USSR
70 years ago today: Romania's Bessarabia was annexed by USSR on 28 June 1940
June 28, 2010On June 28, 1940, the annexation of Bessarabia was carried out by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and was eventually consented to by the predecessor state, Romania (while under Soviet...
Extremist literature list forces russian libraries to revive soviet-style Spetskhran system
June 23, 2010by Paul Goble In 1969, Bertram Wolfe published his classic study, “Krupskaya Purges the People’s Libraries” in the London-based journal “Survey,” an essay in which he described the way Lenin’s wife began putting a...
Moscow building ‘Our Lady of the Microphones’ in Paris
May 28, 2010By Paul Goble During Soviet times, US diplomats at the American embassy in Moscow often referred to a nearby Russian Orthodox Church as “Our Lady of the Microphones,” a reference to their assumption that the church served...
Two Soviet hitherto secret moves with present-day implications
May 24, 2010By Paul Goble The Moscow media are reporting two hitherto secret political moves at the end of Soviet times – a suggestion by a Soviet official in 1990 that Moscow was prepared to discuss returning part of Kaliningrad to Germany and a question...
Non-bloc status - Ukraine’s shift to Russian-vector orientation
May 21, 2010By Vladimir Socor Opening, alongside Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, the Interstate Commission’s session, Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, turned the clock back to 1990. Invoking that year’s declaration of Ukraine’s sovereignty...
Moscow uses Victory Day to promote its post-Soviet dominance
May 14, 2010By Pavel Felgenhauer Propaganda overwhelms Russian society In Soviet times grandiose displays of military might during parades on Red Square in the center of Moscow were mostly designed to impress western Cold War adversaries. The last Soviet military...
Medvedev strikes conciliatory tone, condemning Stalin
May 10, 2010By Pavel K. Baev Dmitry Medvedev presides over the Victory Day celebrations and condemns Stalin Sixty five years normally would not be considered a significant anniversary, but Victory Day is special for all Russians, so every official fanfare was blown...
9 May: A parade with many messages
May 08, 2010By Alina Inayeh On May 9, the streets of Moscow will witness a rare and memorable spectacle. In a parade marking the 65th anniversary of Victory Day—the end of World War II, when Germany surrendered to Soviet commanders—10,500 servicemen...
Station’s ex-manager: Chernobyl taught no one anything
April 30, 2010By Paul Goble Twenty-four years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the station’s director at that time says that the accident “taught no one anything” not because people could not have learned from what happened there but rather...
Why the war in Europe did not end in 1945
April 27, 2010Aistė Bertulytė-Žikevičienė, Vilnius University (2009) Armed anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania and Western Ukraine European countries tend to commemorate various anniversaries each year. These commemorations mark the symbolism and the role...