Drawing Between Reportage and Memory: Diego Rivera's Moscow Sketchbook

October ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 145 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Maria Gough
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
New Venture ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
To Come ◽  
Political Demonstrations

The extraordinary proliferation of political demonstrations around the world over the past several years has reminded us once again of the phenomenal power of the real-time convergence of people in public space, a power to which Diego Rivera's Moscow Sketchbook—a corpus of forty-five small watercolor drawings—bears graphic witness. The sketchbook dates from Rivera's seven- or eight-month sojourn in Moscow, which began in early November 1927 with his direct participation in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the revolution as a delegate to the inaugural internat ional Congress of Friends. Publicly announcing the artist's arrival in Moscow on November 3, the Communist Party's national daily newspaper Pravda discussed his “extraordinary frescoes” in the new Secretar iat of Public Educat ion in Mexico City—which the poet Vladimir Mayakovski had earlier lauded as “the world's first Communist mural”—and went on to explain that, as a revolutionary artist, Rivera now prefers the collective address of “wall painting” over the private easel picture to which he had devoted himself for a decade or so in Paris before 1921. A new venture in Soviet cultural diplomacy, the Congress of Friends had as its objective the forging of a broad, cross-party international alliance of those willing and able to come to the defense of the Soviet Union in their home countries. Rivera, a member of the Mexican Communist Party at the time, participated in the congress at the invitation of the Comintern, which was responsible for hosting notable foreign communists when they were in town and, as such, played a major role in the organization of the three-day meeting. On the first day of the congress the artist was elected—from a pool of 947 delegates—to its Presidium (governing board) and press bureau as a member of the foreign intelligentsia.

Southern Baptists and Northern Evangelicals: Cultural Factors and the Nature of Religious Alliances

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-298
Author(s):  
Barry Hankins
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Southern Baptists ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
To Come

At times in history, groups of people with very different ideologies have allied with one another because of a common threat. The most striking example of this was the World War II alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union. In a religious matter, Baptists and other free-church evangelicals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries joined with deists like Thomas Jefferson to combat the threat to religious liberty posed by the establishment of religion. At other times, groups with similar ideas have been unable to come together because they did not share similar attitudes toward or positions within their cultures. This essay is concerned with the latter phenomenon and uses Southern Baptists and northern evangelicals as a case study. The historical relationship of these two groups illustrates something profound about the very nature of religious alliances; specifically, it illustrates how cultural factors and intuitive notions of uneasiness about theological security determine whether or not religious groups with great theological similarities can find common ground.

Barbarism or Socialism: 1917–2017–2050 (?)

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minqi Li
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
First Century ◽  
New Era ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
To Come

Two decades after the end of the Soviet Union, the global capitalist economy narrowly escaped total collapse in the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008–2009. The world in the twenty-first century has entered into a new era of crisis, which is economic, political and environmental. What will happen between now and the mid-twenty-first century that may shape and largely determine the future of humanity for centuries to come. On the occasion of the centennial anniversary of the October Revolution, this article re-evaluates the trajectory of the twentieth century socialism and identifies its legacies. It also considers the unique character of contemporary contradictions and argues that the formation of new industrial working classes may fatally undermine the system’s political legitimacy and raise again the ‘spectre of communism’ that Marx and Engels predicted, this time not only in Europe but also in the entire globe.

Reliability of the Plot Related to the Conversation with Deng Xiaoping on the Sino-Soviet Territorial Issues in the Memoirs of E. Shevardnadze

2021 ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Yinan Li
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Deng Xiaoping ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Reliable Source ◽  
History Of ◽  
Territorial Claims

In 2009, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and President of Georgia E.A. Shevardnadze published his memoirs in Russian, which contain an “explosive” plot: while visiting China in February 1989, during his meeting with Deng Xiaoping, a lengthy dispute over border and territorial issues occurred. At that time, Deng allegedly expressed his point of view that vast lands of the Soviet Union, from three to four million square kilometers, belonged to China. Chinese can wait patiently until someday the lands return to China. This content is cited in scientific works by many historians from different countries as an argument. However, there is no other evidence which can prove this recollection. Many details in it contradict the well known historical facts or are completely illogical. There is a good reason to believe that the plot in the memoirs of Shevardnadze is an incorrect recollection. It could even be considered as a made-up story. Moreover, it is possible that it was fabricated for some reasons. Hence, the plot is not worthy of being quoted as a reliable source. At the Sino-Soviet summit Deng Xiaoping did have expressed the point of view that in the past Russia and then the Soviet Union cut off millions of square kilometers of land from China, but at the same time he promised the leader of the Soviet Union that China would not make territorial claims. Since the mid-1980s Deng Xiaoping actively promoted the settlement of the Sino-Soviet border issues through negotiations, which led to the result that 99% of the border between Russia and China was delimited on a legal basis in the last years of his life. At present, the problems of the Sino-Russian border have been finally resolved long ago. There is no doubt that the scientific research and discussions on issues related to territory and borders in the history of Sino-Soviet relations can be made. However, such research and discussions should be based on reliable sources.

