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In this sweeping study, Julie Hessler traces the invention and evolution of socialist trade, the progressive constriction of private trade, and the development of consumer habits from the 1917 revolution to Stalin's death in 1953. The book places trade and consumption in the context of debilitating economic crises. Although Soviet leaders, and above all, Stalin, identified socialism with the modernization of retailing and the elimination of most private transactions, these goals conflicted with the economic dynamics that produced shortages and with the government's bureaucratic, repressive, and socially discriminatory political culture.

A Social History of Soviet Trade explores the relationship of trade--official and unofficial--to the cyclical pattern of crisis and normalization that resulted from these tensions. It also provides a singularly detailed look at private shops during the years of the New Economic Policy, and at the remnants of private trade, mostly concentrated at the outdoor bazaars, in subsequent years. Drawing on newly opened archives in Moscow and several provinces, this richly documented work offers a new perspective on the social, economic, and political history of the formative decades of the USSR. ... Read more

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The Hemshin are without doubt one of the most enigmatic peoples of Turkey and the Caucasus. As former Christians who converted to Islam centuries ago yet did not assimilate into the culture of the surrounding Muslim populations, as Turks who speak Armenian yet are often not aware of it, as Muslims who continue to celebrate feasts that are part of the calendar of the Armenian Church, and as descendants of Armenians who, for the most part, have chosen to deny their Armenian origins in favour of recently invented myths of Turkic ancestry, the Hemshin and the seemingly irreconcilable differences within their group identity have generated curiosity and often controversy.

The Hemshin is the first scholarly work to provide an in-depth study of these people living in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. This groundbreaking volume brings together chapters written by an international group of scholars that cover the history, language, economy, culture and identity of the Hemshin. It is further enriched with an unprecedented collection of maps, pictures and appendices of up-to-date statistics. The Hemshin forms part of the Peoples of the Caucasus series, an indispensable and yet accessible resource for all those with an interest in the Caucasus.

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This volume contains the papers presented at the Third Quinquennial Conference on Ukrainian Economics, held at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, in 1985. The first two conferences and their proceedings were devoted to the Ukraine's current economic conditions and to selected contributions of its scholars to economics. The present proceedings contain fourteen previously unpublished essays dealing with the one thousand years of Ukrainian economic history prior to the outbreak of the First World War.

The contributions are divided chronologically into three parts, covering the periods of Kievan Rus', the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the nineteenth century. They are not intended to give a comprehensive survey of Ukrainian economic history, but primarily to deal with important economic issues of particular periods. The problem of the orientation of the Kievan Principality with regard to the Nomadic East and the Byzantine South is discussed in the first part. The authors of the volume's second part analyze the economic ties of the Ukrainian economy during the rise and fall of Cossackdom and, subsequently, the Hetman State, with the West and Muscovy. The contributions in the third part deal with the important problems of economic development during the Ukraine's rebirth as a modern nation in the past century. Issues discussed include: population change, industrialization, relations with the Russian Empire's metropolis, urbanization, and the development of the southern and western (within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) regions. Finally, the introductory essay offers a proposal for a periodization scheme of Ukrainian economic history.

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HISTORY'S GREATEST HEIST: THE LOOTING OF RUSSIA BY THE BOLSHEVIKS
HISTORY'S GREATEST HEIST: THE LOOTING OF RUSSIA BY THE BOLSHEVIKS
SEAN MCMEEKIN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009
HARDCOVER, $38.00, 308 PAGES, PHOTOGRAPHS, ABBREVIATIONS, NOTES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX


Russia had been one of the greatest success stories of the capitalist world in the decade leading up to World War I. War and wartime inflation undermined the government's legitimacy, however, and led to power falling into the hands of increasingly radical elements, ending up with Lenin. The Bolshevik takeover led to the near paralysis of the Russian economy. In the midst of the world's largest forest, the Bolsheviks were soon running out of paper to print their decrees, propaganda, and currency. What did they have to sell to buy imported weapons to help them stay in power? In a powerful and surprising new book, HISTORY'S GREATEST HEIST: THE LOOTING OF RUSSIA BY THE BOLSHEVIKS, author Sean McMeekin makes a powerful and surprising argument that Lenin and his followers imposed a policy of looting the national treasures that Russia had amassed over the centuries. Those treasures consisted of gold, silver, and precious jewelry on a massive scale. This didn't prove as immediately successful as the Bolshevik braintrust had hoped. For example, "inventory shrinkage" proved a problem. When Lenin and Trotsky called for mobs to sack the local landowners, bourgeois households, and churches and send the loot to Moscow, the amount received wasn't as lucrative as expected. Rather a large percentage seemed to stick to the fingers of local Bolshevik operatives. The author shows in this formidably documented, morally impassioned book that the Bolsheviks could have never survived their first years in power without the cooperation of Western governments, industrialists, and financiers. That's because their first act on seizing power was to deliberately destroy Russia's economy, leaving the regime wholly dependent on foreign financing. Beyond dialectical materialism, the Bolsheviks didn't have the slightest idea how a modern economy or financial system worked. This was made even worse, when on December 27, 1917, they abolished private banks and repudiated government bonds which effectively destroyed the system for investors to invest and the workers to work. If the principal function of most governments is to cultivate law and public order, then the opposite happened under the Bolsheviks-eradicate all existing laws and institutions and encourage class war. With the nation's economy now wrecked and its banking system abolished, the Bolsheviks had nothing to encourage foreign buyers to invest. Accordingly, they acted less like a government than like a gang of thieves. They couldn't for instance open the safe-deposit boxes in most Russian banks and so they decreed that all owners of the boxes were to turn over their keys-that is, to help the government rob them. What they did manage to confiscate-from banks, churches, and private owners, most notably the Romanovs-they proceeded to fence surreptitiously and at a huge discount. McMeekin's book bristles with the names of the Soviets who went to Switzerland with suitcases full of cash and jewels. Lenin found Stockholm banker Olof Aschberg, who would purchase Russian gold ingots at a huge discount in Estonia and then ship it across the Baltic to the Swedish Royal Mint. They then worked overtime melting down the Russian ingots (stamped with the Tsarist Russian seal) that were subsequently sold in London and New York. Aschberg would then sell the Bolsheviks the weapons they needed for their civil war and subsequent war against their peasantry. And while the Allied powers officially banned such sales, they effectively looked the other way when they saw how much money could be made. On the political front, then British Prime Minister Lloyd George, tired of blockading the Baltic, had legitimized Soviet trade representatives in order to get orders for British factories. The British signed a trade agreement with the Soviets in 1921 and the German Foreign Office, which had done so much to put Lenin in charge of Russia, signed one at Rapallo in 1922. HISTORY'S GREATEST HEIST: THE LOOTING OF RUSSIA BY THE BOLSHEVIKS is filled with vivid images of theft and spoliation, of warehouses full of loot, and millions of rubles. But the real value of this book is that it shows just how well the West lived up to Lenin's cynical statement-"Comrades, don't panic, when things get very tough for us, we will give the bourgeoisie a rope, and the bourgeoisie will hang itself."


Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida

Excellent!
A detailed yet readable book on how the Soviets took over Russia's financial, cultural & artistic heritage at the Russian Revolution. Perhaps too much detail for the casual reader, but a must for anyone interested in the topic.

Fascinating and engrossing...
So many interesting books are now being written about Russia.The "collapse" of the Soviet Union sounds less and less like that---and more like a great peoples getting their lives back in order. I always believed the total "people's revolution" stuff---and became interested since I had to read Karl Marx in American schools (but we were told it was a capitalist country, despite what they now call "mixed economy). Still, I just wondered why--and started reading.Boy, it wasn't really a "people's revolution," but we were taught Lenin 'ended civil war," and so on. I think there will be such great things for Russia in the future, and its side of the story is slowly, slowly being told. There are many who are fascinated to hear it!

The looting of Russia by the Bolshevics.
The results of this researcher's investigation has been long known to most in Russia, but not in the West.
Too bad this is not going to enter the textbooks in those same countries and overturn the dominant mythology that the Bolsheviks, i.e. the murderers of the Russian empire, have been good for Russia.
My fear is that this author's work will be dismissed in some way, and this will remain the only work in this field...but kudos for the author.

Excellent service; excellent read.
The author has researched and written a book that covers the gap between the Tsarist downfall through to the downfall of Bolshevik rebels.The rape of the culture of Old Russia will make you sick when you see how the gold, jewels. paintings and religious objects are stolen by these "friends of the People," what they do with it, and how it turns out.It made me very sorrowful and revengeful for the actions of these robbers.It also points out what a lax citizenship will allow a small band of violent and active rebels, including destroying your country, your culture, your person.This was a well written book, placing some of the then current world leaders at the same greedy trough as the Russian rapists, The Bolsheviks! ... Read more

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Between 1937 and 1949, Joseph Stalin deported more than two million people of 13 nationalities from their homelands to remote areas of the U.S.S.R. His regime perfected the crime of ethnic cleansing as an adjunct to its security policy during those decades. Based upon material recently released from Soviet archives, this study describes the mass deportation of these minorities, their conditions in exile, and their eventual release. It includes a large amount of statistical data on the number of people deported, deaths and births in exile, and the role of the exiles in developing the economy of remote areas of the Soviet Union. ... Read more

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Pohl's Perfect Picture of Stalin
Pohl's painstakingly accurate description of Stalin's horrific crimes of ethnic cleansing provides excellent insight into Stalin's corrupt regime.Pohl's analysis of the development of the economy in remote areas of the Soviet Union rounds out an extremely informative and well-written book.This book is essential to understanding Stalin and his influence on Soviet history and economy. ... Read more

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The Russian Civil War was the most important event of its kind in the 20th century. It changed the lives of over half a billion people and dramatically shaped the political, human and economic geography of Europe, the Far East and Central Asia. Over a tempestuous four-year period the Communist Red Army and the loosely formed, anti-Bolshevist White Army battled in a war that would totally transform the vast Eurasian heartland and lead to Communist revolutions worldwide as well as the Cold War. David Bullock offers a fresh perspective on this conflict, examining the forces of both sides, the intervention of non-Russian forces, including American, Canadian, British, and Japanese troops, and the involvement of female soldiers and partisans.

The military story of massed infantry and cavalry actions, mechanized warfare with tanks, armored cars and trains, and air combat, all along rapidly shifting fronts, is told against the incredible backdrop of political and social revolution. It is an account that is interwoven with tragedy - 30 million people died during the Civil War - and the author skillfully places the battles in the context of human suffering as he explores the cruel sacrifice of a huge population on the altar of political power.

