Heathen History – Russia

A great opportunity here to buy your sweetheart something special for Valentine’s Day – Stalin’s death mask. Perhaps then you could wow her by discussing similarities and differences between Stalin’s and Witte’s industrialisation over that special meal. What more could a girl want…

Hi all – you may have noticed that the site was down for four days last week. WordPress had some problems, and the November posts were lost (including the Georgia link and youtube video).

No real harm done. I will repost them over the holidays.

Mr Kydd.

I have had a good look at your timelines, and I think that Tom (shown here with Laura and Jess looking on) has produced an excellent effort. Click here to see it.

Our task for today is discuss and understand it. What does it show ? What you agree with, and what do you disagree with ?

Mr Kydd.

This article from Wednesday’s Washington Post reflects the reality that Joseph Stalin remains a very controversial figure in modern day Russia. It is noteworthy that he was voted the third greatest Russian of all time on a television programme in 2008. For others, often relatives of his victims, he is a hate figure.

Perhaps most significant in this American article is the suggestion  that “his opponents have accused the government of burnishing Stalin’s image as part of its efforts to justify its own retreat from democracy”. Read the article and see how far you agree.

When we were coming to the end of Agriculture, we had our first proper look at Stalin. The scale and scope of Collectivisation certainly left an impact on many of you. We moved on to discuss the idea of a totalitarian state. This excellent site will allow to explore the drift to the Stalinist totalitarian state, decade by decade. It does so through the propaganda posters. Alternatively you may like to do the whole thing in two minutes to music. If so, look at the Youtube clip below. Remember how Mussolini descibed a totalitarian State – “everything within the state – nothing outside it”.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omE-dOcMf5E&feature=related[/youtube]

Few figures in Russian History are as controversial as Leon Trotsky. There are many reasons for this – some are to do with race, and some to do with politics. Have a look at at this review in the Jewish Daily of a more positive recent biography by Joshua Rubenstein. It is called Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life.

In our course Trotsky is a relatively minor figure. However, he is useful when you write about leadership and effectiveness. Compare his ruthless leadership of the Red Army in the Civil War with the Romanov effort in the First World War.

Ilya Kabakov is a Russian artist who has traditionally been seen as an anti-Soviet dissident. This article from the Daily Beast explains how “after Stalin died in 1953, the frozen Soviet Union saw Khrushchev’s Thaw. Artists and intellectuals found themselves suddenly uncensored, which catalyzed an unprecedented period of creative experimentation.”

This was all to be short-lived, but at least it gives us an insight into Khrushchev and the recurring concepts of repression and reform in the course.