The Historical Role of Marxism and the Soviet System

1955 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam B. Ulam
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
Agrarian Economy ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Soviet Communism

NO analyst of Soviet Communism has failed to express surprise that a Marxist movement should have triumphed in a prevailingly agrarian society. Equally trite has been the observation that the Russian Marxists have not been able to solve the problem of the peasant and his full integration into their socialist system. Marx was a city boy, we are told, and that is why Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, has to spend his time discussing the failure of Soviet agriculture to keep up with the industrial sector of the economy. We are left with a truly confusing picture. Marxism, on its own premises designed as a movement for fully industrialized societies, comes to power or is a serious contender for power in societies that are mainly agrarian, while mature industrial countries adhere perversely to something (but something that is definitely non-Marxist) variously described as “the social welfare state,” “liberal capitalism,” and the like. Perhaps Marx was wrong and—for reasons unforeseen by him—his system is peculiarly suitable to what we now term “backward” countries, with predominantly agrarian economies and a low standard of living. Then why cannot Marxism solve its central problem of the agrarian economy? Or is it perhaps merely one form of Marxism—Soviet Communism—which is thus incapacitated? No wonder that scholars, first secretaries, and the rest of us tend to become confused.

Staging Friendship at the Barbed-Wire Fence

2020 ◽  
pp. 195-216
Author(s):  
Sören Urbansky
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Far East ◽  
World War ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wire Fence

This chapter deals with the late 1940s and the 1950s, a period that is generally perceived as a honeymoon between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, albeit one marred by the seeds of future conflict. Though the social and economic fallout of World War II was certainly felt in the borderlands, many things had changed for the better compared to the years leading up to 1945. There was no longer the threat of war to tyrannize the local population and transform the borderland areas into highly militarized zones. On the Soviet bank of the Argun, the siege mentality against enemies from within, the dull hatred of anything and anyone foreign, cultivated in the Soviet Far East and in other regions of the Soviet Union since in the 1930s, gradually withered. Under Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded Stalin in power, people in the Soviet borderland no longer feared deportation, imprisonment, and other repressions dealt out by their own government as much.

RESTORATION OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF YALTA IN 1944

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (72) (4) ◽  
pp. 24-36
Author(s):  
N. D. Borshchik
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
Recreational Facilities ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Resorts ◽  
Post War ◽  
Short Time

The article considers little-studied stories in Russian historiography about the post-war state of Yalta — one of the most famous health resorts of the Soviet Union, the «pearl» of the southern coast of Crimea. Based on the analysis of mainly archival sources, the most important measures of the party and Soviet leadership bodies, the heads of garrisons immediately after the withdrawal of the fascist occupation regime were analyzed. It was established that the authorities paid priority attention not only to the destroyed economy and infrastructure, but also to the speedy introduction of all-Union and departmental sanatoriums and recreation houses, other recreational facilities. As a result of their coordinated actions in the region, food industry enterprises, collective farms and cooperative artels, objects of cultural heritage and the social and everyday sphere were put into operation in a short time.

Wars

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Baberowski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cycle Of Violence ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
World Power ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Town

This chapter looks at Stalinism during the Great Patriotic War. It first discusses Joseph Stalin's changing approaches to terror following the end of his policy of exterminatory violence. This shift is well illustrated by two incidents, one in September 1939 when Nikita Khrushchev traveled with Marshal Timoshenko to the town of Vynnyky. This episode shows that the Stalinist terror was also an instrument of ethnic cleansing with which the Stalinist regime did its best. The other incident was in 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The front-line soldiers of the Red Army were trapped in a cycle of violence from which there was no escape. This chapter considers how the Great Patriotic War allowed Stalinism to develop to its full potential. The Soviet Union had become a world power, and yet it could offer its subjects nothing but misery and slavery. Only the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 put an end to Stalinism and with it, despotism.

Гocкaпитaлизм, Coциaльныe Клaccы, Культуpный Лaндшaфт Coвeтcкoй Дepeвни Cтaлинcкoгo и Пocлecтaлинcкoгo Bpeмeни

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-337 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Specific System ◽  
State Capitalism ◽  
Agrarian Society ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1960S

This article analyzes socio-economic and cultural transformations in the Soviet village from the end of the 1920s until the 1980s. The authors identify the agrarian system of that time as state capitalism and reveal that during the 1950s and 1960s, capital that played a leading role in Soviet agriculture. The authors argue that the emergence of state capitalism was due to the interaction of the state, collective farms, and peasant holdings. The preservation of traditional peasant holdings allowed the state to build a specific system of non-economic exploitation, the core of which existed until the beginning of the 1960s. The authors connect the formation of agrarian capitalism with the creation of new rural classes. The authors conclude that from the 1920s to the 1980s, a combination of economic, political and socio-cultural factors led to the transformation of the agrarian society in the Soviet Union into the state capitalism.

How Should One Evaluate the Soviet Revolution?

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vittorio Hösle
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Marxist Philosophy ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Soviet Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

AbstractThe essay begins by discussing different ways of evaluating and making sense of the Soviet Revolution from Crane Brinton to Hannah Arendt. In a second part, it analyses the social, political and intellectual background of tsarist Russia that made the revolution possible. After a survey of the main changes that occurred in the Soviet Union, it appraises its ends, the means used for achieving them, and the unintended side-effects. The Marxist philosophy of history is interpreted as an ideological tool of modernization attractive to societies to which the liberal form of modernization was precluded.

