Download or read book The KGB File of Andrei Sakharov written by Joshua Rubenstein and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVAndrei Sakharov (1921–1989), a brilliant physicist and the principal designer of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, later became a human rights activist and—as a result—a source of profound irritation to the Kremlin. This book publishes for the first time ever KGB files on Sakharov that became available during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency. The documents reveal the untold story of KGB surveillance of Sakharov from 1968 until his death in 1989 and of the regime’s efforts to intimidate and silence him. The disturbing archival materials show the KGB to have had a profound lack of understanding of the spiritual and moral nature of the human rights movement and of Sakharov’s role as one of its leading figures. /div

Download or read book Studies in Intelligence written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Studies in Intelligence written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Brezhnev written by Susanne Schattenberg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Schattenberg has done a service in rescuing the Brezhnev period from obscurity." The Morning Star "[Offers an] unparalleled examination of the Brezhnev papers." Literary Review Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union for eighteen years, a term of leadership second only in length to that of Stalin. He presided over the Brezhnev Doctrine, which accelerated the Cold War, and led the Soviet Union through catastrophic foreign policy decisions such as the invasion of Afghanistan. To many in the West, he is responsible for the stagnation (and to some even collapse) of the Soviet Union. But much of this history has been based on the only two English-language biographies (both published before Brezhnev's death and without access to archival sources) and Brezhnev's own astonishingly untrue memoirs – written for propaganda purposes. Newly translated from German, Schattenberg's magisterial book systematically dismantles the stereotypical and one-dimensional view of Brezhnev as the stagnating Stalinist by drawing on a wealth of archival research and documents not previously studied in English. The Brezhnev that emerges is a complex one, from his early apolitical years, when he dreamed of becoming an actor, through his swift and surprising rise through the Party ranks. From his hitherto misunderstood role in Khrushchev's ousting and appointment as his successor, to his somewhat pro-Western foreign policy aims, deft consolidation and management of power, and ultimate descent into addiction and untimely death. For Schattenberg, this is the story of a flawed and ineffectual idealist - for the West, this biography makes a convincing case that Brezhnev should be reappraised as one of the most interesting and important political figures of the twentieth century.

Download or read book The World Reimagined written by Mark Bradley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uncovers how human rights gained meaning and power for Americans in the 1940s, the 1970s and today.

Download or read book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause written by Benjamin Nathans and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the 1960s, the Soviet Union found itself unexpectedly challenged from within by a cohort of dissidents who eventually achieved global fame. Their struggle for the rule of law and human rights made them instant heroes in the West, where they appeared as democracy's surrogate soldiers behind the iron curtain. But, as historian Benjamin Nathans argues, theirs was a homegrown phenomenon; activists built the anti-totalitarian movement on fundamental concepts from within the communist pantheon. And their goal was not to topple the Soviet state (a feat they could scarcely imagine) but to exercise a kind of containment of Soviet power from within. Still, the movement was in many ways improbable: a half-century after Lenin launched the world's first socialist society, and a generation after Stalin liquidated millions of "enemies of the people," there was not supposed to be any internal opposition left. What kind of people became dissidents, and how were they able to invent new techniques of social activism, eventually forming the socialist world's first civil and human rights movement? To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause-a title borrowed from the dissidents' favorite toast, pronounced with glasses raised in countless apartments across the USSR's eleven time-zones-tells the story of the people and the ideas that made the movement. Weaving together KGB interrogation and surveillance records with diaries, letters, and an extraordinary number of memoirs, Nathans explains how a movement grew from a chain reaction of individual acts of resistance. He explains its origins in the counterintuitive idea of "civil obedience"-the conviction that human rights could be achieved if only the Soviet regime followed its own constitution and that citizens had to act as if the constitution was the law of the land in the absence of compliance within the governing class. Nathans constructs in detail the lives and struggles of numerous dissidents, including Andrei Sakharov, Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, and Alexander Volpin. He describes the many show trials of activists, the extra-legal tactics of the KGB's Fifth Directorate, the international networks of activism and journalism that fueled the movement at key moments, and the gradual incorporation of dissident ideals into mainstream Soviet political culture. This book offers a definitive history of the group of dissenters who worked from within the Soviet system against the post-Stalinist regime, bringing to life the stories of drama, conflict, tangled relationships, personal sacrifice, and extraordinary devotion to a seemingly impossible cause"--

