As the Soviet government pushed peasants towards collectivism throughout the countryside, resistance from the peasants was inevitable.  Collectivization forced peasants into socialized farms, threatening not only their culture and their way of life, but threatening their very survival as well.  Soviet authorities relied on the ability to classify peasant resistance as illogical and irrational thereby … Continue reading Was Peasant Rebellion Irrational? →

Out of all the examples Viola provided in her incredibly interesting account of peasant protest, the one that surprised me the most and that I found the most interesting was the babii bunt.  Chapter six is almost entirely devoted to the practice of babii bunt in which the women of the villages took control and … Continue reading Agricultural Collectivism and Protest: The Babii Bunt →

In the conclusion of her compelling and intricate work on women’s issues throughout the early years of the Soviet system, Goldberg describes the family policy as a ‘grotesque hybrid” – a system that originated in an idealized socialist system that crashed headlong into poverty and the economic and social realities that women faced throughout the … Continue reading Wendy Goldman and the Grotesque Hybrid →

When the Central Executive Committee ratified the code on Marriage, the Family and Guardianship in October of 1918, it was under the banner of liberation, women’s equality and the inevitable belief that the family unit would ultimately wither away as a socialist society became firmly planted and took root.[1]  Under Soviet idealism, the family unit … Continue reading Soviet Family Code of 1918 – Divorce →

Kuromiya, Hiroaki.  Stalin: Profiles in Power.  Harlow, England: Pearson, 2005.  Xviii + 227 pp.  $42.91.  ISBN 0-582-78479-4.   Hiroaki Kuromiya’s Stalin: Profiles in Power is a definitive yet concise profile of a controversial yet critically important Soviet leader.  It is small enough to make it accessible to lay-readers, yet comes from a historian with over … Continue reading Review – Stalin: Profiles in Power; Kuromiya →

The politics and socio-economic conditions within the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era is only one factor in determining the separate historiographical schools of totalitarianism verses revisionism.  Also indistinguishable are the inherent social and cultural biases of the historians who study the period, and considering the Cold War, western historians originally embraced the totalitarian school … Continue reading Soviet Historiography: Totalitarian Vs. Revisionist →

When approaching the Soviet era in Russian history, one of the biggest and most contentious debates starts at the beginning of Stalin’s consolidated power – how did he rise to power?  Was he truly Lenin’s chosen heir?  Was his rise to power accidental or carefully manipulated?  These questions, as well as the competing theories over … Continue reading Soviet Historiography – Chris Ward →

In the section entitled Proletarians and Communists, Marx and Engels speak out against claims made against communist ideology on the basis of philosophical, religions and ideological grounds.  By stating that the ruling class in every previous age has always created the ideology by which the age is dominated, Marx and Engels are making a point … Continue reading Proletarians and Communists →

It was interesting to see Marx and Engels refer to the bourgeois as revolutionary in their own right, seeming to place them on an equal playing field with the proletariat.  When they explained further, however, the distinctions between these two opposing revolutionary forces became clearer.  By severing relations formed under the feudal system throughout much … Continue reading The Bourgeois and the Proletarians →

In the preface to his profile of Stalin author Hiroaki Kuromiya mentioned that Stalin lived solely by politics, and that set him apart from other leaders who lived at times by politics, but not to the sole extent that Stalin did.  Stalin was, by all intents and purposes, devoid of any kind of human sentiment … Continue reading Stalin: A Purely Political Leader →