An Important Part of Old Russian/Soviet Propaganda
937056
Before the end of the Cold War, it became well known that this propaganda piece was actually a tool of the Russians and Soviets to create conflict amongst the masses.  In that sense, this document remains an important historical item of the evils that Communism has done in the world.
3323023
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko is long dead, but recent developments in epigenetic inheritance have been seized upon, mainly in Russia, to raise him --and his ideas -- from the grave. Nationalist (and often anti-Semitic) forces, seemingly with official encouragement in Putin's Russia, have initiated a serious campaign to "rehabilitate" Lysenko as both a true patriot and a great scientist. The traditional "Slavophile vs. Westernizer" conflict going back to the time of Catherine the Great is alive and well, and in the contemporary Slavophile narrative Lysenko is portrayed as victimized by toadies who genuflected to Western opinion after the fall of the Soviet Union. As part of the same narrative, elements of Russian Orthodoxy have begun embracing creationism and rejecting Darwinism as merely an element of Godless Soviet materialism--echoing the position of Muslim creationists in Turkey who successfully turned evolution into a nationalistic political "wedge issue." Anyone who thinks the conflation of science and ideology is merely an historic issue should read this disturbing book.
2243003
Historians are still writing about megalomaniacs who attempted to conquer the world by force and subversion in order to impose their ideology on society.  HITLER and STALIN come quickly to mind.  And while both employed intelligence operations to further their objectives, only the Soviet Union systematically integrated espionage, deception, and terror to advance its worldwide foreign policy and maintain domestic security.  Many books have been written describing the operations, the personnel, and the organizations-KGB and GRU-involved.  Jerrold and Leona SCHECTER have written one, Special Tasks, the story of KGB officer Pavel SUDOPLATOV.  And Jerrold SCHECTER co-authored another with former KGB officer Peter DERIABIN, The Spy Who Saved The World, the story of GRU Colonel Oleg PENKOVSKY.  But not until Sacred Secrets has the emphasis shifted to the impact of intelligence operations on the history of two societies-the United States and the Soviet Union.
We learn that a KGB agent of influence in the American government shaped American the policy that led to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.  And, despite pledges to the contrary, the Soviet Union spied on its American ally throughout WWII using agents recruited from the American Communist Party.  Robert OPENHEIMER was one such source as the letter to NKGB Chairman BERIA reproduced in the book, makes clear.  Furthermore, as was their way, after the war the Soviets were largely successful in blaming America for not giving them the war time secrets desired outright, so spies wouldn't be necessary-it was America's fault.  At first, many Americans either supported this view or denied that any serious espionage had even occurred.  The FBI knew them to be wrong-disillusioned defectors had made that clear.  But their evidence could not at first be made public.  The most valuable revelations-contained in broken KGB codes-would not surface for 50 years.  Liberal doubts and right-wing certainty-both wrong-became part of the daily news diet in the 1940s and 50s.  But once aroused, using straight forward counter-espionage techniques and the results of government cryptanalysis, the FBI shut down the Soviet networks and ended the era of the ideological spy.
Scared Secrets makes clear that despite these losses, Moscow did not end its espionage program after WWII.  In fact, it quickly attempted to reestablish its illegal networks and in later years it took advantage of the greed-incentive made attractive by American walk-ins from WALKER to HANSSEN, with many in between.  America had its own Cold War successes and the SCHECTERS describe several including a new twist on the acquisition of the KRUSHCHEV secret speech-interesting despite their use of the oxymoron defector-in-place.  In the end, America's technological prowess overcame the Soviet espionage and military threat, bankrupting the Soviet Union in the process-America won the Cold War.  Sacred Secrets documents well these often ironic contradictions.
The SCHECTERS make a persuasive case that, contrary to the moral relativism advocates of the political-left, the United States did not start the Cold War or force the Soviet Union to do so.  Would America's post WWII policies have been different had Soviet espionage and subversion in America not been so politically oriented and active?  Read Sacred Secrets for the answer.
3600102
To generate an outsider's persepctive of 1940s Stalinist Russia, is a rare gift indeed. Considering the dangerous pretensions of the Soviet government, most "guests" would never leave the country dead or alive. Robert Emmens is this outsider. Emmens is writing about events he witnessed first-hand. As Emmens writes, he highlights a consistent theme: the Soviets will do anything to shield the crimes, corruption, and abuses of communism. What ensues is a dangerous masqerade designed to prevent the abuses, weaknesses, and failures of communism from global circulation via the 'guests' observations.  Forced to take an emergency landing in Vladivostok (Russian Far East) after bombing Japanese factories in the Doolittle Raid, Emmens and his crew are unwilling "Guests of the Kremiln". "Papa Joe" and his underlings must put on a great show to impress, scare, and convince the Americans of Soviet power. Understandably, Emmens and his flight crew are bewildered at their treatment, after all aren't the U.S.S.R. and U.S. allies agiants the Germans, Italians, and Japanese? The treatment of the "guests" is civil, but condescending and distrustful. The "guests" quickly see through the smoke and mirrors and are rightly concerned that the Soviets genuinely don't know what to do with them. The "guests" are certain their chances of getting home are slimmer with every passing day.  It is interesting to note that the Soviets are so concerned about the "guests" knowledge of Soviet Russia they take great pains to keep the men away from the approaching German army.  It raises the question: Why are the Soviets doing so much to keep these guys away from the front lines? Is it because if the Germans got a hold of the "guests" they would use their story to fuel their fascist propaganda machine against communism. Or, would the "guests" expose to the world the glaring glut of Soviet leadership and embarressing defeats of the Red Army? It is a wonder Stalin did not have them executed during those periods German advances. Robert Emmens writes with an earnestness that only a participant (and survivor) can detail; to this point, the book reads as an expanded diary; Emmens later said he burned the actual journal (his biggest regret). The book's style is simple and effective storytelling with Emmens recalling observations, atmosphere, and experiences the "Guests" went through during their stay in the Soviet Union. Guests of the Kremlin concludes with an eerie Cold War moral: that only we, the free peoples of the world, must stop the abuses of communism before it spreads to destroy free thought and decay more lives.
2230514
Le trotskysme n'est pas un nouveau mouvement, une nouvelle doctrine, mais la restauration, la renaissance du marxisme vritable tel qu'il a t expos et appliqu au cours de la rvolution russe et des premiers jours de l'Internationale communiste. 

