Soviet imperialism Archives - Page 2 of 2

The crown of the Russian Empire (political cartoon)

3 minute read

Russian liberals attack current regime but defend foundation of regime as such, Birna says

One of the fundamental weaknesses of liberal Russian thought and behavior, Irina Birna says, is Russian liberals are…

byPaul A. Goble

Putin with the elements of Putinism (Political cartoon by Zhenya O. / radiosvoboda.org)

3 minute read

‘The fish is rotting from the head’ for the second time in Russian history, Eidman says

“A fish begins to rot from the head,” Russians say, “and society descends into insanity following its dictator.…

byPaul A. Goble

David Low named his political cartoon describing the German-Russian invasion of Poland that started the WW2 - "Rendezvous." The cartoon depicts a meeting by the two allied Nazi-Soviet dictators over the corpse of a Polish defender. Hitler says to Stalin while smiling, lifting his hat and bowing: "The Scum of the Earth, I believe?" and Stalin responds to him "The Bloody Assassin of the Workers, I presume?" while smiling, bowing and lifting his in kind. The secret agreement on the division of Poland that was part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not yet known, but nonetheless, Low recognized what happened and drew it in this work. (Image: The Evening Standard (UK), September 20, 1939 issue)

2 minute read

The real reason the Kremlin will never completely disown the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

For Moscow, the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols which divided Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin…

byPaul A. Goble

A man kisses an icon of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin next to his grave in front of the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

3 minute read

No foreigner cracked Russians’ top ten statesmen of all times and places

The Levada Center poll concerning whom Russians see as the most outstanding statesmen of all times and places…

byPaul A. Goble

The 1895 painting called "The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak" (by artist Vasilily Surikov, 1895) depicts Russian cossacks from Volga attacking one of the native people of Siberia who did not have firearms during the reign of Ivan The Terrible (Image: Wikimedia)

4 minute read

The worst Russophobes in the world are in the Kremlin, Kornyev says

Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin routinely denounce others as Russophobes, but most of those they target do not…

byPaul A. Goble

While being imprisoned by Russian mercenaries in occupied Ukrainian city Donetsk, Ukrainian activist Iryna Dovhan endured hours of public humiliation and beatings orchestrated by the representatives of the Russian world unleashed by Putin. (Image: social media)

3 minute read

Putin’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda playing role state anti-Semitism did in Soviet times, Ikhlov says

Vladimir Putin’s “rabid” anti-Ukrainian propaganda resembles and is intended to have a similar outcome to Soviet state anti-Semitism,…

byPaul A. Goble

The old political cartoon depicts the Soviet takeover of the Eastern Europe accomplished as the result of the Yalta Conference between the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively. The conference was to discuss Europe's post-war reorganization. It convened at the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea, USSR in February 1945, near the end of the WW2.

3 minute read

No one denies Soviet Army defeated Hitler but Russians won’t admit it occupied those it liberated, Tatyana Ross says

For Russians, Victory Day is an ever more important date; but they act as if May 9 was…

byPaul A. Goble

13 minute read

Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact revisited, Part 3: The way to European catastrophe

Read the previous parts: 1) The interwar prelude 2) Hitler’s Anschluss In the West, much sympathy existed with Hitler…

byJames Oliver

President Reagan giving a speech on Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Nov-18-1981 (Image: reaganlibrary.archives.gov)

3 minute read

25 years on, evil empire is less big but no less evil, Yakovenko says

Twenty-five years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev bowed to the inevitable and handed over the nuclear codes to Russian President…

byPaul A. Goble

A double-headed imperial eagle on the gates of the former main residence of the Russian tzars, the Hermitage Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia (Image: Wikipedia)

2 minute read

Putin’s Russia for export at odds with his Russia for Russians, Shiropayev says

A major source confusion about Vladimir Putin and his intentions is that the Russia he has been promoting…

byPaul A. Goble

3 minute read

Moscow analyst: Britain’s support for Poland, not Molotov-Ribbentrop, caused WW2, and its backing of Ukraine could trigger WW3

