Alexandre Bennigsen in the Eyes of the Soviet Press

1986 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Michael Rywkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Delivery Vehicles ◽  
The Moment ◽  
General Relations ◽  
The Given

Soviet reactions to Western writings on the Soviet Union are as old as the Soviet regime itself. They are handled in an organized manner, with targets, delivery vehicles and gradation of response carefully coordinated and measured.Soviet response is, moreover, not solely connected to the perceived degree of offensiveness of the given Western work; in addition, such considerations as general relations between the USSR and the country from where the publication came, as well as political opportunities of the moment, are given even more importance than the committed “offense.”

Implications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Middle Position ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

This chapter turns to the present and explains the implications of the current study for the ongoing debate about the Soviet Union in the Second World War and in particular about the role of loyalty and disloyalty in the Soviet war effort. It argues that this study strengthens those who argue for a middle position: the majority of Soviet citizens were neither unquestioningly loyal to the Stalinist regime nor convinced resisters. The majority, instead, saw their interests as distinct from both the German and the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, ideology remains important if we want to understand why in the Soviet Union more resisted or collaborated than elsewhere in Europe and Asia.

The Development of the United Nations Law Concerning Peace-Keeping Operations

1992 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-281
Author(s):  
Robert Siekmann
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Central America ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War

Especially as a consequence of the termination of the Cold War, the détente in the relations between East en West (Gorbachev's ‘new thinking’ in foreign policy matters) and, finally, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the number of UN peace-keeping operations substantially increased in recent years. One could even speak of a ‘proliferation’. Until 1988 the number of operations was twelve (seven peace-keeping forces: UNEF ‘I’ and ‘II’, ONUC, UNHCYP, UNSF (West New Guinea), UNDOF AND UNIFIL; and five military observer missions: UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNOGIL, UNYOM and UNIPOM). Now, three forces and seven observer missions can be added. The forces are MINURSO (West Sahara), UNTAC (Cambodia) and UNPROFOR (Yugoslavia); the observer groups: UNGOMAP (Afghanistan/Pakistan), UNIIMOG (Iran/Iraq), UNAVEM ‘I’ and ‘II’ (Angola), ONUCA (Central America), UNIKOM (Iraq/Kuwait) and ONUSAL (El Salvador). UNTAG (Namibia), which was established in 1978, could not become operational until 1989 as a result of the new political circumstances in the world. So, a total of twenty-three operations have been undertaken, of which almost fifty percent was established in the last five years, whereas the other half was the result of decisions taken by the United Nations in the preceding forty years (UNTSO dates back to 1949). In the meantime, some ‘classic’ operations are being continued (UNTSO, UNMOGIP, UNFICYP, UNDOF, and UNIFIL), whereas some ‘modern’ operations already have been terminated as planned (UNTAG, UNGOMAP, UNIIMOG, UNAVEM ‘I’ and ‘II’, and ONUCA). At the moment (July 1992) eleven operations are in action – the greatest number in the UN history ever.

CONSIDERATION OF LABOR DISPUTES BY COURTSIN THE UZBEK SSR (Example of the decree of 26.06.1940 years)

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Dilshod P. Komolov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
State Control ◽  
Labor Disputes ◽  
Labor Discipline ◽  
Court Judge ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Constitutional Right

Using the example of the Uzbek SSR, this article reveals the process of militarization of enterprises and institutions on the eve of the attack of Fascist Germany on the Soviet Union, restrictions on the constitutional right of citizens to freely choose a profession and work, cruel exploitation of the population and the use of tens of thousands of prisoners aslabor by the despotic Soviet regime. The article also highlights the emergence of judges as victims of repression, the strengthening of party and state control over the judicial system based on archival sources.Index Terms:People's Commissariat of Justice, Supreme Court of the Uzbek SSR, people's Court, judge, investigation, sentence, prison, correctional labor, fine, working week, labor discipline, prisoner, military enterprises, decree

Anti-state political opportunities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana M. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
Political Opportunity Theory ◽  
Future Work