The absorbing text includes dramatic first-hand accounts, and is vividly illustrated with carefully selected previously unpublished photographs. This new insight into history's most significant civil war, which began 90 years ago, will be welcomed by all students of history seeking a compact account of the conflict that brought into being a new superpower - the USSR - and its threatening ideology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The most understandable overview of this period, highly recommended
***** (5) stars "The most understandable overview of this period, highly recommended"
This book is part of the Essential History Series and therefore follows a format established by the editors. All other books in this series have been published at 100 pages, but interestingly, this volume clocks in at 150 pages, a 50% expansion from the others in the series and is therefore unique. No doubt this expansion became necessary due to the sheer immensity of the subject.
There are 100 photos and color period artwork, most of which I have not seen before, and these alone are worth the small price for the book. Moreover, there are eight maps in color, in fact, the only color maps I have seen on this subject.
The author does not get mired down in the Revolution, but explains it, then moves directly into the civil war itself. Clearly, he admires the military prowess of several of the Whites units, but this was historical fact. On the other hand, he also offers the finest single treatise on the military abilities of the Anarchists that I have seen. The section on women in the civil war I have never seen anywhere, and this was a particular delight.
Far from being a chronology, I tried comparing several of my books to specific passages in Dr. Bullock's work and discovered that almost every paragraph has been constructed from a synthesis of information from many sources. Yet, I found the language clear and the narrative extremely understandable. A lot more has gone into this book than meets the eye.
If you read this book in a hurry you will miss the real "politics" underneath. Clearly, the author is neither communist nor Tsarist. Recognizing that the Red Soviet regime was the most brutal in human history in terms of the millions killed in the name of "progress" (although the record of communist China has yet to be revealed), the author is correct in not falling into line with many works of the past that have proclaimed this sacrifice as necessary and good.
I understood that (underlying the author's treatment of material) he believes that a European-style parliamentarian system, a Russian Duma, would have been the best final outcome, what Russia finally received after the fall of the Iron Curtain.He seems to have sympathy with the emergent nationalist states, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Kronstadt sailors, the Antonov Rebellion, the plight of Ukraine, and of course with the Whites who espoused parliamentarian reform. This book is not the same old, tired diatribe of the Marxist "Old Guard."

Good but not great
This book attempts to follow the Russian Civil War which broke out in 1918 following the Bolshevik takeover of the Russian provisional government. This subject is not an easy one, as there were two important factions (the Whites and the Reds), several smaller groups (the Greens and Blacks) and foreign interventionists involved in the war at one time or another. As a result of internal and external considerations the Russian Civil war saw fighting on many different fronts which ebbed forward and backwards depending on the fortunes of war and the interventions from outside countries. David Bullock does a credible job of putting all this together in a way that is understandable, but there are points in the text in which things are explained more than once. At other times entities or states (such as the Far Eastern Republic) are discussed but never explained. Maps are available throughout the book, but specialized maps of specific campaigns which would have made the action easier to understand are (with few exceptions) lacking. The illustrations are excellent, consisting as they do of period photographs and artwork. In all, the effort and material put into this book make it a good addition for anyone studying WWI or the Russian Civil War.

Do not buy this book if you want a balanced account of this war.
This book is too biased towards the White forces.The author ignores facts which put the White forces in a bad light. He makes no mention of the Whites committing pogroms against Jews. Throughout Russian history Cossacks are the most brutal bunch of soldiers you can find.The lowest levels of violence happened in Red controlled areas.Anarchists are pOrtrayed as being just a bunch of bandits.
His arguments offen contradict themselves. He thinks the Bolsheviks are arrogant for 'daring' to have a political program for the people.Then laments the fact that White forces did not have a political program.
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!

Shallow -- not much more than a glorified chronology
If you are looking for a good overview of the Russian Civil war this probably isn't in. This volume is spare with little more than the most general overview of the campaigns. Despite attempts at deeper dives in a couple of subject area (e.g., the role of Women in the Civil War), this book is mostly about "when" things happened, with only the barest description of "what" and nothing at all on "how." How did Trotsky rework the Red forces? The book lets you know he did this but nothing on what was by all accounts a critical component of the Red success. How did the White forces first come together? They essentially spring up and start fighting in this book. Readers may be aware that the Ukraine was a major battle ground during this period. But it merits only a few paragraphs in this book. Key commanders get only the barest of introductions -- their birth and WWI decorations being apparently all that is necessary to convey.

Since the author apparently interviewed veterans of the Civil War, you have to assume he has some background in the subject. But almost nothing from these interviews or any other source material seems to have made it through to the book.

If you are looking for a quick read to get a general sense of the Russian Civil War, then this book is a good fit. If you are really interested in the topic and want to get an understanding of what happened and why, you will need to look elsewhere.

Good overview

A good overview of the Russian Civil War from reasons for the war to its end.This is not an in-depth history of that period of Russian history, but a good synopsis of the period.The photos that accompanied the text were appropriate and of good quality.If this is indicative of the series that this book is part of, then the series would be worth reading for other histories of important historical periods. ... Read more

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Over the past two decades in the West there has been a substantial re-appraisal of the Stalinist period. Social historians, in particular, have focused their attention on the social dynamics of Stalinism. The contributors have analyzed specific areas of the research available on Stalin and Stalinism in the USSR debate. Their work should be placed within the context of current scholarship in the field, both in the former Soviet Union and the West. This groundbreaking text will be critical in stimulating interest in the subject and providing material for future debate.
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This 2006 book documents developments in the countries of eastern Europe, including the rise of authoritarian tendencies in Russia and Belarus, as well as the victory of the democratic 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine, and poses important questions about the origins of the East Slavic nations and the essential similarities or differences between their cultures. It traces the origins of the modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations by focusing on pre-modern forms of group identity among the Eastern Slavs. It also challenges attempts to 'nationalize' the Rus' past on behalf of existing national projects, laying the groundwork for understanding of the pre-modern history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The book covers the period from the Christianization of Kyivan Rus' in the tenth century to the reign of Peter I and his eighteenth-century successors, by which time the idea of nationalism had begun to influence the thinking of East Slavic elites. ... Read more