Moscow analyst Yury Mukhin offers an historical analogy which says far more than he intends. In a new…

byPaul A. Goble

4 minute read

‘Russia is trying to be an empire but it ever more resembles a colony,’ Glukhovsky says

The fundamental contradiction in Russia today is that “externally Russia is trying to be an empire but internally…

byPaul A. Goble

The cover of the book called "Istoriomor, or The Drilling into the Brain of Memory: Battles for the Truth about the GULAG, Deportations, the War and the Holocaust" by geographer and historian Pavel Polyan. “'Istoriomor' is a necessary “neologism and metaphor” to cover “the triumph of politicized mythology and anti-historicism over what is really history and memory.” It involves making certain themes and sources taboo, falsifying and mythologizing events, and both denial of the obvious and relativism about anything negative.

3 minute read

Punished peoples fight Putin’s war on history with monuments to their deportations

A new book documents the way that the peoples whom Stalin deported are seeking to preserve the memory…

byPaul A. Goble

3 minute read

Kremlin’s losing battle: Next stage of disintegration of Soviet space

Violence in Kazakhstan and Armenia are the clearest sign yet that the post-Soviet space is entering into its…

byPaul A. Goble

"Lenin Lives!" sign at a demonstration of the left in Yekaterinburg, Russia next to the city's main Lenin statue. 22 April 2016 года (Image: social media)

2 minute read

Lenin statues to stand in Russia, but to fall in its successor states, Shtepa says

Sometimes a brief Facebook post can say in brief compass more than an extended discourse of article or…

byPaul A. Goble

3 minute read

Archive

Gorbachev’s support for Putin’s Crimean Anschluss – no surprise, Malgin says

Given his own willingness to use violence against people in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia and elsewhere, no one…

byPaul A. Goble

The Victory Day in Russia: "Russians Are Coming," "Leningrad-Berlin"

2 minute read

Moscow’s Victory cult intended to keep non-Russians within an empire and former Soviet republics together, Ukrainian commentator says

Many Russian commentators have pointed out that the way in which Vladimir Putin is exploiting Victory Day is…

byPaul A. Goble

Magadan Hills, a painting by Mykola Hetman, a former GULAG prisoner, born December 23, 1917 in Kharkov, Ukraine. Background of the picture: In 1932, members of a Soviet geological expedition discovered gold at the mouth of the Utinny River in Siberia. A GULAG settlement was built between the villages of Balaganny and Ola, the hills there destroyed, piers built, and the settlement named Magadan after a nearby stream. Forced laborers were brought in to build roads from Magadan to the gold. Building the roads was incredibly harsh labor in the permafrost. The prisoners were poorly fed and worked for long hours under fierce conditions with rudimentary tools. The sentiment expressed here is that the roads were built on human bones—that every hill, every gully, and every path in Magadan represents human lives and could be the site of a human grave. The sun is eclipsed to symbolize the darkness and evil that cast its shadow over the people of the Soviet Union. The cross represents the enormous burdens the prisoners had to bear. It also symbolizes Christ's trek up the hill of Golgotha, which the artist likens to the prisoners' journey. (Source: thegulag.org)

6 minute read

Why do many Westerners show sympathy to Russia and Communism – but not to their victims?

Those who study the post-Soviet world and especially its non-Russian parts are often struck by the fact that…

byPaul A. Goble

The Russian Empire in 1866 and its spheres of influence (orthographic projection)

3 minute read

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine reflects its failure to become a state

Moscow officials frequently suggest that the former Soviet republics are “failed states,” implying that the Russian Federation is…

byPaul A. Goble

Soviet armored troop carriers patrolling streets in Baku during the week of January 20, 1990. The photographer had to take this photo covertly through a car windshield, because it was too dangerous to openly photograph the Black January events. Photo: Reza.

4 minute read

History of Ukraine

Gorbachev’s ‘greatest mistake’ — Black January in Baku 25 years ago

Twenty-five years ago today, on Mikhail Gorbachev’s order, Soviet troops by land, sea and air invaded the Azerbaijani…

byPaul A. Goble