Questions tagged [soviet-union]
The Soviet Union or USSR (1922–1991) was a socialist state in Eurasia. After the 1924 death of founding leader Lenin (who led the October Revolution in 1917), Stalin established a planned economy and suppressed political opposition. After World War II, the Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, opposing the USA in the Cold War. 1980s leader Gorbachev attempted reform with perestroika and glasnost but the country collapsed in 1991.
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Why would this word have been an unsuitable name in Communist Poland? Is it because it's a racial slur?
In Marek Hłasko's The Graveyard (set in communist-occupied Poland) there is a scene where, in a political party meeting one of the party members (Nowak) is forced to change the name of his dog. This ...
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Is Snyder's claim about Soviet-German friendship propaganda posters (1939‒41) supportable?
Upon reading Putin’s New Nostalgia article by Timothy Snyder, I was specifically intrigued by one particular historical point he mentioned. Given the charged nature of current events, and Snyder’s ...
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Is "Lenin’s Testament" authentic?
Context
In 1922, the Communist Party was firmly in control of the USSR (or at least the Russia part of it), and Vladimir Lenin was the undisputed leader of the Party. Lenin was seriously ill and had ...
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What are the grenades and artillery cited in this testimony?
In the testimony of a Soviet officer of the raid on Tatsinskaya cited by Wikipedia, the Soviet officer speaks of two elements faced by Soviet tanks:
Enemy artillery
Germans "launching grenades [...
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Why did Women's Day never really catch on in the US, even though it started there?
The roots of International Women's Day (March 8th) go all the way back to New York City in 1909 and the Socialist Party of America. However, from what I have learned the International Women's Day is ...
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Why did the Soviets not shoot down US spy satellites during the Cold War?
The USSR was not happy with unauthorised overflights, shooting down everything it could, from spy balloons to U-2s. Also, despite repeated US proposals, something like the Open Skies treaty was only ...
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Why was the Budjak annexed to Ukraine in 1940?
In 1940, the USSR pressured Romania to surrender its eastern-most province of Bessarabia. The majority of it was given to the newly formed Moldavian SSR, but the Budjak was made part of Ukraine ...
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Are there some concrete examples of the pre-1962 Soviet complaints in re CORONA spy satellites?
According to Pat Norris' book Spies in the Sky (p. 111)
until the first successful Zenit flight in summer 1962 the Soviets complained bitterly to America about the CORONA flights.
However he does ...
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When was the official cover of Project Genetrix abandoned? Did the Soviets show (or threaten to show) any of the balloons' equipment?
I've read the Wikipedia page on Project_Genetrix (and one of its sources) but one aspect that's not clear to me is when the official cover the project was abandoned. According to the declassified ...
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What was the true extent of German losses at Prokhorovka?
Recently I came accross what seemed to be a new thesis about the battle of Prokhorovka. I read the book Kursk of the German author and historian Roman Töppel, who explains alongside other "new ...
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After World War II, what happened to the Soviet industrial facilities that had been evacuated?
In late 1941, some 1500 Soviet factories were relocated to the Urals, or other areas east of European Russia to keep them safe from German bombing, or worse, occupation. (My understanding is that ...
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Why did the Red Army change uniforms in 1943?
In 1943, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Rabóče-krestʹjánskaja Krásnaja ármija, RKKA) of the Soviet Union decided to adopt shoulder boards instead of collar tabs for rank identification. This is ...
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Why did Pakistan get involved in Soviet-Afghan war from 1979 to 1989?
Soviet-Afghan War
Afghan-Pakistan Relations >> Contemporary Era
I was reading this Wikipedia article and couldn't understand why Pakistan got itself involved in Soviet-Afghan War from 1979 to ...
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What are the reasons for the failure of Soviet Union at agriculture? [closed]
The failure at agriculture is known to everybody. The Soviet Union became one of the main importer of grain whereas till sixties was one the main exporters. Does anyone know more on this or can ...
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Were there any recorded accidents in the USSR (after 1945) involving gas pipelines?
Are there any recorded accidents in the USSR (after 1945) involving gas pipelines? Was there any suspicion that some of them might have been an act of sabotage?
I am not asking about a particular gas ...