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R. Craig Nation provides the first post-Cold War history of the Soviets' seventy-five-year struggle to maintain an effective national security policy in a hostile world without altogether abandoning the commitment to their original internationalist ideals. ... Read more

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Very worthwhile book to read on Russian history
If you have an interest in Russian history, I highly recommend that you read this book. I found it to be very objective and it is obvious that the book is very well researched.Make sure that you look at the numerous footnotes: They are full of interesting facts. After reading this book, I feel that I have a better understanding of Russian history and even though I had read four books about the Eastern Front during WWII, I learned a lot of new information about this period. This is one book that you will need a highlighter. ... Read more

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Mikhail Bakhtin has survived both his boom and his cult, and is now a twentieth-century "classic". His intellectual debts and philosophical contexts are the material for this work. Essentially, it provides the necessary background for an entire branch of Balkan Studies that is pursuing the secular and theological sources for the powerful philosophy of the Word that was often the conduit for salvaged parts of the ambitious projects of the "German Mandarins." ... Read more

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In 2004, world attention was focused on Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution', which appeared to herald a new and promising era for independent Ukraine. Though such hopes proved over-optimistic there is no question that Ukraine has embarked on the process of nation building. But a new nation needs a national history and in this sphere, there has been sustained debate over the interpretations of the recent past. David R. Marples examines these narratives through a wide variety of books, scholarly and newspaper articles, and school textbooks, focusing on some of the most difficult events of the Stalin years in narratives from 1988 to 2005.His focus is on some of the most tragic events of the 20th century: the Famine of 1932-33, the consequences of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, integral nationalism and the war roles of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and the Ukrainian-Polish conflict of 1943-47. How has this new history been formed? To what extent have the villains of yesterday become the heroes of today? And how does the modern state view these events and to what extent to they define the national outlook of contemporary Ukraine? ... Read more

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Courageous and Innovative Study of Post-Communist Ukraine Rewriting Its Stalinist and Wartime Past--For Digestion & Deliberation
The full title of this monograph is Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine.Author David R. Marples is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a Director of the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, since 1996.

Professor Marple's numerous awards include:SSHRC Major Research Grant, 2009-2012 (History, Memory, and World War II in Belarus); University of Alberta Senate, Beyond These Halls Award, Individual-Faculty, 2009; Delta Khi Teaching Excellence Appreciation, 2009; University Cup, 2008; Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Teaching Award, 2008; The Philip Lawson Award for Excellence in Teaching, June 2007; Promoted to University Professor, September 2006; Killam Annual Professorship, 2005-06; Alberta Centennial Medal, 2005; Appointed Honorary Lieutenant Colonel, 6th Intelligence Division, Canadian Armed Forces, April 2005-2008, 2009-2012; Recipient of the 2003 J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research; SSHRC major research grant, 2003-2005; SSHRC major research grant, 1996-1999; McCalla Research Professorship, 1998-99; Faculty of Arts Research Prize for Full Professors, 1999; Shevchenko Gold Medal, Ukrainian Canadian Committee (national), 1999; and, Listed in Canadian Who's Who and The Dictionary of International Biography.

Heroes and Villains is the twelfth book that Professor Marples has authored; it was published by Central European University Press in 2007.The cover design is by Sebastian Stachowski; the cover photography is by Lubomyr Markevych.

The cover depicts a monument in Kyiv (made in 1947 by sculptor Vuchetich) to Russian General Nikolai Vatutin, a Soviet military commander during World War II who was born near Kursk, Russia in 1901 and who died near Kyiv, Ukraine in 1944.The inscription is in Ukrainian:'To General Vatutin from the Ukrainian people.'Since other Soviet heroes all have inscriptions in Russian, Bohdan Fik, in his 1997 article, posits that the reason for the Ukrainian inscription may have been that he was killed by nationalist Ukrainians.Panteleimon Vasylevs'kyi, in a related article, agrees with the reason behind the assassination of Vatutin.According to the nationalist version of events that slowly took shape after Ukraine became independent, the hero of the war became regarded as an enemy of Ukrainians.

Fik wrote in 1997 about what he perceived to be Vatutin's crimes against Ukrainian youth born from 1924 to 1926.According to Fik, Vatutin (at the time, a commander in the Red Army in charge of liberating Kyiv) dispatched 250,000 Ukrainian young men from the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Poltava regions to certain deaths in the cold waters of the Dnipro River.In the 1980s, some Moscow newspapers reported that those who could not swim were shot so that they "did not instinctively drown others when crossing the river at Kyiv."As a result, writes Fik, UPA sentenced Vatutin to death for crimes against the Ukrainian people--his cortege was attacked on the border of Rivne and Zhytomyr oblasts.Vatutin was wounded, had his leg amputated, and later died of gangrene in a hospital.