Download or read book The Political Economy of Human Rights in Armenia written by Simon Payaslian and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia has experienced a reversal from democratization to a Soviet-style authoritarian regime and has been accused of repressive approaches to human rights. Here, Simon Payaslian juxtaposes a masterful survey of the history of the Armenian people from the nineteenth century through the first republic (1918-21) and Sovietization to the present, with the evolution of international human rights standards, and argues that a statist and authoritarian political culture has impeded political liberalization and institutionalization of human rights principles. Highlighting the clash between sovereignty on one side and human rights and democracy on the other, this comprehensive and in-depth analysis is essential for all those interested in human rights, democratization, political repression and the former Soviet republics.

Download or read book The Familiar Made Strange written by Brooke L. Blower and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Familiar Made Strange, twelve distinguished historians offer original and playful readings of American icons and artifacts that cut across rather than stop at the nation’s borders to model new interpretive approaches to studying United States history. These leading practitioners of the "transnational turn" pause to consider such famous icons as John Singleton Copley’s painting Watson and the Shark, Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, and Alfred Kinsey’s reports on sexual behavior, as well as more surprising but revealing artifacts like Josephine Baker’s banana skirt and William Howard Taft’s underpants. Together, they present a road map to the varying scales, angles and methods of transnational analysis that shed light on American politics, empire, gender, and the operation of power in everyday life.

Download or read book Never Speak to Strangers and other writing from Russia and the Soviet Union written by David Satter and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union in June, 1976 as the correspondent of the Financial Times of London and entered a country that was a giant theater of the absurd. After 1982, he was banned from the Soviet Union but allowed back in 1990, and finally expelled in 2013 on the grounds that the secret police regarded his presence as “undesirable.” From 1976 to the present, he saw four different Russias, which differed from each other radically while remaining essentially the same. From 1976 to 1982, the Soviet Union was at the height of its world power and its people were in thrall to an absurd ideology. With the advent of Gorbachev’s perestroika, the Soviet population was liberated from the ideology and the state hurtled to its inevitable collapse. When independent Russia emerged from the wreckage, the failure to replace the missing ideology with genuine moral values led to Russia’s complete criminalization. The articles in this unique collection are a chronicle of Russia from the day David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union until the present. Emigres from the states of the former Soviet Union often despair of their inability to convey the true character of their experiences to the West. Penetrating the veil of Russian mystification requires effort and the ability to understand that seeing is not always believing. The Russians have created an entire false world for our benefit. This collection reflects David Satter’s 40-year attempt to see them as they are.

Download or read book A precarious equilibrium written by Umberto Tulli and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human rights and détente inextricably intertwined during Carter’s years. By promoting human rights in the USSR, Carter sought to build a domestic consensus for détente; through bipolar dialogue, he tried to advance human rights in the USSR. But, human rights contributed to the erosion of détente without achieving a lasting domestic consensus.

