It is late 1903, and Rachel and her family are leaving Russia to escape the murderous riots against Jews. They travel cross country on the Trans-Siberian Railway to the coast and board a ship for Shanghai. China offers refuge, but life for them there is difficult and strange. The opportunity to write for a Jewish newspaper may help Rachel ensure her family's survival while not giving up her dreams for her future. Still in Russia, Rachel's friend Sergei leaves home for a factory job in St. Petersburg, soon joining the rebelling workers, but realizing he has traded one source of danger for another. Separated by so much, the two teenagers try to make their way in the turbulent political times of the early twentieth century--their only connection the letters they write, and their fierce hope for the future.

The Red Pencil (1989) examines the many ways in which Soviet censorship interfered in the creative process - in the words of those who experienced it first hand. It helps to identify the ways in which Soviet artistic and intellectual production was shaped by the practices of Soviet censorship. The book goes beyond the simple recounting of banned books and taboo subjects to examine the more subtle issue of how Soviet writers attempted to strike a balance between accommodating the demands of government censorship while retaining for themselves a modicum of unfettered expression and intellectual integrity. Most of the contributing authors were active as writers, critics, editors, film and theatre specialists, or scientists prior to their departure from the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

Historical account of the Russian revolutionary social movement for social change, covering the period from the late 1880's until the spring of 1918 - includes a bibliography pp. 315 to 326, maps and references.

"This is a work by a fighter, a thinker, and an idealist. Leo Labedz is a fighter who minces no words in his contempt for the apologists of totalitarianism. He never rests in his efforts to enlarge the scope of human freedom, and many have felt the sharp edge of his political scalpel. He is a thinker with a penetrating mind and en­cyclopedic knowledge. He is an idealist who believes in sacrificing for the just cause to which he has dedicated his life." With these words of extraordinary praise, Zbigniew Brzezinski opens this volume of critical and polemical essays by Leopold Labedz. His knowledge of Soviet affairs, as seen through the eyes of the crusaders and critics of the Modern Russian State, is peerless. Chapters, which include major studies of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, George Orwell, Noam Chomsky, George Kennan, and Leszek Kolakowski among others, es­tablish Labedz as among the most incisive analysts of Soviet affairs as well as those who presume special expertise in this ar­cane field.Labedz's impassioned writing covers not only Sovietologists, but also the major fault lines with which totalitarian systems have been uniquely identified. His writings on the Holocaust, student revolt, European unity, and the meaning of detente, help provide a perspective with which to assess present moods and policies within the still ever-present Soviet bloc. The anthology was prepared and edited by Melvin J. Lasky, the editor of Encounter, in which many of these materials initially appeared.

The reform era in Russia (1855-1881) witnessed the emancipation of the serfs, economic and social change, the reform of all imperial institutions, and the growth of national identity among Russians and the Empire's expanding Jewish population. Consequently, the 'Jewish Question' became one of most hotly debated topics in Russia. Attitudes toward the Jews which evolved during this period persisted up to the Revolution and beyond. This book, based on exhaustive archival research of materials published during the period, studies the interplay of public opinion and official policy. The author examines the attitudes of all sectors of Russian educated society towards the Jews. He also explores how a new group, the Russian Jewish intelligentsia, sought to define a modern Jewish identity in the midst of a multi-ethnic Empire.

When Britain was compelled to introduce conscription in 1916, the question arose of what to do with its 'friendly aliens'-its 30,000 Russian-Jewish refugees of military age. The Tsar didn't want them back to serve in his army, and they had no desire to help his war effort. But when sections of the British press commented that as asylum seekers they should show gratitude and join up, a campaign with strong anti-Semitic overtones took off and became Parliamentary business. Then the Tsar was overthrown, and by the summer of 1917 the question was settled with the new regime: Russian Jews of military age had to choose either to join the British Army or to return to Russia to serve there. MI5 and Special Branch kept watch on the Communist Club in the West End, where Russian revolutionaries agitated tailors, cobblers and cabinet-makers who agonised over what to do. Many ended up in the British Army or were exempted for war work, but nearly 4,000 chose to go back to Russia-for a variety of reasons. Arriving there via the Arctic within weeks and days of the Bolshevik revolution, they found a vacuum of authority, which soon turned into the chaos and dangers of civil war. How they fared and how they struggled to return to their families in Britain is the story of War or Revolution. With the help of personal documents, official British and Russian archives, and interviews of survivors and their families, the author illuminates an unknown corner of the First World War and sets it against the background of the period.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"This collection views Russian music through the Greek triad of 'the Good, the True, and the Beautiful' to investigate how the idea of 'nation' embeds itself in the public discourse about music and other arts with results at times invigorating, at times corrupting. In our divided, post-Cold War, and now post-9/11 world, Russian music, formerly a quiet corner on the margins of musicology, has become a site of noisy contention. Richard Taruskin assesses the political and cultural stakes that attach to it in the era of Pussy Riot and renewed international tensions, before turning to individual cases from the nineteenth century to the present. Much of the volume is devoted to the resolutely cosmopolitan but inveterately Russian Igor Stravinsky, one of the major forces in the music of the twentieth century and subject of particular interest to composers and music theorists all over the world. Taruskin here revisits him for the first time since the 1990s, when everything changed for Russia and its cultural products. Other essays are devoted to the cultural and social policies of the Soviet Union and their effect on the music produced there as those policies swung away from Communist internationalism to traditional Russian nationalism; to the musicians of the Russian postrevolutionary diaspora; and to the tension between the compelling artistic quality of works such as Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps or Prokofieff's Zdravitsa and the antihumanistic or totalitarian messages they convey. Russian Music at Home and Abroad addresses these concerns in a personal and critical way, characteristically demonstrating Taruskin's authority and ability to bring living history out of the shadows." -- Provided by publisher.