Professor Marples writes that Vatutin's case is interesting because of the juxtaposition of two heroic narratives during the war:that of the Ukrainian nationalists and that of the Soviets.Apropos is the selection of that particular photo, too, since the narratives within are complemented throughout with not only heroes and villains, but also with contradictory characters, with evincing evidence, with viewpoints at variance, and with the manifest and the masked competing--opposite sides of a spectrum presented on a platter for digestion and deliberation.

Heroes and Villains is, as Professor Serhy Yekelchyk (University of Victoria) states: "an innovative and courageous study of how postcommunist Ukraine is rewriting its Stalinist and wartime past by gradually but inconsistently substituting Soviet models with nationalist interpretations."This study is grounded in journalism and reading of Ukrainian scholarship from the last two decades and delves into issues such as the Great Famine of 1932-33 (the Holodomor), the role of the Ukrainian nationalist insurgents (OUN-UPA) during World War II, UPA's conflict with the Red Army and Soviet Security Forces, and the Ukrainian-Polish conflict.

Dr. Yekelchyk is a Ukrainian-Canadian historian of Ukrainian and Russian history.He received his B.A. from the University of Kyiv and his M.A. from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.In the early 1990s, he did research in Australia, then moved to Edmonton to complete his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta in 2000.He was a postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor at the University of Michigan the following year.Since 2001, Dr. Yekelchyk has taught at the University of Victoria at both the Department of History, and is now Chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies.Much of Dr. Yekelchyk's recent wok focuses on Stalinist culture and political life.

As Professor Marples states:"The efforts to reinterpret the events of the Second World War in order to create heroes out of 'villains' and to reexamine former heroes accordingly are incomplete.Many of the versions of the past are unclear and subjected frequently to new interpretations.Moreover, the war years are the most difficult in terms of historical memory because new narratives often coincide and clash with the results of new archival research.To date, despite a plethora of articles that seek to reshape the image of the OUN and the UPA, the impact of Soviet propaganda has still not been entirely eradicated."

In the opening of the Preface, Professor Marples states that albeit independent Ukraine emerged in August, 1991 and was ratified by a national referendum in December, 1991, the roots of the modern state are to be found under Mikhail Gorbachev in the period of Perestroika with the emergence of civil society.It was at that time that Ukraine beganthe process of building a new nation:accepting existing borders and eventually agreeing to be a non-nuclear state with its own currency and constitution.

As the title states and as Professor Marples expounds, Heroes and Villains examines the construction of a national history.Several interpretations of the past and several national histories are, arguably, existent.In Ukraine's case, the Soviet narrative is the one in place--albeit it's clearly obsolete and has been superseded.Nonetheless, that Soviet interpretation has remained influential in certain regions of Ukraine, particularly those of the south and the east--and, that Soviet interpretation continues to influence the way the residents of Ukraine perceive their state.

The focus of this volume is limited to the 20th century and what Professor Marples considers to be the most formative period: 1928-1953 (the years under the leadership of Stalin and their impact on the Ukrainian SSR [as Ukraine was then termed] and independent Ukraine).That period of Ukraine's history represents it's most tragic and one of the most profoundly influential in forming contemporary thinking about the modern nation and its relationship to the past for it's during this period that the most tragic and dramatic experiences took place:the Holodomor (the Famine of 1932-33), the impact of the Nazi-Soviet Pact wherein Ukraine's western territories were incorporated into the USSR, the Purges; the German invasion; the national insurgency in the western regions during which bitter fighting resulted as conflicts between several players occurred:"the retreating Germans, the advancing Red Army, the local Polish population, and the local Ukrainians."

Dr. Marples readily admits that a monograph concentrating on discourse and narratives about events, rather than the 'reality' of what actually occurred will face some criticism, and he address those concerns in the Preface.

The backbone to this monograph is the question:'how are these events portrayed in contemporary Ukraine?'Since the modern state seems predicated on the way it views its past, this is the raison d'être.Two common elements of Ukraine's association with her past are introduced:victimization and glorification.Professor Marples elaborates and articulates both sides, saying explicitly:'one could argue, however.'Defining moments for modern Ukraine are postulated by Professor Marples as those which may have occurred in the Stalin period, but he also states that there were other events which could be fitted into the general pattern.

In the Contents are included:a map of Ukraine; a 12-page Preface; two-pages ofAcknowledgements; Chapter 1:Independent Ukraine Reviews the Past; Chapter 2:The Famine of1932-33; Chapter 3:The OUN, 1929-43; Chapter 4:Making Heroes:the Early Days of OUN-UPA; Chapter 5:UPA's Conflict with the Red Army and Soviet Security Forces; Chapter 6:The Ukrainian-Polish Conflict; Chapter 7:Writing New History in Ukraine; Chapter 8:Assessments; Conclusion; a 22-page Bibliography (newspapers, journals, and periodicals); and, a 27-page Index.

The Acknowledgements chapter recognizes that research was funded by a major grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Special thanks are given to the librarians and the staff of the Central Scientific Library, Kharkiv V.N. Karazin National University; the Kherson Honchar Oblast Archives; and the European Reading Room at the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C.Materials and references were supplied by author and Professor Terry Martin (currently the Loeb associate professor of the social sciences at Harvard University, also affiliated with the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, his grandmother grew up in the Russian empire...lived through the revolution in 1917-19) and author and Professor Mark Von Hagen (formerly of Columbia University, he teaches Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian history at Arizona State University).

Heroes and Villains is a meticulously prepared, objective observation of Ukraine's past in which opposing sides are presented in an unbiased manner utilizing scores of sources as the heroes and villains who created a national history in Ukraine are examined and discussed.Five stars plus for riveting reportage in an impartial, courageous study, which monitors journals, monographs, and the media, and offers a survey of school textbooks from 1987-88, while conveying both sides and providing analyses.

