Departments

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Communism

  • 9/11/2022

    Russians' Disapproval of Gorbachev Shouldn't Dominate How He is Remembered

    by Walter G. Moss

    The combination of post-Soviet hardship, resurgent nationalism, and the destructiveness of the Ukraine war have led many Americans to embrace Russians' dim view of Mikhail Gorbachev. A historian of Russia says the leader had his faults, but his furtherance of humane values has been underrated. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    8/31/2022

    Gorbachev Never Understood What He Set in Motion

    by Anne Applebaum

    Sometimes seen as a visionary reformer, Gorbachev may have started the USSR's economic death spiral by restricting the sale of vodka to increase worker productivity. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    8/31/2022

    Gorbachev's Greatness Was in His Failure

    by Tom Nichols

    Gorbachev's personal decency made him the wrong man for his chosen task of saving Soviet Communism from collapse; today his reputation is far higher in the west than in the former USSR. 

  • SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
    8/31/2022

    Gorbachev's Vacuum: His Legacy and Russia's Wars

    by Michael Kimmage

    The last Soviet leader failed to intuit the ultimate consequences of the changes he unleashed, from the collapse of the USSR to the revival of Russian imperialsm. 

  • 3/27/2022

    Putin is Carrying on Stalin's War on Self-Determination

    by Uriel Abulof

    Before Woodrow Wilson, Lenin advanced the ideal of national self-determination as part of communist revolution. Stalin made the term a cynical tool of Russian imperialism, a move Putin's approach to Ukraine emulates. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    3/22/2022

    When Communism was Queer

    by Samuel Huneke

    American commentators have used the repression of gay life in states like Cuba to discredit socialism. The history of communist approaches to sexuality is more complex, as in the former East Germany. 

  • SOURCE: The Baffler
    8/19/2021

    How Empires Fall

    by Matt Wehmeier

    "Decisive political moments are rarely expected, and even more rarely planned. Governments change all the time. But every once in a while, empires fall."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    7/25/2021

    Yu Ruxin is Rescuing China’s Muzzled Past, One Footnote at a Time

    “We won’t be able to truly absorb the lessons of history, and history may just repeat itself,” Mr. Yu said in an interview from Hong Kong. “It couldn’t possibly be exactly like the Cultural Revolution, but something similar can’t be ruled out.”

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    7/22/2021

    Cubans Took to the Streets in 1994, Too

    by Rozzmery Palenzuela Vicente

    Since the Clinton administration, decreased willingness by the US to accept Cuban migrants as political refugees has eliminated a significant safety valve against dissent on the island – encouraging Cuban dissidents to leave. This may make current protests more enduring and possibly more effective.