The anarchist movement utilizes non-statist and anti-statist strategies for radical social transformation, thus indicating the limits of political opportunity theory and its emphasis upon the state. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature, I note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist movements throughout the world (Bolivia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Japan, and Venezuela). Labor movement allies, failing state socialism, and punk subculture have provided conditions conducive to anarchism, while state repression and Bolshevik triumph in the Soviet Union constrained success. This variation suggests that future work should attend more closely to the role of national context, and the interrelationship of political and non-political factors. Additionally, the key question of what constitutes movement “success” for revolutionary movements that “move forward”, yet do not achieve revolutionary transformation (indeed, who conceive of a final, complete transformation to be theoretically impossible), seems to be a problem faced uniquely by anarchist movements. Instead, thinking of opportunity as being global, non-politically-based, and unattached to “ultimate objectives” like revolution, help to make these ideas more useful for understanding anarchist mobilization.

Dancing beyond the Cactus Curtain

2020 ◽  
pp. 222-252
Author(s):  
K. Mitchell Snow
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
International Borders ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Direct Support ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
Modern Dancers ◽  
The Moment

As the dance artists that the Mexican government created through its schools and companies matured, they carried its dances across international borders. The tensions between nationalist esthetics and more formal approaches to creating art were increasingly visible in Mexican painting, yet its fractious dancers proved established a unified front when it came to performing outside of Mexico. The resulting encounters with the official performing arts policies of the Soviet Union and China shifted their perspectives on issues of esthetics and technique. Their government’s concurrent discovery that the folk dances its modern dancers performed overseas provided positive press changed its perspective as well. Amalia Hernández and her independent Ballet Folklórico would garner the direct support of Mexico’s president and her success in providing potent stagings of national identity for audiences inside and outside her homeland marked the moment when Mexico’s dancers became the equals of its celebrated painters.

British Labour in Search of a Socialist Foreign Policy

1950 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-214
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
The Moment

The thinking of Left Wing Labourites on foreign policy since 1945 reveals the frustration, and, withal, the persistence of Utopian hopes in a period of particularly rapid and alarming change on the world stage.The victory of the British Labour Party in the elections of July, 1945 opened up to Left Wing Labourites intoxicating vistas of permanent peace and socialist brotherhood. The moment of triumph was ironically favorable to the fervor of Socialist Utopian hopes. Fascist military power in Europe had been crushed, and thb feat had been accomplished by the combined endeavors of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union. Russia, so long the Janus of the socialists, socialist state and enemy of socialists, appeared to be ready for cooperation. Labourites gladly abandoned their “red-baiting” suspicions, and looked for the building of a socialist Europe, aided by the Resistance parties, whose work was generally exaggerated and, just as generally, claimed for socialism. Problems of economic reconstruction were of a magnitude to encourage believers in planning that the capitalist world would itself become socialist in its solutions; and the apparently imminent liquidation of old colonial empires made the radiance of freedom's dawn even more dazzling.

Nationalism, Ethnic Pressures, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 81-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid S. Tuminez
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Core Group ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Boris Yeltsin

Nationalism and ethnic pressures contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union, but they were not the primary cause. A qualified exception to this argument is Russian elite separatist nationalism, led by Boris Yeltsin, which had a direct impact on Soviet disintegration. This article provides an overview of Soviet policy vis-à-vis nationalities, discusses the surge of nationalism and ethnic pressures in the Soviet Union in 1988–1991, and shows how ethnic unrest and separatist movements weakened the Soviet state. It also emphasizes that the demise of the Soviet Union resulted mainly from three other key factors: 1) Mikhail Gorbachev's failure to establish a viable compact between center and periphery in the early years of his rule; 2) Gorbachev's general unwillingness to use decisive force to quell ethnic and nationalist challenges; and 3) the defection of a core group of Russian elites from the Soviet regime.

