Stalinism

• 
• 6/18/2023
  

  A Historian of Photographic Defacement in the USSR Faces His Own Erasure

  by Olga Shevchenko

  Like the human rights group Memorial, photographic historian Denis Skopin has run afoul of the Russian state for his efforts to preserve knowledge of Soviet abuses of human rights and historical memory.

• 
• SOURCE: Hollywood Progressive
  3/1/2023
  

  "Mr. Jones" Shows Fake News Has Always Been a Weapon Against Ukraine

  by Walter G. Moss

  The new Amazon feature "Mr. Jones" details the famine imposed on Ukraine by Stalin's policies in the 1930s, and the battle among journalists to control the story. It's a timely reminder of the connection of information and power. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  11/28/2022
  

  The Anniversary of Ukrainian Famine Shows the Past isn't Past

  A famine 90 years ago killed four million Ukrainians—and possibly more, deaths survivors blamed on Soviet Russia. The commemoration is a rallying point of resistance to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/29/2022
  

  Russia's Memorial Forced to Downsize its Tribute to Stalinist Victims

  “The point in returning the names is that we’re naming the victims,” said Yan Rachinsky, the chairman of Memorial’s board. “But the question inevitably arises: If there are victims of crime, then there are criminals, and there are reasons for the crime. These are no longer things that our authorities are ready to discuss.”

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/25/2022
  

  Once More in Ukraine, Dehumanization Precursor to Mass Murder

  by Anne Applebaum

  Suppressing knowledge of the horrors of starvation inflicted on Ukrainians in the 1930s is a key to Russia's ability to use similar dehumanizing rhetoric to justify attacks on civilians today. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/25/2022
  

  Once More in Ukraine, Dehumanization Precursor to Mass Murder

  by Anne Applebaum

  Suppressing knowledge of the horrors of starvation inflicted on Ukrainians in the 1930s is a key to Russia's ability to use similar dehumanizing rhetoric to justify attacks on civilians today. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Economist
  1/1/2022
  

  Russia Bans Human Rights Group Memorial

  "Russia’s supreme court 'liquidated' Memorial, the country’s most vital post-Soviet civic institution, dedicated to the memory of Stalinist repression and the defence of human rights."

• 
• 2/28/2021
  

  History and Film: Reflections on Konchalovsky’s “Dear Comrades!”

  by Walter G. Moss

  Andrei Konchalovsky's film "Dear Comrades" examines the struggles of ordinary people in the Soviet Union to find truth amid ideology and fear. 

• 
• SOURCE: Reuters
  2/16/2021
  

  Russian Court Rejects Jailed Gulag Historian's Appeal Against Long Sentence

  Yuri Dmitriev's appeal of a 13-year sentence was denied. He and his supporters contend that the charges were fabricated to punish him for writing about Stalinist atrocities in defiance of Russian nationalism. 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  12/5/2020
  

  Stephen F. Cohen Helped Us Understand the Russian Revolution and Nikolai Bukharin

  by Kevin Murphy

  A fellow historian of Russia and the Soviet Union praises Stephen Cohen's scholarship and willingness to question orthodoxies in examining the internal diversity of revolutionary Communism. 

• 
• 9/27/2020
  

  Trump’s Comments on History Point Down a Stalinist Road

  by Walter G. Moss

  During the 1930s, Stalin directed historians and schools to teach patriotism to help convince Soviet citizens that, like earlier Russian leaders such as Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, and Peter the Great, he was defending Russian interests.

• 
• SOURCE: BBC
  7/22/2020
  

  Russian Historian Jailed In Controversial Sex Abuse Case

  In May, more than 150 Russians, including artists, actors and writers wrote an open letter to the court in support of the historian, saying they were "sure the accusations… are unfair and should be dismissed by the court".

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• SOURCE: Moscow Times
  5/22/2020
  

  Concerns Raised for Detained Gulag Historian Yury Dmitriyev

  U.K. calls for early release after court rejects lawyers’ argument Dmitriyev is at risk of the coronavirus in Karelian detention center.

• 
• SOURCE: The American Interest
  4/11/2020
  

  The Forgotten Women of the Gulag

  A new book by Monika Zgustova brings the harrowing, heartbreaking history of the Soviet Gulag’s female prisoners to life.

• SOURCE: NYT
  7-10-13
  

  Anton Antonov Ovseyenko, Who Exposed Stalin Terror, Dies at 93

  “It is the duty of every honest person to write the truth about Stalin,” Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko, a Soviet historian and dissident, wrote in the preface of his seminal book “The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny,” published illegally in 1981.A survivor of the gulag whose parents died in Stalin’s purges, Mr. Antonov-Ovseyenko spent a lifetime in almost fanatical devotion to that duty, working until his death on Tuesday in Moscow at 93 to expose the darkest truths of the Soviet era.His books cracked through the shell of Soviet censorship that surrounded much of the Stalin-era brutality, offering readers at home and in the West a vivid portrait of tyranny and violence....

• 
• 4-27-13
  

  Review of Andrei Lankov's "The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia" (Oxford, 2013)

  by David Austin Walsh

  North Korea is a laughingstock in the United States. But it's actually a tragedy.