The research focus of this study was upon U.S. peace organizations which sponsor face-to-face contact with Soviet citizens. Nine U.S. peace organizations were included in the study, the names of which were acquired through a publication produced by the Institute for Soviet-American Relations. The researcher contacted approximately 28 organizations either by telephone or mail, requesting that organizational literature (program descriptions, newsletters, brochures, pamphlets) be sent to the researcher for the purpose of conducting a rhetorical analysis of such literature.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1998. Graduate Programme in History. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [179-204]). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ33502.

Since the mid-twentieth century, Kurt Vonnegut has enjoyed a permanent spot on the list of history’s most widely read and beloved American authors. Science fiction classics like Cat’s Cradle (1963) and Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) turned Vonnegut into a domestic counter-cultural literary sensation in the United States at mid-century. The presence of a loyal Vonnegut fan base in America, and in the west more broadly, is a well-documented fact. What is less well known among scholars and those familiar with Vonnegut’s work is his popularity in a far more distant place: the Soviet Union. Beginning in the late 1960s, Soviet citizens developed a voracious appetite for Vonnegut’s. Translations of his novels appeared regularly in daily newspapers and highbrow literary journals alike; a play adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five enjoyed a multi-season run in the Moscow Army Theater; average citizens competed for membership in Vonnegut’s karass. These examples are suggestive of the ways that Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction literature can serve as a gateway for scholars seeking to understand the Soviet Union during the 1970s. This report contends that Soviet interest in Vonnegut’s dystopian science fiction reflected larger shifts in Soviet attitudes towards pacifism, technology, individual wellbeing, human rights, and past and present wars. It situates these ideas in the context of domestic and global events to illustrate how the peculiar political conditions of the 1970s made this ideological convergence possible. It employs original American and Russian language sources, including Russian newspapers and journals, letters written by Vonnegut’s Russian translator, and Kurt Vonnegut’s own fan mail. At its core, this report challenges the assumption that political and ideological differences precluded Soviet and American citizens from identifying the conditions necessary for ensuring social and technological progress and a future without war. / text

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After having reached a level of influence unmatched by any other element of Soviet government under Stalin and Beria, the security organs of the Soviet Union proved difficult to tame. While it has been argued that the KGB was made subservient to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after the ascent of Khrushchev in the late 1950's, this essay will attempt to show that the security police apparatus was able to maintain a high level of prominence and even autonomy throughout the history of the Soviet Union and beyond. While it may have appeared that the organs were under constraints during periods of unchallenged leadership, the lack of a legislative definition of the KGB's role made the possibility of a coup or putsch a constant threat. During periods of instability, particularly those surrounding the succession struggles, the KGB was able to act independently and was highly influential as to the outcome of these contests. In the latter years of the Soviet era, efforts to alter the system in order to avoid the excesses of previous years revealed the organs to be highly adaptable and cognizant of the need to change to avoid being excluded from the political decision-making process. Through an assessment of the various succession struggles and efforts to place the organs within the confines of legality, the political power of the KGB may be better understood, and placed in a historical perspective side by side with its post-Soviet counterpart, which too is shown to have survived recent upheavals.

Although Bakunin's 1842 article, "The Reaction in Germany," published in the organ of the Dresden Left Hegelians, Deutsche Jahrbucher, is generally held to be the most radical and eloquent manifesto of Left Hegelianism, the standard historical commentary tends to consider his pre-1842 Russian works as far removed from this revolutionary ideal. Most historians have long failed to discern the logical continuity in Mikhail Bakunin's thought before and after the "pivotal" date of 1840. Indeed, his intellectual development is usually dividied into two distinct, mutually exclusive periods. During the first period, pre-1840, Bakunin is presented as a conservative and a monarchist, dedicated to a spiritual and political compromise with the "rational reality of the Tsarist regime. After his arrival in Berlin in 1840, however, one is suddenly confronted with the political anarchist and instigator of world revolution. However, this abrupt dichotomy which appears in most historical commentaries dealing with Bakunin's writings and activities cannot be maintained. The hypothesis that there even occurred a break in the evolution of Bakunin's thought rests on a misinterpretation of his early Russian Hegelian works. / The goal of this study is to demonstrate that the concern with the practical application of philosophy into a political tool for revolutionary acton forms the central theme of Bakunin's early works; and to show that his Berlin period constitutes the logical continuation of his early theoretical position. In effect, the present study represents a revindication of the young Bakunin and attempts to prove that his Hegelianism was central to the formation of his radical position. At the same time, it situates Russian Left Hegelianism in the mainstream of European radicalism, by showing how the ideas developed by Bakunin were moving in a direction parallel to those of the Young Hegelian movement in Germany.

Chapter one began with an introduction to the concept of glasnost and the events surrounding the first four years of Mikhail Gorbachev's reign as General Secretary of the Soviet Union. This rhetorical study gained its thrust from an Aristotelian definition of rhetoric. The method proposed was one of Ernest Bormann's fantasy theme analysis. This study looked at mediated fantasy themes as they chained out in the Western media regarding the glasnost campaign.Chapter two presented the setting for the dramas of glasnost with a look at the history of Soviet leadership and the impact each General Secretary had on Soviet society. Chapter three examined the characters of glasnost. 9iographical information was presented on the players of the dramas. Finally, chapter four examined the media's rhetoric as it chained out the dramas of glasnost through Mikhail Corbachev and his battles with antagonists from the left, from the right, and from within. / Department of Speech Communication

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Teilw. zugl.: Jäväskylä, University, Diss., 2008. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Titles in English and German / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th. (Missiology)