On Certainties and Ambivalencies: Reply to My Critics

Slavic Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Weitz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Human Heredity ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Population Politics

Eric D. Weitz argues that the Soviet Union promoted the development of national institutions and consciousness and explicidy rejected the ideology of race. Yet traces of racial politics crept into Soviet nationalities policies, especially between 1937 and 1953. In the Stalin period particular populations were endowed with immutable traits that every member of the group possessed and that were passed from one generation to the next. Recent scholarship, he suggests, has been resistant to drawing out the racial elements in the Stalinist purges of certain nationalities. Francine Hirsch challenges Weitz’s argument, arguing that the Soviet regime had a developed concept of “race,” but did not practice what contemporaries thought of as “racial politics.” Hirsch argues that while the Nazi regime attempted to enact social change by racial means, the Soviet regime aspired to build socialism dirough die manipulation of mass (national and class) consciousness. She contends that it is imperative to analyze the conceptual categories that both regimes used in order to undertake a true comparative analysis. Weiner proposes that Soviet population politics constandy fluctuated between sociological and biological categorization. Although the Soviets often came close to adapting bioracial principles and practices, at no point did they let human heredity become a defining feature of political schemes. Race in the Soviet world applied mainly to concerns for the health of population groups. Despite the capacity to conduct genocidal campaigns and operate death camps, the Soviets never sought the physical extermination of entire groups nor did they stop celebrating the multiethnicity of tiieir polity. The radicalization of state violence in the postwar era was triggered by die nature and role of the war in the Soviet world, the alleged conduct of those who failed to rise to the occasion, and the endemic unstable and unassimilated borderlands, and not by die genetic makeup of the internal enemies. Alaina Lemon’s contribution suggests that scholars seek racialized concepts by treating discourse as situated practice, rather than by separating discourse from practice. This allows consideration of the ways people use language not only to name categories but also to point to social relationships (such as “race”) with or without explicidy naming them as such. Doing so, however, is admittedly more difficult when die only available evidence of past discursive practices are printed texts or interviews. In conclusion, Weitz responds to these critics.

Manifestations of Nationalism in the Baltic Republics

1979 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-211
Author(s):  
Silvia P. Forgus
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Occupation ◽  
National Spirit ◽  
The Baltic

The occupation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union in 1940 failed to extinguish feelings of nationalism and patriotism among the native Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian peoples; on the contrary, foreign occupation strengthened their national spirit. Dwelling on the successes and memories of their former independence, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian nationalists continue to denounce the Soviet occupation and resist the policies of communization and Russification practiced by the Soviet regime.

Without a “Concept”? Race as Discursive Practice

Slavic Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaina Lemon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Human Heredity ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Population Politics

Eric D. Weitz argues that the Soviet Union promoted the development of national institutions and consciousness and explicidy rejected the ideology of race. Yet traces of racial politics crept into Soviet nationalities policies, especially between 1937 and 1953. In the Stalin period particular populations were endowed with immutable traits that every member of the group possessed and that were passed from one generation to the next. Recent scholarship, he suggests, has been resistant to drawing out the racial elements in the Stalinist purges of certain nationalities. Francine Hirsch challenges Weitz’s argument, arguing that the Soviet regime had a developed concept of “race,” but did not practice what contemporaries thought of as “racial politics.” Hirsch argues that while the Nazi regime attempted to enact social change by racial means, the Soviet regime aspired to build socialism dirough die manipulation of mass (national and class) consciousness. She contends that it is imperative to analyze the conceptual categories that both regimes used in order to undertake a true comparative analysis. Weiner proposes that Soviet population politics constandy fluctuated between sociological and biological categorization. Although the Soviets often came close to adapting bioracial principles and practices, at no point did they let human heredity become a defining feature of political schemes. Race in the Soviet world applied mainly to concerns for the health of population groups. Despite the capacity to conduct genocidal campaigns and operate death camps, the Soviets never sought the physical extermination of entire groups nor did they stop celebrating the multiethnicity of tiieir polity. The radicalization of state violence in the postwar era was triggered by die nature and role of the war in the Soviet world, the alleged conduct of those who failed to rise to the occasion, and the endemic unstable and unassimilated borderlands, and not by die genetic makeup of the internal enemies. Alaina Lemon’s contribution suggests that scholars seek racialized concepts by treating discourse as situated practice, rather than by separating discourse from practice. This allows consideration of the ways people use language not only to name categories but also to point to social relationships (such as “race”) with or without explicidy naming them as such. Doing so, however, is admittedly more difficult when die only available evidence of past discursive practices are printed texts or interviews. In conclusion, Weitz responds to these critics.

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