USSR

In the past I have bemoaned the problems in finding good resources on the Gulag in English. This has now been rectified with a new site, Many Days, Many Lives. The site is excellent, and contains plenty of material that will be of use to students.

The Gulag was horrific, but as this site rightly points out there was no single unified experience. Vast numbers of people were sent into the camps, and they all have their own story. Some of these have been told. Many of them have not. This site will go some way to rectifying this situation.

Details:

Kocho-Williams, Alastair, The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 86, Number 1, 1 January 2008 , pp. 90-110(21)

Abstract:

This article offers a case study of a commissariat and its members during Stalin’s purges. It considers the effects of the purges on diplomats and on Soviet diplomacy, adding new dimensions to previous works, in particular dealing with how the Foreign Commissar Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov and the Soviet diplomats serving under him responded to the purges, what their opinions of them were, and how they dealt with the challenge of explaining the purges to observers abroad, as well as examining the numbers that perished, what they were accused of, why the Narkomindel was so vulnerable to the purges, how the Narkomindel struggled to function effectively during a difficult time in Soviet foreign relations, and how the regime achieved a withdrawal from international affairs.

This is going to be a pamphlet - it will give me more space than an article and it will reach a wider audience…

Structure:

I want to look at two things - anarchist perceptions of the Comintern (already an amount out there), but more importantly Comintern perceptions of anarchists and anarchism. This becomes interesting, particularly given Rudolf Rocker’s assertion that the Bolsheviks adopted anarchist tactics (Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice, and Alexander Berkman’s attack on the lack of inclusion of anarchists in the founding of the Comintern (Berkman, What is Anarchism?), and in the light of a pamphlet from the Kate Sharpley Library, The CNT and the Russian Revolution and a new article in Kritika on the Bolshevik cooption of Kropotkin.

I have been comissioned to write entries on Gromyko, Shevardnaze and the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

I’ve been asked to contribute to a panel on hostility towards the Soviet Union during the 1920s at the AAASS conference in New Orleans next November. I’m honoured to have been asked by an individual I met at the conference I gave a paper at this summer, and am very excited about this!

I’m going to be running a season of Soviet films at Kebele in Bristol in the New Year.  This will be an opportunity for people to see films they might not otherwise get to see, and to discuss them.  Tea/Coffee and cake will accompany screenings.

All films will be shown in the original language with subtitles.  At the moment the program of films is undecided, so if there’s anything that people particulalry want to see (or particularly don’t) please let me know (comment on this post will be good).  Films will span the Soviet Union from its beginnings to its end.

Hope to see people there!!!

Seemed to go down well…

I talked for about an hour, and they seemed to be interested. I certainly got asked some good questions which I tried to respond to as best I could. Some relae to this paper, but others have a broader significance. The jist of them was

- Are there any religious connections. Ideas of monasticism? - Certainly the ILS is culty
- Why did the school close in 1938?
- Why was there no consideration of the nationalities question in the prerequesite reading list for the ILS?
- How was the centre envisaging that ILS graduates might reintegrate into their national parties?
- How did western governments view the ILS?

Positive feedback and some good foos for thought. I’m in the process of sorting out the podcast to include the slides, but the audio is here, both the paper and the question and answer session (click buttons below).

Final lecture of my Soviet course - The Collapse of the Soviet Union

This lecture deals with the end of the Soviet Union and attempts at reform up to the storming of the White House in 1993.