Stalinism for All Seasons is the first comprehensive history of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP). It traces the origins of the once-tiny, clandestine revolutionary organization in the 1920s through the years of national power from 1944 to 1989 to the post-1989 metamorphoses of its members. Vladimir Tismaneanu uses documents that he discovered while working in the RCP archives in Bucharest in the mid-1990s and interviews with many of the party members from the Ceau_escu and Gheorghiu-Dej eras to tell the absorbing story of how RCP members came to power as exponents of Moscow and succeeded in turning themselves into champions of autonomy. Tismaneanu analyzes both the main events in Romanian communism and the role of significant personalities in the party’s history. Situating the rise and fall of Romanian communism within the world revolutionary movement, Stalinism for All Seasons shows that the history of communism in one country can illuminate the development of communism in the twentieth century. Tismaneanu discusses significant moments in the final six decades of world communism, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Comintern, Stalin and the Bolshevization of the Eastern European communist parties, and de-Stalinization. He examines important events in international affairs during Nicolae Ceau_escu’s rule (1965-1989)―particularly Romania’s role in the Sino-Soviet conflict, the Middle East, European communism, and European security. Finally, Tismaneanu identifies the RCP’s descendants among Romania’s current political parties and personalities. Embracing a long and complex period, this book will interest readers of twentieth-century history and anyone curious about communism and postcommunism.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Only by understanding Central and Eastern Europe's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century can we hope to make sense of the conflicts and crises that have followed World War II and, after that, the collapse of Soviet-controlled state socialism. Ivan Berend looks closely at the fateful decades preceding World War II and at twelve countries whose absence from the roster of major players was enough in itself, he says, to precipitate much of the turmoil. As waves of modernization swept over Europe, the less developed countries on the periphery tried with little or no success to imitate Western capitalism and liberalism. Instead they remained, as Berend shows, rural, agrarian societies notable for the tenacious survival of feudal and aristocratic institutions. In that context of frustration and disappointment, rebellion was inevitable. Berend leads the reader skillfully through the maze of social, cultural, economic, and political changes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Soviet Union, showing how every path ended in dictatorship and despotism by the start of World War II.

The voice of the Russian communist opposition to Stalin, published from 1929 to 1941. "Absolutely essential for any scholarly study of the Soviet Union" --Tamara Deutscher. 4 vols.

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R ussian Conservatism and Its Critics provides the first account of Russia’s immemorial commitment to the theory and practice of autocracy, the most formative and powerful idea in Russia’s political history. Richard Pipes considers why Russian thinkers, statesmen, and publicists have historically always argued that Russia could prosper only under an autocratic regime.Beginning with an insightful study of the origins of Russian statehood in the Middle Ages, when the state grew out of the princely domain but was not distinguished from it, Russian Conservatism and Its Critics includes a masterful survey of Russia’s major conservative thinkers and demonstrates how conservatism is the dominant intellectual legacy of Russia. Pipes examines the geographical, historical, political, military, and social realities of the Russian empire--fundamentally unchanged by the Revolution of 1917--that have traditionally convinced its rulers and opinion leaders that decentralizing political authority would inevitably result in the country’s disintegration. Pipes has written a brilliant thesis and analysis of a hitherto overlooked aspect of the Russian intellectual tradition that continues to have significance to this day.

Klein, Richard G.

Scholars have struggled for decades to explain why Jews have succeeded extravagantly in modern science. A variety of controversial theories from such intellects as C. P. Snow, Norbert Wiener, and Nathaniel Weyl have been promoted. Snow hypothesized an evolved genetic predisposition to scientific success. Wiener suggested that the breeding habits of Jews sustained hereditary qualities conducive for learning. Economist and eugenicist Weyl attributed Jewish intellectual eminence to "seventeen centuries of breeding for scholars." Rejecting the idea that Jews have done well in science because of uniquely Jewish traits, Jewish brains, and Jewish habits of mind, historian of science Noah J. Efron approaches the Jewish affinity for science through the geographic and cultural circumstances of Jews who were compelled to settle in new worlds in the early twentieth century. Seeking relief from religious persecution, millions of Jews resettled in the United States, Palestine, and the Soviet Union, with large concentrations of settlers in New York, Tel Aviv, and Moscow. Science played a large role in the lives and livelihoods of these immigrants: it was a universal force that transcended the arbitrary Old World orders that had long ensured the exclusion of all but a few Jews from the seats of power, wealth, and public esteem. Although the three destinations were far apart geographically, the links among the communities were enduring and spirited. This shared experience of facing the future in new worlds, both physical and conceptual provided a generation of Jews with opportunities unlike any their parents and grandparents had known. The tumultuous recent century of Jewish history, which saw both a methodical campaign to blot out Europe's Jews and the inexorable absorption of Western Jews into the societies in which they now live, is illuminated by the place of honor science held in Jewish imaginations. Science was central to their dreams of creating new worlds - welcoming worlds - for a persecuted people. This provocative work will appeal to historians of science as well as scholars of religion, Jewish studies, and Zionism

A Soviet commentator records each minute of the recent seventy-two hour coup that almost crushed the efforts of those who fought for change and freedom in the Soviet Union