World War 1: German Guilt. Introduction Few historical areas can have aroused as much debate as that of the origins and causes of WW1. The thousands of documents and eyewitness testimonies collated have allowed historians to construct exceedingly detailed illustrations of what happened in the days...

Russia Against Japan: A Review of J.N. Westwood's Book on the war When I first picked up J.N. Westwood's book about the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), I had very little knowledge of the conflict. I remember studying it briefly in high school, but as I recall, it was only mentioned for ...

Since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the whole world has been in fear of nuclear war, for the first time in our history we can completely destroy the world. During the era of super power confrontation, the world came very near to nuclear annihilation on more than once. But now th...

The historical impact of Operation Barbarosa cannot be denied. The Soviet victory over the Nazi German invaders set up the Soviets as a world superpower and set the stage for the Cold War. Had the Germans not attacked, the Russians may not have gained their dominance in Eastern Europe, and the W...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

Between 1900-1939, there were many different movements in art mainly due to two reasons, modernization, and the First World War. The term 'avant-garde' has become synonymous with the evolving modern movement of art. 'Although 'art for art's sake' is a term not often used positively, this moder...

When Peter inherited the throne in Russia in 1689, he was dismayed by its backwardness. His vision was to Westernise it. To answer the essay question, I first need to identify the needs of Russia. These were to improve the economy of Russia, to harness the support of the nobility, improve defence...

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...

Throughout history, Russia has been viewed as a regressive cluster of barely civilized people on the verge of barbarism. In the eighteenth century, ideas of science and secularism grasped hold of Europe, and Russian Czars, realizing how behind Muscovite culture was, sought out this knowledge, at...

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...

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...

Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago was published in 1957. It was not published in Pasternak's native country of Russia, but in Italy. The USSR did not allow the publication of the novel because some believed that it showed a 'nonacceptance of the socialist revolution." (...

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 ...

Chechen Rebels In the course of Russian history, there has been one territory that has caused a lot of controversy. The area is Chechnya, which is located in southwestern Russia near Dagestan and Georgia. Most of Chechnya's population is Muslim and doesn't like the rule of the Christi...

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...

The persecution, deportation, and general abuse of those who call themselves Chechnyans, has been a heavy burden to bear over the last few centuries. Ethnically and religiously these people from the Caucasus are markedly different from their expansionist Russian neighbors. Centuries of miscommunicat...

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...

Abstract This essay concentrates on two representatives of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and in the 1970s--Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The essay introduces the history of the dissident movement in the Russian Empire under the Tsars and in the Sovie...

Napoleons Russian Campaign Eli Kamara The peace between France and Russia in 1807 lasted for five years but was not satisfactory to either side. The Tilsit settlement was thought of by Napoleon as no more than a convenient truce. In 1807 he had been in no position to invade Russia but there...

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 ...

During the late nineteenth century the Russian government undertook a policy of rapid industrialisation which, due to a combination of factors, drove the desire to industrialise Russia for the principle aim of keeping the 'facade' of her militaristic strength and power status. It was ev...