In Search of Generations in Soviet Politics

1986 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Beissinger
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Several Variables ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Political Generations ◽  
Younger Generation

The hypothesis that generation has become a major source of political cleavage within the Soviet regional party apparatus is examined in the context of existing models of political generations. The attitudes of a sample of RSFSR provincial officials toward problems in the Soviet economy, as expressed in their newspaper writings, are analyzed according to several variables, including political generation. While it is difficult to speak of a significant difference in perspectives along strict generational lines, generational differences appear to be more significant within subgroups of the elite than within the elite as a whole. Several attitudinal subgroups within the younger generation are identified and their views of economic problems compared with those of their elders and with those of their generational peers. The findings suggest that the process of generational change in the Soviet Union is likely to be more complex than the traditional models of political generations lead one to expect.

scholarly journals “Identity through difference”: Liminal Diasporism and Generational Change Among the Koryo Saram in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-72
Author(s):  
Matteo Fumagalli
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Central Asian Republic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Boundary Maintenance ◽  
Korean Youth ◽  
Internal Variation

This article examines the case of the Koryo saram, the ethnic Koreans living in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, to reflect on how notions of diasporas, community, and identity have changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It contends that the Koryo saram are best understood through the lenses of diasporic conditions rather than as bounded communities, as such an approach allows for greater recognition of heterogeneity within these communities. While many Koryo saram continue to claim some form of Korean-ness, how they relate to issues of homeland-orientation and boundary maintenance evidences internal variation and growing in-betweenness. The community’s hybridity (“hyphenization”) and liminality (“identity through difference”) stand out when examining generational differences and are especially evident among the local Korean youth.

Some Recent Changes in Soviet Economic Policy

1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Rate Of Growth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future

SOVIET economic policy in the few years since Stalin's death has been characterized by flamboyance and ferment. In an attempt to free economic growth from the bottleneck of stagnation in agriculture, Khrushchev has sponsored some extravagant gambles in corn-growing and in expansion of the sown acreage. Policy toward the consumer has gone through two complete reversals: the regime at first experimented with offering the population an improvement in the standard of living, but is now once again asserting that abundance in the future requires austerity today. Perhaps the most startling innovation of all emerged in the past year when the regime began to develop a program of foreign economic assistance as a weapon in its economic competition with the capitalist part of the world. Because of their spectacular nature, these shifts of policy have attracted considerable attention in the West and have been commented on at length. Aware diat the Soviet Union is expanding her economic power at a more rapid rate than are the capitalist countries, Western students of the Soviet economy have sought in these policy changes-some clue as to whether its rate of growth is likely to decline or to be maintained in the future. The early indications of a rise in standards of living that would cause a reduced growth of heavy industry and so a decline in investment and in the rate of growth have now been dispelled. The inability of Soviet agriculture to provide an expanding food supply for a growing work force certainly appears to be a real threat to industrial growth, and with die failure of Khrushchev's gambles, this threat remains. Thus the evidence as to the over-all effect of these changes on the rate of expansion of die Soviet economy is still inconclusive.

Punk in Russia: From the “Declassed Elements” to the Class Struggle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Gololobov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Right

This chapter discusses the evolution of punk in Russia since its inception at the end of the 1970s. It pays particular attention to the changing perception of class belonging and the political engagement of the punk scene in Russia. Whereas in the West punk was a political movement closely associated with its working-class background, in the Soviet Union it emerged as a protest of middle-class intellectuals fighting for the right to be different and to stand out from the uniformed workers’ and peasants’ collective. This defined the particular stand of early Russian punk toward the genre’s social engagement and political appeal. Working-classness and political commitment—initial conditions of punk identity in the West—became something early Russian punk was positioned against. The dramatic transformation of Russian society over the following decades inevitably affected the cultural ideology of Russian punk, and from the 1990s onward it had to find its place and defend its significant difference amid the realities of “wild” neoliberal capitalism. The chapter shows how in Russia punk evolved from being a highly individualistic and apolitical practice to one of the most radical and politically committed scenes, closely affiliated with other struggles on the Left.

