In the 1980’s the Soviet Union would see a resurgence of the anti-alcohol rhetoric coming from the Soviet leaders, much like Leon Trotsky in the early 1920’s. Fearing that the Soviet Union was becoming an alcoholic state to the point where it was actually hindering the nations growth the Soviet Union took to more anti-alcohol propaganda and … Continue reading Go Home Russia, You’re Drunk →
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After his ascension to the position of General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev faced numerous problems both in Soviet society and in government. A combination of inefficient industry, lack of free press, and an undemocratic political system created an ineffective government and stagnant economy. To tackle these problems, Gorbachev launched the revolutionary campaign of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Perestroika […]
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It’s hard to believe that this is the last blog post of the year already. As I sat down to research for a topic to write about this week, I found something rather peculiar: the Anti-Alcohol Campaign. What? An anti-alcohol campaign in Russia? I was taken aback to say the least. Alcohol is a staple […]
The 1970s in the Soviet Union are often known as the time of stagnation. The economy was doing rather poorly, and the new leader, Leonid Brezhnev, backpedaled many of the reforms that had been made under Khrushchev. However, one positive that many Soviet people found was life in communal apartments. While there were definitely some […]
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The 1970s in the Soviet Union is often referred to as the “era of stagnation“. The country had just seen the removal of Nikita Khrushchev from power in 1965 and Leonid Brezhnev soon became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. The era started with significant economic growth in the industrial sector but was lacking […]
The years following the time period known as “the thaw” (refering to the thawing of Stalin’s cultural ice age) the new soviet General Secretary, Leonid Brezhnev, looked to present an appearance of a continuing thaw,Continue reading
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The Post-Stalin years in the Soviet Union are often viewed as an era of “stagnation”, but nothing could be further from the truth. The USSR was on the rise economically, and by the early 1970’s this growth began to come to a point. On a cultural scale, the impacts began to become very evident. For the … Continue reading Give us this Day our Daily Bread… →
Russian education has long been criticized throughout the world as too structured, too easy to obtain, and backward- looking. While this may be true in many regards, it has also made Russia the most educated country in the world, in terms of people with college degrees. This focus on education began after Vladimir Lenin realized […]
Literacy has been a priority for the Soviet Union for a long part of its history. The emphasis on literacy and the esteem that the Soviet government held literacy too was also rather impressive. As far back as 1919, the government has been pushing the end of illiteracy in its vast empire. When Lenin took power […]
In the late 1950’s, after the death of Joseph Stalin, the USSR was in disarray, despite crackdowns and tightening of communist social standards, many saw Stalin’s death as an opportunity for rebellion and change. Among these were the Stilyagi, the Russian equivalent of America’s hippie movement. The Stilyagi dressed outlandishly, idolized the west and listened […]
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