This study focuses on a description of demographic trends in the Soviet Union since 1917: changes in the labor force, economic problems, social conditions, rapid urbanization, changes in education and the eudcational level of Soviet citizens. Data available are from secondary sources. This research concludes that the Soviet Union has changed from a rural agricultural to a major industrial power. The population of the Soviet Union has increased since 1917. The rapid change created shortages in housing that still have not been solved. The shortages in consumer goods and clothing are a result of insufficient planning by Soviet leaders. The political implications of all the changes in Sovet lifestyles have been fairly limited. Unless the government solves the problems of availability of housing, food, clothing, and consumer goods, political unrest is the likely outcome.

This thesis explores the psychological trauma of the survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986. I argue for the emergence from the disaster of three Chernobyl traumas, each of which will be analysed individually – one per chapter. In reading these three traumas of Chernobyl, the thesis draws upon and situates itself at the interface between two primary theoretical perspectives: Freudian psychoanalysis and the deconstructive approach of Jacques Derrida. The first Chernobyl trauma is engendered by the panicked local response to the consequences of the explosion at Chernobyl Reactor Four by the power plant’s staff, the fire fighters whose job it was to extinguish the initial blaze caused by the blast, the inhabitants of nearby towns and villages, and the soldiers involved in the region’s evacuation and radiation decontamination. Most of these people died from radiation poisoning in the days, weeks, months or years after the disaster’s occurrence. The first chapter explores the usefulness and limits of Freudian psychoanalytic readings of local survivors’ testimonies of the disaster, examining in relation to the Chernobyl event Freud’s practice of locating the authentic primal scene or originary traumatic witnessing experience in his subjects’ pasts, as exemplified by his Wolf Man analysis, detailed in his psychoanalytic study ‘On the History of an Infantile Neurosis’ (1918). The testimonies read through this Freudian psychoanalytic lens are constituted by Igor Kostin’s personal account of the disaster’s aftermath, detailed in his book Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter (2006), and by Svetlana Alexievich’s interviews with Chernobyl disaster survivors in her book Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (2006). The second chapter argues that Freudian psychoanalysis only provides a provisional, ultimately fictional origin of Chernobyl trauma. Situating itself in relation to trauma studies, this thesis, progressing from its first to its second chapter, charts the geographical and temporal shift between these first and second traumas, from trauma-as-sudden-event to trauma-as-gradual-process. In the weeks following the initial Chernobyl explosion, which released into the atmosphere a radioactive cloud that blew in a north-westerly direction across Northern Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden, symptoms of radiation poisoning slowly emerged in the populations of the abovementioned countries. To analyse the psychological impact of confronting this gradual, international unfolding of trauma – the second trauma of Chernobyl – the second chapter of this thesis explores the critique of the global attempt to archivise, elegise and ultimately understand the Chernobyl disaster in Mario Petrucci’s elegies, compiled in his poetry collection Heavy Water: A Poem for Chernobyl (2006), the horror film Chernobyl Diaries (2012, dir. Bradley Parker), and Adam Roberts’ Science Fiction novel, Yellow Blue Tibia (2009). Analysing the deconstructive approach of Jacques Derrida in these texts – his notions of archive fever, impossible mourning and ethical mourning – this chapter argues that the attempt to interiorise, memorialise and mourn the survivors of the Chernobyl disaster is narcissistic, hubristic and violent in the extreme. It then proposes that Derrida’s notion of ethical mourning, outlined most clearly in his lecture ‘Mnemosyne’ (1984), enables us to situate our emotional sympathy for survivors – who, following Derrida’s lecture, are maintained as permanently exterior and inaccessible to us – in our very inability or failure to comprehend or locate the origin of their Chernobyl traumas. The third and final chapter analyses the third trauma of Chernobyl: the psychological and physiological effects of the disaster on second-generation inhabitants living near the Exclusion Zone erected around the evacuated, cordoned-off and still-radioactive Chernobyl region. These second-generation experiences of living near a sealed-away source of intense radiation are reconstructed in literature and videogaming: in Darragh McKeon’s novel All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (2014), Hamid Ismailov’s novel The Dead Lake (2014) and the videogame S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007), developed by the company GSC Game World. The analysis of these texts is informed by Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s psychoanalytic theory of the intergenerational phantom: the muteness of a generation’s history which returns to haunt the succeeding generations. This chapter will explore the psychological effects upon second-generation Chernobyl survivors, which result from these survivors’ incorporation or unconscious interiorisation of their parents’ psychologically repressed traumatic Chernobyl experiences, by analysing reconstructions of this process in the abovementioned texts. These parental experiences, echoing the Exclusion Zone as a denied physical space, have been interred in inaccessible psychic crypts. By way of conclusion, the thesis then offers an alternative theory of reading survivors’ Chernobyl trauma. Survivors’ restaging of their Chernobyl witnessing experiences as jokes enables them to cathartically, temporarily abreact their trauma through the laughter that these jokes engender.

