Following the virgin lands program, Nikita Khrushchev was looking for a solution for the soviet’s livestock issues. To increase yields, Garsts Khrushchev began a campaign to promote corn as a feed crop. In 1959 he toured middle America to witness Corn production in the united states. I think the nature of the campaign is best …
Category: 7th Weekly Edition
Come And Czech This Out
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After the events of World War II, the state of Czechoslovakia came under the influence of the Soviet Union and communist ideals. This culminated in 1968 when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) saw Alexander Dubček, a communist reformer, elected as their First Secretary 1. Once in power, he began to promote his political agenda with a slogan of “Socialism … Continue reading Come And Czech This Out
Is the Rise of the Dacha the Fall of Communism?
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The Dacha is one of the most iconic Russian terms, alongside matryoshka dolls and cheburashka. If you begin to study Russian, it will be one of the first words you will learn, as it is scattered across beginners text and workbooks. So what exactly is a dacha? According to Websters’s dictionary its “a Russian country cottage used …
Continue reading “Is the Rise of the Dacha the Fall of Communism?”
Everybody’s a critic: Khrushchev’s thoughts on art
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In 1956 Khrushchev brought the “thaw” to the Soviet Union. The thaw was a policy of de-Stalinization which relaxed censorship and released millions of prisoners from the Gulag labor camps. In the following year Khrushchev asserted the importance of art remaining in line with the Soviet realist style in his article, “For a Close Tie between …
Continue reading Everybody’s a critic: Khrushchev’s thoughts on art
Shoot For The Moon. Even If The Cosmonaut Misses He’ll Land Among The Stars
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Think of your hero today. Are they an actor, actress, musician, family member, or athlete? Well the proud Soviet citizen of the 1960s has a clear answer to that difficult and very personal question. The Russian Cosmonaut became the nations champion, paraded around the country as a hero who triumphed against the United States. Why … Continue reading Shoot For The Moon. Even If The Cosmonaut Misses He’ll Land Among The Stars
Betrayal at the Kremlin!
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Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev on the tribune of Lenin’s Mausoleum, Moscow, Soviet Union, c1935-c1937. Look at these two men! Don’t they look like they could be best friends? Don’t you think they would share a bottle of good ol’ Russian vodka together? Khrushchev was a member of Stalin’s inner circle. Within 6 months of…
Showdown at Damanskii!
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On March 1969, two red behemoths stood on the brink of war. On the Soviet side, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were amassed along the southern border and over a million Chinese faced them. The Communist states of China and Russia, allegedly allies against the global “bourgeoisie” order, were now massed along the border of …
Sputnik and the Space Race
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In 2016 there were roughly 4,256 satellites orbiting Earth. Before 1957 there were none. That all changed with the launch of Sputnik I from Russia on October 4, 1957. Sputnik I was roughly the size of a beach ball and could orbit Earth in around 98 minutes. This was the first major victory in the … Continue reading Sputnik and the Space Race
The Theatre Thaw(?)
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During the period of Stalinism theatre, and other arts were largely homogenized to express Soviet Realism, (see my post on the renowned artist Deyneka) However, at the beginning of destalinization the ice of homogeneity began to melt. By the mid 1950s there was an obvious struggle against conformity in the arts. The theater, free … Continue reading The Theatre Thaw(?) →
The Ear-Resistible Crop
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It is laid out in the thirteenth chapter of Gregory Freeze’s book, Russia A History, that Khrushchev was not the most likely successor to Stalin; However, he had a great attribute in his ability to relate to the common folk through his concern for popular welfare (409). Khrushchev, after taking power, implemented agricultural reforms specifically …
