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1989 Twenty Years On: The End of Communism and the Fate of Eastern Europe

… in Europe. Throughout 2009, countries from the former Soviet Bloc have attempted to recapture some of that … worked to abolish capitalism and private property by nationalizing and directing all industry, agriculture, and … elections and declared Hungarian neutrality from the Soviet Union. Unwilling to tolerate these measures, the Soviet
Alfonso García Robles at the Public Hearing on Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament in 1981.

A Model for a Nuclear-Free Middle East

… nuclear weapon-free zone. Just one month later, the Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. The resulting Cuban … crisis almost led to a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet missiles were … the same capability. Iran has been scolded by the international community for failure to accurately report its use …
"Glory to victorious Red Army soldier!" by Dmitrii Stakhievich Moor, 1920

The October Revolution in Russia

… individual liberties. And throughout the twentieth century, Soviet socialism continued to be seen as an existential … produce a communist utopia. "Sacrifice to the International," an anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster, in which … pervasive, as Joseph Stalin sought to prepare the Soviet Union for the next war. Wartime practices such as grain …
Joseph Stalin

Dismantling a Legacy: The Last Days of Stalin

Review of The Last Days of Stalin, by Joshua Rubenstein (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015)
… Stalin had died, his influence would be keenly felt in the Soviet Union. Joshua Rubenstein’s The Last Days of Stalin explores … without background knowledge of Stalin’s reign or the international political situation in the early 1950s. Rubenstein …
Crowds of people in Kyiv, Ukraine

The Fate of Crimea, the Future of Ukraine, Part I

… tensions between Russia and the United States/European Union that are reminiscent of the darkest of Cold War days. … military operation that has served both the Empire and the Soviet Union over many global conflicts, including the … common there. We have Jews coming there and it was a multinational population by the middle of nineteenth century.   …

History, Memory, and the Art of Protest in Belarus

… 2020 presidential election. Lukashenko again barred international election monitors from observing the election. But … lasted one year before being caught in the midst of the Soviet-Polish War and then swallowed up with the … of the confrontation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with the capital city of Minsk its epicenter.” …
Soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad

Stalingrad at 75, the Turning Point of World War II in Europe

… the gargantuan struggle at Stalingrad between the Nazi and Soviet armies. Over 1.8 million became casualties. More Soviet soldiers died in the five-month battle than Americans … des Heeres , or OKH), were confident that the Soviet Union would fall within six weeks. At first, their …
Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War, by Harry S. Stout Book cover.

Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War

Review of Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War, by Harry S. Stout (New York: Viking, 2006)
… Lincoln, the voice of America's civil religion, led the Union into war against the seceded states to preserve the … out of all proportion to their military goals, and Union troops displaced non-combatants and pillaged and … consequences of a war driven by a certainty that infuses nationalism with spiritual meaning. He demonstrates the need …
A military reservist, called to service in the wake of the disaster, involved in the decontamination process.

Chernobyl and the Cost of Lies

… Atomic Energy Station exploded during a safety test in Soviet Ukraine in the early hours of April 26, 1986. The … the explosion, and were part of a much deeper rot in the Soviet system. Reactor #4 was a RBMK reactor, a Soviet model … that the image of technological ascendancy the Soviet Union wanted to project was a lie. Commitment to this image …
The Dream of Worldwide Democratic and Social Republics – The Pact Between Nations, a print prepared by Frédéric Sorrieu, 1848.

Nationalism in Decline

… ended up making clear that we now live in an era of supranationalism. The United States stands poised between wanting … vacate oil-rich Bakassi. Turkey wants to enter the European Union and accepts intense surveillance and hectoring … up turning Czarist Russia into a powerful nation of united soviet republics. The full flowering of nationalism came in …
The colorful buildings of Tirana, viewed from the steps of the National Museum.

A Postcard from Tirana: Overcoming the Past

… now a bustling metropolis was until quite recently a grim Soviet-style city. In fact, the city is recovering from a … Albania gained independence in 1912, Tirana became the new national capital in 1920, replacing Vlora in the country’s … With the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Democratic Party took power in 1992, and …
We Are Our Mountains (Tatik u Papik) Monument, Stepanakert.