 C'est avec ces mots que commence cette histoire magnifique du mouvement ouvrire rvolutionnaire dans les Etats-unis entre 1920 y 1940.  C'est un livre qu'on peut lire comme un romain, mais qui exige la lecture attentive  pour pouvoir obtenir  toutes ces richesses. Un livre qui doit tre dans la bibliothque de chaque travailleur militant.
 James P. Cannon tait un jeune militant des Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), membre fondateur y dirigeant de Parti Communiste aux Etats-unis dans les annes 1920,  dirigeant des militants que ont lutt contre la dgnration staliniste du mouvement communiste et secrtaire national du Parti Socialiste des Travailleurs. L'histoire racont dans cette livre prsent des exemples importants de direction ouvrire, questions de thorie et programme dans le dveloppement d'un parti proltarienne, du travail de masses, el la vie interne du parti. Il analyse les vnements mondiales les plus importantes -- la victoire de la rvolution russe, la crise conomique y el auge de lutte ouvrire des annes 1930, le fascisme, le stalinisme, la guerre civile en Espagne ... Toutes pour aider une nouvelle gnration de militants de connatre su histoire et prparer mieux les luttes ouvrires aujourd'hui.
2606617
Alexander Yakovlev's _A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia_ is essential reading for those interested in better understanding the fundamental nature and broad scope of the Communist Party's criminality from its "counterrevolution" (as Yakovlev refers to it) in 1917 through the end of the Stalin period. Readers unfamiliar with the contours of Soviet history, however, may have trouble following (and appreciating) the author's narrative.

