Bolsheviks – Johnson's Russia List

Lenin At 150: Even Without COVID-19, Russia Was Set To Snub The Soviet Union’s Founder

April 22, 2020 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square, Kremlin Walls

(Article text ©2020 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Sergei Medvedev, Robert Coalson – MOSCOW, April 21, 2020 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/lenin-at-150-even-without-covid-19-russia-was-set-to-snub-the-soviet-union-s-founder/30568383.html) When the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birth rolled around in 1970, the Soviet Union pulled out all the stops to mark the occasion. Commemorative stamps were printed; coins were minted; medals […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH AUDIO: “In Russia, Scant Traces And Negative Memories Of A Century-Old U.S. Intervention” – National Public Radio (NPR)/Lucian Kim

May 29, 2018 JRL Russia List Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

U.S. Troops Marching on Vladivostok Street ca. 1918, Followed by Other Allied Troops, adapted from image at almc.army.mil

[Transcript, photos, original audio: npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/05/28/608455970/in-russia-scant-traces-and-negative-memories-of-a-century-old-u-s-intervention] “… civil war was raging across Russia … [between] the Bolsheviks … [and] the ‘Whites’ – supporters of the deposed czar, republicans, social democrats, Cossacks. … the Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from [World War I] in March 1918. … More than 8,000 U.S. troops started landing in Vladivostok in August 1918 to guard Allied military stocks … […]

How did 1917 change the west? Failed utopias lead to the death of idealism, and the likes of Putin and Trump are symbols of this process. As we watch Russia struggle with history, the U.S. and U.K. cannot afford to pretend that this history doesn’t affect us too.

November 27, 2017 JRL Russia List Britain, UK, United Kingdom, History, Soviet Union, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations

File Photo of Revolutionaries Marching in Moscow in 1917, adapted from image at state.gov

(opendemocracy.net – Sam Greene – November 22, 2017) Samuel A. Greene is Reader in Russian Politics and Director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London Revolutions – and their centenaries – are best dealt with in the first person. That, of course, creates a certain awkwardness for an academic, whose stock in trade is meant to be distance from […]

NEWSWATCH: “Russia Celebrates an Uncomfortable Centennial” – Stratfor.com

November 10, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

File photo of Czar Nicholas II in Military Uniform Outdoors with Soldiers in Background, adapted from image at defense.gov

“The centennial anniversary of the launch of the Russian Revolution on Nov. 7 will serve as a haunting reminder for Russia’s current leaders that their power is finite. … a year after Russia observed the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, a similarly unsettling marker for the [Putin] government … facing opposition from within its own ranks and on […]

Pavel Koshkin: “The Review on Zygar’s Book — The Empire Must Die”

November 9, 2017 JRL Russia List Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

Subject: the review on Zygar’s book — The Empire Must Die Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2017 From: Pavel Koshkin <pkoshkin.russia.direct@gmail.com> The Empire Must Die: Understanding Russia’s political theater between 1917 and 2017 The main goal of Mikhail Zygar’s new book is to prove that every member of society can contribute to the development of a country’s history and make difference. […]

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On Revolution Centenary, Perplexed Russians Ask, ‘Who Am I To Judge?’

November 6, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

(Article ©2017 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth, Robert Coalson – ST. PETERSBURG/MOSCOW – Nov. 5, 2017 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/anniversary-bolshevik-revolution-100-lenin-assessment/28836011.html) The small museum in St. Petersburg located in the apartment where Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin lived in the months before the October 1917 Bolshevik coup was inexplicably closed one recent weekday afternoon. A small, […]

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Russia To Unveil Monument To Victims Of Political Repression

October 30, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

File Photo of Soviet Gulag at Belbaltlag, adapted from image at nps.gov

(Article ©2017 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – October 30, 2017 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-stalin-putin-soviet-repression-remembrance-day-moscow/28823208.html) Amid controversy over his own methods of maintaining control over Russia, President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to appear at the unveiling of a memorial dedicated to victims of state repression during the Soviet era. The Wall Of Sorrow will be unveiled on […]

Interfax: Kremlin had no plans for Russian Revolution centenary celebrations in first place – Peskov

October 25, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

Dmitry Peskov file photo adapted from image at kremlin.ru/wikimedia commons

MOSCOW. Oct 25 (Interfax) – The Kremlin did not plan to celebrate the Russian Revolution’s centenary in the first place, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday. “The Kremlin is not planning any events on this occasion,” Peskov said. “No one is cancelling anything,” he said. The media said that the Kremlin had planned no events celebrating the […]

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NEWSLINK: “One hundred years on, what do Russians think of 1917? An aristocrat, a protester, a religious activist and a communist give their views on the revolution” – Financial Times

October 23, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

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NEWSWATCH: “No pomp as Russia revolution centenary nears” – AFP

October 23, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Religion

“… Russia strives to strike an odd balance … remembering the uprising that brought about the Soviet Union … stopping short of romanticising regime change. … 1917 saw Tsar Nicholas II abdicate in March and the Bolsheviks … seize power in October. Civil war erupted … followed by the creation in 1922 of the USSR, built on the ruins of the Russian empire. … Russia still […]

