1. Everything had become clear. That slender curtain of doubt was torn. Araniti was officially informed that he was to be promoted to the post held by comrade Zylo.The people congratulated him for the new post, expressing their pleasure with a lot of praise. Araniti, self-controlled and as always cold-blooded, thanked them and left with his eyebrows knitted. Comrade Zylo was handing over his dossier, explaining the instructions and plans .He was trying to be calm and friendly .He did not want to have any new conflicts with this tough person in these last moments. Conflicts in these cases are of no utility; they only cause trouble. Hence, the advice he was giving to Araniti was careful, well-thought-out, and tactful. How careful was comrade Zylo! He could have left without giving any advice and without showing so much care. Nothing! I am leaving! Good luck, Aranit, in your future job waiting here for you! But no, comrade Zylo could not leave without advising the new clerks. He was tormented about how things would go in the place he had directed himself, in the place where he had put so much effort, had shed sweat and left a part of his mind. After having done all the hand-over to Araniti, he called me and told me to prepare a short speech, that he would deliver at the cocktail party organized in the reunion hall to honor him as he left his post .He told me where I had to concentrate and added: -I want it to be sketched around only four or five topics, and then I will extend it myself as I speak… -Ok, comrade Zylo,-I said. Then, he took down from the shelves the books he had brought from home and those he had checked out from the library, put them on the table, sighed deeply and said: -So many years, Demkë, so many years! A man feels sorry to leave his job!…It is not little effort we put in this, it is not little sweat we shed! Comrade Zylo called the cleaning lady and showed her the books .She understood. She should take the books to his house a few at a time, because they were a lot. Most of them were in a hard cover, thick, in foreign languages and the rest were in the mother tongue. When the cleaning lady went out, he looked at the books moved. - Demkë, I could have left them to Araniti, but he does not know these languages and would keep them only to decorate the shelves.
He goes with some other workers to a state run farm outside of Magnitogorsk to help repair tractors he remarks, “everything, in fact, had been thought of, he said, 'except good land and men to work it'.”7 This was the issue with Stalin's “revolution from above” be built these grand cities that were essentially just large plants like Magnitogorsk, but the people lived in horrible conditions, the collectivized farms that were meant to support the food supply for the workers of Magnitogorsk had bad land and nobody to work to the farms. In theory Stalin's plans could work, but the people, the land, the infrastructure could not feasibly attain the end result that was needed, it just wasn’t possible. For Stalin's plans to have worked he needed to be in the right place and the Soviet Union, and the unforgiving landscape just was not it. Things got so bad that Scott writes, “ the new Bolshevik government sent inspectors to every village to look for hoarded bread.”8 Scott writes, “ during the early thirties the main energies of the Soviet Union went into construction. New plants, mines, whole industries, sprang up all over the country” but he also recalls, “the new aggregates failed to work normally.
Others weep for the ones lost. They then got prison clothes that were ridiculously fitted. They made exchanges and went to a new barracks in the “gypsies’ camp.” They waited in the mud for a long time. They were permitted to another barracks, with a gypsy in charge of them.
The short story, “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt”, explicates the life of a man named Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka. We see him briefly in his young years, followed by his life in the army, and his return to the farm where his strong characterized aunt resides. We can see immediately that this man lives in constant cleanliness and dutiful paranoia; these are some of his desires that he wishes to exhibit to others. We can also see his fears, which reside in the confiscation of his masculinity and independence. This short story has many elements that resemble others in the Nikolai Gogol collection.
Edward Dunes’ life as a revolutionary during Russia’s transition from a Tsarist state to that of a Marxist-Socialist regime, was propagated by many situational influences/factors stemming from his families relocation from Riga to Moscow. As a young boy in Riga, Dunes’ thirst for books along with a good educational elevated his potential to be a highly skilled worker. Dune’s childhood education coupled with factory life in Moscow along with a subsequent influential individual in his life with his father’s heavy labor socialist views, molded Dune into the Bolshevik revolutionary he became.
For most people that know who Joseph Stalin was, they can agree on one thing: Stalin was one of the most brutal and ruthless leaders that mankind has ever seen. He is known as the instigator and leader of the Reign of Terror, which incorporated extremely horrifying purges. These purges have been estimated to have killed five times as many people as the Holocaust. The purges also helped him establish his power base, which allowed him to build one of the most powerful countries in its day and age. But he was not born evil, in fact, when he was a child, family and friends said he was shy. This does not mean he didn’t have a bad childhood, which happened quite often in rural Georgia. The pain of his childhood built as the years went by. Growing up admiring people like Karl Marx, Machiavelli, and Ivan the Terrible only stoked the fire even more. I believe that Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror can be traced directly back to his brutal childhood and complete belief in Marxist principles.
