scholarly journals Typical Bourgeois Intellectuals and Great Friends of the Soviet Union: Latin American Writers in the USSR during the Khrushchev Thaw

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 162-176
Author(s):  
K. R. Buynova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State

The author studies the Latin American writers’ visits to the USSR from 1954 till beginning of 1960s realized via the Foreign Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers. After Stalin’s death, the activity of all departments of the Commission expanded significantly; the lists of those invited from abroad now included writers who were absolutely loyal to the USSR as well as new and yet unknown names. As a result, the staff of the Foreign Commission had to face an unprecedented pluralism. Based on the Commission’s Spanish and Portuguese translators’ reports, stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the study analyses the criteria based on which the stay of a guest was perceived as favorable or undesirable for continuing cooperation in order to improve the image of the USSR in foreign literary circles. The study also analyses somewhat of a loyalty marker, reflecting the guests’ perception of the results of the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the state of Soviet-Chinese relations as sensitive topics important for the political self-determination of communist writers. The study of these new sources allows us to conclude that when choosing new foreign partners, the Foreign Commission often relied on the advice of its’ faithful friends, and the protégés of the latter did not always withstand the test of compatibility with the Soviet regime. At the same time, there was no specific criteria for the new friends’ selection. The translators, who were the first to report on the visit, were invited from outside, sometimes just for one particular job; they did not receive clear instructions from the Commission and were guided by their own ideas about the importance of the writer in their care and the expediency of cooperation with him. Later their opinion could not be taken into account; presumably, it was the journalistic and novelistic production of the invited writers published as a result of the visit to the USSR that was of greater importance to decide whether they were worth further attention. The study reviews Soviet Writers’ Union cooperation with P. Neruda, F. González-Urízar, N. Parra, V. Teitelboim, A. Cassigoli, F. Coloane (Chile), J. Amado, M. Rebelo, E. de Moraes, G. Figueiredo, H. Silveira (Brazil), I. Abirad, J.C. Pedemonte, M. Rosencof (Uruguay), N. Guillen, C. Leante, O. Hurtado, Samuel Feijoo (Cuba), E. Barrios Villa (Bolivia), C.A. Leon (Venezuela).

scholarly journals The All-Buryat Congress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the Nation: Siberian politics in the final year of the USSR

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-71
Author(s):  
Melissa Chakars
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet Socialist Republic ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
General Goals

This article examines the All-Buryat Congress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the Nation that was held in the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in February 1991. The congress met to discuss the future of the Buryats, a Mongolian people who live in southeastern Siberia, and to decide on what actions should be taken for the revival, development, and maintenance of their culture. Widespread elections were carried out in the Buryat lands in advance of the congress and voters selected 592 delegates. Delegates also came from other parts of the Soviet Union, as well as from Mongolia and China. Government administrators, Communist Party officials, members of new political parties like the Buryat-Mongolian People’s Party, and non-affiliated individuals shared their ideas and political agendas. Although the congress came to some agreement on the general goals of promoting Buryat traditions, language, religions, and culture, there were disagreements about several of the political and territorial questions. For example, although some delegates hoped for the creation of a larger Buryat territory that would encompass all of Siberia’s Buryats within a future Russian state, others disagreed revealing the tension between the desire to promote ethnic identity and the practical need to consider economic and political issues.

The Challenges to Social Control in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, 1964-1982

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Fedor L. Sinitsyn
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Central State ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Government ◽  
General Secretary

This article examines the development of social control in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, who was General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. Historians have largely neglected this question, especially with regard to its evolution and efficiency. Research is based on sources in the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the Moscow Central State Archive (TSGAM). During Brezhnevs rule, Soviet propaganda reached the peak of its development. However, despite the fact that authorities tried to improve it, the system was ritualistic, unconvincing, unwieldy, and favored quantity over quality. The same was true for political education, which did little more than inspire sullen passivity in its students. Although officials recognized these failings, their response was ineffective, and over time Soviet propaganda increasingly lost its potency. At the same time, there were new trends in the system of social control. Authorities tried to have a foot in both camps - to strengthen censorship, and at the same time to get feedback from the public. However, many were afraid to express any criticism openly. In turn, the government used data on peoples sentiments only to try to control their thoughts. As a result, it did not respond to matters that concerned the public. These problems only increased during the era of stagnation and contributed to the decline and subsequent collapse of the Soviet system.