NEWSLINK: “A tale of two revolutions, or ‘decommunisation’, Ukrainian-style; Ukrainian politicians see their country’s Soviet heritage as a major obstacle on the way to abrave new world. It’s a shame they’re using the same revolutionary methods as the communists to deal with it.” – OpenDemocracy/ Sergey Rumyantsev

October 16, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

NEWSLINK: “‘We are nothing, let us be all.’ The century of revolution. The first communist revolution had almost as many consequences for the rest of the world as it did for Russia itself. Its demise has brought about another type of universalism: capitalist globalisation.” – Le Monde Diplomatique/ Serge Halimi

October 2, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Newslinks, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

“… The ‘end of communism’ seemed to settle the great debate that opposed the main currents of the international left after the Russian Revolution, the defeat of one of the protagonists entailing the victory of the other, social democracy’s revenge on its boisterous sibling. That triumph was short-lived. The centenary of the storming of the Winter Palace is coinciding with […]

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NEWSLINK: “The Remains of the Romanovs; Nearly a century after Czar Nicholas and his family were murdered, their fate still haunts Russia” – New York Times/ Anastasia Edel

July 10, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Newslinks

“On July 17, 1918, as the White Army advanced toward Red-held territory around Yekaterinburg in Siberia, 12 armed Bolsheviks ushered a group of 11 exiles into a basement of a merchant’s mansion once known as Ipatiev House, now the House of Special Purpose. The youngest in the party, a sickly 13-year-old named Aleksei, had to be carried by his father, […]

Bridging the Red-White Divide Is a Home Run for Putin

May 31, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Religion

(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Maxim Trudolyubov – May 30, 2017) Maxim Trudolyubov, Senior Fellow with the Kennan Institute and editor-at-large with Vedomosti, has been following Russian economy and politics since the late 1990s. He has served as an opinion page editor for Vedomosti and editor and correspondent for the newspaper Kapita In an event infused with historical and moral […]

Deciphering a Revolution; ‘1917: Code of a Revolution’ is the first exhibition marking this year’s centenary

April 3, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Andrei Muchnik – March 31, 2017) In 2017, Russia marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most crucial episodes in its history – the October Revolution. And what better place to hold the first in a series of exhibitions devoted to the centennial than the Museum of Contemporary Russian History – known until 1998 […]

Patriarch Kirill blames 1917 revolution on intelligentsia

March 29, 2017 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Religion

MOSCOW. March 29 (Interfax) – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has put the main blame for the 1917 revolution on the intelligentsia. “What happened in the 20th century, that meat-grinder, which ground the entire intelligentsia, is it not an organic consequences of the horrible crimes that the intelligentsia committed against faith, against God, against their people, against their […]

The Three Kinds of Stalinists in Putin’s Russia Don’t Include Any Real Ones, Malashenko Says

October 11, 2016 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, October 10, 2016) Russians may say that they have a positive view of Stalin – according to polls, more than half now do – but, despite the Kremlin’s promotion of the need for “a strong hand,’ there are no real Stalinists among them because both the state and society have changed and […]

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Brexit: Russia’s national interest versus its nationalist interest

June 22, 2016 JRL Russia List Britain, UK, United Kingdom, Europe, EU, Foreign Policy, Security, Visas, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

Subject: Brexit: Russia’s national interest versus its nationalist interest Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:27:00 -0400 From: Ira Straus (IRASTRAUS@aol.com) The argumentative thrust of Putin’s Russia is friendly to Brexit. Indeed, it propagandizes for the most extreme parties of the far Right in Europe, coupled with providing financial sponsorship for them and some organizational support. This creates a resemblance to […]

In the Flesh: Russian Scientists Work to Preserve Lenin’s Corpse

May 5, 2016 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – May 5, 2016) He lies in a glass sarcophagus. His eyes are closed, reddish beard and mustache trimmed, and his hands rest calmly on his thighs. Dressed in an austere black suit, Vladimir Lenin, the first Soviet leader, looks, on first impressions, to be sleeping. His image is so lifelike that it […]

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Russia’s Last Tsar Exhumed as Murder Case Reopened

September 24, 2015 JRL Russia List Assassinations, Beatings, Threats, Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, History, Soviet Union

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Vasily Kolotilov – September 24, 2015) Russian investigators on Wednesday exhumed the remains of Russia’s last tsar and his wife, who were slaughtered by the Bolsheviks in 1918 together with their children and servants, after reopening the investigation into the century-old murder. The Investigative Committee said in a statement Wednesday it was reopening the probe […]

Interfax: Russian Communists celebrate 1917 revolution, call for dismissal of government

November 9, 2013 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union

(Interfax – November 7, 2013) The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) marked the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution on 7 November with rallies in Moscow and other towns of Russia, privately-owned Interfax news agency reported the same day. The CPRF has collected over two million signatures asking for the dismissal of the government, the leader of the […]

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Medvedev Warns Ruling Party to Avoid Communists’ Fate

April 3, 2013 JRL Russia List History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

YAKUTSK, April 2 (RIA Novosti) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned his ruling United Russia party on Tuesday not to repeat the mistakes made by the Soviet Union’s Communist Party. “We do not aspire to be the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, particularly as it did not turn out very well,” Medvedev said at a meeting in Russia’s Sakha […]

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