British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Plot For Global Revolution

Architecture should not be separated from the political and social life of human-beings. On the contrary, “throughout the history, architects have always been involved to some extent in politics, and have a nearly always sought positions of power and influence’’. Communist ideology in the Soviet Union had a huge impact on the architectural development of many modern nations: Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Azerbaijan. The amount of affected countries makes the topic of my analysis relevant and worth-discussing. My essay will be structured in a following way. I argue that communist ideology had an

During the course of The Baron’s Cloak, Sunderland takes us through Russia’s western borders and St. Petersburg. He then takes us to the Far East side of the empire to Siberia and the eastern edges of Mongolia and China. We are exposed to the often misunderstood politics of nationalism and imperialism of Eurasia at this time of the 20th century.

The Great Terror was one of the single greatest loss of lives in the history of the world. It was a crusade of political tyranny in the Soviet Union that transpired during the late 1930’s. The Terrors implicated a wide spread cleansing of the Communist Party and government officials, control of peasants and the Red Army headship, extensive police over watch, suspicion of saboteurs, counter-revolutionaries, and illogical slayings. Opportunely, some good did come from the terrors nonetheless. Two of those goods being Sofia Petrovna and Requiem. Both works allow history to peer back into the Stalin Era and bear witness to the travesties that came with it. Through the use of fictional story telling and thematic devises Sofia Petrovna and Requiem, respectively, paint a grim yet descriptive picture in a very efficient manner.

Were it a testimony to the rigors and cruelness of human nature, it would be crushing. As it is, it shatters our perception of man and ourselves as no other book, besides perhaps Anne Franke`s diary and the testimony of Elie Wiesl, could ever have done. The prisoners of the labor camp, as in Shukhov?s predicament, were required to behave as Soviets or face severe punishment. In an almost satirical tone Buinovsky exclaims to the squadron that ?You?re not behaving like Soviet People,? and went on saying, ?You?re not behaving like communist.? (28) This type of internal monologue clearly persuades a tone of aggravation and sarcasm directly associated to the oppression?s of communism.

The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so

Historians argue that the 1917 Russian Revolution represents a major turning point in world history. Two specific pieces of evidence that support this argument is that the Revolution led to the spread of communism with the formation of the USSR and the emergence of Russia as a world power. Both of the pieces support the argument. The Revolution led to the formation of the USSR, otherwise known as the world’s first nation to base its government on the teachings and writings of Karl Marx. This event would not only be groundbreaking for Russia, but the entire globe. The formation of a communist nation meant a new battle was about to start -- the battle between communism and capitalism. The formation of the USSR would directly lead to the Cold

Could you imagine a world where everything is perfect? A place where people don't age and live over one hundred years? In his short story 2BR02B, Kurt Vonnegut tells about a utopian Earth, with no wars, famine, poverty, or prisons. But the utopia he describes slowly turns into a dystopian world, as in order to keep the population under control, a person must die for a newborn baby to live. Therefore, the theme of this story is “beauty is only skin deep.” After reading this, can you still imagine a perfect world?

The purpose of this analysis is to show how the themes of the novel are loosely based on the events in the soviet union, and the similarities between the world of big brother and Joseph Stalin’s communistic leadership.

Set at the end of the Cold War in East Germany, the movie Goodbye Lenin is the story of a young man, Alex, trying to protect his mother, Christiane, who just spent the last eight months in a coma. Christiane is a personification of the values and ideology of socialism. She carries them out in her interactions with society, and is very hopeful towards the success of the regime. During her absence, the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the German Democratic Republic leads to a radical and turbulent change in society: the fall of socialism and the triumph of capitalism. Because of the shocking effect of such information and the danger of another heart attack, Alex creates for Christiane an ideological form of socialism. Fundamental themes in the movie are the difference between ideal and reality of socialism, as well as the positive and negative aspects of the transition to free market capitalism. Such themes are carried out through a juxtaposition of an ideal society and its reality in the form of a constructed reality of socialism. This idealized version of socialism served as an oasis from the chaotic transition from a problematic socialist regime to free market capitalism.

In the short story, “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov, a banker and a young man make a bet with each other based on capital punishment and whether the death penalty is better or worse than life in prison. The terms of the wager state that if the lawyer can live in solitary confinement for fifteen years, he will be given two million dollars. When examining the story, the Marxist lens would offer an insight to the ability of symbols and its forms, styles and, meanings. Chekhov connects these themes by utilizing the literary elements of Power. More specifically the power of money, knowledge, language, and competition.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground (1864/2008) comes across as a diary penned by a self-described “spiteful” and “unattractive” anonymous narrator (p. 7). The narrator’s own self-loathing characterized by self-alienation is so obvious, that he is often referred to by critics as the Underground Man (Frank 1961, p. 1). Yet this Underground Man is the central character of Dostoyevsky’s novel and represents a subversion of the typical courageous hero. In this regard, the Underground man is an anti-hero, since as a protagonist he not only challenges the typical literary version of a hero, but also challenges conventional thinking (Brombert 1999, p. 1).

While this may be the case for the more information-limited Soviet historians, the more modern, revisionist historians such as Edward Acton, Robert Service, Harold Shukman and Steven Smith have had great exposure to much of the confidential literature, kept secret by the many Soviet Purges and the prolific ‘Iron Curtain’. In the view of Acton “Russia’s workers were

The confusion at the lack of freedom in Russia despite the success the country has experienced through newly built cities, construction sites, and military victories, is exemplified by Grossman early in the novel through the use of Ivan Grigoryevich, a Russian citizen recently released from the Gulag (49). As daunting as that is, it is understandable why it is so. Freedom gives those who have it the opportunity to choose as they wish, do as they wish, think as they wish, and say as they wish, but to Grossman, that is not

In this way, Orwell portrays the ways in which the Russian people were influenced by figureheads and ideological saints. ‘Napoleon’, another of Orwell’s characters, portrays the role of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin – ‘Man of Steel’. The novel identifies Stalin’s ambition to lead and control the masses, winning over his more intelligent and influential counterpart, Leon Trotsky, who is represented by ‘Snowball’. ‘Napoleon’ also identifies himself with the French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Orwell considered to be a repressive power seeker and dictator.

“War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell 4). This is the slogan the Party uses in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to represent the main philosophy the society of Oceania is expected to believe. In the early 1900’s, many totalitarian societies sprouted in Eastern Europe. These societies paved the way for many works of satire in Western literature. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is followed throughout the novel, revealing his many life trials which cause him to begin to question the totalitarian society in which he has been raised to believe. Furthermore, Winston falls in love and pays the price in the “terroristic world of tomorrow” (“Where the Rainbow Ends”).Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four attacks the totalitarianism of the East while warning the West of its consequences.