the USSR. Finally, although they were commercial interactions without explicit ideological purposes - like many international exhibitions of the last century - Finnish fairs demonstrated a technological gap between Finland and the USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a case study of specialization in clinical medicine — it is a story of the difficult and complicated birth of a neurosurgery clinic in Russia and the Soviet Union. It demonstrates the futile attempt to institute a new specialty as surgical neurology advocated by neuro(patho)logist V.M. Bekhterev (1857–1927) and implemented by his pupils L.M. Pussep (1875–1942) and A.G. Molotkov (1874–1950). However, surgical neurology was gradually replaced by neurological surgery performed by general surgeons N.N. Burdenko (1875–1946), A.L. Polenov (1871–1947), and V.N. Shamov (1882–1962). Part of my paper is dedicated to the institutional history (emergence of the Institute of Surgical Neurology in Leningrad (in 1926) and the Central Institute of Neurosurgery in Moscow (in 1934). The Moscow Neurosurgical School was focused on lesions of the central nervous system whereas the Leningrad neurosurgical school dealt primarily with peripheral nerve surgery. In the 1930s neurosurgical clinics were established beyond the two capitals — in Rostov-on-Don, Kharkov, and Gorky. Similar to the centralized five-year planning in the Soviet economy, a new discipline of neurosurgery was also centralized and planned from Moscow in the 1930s. It was characterized by kompleksnost’ — concentration of several auxiliary disciplines (neuroradiology, neuroophthalmology, neurophysiology, etc.) within neurosurgical research institutions in Leningrad and Moscow. Particular stress was made on the experimental nature of a new discipline, which was viewed as a sort of applied neurophysiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belarus is the only post-Soviet state to have fully adopted the interpretation of both the former Soviet authorities and today's Belarusian political regime on the fundamental role played by the Second World War in the construction of the country's historical narrative and national identity. This memory serves to sacralise Soviet legacy and to legitimise the present political system, which is anchored in this legacy. Modern Belarusian historiography can be divided into two major schools: Soviet and nationalist. Currently, the Soviet view of history dominates with the support of the political authorities. The education system aims to transmit the official Soviet interpretation of a sacred role played by the Second World War in the history of Belarus. This paper investigates discourse on the Second World War in Belarusian society and in school history textbooks, focusing on the following key themes: the Nazi occupation, the Holocaust, the collaboration, the partisans’ movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Jewish underground movement in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1960s produced literature that became a part of the counterculture of Soviet dissent. For the first time in decades, Russian Jews identified, to a significant degree, as people of the galut (Jewish Diaspora). The battle for the return to Israel and the new Jewish renaissance in the intellectual sphere of the unofficial led to the emergence of new topographical concepts, which were inspired primarily by the Jewish cultural tradition. In fact, the exodus texts written in the 1960s–1980s represented a new, late Soviet shaping of Zionist prose. They relate to the symbol of the Promised Land as a fundamental projection of aspirations. Late Soviet Zionist texts share the traditional Jewish vision of Israel as an imagined topos of the original homeland that is both retrospective (with reference to the biblical promise of the land and the seizure of Canaan) and prospective (return and redemption). The Exodus story contained in Sefer Shemot becomes a leading poetic, philosophical and at times religiously charged metaphor of liberation and reunification. The re-strengthened collective memory of tradition required biblical symbols to be imbued with new semiotic power. This paper will show that the historical dimension of the events dealt with in the literature often has strong mystical and mythological traits and displays messianic-apocalyptic hopes of salvation. However, alternative literary space and time models represented in the aliyah literature hereby betray their rootedness in the teleology of the communist regime. The powerful Israel utopia reflects both the eschatological time of the Soviet empire and its phantasms of paradise on earth. Late Soviet Zionism and totalitarian discourse are shown to be two space-time utopias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any meaningful attempt to understand how the Soviet system evolved and ‘worked’ must take into account not only those who conformed ideologically, but also those who actively embraced alternative frameworks of meaning. This paper centres on the experience of a young factory worker, Petr Terekhovich, who, in the mid-1920s, abandoned ‘godlessness’ to devote himself to the charismatic lay preacher, Brother Ioann Churikov, and to a highly ascetic, scripture-based form of sobriety. Drawing largely on archival materials, it seeks to understand Terekhovich's story as a case study of religious struggle, belief and activism, an account of persecution by atheist officials, and ultimately, a narrative of resistance, spiritual freedom and self-determination under Soviet rule. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a case study of the Jewish ethnic economy in the Moldovan town of Belz across a number of historical periods, with particular emphasis on the Soviet era. Economic practices are seen as embedded in a larger context of ongoing social relations at various levels, both within the Jewish community of the town and across ethnic borders. The author argues that the ethnic economy under socialism may be conceived as a non-market response to the ideologically imposed prohibition of private entrepreneurship, and focuses on the Jewish involvement in the second/ shadow socialist economy. Within this approach, economic ideas and practices emerge as markers of Soviet collective Jewish identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twentieth century, Mongolia became subject to the Soviet version of nationalist thought. As the state constructed a single national 'people' (undesten, ard tumen) it also, following the Soviet model, constructed the past in terms of tradition (ulamjlal), and launched the ethnographic project of identifying and describing sub-national 'ethnic' groups or tribes (aimag, yastan). Since the collapse of Soviet-style state socialism and the introduction of multi-party parliamentary politics, notions of both tradition and collective identity have become potential resources, particularly for politicians, to mobilize public support. Concepts of 'local homeland' (nutag) are particularly significant, reflecting to some degree the importance of social networks. This paper explores the ways in which Mongolians reconstruct tradition, assert collective identity and deploy concepts of belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Stalin's intelligence on the capitalist world, including materials from military archives, diplomatic archives, and Stalin's private papers. It explores how these materials were collected, interpreted and shaped by Stalin's prejudices. It concludes that, from the end of the Civil War to the Nazi invasion, Stalin and the Soviet leadership believed that the Soviet Union was under a nearly constant threat of invasion from shifting coalitions of capitalist powers. No such threat existed until the late 1930s, but Stalin's perceptions have important implications for our understanding of Soviet foreign and domestic politics in the interwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information about the "History of mathematics at the 65th British Mathematical Colloquium" held at University of Sheffield in March 2013. Abstracts are presented for papers delivered at the Colloqium on topics including American mathematician G. D. Birkhoff, the mathematical physics of French mathematician Henri Poincaré, and the study of mathematics in the Soviet Union.

The article discusses scholarship on the role of the Communist Party (CPUSA) and the Pro-Soviet Left (PSL) in the history of labor-liberalism in the U.S., focusing on the work of historian Eric Arnesen. The author examines Arnesen's critique of neo revisionsts' depiction of the role of the CPUSA in the civil rights movement and argues that the American Federation of Labour (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) would probably not have achieved the success they did in the post-war decades if they were associated with the CPUSA and PSL. Other topics include the role of anti-communism in marginalizing the causes of the labor-liberal left, the attitudes of revisionist and neo revisionist historians towards Soviet Communism, and the CIO's decision to separate from the PSL.

From the late 1950s, American officials moved toward a proper appreciation of tensions in the Sino-Soviet alliance. However, prior to Autumn 1962 uncertainty remained in Washington over Beijing's willingness to break with the Kremlin in pursuit of its ideological objectives and national ambitions. This article demonstrates how the Sino-Indian border war in November 1962 and Beijing's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis shaped American understandings of the Sino-Soviet dispute and the China threat. Following developments in Autumn 1962 officials in the Kennedy Administration found cause to believe that China was not only the more militant of the two communist powers, but also that it was the more dangerous. This shift in threat perception had a significant impact on the US national security discourse, reinforcing the conviction of senior officials in Washington that the containment of China required a continued policy of non-engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Late 1950s was a period of recognition of Russian neurophysiology by international neuroscience community and vice versa. This process of 'opening windows in both directions' might be illustrated by the story of The Moscow Colloquium on Electroencephalography of Higher Nervous Activity. The Colloquium took place on October 6-11, 1958 at the House of Scientists in Moscow. It was organized by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR under the initiative of the Institute for Higher Nervous Activity and focused on (a) EEG correlates of cortical excitation and inhibition; (b) electrophysiological study of different brain structures and their role in conditioned reflexes; and (c) EEG of higher nervous activity in humans. At the final session it was suggested to launch an International Year for the Study of the Brain and to ask UNESCO for international coordination of brain research. This resulted into the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) founded in 1960. This article is based on unpublished records of international contacts of Soviet neurophysiologists and organization of the Moscow Colloquium from the Archive of Russian Academy of Science (ARAN), reports in Soviet periodicals, publications in obscure Festschriften, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop or Hitler-Stalin pact that was signed on August 23, 1939. It mentions that the Soviet Union has saved 12 million people including two million Jews in Poland from Hitler's wrath due to Stalin's wise decision of signing the Soviet-German pact. It also discusses insights of several American Jewish Communists arguing the importance of the pact and denouncing imperialism.