Yakovlev's book is divided into ten short chapters. The first is semi-biographical, reocunting Yakovlev's own position as a major intellectual figure in the USSR and provinding a broad overview of the crimes committed by major Party leaders. Subsequent chapters deal with specific "repressed" groups: abandoned childresn, socialists, the peasantry, priests & nuns, Jews, etc.

The book is particularly important for shedding some light on the nature of the documents contained in Russia's "Presidential Archive," a treasure trove housing immensely valuable materials about the Communist Party that has remained mostly off-limits to non-Russian researchers.
1858412
This is a superb book that reveals a great deal about a little known espionage case that in my opinion serves as something of a rebuke to people who criticize "HUMINT" (i.e. intelligence gathered by spies as opposed to other means) as something that is outdated.  It tells the story of Adolph Tolkachev, a Soviet weapons designer who passed the CIA a huge amount of extremely valuable information about Soviet military aircraft technological developments during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Sadly, Tolkachev was betrayed by two traitors in United States...Aldrich Ames and CIA washout Edward Lee Howard, but the intelligence he provided helped the United States save billions of dollars and even more importantly develop its own weapons systems so that if there had ever been a clash between the Soviet bloc and the West, we would have had supremacy in the air.

The author pulls his narrative together from unparalleled access to CIA documents, CIA personnel involved with running Tolkachev, and I suspect not a few people over in Russia as well.  He writes in a clear, compelling style about what was like for the CIA to run the Tolkachev operation on the streets of Moscow, probably the most difficult environment in the world for the CIA to operate.

So I would definitely place this on a short list of great books about espionage.
145550
This Biography has two qualities that other biographs on Andropov often is accused for. On one had it has substantially more to offer than a presentation of what has been written about Andropov in the media. On the other hand it deos not include a lot of poorly documented speculations.

The reasons why several biographs of Andropov have these weeknesses, is that  very limited information is available for the public about Yury Andropov and that the interest among biographers of writing a biograph about him, has been smaller than for many other Soviet leaders.

Partly as a result of limited knowledge about Andropov and partly because it is essential to understand the state of affairs in Soviet politics in the Brezhnev years to understand how and why Andropov came to power and what policy he stood for, you get to know at least as much about an era in Soviet politics as about Anropov in this book. This is the reason why I have rated it with 4 stars instead of 5. As the chosen approach is sufficient to illustrate why anyone that is interested in Russian and Soviet politics and history should be interested in Yury andropov, I never considered to give it less than 4 stars. Opposed to many people's understanding, Anropov was the initiator of the Perestroyka (restructuring/rebuilding) policy - a reform process that to a large degree was initiated by the army/KGB aimed at fighting corruption and improving productivity by putting their own man - former KGB leader Andropov - in charge.

In addition to a good biography about a very important era in Soviet politics, this book is a good intruduction to the Medvedev brothers, 2 very read-worthy Soviet scentists and dissedents that have written a lot of books on Soviet politics. Despite that they leave no doubt about where they stand with regards to the Soviet regime, their books are well balanced and informative.
3892480
I have had a life-long interest if Dmitri Shostakovich so when I first read about this documentary I knew that I had to see it.  Briefly, Shostakovich Against Stalin: The War Symphonies is a 76 minute film concentrating on the years 1936 through the death of Stalin in 1953, when Shostakovich wrote his Fourth through his Ninth Symphonies.  The director, Larry Weinstein, has set out to show us how Shostakovich's art transcended the tyranny of those terrible years when so many of Shostakovich's associates disappeared into labor camps or were killed.  The Second World War, ironically, brought with it a brief time allowed some freedom of expression but the post-war period saw renewed repression of the arts.  For me, the creepiest part of the documentary was the excerpt from the film Fall of Berlin (for which Shostakovich was "assigned" to write the score) with an actor playing Stalin who looked like a painted statue.

Mr. Weinstein does not address the contrary view that Shostakovich was merely a good Communist and not at all heroic.  This is a point of view that I do not accept because after listening to the symphonies for over 30 years and reading the remembrances of Shostakovich's colleagues and friends I cannot believe that the writer of the Babi Yar and the Fifth Symphony was celebrating Communism; this music is personal and obviously not a reflection of politics.

