‘The Madhouse” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)
The party purge had been widened to include the Soviet Secret Police itself, with 50 of its number being arrested.
‘The Madhouse” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937) Read More »
Soviet History
FDR Prepares to Break With Finland (L.A. Times, 1943)
Although the diplomatic break with Finland would not come until the Fall of the following year, the pressure was being applied by Joseph Stalin to recognize a German-Finn alliance. FDR, however, knew that Finland was only interested in regaining ground that the Soviets had stolen during the Winter War.
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Fracture in Moscow (Literary Digest, 1921)
Sharp encounters between Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Dzerzhinsky and other Bolshevik leaders took place when Trotsky tried to take Warsaw in 1920 and the majority of the committee antagonized his policy, we learn from a letter written by a Bolshevik adherents in Russia, who is ‘presumably‘ high up in the Soviet hierarchy and a partisan of Trotsky.
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An American in Kharkov (Pathfinder Magazine, 1932)
An American woman recalled the difficulties she encountered while trying to set up a household in Soviet Russia.
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Soviet and Nazi Rhetoric Compared (The New Leader Magazine, 1951
A carefully compiled assortment of quotes that were voiced by Stalin and Hitler (or their assorted Yes-Men). These utterances were printed with Stalin’s poisonous pronouncements in red and Hitler’s sickening soliloquies in black – both shades refer to similar topics and show an identical manner of thought that is indistinguishable from the other.
Hitler used the Bolshevik lingo more often than you might have thought…
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A Love Letter to Lenin (Soviet Russia Magazine, 1920)
Sweet, sweet words from British socialist George Lansbury (1859 – 1940) concerning his first encounter with the Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin:
He is about 50 years old, of medium height and carries himself with a slight stoop. He has fine eyes, which look you straight in the face, sometimes with a whimsical expression, as if he were trying to discover if anything unexpressed lay behind your words. They have, too, an expression of careful kindness; and you put him down as a man who musty love children.
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Soviet-Approved Poetry (Literary Digest, 1921)
No liberty of the press exists in Russia and so none but a poet recognized by the Government can get his verses published… In justice to Russian letters it must be said that all talented Russian authors have abstained from writing, or at any rate, from publishing their works during the rule of the proletariat, so that only the official poets, the literati hired by the Government, have their say.
The only Soviet-approved poet they single out for derision is Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930), who is quoted liberally.
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The Soviet Life Style (Collier’s Magazine, 1947)
The standard of living in Russia has never been very high, but even despite his natural stoicism, the average citizen feels he has a good reason to be disgruntled with his life… Like any other totalitarian state, the Soviet state has done its best to paint a larger than life-size picture of its citizens. It likes to describe them as steel-hard heroes with an inflexible will, living for nothing but the great ideal of a Communist future, laughing at difficulties, gaily grasping with hard ship – a continent of Douglas Fairbankses. This is just a bit too good to be true, and the last one to be taken in by it is the average Russian.
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The Defection of Stalin’s Daughter (Coronet Magazine, 1967)
Unquestionably, the most famous individual to defect from the USSR and seek refuge in the West was Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926 – 2011), the only daughter of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (she used her mother’s maiden name). She was the one closest to the aging dictator during his closing days – and her defection to the United States aroused a tremendous amount of interest throughout the world. In this interview she claimed that her defection to the West was primarily inspired by her yearning to write freely. Dutiful daughter that she was, Alliluyeva stated that the guilt for the crimes attributed to her father should be equally shared by those who served in the Politburo at the time.
– from Amazon:
Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
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