The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railroad has been called the project of the century in Russia. However this is not because its been the most amazing piece of construction built in Russia; this connotation is given because the project has taken about a century to be fully completed.This railway runs 2,687 miles in eastern Siberia. The … Continue reading »
The Soviets Didn’t Give a Dam
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Throughout their history, the Soviets have not been a people to care much about the environment. It could be said that this is because they have so much land it doesn’t really matter. Either way, the damming of the Angara River, which began in 1955 perfectly shows the lack of preservation that many Soviets had. … Continue reading »
Control By Sports
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One problem that is faced by the leaders of a communist or authoritarian state is what to do with the free time of their citizens. Free time is dangerous to to these types of states as it can lead to various forms of opposition since the citizens have time to form groups and realize that … Continue reading »
Car Trouble
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Most of the time it is hard to say what was worst; communism or fascism. However, sometimes it is really easy. Communism was the worst. If fascist states have one thing going for them, it is their superiority in the automotive industry. Germany alone had more car companies than the Soviet Union had car models. … Continue reading »
The Soviets Loved to Drink…Champagne?
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Local Soviet Confectionery(1) When one thinks of things synonymous with Russia or the Soviet Union , vodka is one of the first images to pop into mind. However, the Soviets experienced fancier times when it came to their high levels of alcohol consumption. The Mid 1930′s up until the war was an easier time […]
Bolsheviks: We Believe in Nothing
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Boris Ignatovich: Restorers(1928) “Workers dismantling a Russian Orthodox Church while reading The Godless” Thanks in part to the beliefs of Marx and Lenin, the Bolsheviks soon began their quest to rid the Soviet Union of religion. In their point of view, “religion was the opiate of the masses”(1). In other words, religion was something […]
Soviet State “Security”
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“Dzherzhinskii asks: “Comrade Lenin, when should we execute people, before or after lunch?” Lenin: “Before lunch, absolutely, and then you can give their lunches to the children of workers. Workers’ children are starving”. The state security of the Soviets was officially established December 7, 1917. They are the precursor to all other state security […]
Socialist Revolutionaries
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The Socialist Revolutionaries, or the SRs were a leftist revolutionary movement that officially began in 1901. This radical group drew many of their ideals from the Populists, however they agreed with the terror tactics of the People’s Will(Freeze 246). They believed that the capitalist state was doing wrong to the people, specifically the peasants and […]
Russia’s Industrialization
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The photograph above, “Factory Interior with Electrical Generators” is from the Prokudin-Gorskii collection taken on the Murghab River circa 1910. These generators were imported from Hungary, which helps to give one an idea about Russia’s industrialization capacity in the early 1900′s. Before the Crimean war, Russia had a very weak economy with little industrialization compared […]