Openness and restructuring When Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on his crusade of reforms and unleashed the forces of “Glasnost” and “Perestroika” he had confidence in the nationality policy of the Soviet State, and therefore felt comfortable opening up Soviet society to a wide range of economic change and political discord. However, Gorbachev soon found himself inContinue reading “A Look At The March Referendum: What Did it Mean for the Soviet State?”
Category: Red Star Overflow
Why Did They Ban the Booze?
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In 1985, newly elected General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, started the anti-alcohol campaign. This quick and intense campaign attempted to solve a problem that had been effecting Russia for hundreds of years: alcoholism. Today I want to give a little background of the problem, how it effected the Soviet Union both sociallyContinue reading “Why Did They Ban the Booze?”
An Underground Economy
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In Gregory Freeze’s book, Russia: A History, he states that the 1970s were “years of instability and conflict” (445). Seventeen Moments in Soviet History also noted that the Ninth Five Year Plan (1971-75) “illustrated the Brezhnev administration’s attempt to overcome the contradiction between an increasingly urbanized and culturally sophisticated society and the centralized determination of …
Graveyard of Empires – The disastrous Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: by Andrew Grant
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Introduction: The Graveyard of EmpiresAfghanistan has often been called the “graveyard of empires”, throughout its long history, many invaders have attempted to conquer the land, but been repelled and driven back. Even when they were conquered, they resisted and tossed out the invaders. Its mountainous terrain has been a great tool, which made it hard …
Afghanistan, the Vietnam of the Soviet Union
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I was pretty excited to see the Soviet–Afghan War in the event timeline for this week. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has always interested me and this made the perfect excuse to do some more research about it. What I found especially interesting was the similarities that this war had with the Vietnam war. IContinue reading “Afghanistan, the Vietnam of the Soviet Union”
The Rise and Fall of the Virgin Lands
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Following the death of Stalin, Russia was entering into the era of De-Stalinization. One of the areas that Khrushchev wanted to change was the agricultural industry. While Stalin was in power, the agricultural community took a big hit and was not the primary focus of the party. When Khrushchev announced that he wanted to increaseContinue reading “The Rise and Fall of the Virgin Lands”
Semyorka (R-7) USSR and the Space Race with the USA
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Stalin, in the early 1950s, press the USSR heavy industries along with the Soviet Military, to develop a rocket program that ultimately would lead to the Russian ICBM or Semyorka, also called the R-7. The first successful flight occurred on 21 August 1957. The “chief designer”, whose identity remained a state secret until 1966, was […]
The Great Patriotic War: The Price of Victory
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On the morning of June 22nd 1941 German troops came crashing across the Soviet border in Byelorussia, Ukraine and Lithuania, officially marking the start of operation Barbarossa, and the beginning of the Soviet people’s Great Patriotic War against the fascists invaders. Говорить Москва! Attention Moscow Speaking! The Soviet People were made aware of the startContinue reading “The Great Patriotic War: The Price of Victory”
Deep Battle and the Development of Soviet Military Theory in the Interwar Period
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The bloody fields of the First World War prompted major shifts in military thinking. Going into the war in 1914, most of the belligerents still conceived of war as it was during the Napoleonic and American Civil Wars. This emphasized maneuver between compact forces, punctuated by sharp, decisive battles on relatively small battlefields. The winnerContinue reading “Deep Battle and the Development of Soviet Military Theory in the Interwar Period”
Three Decades of Fundamental Construction
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When Joseph Stalin published his article “A Year of Great Change” he was referring to the success of the first Five Year Plan launched at the beginning of 1928. In this first year the Soviet State saw success on three very important fronts. First off, the state and party were able to tighten labor disciplineContinue reading “Three Decades of Fundamental Construction”
