{"title":"Soviet Era","description":"\u003cp\u003eSoviet Era books focus on the history of Russia during the period of Soviet governance, spanning roughly from the Bolshevik Revolution through the dissolution of the USSR. This subject area covers political developments, economic transformations, cultural shifts, and social changes that defined Soviet rule. Readers encounter analysis of key policies, influential leaders, daily life under communism, and the broader impact of Soviet ideology.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo refine your exploration, consider whether you are interested in political history, economic systems, cultural dynamics, or social movements within the Soviet Era. If your interest extends beyond this period, the parent Russia category offers broader historical topics, while this subject keeps the lens tightly on the unique complexities of Soviet times.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"midwives-revolution-female-bolsheviks-women-workers-inb-1917-9781857286243-new","title":"Midwives of the Revolution: Female Bolsheviks and Women Workers Inb 1917.","description":"The Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and the ensuing communist regime have often been portrayed as a man's revolution, with women as bystanders or even victims. Midwives of the Revolution examines the powerful contribution made by women to the overthrow of tsarism in 1917 and their importance in the formative years of communism in Russia. Focusing on the masses as well as the high-ranking intelligentsia, Midwives of the Revolution is the first sustained analysis of female involvement in the revolutionary era of Russian history. The authors investigate the role of Bolshevik women and the various forms their participation took. Drawing on the experiences of representative individuals, the authors discuss the important relationship between Bolshevik women and the workers in the turbulent months of 1917. The authors demonstrate that women were an integral part of the revolutionary process and challenge assumptions that they served merely to ignite an essentially masculine revolt. By placing women center stage, without exaggerating their roles, this study enriches our understanding of a momentous event in twentieth-century history.","brand":"ROUTLEDGE","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51545570509090,"sku":"9781857286243-new","price":34.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9781857286243.jpg?v=1776424271"},{"product_id":"spy-archive-how-one-man-tried-kill-kgb-9798897100262-new","title":"The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe story of how one man--a librarian for the KGB--became a traitor to the intelligence agency, stealing the most prized Soviet-era archives and smuggling them to the West. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret, heavily guarded archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover and deep amongst the files. The work goes on for decades but remains so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no one even notices you are gone. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Spy in the Archive\u003c\/i\u003e tells the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin--an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty archives--ended up changing the world. As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy; a traitor to his country but a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Historian and journalist Gordon Corera tells of the operation to extract this prized asset from Russia for the first time. It is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, with vivid flashbacks to Mitrokhin's earlier time as a KGB idealist prepared to do what it took to serve the Soviet Union and his growing realisation that the communist state was imprisoning its own people. It is the story of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union, to raise a family there, and then of one man's journey from the heart of the Soviet state to disillusion, betrayal, and defection. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At its heart is Mitrokhin's determination to take on the most powerful institution in the world by revealing its darkest secrets. This is narrative nonfiction at its absolute best.","brand":"PEGASUS BOOKS","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51573407973666,"sku":"9798897100262-new","price":23.86,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9798897100262.jpg?v=1777337651"},{"product_id":"200-years-together-i-jews-before-revolution-9781805401889-new","title":"200 Years Together I: The Jews Before the Revolution","description":"The history of the 'Jewish Problem' in Russia (and Russia only?) is above all else exceptionally rich. Talking about it means listening to new voices and passing them on to the reader. (In this book, the Jewish voices will be heard more often than those of the Russians.)But the whirlwinds of the social climate force us towards the razor's edge. You can feel the weight of both sides, all the grievances and accusations, plausible as well as improbably, which grow as they go. \u003cbr\u003eThe purpose that guides me throughout this work on the life common the Russians and the Jews consists of looking for all the points necessary for a mutual understanding, all the possible voices which, once we get rid of the bitterness of the past, can lead us towards the future. \u003cbr\u003eLike all other people, like all of us, the Jewish people is at the same time an active and passive element of History; more than once they have accomplished, be it unconsciously, important works that History has offered them. The 'Jewish Problem' has been observed from diverse angles, but always with passion and often in self-delusion. Yet the events which have affected this or that people in the course of History have not always, far from, been determined by this one people, but by all those who surrounded it. \u003cbr\u003eAn attitude that is too passionately for one party or the other is humiliating to them. Nevertheless, there cannot be problems that man can't approach with reason. Speaking openly, amply, is more honest, and, in our case precise, speaking about it is essential. Alas, mutual wounds have piled up in popular memory. But if we look at the past, when will the memory heal? As long as popular opinion does not find a pen to shed light thereupon, it will stay a vague rumour, worse: menacing. \u003cbr\u003eWe cannot cut ourselves off from the past centuries permanently. Our world has shrunk, and, whatever are the dividing lines, we find ourselves neighbours again. For many years I have delayed writing this book; I would've been glad not to take this burden upon me, but the delays of my life have neared exhaustion, and here I am. \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"OMNIA VERITAS