Mao Zedong and Stalin (BBC News http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35427926) On February 24th, 1956 Nikita Khrushchev gave his “Secret Speech” “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences” to the assembled delegates of the Communist Party’s Twentieth Congress. In it, Khrushchev harshly criticized Stalin both politically and personally for the violent nature of his government, the cult that surrounded … Continue reading The Sino-Soviet Split →
Category: Comrade’s Corner
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 …
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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 …
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(?) →
Power in Peace: The International Youth Festival
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The World Youth Festival is, “an event of global youth solidarity for democracy and against war and imperialism” created with the intention, “to bring together young people of both the socialist and capitalist countries to promote peaceful cooperation and mutual rejection of war.” It indeed makes a great deal of sense that in the newfound …
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Freedom from the Gulags
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After Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, a lot of changes would soon be occurring in the Soviet Union; one of them being the De-Stalination of the Gulags. On March 27, 1953, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued an amnesty to release prisoners that fall under the following: “persons sentenced for … Continue reading Freedom from the Gulags
From Stalin with Love: The Victor’s Plight
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In its heyday, the Soviets rarely had issues with drumming up “volunteers” for their political and social needs. By 1945, the Red Army was 11 million strong and had proved itself to be the true victors in the European front. Faced with a starving, war torn nation, it was obvious that tanks and bullets were …
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Vasily Aksyonov and the stilyagi movement
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In the 40’s and 50’s and unexpected love of American culture blossomed in the Soviet Union. These young people were called “stilyagi.” The stilyagi were identified by their love of Western fashion and music. In Leningrad (and eventually Moscow) the stilyagi wore narrow trousers and long, unusually colored (by Soviet standards) jackets. They also wore …
Ukraine Keeps Driving Men Insane
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On February 19, 1954, a Soviet news outlet known as the Pravda published an article on a decree set by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) to transfer the area of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 1. This came as quite a shock to the Soviet people because the Crimean outblast had been … Continue reading Ukraine Keeps Driving Men Insane