The archival footage is very impressing, particularly the film from the 900 day siege of Leningrad and I found the film of Shostakovich playing the piano and speaking in public to be highly interesting.  The film skillfully combines the history of the period with many interviews of musicians and friends of Shostakovich (including his daughter but not his son Maxim or his widow) with the words of Shostakovich spoken by an actor: Mr. Weinstein has done an excellent job in bringing the events home.  I was particularly impressed with the description of the Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad, an almost impossible task given the musicians who were still alive to perform.

The symphonies are nicely performed by the Kirov Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev.  I have not heard all of the recordings of the "War" symphonies by Gergiev but the ones I have heard, the Fourth and the Seventh, have been very good.  I did not find that the film was a promotion for Gergiev's recordings of the Shostakovich symphonies.  However, I found it odd that he would be interviewed in the back seat of a car.  I know Mr. Gergiev is a very busy man but I was wondering why he could not sit down and be interviewed.  Maestro Gergiev is also the only conductor who was interviewed for the film; I would have liked other conductors (Rostropovich would have been my choice) to have given their opinions.

I would like to hope that Mr. Weinstein would make an additional documentary about Shostakovich picking where this one left off.  Such a film would have the drama of the Cold War and the thaw in Russian arts culminating with the Babi Yar Symphony.  Shostakovich Against Stalin will be a film that I will certainly be viewing again.
3595186
The authors focus on the USSR's instigation of and preplanning for the Six Day war. The book takes on new relevance given recent testamentary confirmation by a Soviet MiG 25 (Foxbat) combat pilot. They claim the USSR not only planned and instigated the war through Arab proxies, but committed their best technology at that time, the experimental Mach 2 MiG 25 jet and issued preprepared instructions for landings and retaliation on Israel after the war began. The main Soviet objective was to neutralise Israel's nuclear program (allegedly weaponised just before the war) and to weaken US regional hegemony.
Their direct sources vary widely varying and are well referenced. Most damningly of all they include a 2003 Soviet official anthology which multiply and apparently inadvertently corroborates the thesis.

The book is short, though tightly reasoned and reads easily.
Personally I suspect the Soviet-Egyptian relationship was stormier than they depict. Amer's proposal of the preemptive 'Dawn' attacks must have been a profound irritant to the Politburo if the thesis is true. Nasser's closure of the Tiran straits (though not the withdrawal of UNEF) also would have undermined Soviet plans to avoid a multilateral 'regatta' like initiative, and smacks of Nasser's own impulsiveness, borne from the success of Suez.

