Category: 3rd Weekly Edition

The Roles of Women & Revolution

“Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, government, cultural, political and other public activity.”                                                                                     –Constitution of the U.S.S.R., Article 122           (Stalin Society of North America) With this declaration in the Constitution of the U.S.S.R in 1924 the Bolsheviks stated that women would be … Continue reading The Roles of Women & Revolution

Power to the People

The New Economic Policy  From 1919 up to 1921, War Communism (the Soviet state economic plan) had devastated the national economy as well as the people. Famine, lack of resources, and disease out of malnutrition shocked the Bolsheviks into comprehending how unequipped the state was in instantly adopting Communism. The people demanded change and Vladimir […]

The Emancipation of Soviet Citizens from Religion

Religion is the Opiate of the People. After coming to power in 1917, the Bolsheviks made it their duty to “emancipate Soviet citizens from the scourge (or as Karl Marx put it, the “opiate”) of religion” (“Antireligious Propaganda”). Along with the literacy campaign, the attempt to dismantle religion also played a large role in the cultural … Continue reading The Emancipation of Soviet Citizens from Religion

Stop 3: Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow

For my third stop I decided to at  Vladimir Lenin’s grave located in Moscow. The specific location of his grave is a place called Lenin’s Mausolem. I knew traveling through 20th Century Russian Historical sites, I would encounter many great dictators and Soviets. This trip was special since I knew Stalin was a very powerful […]

Episode 3: Revenge of the Reds

War! The Reds were struggling under attacks by the ruthless White Army. There was violence on by sides. Chaos was everywhere. As the events of 1917 and 1918 unfolded with the Bolsheviks rise to power, remaining factions of Russian patriots, liberals, SRs, peasants, and other minorities formed to make White armies. Their goal, to stop the […]

Whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty masculine man!

After the revolution, there were different party organizations for distinct groups. There was the Zhenotdel, concentrated on the Women’s department, and the Komsomol, the Young Communist League (Freeze, 330). The Komsomol was open to both sexes but males outnumbered women 8 to 1. They represented atheism, hooliganism, and sexual depravity, and men did not want their daughters…

Women: Powerful or just Domestic?

This image, entitled “The Delegate” from the visual essay, “Models & Counter-models of Gender” within the subject of Revolutionary Manliness reminded me of Liuda in the silent film, “Bed and Sofa.” This image depicting women in the communist 1920’s is grouped with four others, each different from the next. Below are two starkly contrasting photographs, …

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The Lost Shepherd to a Revolutionary Flock

Ever since the October Revolution in 1917, the relationship between the Orthodox church in Russia and the newly Bolshevik-ruled state had been tense. The head of the Orthodox church, Patriarch Tikhon (pictured above), and other traditionalists in the church had openly opposed the Bolsheviks. This would cause a rift to form between the church and …

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Off With Their Heads!

It took almost five years (October 1917-October 1922) for the Bolshevik Red Army to finally defeat and trump their rivals, the former officers of the Tsarist state, the White Army and interested foreign countries. However, the Bolsheviks prevailed in a civil war that in hindsight was inevitable that they would win. The first advantage of […]