Tag Archives: Joseph Stalin

The Soviet Union Won the Second World War

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 31 May 2024

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The Petrov Affair: Soviet Spies and Australian Reaction in the Early Cold War

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 8 April 2024

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Film Review: Raid on Entebbe (1977)

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 24 February 2024

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Tucker Carlson’s Interview with Vladimir Putin Didn’t Go Quite As He Planned

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 10 February 2024

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The 1954 Coup in Guatemala: A More Interesting Story Than American “Economic Imperialism”

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 30 November 2023

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America Sold Out Taiwan Before Conceding to Red China

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 1 October 2023

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Remembering Korea: The First “Hot War” of the Cold War

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 September 2023

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A Note on Zhdanovism

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 August 2023

Andrey Zhdanov was one of the key figures in the Soviet Great Terror (Yezhovshchina) and, indeed, during Stalin’s reign more generally until his death in 1948. Zhdanov is perhaps best remembered for the strictures he imposed on Soviet cultural life in 1946, known as Zhdanovism (or Zhdanovshchina).

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NKVD Order No. 00447 (English Translation)

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 August 2023

The head of the Soviet NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, issued Prikaz (Order) Number 00447 on 30 July 1937, a secret instruction soon signed-off by Joseph Stalin, which vastly expanded the scope and scale of the Great Terror within the Soviet Union. The 2008 book, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939, by J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, as translated by Benjamin Sher, contains nearly the full text of the order (pp. 473-80), which is reproduced below.

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Did Russia Ever Start a Democratic Transition? Can It?

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 July 2023

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