Contemporary U.S. Theory of International Law

1989 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 281-295
Author(s):  
Edward McWhinney
Keyword(s):  
Retrospective Study ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
General Theory ◽  
International Law ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Post War ◽  
New Generation

My retrospective study, published in the twenty-fifth anniversary volume of this Yearbook, attempted a critical survey of post-war Soviet general theory of international law, and noted the signs of an intellectual changing of the guard and the emergence of a new generation of Soviet international legal theorists. Is it possible today to speak of a post-war U.S. general theory of international law, and, if so, can we speak of a generational change, in the late 1980's, similar to that in the Soviet Union?

scholarly journals “Russian” and “Soviet” Plot in the Literary Works of Yoko Tavada

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 364-382
Author(s):  
T. S. Simyan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Heroine's Journey ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Japanese Writer ◽  
The Given ◽  
Jimi Hendrix

In the article the concepts-signified as “Russian” and “Soviet” expressed in the works of the German-Japanese writer Yoko Tavada (born 1960) are touched upon. The concepts signified as “Soviet” and “Russian” do encompass everything that is connected with Russian culture, literature and the Soviet Union. The empirical material for the given depiction were the essay and novel by Tavada “Suspicious passengers of your night trains” (2002, 2009). Based on the example of this novel the attitude of the younger generation of the socialist countries of late 1980s to the Russian language is revealed. The transition of the socialist bloc (Yugoslavia) is described on the example of clothes (jeans, aluminum fork, and pizza), the younger generation (good manners vs. bad manners), and language skills (English vs. Russian). The heroine’s journey along the Trans-Siberian Railway (Moscow – Irkutsk – Khabarovsk) enabled the author to reveal the micro-historical realities of the last decade of the Soviet era. The plot of the novel showed that in the last decades of the Soviet era there was already a “nostalgia” for household goods, the style of clothing and music, and Western pop culture (Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley). During the contact with the main character, the Russian soul (benevolence, openness, hospitality) and low standards of eco-awareness and disrespect for non-smokers in public transport (train) are revealed. The Soviet era is also confessed at the level of smell and food (garlic, cheap cigarettes, onions, black bread, porridge, soup butter drips, vodka, etc.). In the course of the narrative and communication with the surrounding people the Siberian “real” world is indicated, i.e. the poverty of the interior of the Siberian villages of the Soviet era. In the course of describing the Siberian expanse its natural and climatic constants such as cold, snow, bathhouse and birch, the latter as a symbol of all of Russia with its mythological stratum, were presented. The attributive cycle of the Siberian natural-climatic and “material” world is completed by the theme of androgyny opened up in the Siberian bathhouse, which is a space for identifying all types of physical things, that is, of female and male in woman and man.

First Steps toward SALT, 1966–1969

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
White House ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union

The chapter analyzes the Johnson administration’s failure to begin substantive strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union. Johnson and McNamara were overly optimistic regarding the USSR’s willingness to concede nuclear superiority to the United States, believing that the strain of an arms race on the Soviet economy would be too great. The chapter argues that this economic determinism based on a US-centric model of modernization that privileged living standards over other goals was similar to that which underpinned the administration’s bombing strategy in the Vietnam War. Rather than being a completely separate initiative, Johnson’s strategy of détente with the USSR based on arms control stemmed from the same outlook as that which underpinned Vietnam. When Soviet willingness to enter talks failed to materialize, the Johnson White House was unable to agree to talks that would be based on strategic parity, fearing the domestic political consequences of doing so.

The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Miller
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Difference

For half a century the Soviet economy was inefficient but stable. In the late 1980s, to the surprise of nearly everyone, it suddenly collapsed. Why did this happen? And what role did Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms play in the country's dissolution? In this groundbreaking study, Chris Miller shows that Gorbachev and his allies tried to learn from the great success story of transitions from socialism to capitalism, Deng Xiaoping's China. Why, then, were efforts to revitalize Soviet socialism so much less successful than in China? Making use of never-before-studied documents from the Soviet politburo and other archives, Miller argues that the difference between the Soviet Union and China--and the ultimate cause of the Soviet collapse--was not economics but politics. The Soviet government was divided by bitter conflict, and Gorbachev, the ostensible Soviet autocrat, was unable to outmaneuver the interest groups that were threatened by his economic reforms. Miller's analysis settles long-standing debates about the politics and economics of perestroika, transforming our understanding of the causes of the Soviet Union's rapid demise.

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