Soviet Science

Coming of age in America in the 1970s and 80s, Joe Weisberg was a Cold Warrior. After briefly studying Russian in Leningrad, he joined the CIA in 1990 - just in time to watch the Soviet Union collapse. But less than a decade after the first Cold War ended, a new one broke out. Russia changed in many of the ways that America hoped it might - more capitalist, more religious, more open to Western ideas. But US sanctions have crippled Russia's economy; and Russia's interventions have exacerbated political problems in America.

In Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia, Garrels crafts an intimate portrait of the nation's heartland. We meet ostentatious mafiosos, upwardly mobile professionals, impassioned activists, scheming taxi drivers with dark secrets, and beleaguered steel workers. We discover surprising subcultures, like the LGBT residents of Chelyablinsk who bravely endure an upsurge in homophobia fueled by Putin's rhetoric of Russian "moral superiority" yet still nurture a vibrant if clandestine community of their own.

What do ordinary Russians think of Putin? Who are his supporters? And why might their support now be faltering? Alive with the voices and experiences of ordinary Russians and elites alike, Sam Greene and Graeme Robertson craft a compellingly original account of contemporary Russian politics.

This audiobook is the first to offer a concise, accessible overview of the evolution of the Soviet Union as a multiethnic empire. It reflects on how the Soviet Union was home to many ethnic minorities, and how their fates, and that of the USSR itself, were bound to the question of how the Soviet state responded variously throughout its existence to the fundamental question of ethnic difference across its vast and diverse territory. The audiobook then examines how the Soviet collapse in 1991 fractured the Union along markedly national lines.

When the Communist Party Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR halted mass operations in repression in November 1938, large numbers of mainly Communist purge victims whose cases remained incomplete were released. At the same time, hundreds of NKVD operatives who had carried out the Great Terror were scapegoated and arrested. Drawing on materials from the largely closed archives of the Soviet security police, this collection of essays by an international team of researchers illuminates the previously opaque world of the NKVD perpetrator.

The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking “bulldozer,” wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt, carried out by hardline communists, shook Gorbachev’s authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin.

In this timely and incisive book, Sergei Medvedev argues that Russia's war in Ukraine was not merely a whim of Putin's obsession: rather, it was the result of two decades of authoritarian degradation and post-imperial ressentiment, a culmination of Putin's regime and of Russia's entire imperial history.

This DIA report examines a resurgent Russia’s military power to foster a deeper understanding of its core capabilities, goals, and aspirations in the 21st century. The resurgence of Russia on the world stage - the Crimean Peninsula, destabilizing Eastern Ukraine, intervening on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and shaping the information environment to suit its interests - poses a major challenge to the United States. Moscow will continue to aggressively pursue its foreign policy and security objectives by employing the full spectrum of the state’s capabilities.

Lending intimate historical detail and thrilling historical narrative, swinging from Moscow to Paris to Mexico, and taking in a cast of morally conflicted Russian spies, fanatical Mexican painters, and innocent American idealists, The Death of Trotsky delves into the lives of two fascinating, complex men locked in a life-or-death struggle that will bend the course of history.

July 1967: At the Moscow Air Show, the Soviets unveiled six new state-of-the-art aircraft. From among this lineup of new fighters and interceptors stood the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 - purportedly capable of outrunning and outmaneuvering any aircraft in NATO’s inventory. Yet even before its public appearance in Moscow, the MiG-25 had been a grave concern for Western analysts.

The Cold War is usually thought of in terms of fear, potential nuclear war, and espionage. While these were elements of the years between the end of World War II and the 1990s, the competition between the US and the USSR had some real benefits. Perhaps, the best and most impressive accomplishments during this time resulted from the Space Race.

L’interferenza nelle elezioni americane, il sostegno alle forze populiste in Italia e in tutta Europa, la guerra in Ucraina. Negli ultimi anni, la Russia di Vladimir Putin ha condotto una poderosa campagna per espandere la sua influenza e indebolire le istituzioni occidentali. Come è potuto accadere? E, soprattutto, chi si nasconde dietro questo piano ambizioso? Catherine Belton, giornalista investigativa già corrispondente da Mosca, racconta la storia segreta dell’ascesa al potere di Vladimir Putin e del ristretto gruppo di ex agenti del KGB che lo circonda.

