Communist Daze

Communist Daze PDF Author: Vladimir A. Tsesis
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253025893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
This darkly comic memoir “reveal[s] much about the poverty, drunkenness, political corruption, anti-Semitism, and fundamental absurdity of rural life in the Soviet 1960s” (Deborah A. Field author of Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev’s Russia). Welcome to Gradieshti, a Soviet village awash in gray buildings and ramshackle fences, home to a large, collective farm and to the most oddball and endearing cast of characters possible. For three years in the 1960s, Vladimir Tsesis—inestimable Soviet doctor and irrepressible jester—was stationed in a village where racing tractor drivers tossed vodka bottles to each other for sport; where farmers and townspeople secretly mocked and tried to endure the Communist way of life; where milk for children, running water, and adequate electricity were rare; where the world’s smallest, motley parade became the country’s longest; and where one compulsively amorous Communist Party leader met a memorable, chilling fate. From a frantic pursuit of calcium-deprived, lunatic Socialist chickens to a father begging on his knees to Soviet officials to obtain antibiotic for his dying child, Vladimir’s tales of Gradieshti are unforgettable. Sometimes hysterical, often moving, always a remarkable and highly entertaining insider’s look at rural life under the old Soviet regime, they are a sobering exposé of the terrible inadequacies of its much-lauded socialist medical system. “To understand the confusing reality of Russia today, it helps to recall the ‘bad old days’ of the late, unlamented Soviet Union. This warm, touching and occasionally hilarious book can assist those recollections.” —Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio show host

Soviet Nightingales

Soviet Nightingales PDF Author: Susan Grant
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501762605
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Book Description
In Soviet Nightingales, Susan Grant tracks nursing care in the Soviet Union from its nineteenth-century origins in Russia through the end of the Soviet state. With the advent of the USSR, nurses were instrumental in helping to build the New Soviet Person and in constructing a socialist society. Disease and illness were rampant in the early 1920s after years of war, revolution, and famine. The demand for nurses was great, but how might these workers best serve the country's needs? By examining living and working conditions, nurse-patient relations, education, and attempts at international nursing cooperation, Grant recounts the history of the Bolshevik effort to define the "Soviet" nurse and organize a new system of socialist care for the masses. Although the Bolsheviks aimed to transform healthcare along socialist lines, they ultimately failed as the struggle to train skilled medical workers became entangled in politics. Soviet Nightingales draws on rich archival research from Russia, the United States, and Britain to describe how ideology reinvented the role of the nurse and shaped the profession.

Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1960

Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1960 PDF Author: Edward Taborsky
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400877032
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 641

Book Description
Czechoslovakia, once considered Central Europe's model democracy, has been a Soviet satellite since 1948. The Communists now boast that "socialism" has defeated capitalism politically and has surpassed it in production, in living standards, and in social justice. How realistic is this picture of conditions in a country once oriented to the West? This question is the focus of Professor Taborsky’s book. In attempting to answer it, the author first reviews the history of the Communist Party’s rise to power and then examines in detail the economic, social, political, and cultural programs of their twelve-year regime, comparing stated plans with actual results through 1960. His final assessment of the Party’s successes and failures measures both effort and result against the human cost. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Remaining Relevant After Communism

Remaining Relevant After Communism PDF Author: Andrew Wachtel
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226867668
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
More than any other art form, literature defined Eastern Europe as a cultural and political entity in the second half of the twentieth century. Although often persecuted by the state, East European writers formed what was frequently recognized to be a "second government," and their voices were heard and revered inside and outside the borders of their countries. This study by one of our most influential specialists on Eastern Europe considers the effects of the end of communism on such writers. According to Andrew Baruch Wachtel, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the creation of fledgling societies in Eastern Europe brought an end to the conditions that put the region's writers on a pedestal. In the euphoria that accompanied democracy and free markets, writers were liberated from the burden of grandiose political expectations. But no group is happy to lose its influence: despite recognizing that their exalted social position was related to their reputation for challenging political oppression, such writers have worked hard to retain their status, inventing a series of new strategies for this purpose. Remaining Relevant after Communism considers these strategies—from pulp fiction to public service—documenting what has happened on the East European scene since 1989.

A Protestant Church in Communist China

A Protestant Church in Communist China PDF Author: John Craig William Keating
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1611460905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
Freedom of religious belief is guaranteed under the constitution of the People's Republic of China, but the degree to which this freedom is able to be exercised remains a highly controversial issue. Much scholarly attention has been given to persecuted underground groups such as Falun, but one area that remains largely unexplored is the relationship between officially registered churches and the communist government. This study investigates the history of one such official church, Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai. This church was founded by American Methodist missionaries. By the time of the 1949 revolution, it was the largest Protestant church in East Asia, running seven day a week programs. As a case study of one individual church, operating from an historical (rather than theological) perspective, this study examines the experience of people at this church against the backdrop of the turbulent politics of the Mao and Deng eras. It asks and seeks to answer questions such as: were the people at the church pleased to see the foreign missionaries leave? Were people forced to sign the so-called "Christian manifesto"? Once the church doors were closed in 1966, did worshipers go underground? Why was this particular church especially chosen to be the first re-opened in Shanghai in 1979? What explanations are there for its phenomenal growth since then? A considerable proportion of the data for this study is drawn from Chinese language sources, including interviews, personal correspondence, statistics, internal church documents and archives, many of which have never previously been published or accessed by foreign researchers. The main focus of this study is on the period from 1949 to 1989, a period in which the church experienced many ups and downs, restrictions and limitations. The Mao era, in particular, remains one of the least understood and seldom written about periods in the history of Christianity in China. This study therefore makes a significant contribution to our evolving understanding of the delicate balancing act between compromise, co-operation and compliance that categorizes church-state relations in modern China.

America's Nuclear Legacy

America's Nuclear Legacy PDF Author: Wayne D. LeBaron
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781560725565
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
This book takes the reader through the testing of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and describes their devastating effects on American citizens while the BIG LIE was forced on the public that fallout and radiation was safe. It contains horror stories involving government sponsored research programs which deliberately exposed infants, pregnant women, mental patients, military personnel and prisoners to dangerous levels of radiation. All conducted without the victims full knowledge and consent. America's Nuclear Legacy describes military accidents involving missiles and nuclear weapons -- come almost resulted in thermonuclear war! It describes secret nuclear testing in the US. Accidents and near catastrophes are explored involving nuclear power reactors, weapons plants, and nuclear waste sits in America and in the former Soviet Union. With the world awash with nuclear materials and terrorists the book tells of missing nuclear materials, missiles and nuclear weapons, and the race by unstable nations to obtain nuclear weapons. The ease which terrorist nations are able to obtain nuclear secrets from former Soviet scientists is described, including how easily nuclear terrorism will be waged against the United States and other nations.
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