The New Economic Policy (NEP) was supposed to be a stabilizer while the government struggled to meet the demands of the ongoing Civil War. The policies of War Communism that had been instituted after the October Revolution were inadequate for overcoming the chronic shortages that plagued the Soviet Union. This forced the Bolsheviks to relinquish … Continue reading Saying Yep to the NEP →
Month: March 2019
The First Five Year Plan, Collectivization, and the Kazakh Famine
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The First Five Year Plan lasted from 1928-1932. Generally speaking, it was the goal of Joseph Stalin to transform the USSR from a predominately agrarian society, into an industrialized one. One of the key pillars of this first plan involved a process called collectivization. During this period of collectivization, a great deal of anti-religious sentiment … Continue reading The First Five Year Plan, Collectivization, and the Kazakh Famine →
The Dead Road to Stalin’s Heart
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Many of the horror stories propagated about the Soviet Union revolve around the legends of the labor and prison camps known as Gulags. They stand today as a testament to the sufferings of the Soviet people under the totalitarian state and remind us of the dangers of consolidated power. Few instances of the usage of … Continue reading The Dead Road to Stalin’s Heart →
The Interesting Case of Soviet Central Asia
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The image above of an Uzbek town square donned with soviet flags and a Soviet speaker, visualizes the process of making these central Asian part of the Soviet Union. The way in which the Soviet Union went about this directly dealt with an intertwinement of nationality and religion. I found an interesting parallel to some … Continue reading The Interesting Case of Soviet Central Asia
Kollontai Paving the Way
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There were some major breakthroughs for women’s rights following the revolution, and Aleksandra Kollontai fought for those rights. One of these rights being the ability for a woman to divorce her husband without “obtaining his or any other permission.” (The New Woman) Social norms would be changed for women at home and in the workplace, … Continue reading Kollontai Paving the Way →
Lights… Camera… REVOLT!
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How did the party sell this dream world to its citizens? The answer is in Movie Magic. From its conception, the art of cinema has been a whirlwind force of cultural change. That is exactly why the Bolsheviks utilized cinema as much as possible to allow for maximum possible influence. War films and exciting promises […]
Down with Easter: Up with Industry
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“Religion is the opiate of the masses” – Karl Marx
God, Country, Family
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During the first years of
https://www.academia.edu/16686565/Sex_and_Family_Life_in_the_USSR_1920s-1930s
The Men Who Say NEP
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NEPmen were business people who took advantage of a disconnect between rural and urban communities dealing with production that was most likely caused by the longer struggles of natural industrialization but especially exacerbated by the famine that occurred between the years of 1921 and 1922. This struggle is also part of what became known as … Continue reading The Men Who Say NEP
The Life and TIMEs of Patriarch Tikhon
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So shocking was the imprisonment and conviction of Patriarch Tikhon, that it made this edition of TIME magazine in 1923. Patriarch Tikhon, who was “unfrocked” of his title to simply that of Comrade André Bélavin, was, according to the article, “judged without a hearing” and convicted of counterrevolutionary acts. The article mentioned further that the … Continue reading The Life and TIMEs of Patriarch Tikhon →