Agwan Dorjiev’s Questions about the Past and Future of Mongolian Buddhism

2020 ◽  
pp. 416-437
Author(s):  
Matthew W. King
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
British Raj ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Competing Models ◽  
Letter Exchange

This chapter translates a 1924 letter exchange between two luminaries of the final years of prepurge Buddhism in Mongol and Buryat lands: the Khalkha polymath Zava Damdin Luvsandamdin (1867–1937) and the diplomat, reformer, and abbot Agvan Dorjiev (1854–1938). Both figures were deeply engaged with revolutionary intellectual currents circulating between China, the British Raj, Russia, Siberia, Tibet, Japan, and Mongolia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Both sought an advantage for Buddhist monastic life in competing models of revolutionary development and emancipation being debated in the Soviet Union and Mongolian People’s Republic. In the exchange translated here, these two tragic figures debate topics as diverse as the prehistory of the Mongolian community, the whereabouts of the fabled “land of Li,” and how best to counter the threat of scientific empiricism.

Soviet Selves

2019 ◽  
pp. 60-81
Author(s):  
Justine Buck Quijada
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Religious Actors

Chapter 2 presents the Soviet chronotope embodied in Victory Day celebrations. Victory Day, which is the celebration of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War II, presumes the familiar Soviet genre of history, in which the Soviet Union brought civilization to Buryatia, and Buryats achieved full citizenship in the Soviet utopian dream through their collective sacrifice during the war. The ritual does not narrate Soviet history. Instead, through Soviet and wartime imagery, and the parade form, the public holiday evokes this genre in symbolic form, enabling local residents to read their own narratives of the past into the imagery. This space for interpretation enables both validation as well as critique of the Soviet experience in Buryatia. Although not everyone in Buryatia agrees on how to evaluate this history, this genre is the taken-for-granted backdrop against which other religious actors define their narratives.

The Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union in Transition: What of Services to Blind Persons?

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
pp. 260-261
Author(s):  
S.J. Spungin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vocational Training ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Blind Persons

The author discusses the system of service to blind persons in the Soviet Union, based on trips to 2 of its 15 republics in the past year. This system, in which the factory is the major employer, offers immediate rehabilitation and vocational training, financed by factory profits. The author also discusses changes occurring in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries and how they could affect these countries’ blind populations.

African Studies in the U.S.S.R.

1966 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-366
Author(s):  
V. G. Solodovnikov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union

African studies in the Soviet Union have deep roots in the past. The nature of Africa, the African peoples' way of life, their culture, arts, and crafts have long been of special interest to scholars in the Soviet Union. We have never had any mercenary motives, for our country never had colonies in Africa and never aimed at seizing African lands. No Russian soldier has ever been to Africa. Moreover, many Russian progressive intellectuals strongly protested against any form of exploitation and slavery. More than once they spoke in support of Africans and attacked the slave trade and the policy of turning the vast regions of Africa into what Karl Marx called ‘field reserves’ for the hunting of Africans.

Concluding remarks

1990 ◽  
Vol 331 (1619) ◽  
pp. 451-453
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Technical Progress ◽  
Fast Reactor ◽  
Mixed Oxide ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Fuel Storage ◽  
Metal Fuel ◽  
Versus Loop

Over the past two days we have been taking stock of the overall position as regards the development of fast reactors in Europe, the U. S. S. R., the U. S. A, and Japan. I am sure we can agree that collectively we have made good technical progress with the development of this major source of electrical power for the next century. In Europe, we have two large prototypes operating, Phénix and PER. We also have a 1200 MW e demonstration reactor (Superphenix), which is now continuing with its commissioning programme after the interruption caused by the leak from the fuel storage vessel. The Soviet Union is pressing ahead with its program m e; in the U. S. A. FFTF has given outstanding reliability and in Jap an the construction of Monju is going well and is on schedule for criticality in 1992. O f course there are a number of possible realizations of the sodium-cooled fast reactor concept. We have had in this conference some muted debates about the merits of pool versus loop, oxide versus metal fuel, large versus small modular and the possibilities of eliminating the secondary sodium circuit. But we can all probably agree that the pool mixed-oxide fuelled design is one realization which has now reached an advanced state of development, certainly the pre-commercial stage.

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