I have proposed, in the past, that the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of Oppressed Nations should disperse the Amerikkkans throughout the Third World instead of allowing them to remain in occupied North America. Here are some of my reasons.
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posted by shii
on Sep 29, 2009 -
93 comments
Yet another 20th century English author in bed with the communists? Literally, in this case -
Arthur Ransome might be best known for his 'Swallows & Amazons' books about children sailing in the idyllic
Lake District, but before all that, he left his first wife (and a libel case that got him mixed up with Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas) to study fairy tales in Russia... only there he fell in love with Leon Trotsky's private secretary, ended up working for the Bolsheviks and also MI6.
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posted by Sifter
on Aug 13, 2009 -
35 comments
Bolek i Lolek and
Reksio are both Polish cartoons with little dialogue and similiar animation style. Both cartoons originated in the 60s (during the Communist era in Poland), and were extremely popular for decades. Due to their general lack of vocalization (except for Bolek i Lolek's later seasons), both cartoons were easy to bring to other markets. Famously, Bolek i Lolek was one of the cartoons broadcast on Iranian television after the 1979 revolution.
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posted by Askiba
on Aug 2, 2009 -
11 comments
Imagine you're living in China, trying to work your way out of the family date farming business (which garners approximately $450 annually). You do all the right things. You apply for (and receive)
Communist Party membership. You study literally to the point of collapse, and despite coming from coal-town origins, you score high on your
gao kao ("high test," more-or-less the only thing that matters in getting into a Chinese university). Your already-poor family goes
deep into debt to send you to college, and you even manage to come out with a degree. Classic rise-up-by-your-own-bootstraps tale, right? However, finally, when you go to apply for a job—
your state-sanctioned educational, occupational, and political records are inexplicably, awfully gone. What has happened to that plain manila folder (!) that serves as your only legitimate, official history in Chinese society?
Probably stolen and sold so a party official's child can get everything you worked so hard for. And then,
of course, your family is detained by party officials when your parents demand to know where the hell your life went. Of course.
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posted by Keter
on Jul 27, 2009 -
47 comments
Kommunalka - communal apartments - were begun by the Bolsheviks in Russia at the end of the Russian Revolution to address overcrowding in cities - and also to
punish the bourgeoisie who had previously lived in comfort. Kommunalka were an enduring social experiment, where multiple families were assigned by the state to
live together in close quarters with no expectation of privacy. It was not uncommon for tenants to
spy on each other. Though communism ended in Russia almost two decades ago, Kommunalka
still exist today.
posted by contessa
on Jul 18, 2009 -
18 comments
Slavoj Žižek
recently gave five talks under the title Masterclass - Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture. It sez 'ere, "The master class analyses phenomena of modern thought and culture with the intention to discern elements of possible Communist culture. It moves at two levels: first, it interprets some cultural phenomena (from today’s architecture to classic literary works like Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Heloise) as failures to imagine or enact a Communist culture; second, it explores attempts at imagining how a Communist culture could look, from Wagner’s Ring to Kafka’s and Beckett’s short stories and contemporary science fiction novels." Audio of Zizek's talks and subsequent discussion is now online:
Part I Utopias;
Part II Architecture as Ideology;
Part III Wagner’s Ring as a Communist narrative;
Part IV Populism and Democracy;
Part V Environment, Identity and Multiculturalism. Those who like to watch the beard in motion will find links to video of some of the talks posted
here.
posted by Abiezer
on Jun 22, 2009 -
29 comments
Bonsoir, Monsieur COK! Dans un formidable élan de générosité notre patron adoré nous offre enfin la possibilité de voir son FILM sur la toile!
A short film about efficiencies in bomb manufacturing.
posted by boo_radley
on Jun 15, 2009 -
16 comments
The czech magazine
Respekt, known for its investigative reporting, has published a
story claiming prize winning author and anti-communist dissident
Milan Kundera denounced a young exile who was back in Prague to the communist secret police.
