Why The Russians Were Right
Zubok and Pleshakov wrote this book “in order [for westerners] to understand the Cold War from the Soviet perspective, one must understand the importance of that moment and the larger historic legacy of Russia and the Russian Revolution, vindicated by the victory of 1945” (2). These men wanted the western world to be able to read this book and understand the different personalities that made up the Kremlin, their personal experiences and how this affected their political leadership. To reveal the Kremlin, in a humanistic way, the authors used the newly declassified documents from the Russian side, to explore the background, psychology, motives, and behavior of Soviet rulers from Stalin to those who replaced him, and to better understand the world that they helped create (xii)
The main thesis of the novel is “It was this group [the Kremlin] that had replaced the Communist politburo during the four years of the most devastating war in the world’s history. Leading the others, walking at some distance from them was Joseph Stalin, the head of the USSR” (1).
Zubok and Pleshakov start out explaining the basic views of the Kremlin around 1945, before Stalin comes to power. They then move to the revolutionary world of Stalin and the expansions of the empire that were gained by Molotov. At this point in the book the emphasis shifts to war, nuclear bombs and geopolitics. Contained in these sections are chapters on Zhdanov; Beria and Malenkov; and Kennedy and Khrushchev. The formation of these chapters and subjects in this particular line-up progresses in the order that they historically happened. In order to understand why the USSR made some of the political choices, trying to remove some of the biases in place throughout the world, the authors give personal background information on the USSR’s major leaders of the Cold War time. At one extreme in the USSR government they experienced, Stalin, who lived through war, which made him a ruthless and hardened man. While on the other extreme is Khrushchev, who lived through the revolution, which made him a gambler and outstanding bluffer. These two men compromise most of the focus of the book because both brought the world close to war again with their personalities running the Kremlin, Krushchev just brought it closer to nuclear war.
The authors use the idea that Westerners do not have a clear understanding of the culture of communist Russia.
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
Fiehn, Terry, and Chris Corin. Communist Russia under Lenin and Stalin. London: John Murray, 2002. Print.
In describing the setting, the general locale is the prison in the coldest part of Russia- Siberia, geographically but socially depicting the social circumstances in the prison, but draws analogies to the general social, political and economic circumstances of Russia during the Stalinist era (form 1917 revolution up to 1955). The symbolic significance of the novel and the film (genres) reflects experiences, values and attitudes of the Russian society. The genres reflect the origins of the Russian social disorders and massive counts of political misgivings which watered down real communism in Russia. We are constantly reminded of the social and cultural heritage and originality of Russian ethnic groups through those different levels of meanings
...vent and conclude how ‘the history of the Short Twentieth Century cannot be understood without the Russian revolution and its direct and indirect effects’. (Hobsbawm, 1995, p. 84) To some the revolution may not seem as important, to Hobsbawm it is a pivotal moment in the history, as it ‘changed the world… in the way that [no one] expected. (Hobsbawm, 1995, p. 83)
The Slavophile and westernizer conflict is an inherent cultural question that Russians must answer about their country. Russian thinkers have long been fragmented between the Westernizer and the Slavophile viewpoint. Both disagreed about the true nature of the country as well as its relation with the West. It is a problem that has plagued Russia for centuries, and continues to do so to this day. Adopting the mindset of recognizing this conflict is essential to better understanding Russian history as well as the motives and thought processes of Russian leaders today.
Llewellyn, Jennifer, et al. “The Cold War.” The Cold War. Alpha History, n.d. Web. 29 October 2013.
Son of a poverty-stricken shoemaker, raised in a backward province, Joseph Stalin had only a minimum of education. However, he had a burning faith in the destiny of social revolution and an iron determination to play a prominent role in it. His rise to power was bloody and bold, yet under his leadership, in an unexplainable twenty-nine years, Russia because a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945. From a young revolutionist to an absolute master of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin cast his shadow over the entire globe through his provocative affair in Domestic and Foreign policy.
A historian’s interpretation of events relies heavily on not just the school of thought that they belong to but also their political leanings, nationality, religion, gender and the social context within which the book was written (i.e. what was happening politically or socially at the time of publication). The first historian this essay deals with is Richard Pipes, a Polish-American historian who is considered one of the more prolific writers on the Russian Revolution. His book The Russian Revolution is strongly influenced by Pipes’ liberal political views. Studying and living in America he developed a largely anti-communist view that was shared by most western thinkers during the cold war period. Pipe’s published his book in 1990, during the unravelling of the USSR. Pipes used a wide range of sources to construct his monograph, including recounts from people who lived through or led the revolution, soviet historians views and documents from American archives. However thorough his research Pipes’ evide...
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
The cold war was failed by the Soviet Union for many reasons, including the sudden collapse of communism (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This sudden collapse of communism was brought on ultimately by internal factors. The soviet unions president Gorbachev’s reforms: glasnost (openness) and perestroika (political reconstructering) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Gorbachev’s basics for glasnost were the promotion of principles of freedom to criticize; the loosening of controls on media and publishing; and the freedom of worship. His essentials of perestroika were, a new legislature; creation of an executive presidency; ending of the ‘leading role’ of the communist party; allowing state enterprises to sell part of their product on the open market; lastly, allowing foreign companies to own Soviet enterprises (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev believed his reforms would benefit his country, but the Soviet Union was ultimately held together by the soviet tradition he was trying to change. The Soviet Union was none the less held together by “…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force.
Mochulsky, Fyodor Vasilevich. Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir Edited and Translated by Deborah Kaple. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
The. Platt, Kevin M. F. and David Brandenberger, eds., pp. 113-117. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
What do we know about other cultures, does our knowledge extend to what we have seen in the movies? Are the majority of Russians burly commandos who consume a large quantity of vodka to keep warm in the Russian weather and dream about the day that the KGB and Stalin return? If you believe what you see in the movies, this could be the picture that comes to mind when thinking about Russia and their culture. Though if you are in pursuit of an accurate cultural awareness, there are many tools to help you reach this. Russia is a unique culture with different customs, language, politics, historical value, terrain, and weather. With its vast expanse
The term “Cold War” refers to the second half of the 20th century, usually from the end of the World War II until 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since the 1940s and 1950s the scholars have disagreed on the topic of the origins of the Cold War. There are several groups of historians and their interpretations are very different, sometimes even contradictory. The three main schools are the orthodox, the revisionist and the realist. The classification is not completely accurate because we can find several differences in theories of scholars within the same group and often the authors reevaluated their ideas over time.