Soviet Police Agency NKVD: Hit Squads, Engaged in Mass Murder and Terrorism

Russia's NKVD was established in 1917 as the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, NKVD for short in Russian, After the successful February 1917 revolution, the tsarist government and police force was dissolved. In October, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized state power. In December, a secret police force was created with the right to undertake …

Kulaks or Peasant Farmers of Russian Empire Who Resisted Collectivization Became Enemies to be Liquidated

A kulak, "also kurkul or golchomag, was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over 8 acres of land towards the end of the Russian Empire." Wikipedia. "Kulak originally referred to former peasants in the Russian Empire who became wealthier during the Stolypin reform of 1906 to 1914, which aimed to reduce radicalism amongst the peasantry …

How Stalin Starved Ukraine

Vox: "It was a genocide that continues to be covered up to this day. In Ukraine, it’s become known as “the Holodomor,” meaning “death by starvation.” It was a genocide carried out by a dictator who wanted to keep Ukraine under his control and who would do anything to keep it covered up for decades. …

Russian Leader Nikita Khrushchev Sought to ‘DeStalinize’ Soviet Union. He Also Almost Stumbled into WWIII

Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist from 1922 until his death almost 30 years later. There was no clear line of succession. The dark comedy "Death of Stalin" depicted the dilemma he and his compatriots faced in a totalitarian environment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CBtiZit9NI Why Georgy Zhukov TERRIFIED Stalin & was ADORED by the …

Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, from the 1950s Until 1990

History Matters: In just 10 minutes, the story of the USSR from the death of Stalin in 1953 to dissolution in 1990 is told. "It covers its peak under Khrushchev during the Cold War and the Space Race and his attempted reforms before his ousting after the Cuban Missile Crisis. His replacement, Brezhnev, attempted to …

Putin’s Media Crackdown Recalls Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937

“We have a long way to go before we get to 1937,” Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Europe, told the NYT, in reference to Vladimir Putin's crackdown on independent media in Russia. Radchenko evoked the year of Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror. “For the first time the road …

Russian Bombing of Holocaust Memorial in Ukraine Recalls Genocides of 1930s, 1940s

The Russians in early March, 2022 bombed a Holocaust Memorial near Kyiv, Ukraine that I visited back during the Soviet era. Studying the Ukrainian famine of the mid-1930s in which at least four million died, and the round-up of 34,000 Jews and mass execution by the Nazis at Babi Yar in 1941, one can begin …

Diplomat George Kennan’s Famous ‘Communist Containment’ Essay of 1946 Is Recalled

As the world seems on the verge of a new Cold War between Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, and the United States, many are recalling the essay or Long Telegram that signaled the original Cold War in February, 1946, six months after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The US and …

Russia Invades Ukraine. Is This The Beginning of a New Cold War?

Russa invaded Ukraine today. After months of assembling nearly 200,000 troops on three sides of the Ukrainian border, Russia first marched into breakaway or separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. Last night, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on the entire country, and began a full-fledged assault. Many observers are suggesting this is the beginning of …

What Stalin and Fellow Bolsheviks Thought: A Russian Explains

Joseph Stalin is generally credited with leading the industrialization and modernization of Russia, turning a backwards, change-averse and resistant society into a world super-power in a few short decades. This would be difficult to accomplish in a democracy where power is shared among three co-equal branches of government like the US. How did he do …