The Principle of Self-Determination of Peoples High and Low

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Boris N. Kashnikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
World War ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Normative Logic

The subject matter of this article is the principle of Self-Determination of Peo­ples of the contemporary international law. The principle is scrutinized both his­torically through its inner historical transformation and logically, through the analysis of its inner normative logic. The problem related to this principle is that it belongs simultaneously to three realms, those of politics, law and morals, containing different meanings. These meanings often do contradict each other and it happens differently on different stages of the historical transformation. The three major stages of the development of the principle (from the First World War up to the end of the Second; from the end of the Second World war up to the demise of the Soviet Union; and from the demise of the Soviet Union up to now) were continuously the stages of predominantly political, legal and moral. Each of the stages was reflecting the characteristic illusion of its time and was founded on the unique combination of the dominant meanings of the principle, which was enabling the principle to play its practical role. At the same time there are clear indications that the principle is incapable to play its cardinal proper role of the universal moral principle when it comes to it. This becomes crystal clear at the third stage of the development and which is trigger­ing unprecedented political violence of the contemporary movements of self-determination and secession

Nation-Making and National Conflict under Communism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne L. Edgar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Question ◽  
National Sentiment

Karl Marx was no friend of nationalism, yet the states that came into being in his name in the twentieth century were forced to reach an accommodation with it. The Soviet Union was a vast multi-ethnic empire that included more than a hundred different national and ethnic groups. The article shows how Marxists, notably the Austro-Marxists and Lenin, developed a theory of the ‘national question’, which in Lenin’s case linked support for national self-determination to anti-imperialism. The article examines the key facets of Bolshevik policy towards the non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union, notably the strategy of ‘nativization’, and it discusses the recent historiography that tends to see the Soviet regime more as a ‘maker of nations’ than oppressor of them (although it was also that). It compares the efforts of the Soviet, Chinese, and Yugoslav governments to negotiate tensions between national equality, territorial autonomy, cultural development, and increasing national sentiment and, fundamentally, rising national sentiment with the imperative of centralization. It looks at the role of nationalism in the break-up of the Soviet Union.

POST-SOVIET DRAMA OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (IN CONNECTION WITH THE 99TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FORMATION OF THE USSR AND THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS ABOLISHMENT)

2021 ◽  
pp. 62-75
Author(s):  
Aleksandr В. Lyubinin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
30Th Anniversary ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Real Process ◽  
Single State ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

The article was prepared in connection with the 99th anniversary of the formation of the USSR and the 30th anniversary of the termination of its existence. The article reveals the relationship between the norms of the Constitution of the USSR of 1924 (and subsequent versions of the document) on the self-determination of nations and their right to secede from the Union with the real process of destruction of a single state. It is shown that the disintegration of the Union was carried out not in connection with the constitutional right of the union republics to self-determination, not with the observance of the appropriate procedures for leaving the single state, but, on the contrary, on an anti-constitutional basis. The author reveals the artificial and politically motivated nature of the arguments regarding the «mines» laid down in their time by the Bolsheviks under the national state structure of the USSR. This device turned out to be productive both for repelling military aggression and for peaceful construction, because it was formed taking into account the totality of the binding circumstances of its time, on the principles of equality and voluntary self-determination. It has been proven that the absence of the right to secede from parts of a single state does not provide any guarantees against the collapse of this state, an example of which is the European monarchies that ended their journey at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the events in the USSR and around the Chechen Republic. The fundamental difference between constitutional multinational formations, one of which was the Soviet Union, and formations built on a contractual basis following the example of the Gorbachev SSG, the Belovezhskaya agreement on the creation of the CIS and the Union State of Russia and Belarus, is revealed.

Russia and South Africa: Historical Memory. Part 2

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-16
Author(s):  
Alexandra Arkhangelskaya ◽  
Daria Turianitsa ◽  
Vasily Sidorov ◽  
Vladimir Shubin
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
State Archive ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
National Liberation Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Federation

This part of a joint article contains a survey of the sources regarding the history of cooperation between the Soviet Union and the national liberation movement in South Africa in the Russian central archives. The main ones are the Russian State Archive of Modern History, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, the Russian State Archive of the Economy and the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation.

scholarly journals The United Nations and the Soviet Union: Diplomacy and Propaganda in the Twilight of the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Zapariy
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Berlin Crisis ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Specific Material ◽  
Multilateral Diplomacy ◽  
The Cold War