LTD","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51574457729314,"sku":"9781805401889-new","price":30.09,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9781805401889.jpg?v=1777343065"},{"product_id":"former-people-9781250037794-new","title":"Former People","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe riveting and harrowing story of the Russian nobility caught in the upheaval of the Revolution \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize\u003cbr\u003eNamed a Best Book of the Year by \u003ci\u003eThe Kansas City Star\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSalon\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEpic in scope, precise in detail, and heartbreaking in its human drama, \u003ci\u003eFormer People\u003c\/i\u003e is the first book to recount the history of the aristocracy caught up in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of Stalin's Russia. It is the story of how a centuries-old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the tsar and empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia. Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families--the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns--it reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, \u003ci\u003eFormer People\u003c\/i\u003e is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia's most powerful aristocratic families and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ST MARTINS PR 3PL","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":51590178865442,"sku":"9781250037794-new","price":27.61,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9781250037794.jpg?v=1777522814"},{"product_id":"exit-stalin-soviet-union-as-civilization-1953-1991-9781631498299-new","title":"Exit Stalin: The Soviet Union as a Civilization, 1953-1991","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo those of us in the West, the Soviet Union is synonymous with Stalinism. The common view of the USSR is of a brutal regime that squelched dissent and oversaw a drab, terrified society. Yet as Cambridge historian Mark B. Smith demonstrates in \u003cem\u003eExit Stalin\u003c\/em\u003e, after the death of the murderous Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union was at a crossroads. Would it break from the dictator's reign or continue his campaign of violence and fear?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe answer was both. The USSR remained harsh and authoritarian, yet it also earnestly sought to fulfill the Russian Revolution's promise of an egalitarian, progressive future. Smith shows how vacation resorts, Pioneer camps, and new opportunities for private life coexisted with corruption scandals, KGB surveillance, and censorship. Re-creating the everyday rhythms of the country, he takes us into the Soviet Union's culture, including TV shows and films that were little-known in the West. Ordinary citizens navigated the contradictions of existence under Khrushchev and his successors, building lives within a system they often accepted, believed in, or could not imagine abandoning. The result was the emergence of a distinctive and functioning civilization, a far cry from the vicious dictatorship of the West's imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA brilliantly original narrative of ordinary life in the late Soviet Union, \u003cem\u003eExit Stalin\u003c\/em\u003e also presents a new account of its end, showing how a series of unexpected decisions unraveled the entire project. Ultimately, Smith reveals that the shortages, coercion, and incompetence that underlaid the USSR--and that by the late 1980s would doom it--have to be understood alongside the acceptance it always had from most of its citizens. And this reality, in turn, is crucial for understanding Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union in the twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W W NORTON \u0026 CO","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":52574094065954,"sku":"9781631498299-new","price":36.27,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0893\/4755\/5618\/files\/9781631498299.jpg?v=1789691789"},{"product_id":"assassination-leon-trotsky-espionage-scandal-crime-century-9781335000668-new","title":"The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: Espionage, Scandal, and the Crime of the Century","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eFrom two of the world's leading intelligence and espionage historians comes the definitive--and most unsettling--account of the assassination of Leon Trotsky.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003efeatures almost 100 images, with dozens of archival photographs\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eincludes graphics outlining Trotsky's compound as well as the multiple attempts on his life\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ean exploration of every person involved, from a bodyguard with a muddled allegiance to Frida Kahlo herself\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ean exclusive hands-on recounting of how the infamous ice pick was discovered and retrieved\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExiled from the Soviet Union and living under constant threat, Leon Trotsky believed that by 1937 he had found sanctuary in Mexico City. 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Thus, it stepped back to the very first incorporation of the Jews into the Russian Empire in 1772. On the other hand, the revolution of 1917 provided a powerful impetus to Russian Jewry, so the essay naturally stretched into the post-revolutionary period. Thus, the title Two Hundred Years Together was born. \u003cbr\u003eHowever, it took time for me to realize the importance of that distinct historical boundary drawn by mass emigration of the Jews from the Soviet Union that had begun in the 1970s (exactly 200 years after the Jews appeared in Russia) and which had become unrestricted by 1987. This boundary had been abolished, so that for the first time, the non-voluntary status of the Russian Jews no longer a fact: they ought not to live here anymore; Israel waits for them; all countries of the world are open to them. This clear boundary changed my intention to keep the narrative up to the mid-1990s, because the message of the book was already played out: the uniqueness of Russian-Jewish entwinement disappeared at the moment of the new Exodus. \u003cbr\u003eNow, a totally new period in the history of the by-now-free Russian Jewry and its relations with the new Russia began. This period started with swift and essential changes, but it is still too early to predict its long-term outcomes and judge whether its peculiar Russian-Jewish character will persevere or it will be supplanted with the universal laws of the Jewish Diaspora. 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