A half-century after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world still overlooks the role played by U Thant—the quiet, unassuming UN secretary-general from Burma—in helping the superpowers resolve their crisis and avert nuclear war. Thant sent early and important messages to President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The first requested a moratorium on the conflict at sea. Although many of Kennedy’s advisers looked upon Thant’s initiative with derision, Kennedy asked Thant to send another message requesting a cessation of Soviet shipping. The message gave Khrushchev a way to stop his ships but still save face. This ended the threat of a naval confrontation and enabled the superpowers to focus on the deeper issues of the conflict. Early on, Thant also proposed and pushed the idea that eventually formed the basis of agreement: Soviet missile withdrawal in exchange for guarantees of Cuban security. During moments in the crisis when many were calling for an attack on Cuba, Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk cited Thant’s initiatives as reasons for restraint. Thant also shuttled to Cuba to mollify Prime Minister Fidel Castro and to confirm that missile dismantlement had begun. He then aided the negotiations between Soviet and American teams at the United Nations to resolve remaining issues, such as how the missile withdrawal was to be verified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The subject of this article is a definite shift in socialist pedagogy: the implementation of polytechnic education in the late 1950s. First, the Soviet model is presented, then the analysis of its Hungarian introduction shows the decision-making process thoroughly, from the first steps in February 1958 to the publication of the 'Principles' in September 1960, which affected subsequent discourse about the so-called 'school-reform'. The study is based on the reports of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party archives, mainly the files of the Political Committee, because this body designed and determined the characteristics of the new era in Hungarian education. Silence dominated the afterlife of the reform after 1965 – in retrospect, it was a failure – and the situation has not changed since. Although the archives are now open, the actors in the decision-making process, and their different interests, have not yet been investigated by scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns a lesser-studied aspect of nation-building in Georgia: the role of national iconography in the reproduction and reaffirmation of a Georgian national identity. National iconography is a tool commonly used by states to legitimize and solidify the ties among the territory, nation, and state in the imaginations of both domestic and foreign audiences. By examining key pieces of Georgian national iconography, the article examines the symbolic boundaries of the resultant national identity as well as what room remains for members of Georgia’s diverse religious, linguistic, and socio-cultural minority groups in the overall official meta-narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of Lithuania in Joseph Brodsky’s life and works before and after his exile from Russia in 1972. As a former Soviet republic, Lithuania represented an intermediary space for Brodsky both culturally and geographically, contributing to his realization that it was a ‘rehearsal’ for his actual emigration. However, Brodsky’s notion of Lithuania changes when, after 1972, instead of representing a simulacrum of the ‘abroad,’ the poet sees Lithuania as a ‘home’ from afar. Emigration, in Brodsky’s case, thus became a realization of the myth of exile implicit in his earlier texts about Lithuania. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Marxists have had a complex and contentious relationship to the question of both cosmopolitanism and antisemitism. The difficulties and problems they have encountered with each may, however, be related. They can be traced back to a repeated failure to take seriously Marx’s initial critique of contemporary antisemites and his simultaneous adoption of a cosmopolitan approach to politics which set him apart from many of his peers. Rather than confronting antisemitism, many Marxists adopted the view that it contained some kind of rational kernel, whilst drifting towards an accommodation with forms of nationalism. Having ignored and largely failed to respond to the mortal threat that a radicalized antisemitism posed for Jews, the self-proclaimed Marxists ruling the Soviet Union then accused Jews of being both nationalists (of the wrong, Zionist sort) and cosmopolitans (now a term of abuse). There is, however, an alternative tradition that may be recovered, albeit on the margins of the Marxist movement, in the later work especially of Horkheimer and Adorno, and in some parallel way also of Hannah Arendt, that sees antisemitism from a cosmopolitan perspective as an inherently reactionary political force which (as it became genocidal) came to threaten both Jews and humanity at large. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most literature on ideology in the late Soviet period notes the progressive de-ideologization of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) politics under Mikhail Gorbachev. Looking specifically at the legitimating functions of ideology, the article contests this generalization. In doing so, it proposes the concept of ideological interpellation to clarify the relationship between doctrine and regime legitimation. The author argues that interpellation – the construction of the ideal Soviet subject, in a way that sustained therelations of domination and production– was a consistent goal throughout the last decade of communist rule. However, while the party approached interpellation in different ways, it was unable to resolve official ideology’s rigidity and narrowness of appeal. These conclusions are supported by a discourse analysis of the 26th, 27th, and 28th CPSU congress proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented concerning the significance of the arms trade between the Soviet Union and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) prior to the Korean War. It discusses the quality of Soviet military aid to the DPRK, particularly the obsolescence of captured Japanese arms from World War II that the Soviets initially gave the DPRK, the increase of orders for Soviet-manufactured arms from DPRK leader Kim Il Sung, and the assistance of the Soviet Union of a creation of a military industry in the DPRK. It also discusses Soviet importation of food from the DPRK.