Russian Organized Crime: Its History, Structure and Function

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Albini ◽  
R.E. Rogers ◽  
Victor Shabalin ◽  
Valery Kutushev ◽  
Vladimir Moiseev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Client Relationships ◽  
And Function

In analyzing Russian organized crime, the authors describe and classify the four major forms of organized crime: 1) political-social, 2) mercenary, 3) in-group, and 4) syndicated. Though the first three classifications of the aforementioned types of organized crime existed throughout Soviet history, it was the syndicated form that began to emerge in the late 1950's, expanding during the corrupt Breznev years (1964–82), exploding during perestroika, and reaching pandemic levels after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The abrupt transformation of the Russian society from a centralized command economy to one driven by the forces of market capitalism created the socio-pathological conditions for the malignant spread of mercenary and especially syndicated organized crime. New criminals syndicates were created by an alliance of criminal gangs/groups and former members of the Soviet Union's communist nomenklatura (bureaucracy) and the consequence was the criminalization of much of the Russian economy. The social structure of these syndicates is based on a loose association of patron-client relationships rather than a centralized hierarchical system; their function is to provide illicit goods/services desired by the people. The authors conclude their study by emphasizing that what has taken place in Russia is not peculiar to the Russian people, but exemplifies what can happen to societies that experience rapid and intense social change.

Žurnāla „Inostrannaja Literatura” rezonanse Latvijas literārajā telpā politiskā atkušņa laikā

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-146
Author(s):  
Zanda Gūtmane
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Foreign Literature ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
Thaw Period

The paper is devoted to a parallel description of the literary processes in the Soviet Union and Soviet Latvia during Nikita Khrushchev’ reign, also known as the period of political thaw or the liberalisation of the communist regime (1953–1964). The main object of the research is the literary magazine Inostrannaja literatura (Иностранная литература), issued in the Soviet Union since 1955, dedicated to foreign literature and its translations; the principles of creating its content and structure during the political thaw period. The aim of the research: with concrete examples, to show the role of this legendary Russian literary periodical in the Iron Curtain period, expansion of freedom of thought, decanonization of socialist realism dogmas in general in the USSR, and also in the Latvian SSR. The methodological basis of the research consists of a comparative literature approach and a new historicism position that the literary text is important in studying different lines of history. The analysis of the publications clearly shows the replacement of the so-called periods of thaw and freezing. The article proves that the appearance of translations, reviews, previews, and research articles of foreign literature in this journal is closely connected with various political peripeteia of the USSR. In Latvia, there is a great resonance of Inostrannaja literatura, and it had an eventual influence on overcoming the dogmas of socialist realism in Latvian literature. The publications about the journal in Latvian literary editions and the study of the reception of one text example, a comparison of various editions of the writer Ēvalds Vilks’s (1923–1976) story “Twelve Kilometers”, prove it.

A New Circle of Hell: The Postwar Gulag and the Rise of the Special Camps

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven A. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Social World ◽  
Political Institution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Life Experience ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Significant Life

This chapter takes the Gulag into the postwar era when authorities used the institution in an attempt to reassert social control. At the same time, arrivals from the newly annexed western territories and former Red Army soldiers dramatically altered the social world of the Gulag prisoner. New prisoner populations of war veterans, nationalist guerrillas, and peoples with significant life experience outside the Soviet Union provided a potentially combustible mix. The isolation and concentration of many of these prisoners in a small number of special camps raised even further the potential explosiveness of the population. The Gulag was a political institution, though, and it was only the death of the system's founder that would set off the explosions.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann P. Arnason ◽  
Marek Hrubec
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
New Era ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
East Central European

Problems of social revolutions and/or transformations belong to the classical agenda of social inquiry, as well as to the most prominent real and potential challenges encountered by contemporary societies. Among revolutionary events of the last decades, particular attention has been drawn to the changes that unfolded at the turn of the 1990s and brought the supposedly bipolar (in fact incipiently multipolar) world to an end. The downfall of East Central European Communist regimes in 1989 and of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the beginning of a new era, originally characterised on the one hand by the relaxation of international tensions and on the other by the ascendancy of Western unilateralism. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soviet collapse prompts the authors of this book to reflect on revolutions and transformations, both from a long-term historical perspective and with regard to the post-Communist scene. The social changes unfolding in Eastern and Central Europe are not only epoch-making historical turns; their economic, social and political aspects, often confusing and unexpected, have also raised new questions and triggered debates about fundamental theoretical issues. Moreover, they have had a significant impact on developments elsewhere in the world, in both Western and developing countries.

Society in Flux

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Wickhamsmith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Literary Response ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Motorized Transport ◽  
Livestock Husbandry

Using S. Buyannemeh’s 1936 novella ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ (Malchin Tovuudai) as a basis, this chapter examines the social policies that the Party implemented so as to bring Mongolia into line with the Soviet Union. Through an analysis of the literary response to the unsuccessful policy of collectivization and to the more successful policies surrounding education and livestock husbandry, it shows how changes to the traditional nomadic herding culture – not only in the management of livestock, but in education and gender equality – affected society as a whole. In journeys such as Tovuudai’s, from the far west of Mongolia to the rapidly developing capital Ulaanbaatar, the kind of technological innovations that the Party wished to encourage – motorized transport and electrification – were seen as evidence of Mongolia’s modernization, and writers used the imagery and sensation of spee

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