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...

In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed as a nation state. Although, in retrospect, this seemed the likely outcome after years of economic stagnation, political corruption, and most importantly, the collapse of all pro-Soviet communist regimes in Eastern Europe by 1989, no one expected it (Pa...

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 victorious forces at the end of the war divided Germany into four zones. They also divided Berlin into four zones. Each of the victorious nations controlled one zone and one sector of Berlin. The Allies (Britain, America and France) ran their zones differently to the areas controlled by Russia...

Western Civilization Final Exam Tuesday, June 23, 1998 Question: What were the causes of the World War II? Do you believe that the war could have been prevented? Why or Why not? After the fall of the Weimar government, and the rise to power of the National Socialists headed by Adolp...

Western Civilization Final Exam Tuesday, June 23, 1998 Question: What were the causes of the World War II? Do you believe that the war could have been prevented? Why or Why not? After the fall of the Weimar government, and the rise to power of the National Socialists headed by Adolph Hitler, Germany...

Following the war in 1945, the United States of America, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union divided the city of Berlin into sectors. Each sector was under the control of a different country. The United States, Britain, and France joined their sections together to form a democratic state on May 24...

The overlapping crises in Hungary and Poland in the autumn of 1956 posed a severe challenge for the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU). After a tense standoff with Poland, the CPSU Presidium (as the Politburo was then called) decided to refrain from military intervention and to s...

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...

The Cold War was the term used to describe the intense rivalry that developed after World War II between groups of Communist and non Communist nations. It was called the cold war because it did not really result in fighting. According to the article on the cold war in the World Book 200...

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 ...

Major Sources of Discord between the Bolsheviks and European States: 1917 to 1921 There were several major sources that created discord between the Bolsheviks and western states in Europe from 1917 to 1921. Conflicting ideologies that each attacked the very fabric of the other's respecti...

Major Sources of Discord between the Bolsheviks and European States: 1917 to 1921 There were several major sources that created discord between the Bolsheviks and western states in Europe from 1917 to 1921. Conflicting ideologies that each attacked the very fabric of the other's respectiv...

cold war Major Sources of Discord between the Bolsheviks and European States: 1917 to 1921 There were several major sources that created discord between the Bolsheviks and western states in Europe from 1917 to 1921. Conflicting ideologies that each attacked the very fabric of the other's ...

Meltdown On Saturday, April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am, the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history occurred at the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor in the Ukraine, former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). The Chernobyl accident was the product of a severely flawed reactor design, one that could ne...

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...

It has been a 'splendid little war' wrote John Hay to Theodore Roosevelt after the fall of Santiago. Little, the Spanish-American War was; it was over in barely four months. Splendid? Maybe for those at home, reading the headline about its lucky victories. But for those men who fo...

At the height of the Cold War, a new cartoon emerged. Little blue people called Smurfs sang and skipped into the hearts of the American populace. The good, clean antics of the Smurfs were the model of American values, or were they? One should look closely at the Smurfs, their values, their cultures....

Cuban Missile Crisis In 1960, as tensions grew between the Soviet Union and the United States, the premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, began planning to secretly supply Cuba with nuclear missiles. Not until 1962 did the United States gain knowledge of these actions and begin to take...

The Rise of Communism in Russia 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 (Lut...