“Better fewer, but better,” Lenin once said, referring to the challenges of cultivating quality recruits into the Party and state apparatus after the Civil War. For this week’s digest we received fewer submissions, but many that were exemplary. The transition from Lenin’s leadership to Stalin’s rule and the Bolsheviks’ assault on the Orthodox church proved…
In 1921, it was estimated that 4.5 million children were considered bezprizorniki, meaning homeless. Other sources suggest even higher numbers of homeless children at around 7.5 million. This large influx of homeless children was due to the wars, flight, hunger and disease, … Continue reading →
Russia really became an interesting place during March/February(who really cares you get the point) of 1917. For the first time in Russian history, the the common people were finally having their voice heard. Surprisingly, out of the woodwork the voice of the Russian women was heard the loudest. The women of Russia demanded to have […]
This was just one of many hundreds of images that were published during the anti-religious push that occurred while the Bolsheviks were attempting to rebuild Russian society. The Bolsheviks knew that if their revolution was to be successful, society had to unify into one, cohesive whole. Therefore, the Party created organizations such as the Komsomol […]
The Bolsheviks viewed religion as Marx did, as the “opiate of the masses.” When they rose to power in 1917, they wanted to free all citizens from this “drug.” Under the previous regime, Church and state were closely tied, and because … Continue reading →
A huge power-vacuum was created following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917. After the fall of the Romanov Dynasty, who had ruled the Russian empire for over 300 years, it was unclear who would come to the forefront of Russian politics and how the Empire would be governed. Numerous factions within Russian(…)
Even before the death of Lenin, the clear leader of the Communist Party and the Russian people’s idol, the struggle for succession began. The battle was clearly to be between Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky was the favored candidate in many peoples minds, however only two months before Lenin suffered the first of three strokes in May of […]
After the Bolsheviks had succeeded in taking control of Russia in a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, they still had a long way to go in achieving socialism. The next step was to change the culture of Russia. Aleksandr Blok … Continue reading →
As the Bolsheviks rose to power after prevailing in the Russian Civil War, The new ruling class was quick to seek a way to dispose of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Bolsheviks were quite obsessive in “their feverish attempt to … Continue reading →
The Bolshevik revolution aimed to create a new social ethos that redefined the political, social, and economic systems in Soviet Russia. In order to alter the popular consciousness the regime needed to transform the values and norms of people … Continue reading →