Nevertheless the thesis is impressive and persuasively made.
Given the resurgence of Russian and nuclear interest in the Middle East, it serves as an important and instructive antecedent.
1613579
I never really cared much for colorizing old films, but there's something about seeing some of these old Soviet artifacts in vibrant color that adds to their fascination. The music is catchy and Orlova is magnetic. The propaganda is there if you look for it, the construct itself being pretty laughable at a time of terror quotas and famine. This was Stalin's favorite film, one which he reportedly saw 100 times.  It was also filmed during the Great Terror. Its release was originally intended for 1937, the anniversary of the revolution, but was delayed because important people around the production were arrested and shot.  That backdrop makes the film quite interesting, although I find the film itself draggy. It doesn't hold my interest as much as Alexandrov's earlier film Circus.
534897
In January 1946, George F. Kennon, a career diplomat trained in Soviet Affairs, became the ambassador to the U.S.S.R. when Averell Harriman returned to the United States. Kennon wrote many dispatches about the  turmoil within the Soviet Union, but they were largely ignored. When asked  to write an "Interpretive Analysis" of Soviet statements  regarding international institutions, Kennon let loose with both barrels.  This paper became the basis for future American policies towards the Soviet  Union.
This is a fine account of the people and early (if inept) efforts  by the U.S. to subvert the Soviet control of Eastern Europe just after  WWII. The book traces the political background and the maneuvering of the  World Powers and is instructive as to the current environments in Albania,  Hungary, Romania, Poland, and the emerging Balkan States.
The early  efforts of the OPC (Office of Policy Coordination), that were mostly  thwarted by the infamous spy Kim Philby (British Liaison Officer), are  covered in some depth. The OPC was later absorbed by the CIA. Also  discussed are the secret ways the OPC was financed and its existence kept  hidden from the American public. I had never heard of the OPC, but these  guys were responsible for covert operations. They tried to stir up trouble  within the Soviet sphere of influence, including the Soviet Union itself.  They trained operators recruited from Eastern European Refugees, arranged  and carried out parachute drops of agents behind the Iron Curtain, smuggled  weapons, and dispersed money to agents and sympathizers. They also carried  out propaganda campaigns and started Radio Free Europe.
It is interesting  that the Soviets had so penetrated the political parties and intelligence  agencies of the U.S. and Great Britain long before World War II started.  What is also fascinating is that we knew about much of their spying efforts  and for a long time chose to ignore them. There were a lot of sympathizers  in the U.S. that were rooting for the socialist experiment.
This is a  fine book for students of Political Science, Post WWII History, and fans of  the history of covert operations. I have read many novels and seen many  movies about secret operations, but they pale compared to the real stuff!
853966
For a long time I've been fascinated with Russian history. Although my interest lied with early Kievan Russia and into the early Romanov dynasty, I have begun to look into the history leading into the Russian revolution. I must say that some aspects of the socialist/communist ideas are appealing, Karl Marx makes an excellent analysis concerning the time it was written. It's clear to me that Marxism aims for the common people. Even to the non history geeks, it's worth a read.
3135040
In the 1930s, the Soviets sold many great (and some not so great) Russian works of art and artisanship for hard currency to finance their industrialization drive.  If you're more interested in this process, see the book _Treasures into Tractors_, which goes into detail on this process.  Hillwood Museum in Washington DC was the creation of Majorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post Cereal fortune.  Luckily for us, she had an interest in Russian and French art and bought extensively at sales of Russian art when many others were uninterested or unable to.  As the book notes, "It is the most representative collection of Russian decorative art outside the Soviet Union," (p. 9) which somewhat dates it, but the idea is there.

The book is a useful, concise, clearly-written overview of the material found at Hillwood.  Post bought many extraordinary and world-class items.  The well-illustrated chapters cover the following categories of material: portraits of Catherine the Great (who I think Post identified with), painting, Faberge, Faberge's contemporaries, gold boxes, niello (including a box with a picture of the Minin and Pozharskii statue on p. 46 and a snuffbox with a map of the Vologda Region on p. 47), kovschi (ritual drinking cups), chalices, porcelain from the Imperial Factory and private factories, porcelain statuettes (including ethnographic ones of the peoples of the Russian Empire), glass and ivory.

If you're interested in Russian art and/or Russian culture in America, this is a good, short introduction to the topic.
4021516
Having grown up during the Cold War, I have always been interested in what was actually going on.  It is not that we were only lied to during the Cold War.  That would be a misrepresentation of the reality of those times.  Rather, there were many voices proclaiming different realities to be true.  There were the far right John Birchers, there was the far left Communist Party of America and the organs of the Soviet Union (Tass and Pravda) and everything in between.

What is now called the "mainstream press" was really all there was back in those days (the organs of the extreme organizations were decidedly small circulation underground voices) and these big voices moved more left as the years passed by beginning with the Alger Hiss case.  It was not until the Soviet archives were opened and the Venona documents were declassified that incontrovertible evidence forced the left to admit that Hiss was indeed working for the Soviets.