Download or read book Sakharov A Biography written by Richard Lourie and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-08-09 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seemingly shy, Andrei Sakharov was in fact a man of three great passions. His passion for physics ultimately lead him to create the Soviet H-Bomb, making the USSR a super power. But he rejected all the position and prestige his inventions had brought him in the name of a greater passion — for justice. And yielding nothing to these two passions was his passion for human rights activist Elena Bonner, their love story one of the great romances of our time. This book tells the story of the man, his passions, and the time and place where they all played out. “As Richard Lourie’s new, subtle and revealing biography of Sakharov demonstrates... [Sakharov] ranks with Nelson Mandela as a person who helped guide his country to democracy, changing himself in the process. One of the strengths of Lourie’s biography is his description and analysis of how this transition occurred... a fascinating account of Sakharov... [Lourie’s] analysis of [Sakharov’s] complicated political journey seems authentic and immensely revealing.” — Loren Graham, The New York Times “A vivid portrait of [Sakharov,] this moral and intellectual giant... Lourie has written a highly intelligent and exceptionally readable book. He not only captures his protagonist admirably but exhibits a fine feel for the social and political backdrop as well as for the peculiar mixture of fearful servility and courageous generosity of the Russian people. Among other things, he vividly brings to life how the Communist regime constrained scientists, sometimes even arresting and murdering them, while those who survived persevered in their work to achieve remarkable results.” — Aleksa Djilas,Commentary Magazine “Lourie does full justice to a life that could not be more engrossing. The socially introverted son of Moscow intelligentsia, Andrei Sakharov became a star physics pupil, then chief architect of the Soviet Union’s first thermonuclear device, and later on a dissident and target of KGB ire — and finally the moral conscience of a democratically awakening Russia... The evolution from a politically passive scientist to a lonely figure holding sidewalk vigils outside kangaroo courtrooms is almost unfathomable for a non-Russian. Lourie, however, makes it comprehensible, not least by painting with an artist’s spare, deft strokes this transcendent figure into the history of his day.” — Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs “Richard Lourie is ideally placed to write the first full biography of this remarkable man. He was able to interview Sakharov and many of his colleagues. He has translated Sakharov’s memoirs, and often uses direct speech drawn from them to take us behind the scenes without giving rise to the usual suspicion of novelistic invention. This makes for an engagingly readable book... Lourie’s appraisal of Sakharov as a man is scrupulously balanced, with as much emphasis on his obstinacy as on his compassion... The book conveys both the elation of scientific work, the intense love between Sakharov and his second wife, and the bewildering nature of human courage.” — Elaine Feinstein, The Telegraph “The inventor of the Soviet H-bomb, [Sakharov] was in the forefront of the post-war breakthrough in thermonuclear physics that led to the creation of atomic energy. Yet he also stood, heroically at times, in the vanguard of the movement for human rights in the Soviet Union. Richard Lourie tells both these stories in this first full-length biography of the physicist and dissident. Lourie has benefited from the recent publication of the KGB files on Sakharov. He also knew the man himself, whose Memoirs he helped to smuggle out of Russia to the West (where they were published in Lourie’s translation a year after Sakharov’s death in 1989). Sakharov’s widow, Elena Bonner, has helped Lourie’s research, which adds a welcome new perspective on the last 20 years of his eventful life, when husband and wife were subjected to a bullying campaign of threats and slander by the KGB in a vain attempt to silence them.” — Orlando Figes, The Telegraph “A solid factual and interpretive study... Sakharov is an important account of one scientist’s courage and his quest for a humane world at peace.” — Herbert Mitgang, Chicago Tribune “This first biography of the renowned physicist, Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner weaves the details of Sakharov’s life together with the history of the Soviet Union, which barely outlasted him. Lourie... describes Sakharov’s upbringing in a liberal family and his rise through the Soviet science program during the 1930s and ‘40s. Lourie’s vivid accounts of Sakharov’s meetings with Stalin and KGB chief Beria, his role in the intelligentsia, his marriages and his cramped apartments offer a textured picture of Soviet life during the Cold War... Lourie’s intelligent, engaging biography will be appreciated by those interested in Russian and Cold War history.” — Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Globalizing Human Rights written by Christian Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work elucidates the complexities of how Western governments, private citizens, and the Soviet Union used the issue of human rights violations as ideological weapon during the Cold War. It will pay particular attention to how private citizens both shaped and became an important part of the U.S. government’s efforts to weaken the international prestige of the USSR.