A Postcard from Nagorno-Karabakh

… One of the most beautiful parts of the former Soviet Union—Nagorno-Karabakh—has recently been scarred by violence … Piedmont-Sardinia was to Italy, i.e., a focal point for national unification. It was the princes ( meliks ) of these …
A woman on the outskirts of Kyiv carrying a bucket of apricots

Eating at You: Food and Chernobyl

… it up—formed a major portion of daily life in the late Soviet Union. Despite decades of rhetoric in the West about the … to 20 millisieverts, several times higher than the International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends. …
Vladimir Putin seated and surrounded by military officers

World War II Memory in Putin's Russia

… made World War II memory central to contemporary Russian national identity. This talk explores how war remembrance … volume, entitled, "The Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia", and a monograph entitled the … post-Soviet, the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In many ways war memory in Russia today draws on …
A group of Kyiv civilians gather in a basement downtown to make Molotov Cocktails to be used against Russian troops in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2022.

Ukraine in War and Revolution

… power in 1917 as part of Lenin’s strategy to “appease the nationalists.” According to Putin, the United States … won. Their victory meant that Ukraine would be part of the Soviet Union until 1991. The period of war and revolution not only …
Image of T2 Atomic Demolition Munition from the 1950s.

The Test-Ban Treaty and the Cold War’s Lessons

… the nuclear arms race was essential to preserving both international security and the quality of national life. Ignoring … hydrogen bombs. By 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union possessed enough nuclear warheads to explode the …
A wheat field in Ukraine resembles the colors on the country's flag.

Ukraine: The Breadbasket of Europe

… launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, international agencies such as the Food and Agriculture … world’s food supply.  In fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine has returned to its pre-revolutionary …
The U.S.-Economic Cooperation Administration created numerous posters to promote the Marshall Plan in Europe. This one, depicting the flags of various Western European countries receiving Marshall Plan aid, was produced in 1950.

The Marshall Plan

… from foreign conflicts and entangling alliances to preserve national autonomy had shaped American policy since George … however, hardened early divisions between Western- and Soviet-occupied lands. Anxieties about the status of liberal … statement was less a genuine olive branch to the Soviet Union than a shrewd PR tactic. As State Department USSR …
Egyptian Prime Minister Anwar Sadat, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signing the Camp David Peace Accords on September 17, 1978.

Can Sharon Too Become a Peacemaker?

… it was Nixon who radically improved relations with the Soviet Union. At an earlier stage in the Cold War, President … conservative Republicans to condemn him as undermining U.S. national security. Fifteen years later, Soviet-Chinese …
UNR postcard (ca. 1918), Ukrainians face invading Russia. Caption: “Our enemies die like the dew in the sun and we brothers will rule in our turn.” From the author’s collection.

Ukrainian Independence: From Versailles 1 to Versailles 2

… talked. Between 1917 and 1923, its people lived through a national revolution, social revolution, foreign invasion, … in the final consolidation of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic .   Six years before, in March 1917, … … Connecting History … Ukraine … Russia … Former Soviet Union … World War I / WWI … Ukrainian Independence: From …
The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World, by Lorenz M Luthi Book Cover

Clashing Shades of Red

Review of The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World, by Lorenz M Luthi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008)
… an impassioned argument for answer C.  The collapse of the Soviet Empire and the start of America's so-called "War on … and published material from China, the former Soviet Union, Poland, former East Germany, the Czech Republic, … how they projected their vision of communism at the international level.  On the surface their game was lopsided — …
US president Bill Clinton and Chinese leader Jiang Zemin holding a joint press conference at the White House, October 29, 1997

The Next Cold War?

… slipped gradually into confrontation with the Soviet Union. Disputes over reparations, Berlin and the like called … mortal danger, massive challenge” could restore the national will and end the “crisis of belief.” George W. Bush …