A young boy Named Pavlik Morozov is known as a hero throughout Russia for turning his father in for his wrong doings. He had told the Soviet secret police that his father had been aiding kulaks, who at the time … Continue reading →
Week 7 Posts
False Mourning
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Joseph Stalin was, if nothing else, an opportunist, and that can be seen clearly in the tactics he used to come to power in the decade following Lenin’s death. A particularly strong example can be seen in 1934′s Kirov Affair, … Continue reading →
Rehabilitation of Cossack Divisions
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The life of Russians in the 1930’s is truly interesting. The people of Russia have finally become one with their halfway communistic society. Although a large majority of people had become adjusted to the Soviet, certain portions of society weren’t warming up to the Reds like everyone else. One of these groups is the well-known […]
Between a Rock and a Red Place
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Opera censorship in 1936The cultural reformation in Soviet culture during 1936 caused controversy and contradictions, as the government castigated the creativity and innovation that it once supported. The primary victims of this artistic purge included poet Demyan Bedny and avant-garde composer Dmitri Shostakovitch, as their personal lives and creative work suffered because of the Soviets’ lack of…
Let’s Get Physical (Culture)
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James von Geldern describes physical culture as “the hygiene and discipline of the bodies of socialist citizens” (von Geldern). This phenomenon was of fundamental importance to the Soviets in the 1920s and 1930s for several reasons. Prior to the revolution, sports clubs … Continue reading →
A Martyr of the Great Terror
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When I traveled to Russia during the summer of 2013, I was fortunate enough to stumble across an exhibit dedicated to the life of Leon Trotsky in the basement of a Gulag museum in Moscow. I knew very little about the man who at one point was one of Vladimir Lenin’s right hand men, […]
It’s a ChurchPoolChurch!
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The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was built over the span of 40 years, and opened in the 19th century. This church is the archetype of what all churches hope to be: it was the largest Orthodox Church ever built, and was a prime example of opulence. The inner sanctum was circumscribed by two galleries, […]
Working the 9 to 5 and Then Some
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Now that Russia had entered a new era of Bolshevism, labor dicipline became a major issue. Russia was in an attempt to show its power to the world. This meant everything Russian must impress. From their olympic sports teams right down to there average citizens in the workplace. Lenin himself had pegged Labor dicipline as […]
The Mustache the Masses Loved… Or Did They?
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Joseph Stalin became the center of the Communist Party as the 1930′s passed. Stalin had the short history of the Bolshevik party and the revolution re-written by a group of “objective” historians, to portray a history of the Communist Party … Continue reading →
The Start of a Massacre; The Assassination of Kirov
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Image from http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/sergeykirov/ Stalin, a force and leader to be feared since the start of his rule, had not yet shown the true colors of his brutality by the early 1930s. This would all change with the start of … Continue reading →