This book begins with the end of World War Two through the Cuban Missle Crisis.  It provides fascinating insight into what the Soviet Archives actually confirm about those decades.  We now know that the Soviets had clear designs on Europe and thought they had Germany in their pocket.  Except for the Marshall Plan, they very well might have succeeded.  We know that it took Stalin's go ahead to start the Korean War, and we know much more about the Soviet thinking leading up to and during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Prof. Gaddis provides a fascinating story and solid reporting and incisive analysis.  I enjoyed this book a great deal.  Some may wonder why it is so important to clarify these past events.  It is simply because so many voices were wrong and many of them were consciously trying to obfuscate the truth or were being used by those supporting the interests of the Soviet Union.  They did so for many different reasons.  Nevertheless, they were working against the interests of the United States (of course, some of them then and today say that their actions are, in fact, working for the interests of the United States because they see their socialist (or progressive) vision as in the interests of the USA).

Some may find the facts reported in this great book to be difficult to accept because of the conflict with their ideology.  I do feel sorry for them.  Prof. Gaddis does a solid job in presenting reality in a way that is hard to gainsay.  It is very hard to spin away from the conclusions presented in this important book.
752554
This novel is well known, owing mostly to Kubrick's masterwork with the same title that is a filmic translation from it. What is less identifiable through the movie is that these young men speak using a lot of Russian words, intermingled in the English ones, and written using an unorthodox spelling that, however, allows the English-speaking reader to read them correctly without knowing their real pronunciation. This technique creates a strange form of slang that was the subject of articles, books and also a dictionary. It envisions an (impossible) context in which a hooligan can be well educated. I think that this is the feature that mostly distinguishes this very interesting novel. Not all the readers can, however, understands all the ins and outs of it.
2522913
In this fascinating and detailed look at one middling Russian gentry family in the first half the 19th century, Katherine Pickering Antonova has provided an entry point into a way of life that has been almost completely forgotten.

Using the exceptionally rich archival materials left by the Chikhachev family, the author shows how Andrei Ivanovich Chikhachev took on what in Europe would be considered the female role of raising the children, while his wife Natalia managed the finances and oversaw the estate, including the work of the serfs in the fields not just on the estate on which they lived but on another which they were absentee landlords. Antonova convincingly argues that the utter lack of justification found in the sources suggest that these roles were not strange or threatening, but were rather the norm for their time and place.

What is especially exciting about this book is that it departs from the norms of Russian literature, which by and large was written by large landowners and/or the cultural elite, who did not share the same interests and values as the Chikhachevs, but whose point of view has dominated both literary criticism and history. Nikolai Gogol would have little but scorn for the Chikhachevs, while Pushkin would perhaps have given them a walk on role. But here they stand, the center of their own story, thanks to their habit of writing everything down.

The written word can indeed outlive human memory. Andrei Chikhachev writes of the death of his toddler-aged grandchild in what I think is the most moving, if sometimes incoherent, list in the book. He notes: "7. In the little red jacket and little white hat in the garden, with a flower in his little hand." And "13. Riding about the rooms, and sitting on my bed, let us know that by this he would be remembered." (132)

The book is organized thematically, with chapters ranging from society, the village, illness, grief and death to the landscape of ideas, which places the Chikhachevs' lives within the broader context of Romanticism and sentimentalism, using the felicitous phrase "a village of letters." Antonova notes that an interest in the provinces and everyday life was noticeable in British Romanticism from the start of the 19th century. The desire for the specific, even the unique, drew Romanticism and the local together over the course of the 19th century.

It is fascinating to note that Andrei does play a role here as a helicopter parent, constantly monitoring and encouraging and controlling his son, who thereby never really became a full-fledged adult. In some ways, Andrei, with his homeschooling, his obsession about children's learning, and his use of new experiential forms of teaching, seems like a contemporary. In this at least, he would probably not be out of place in Park Slope.

Antonova makes it clear that the world of the Chikhachevs disappeared after serfdom, with their descendants including civil servants and, under the Soviets, an honored veteran of labor. Natalia Chikhacheva, who seems to have often worked to the point of illness, and her absent-minded, gregarious and prolific husband managed to achieve what they had set out to do: launch the next generation and ensure the continuation of the family.  Thanks to Antonova, we can now enter their world and see it on their terms.