The high rate of child mortality registered during the early months of the Civil War led the Republican authorities to initiate several operations to evacuate youngsters with the purpose of protecting and saving the children of Spain. At the beginning, the children were evacuated to zones in the interior of the country far removed from the front lines. However, the rapid advance of the Nationalist Army caused the Government of the Republic to organise evacuations to other countries. The Soviet Union was one of many countries that offered to help the Republic. Between 1937 and 1938, minors numbering 2895 were taken under the protection ofNarkomprosin different collective Homes for Children (Dietsky Dom). This article discusses some of the educational practices carried out in the schools of these Homes, by analysing different documents produced by the children, both in this period (interscholastic and personal correspondence, school compositions, newspaper murals) as well as in their adult lives (autobiographies and memoirs). Through the analysis of these educative practices, the article will try to explain how the Soviet as well as the Spanish authorities wished to make these children into ideal communists, convinced that the future of Spain was in their hands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) relationship with the Soviet Union's Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (KGB) throughout the Cold War period, with a particular focus on espionage and counterintelligence efforts. An overview of KGB defectors Anatoly Golitsyn and Yuri Nosenko, including the information they provided to the CIA, is provided.

Secure second strike nuclear forces are frequently held to be easy to procure. Analysts have long argued that targeting intelligence against relocatable targets like submarine launched and land mobile ballistic missiles is difficult to obtain. However, the scholarly consensus on intelligence for counterforce operations is seriously overdrawn. Both during and after the Cold War, the United States developed substantial intelligence capabilities to track and target submarines and mobile missiles. These efforts achieved important and under-appreciated success. Second strike forces have been far more vulnerable than most analysts are willing to credit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Just as the popular imagination became inflamed by the events of 1989, and the "fall of the wall" was commonly taken as a sign of the inevitability of a new, open, free, and democratic Eastern Europe, so too was the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 taken as a sign of the inevitability of a new, open, free, and democratic Russia. Although the events in Berlin were significant in spurring changes onward, with different rhetorical choices by Soviet and Russian leaders along the way history could have been written quite differently. The central concern of this article is to show how these rhetorical choices shaped the future of post-Communist transition in the Russian Federation. We proceed chronologically, examining key moments in the rhetoricity of the Russian transition from Communism toward its current form of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative studies developed late in the field of Ottoman and Turkish history and, when they did, that was due primarily to external influences: the impact of world system theory, the flowering of nationalism studies and the growth of empire studies that was triggered by the fall of the Soviet Union. The comparative methodologies employed have become progressively more sophisticated and because historians of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey are now increasingly asking “big” questions, they are able to use their empirical knowledge to contribute to broader debates and influence theoretical development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most controversial questions in regard to the Soviet Union’s conduct of the war against Hitler’s Nazi Germany (1941–1945) was the extent to which Joseph Stalin, the country’s ruler, conducted military operations designed to advance the country’s post-war political objectives. Historians, who have long debated this matter, have generally based their judgments on the reality of the post-war structure in Europe—specifically, the establishment of Communist puppet governments behind what Winston Churchill described as the ‘iron curtain’. Truth regarding Stalin’s political intent has generally eluded them because archival documents necessary to validate their conclusions have been unavailable. Now, however, the slow but steady opening of the Soviet Union’s (Russian) military archives provides fresh evidence upon which to judge Stalin’s wartime intent. This article surveys this evidence, principally wartime directives issued by the USSR’s State Defense Committee and Stavka (Supreme High Command), which indicate that Stalin did indeed orchestrate the Red Army’s military operations to secure distinct political objectives within and outside the borders of the pre-war Soviet Union. By no means definitive in its conclusions, the article summons further debate and discussion on this important historical matter. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study is to explain the German failure at Stalingrad by comparing the opposing army commanders, Friedrich Paulus and Vasili I. Chuikov. In spite of how close Paulus came to accomplishing his mission, which was to take all of Stalingrad, in the end he failed either to take the city or save his army from destruction. A large part of the reason for this is to be found in Paulus’s leadership, which was far too passive and allowed his subordinates too much discretion. Paulus ensured he was unable to influence events quickly by locating his headquarters some 100 miles from Stalingrad at Nizhne-Chirskaya. Likewise, a large part of the Soviet victory can be attributed to Vasili Chuikov, who made sure, by his hands-on approach and active command style, that the tactical battle was fought his way. It was this difference in command styles that, ultimately, spelled victory for one side and defeat for the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the Second World War the United States sent billions of dollars worth of military equipment and supplies to the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program. In the Soviet official memory of the war, however, Lend-Lease aid was either marginalized or disappeared completely. Past scholars and even Soviet rulers have given different reasons for this amnesia, which often include a paranoid Stalin or high tensions during the Cold War. This essay argues instead that Marx’s ideology was mainly responsible for marginalizing the memory of U.S. aid to the Soviet Union. For many, World War II legitimized the Soviet’s collective economy. The memory of aid from the capitalist West did not fit the ideological narrative and thus was forgotten. It also demonstrates how memory can be shaped to fit an ideological view. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Influenced by developments in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the British Communist Party (CP) began to treat its rivals on the far left, principally the Trotskyists, as class rather than political enemies. Surveillance, including the maintenance of dossiers, began in 1932, but was greatly heightened in the late 1930s, as international tensions, notably the Nazi threat to the Soviet Union, increased. Less attention was paid to the Trotskyists in the later years of the Second World War and in the immediate post-war period, but was intensified during the Party crisis which followed the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Party. Later, the CP was faced with additional rivals, the Maoists, to monitor. Surveillance came to an end in the 1970s as sectarian attitudes abated and the CP entered its terminal decline. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As mountaineering was a non-Olympic sport and of no military relevance, it did not obtain any support of the socialist state. Consequently, it was very difficult for the mountaineers to obtain visas and financial or material resources. Invitations from the Soviet Union (SU), well-paid side jobs and self-made equipment were just some of the things necessary to be able to get into the highlands. From the end of the 1970s the emerging ‘hippie-generation’ brought new life into the scene of traditional alpinists. These young people travelled into the Soviet Union with the help of a so-called ‘Transitvisum’. They stayed in the SU illegally for several weeks or even months, always being weary of the police. Not having much financial possibilities, they travelled mostly by train or by hitchhiking and thus got into close contact with the Soviet people. Due to their experiences the alpinists were able to distance themselves from the official socialist discourse in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and to realise the possibility of liberty. They can be considered as an avant-garde of the massive exoduses or escapes of thousands of GDR citizens in 1989 through one or more eastern countries which initiated the collapse of the GDR. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines reactions to de-Stalinisation in Soviet Moldavia between February 1956 and March 1957. The article is based on evidence from the archives of both the former Communist Party of Moldavia and the Moldavian KGB. It highlights the uncertainty there was at local levels because of the denunciation of Stalin. Local party reports demonstrate concern about the activities of religious activists, Western propaganda, nationalism and disaffected youth. The Hungarian revolution of 1956 caused the party to change tack, and to begin a clampdown. These reports highlight that Soviet rule had very shallow roots in Moldavia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Writers were among the most publicly recognised intellectuals in the USSR. They actively participated in indoctrination practices that reflected strict mechanisms of control and censorship and provided prestige and authority in society. This article analyses how local writers in Lithuania who were part of the establishment during late socialism developed a multi-faceted relationship with the system. The perspective of different generations reveals the rise of ethnic (local) interests and the disconnection of everyday life from official goals. It also shows that writers who worked in official channels reduced their participation in indoctrination processes and significantly influenced the mobilisation of national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the intersection of Soviet nationality policy, ethno-federal territorialism, clientelism and the creation of new administrative institutions in the course of the establishment of Soviet power in Abkhazia, an ethnically diverse territory in the periphery of the former tsarist empire. Based on materials from the Georgian archives, as well as from the personal collections of Efrem Eshba and Nestor Lakoba, this article demonstrates the ways in which nationality policy played out at the local level and how the ‘indigenisation’ of local titular elites intersected with contestations over power and the distribution of resources inherent to the construction of the new institutions of Soviet rule. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article assesses the impact of the October Revolution of 1917 and the role of its leading revolutionaries on physical culture and sport. Foremost among these was Bolshevik leader Vladimir I. Lenin, and his contribution to the shaping of sport in the Soviet Union receives particular attention. Key to fully understanding Lenin's role in the development of physical culture and sport is the Lenin ‘myth’ and its interpretation in later Soviet sports discourse. The combination of the Lenin myth and Marxist–Leninist ideology was part of an ongoing Soviet effort to shape the ideal socialist citizen. The Bolshevik project was concerned with forging a new self and physical culture was an important part of this process. Thus, this article highlights intersections between the physical and emotional self, arguing that physical culture and sport were instrumental in contributing to revolutionary vision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented that discusses the possibility that Communist activist John Silas Reed was a U.S. spy. Topics include Reed's relationship to American Red Cross official Colonel Raymond Robins, his contact with the dentist Weston Burgess Estes, and the work of the U.S. propaganda agency Committee on Public Information (CPI) and the British Military Intelligence Division (MID) in the Soviet Union.

