Reading Time: 3 minutes The eagerness of western intellectuals to justify the Moscow show trials of the late ’30s was what was truly frightening about them
Tag: Soviet Union
The pope, the president and the resurrection of Poland
Reading Time: 3 minutes Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan shared a vision of an independent Poland. Together, they helped the country break free from the Soviet bloc
Lithuania a country caught between two worlds
Reading Time: 4 minutes A letter from Lithuania: Its history is one of struggle and compromise. Now it’s looking to the future and its options with caution
Communism’s pernicious influence persists despite the best evidence
Reading Time: 3 minutes On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, some romantics still embrace the fallacies of communism and its sister socialism
The high-flying rhetoric of the Sputnik scare
Reading Time: 3 minutes Sixty years ago, the Soviets put the first satellite in space, sparking concerns about technology and weapons superiority
Was the Ukrainian Red Famine genocide or incompetence?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Historians are divided on Josef Stalin’s intent in the Ukraine that resulted in millions of deaths. Anne Applebaum’s new book has revived the dispute
‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’
Reading Time: 3 minutes While it might be silly to argue the Berlin Wall came down because of Ronald Reagan, he demonstrated unusual prescience about the Soviet Union’s fragility
When Khrushchev spilled the beans
Reading Time: 3 minutes 60 years this month Nikita Khrushchev blew the whistle on (the safely deceased) Josef Stalin’s crimes
The world was safer in the Soviet era
Reading Time: 3 minutes Today, unlike during the Soviet era, principled conversation is impossible, and that’s dangerous