The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933

Slavic Review ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark B. Tauger
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Mass Starvation ◽  
Soviet Historiography ◽  
Soviet Study

Western and even Soviet publications have described the 1933 famine in the Soviet Union as “man-made” or “artificial.” The Stalinist leadership is presented as having imposed harsh procurement quotas on Ukraine and regions inhabited by other groups, such as Kuban’ Cossacks and Volga Germans, in order to suppress nationalism and to overcome opposition to collectivization. Proponents of this interpretation argue, using official Soviet statistics, that the 1932 grain harvest, especially in Ukraine, was not abnormally low and would have fed the population. Robert Conquest, for example, has referred to a Soviet study of drought to show that conditions were far better in 1932 than they were in 1936, a “non-famine year.” James Mace, the main author of a U.S. Congress investigation of the Ukraine famine, cites “post-Stalinist” statistics to show that this harvest was larger than those of 1931 or 1934 and refers to later Soviet historiography describing 1931 as a worse year than 1932 because of drought. On this basis he argues that the 1932 harvest would not have produced mass starvation.

PARTICIPATION OF UZBEK SOLDIERS IN THE LIBERATION OF THE BALTIC STATES

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Ilkhomjon M. Saidov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet Socialist Republic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Soviet Historiography

The article is devoted to the participation of natives of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in the Baltic operation of 1944. The author states that Soviet historiography did not sufficiently address the problem of participation of individual peoples of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, and therefore their feat remained undervalued for a long time. More specifically, according to the author, 40–42% of the working age population of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Such figure was typical only for a limited number of countries participating in the anti-fascist coalition. Analyzing the participation of Soviet Uzbekistan citizens in the battles for the Baltic States, the author shows that the 51st and 71st guards rifle divisions, which included many natives of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, were particularly distinguished. Their heroic deeds were noted by the soviet leadership – a number of Uzbek guards were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In addition, Uzbekistanis fought as part of partisan detachments – both in the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, the Western regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Moldova. Many Uzbek partisans were awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War” of I and II degrees.

Mark von Hagen: Soviet Historiography and the Nationality Question

1990 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-56
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Historiography

Last year I was accused of being a kazennyi optimist for having reflected the view of the administrations of various academic institutes in the Soviet Union. Today, I am happy to start with the words of my Viennese grandmother, “Ich sehe schwarz.” But as I am sitting next to the Institute's professional doomsayer, Professor Motyl, I will still look somewhat optimistic, I am sure.

The Stalinist Revision of History: The Case of Brest-Litovsk

1952 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-85
Author(s):  
Raymond L. Garthoff
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Soviet History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Historiography

The events leading to the rise of Stalin to sole prominence in the Soviet Union and the general political picture of the totalitarian Stalinist regime are now familiar, but specific forms of the evolution of “Stalinism” are often not adequately understood. Evolving Soviet historiography is an unusually informative mirror of these developments, since it not only attempts to describe them, but implicitly embodies them as well. The present article is an analysis of one theme from early Soviet history, treatment of which in Soviet historiography exemplifies both the trend of Soviet historiography as a whole, and the trend of Stalinism as an emergent totalitarian ideology based on Bolshevism.

Political Science in the USSR: ‘To Be, Or Not To Be” Some Reflections on the Implications of a Recent Soviet Critique of American Political Science

1971 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 684-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf H. W. Theen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
The West ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Official Recognition ◽  
Soviet Study

The emergence or reemergence of academic disciplines in the Soviet Union has frequently been signalled or accompanied by the publication of comprehensive critical studies of their “bourgeois” counterparts in the West. Thus, for example, Soviet empirical research in sociology and the subsequent tentative and limited official recognition of sociology as an academic discipline were preceded by the appearance of a number of monographs devoted to a critique of Western sociology. Perhaps it is against this background and from this perspective that one must interpret the publication, in 1969, of the first major Soviet study and critique of American political science.

scholarly journals Ivan the Terrible and Russian Feudalism in the Works of Hungarian and Russian Historians of the Soviet Era

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Peter The Great ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Ivan The Terrible ◽  
Soviet Historiography

In his book An Attempt at Microhistoriography (Rus. Опыт микроисториографии), Gyula Szvák, an outstanding Hungarian specialist in Russian history, republishes seven of his earlier articles and presents a previously unpublished eighth article on the Soviet historiography of the key issues of 16th-century Russian history. The articles consider Ivan Peresvetov’s works, reforms and oprichnina between the middle and second half of the sixteenth century; also, they compare the reigns and personalities of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. Additionally, the author explores the personal stories of his mentors, Russian historian Ruslan Skrynnikov and Hungarian József Perényi. The book reviewed presents a kind of panorama of two historiographic traditions of studying the Russian Middle Ages in the Soviet Union and Hungary before the collapse of the communist regime there. The author returns to the peculiarities of Russia’s historical development and comprehension of the concept of “Russian feudalism” and reflects on the fate of historians who were engaged in the study of mediaeval Russia under rigid ideological principles.

scholarly journals THE PRINCIPLE OF PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE OF TWO SYSTEMS AND THE INTERPRETATION OF ITS THEORETICAL SOURCES IN RESEARCH ON THE HISTORY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
Chengzhang Zou ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Two Systems ◽  
History Of ◽  
Friedrich Engels ◽  
Soviet Historiography

The article presents the results of the author’s study of the interpretation of the theoretical sources of the principle of peaceful coexistence of two systems in Soviet studies of the second half of the 20th century, devoted to the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The author established a chronological framework for studying the principle of peaceful coexistence of two systems in Soviet historiography, and revealed Soviet historiographic markers of this principle in the corpuses of the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin). The article also presents a historical description and analysis of the way Soviet historians of the party interpreted the principle of peaceful coexistence of two systems in the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The author identified the historical features of Soviet historians’ interpretation of the principle of peaceful coexistence of two systems in the works of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), systematized approaches to the interpretation of the theoretical sources of the principle of peaceful coexistence of two systems that were formed in Soviet studies on the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, revealed their structural features, and also developed a model for their typology.

