The USSR and The GDR: Mutual Collapse

The Soviet Union had a number of satellite states, where communist puppet regimes were propped up in order to serve the interests of the Soviet Union. The Eastern Bloc was established with the goal of spreading the Soviet style of government, regardless of its unpopularity. The only reason that the communist regimes in these states were able to survive was because of Soviet support. This meant that the decline of the Soviet Union and the individual bloc states fed into each other. This is examined through the case of the German Democratic Republic and its relations with the Soviet Union

Memories of an Unfulfilled Promise: Internationalism and Patriotism in Post-Soviet Oral Histories of Jewish Survivors of the Nazi Genocide

Memories of Soviet Jews who were born during the first two decades of the existence of the USSR show that the destruction of the Soviet society and its ideological tenets is central to their experience of the Nazi genocide. Elderly survivors of the Nazi genocide remember their lives based on comparative evalu- ations of their lives in the Soviet Union and under the Nazi regime, making a strong case for understanding memory as a relational construct. Interrogating the significance of growing up secular and Soviet for experiencing and remembering the Nazi genocide reveals that in order to understand Soviet Jews’ responses to German occupation and genocide and how they remember them, we must turn to their prewar socialization as Soviet internationalists and patriots

A case of 'new Soviet internationalism' : relations between the USSR and Chile's Christian Democratic government, 1964–1970

After Iosif Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union emerged from its isolation and began to show an interest in traditionally marginalized foreign societies. As the example of the Chilean-Soviet rapprochement under Eduardo Frei's administration (1964–1970) shows, Soviet leaders viewed state-to-state relations with "progressive" Latin American regimes as an appropriate means of undermining U.S. influence in the region without risking an armed confrontation with "imperialism." The reformist project of the Chilean Christian Democratic government, which included a diplomatic opening to the Soviet bloc, provided a testing ground for the suitability of Moscow's new global approach. The surge of cultural and political exchanges indicate that the Soviet authorities were keenly interested in the Chilean experience. In addition, the considerable growth of travel and official missions beyond the Iron Curtain also demonstrates that Santiago wished to benefit by diversifying its international partners

Jewish Youth in the Minsk Ghetto: How Age and Gender Mattered

Explores how young Soviet Jews survived the German occupation of Soviet territories, specifically ghettoization and mass murder

Searle and Cherenkov\u27s A Future and a Hope: Mission, Theological Education, and the Transformation of Post-Soviet Society - Book Review

Anniversary reflections on developments since the end of the Soviet Union 25 years ago have started, but rare is the book attempting an assessment of what happened to post-Soviet evangelicals

Battle for the People: Ideological Conflict between Soviet Partisans, the German Military, and Ukrainian Nationalists in Nazi-Occupied Ukraine

Soviet historiography discusses the People’s War during the Second World War, the idea that all of the Soviet people rallied to the cause and fought off the Nazi invaders, but this is far from the truth. Within the western borderlands of the Soviet Union multiple conflicting groups fought for control of and support from the people. This was especially true in Ukraine where the German Army, Soviet Partisans and Ukrainian nationalists all fought ‘for the people’ and for their own ideologies. This paper is an attempt to discuss the ideological conflict between the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Ukrainian nationalists, and how the failure or success of these policies led to the legitimizing of policies of mass murder of the local Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish populations, and how the tension from the partisan struggle continues to this day

“Unmapping” the Ural Playscapes: An Analysis of Playgrounds and Child Play under the Post-Soviet Urban Transition of Yekaterinburg, Russia

This study examines playgrounds as lenses on urban transitions to explain the link between urban transformations and changes in the discourse of play and childhood. Specifically, it compares Soviet public playgrounds and post-Soviet privatized playscapes in the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia, through primary observation and secondary data analysis. Using the framework of social reproduction developed by Cindy Katz and Saskia Sassen to explain how the local forces affect cities, my analysis shows that the shift in the discourse of play and childhood in the post-Soviet period is hinged on global influences combined with local transformations, from the abandonment of Soviet ideals of communal play spaces to the embracement of today’s consumerist play places. Whereas the old Soviet playgrounds have uncertain purposes, in contemporary Yekaterinburg private playgrounds offer a narrative of play in terms of leisure, love, and convenience for parents. Children turn into consumers of private play, leaving most of the Soviet playgrounds as idle spaces in the city. This article argues that Yekaterinburg’s shift toward participating in the globalized economy combined with its transition from the Soviet ideals maintains social relations and reproduces social inequalities in childhood, as this condition favors consumerist narratives of play. I conclude that the playgrounds in Yekaterinburg are bystanders of new global ecologies whereby social, political, and economic transformations become an impetus to reproduce new ways of seeing the social importance and meaning of play and playgrounds

Sofia A. Yanovskaya: The Marxist Pioneer of Mathematical Logic in the Soviet Union

K. Marx’s 200th jubilee coincides with the celebration of the 85 years from the first publication of his “Mathematical Manuscripts” in 1933. Its editor, Sofia Alexandrovna Yanovskaya (1896–1966), was a renowned Soviet mathematician, whose significant studies on the foundations of mathematics and mathematical logic, as well as on the history and philosophy of mathematics are unduly neglected nowadays. Yanovskaya, as a militant Marxist, was actively engaged in the ideological confrontation with idealism and its influence on modern mathematics and their interpretation. Concomitantly, she was one of the pioneers of mathematical logic in the Soviet Union, in an era of fierce disputes on its compatibility with Marxist philosophy. Yanovskaya managed to embrace in an originally Marxist spirit the contemporary level of logico-philosophical research of her time. Due to her highly esteemed status within Soviet academia, she became one of the most significant pillars for the culmination of modern mathematics in the Soviet Union. In this paper, I attempt to trace the influence of the complex socio-cultural context of the first decades of the Soviet Union on Yanovskaya’s work. Among the several issues I discuss, her encounter with L. Wittgenstein is striking

Determinants of Soviet Household Income

World Values Survey data are used to examine household income in the Soviet Union. The data, gathered Summer/Fall 1990, provide a rare opportunity to empirically examine microeconomic factors influencing a Soviet household's position in the regional/national income distribution. The survey contains data - collected regionally - from the three Baltic republics, Belarus, and the Moscow region. The data indicate certain patterns that existed and determined Soviet household income though there are often considerable regional variations. Further, there are marked differences between income distribution determinants in the Soviet Union and the U.S. and West Germany though similarities exist as well.Income distribution, Household income, Soviet Union

A Race to the Stars and Beyond: How the Soviet Union’s Success in the Space Race Helped Serve as a Projection of Communist Power

In the modern era, the notion of space travel is generally one of greater acceptance and ease than in times previously. Moreover, a greater number of nations (and now even private entities) have the technological capabilities to launch manned and unmanned missions into Earth’s Orbit and beyond. 70 years ago, this ability did not exist and humanity was simply an imprisoned species on this planet. The course of humanity’s then-present and the collective future was forever altered when, in 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the world’s first satellite into space, setting off a decades-long completion with the United States to cosmically outperform the other. In the context of the Cold War, the ensuring Space Race was more than friendly completion, rather it was a race to determine who’s military and civil society could produce the most powerful interstellar technologies, which in turn demonstrated the combative readiness of either side. This paper seeks to examine the Soviet Union’s success during the Space Race (and subsequently, the global Arms Race) and its place within the larger East versus West conflict which occurred in the earlier years of the Cold War. By utilizing academic literature and primary Soviet sources, this paper will analyze how the Space Race allowed the Soviet Union to promote the successes of a Communist government and how such a leadership style served as a positive determinant for advancements in space and the Soviet Union’s premier place in many suc