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) remains one of the most controversial figures in twentieth century history. There is no consensus about his character or historical achievements-as either thinker or actor. To Winston Churchill, writing in the 1930s, Trotsky was a 'cancer bacillus'. The Stalinist anathema placed on him is well-known. For Tony Cliff, a contemporary socialist writer, on the other hand, Trotsky was a 'man of genius'. Whatever assessment may be made about Trotsky, one of his lesser biographers and critics makes the point fairly enough that 'compared to his famous colleagues, Lenin and Stalin, Trotsky has been sorely neglected by historians and other scholars'. The upheaval in the USSR and its successor state system, and in Eastern Europe and China, since the mid-1980s, when CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev launched his programme of radical change under the sobriquets 'glasnost' and 'perestroika', has brought into the foreground once again the historical issues concerning the origins, character and consequences of the Stalinist system of 'totalitarian' political rule with its attendant hyper-centralised command economy. The whole experience of Stalinism has been, and no doubt will continue to be, subjected to intensive historical reconsideration as Russian scholars in particular seek to come to terms with the October Revolution and its legacy within the context of their national past. The publication of some of Trotsky's writings in Russian language editions and their circulation within the territories of the Russian Federation makes available an assessment and analysis of the Stalinist experience previously denied to the Russian reader. It is against this background that the author has written an historical review of Trotsky's major writings on the question of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. The approach adopted utilizes a combination of chronological exposition and analytical commentary, in the belief that both of these aspects of historical writing are necessary and valid. As Arthur Marwick has commented: '... if history without analysis is meaningless, without chronology it does not exist'. Marxist ideas have had a wide currency in the century and the contribution to the body of Marxist doctrine and theory by Leon Trotsky deserves closer attention. This study of Trotsky's attempt to make a Marxist analysis and assessment of the experience of Stalinism in the Soviet Union has been carried through in the belief that the examination of the critical and minority current within the broader mainstream of the international socialist movement has much to offer in contributing to our knowledge and understanding of the one of the most significant developments in twentieth century political history. A critical and historical assessment of Trotsky's analysis of Stalinism makes a contribution both to our appreciation of Trotsky's ideas and to our understanding of a phenomenon which looms large in any discussion of the broader contours of twentieth century history.

Education systems are influenced by belief systems. Russia has throughout its history been guided by two rigid dogmatic belief systems: • the Russian Orthodox Church • the Communist ideology While other influences also prevailed, notably autocracy, humanism and nationalism, these were secondary to the dogma of the Church in the centuries preceding the Revolution in 1917. Autocracy could be regarded as an outflow of the dogma of the Church, which had established its links with the ruling elite early in its history, whereas the others originated from other sources and for other reasons. This study in the history and development of the Russian education system traces its origins back into the inchoate beginnings of the Russian nation and attempts to show how: • the Zeitgeist of a particular era led to the development of a particular dogmatic belief system • the Zeitgeist and the dogmatic beliefs influenced the figures who determined educational policies and reforms / Onderwysstelsels word be"invloed deur 'n bepaalde denksisteem. So byvoorbeeld is Rusland deur die geskiedenis deur rigiede dogmatiese denksisteme gelei. Gelyklopend daarmee was daar ook ander denksisteme wat 'n invloed op die Russiese denke uitgeoefen het. lnvloede soos outokrasie, humanisme en nasionalisme was egter sekonder tot die dogmatiese invloede van die Kerk in die eeue voor die Rewolusie van 1917. Outokrasie kan weliswaar as 'n uitvloeisel van die dogma van die Kerk , wat vroeg in die Russiese geskiedenis 'n verbintenis met die regerende elite gesmee het, beskou word. Die onderhawige studie oor die ontwikkeling en verloop van die Russiese opvoedstelsel vind sy oorsprong in die beginjare van die Russiese volk en poog om aan te toon hoe: • die Zeitgeist van 'n bepaalde era tot bepaalde dogmatiese denksisteme gelei het • die Zeitgeist en dogmatiese denksisteme 'n invloed op die opvoedingsdenke en onderwyshervormings van bepaalde historiese figure in die Russiese verlede uitgeoefen het. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (History of Education)

