Vyatka Revolutionaries in the “Government Facility”: 1905—1913

2018 ◽  
pp. 793-808
Author(s):  
Alexander S. Masyutin ◽  

The article analyses various aspects of the life in prison of political prisoners of the Vyatka gubernia. Unpublished documents from the archives of Kirov and Moscow, on which this study is based, designate the subject of the study; that is, they allow to establish forms of resistance of political prisoners to prison regime, to identify patterns of their escapes, to trace dynamics in occupancy of political prisons in the Vyatka gubernia, to establish instances of interaction between representatives of different left parties while in penal institutions. The timeframe of the study is the period of the first Russian revolution of 1905-1908, when prisons ceased to be the tenement of few and far between ardent revolutionaries from the privileged strata of society, and swarmed with much less versed ideologically masses of the discontented. Thus, in view of a participant of the revolutionary events of 1905-1908, Socialists-Revolutionary Maximalist G. A. Nestroev, the ideological grounding of the political prisoners deteriorated significantly. The author, however, believes that this ‘diversity’ of prisoners allows to conduct a more thorough analysis of their public activity in prison and to better link the activities of prisoners with the people on whose behalf the revolutionary forces acted. The author focuses on the Socialists-Revolutionaries, as their percentage among prisoners was much higher than that of the Socialists-Democrats. Known for several high-profile assassinations, the former were considered more dangerous state criminals than the Socialists-Democrat ‘propagandists,’ and thus were subject to more severe punishments. After the October revolution 1917, the Bolsheviks created an extensive mythologized literature on fellow party members who served time in tsarist prisons but mentioned only several Socialists-Revolutionaries, and these were politically harmless, or deceased (like E. S. Sazonov), or attached to the Bolshevik party (like V. N. Rukhlyadev). Findings and conclusions of the article can be used in research of the later periods in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, particularly, for comparison of the prisoners’ struggle with the prison administration and of the forms of assistance to prisoners from the outside in tzarist Russia and later.

Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 575-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Ciscel

The politics of language identity have figured heavily in the history of the people of the Republic of Moldova. Indeed the region's status as a province of Russia, Romania, and then the Soviet Union over the past 200 years has consistently been justified and, at least partially, manipulated on the basis of language issues. At the center of these struggles over language and power has been the linguistic and cultural identity of the region's autochthonous ethnicity and current demographic majority, the Moldovans. In dispute is the degree to which these Moldovans are culturally, historically, and linguistically related to the other Moldovans and Romanians across the Prut River in Romania. Under imperial Russia from 1812 to 1918 and Soviet Russia from 1944 to 1991, a proto-Moldovan identity that eschewed connections to Romania and emphasized contact with Slavic peoples was promoted in the region. Meanwhile, experts from Romania and the West have regularly argued that the eastern Moldovans are indistinguishable, historically, culturally, and linguistically, from their Romanian cousins.


1963 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-364
Author(s):  
John Day ◽  
Frank Bealey ◽  
Justin Grossman ◽  
Allen Potter ◽  
Edgar Thomas ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-32
Author(s):  
Eldar Kh. Seidametov ◽  
◽  

The article examines the situation of the Tatars and other Muslim minorities in Bulgaria during the communist period. The policy of the state in relation to Muslim minorities after the proclamation of the People`s Republic of Bulgaria and the establishment of socialism in the state according to the Soviet model, when the political, economic and social models of the USSR were imported and introduced without taking into account the national characteristics of Bulgaria, are analyzed. As in the Soviet Union (especially in the early stage of its formation, religion was banned and this applied to all confessions without exception. The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) made every effort eradicate religious identity and, in particular, Islamic identity. It was planned to replace the religious ideological fragment with a socialist one, and then, on its platform, form and stimulate the development of the national, modernist and Soviet identity of Muslims. Moreover, the emphasis was also placed on improving the way of life and the material situation of the Muslim population, which, according to the Marxist theory of culture, should have contributed to a more effective formation of socialist consciousness. The ruling party saw in the Muslim religious consciousness and rudiments of the Ottoman past, an obstacle on the way of socialist progress and formation of socialist consciousness. Emasculating elements of the religious worldview from the mind of people, the BCP set itself the task of creating a modern, secular, socialist personality. To this end, in 1946–1989 the government implemented a number of economic, educational and cultural establishments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (104) ◽  
pp. 1552-1590
Author(s):  
م.د. نجلاء عدنان حسين

       The Russian Revolution of 1917, or the Bolshevik Revolution, was one of the most important historical events in Europe during the First World War. This revolution changed the course of Russian history. Its outbreak led to the formation of the Soviet Union, which was dismantled in the late 20th century. Because of a number of popular unrest and protests against the rule of Russian tsars and the Russian Empire, whose reign was characterized by the slow development of the country because of the existence of a political system subject to autocratic regimes and the control of nobles and landlords in all aspects of life in Russia, made the Russian society in the late century Nineteen rural people in the majority of workers and peasants, with the influence of the clergy and the imperial palace, accompanied by a primitive social structure, a backward economy and an autocratic government. Life in Russia was in the style of the Middle Ages. Russia retreated from the European industrial revolution until 1860, This led the people to wage a revolt against the Russian reactionary tsarist government in 1917. It was one of the most famous leaders of the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, who was called the " Revolutionaries of this revolution the Bolsheviks name or Almnschwk means the majority.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 10003
Author(s):  
Oksana Zhukova