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How did the Soviet press talk about the opposing forces (mujahideens) during the Soviet-Afghan war?
I've watched and read a fair bit of material on the Soviet war in Afghanistan, but this [in my humble experience] is a topic that's not touched upon much if at all in Western coverage of that war. For ...
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How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
Despite the high bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, some design bureaus still achieved spectacular feats in science and engineering (mostly in defense and aerospace) e.g. Mir space station, Soyuz ...
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Why did the USSR give Crimea to Ukraine?
In 1954 Soviets transferred Crimea from Russian Soviet Republic to Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
Why is this strange?
The whole act, at least officially, was meant to be "a gift", a token of friendship....
CommunityBot
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Were the Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan officially volunteers?
I always thought they were conscripts, who were ordered to go there, but recently saw a mention that they all were volunteers. So, I wonder whether they signed any paper of consent before being sent ...
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Which Soviet resolution rejected "laughter for laughter's sake"?
George Counts (1949):
During the past two and one-half years the Central Committee has issued a series of "ideological resolutions" ... These resolutions not only reject "art for art's ...
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What was the extent of Kohl's government opposition to the independence of Ukraine?
There's a (paywalled) piece in Der Spiegel summarized as
In 1991, the Helmut Kohl government wanted to prevent the eastward expansion of NATO and the independence of Ukraine - this is shown by ...
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How many people were affected by the Holodomor [Famine-Genocide in Ukraine]
How many people were affected during the famine? Are there any sources for Soviet records on the Holodomor?
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Where can I read the 1966 letters opposing Stalin's rehabilitation?
On 14 February 1966, 25 notable Soviet scientists and cultural figures sent a letter to CPSU General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev urging against the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin. Another similar ...
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Given the concern about Soviet oil in World War II, why is so little mention made of captured Soviet coal reserves?
Fall Blau, and a lot of the eastern campaign was centred around capturing Soviet oil reserves, particularly around Maikop, Grozny, and Baku in the Caucasus. But the Germans captured the majority of ...
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What is the origin of the claim of the 27 million Soviets dead in WWII? [closed]
All throughout the existence of the USSR, there was always the claim that the number of USSR citizens who died in WWII was 20 million.
Lately, I am seeing a persistent claim that that number was 27 ...
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Is the Cold War still going on? [closed]
Do any historians consider the Cold War, or Cold War II, to be going on?
I'm asking because some features of the Cold War still exist, such as an antagonism between Russia and the Western world, and ...
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What heavy industrial work, if any, was done in USSR 1923-1927?
In the USSR, the first five-year Plan began in 1928. The Revolution and Civil War ended in 1922 Oct (the "main phase" according to wikipedia). That's, coincidentally, a five-year gap.
So I ...
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Could the leader of the Soviet Union have been removed legally?
The list of Soviet Union's leaders shows that usually leaders remained in office until their death, I'd like to know:
What was the legal status of the Soviet Union's leader? How was he elected or ...
TMFG
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When did Soviet authorities first plan/conceive of migrating their industry if war broke out?
This comes from a related question. It seems Germany never conceived of the possibility that Russia might migrate its heavy industry to safe locations beyond the Urals. So now I want to know if Soviet ...
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Were there written (draft) Soviet proposals that would have effectively restricted the US navy from (parts of) Europe?
I'm pretty sure that if one trawls the Soviet propaganda, one can find something asking Americans to bugger off from Europe altogether (ok, on a more serious note--Gorbatchev did propose the ...
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Were the Germans in a position to capitalize on their military objectives at Stalingrad without capturing the whole city?
As I understand it, the military objective of capturing Stalingrad was to be able to cut off north-south river traffic on the Volga, and land traffic on the east bank of the river, using the city as a ...
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Why was Stalin OK with the UN's headquaters being placed in the US?
It feels like Stalin should have objected to this because this gives the US some extra influence. Why not insist on placing the headquaters somewhere more neutral?
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Did (other) PRC or Soviet leaders give 3+ hour congress speeches?
Fidel Castro is well-known for giving 4- or even 7-hour speeches. Xi Jinping gave a 3h 20min communist party congress speech. How does the latter compare to typical PRC or Soviet leaders speeches at ...