Referring to the preparation of Soviet diplomacy for the 3rd session of the UN General Assembly, this article examines the process behind the development of the political line of the Soviet delegation, as well as the principles of covering the “UN” theme by the press, informing the population and shaping public opinion on major international problems. On the basis of specific material, the author demonstrates the principles of Soviet diplomats’ work on the preparation of analytical materials, the development of recommendations, and the implementation of propaganda measures at the UN in response to the changing international situation. Archival materials allow us to understand the attitude of the Soviet political elite to multilateral diplomacy and reconstruct the USSR’s assessment of the effectiveness of the organisation’s activities both in the field of maintaining international security and in the non-political sphere. Referring to the analysis of materials from the Russian Foreign Policy Archive (AVP RF) and the Russian State Social and Political Archive (RGASPI), the author reconstructs the rationale behind the propaganda campaign in the Soviet press against Trygve Lie, the first UN Secretary-General, in connection with the publication of the annual report on the organisation’s work between 1947 and 1948. Coordinated criticism of the world’s highest-ranking diplomat became an integral part of the political game in connection with the settlement of the Berlin crisis, as well as an important element in the strategy of a massive propaganda offensive against the United States, aimed at portraying the Truman administration as the culprit of the imminent split in Europe and Germany.

scholarly journals Consumption of Food by the Families of Collective Farmers in the Molotov region in the First Post-War Five Years (1946—1950)

2021 ◽  
pp. 344-355
Author(s):  
V. N. Mamyachenkov ◽  
M. I. Lvova ◽  
V. V. Shvedov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Collective Farm ◽  
Farm Families ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Post War ◽  
State Archives

A quantitative and qualitative analysis of food consumption in the families of collective farmers in the Molotov and Sverdlovsk regions is provided in the article. The author used materials from the funds of two archives: the Russian State Archive of Economics (RSAE) and the State Archives of the Sverdlovsk Region (SASR), some of which have never been published. The source base for writing this article was the materials of budget surveys of the population, which have a long history in our country. It is argued that the need for high-quality and properly structured nutrition is one of the basic needs of human existence. It is stated that the level of consumption of food products by the population of the Soviet Union in 1946—1950 was determined by the harsh post-war conditions. Attention is focused on the fact that a powerful decrease in the livestock component of the collective farm backyard, combined with a decrease in income from work on the collective farm, could not but affect the level of income and consumption of collective farm families, including nutrition. It is proved that in the studied period — the first post-war five years — the level of nutrition of collective farm families should be assessed as unsatisfactory.

Lev Kuleshov on Animation: Montaging the Image

Animation ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-122
Author(s):  
Olga Blackledge
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Specific Situation ◽  
State Archive ◽  
Production Characteristic ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Primary Focus

The Soviet film director Lev Kuleshov has not been historically associated with animation, and yet his legacy includes: an article on animation published in the Soviet central specialized newspaper Kino Gazeta; a film, a substantial part of which is animated; as well as a text of four lectures preserved in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI). In the lectures that he delivered to animators at the Soviet central animation studio Soiuzmul’tfil’m, he repurposes his theories of montage and acting for the needs of the medium of animation. Analyzing these materials, with the primary focus on the lectures, this article introduces Kuleshov’s contribution to animation theory and production, and suggests that Kuleshov’s legacy not only sheds light on the historically specific situation in animation production characteristic for the Soviet Union in the 1930s, but also facilitates a deeper understanding of the animated image as a phenomenon.

Palestinian Diaspora Communities in Latin America and Palestinian Statehood

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Yousef M. Aljamal ◽  
Philipp O. Amour
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
South America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Right

There are some 700,000 Latin Americans of Palestinian origin, living in fourteen countries of South America. In particular, Palestinian diaspora communities have a considerable presence in Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many members of these communities belong to the professional middle classes, a situation which enables them to play a prominent role in the political and economic life of their countries. The article explores the evolving attitudes of Latin American Palestinians towards the issue of Palestinian statehood. It shows the growing involvement of these communities in Palestinian affairs and their contribution in recent years towards the wide recognition of Palestinian rights — including the right to self-determination and statehood — in Latin America. But the political views of members of these communities also differ considerably about the form and substance of a Palestinian statehood and on the issue of a two-states versus one-state solution.

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