This article argues that, like the liberalising “Great Reforms” of Russia in the mid-19th century, Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika of the late 20th century was propelled as much by reformist intellectuals' Europe-inspired visions of a more humane society as it was by military-economic crisis. Over the post-Stalin decades, a new policy-academic elite – economists, philosophers, scientists and writers – viewed in the apparent success of East European reforms a model of “socialism with a human face” for their country's eventual reintegration into a “common European home.” Yet their understanding of European integration was too superficial, and their appreciation of communist hard-liners' resistance too belated, to carry their reforms to successful completion. This article also holds that Russian reformers' naiveté was compounded by Western leaders' selfishness and short-sightedness. The latter clung to Cold War beliefs that the Soviet system could not produce a genuine reformist movement. When Gorbachev came to power, his perestroika was considered merely a “ruse,” its ideas of “new thinking” ridiculed, and ultimately only the “shock therapy” of Boris Yeltsin merited significant Western aid despite its broad incompetence and vast corruption. The combined Western-Russian failures in 1990s efforts toward rapid marketisation and integration proved even more damaging than those of the 1980s due to their broad discrediting of Western liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 1920s, theatre innovator Oleksandr "Les'" Kurbas (1887-1937) made three short films for the Vseukrains'ke Foto-Kino Upravlinnia [All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration] or VUFKU. His film career was short-lived, however. Lambasting the VUFKU as a "cesspool of intrigue," Kurbas left film for good to focus exclusively on theatre. His films never gained wide release, and have since been lost. Kurbas's brief foray into cinema could therefore be considered a non-moment, yet because Kurbas objected not to the medium itself, but to the institutions creating film, his encounter with the VUFKU illuminates the larger process of the formation of the Soviet film industry. Kurbas's departure from film occurred simultaneously with the arrival of Oleksandr Dovzhenko (1894-1956), and their crossed paths show how the structure of the Soviet film industry shaped artistic possibilities. The institutional transformation of VUFKU into Ukrainfilm, the regional affiliate of the all-Union film monopoly Soiuzkino, signalled a cultural shift: from a film industry in Soviet Ukraine, to a Soviet Ukrainian film industry, one both part of wider Soviet cinema production and slotted specifically into a Ukrainian niche. Ultimately, this article argues that this process of consolidation and centralization in the film industry complicated the development of culture in the Soviet regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the creation, experiences and success of Karelia's food supply detachments during the Russian Civil War and focuses on three target provinces: Kursk, Simbirsk and Saratov. It emphasises the early political and economic stumbling blocks faced by the Bolsheviks in their attempts to implement the party's food supply policies in the periphery and indicates that, although the Soviet food supply system by mid-1919 was more centralised and resistance from local soviets lessened, improvements were only relative to the more chaotic conditions of the previous year. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The disruptive effects of postcommunist instability have raised the approval ratings given by the general public to Leonid Brezhnev and have prompted scholarly reappraisals of his regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have noted that the capture of the “Russian Fish” from the Germans was probably the most important outcome of the 1945 TICOM operation. Recently declassified documents have now provided a wealth of information pertaining to this vital break into Soviet communications at the dawn of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines Walter Citrine's first tour of the Soviet Union in 1925. Although Citrine visited the USSR at a time of great uncertainty, when the outcomes of the revolution were still unclear and the question of who would succeed Lenin remained to be answered, his visit has not received the attention that it deserves. Through analysis of Citrine's unpublished diaries, the article shows how the British trade unionist was impressed with some aspects of the Soviet system, but troubled by others, such as the closeness of the Russian trade unions to the Communist Party. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Leningraders facing famine and cold in their blockaded city during the winter of 1941-42 survived through a mixture of mutual assistance, creative lawbreaking, self-distraction, and fatalism. Their spirit revived with the spring, permitting a series of measures that prepared them to withstand the ongoing siege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the absence of clear and forthright official news broadcasts, rumor flourished during the Leningrad Blockade-sometimes causing alarm, sometimes encouraging hope, and sometimes preparing the population for real dangers and opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leningrad's prisoners worked as hard for the war effort and suffered as much from deprivation as did citizens who were not incarcerated. By 1944, the extremely high mortality and morbidity rates characteristic of the famine years had begun to decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes use of documents from secret police archives to show that the Soviet secret police in Ukraine, the GPU (State Political Administration- Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie), together with the centre in Moscow, played a crucial role in the national operations of 1929-1934. These documents contradict the views of historians who argue that the regime's key power centres-Moscow and the secret police-were sincere in promoting Ukrainian culture and language. Instead, the archival materials indicate that a counter-Ukrainization was already being planned in the mid-1920s. The article argues that trials of "nationalists" were organized in order to prevent the crystallization of a political opposition in Ukraine at a time of crisis brought about by collectivization and famine. The repression of Ukrainians had a national component, was inspired by the centre, carefully organized by the secret police, and implemented through a steady flow of group criminal cases. Protocols from the interrogation rooms, testimonies by interrogators themselves, and scholarly literature on the topic are used to reconstruct the motivation of the GPU men who fabricated the criminal cases. The article demonstrates that all the cases were constructed according to a master narrative and presents a case for why torture was used: to legitimize the widespread use of terror in Ukraine, the regime required that the victims confess to being Ukrainian nationalists and members of anti-Soviet organizations whose goal was separatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it cost to do business under a dictator? In 1949 the Soviet state had entered its most secretive phase. One of the Gulag's most important secrets was the location of its labour camps. As this secret was guarded more closely, camps found it increasingly difficult to do business without disclosing a state secret: their own location. For months and then years Gulag officials worked around this dilemma, expending considerable efforts. Rather than resolve it, they eventually normalised it. This study of the transaction costs of an autocratic regime raises basic questions about how Soviet secrecy was calibrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev initiated a reorganisation of economic administration in the Soviet Union that became known as the Sovnarkhoz reform. The reform had a major impact on the perception of the role of the republic-level authorities in the system. It also put to the test the ability of central managers and planners to consider alternative ways of administering industry. The article examines the experience of the Ukrainian republic-level authorities in the most crucial aspect of the reform, management of resources, paying particular attention to the controversies related to control of inter-republic deliveries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet life in the former Pale of Settlement appears in the memories of its residents as a world of living Jewish tradition existing within the professional and business activities of artisans and merchants at a time when the ideology and political structure of the Soviet Union prohibited private enterprise. That is why it occupied the shady parts of the socialist economy. Today, after collapse of the Soviet Union, it still poses moral dilemmas for those associated with its illegal activities. However, recollections about Soviet illegal enterprise also provide a space for critique of the Soviet system and a base for construction of contemporary local identity; in this way people reconcile the economic ethics of the recent Soviet past with modern capitalist reality. Narratives about illegal economic activities in the Soviet period are about the relationship between the people and the state. They are seen as a cosmological system; the Soviet state acted as an economically ineffective external force. Within its matrix was integrated a local world of human relationships with their customs and rules created the own local world of consumption and welfare. At the centre of this space is the socially and economically experienced Jewish entrepreneur whose competence is based on local Jewish tradition. Stories about illegal Soviet economic activity have become the heritage of local communities that approve of local business continuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the ethnic repression of Koreans in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. The author explains that many Koreans fled their home country due to Japanese occupation and settled in the Khabarovsk Region of the Soviet Union. He discusses the role of Soviet Koreans in the development of agriculture in the Far East and explores the deportations orchestrated by the Soviet's secret police NKVD (Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del).