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How did the accounting and capital organization system work in communist countries like the USSR? Did ideology justify or undermine the system? [closed]
It's difficult to see how the leaders could have kept track of such a complex system, in such a big country as the Soviet Union (USSR), without recognizing the existence of capital relations, the ...
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Was there a Cold War era Russian safe haven city for politicians and scientists?
I remember learning about a Russian city where, during the Cold War, top politicians and scientists and their families would be evacuated to. It would have existed as a normal city outside of Cold War ...
MCW♦
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How close was the Soviet Union to collapsing during WW2?
Are there any sources or reports which explain how close the country was to collapsing under the Nazi assault? By 'collapse' I mean 'completely lacking either the willpower (as seen by France in 1940 ...
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Why was Stalin chosen as the First General Secretary in 1922?
At the 11th Party Congress, Stalin was voted into the position of General Secretary. This was the first time the party had a General Secretary. This was in 1922 Mar/Apr.
Why was Stalin chosen? I ...
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In the USSR, did they ever stop 'officially' believing in the future Communist utopia? [closed]
Karl Marx taught of a state which 'withered away' until 'communism' had been achieved: that is a stateless, communal society of prosperity and perpetual peace. To begin with at least, the Soviet Union ...
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What was the fate of Latvian Jewish population sent to gulags in June 1941?
Some of my ancestors were Latvian Jews who came to the U.S. in 1904. I'm trying to figure out whether any part of this branch of my family might still exist in the eastern hemisphere. After the Hitler-...
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Communist Party member Stances on Molotov Ribbentrop Soviety German Treaty [closed]
I am reading "Toward Freedom, The Case against Race Reductionism" by Toure Reed. In his section about Black Progressives, he writes about how the influence of the Communist Party on the NNC ...
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Did the Soviet Union protest against Italy building or acquiring submarines after WW2?
Article 59 of the 1947 Paris peace treaty prohibited Italy from having submarines or aircraft carriers. As far as I can tell, Italy acquired some US-made WW2-era submarines (Gato, Balao, and Tench ...
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How and why did the progress of Army Group A differ from what the terrain in the Caucasus might suggest?
A simplistic description of the southern wing of Fall Blau would be that the Germans advanced "easily" across the relatively flat land of the Kuban and North Caucasus, and stalled after they ...
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What is the origin of the idea of "people's republics"?
How did the idea of the "Soviet Union" (a union of councils) mutated/evolved into a “people's republic” (a certain ethnofederalism) with the ethnicities as the main building blocks?
For ...
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What was the purpose of the 1991 referendum on the future of the Soviet Union?
In 1991, the Soviet Union held a referendum about its future political structure. The results of that referendum are presented in this infographic, or here.
What was the purpose of this referendum? ...
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Were deportations committed by Stalin during WWII covered in Allies' press? [closed]
Was the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush populations (carried out in 1944) covered in the media of the Allied powers?
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Did Yuri Gagarin really hear a ticking sound during his journey into outer space?
In the movie, Another Earth, Rhoda told John that Yuri Gagarin heard a ticking sound during his journey into outer space. He couldn't find the source, and eventually came to love that ticking sound.
...
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How, exactly, was 30% of Russia's industrial capacity distributed "in and around Moscow" in 1941?
Numerous source allege that the Germans would have crippled the Russian war effort if they had captured "Moscow" because 30% of Russia's industrial capacity was in that area.
Given this, ...
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How to explain the Khalkhin Gol outcome in view of Soviet weakness and Japanese strength at that time?
Conventional wisdom says that the USSR was very weak in 1939/40/41, in large part due to the purges of the 1930s, ideological interference in the armed forces, and lack of equipment, preparation and ...
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Why did the USSR stop in the Winter War against Finland in 1940?
To me, this is one of the biggest history mysteries. By the end of February 1940, the USSR breached the Mannerheim line, and the Finnish troops were exhausted and short of ammunition. I have little ...
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Why Finland received so little foreign support during the winter war?
Considering the following four facts:
Many western countries helped the anti-communist government during the Russian civil war,
League of Nation supports Finland,
The war lasts really long comparing ...
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