This post takes a “big picture” view of the siege of Leningrad, while also including lots of significant detail. You’ve found a good array of primary materials and I especially like the photograph from Piskarevskaia. It’s an incredible place, and the scale of those berms really brings the staggering loss of life into perspective.

I like how you connect the significance of battles such as Kursk and the level of sacrifice during the war to Soviet security perspectives in the postwar period. Nicely done!

This post complements Cara’s post on Katyn very nicely. (http://blogs.lt.vt.edu/carastombock/2013/10/20/soviet-deception-in-the-katyn-forest-massacre/). Including the material about Gorbachev makes this especially valuable.

Thanks so much for posting on this topic, and for linking to the recording of Temnaia noch’. Also, check out this reading of “Wait for me” (http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&show=audio&SubjectID=1943romance&Year=1943&navi=byYear), which is two-hanky poem for sure.

I agree with Ben. There’s lots of important material in this post. And the legacy of these deportations would be far-reaching. Just a quick point of clarification – the deportations mainly occurred during the war (1943-44)

I also agree, the formatting worked really well in this post. I remember an article I read about a year ago about the Katyn Massacre. It’s a pretty interesting read.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/9535828/US-hushed-up-Katyn-massacre.html

I really liked this post. As I was reading it, I thought back to several posts a few weeks ago about Order no. 1 and how several comrade-classmates felt that the order made the army ineffective. What did the reintroduction of ranks mean for the sentiments behind Order no. 1? How did the government reconcile a rigid rank system with the basic ideas on which the Soviet Union was founded? Did they even try to explain it, or did they even have to in the face of the German invasion?

Great post! These deportations are incredibly important because they continue to impact the Caucasus even today. You did a great job in highlighting the difference between the stated intentions and their deadly realities. This topic will come up again when we reach Khrushchev’s de-stalinization efforts, when we do, try to keep in mind the brutality of these deportations as a part of the Stalinist legacy.

Great post on a topic I haven’t thought to much about. As other comrade-classmates have pointed out, love can be a powerful motivator in wartime. How did this kind of love play into the state’s efforts to create bourgeois family values in terms of motherhood and child rearing?

Great post on an interesting topic. How did the dissolution of the Comintern highlight some of the ironies in Stalin’s government? What did it mean for various communist groups abroad?