Exploring the importance of the Revolutions of 1917 in bringing about the rise of a single-party state in Russia. "No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution.... Revolution is but thought carried into action (Emma Goldman, Anarchism 1917)." The people of Russ...

To what extent was the collapse of Tsarism due to the personal weakness of Nicholas II? "[The Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II,] was very much a family man and a loving father to his children. But this all meant that he was far removed from his subjects, with little understanding of the outside w...

Biography: Slavomir Rawicz was born in the city of Pinsk (today a city in White Russia) in 1915, to a Polish father and a Russian Mother. In Pinsk, The Rawicz family lived a relatively well-to-do life. They not only owned a successful estate business, but a beautiful house within ...

How far was Stalinism the outcome of Leninist political practice? The political system which existed in the Soviet Union under Stalin was a system of terror. The purges of the 1930s sent millions of Russians to their deaths or to the Gulags, the population was scared of the secret police, the NKV...

The Russian Orthodox Church's history and development, which established it as an arm of the Tsarist state and an instrument of the perpetuation of Russia's unequal class system and anti-reform policies, made it a necessary object of destruction for the security of the Bolshevik revolution. The my...

The Fall of Winter Palace Czar Nicholas II's reign lasted twenty-one years and ended with the Bolsheviks seizing power. However, from the very start of Nicholas's rule, fate was not in his favor. For a long time Czars have ruled Russia with power all in their hands. The society that ...

Joseph Stalin was the soviet communist leader who's passing molded an era, and whose iron rule determined the lives of millions of people. Considering that he shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe, we may regard him as the most powerful person to live during the 20th century. Josep...

1. Catherine II (the Great). The successor of the sickly Peter III, Catherine II was his wife until his suspected murder and she took the throne in 1762. Although she made no great reforms in Russian society, she gathered many friends by her death in 1796. Catherine had to keep the nobility ple...

Joseph Stalin was the soviet communist leader who's passing molded an era, and whose iron rule determined the lives of millions of people. Considering that he shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe, we may regard him as the most powerful person to live during the 20th c...

Around the world, at any instant, millions of people are watching movies. They watch mainstream entertainment, serious "art films," documentaries, cartoons, experimental films, educational shorts. They sit in air-conditioned theaters, in village squares, in art museums, in college classroo...

Nikita Khrushchev is undoubtedly one of the most important and interesting political figures of the twentieth century. Rising from a background of extreme poverty, he became an early supporter of the November 1917 bolshevik revolution. During the inter war years he joined the Communist Party, and ...

Asses the impact Lenin had on Russia and the Russian people. Lenin was a remarkable leader who introduced many new policies that helped in the development of Russia to make it a stronger and more independent country. The War Communism was one of the most disliked policies by the people. Lenin was...

The fall of the Communist regime and adoption of Democracy in the Soviet Union was more than just a political affair. The resolute bond between economics and politics, which was the central characteristic of the state socialist system, created a unique situation for the successor states of the Sov...

The Chechens always despised being ruled by the Russians, likewise, Russia loathed them ranked them among the most ruthless and severe criminals of the former Soviet Union (Roskin 285). Stalin deported the Chechens to Kazakhstan in 1944, claiming they were "German collaborators". When the remai...

Unless we accept the claim that Lenin's coup that gave birth to an entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of mankind, we must recognize in today's Soviet Union the old empire of the Russians -- the only empire that survived into the mid 1980s (Luttwak, 1). In their...