Text in German / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th (Missiology)

In both western and Russian historiography the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 enjoys, at best, only a passing reference in any narrative of the period and is poorly integrated into existing scholarly analyses of the Soviet regime under Stalin. It is my contention that this conflict offers an invaluable opportunity to test for continuity and change in the form and function of the Stalinist system. Between the disastrous efforts of its forces and the condemnation of the international community, the Kremlin was confronted with the serious challenge of how to portray the events of the war in the media, while managing domestic and international opinion over the course of the fighting. This thesis examines the extent to which the Soviet regime under Stalin had the institutions and agents in place at the close of the 1930s to cope with the crisis of war in Finland; to be in command of the military campaign, while simultaneously controlling the direction of the official narrative about the fighting; and to censor conflicting interpretations, experiences and information channels, which might expose the Red Army's woeful performance on Finnish territory. This mobilisation of press, propaganda and censorship organs in the face of widespread international condemnation and domestic disquiet constituted a significant challenge for a regime still dealing with the sudden reorientation of the Communist International, required after the Soviet Union's conclusion of a non-aggression treat with Nazi Germany in August 1939. An international perspective is central to this thesis, with a view towards assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the public face and private practice of Soviet information controls.

On August 19, 1991, government hard-liners overthrew the Soviet Union for a period of 72 hours. Boris Yeltsin, the President of Russia, staged a protest on the steps of the Russian White House, where he gave speeches against the coup d'etat, releasing these speeches for dissemination between the hard-liners and the masses gathered to support Yeltsin. Yeltsin 's protest created a constituted identity amongst the people gathered who became part of the protest against the government. This created a confrontation between the two publics, where the state message developed a narrative involving a glorified past to which they wished to return, while the counter-public created a counter-narrative that argued a future of continued reforms would benefit the people of Russia and the Soviet Union. In the end, the counter-narrative achieved stronger approval from the masses, essentially replacing the state's narrative with its own. As a result, the hard-liners lost their grab for power, and Yeltsin emerged the winner in an ideological struggle for the future of the Russia and the Soviet Union.

This dissertation of limited scope traces the attempts by Gorbachev (1985-1991) to reform an economic, political and social system which was in a state of terminal decline. The origins of its demise, it is argued, lay in the ossified command economy inherited from Stalin. The enormous damage inflicted on Soviet agriculture during collectivisation in the 1930s~ when millions of productive peasants died, proved to be a fatal blow to that sector. Tlms, Gorbachev followed a two-fold strategy ofrefonn. Glasnost (openness) was introduced to allow constructive debate on economic and social matters. Despite a hesitant beginning, the right to criticise allowed the emergence of more radical campaigners, such as Yeltsin who demanded greater democracy. Significantly, the revival of ethnic nationalist demands in the republics led to disintegration. Perestroika (restructuring) was intended to modernise and boost living standards. The economy faltered but the market was not yet in place / History / M.A. (History)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Africa, 2002.

This paper examines the role that military has played in the political development of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the modern Russian Federation. By utilizing the theoretical tenets of Eric Nordlinger, this paper endeavors to update and hopefully revise his classic work in civil-military relations, Soldiers in Politics. Chapter one of this paper introduces many of the main theoretical concepts utilized in this analysis. Chapter two considers the Stalinist totalitarian penetration model that set the standard for communist governments around the world. Chapter three follows up by addressing the middle years of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Both reformed the military in its relation to the party and state and made the armed forces a more corporate and professional institution. Chapter four pinpoints the drastic changes in both the state and armed forces during Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost. The military briefly ventured to a point it never gone before by launching a short coup against the last Soviet president. Chapter five focuses on the last ten years in the Russian Federation. While still a professional organization typical of the liberal model of civil-military relations, the armed forces face great uncertainty, as economic and social problems demand more of their time and resources. Chapter six concludes by speculating on the future of Russian civilmilitary relations and reconsiders the importance of Nordlinger's elegant yet parsimonious work.