The Development Century
The Development Century

Author: Stephen J. Macekura

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-06

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 1316515885

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Offers cutting-edge perspectives on how international development has shaped the global history of the modern world.

The Russian Revolution and Stalinism
The Russian Revolution and Stalinism

Author: Graeme Gill

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-04-26

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1000375994

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This book focuses upon significant aspects of Stalinism as a system in the USSR. It sheds new light on established questions and addresses issues that have never before been raised in the study of Stalinism. Stalinism constitutes one of the most striking and contentious phenomena of the twentieth century. It not only transformed the Soviet Union into a major military-industrial power, but through both the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War, and its effect on the political Left throughout much of the world, it also transformed much of that world. This collection of papers by an international cast of authors investigates a variety of major aspects of Stalinism. Significant new questions – like the role of private enterprise and violence in state-making – as well as some of the more established questions – like the number of Soviet citizens who died in the Second World War, whether agricultural collectivisation was genocidal, nationality policy, the politics of executive power, and the Leningrad affair – are addressed here in innovative and stimulating ways. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.

The Institutional Foundations of Ukrainian Democracy
The Institutional Foundations of Ukrainian Democracy

Author: Nataliya Kibita

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-08-27

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0192654136

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Ukraine and Russia are today at opposite points of the political spectrum: Despite 300 years of contact with Russian authoritarian politics, Ukraine's post-independence period has been characterised by pluralism. To explain why and how Ukraine's and Russia's paths diverged, this monograph investigates the century-long and Soviet origins of regionalism in Ukraine, which the author argues are at the foundation of the modern Ukrainian institutional system. Drawing on unused archival material, the book re-examines the relationship between Moscow, Kyiv, and the Ukrainian regions in the period from spring 1917 to summer 1994 to demonstrate how interlinked political and economic incentives and constraints determined the opportunities and institutional interests of both the Ukrainian leadership and those of the Ukrainian regions, and how this institutional framework affected in turn the dynamic of the relationship between the central leadership in Moscow, the Ukrainian leadership, and the regions. The result - weak central authority and pronounced regionalism - was Ukraine's Soviet legacy, and the established power of regional clans made (post-Soviet) Ukrainian politics resistant to Russian?style authoritarianism, even when the Soviet centralised party-state system collapsed. This innovative and wide-ranging approach to the history of economic management highlights the importance of considering long-term historical trends for understanding both the complicated nature of Soviet institutions and their varied and contested legacies across post-Soviet space.

Fashion Meets Socialism
Fashion Meets Socialism

Author: Jukka Gronow

Publisher: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura

Published: 2015-08-19

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9522227528

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This book presents, above all, a study of the establishment and development of the Soviet organization and system of fashion industry and design as it gradually evolved in the years after the Second World War in the Soviet Union, which was, in the understanding of its leaders, reaching the mature or last stage of socialism when the country was firmly set on the straight trajectory to its final goal, Communism. What was typical of this complex and extensive system of fashion was that it was always loyally subservient to the principles of the planned socialist economy. This did not by any means indicate that everything the designers and other fashion professionals did was dictated entirely from above by the central planning agencies. Neither did it mean that their professional judgment would have been only secondary to ideological and political standards set by the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, as our study shows, the Soviet fashion professionals had a lot of autonomy. They were eager and willing to exercise their own judgment in matters of taste and to set the agenda of beauty and style for Soviet citizens. The present book is the first comprehensive and systematic history of the development of fashion and fashion institutions in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Our study makes use of rich empirical and historical material that has been made available for the first time for scientific analysis and discussion. The main sources for our study came from the state, party and departmental archives of the former Soviet Union. We also make extensive use of oral history and the writings published in Soviet popular and professional press.