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

Russia’s Energy Diplomacy in the Baltic States

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, or, “The Baltic States,” are unique in that they are the first and only former Soviet Republics to join institutions aligned with the West, joining both the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004. This move was a reflection of clashing cultural and political values that had been present before their integration into the Soviet Union during the Second World War as a result of the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Additionally, after years of Soviet repression, the Baltic States developed a distinctly anti-Russian stance, as Russia was the most dominant country of the Soviet Union and after its dissolution in 1991 (Dudzińska, 2011). In the two decades since the Soviet Union fell and the Baltic States gained their independence, Russia has been asserting both soft and hard power in nearby nations. Additionally, Russia’s energy policy towards their neighbors has significantly affected their relationship with European Union countries through their role as the primary supplier of natural gas

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

What might the Soviet Union learn from the OECD countries in economics and politics ? An article from 1991 with some comments from 2005

When cleaning up my archives I came across a short article of April 1991 co-authored with Jan Tinbergen, on what the Soviet Union might learn from OECD countries in economics and politics. The article apparently never got published, partly since the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991. Jan Tinbergen died in 1994. Reading the article again in 2005 shows that some arguments still have value. In 2005, an advice, purely my own now, would be that Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union apply for membership of the European Union.

International comparators and poverty and health in Europe

Summary points: In 1970 male life expectancy at age 15 was 56 in countries that now form the European Union; 55 in the communist countries of central and eastern Europe (excluding the Soviet Union); and 52 in the Soviet Union. In 1997 male life expectancy was 60 in the countries that now form the European Union; 54 in the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe (excluding the former Soviet Union); and 48 in Russia. The relative disadvantage for women was similar, but the absolute differences were smaller. Mortality changes after 1989 in eastern Europe were correlated with changes in gross domestic product and changes in income inequalities. In the 1980s there were inequalities in health within individual countries in eastern Europe; these were wider after 1989. Inequalities in health within individual countries in eastern Europe were more strongly related to education than to measures of economic wellbeing

FSU Immigrants in Canada: A Case of Positive Triple Selection?

This paper investigates the economic performance of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries in Canada. The contribution of this paper lies in its use of a natural experiment to detect possible differential labour market performances of Soviet immigrants prior to and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In short, the collapse of the former Soviet Union allows an exogenous supply change in the number and type of FSU immigrants potentially destined to enter Canada. For this purpose, Census microlevel data from the 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001 Canadian Census are utilized to estimate earnings and employment outcomes for pre- and post-FSU immigrants.immigration, integration

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

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

Trends in first union formation in post-Soviet Central Asia

This study used recently available survey data to examine trends in the rate of first union formation in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. For the first time, it shows that the rate of first union formation in each republic is much lower than the Soviet-era level at the end of the 1980s. These results have three implications. First, they complement the literature on Central and Eastern Europe by illustrating the scale of post-socialist demographic change in very different cultural and demographic context. Second, post-Soviet Tajikistan and Uzbekistan here provide interesting examples of countries experiencing dramatic declines in first union formation in a conservative Moslem setting and at the same time as an increase in religiosity and a decrease in female higher education enrolment. Third, more generally, they serve to illustrate profound changes in demographic behaviour during dramatic social and economic change

Japan\u27s War on Three Fronts Prior to 1941

This paper argues that Japan fought a three-front war prior to 1941. Japan not only fought China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, but conducted military operations against the Soviet Union. The third front occurred within Japan, as military factionalism prevented Japan from focusing on either China or the Soviet Union. By 1941, weakened through years of war, Japan focused their attention on French Indochina. This ultimately led to U.S entry into World War II