The OUN-UPA in Contemporary Ukrainian Thought; Genocide of Poles
This detailed work uses many mostly-Ukrainian sources.

The LITOPYS UPA series is said to select documents in a favorably-tendentious manner. (p. 162). (This finds corroboration from Dr. Edward Prus, who professed familiarity with German documents, and once informed me of selectively-quoted German documents).

Many writings on UPA exploits, such as those of Lew Shankowsky, make implausible claims, and are probably pseudo-histories. (pp. 137-on). Marples, based on the paucity of evidence from German documents, doubts if the UPA ever engaged the Germans in significant combat (pp. 146-147), and concludes: "The notion, widely disseminated today, that the army turned its forces on the two totalitarian enemies simultaneously, is far-fetched. The UPA had two enemies [one being the Soviets] but the other one was the Polish population in Volhynia and Galicia...the UPA initiated an ethnic cleansing of the Polish population of Volhynia which, as we have seen, took up to 60,000 lives. It was conducted with a brutality not seen again in Europe until the civil war in former Yugoslavia in the early 1990's." (p. 310).

There do exist a few indirect German allusions to UPA attacks on Germans, which it promised to stop in return for such favors as non-interference in the killing of Poles. (p. 147). Obviously, to the extent that the UPA itself didn't collaborate with the Germans, it wasn't for lack of trying.

Among Ukrainians, serious consideration of the OUN-UPA's crimes has been hindered by their decades of misuse by the hated Soviet Communist authorities. Defenders of the OUN-UPA continue to use "Ukrainians killed Poles and vice-versa" relativizations. Nevertheless, some contemporary Ukrainian authors (Maksym Strikha, Bohdan Oleksyuk; pp. 225-228) are willing to examine the OUN-UPA genocide of Poles without denials or blame-the-victim tactics. Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Koval' points out that the OUN security force, the SB, was modeled and organized by the Gestapo, and: "Almost all of its leaders were graduates of the German military school in Zakopane, Poland, in 1939-40." (p. 149). Some Ukrainian historians question the genuineness of the OUN's post-Stalingrad (August 1943) abandonment of fascism in favor of democracy. (p. 142, pp. 195-196). Author Marples, unlike some OUN-UPA apologists, recognizes UPA-analyst Wiktor Polishchuk as a historian. (p. 131).

The magisterial work of Siemaszko and Siemaszko, on the genocide in Volyn, has been criticized by Ukrainian historian Il'yushyn, who used ad hominems, even implying that Polish authors shouldn't be believed. (pp. 212-214). The only specific error he could find was a trivial one: An entry which listed the deaths of nine Poles as the deed of the UPA when, according to NKVD archives, the latter was responsible.

There is no moral or tactical symmetry between past Polish injustices to Ukrainians and the OUN-UPA genocide, and Marples rejects any such rationalization: "One could hardly find a better example of a victimization complex being used to justify a wholesale massacre." (p. 237). AK actions followed, not preceded, the genocide. (p. 213).Marples also realizes that the Polish killings of Ukrainians in the Zamosc region, often cited as a provocation of the OUN-UPA genocide, was actually directed at collaborationist Ukrainian police and settlers taking part in Odilo Globocnik's de-Polonization project. (p. 227). Unfortunately, Marples repeats Snyder's rather silly "UPA led by immature, angry young men" exculpation (p. 150), which, taken seriously, insults ethical young men everywhere.

After the second Soviet occupation of the area, the UPA was almost eliminated by mid-1945 (p. 169) before undergoing a major revival owing to Soviet repression. According to NKVD documents, in the period 2/1944-12/1945, 50,000 UPA and allies surrendered, 103,000 were killed, and 127,000 were captured. (pp. 131-132). In 1944-1953, there were 153,000 UPA deaths and 203,000 deportations. (p. 297). Of the 31,000 Soviet-side losses, 5,750 were NKVD, soldiers, and militia; 2,590 were "Strebki'; while over 15,000 are identified only as "members of collective farms". About 790,000 Poles were expelled from the western Ukraine in 1944-1946 (p. 216), of which most came from Ternopil' (234,000) and L'viv (219,000).
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1917-23 covers the period up to Lenin's first withdrawal from the political scene in the Spring of 1923. ... Read more

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Brilliant introduction to the revolution that stopped World War One
This is the first volume in Carr's monumental, 10-volume History of Soviet Russia. This brilliant introduction looks at the main lines of future development.

Carr mentions `the bloodless victory of the revolution in October 1917'.

Lenin defined the rule for party membership: "A member of the party is one who accepts its programme, and supports it both materially and by personal participation in one of its organisations." As Plekhanov wrote sensibly, "When we are told that social-democracy ought to guarantee full freedom of opinion to its members, it is forgotten that a political party is not an academy of science. ... Freedom of opinion in the party can and should be limited precisely because a party is a freely constituted union of men of like mind. Once identity of opinion vanishes, dissolution becomes inevitable." Carr sums up, "party members retained their freedom of action until, though only until, the party decision had been taken."

Carr cites a revolutionary who said, "In the struggle which was necessary many guilty persons fell without the forms of trial, and, with them, some innocent. These I deplore as much as anybody and shall deplore some of them to the day of my death. But I deplore them as I should have done had they fallen in battle. It was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree." Who said this? Lenin? Che? No, the great American democrat Thomas Jefferson.