Anna Akhmatova’s Complicity

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Joshua Kotin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Historiography

This examines Anna Akhmatova's two great late poems Requiem (1935–62) and the famously difficult Poem without a Hero (1940–65). In Requiem, Akhmatova embraces her role as a “world-historical personage.” In a sequence of ten lyrics and various supplementary texts, she challenges Soviet historiography and, as a result, the Soviet Union itself. Requiem, as this chapter shows, is continuous with both the Stalin epigram and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam's memoirs. Meanwhile, Poem without a Hero considers if complicity is always a condition of dissent and if there is a way to oppose totalitarianism without replicating its worldview. The poem attempts to realize a different kind of dissent—one that does not promote Soviet utopianism or the Mandel'shtams' utopian anti-utopianism.

Collectivization and Famine

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Wemheuer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Mixed Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Mass Starvation ◽  
Maoist China

In the Soviet Union and Maoist China several deadly famines occurred. The article argues that there is no necessary relation between collectivization of agriculture and famine. In many cases in Eastern Europe, collective agriculture was introduced and established for decades without causing mass starvation, especially when communist governments were willing to accept a mixed economy in the countryside. In the Soviet Union in 1931 and in China in 1959, however, collectivization did produce famines on a mammoth scale. These resulted directly from government decisions to launch overambitious industrial programmes to escape backwardness. Rapid urbanization and the resulting increase of millions of eaters in the urban rationing system, together with grain exports, overburdened the peasants. Rural consumption was curbed to a point that tens of millions could not survive.

scholarly journals Cooperation of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belarusian SSR in the UN during the Perestroika Period

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-140
Author(s):  
Uladzimir Snapkouski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
National Interests ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Specialized Institutions ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Foreign Ministers ◽  
Foreign Ministry ◽  
Soviet Historiography

The article examines the main directions of activity and forms of interaction between the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belarusian SSR in the UN and its specialized institutions during the years of perestroika (1985 - 1991). To disclose the topic, materials from the journal “International Affair” were used (reviews of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the foreign policy of the USSR, articles by the foreign ministers of the Union republics, primarily Ukraine and Belarus), book and journal publications of Union / Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian scientists, documents of the United Nations and foreign policy of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Belarusian SSR. The author’s conscious emphasis on the union level reflects the real situation in relations between the Union Center and the republics in the Soviet federation during the perestroika period, when these relations rapidly evolved from the foreign policy dictate of the Center to greater autonomy of the republics in the international arena, which ultimately has led to the collapse of the USSR and the proclamation of independence all union republics. The article analyzes such issues as the new approach of the Soviet Union to the UN in the years of perestroika, the formation of new relations between the Union republics and the Center, diplomatic cooperation of Soviet delegations and representatives of socialist countries in the UN, Belarusian initiatives at the 45th session of the UN General Assembly (1990). During the years of perestroika, the Soviet leadership and the union Foreign Ministry did a tremendous job of clearing the rubble of the Cold War, developing broad international cooperation and integration the USSR into the world economy. The Belarusian and Ukrainian diplomatic services have made a significant contribution to this activity within the framework of the UN and its specialized agencies and have received much broader opportunities for realizing the national interests and needs of their peoples within the framework of radically renewed relations between the Union Center and the republics. The article is one of the first attempts in post-Soviet historiography to investigate the activities of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR in the UN and its specialized institutions during the period of perestroika

scholarly journals “AT HOME AMONG STRANGERS, A STRANGER AMONG HIS OWN”: IDENTIFICATION CODES IN THE MEMOIRS OF AINO KUUSINEN

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 136-144
Author(s):  
Irina L. Savkina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Staff Member ◽  
Russian Translation ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
Gender Aspects ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Soviet Historiography

The article discusses the memoirs “The Lord Deposes his Angels” by Aino Kuusinen in the context of the study of genealogy and morphology of Soviet subjectivity. In the Soviet historiography Aino Kuusinen (1886–1970) is known as the wife of the prominent Finnish communist and Soviet politician Otto Ville Kuusinen and as the Comintern staff member. In the middle of 1930s she moved to Japan, where she was supposedly involved in espionage activities for the Soviet Union. From Japan, Kuusinen was summoned to Moscow where she was arrested in 1938 and was in prison until 1955. In 1965, Aino Kuusinen emigrated from the Soviet Union, and wrote her memoirs in German. The first Russian translation was published in 1989. The main addressee of Kuusinen’s memoirs was a Western, primarily Finnish, reader, and in that sense, both a Russian reader and a researcher act as an “unforeseen addressee”, what creates new opportunities for reading and interpretation. The article analyses the main principles of the construction of the author’s “I”, of her identity in ideological, ethnical and gender aspects; how the personal and the socially determined are combined in the identification codes, approved by the author, and in the models of self, constructed in the text as the most notable for the author. The main distinctive feature of Kuusinen’s memoirs as the egodocument is as follows: the narrative of the events of the Soviet epoch (1920–1950s) is presented by “a moral witness (A. Assman), who was inside the Soviet space, but at the same time was in the position of an other; who was in a situation of intercultural transformation or cultural hybridity. This position creates the optics of detachment in describing Soviet life, which is important for understanding the Soviet subject and the time when this subject was formed.

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