In every country, state symbols such as the national flag, emblem, and national anthems represent the independence and sovereignty of the state. In the Soviet Union as well as in other autocratic states symbols also played an important role in propaganda, influencing peoples’ attitudes to the actions of the state at all levels. These symbols could also be found, together with powerful imagery in posters, on buildings, monuments and many other things visible and incorporated in the routine life the people. Ukraine has huge historical heritage of symbolism and propaganda from when the country was a major part of the USSR. After the creation of the USSR a political, socio-economic, cultural and spiritual experiment on the construction of a communist society, which in the case of Ukraine was unprecedented in scale and tragedy, began. The collectivization of the village is one of the most tragic pages in the history of Ukraine. As the most important grain-growing region of the country at the time its production was vital to feed the growing cities and industrialisation. The forced collectivisation led to starvation in the 1930s and millions of people died. In order to counter this most public information showed people another side of collectivization. Propaganda was used, such as posters and slogans, to persuade the peasants to join the collective farms and to promote the real or fictitious results of the workers, and, conversely, to attack people who did not want to believe in the “bright future” of the USSR and to denounce “kulaks” and “saboteurs”. Materials from archives and published sources show many examples of Ukrainian images and symbols of that time which shed a light on the way the collectivisation process was portrayed and promoted.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Krista A. Goff

This chapter seeks to explain why history writing about nontitular minorities in the Soviet Union and in Azerbaijan has proven to be problematic. It looks at the variety of nontitular communities that live in Azerbaijan and the many ethnic conflicts that emerged during its transition to independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It also focuses on the state structures and the people living within Soviet Union and Azerbaijan, as well as their geographical range that intersects with the history of Iran, Turkey, and neighboring republics in the Soviet Caucasus. The chapter describes a regional world that extended beyond Soviet borders and argues that uncovering nontitular histories helps to better understand both Soviet and post-Soviet ethnic conflicts. It mentions the Soviet state that supported the development of minorities to counter the colonial legacy of Great Russian chauvinism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 213-239
Author(s):  
Aleksander Głogowski

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MILITARY AND CIVIL UNDERGROUND IN THE VILNIUS REGION IN 1939-1941 The first years of the occupation of the Vilnius Region were an unusual period in terms of the history of the Polish Underground State and the Polish armed resistance movement. This area was occupied after September 17, 1939 by the Soviet Union, but part of it was transferred to the Republic of Lithuania, along with which it was re-incorporated into the Soviet Union. The Lithuanian occupation was a considerable challenge both for the Polish authorities in exile and for the inhabitants of the Vilnius Region. Meeting such a challenge required certain diplomatic talents (not to worsen the situation of Poles living in this area) as well as knowledge of the relations in the area, which was a problem for the Polish authorities in France, and especially in Great Britain. The Polish inhabitants of the Vilnius Region considered the legal status of their land to be illegal occupation, while the Lithuanians claimed that thanks to a new agreement with the USSR, the period of occupation of these lands by Poles ended. These opinions, together with the mutual resentments and stereotypes flourishing for nearly 20 years, made the peaceful coexistence of two nations difficult, or even impossible. The government of the Republic of Poland tried to prevent the attempts to start an anti-Lithuanian uprising, not wanting to provoke the other two occupiers into military intervention. To this stage, it sought an intermediate solution between the abandonment of any conspiracy (which carried the threat of forming armed groups beyond the control of the legal Polish authorities) and its development on a scale known, for example, from the German or Soviet occupation. The Vilnius Region was to become the personnel and organisational base for the latter. The dilemma was resolved without Polish participation at the time of the annexation of the Republic of Lithuania by the Soviets. Then the second period of the Soviet occupation began, characterised by much greater brutality than the first one, with mass arrests, executions and deportations. The policy of repression primarily affected the pre-war military staff and their families, who were the natural base for the resistance movement of the intelligentsia. Fortunately, this process ended at the time of the German aggression against the USSR. Those that survived the period of the “second Soviet invasion” could in the new conditions continue their underground activities and prepare for an armed uprising in the circumstances and in the manner indicated by the Home Army Headquarters and the Polish Government in London.


Author(s):  
Christoph Irmscher

After his return to the United States in 1927, Max Eastman finds himself isolated from his former radical friends. A controversy with Sidney Hook over his interpretation of Marxism increases his depression, as does the lackluster response to his novel, Venture. Crystal Eastman’s untimely death in 1928 nearly ends Max’s career as a professional lecturer, but Eliena’s devotion to their marriage sustains him. Max’s translation of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution reinvigorates his friendship with the exiled leader, although during Max’s visit to Prinkipo Island the men nearly come to blows over their different interpretations of dialectic materialism. Max publishes more poetry, a book on literature and science, an edition of Marx’s writings, and Artists in Uniform, a critique of the totalitarian takeover of literature in the Soviet Union. He collaborates on the innovative documentary Tsar to Lenin, while Enjoyment of Laughter, his second book on humor, becomes a best-seller. Max’s scathing review of Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon leads to a well-publicized fistfight between the two men. Worried about the Soviet infiltration of American life, Max is keeping lists of suspected communists in the U.S. and acts as the host of the popular radio show Word Game.


Elements ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Prescott Brown

This paper attempts to understand how the celebrated and controversial figure of Sergei Eisenstein understood and contributed to the formation of the Soviet Union through his films of the 1920s.  The lens of visual metaphors offer a specific insight into how artistic choices of the director were informed by his own pedagogy for the Russian Revolution.  The paper asks the questions: Did Eisenstein's films reflect the official party rhetoric?  How did they inform or motivate the public toward the communist ideology of the early Soviet Union?  The primary sources used in this paper are from the films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1926), October (1928), and The General Line (1929).  Eisenstein created visual metaphors through the juxtaposition of images in his films which alluded to higher concepts.  A shot of a worker followed by the shot of gears turning created the concept of industry in the minds of the audience.  Through visual metaphors, it is possible to understand the motives of Eisenstein and the Communist party.  It is also possible, with the aid of secondary sources, to see how those motives differed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document