Blending the journalistic rigor of Masha Gessen with the call to action of We Should All Be Feminists, a startling denunciation of Vladimir Putin’s war on women that reveals how modern Russia’s history of weaponizing sexual violence against women is part of the Russian leader’s strategy to retain political influence and domination.

Der belarussische Dirigent Vitali Alekseenok, der mittlerweile in Deutschland lebt, schreibt auf berührende wie erhellende Weise über den Freiheitskampf in seiner alten Heimat. Nicht zuletzt aus Frust über die politischen Verhältnisse hatte er diese vor mehreren Jahren verlassen. Als Musiker hat er ein neues Zuhause in Deutschland gefunden, doch Belarus hat ihn nie wirklich losgelassen. Als er im Sommer nach Minsk zur Wahl fährt, erlebt er eine Protestbewegung, die vor wenigen Jahren noch undenkbar gewesen wäre: Was ist mit den Menschen in seiner Heimat geschehen?

Richard Wurmbrand spent three years in solitary confinement during his 14-year imprisonment in Communist Romania. In The Answer to the Atheist's Handbook, conceived during his solitary confinement, Wurmbrand challenges the arguments for atheism as proposed by the Soviet Academy of Science's Atheist's Handbook. Throughout the Communist world, the teachings of the Atheist's Handbook held supreme authority. But Wurmbrand demonstrates that the atheistic worldview leaves more questions unanswered than it settles.

Was der Westen nicht wissen wollte: die brisante Analyse des "Außenministers der russischen Opposition". Unter Putin hat sich Russland zu einer imperialistischen Diktatur verwandelt, die die Werte und das Lebensmodell des Westens bedroht. Wie das passiert ist und warum Europa es bis zuletzt ignoriert hat - das analysiert Leonid Wolkow, ein enger Vertrauter des inhaftierten Dissidenten Alexei Nawalny. Anhand persönlicher Erfahrungen im Kampf gegen Korruption und Willkürherrschaft legt er die brutale imperialistische Dynamik in Putins Reich offen und zeigt, was man in Deutschland und Europa nicht wahrhaben wollte.

Seit Jahren nehmen Zensur und Repression in Russland zu. Nur wenige wissen, wie es um die russische Gesellschaft und ihre Führung wirklich bestellt ist. Informationen darüber werden systematisch unterbunden. Wie kaum jemand sonst verfügt die Osteuropa-Expertin des Deutschlandfunks über langjährige Einblicke in den von Putin diktatorisch geführten Staat. Schwindet die Macht des Kremlchefs? Wer sind die neuen politischen, militärischen und ökonomischen Akteure? Was halten Russinnen und Russen von ihrem Land? Gibt es Grund zur Hoffnung, oder treibt die Nation in den Abgrund?

Династия Романовых правила Россией более 300 лет. О последних представителях царствующей семьи говорят по-разному. Кто-то их любит и почитает, а кто-то винит во всех трагедиях, произошедших с Россией в начале XX века, возлагая на них ответственность за гибель империи. Однако и те, и другие, говоря о последних Романовых, в первую очередь имеют в виду Николая II и Александру Федоровну. А ведь венценосная пара - лишь верхушка правящей династии.

Initially a victory line where Allies met at the end of WWII, the Iron Curtain quickly became the front of a new kind of war. But what has the Iron Curtain left in its wake? Timothy Phillips travels its full 3,000-mile route to craft this new people's history of a defining twentieth-century conflict. Here, in the borderlands where a powerful clash of civilizations took form in concrete and barbed wire, he uncovers the remarkable stories of everyday people forever imprinted by life in the Curtain's shadow.

Kaum einer kennt Russland besser als Michael Thumann, der seit über 25 Jahren aus Osteuropa für die ZEIT berichtet. Er legt nun ein atemberaubend geschriebenes Buch vor, das Russlands Absturz in eine zunehmend totalitäre Diktatur und den Weg in Putins imperialistischen Krieg aus nächster Nähe nachzeichnet. Das Motiv des Diktators und seiner Getreuen: Revanche zu nehmen für die demokratische Öffnung nach 1991 und die vermeintliche Demütigung durch den Westen. Putins Herrschaft radikalisiert sich weiter. Es ist das bedrohlichste Regime der Welt.