When the Menshevik authorities fired on a workers' gathering, in 1918, Lenin commented, "When we use shootings they turn Tolstoyans and shed crocodile tears over our harshness. They have forgotten how they helped Kerensky to drive the workers to the slaughter, keeping the secret treaties hidden in their pockets."

As Carr notes of the Social-Revolutionaries' attempted coup in May 1918, "the open revolt of the last considerable independent party had driven the regime a long step further on the road to the one-party state."

The separation of powers is only relative in class society. The idea reflected the brief period of triple power in early 17th-century Britain, when the king wielded executive power, the aristocracy ran the House of Lords and the bourgeoisie ran the House of Commons. But with the Commonwealth, the state became unitary. The legislature, the executive and the judiciary were different tools doing the same job, keeping the ruling class in power. This is true of bourgeois as of working class dictatorship. The notion of a separate and independent judiciary is a myth; the Lord Chancellor has legislative, executive and judicial powers; law is always an instrument of state power. (See J.A.G. Griffiths, The politics of the judiciary.)

Carr argues, "The very notion of a constitutional act implied in western thought a law to which the state itself was subject; this conception was incompatible with a doctrine which regarded law as a creation of the state." But this is undialectical: who makes the law? The people create both the state and the law. The people can apply to the state the laws they create.

Carr points out that the phrase `dictatorship of the proletariat' specifies which class rules; it is neutral on the form of government. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is often wielded through a representative parliament. Dictatorship, in `dictatorship of the proletariat', does not necessarily mean the rule of one or a few.

Excellent
This is the definitive source for an unbiased account of the Russian Revolution.Volume one of a three volume series, it covers the origins of the Bolshevik party to and through the taking of power in 1917.The most immediately apparent attribute to this work is its even handedness; this is the place to go if you want an account of what really happened, not the traditional right-wing or left-wing spin. ... Read more

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This book presents two extraordinary texts - The Shining of Swords by Al-Qarakhi and a new translation for a contemporary readership of Leo Tolstoy's Hadji Murat - illuminating the mountain war between the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus and the imperial Russian army from 1830 to 1859. The authors offer a complete commentary on the various intellectual and religious contexts that shaped the two texts and explain the historical significance of the Russian-Muslim confrontation. It is shown that the mountain war was a clash of two cultures, two religious outlooks and two different worlds. The book provides an important background for the ongoing contest between Russia and indigenous people for control of the Caucasus. ... Read more

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The treaty of Rapallo, concluded in 1922 between Germany and the Soviet Union, the two vanquished powers of the Great War, ranks high among the diplomatic coups de surprise of the twentieth century. Its real importance, however, lies in the repercussions of the alliance on the subsequent policies of the two victorious powers, Britain and France. This study examines the impact of Rapallo on British foreign policy between 1922 and 1934, when the German-Soviet relationship had virtually ended. The 'ghost of Rapallo' is the central theme of this story, as ever since the treaty's conclusion Rapallo has been a byword for Soviet-German secret and potentially dangerous collaboration. This book describes how the British viewed the Rapallo co-operation, how they dealt with this special relationship, and how the lingering memory of Rapallo affected British policy for decades to come. While examining a particular aspect of international relations it throws additional light on broader topics of European relations in the 1920s and early 1930s.Dr STEPHANIE SALZMANN completed her PhD, on which this book is based, at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. ... Read more

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Follows an Aspen Strategy Group conference that brought together experts on the newly independent states to consider the issue of managing US relations with the states that formerly composed the Soviet Union. These essays are designed to clarify the choices for US policy toward those states. ... Read more

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This is the evolving story of the armed forces and security organizations of Russia and her 14 former partners in the Soviet Union, with the emphasis on events and personalities, and how these impinge on the structure and politics of the individual states. It shows above all their deep influence throughout the life and politics of a vast and still developing area. Now in its second edition, the report has been extensively updated including coverage of the recent presidential election and of events, such as Chechnya. Volume one covers the Commonwealth of Independent States and, in a major section, the evolution of the Russian High Command and the Armed and Security Forces since the late 1980s. It contains, inter alia, studies and assessments of all the relative organizations, including the Security Council, Defence Ministry, General Staff, individual arms of service, support arms, academies and schools, counter-intelligence service, space forces and internal and border troops. It is comprehensively indexed, and includes both organizational tables and lists of known posts and their incumbents in the defence field.Volume two extends this to the remaining 14 republics of the former Soviet Union. Volume three lists the known biographies of some 4000 "key" Soviet officers and officials in the defence field of interest. ... Read more

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A Thoughtful Academic Look At The Bolshevik Revolution
The first couple of paragraphs have been used in other reviews of E.H. Carr's fourteen volume master work on the consolidation, isolation, stabilization and subsequent Stalinization of the Soviet Union in the early days.