Download or read book Gorbachev Italian Communism and Human Rights written by Autori Vari and published by Viella Libreria Editrice. This book was released on 2023-01-27T14:44:00+01:00 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chapters brought together in this volume build on the idea that in the 1970s-1980s the global language of human rights contributed to stimulating ideas of reform in the communist world. The protagonists were Mikhail Gorbachev and the Italian communists. The experience of the PCI was in many ways a peculiar case, but one that was linked to underground ideas of cultural change even in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's ascent signalled a fundamental shift, as he rejected the approach of reducing human rights to an ideological battleground and instead made it the centrepiece of a universalist relaunch. By exploring the encounter between reform communists and human rights, the authors reconstruct the metamorphosis and the end of communism within the context of the wider transformations taking place in European political cultures at the end of the Cold War.

Download or read book The Final Act written by Michael Cotey Morgan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive account of the historic diplomatic agreement that provided a blueprint for ending the Cold War The Helsinki Final Act was a watershed of the Cold War. Signed by thirty-five European and North American leaders at a summit in Finland in the summer of 1975, the document presented a vision for peace based on common principles and cooperation across the Iron Curtain. The Final Act is the first in-depth history of the diplomatic saga that produced this important agreement. This gripping book explains the Final Act's emergence from the parallel crises of the Soviet bloc and the West during the 1960s and the conflicting strategies that animated the negotiations. Drawing on research in eight countries and multiple languages, The Final Act shows how Helsinki provided a blueprint for ending the Cold War and building a new international order.

Download or read book Freedom and the Captive Mind written by Wallace L. Daniel and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2024-10-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom and the Captive Mind is a biography of Fr. Gleb Yakunin, the first Orthodox priest to adopt an ecumenical approach to Russian Orthodoxy, earning him the enmity of conservative groups within the Church and gratitude from other religious denominations. Father Yakunin believed the survival of the Church depended on its willingness to reform. When he was suspended, Yakunin continued to fight the system, working to expose the persecution of religious believers in the Soviet Union. After years of exile, Yakunin entered politics. He was criticized by religious authorities, denounced by nationalist politicians, and excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church. As Wallace L. Daniel demonstrates, the letters Yakunin wrote and his revelations about the relationship between the Church hierarchy and the KGB stand as monuments of courage and the determination to reveal the truth about abuses of power and the authoritarian mindset that predominated in both institutions.

Download or read book Subjected to Intense Persecution written by Galina V. Andreyev and published by Xulon Press. This book was released on 2012-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author, Galina Andreyev (Khailo), was born in 1962, in the former USSR in the city of Krasniy Luch, English translation is "Red Beam." She grew up in a Christian family of 15 children. Behind the closed "Iron Curtain," the KGB persecuted faithful Christians including Galina's parents for their beliefs in Christ. Vladimir Khailo, Galina's father "started new underground church in his house, and by doing that he subjected himself to be persecuted for Christ because he knows that Jesus is the Truth and He is the Way to Heaven. Vladimir suffered for Jesus Christ in Soviet prison for seven years. KGB tortured the Khailo family with prisons and experimental drugs for Parents' Faith. Galina was over six months pregnant, the KGB tortured her with drugs and killed the baby. Through all the years of persecution and torture, family felt the presence of God. God had never let the family down. The U.S. Congress and Christian Solidarity International demanded the Soviet KGB to stop torturing the family and they demanded the Soviet government to let the family to freedom. In 1987, while the Soviet "Iron Curtain" was closed, Galina's family was permitted to leave the USSR and with the greatest exception they were allowed to enter the United States of America. This is a miracle that was performed by our God. What was impossible for the family, God made it possible. God raised the family up, to more than they could be. All this was the act of God. Praise the Lord! Galina V Andreyev, Khailo

Download or read book Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War written by Sarah B. Snyder and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two of the most pressing questions facing international historians today are how and why the Cold War ended. Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War explores how, in the aftermath of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, a transnational network of activists committed to human rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe made the topic a central element in East-West diplomacy. As a result, human rights eventually became an important element of Cold War diplomacy and a central component of détente. Sarah B. Snyder demonstrates how this network influenced both Western and Eastern governments to pursue policies that fostered the rise of organized dissent in Eastern Europe, freedom of movement for East Germans and improved human rights practices in the Soviet Union - all factors in the end of the Cold War.