When the term “gulag” is mentioned, an image of labor camps commonly comes to mind. While this is partly true, the actual term Gulag is an acronym which translates into “Main Camp Administration.” It was a Soviet institution opened during the Lenin era that controlled a network of labor camps aimed at demonstrating absolute control over Russia. Even though the Gulag system had been around since the 1920s, it only became a prominent part of Russian society during Stalin’s rule, when anybody who opposed him was sent to a prison camp or killed. At first, the Gulag was only a fraction of the penal system in Russia, but after the publication of The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1973, it came to represent the entire forced labor administration of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s Gulag resulted in anywhere from twenty to sixty million deaths; the exact number is unknown. In the camps, prisoners were subject to starvation, sickness, and hard labor in unfavorable weather conditions. As it happened, many of the construction projects in Russia were completed due to the work of Gulag prisoners. Yet, despite the fact that Stalin’s Gulag is one of the most gruesome genocides to ever occur, with a death rate higher than that of the Holocaust, it is also one of the most overlooked events in history.
Livanos, Dimitris. “After the War was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation, and the State of
The second warning was that the people of Sighet ignored was on the radio. The first radio announcement said "the Fascist party had come into power. Horthy had been forced to ask one of the leaders of the Nyilae party to form a new government." (Page 6) The next day there was another radio announcement that said "German troops had entered Hungarian territory." (Page 7) this made everyone a little bit scared for a few days but not for long. Optimism was soon revived. The people were saying that the Germans wouldn’t get to there city.
Tolstoy establishes his satire instantly after the death of Ivan through the cruel and selfish reactions of his friends. The death of a friend would normally conjure feelings of grief and compassion, yet for Ivan’s close associates, thoughts of their futures drowned out any thoughts of death. “So on receiving the news of Ivan Ilych's death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in ...
write about for the topic. It is all right to change the subject many times if I absolutely have to.
...tly. Then Michelle and Ms.Piansky came up to me. Michelle began in Russian “Can I see what’s inside your book bag?” I thanked God for saving from this situation and finally understood why Ms.Piansky was pointing at my book bag. I opened the book bag and showed what I brought. Everything I had come from Russia, even my notebook. Ms.Piansky told Michelle something and Michelle told me to draw picture on my notebook. I drew a picture of a house, the way my uncle taught me. Then everyone started taking a peek on my drawing and whispered “Wow” at my table.
Soon after World War II the Soviet Union had created a red iron curtain around Eastern Europe, communist regimes could be seen throughout with countries like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. These regimes where severely oppressive and violated basic human rights, hence a growing opposition was beginning to form. From the mid-1970’s Vaclav Havel, a former playwright would become the most prominent Czechoslovakian “dissident” and campaigner against the abuses of the Communist Regime by actively defending the rock group Plastic People of the Universe, being one of the three public spokespeople for Charter 77 and by writing various essays critiquing the communist regime. No essay has had more influence and been instrumental in “dissident” movements in Eastern Europe than the essay “The Power of the Powerless”. Within this essay and others that Havel wrote throughout the 1970s and 80s Havel describes the Communist system, critiques it and explains his strategy for overcoming the regime.
Ivan Denisovich is an old-timer in the prison camp and although he does odd jobs here and there to earn food or favors, he maintains a level of personal integrity. Integrity and honesty can be defined as the quality or state of being unimpaired or of being honest, refraining from lying, cheating, or stealing; being truthful, trustworthy, and upright. Ivan¡¯s honesty and integrity have been illustrated in many events that assure his own personal morals to live a life worthy of his own actions. He exemplifies these honorable morals in his actions throughout the entire day, which consisted of pitiful meals and harsh working conditions. He demonstrated his strict morality while eating dinner in the mess hall. ¡°Yet, this old man is unlike all the other zeks. He sits upright and brings his spoon up to his lips. He does not put his bread on the dirty table, but on his clean rag. Somehow, even through countless years of prison life, he has maintained a sense of dignity.¡± He manifests his acute morals in all situations regardless of the status in which he is situated. He stands out, even though he is no different from any other, for many were wrongfully imprisoned for actions ...
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy shows reader how not to live their everyday life. Of course we have to work day in and day out to provide for our families, but there comes a time when your work life should be put on hold. No life is ever perfect, we must make the best out of what we can accomplish. The Death of Ivan Ilyich teaches us about three themes: the right life, your mental “phony” life versus reality, and the unavoidable death to come.
Ivan's wife is also self-centered and exhibits great disdain for her husband, who she considers more of a nuisance and hassle than anything else. Ivan's last days are spent in terrible physical agony, as he uncontrollably screams and moans in pain. When Ivan's friends come to pay their respects to his widow, we see in her comments to them that she never reall...