Suchergebnisse

Revolutions, ideas, and the end of the Soviet Union -- The "mystery" of the Soviet collapse and the theory of revolutions -- For truth and goodness: the credos of glasnost -- Inside the "deafened zone" -- In search of history -- "The innocent, the slandered, the exterminated" -- The peasant hecatomb -- The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, I: food, housing, medical care, the "golden childhood", and the standard of living -- The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, II: progress, the "state of workers and peasants", equality, "freedom from exploitation", Novocherkassk -- The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, III: the Great Patriotic War -- The "immoral" economy -- The "disintegration of souls": homo sovieticus -- Who is to blame? -- The house that Stalin built: the master state and its political economy -- De-individualization, the "original sin", and the nationalization of conscience -- What is to be done? Stalin, memory, repentance, atonement -- The "spirit of freedom" and the power of nyet -- The freedom canon: Mandelstam, Dombrovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Platonov, Grossman -- In man's image, I: "privatizing" the state and economy ; In man's image, II: the empire, the "garrison state", and the world

Abstract:
The Kremlin faces an existential dilemma. The semiauthoritarianism that has characterized Russia for two decades has within it sufficient basic freedoms, affluence, and access to the outside world to permit the emergence of new social movements that demand transparency, accountability and political participation. Russia has had a great deal of personal freedom but a small circle of people hold an almost complete monopoly on politics. The year 2011–2012 showed that this formula is no longer durable. The middle class is demanding political participation. To maintain a total monopoly on political offices at all levels the Russian government must now limit freedom for the society as a whole. It is not clear that this can be achieved without undermining their own appeal to the public and support within the elite.

The Kremlin faces an existential dilemma. The semiauthoritarianism that has characterized Russia for two decades has within it sufficient basic freedoms, affluence, and access to the outside world to permit the emergence of new social movements that demand transparency, accountability and political participation. Russia has had a great deal of personal freedom but a small circle of people hold an almost complete monopoly on politics. The year 2011-2012 showed that this formula is no longer durable. The middle class is demanding political participation. To maintain a total monopoly on political offices at all levels the Russian government must now limit freedom for the society as a whole. It is not clear that this can be achieved without undermining their own appeal to the public and support within the elite. Adapted from the source document.

In the years leading up to 1991, virtually no Western expert, scholar, official or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and with it one-party dictatorship, the state-owned economy, and the Kremlin's control over its domestic and Easter European empires. The failure of Western experts to anticipate the Soviet Unions collapse may be in part attributed to a sort of historical revisionism that tended to exaggerate the Soviet regimes stability and legitimacy. However, even on its 20th anniversary, the assumption that the Soviet Union would continue at its current state and eventually begin a long slow draw-out decline seems just as rational a conclusion. Adapted from the source document.

In the years leading up to 1991, virtually no Western expert, scholar, official or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and with it one-party dictatorship, the state-owned economy, and the Kremlin's control over its domestic and Easter European empires. The failure of Western experts to anticipate the Soviet Unions collapse may be in part attributed to a sort of historical revisionism that tended to exaggerate the Soviet regimes stability and legitimacy. However, even on its 20th anniversary, the assumption that the Soviet Union would continue at its current state and eventually begin a long slow draw-out decline seems just as rational a conclusion. Adapted from the source document.

The article outlines the themes of Vassily Grossman's novel, 'Life and Fate.' The author emphasizes that Grossman, who composed the novel in the early 1950s, part of it during the last few years of Joseph Stalin's life, was a truly free novelist at a time when most Soviet authors had internalized the rule of self-censorship [samokritika]. This is reflected in the free and honest reflections that Grossman's characters offer about their lives and the course of Soviet history. The author speculates what Grossman would have thought about the freedoms of life in modern-day Russia. K. Cargill