"In early reviews of books on the Russian Revolution, including Leon Trotsky's seminal study of the revolutionary seizure of power itself, "The History Of The Russian Revolution", I used the following paragraph to introduce the reviews. I am reposting it here because it is appropriate to place the work of the British master bourgeois historian of the whole early period of that revolution, Edward Hallet Carr:

"This year is the 90th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution (2007, Markin). I have endlessly pointed out that the October Revolution in Russia was the definitive political event of the 20th century. The resulting change in the balance of world power with the demise of the Soviet Union in the 1990's is beginning to look like a definitive political event for the 21st century, as well. I have urged those interested in the fight for socialism to read, yes to read, about the Russian Revolution in order to learn some lessons from that experience. Leon Trotsky's three volume "History of the Russian Revolution" is obviously a good place to start for a pro-Bolshevik overview. If you are looking for a general history of the revolution or want an analysis of what the revolution meant for the fate of various nations after World War I or its affect on world geopolitics look elsewhere. E.H. Carr's "History Of The Bolshevik Revolution" offers an excellent multi-volume set that tells that story through the 1920's. Or if you want to know what the various parliamentary leaders, both bourgeois and Soviet, were thinking and doing in 1917 from a moderately leftist viewpoint read Sukhanov's "Notes on the Russian Revolution". For a more journalistic account John Reed's classic "Ten Days That Shook the World" is invaluable. Forward to new October Revolutions."

Needless to say E.H. Carr, as noted above, is in some pretty good company and properly belongs there as well. I noted that his work entails a several volume effort. The present review is of Volume One of his three volume "History Of The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923". A review of the other two volumes will follow as will other volumes on the Stalin-Trotsky struggle for the direction of the revolution and the eventual Stalinization of the Bolshevik Party, the Communist International and the Soviet state.

Naturally, Carr in his first volume gave a quick historical narrative of the pre-revolutionary struggles among the socialist and democratic factions and the immediate post- Bolshevik seizure of power period but from there spend most of that volume dealing with the questions of soviet constitutionality and the socialist implementation of the right to national self-determination for the previously subject nations (or wannabe nations) of the former Tsarist Empire. In Volume Two, under review here, he goes into great detail about the various strategies that the Bolsheviks used in order to consolidate the economic foundations of the Soviet state. As this is the first workers state to, at least by the end of the period under discussion, to retain power (unlike the previous but nevertheless still revered expereince of the Paris Commune in 1871) this is an important period to learn about.

It would seem needless to say that much of Bolshevik economic policy (and this includes financial policy as well that Carr spends some time on) in the process of taking over a broken, war-ravaged bourgeois/semi-feudal overwhelmingly agrarian state was "by the seat of the pants". Partly this was by design, as previously Marxist experience had concentrated on the struggle for power and left the outlines of the futuresocialist and then communist society to the actual conditions at the time of the seizure of power. And part this was due to the expectation that many economic problems would be solved by the successes of revolutions in the more industrially advanced West, especially Germany. This concept, along with some serious idealistic communist-derived notions abut running a broken state (made worst, shortly after the seizure of power, by all manner of civil strife and civil war), colored more than its fair share in the workings of the upper councils of the Soviet financial and economic apparatus.

The central value of this volume is in Carr's breakdown of the three phases of the early days of the revolution: the immediate post-seizure period when the agrarian question- "land to the tiller"- drove much of economic policy in order to feed the cities, keep industry alive and satisfy that great land hunger of the peasants/soldiers that the Bolsheviks were able to retain the support of against the other political parties contending for poor and middle peasant support; the period of "war communism" driven by the necessities of keeping state power against white counter-revolution and to feed the armies: and, the rudiments of the New Economic Policy (NEP) which followed in the aftermath of victory and was recognized as a necessary "retreat" back to some capitalist activity in order to jump start the economy. Carr fully addresses the various controversies over policy both within the increasingly isolated but still politically robust Bolshevik Party and the various classes and part of classes in society.His strongest presentation is the period of the "retreat" to the NEP where he very carefully puts forth the compelling case for that policy.

Along the way we are alsotreated to other important controversies like the question of workers control of individual factories; the necessary use of bourgeois economic specialists in those factories in the transition period; the role of the state in the distribution process; the role of trade unions in a workers state; the contrast between the necessity of giving land to the tiller and the socialist perspective of the collectivization of land; the role of money, concessions and the state monopoly on foreign trade; and, many other questionsthat not only concerned the besieged Bolshevik then but will confront a future workers state.I would only add here what I have written in previous reviews. Carr, more than most historians has attempted to understand what the Bolsheviks were trying to do without letting his own British foreign service background (a plus here for analytical purposes) color his narrative too much. That should be considered high praise coming from this quarter.In any case I have not done justice to Carr's extensive gathering of materials, his copious use of sources, his plentiful footnotes and bibliography so you are just going to have to read this book (and the other volumes as well).





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This book details Operation Barbarossa and the four years of campaigning that followed it. Hitler expected to conquer Russia in just four months, but the Russians fought back and finally emerged from the war as victor, and as acommunist superpower to be reckoned with. ... Read more

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A good introduction
Since short overviews of the Russo-German front in WWII are hard to come by, I would recommend the book just on the basis of slotting into thatgap.The author makes use of archival information released since the fall of the Soviet Union, so is more up to date than many books on the Russian front.Many casualty figures gleaned from this new information are presented--though the author dwells on them perhaps a little too much for my taste.The maps in the book are essentially adequate, but I would have liked a specific map of the front in June 44, since frequent mention is made in the text of the "balcony" salient held by Army Group Center at the time--without a specific map it is hard to visualize what is meant by the "balcony", though of course those familiar with the war will know.The Stalingrad campaign is actually the portion of the war covered at most length, even moreso than the initial invasion.There are many photos, some in color.One color photo shows some German soldiers on the open steppe with a blue sky in the background--looking at it, I almost felt I was there myself in 1941 plunging into the unknown depths of Russia.My bottom line is, though probably not the best short introductory book possible on the subject, this book is certainly worth the price tag. ... Read more