[more inside]
posted by lucia__is__dada
on Oct 14, 2008 -
22 comments
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the
Holodomor. The
Holodomor was the starvation of millions of Ukranians at the hands of the Soviets. The Ukranian government is using this year to push for greater recognition for the genocide. Ukranian communities in
Australia,
Canada and all over the globe are holding events all year in the lead up to this years Holodomor day on November 25.
posted by sien
on Mar 9, 2008 -
14 comments
Suicide bombers in Valhalla "Sverige fights back! I'll see the heroes in Valhalla, inshallah."
Where can you find an eclectic mix of Fascists, Libertarian Socialists, Trotskyists, National Anarchists, DPRK apologists, Dixie lovers, Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists all in one place?
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posted by symbioid
on Feb 15, 2008 -
20 comments
Delirious Moscow: a survey on stellar and interstellar Soviet constructivist architecture, or, buildings in the time before Stalin (with pictures).
posted by Falconetti
on Oct 11, 2007 -
6 comments
Dead Road - Museum of Communism in the Open. "It was one of the most ambitious projects of the Stalin era, known as the
'railway of bones'. At least 10 people a day died during the four years of its construction [actually 1947-1953], but unlike most of Uncle Joe's grand designs it was never completed and now sits unfinished in the tundra, an icy road to nowhere." The
transpolar railway was built by labour camps
^ 501 and 503 and construction was stopped after the amnesty following Stalin's death in 1953; 800km, about half, was built. Some sections are currently in operation, but much is abandoned:
depot and locomotives in Dolgoe,
Dolgoe itself,
labour camps,
more spectacular decay. (Previously:
Norilsk, which was supposed to see an extension of the line.)
posted by parudox
on Aug 27, 2007 -
13 comments
At the end of the Korean War,
James Veneris was an American POW awaiting repatriation. But when his time came, he—
along with twenty other Americans and a Briton—declined to leave and chose to cast his lot with Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. Over time, almost all of these men became disillusioned with Marxism and eventually
returned to their homelands. The Cold War that informed their decisions has become a chapter in the history books but the story of Western defectors to the Communist bloc is just now being written.
posted by jason's_planet
on Jan 4, 2007 -
9 comments
Diary of a Collapsing Superpower - "Seventeen years ago, the Berlin Wall fell, and two years later the Soviet Union broke apart. More than 1,400 minutes published earlier this month in Russia from meetings that took place behind the closed doors of the Politburo in Moscow read like a thriller from the highest levels of the Kremlin. They reveal Mikhail Gorbachev as a party chief who had to fight bitterly for his reforms and ultimately lost his battle. But in doing so, he changed the course of history and helped bring an end to the Cold War."
posted by Gyan
on Nov 28, 2006 -
32 comments
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the
1956 Hungarian Revolution. A key documentary artifact of the uprising is
Magyarország lángokban (Hungary in Flames) [embedded .wmv], partly composed of footage shot by two young film school students using whatever equipment they could find. Narrowly avoiding capture by the Communists, the duo smuggled 10,000 feet of film out of the country in spare tires and potato sacks; there's much more to the story, but better to hear Vilmos tell it
in his own words. [.rm] Eventually, they made their way to America, where
László Kovács, ASC (
Five Easy Pieces,
Ghost Busters,
more) and
Vilmos Zsigmund, ASC (
Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
Deliverance,
more) became two of the most prolific cinematographers in Hollywood history. [more inside]
posted by milquetoast
on Aug 8, 2006 -
7 comments
Don't be evil. Online search engine leader Google Inc. has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market. Google will roll out a new version of its search engine bearing China's Web suffix ".cn," on Wednesday.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood
on Jan 24, 2006 -
93 comments
She interviewed Mussolini. She wrote plays for Eugene O'Neill's Provincetown Players. She got letters from Trotsky. Freud and Helen Keller were in her address book. She married journalist
John Reed, and Diane Keaton played her in
Reds. And she was nearly forgotten. Now,
Louise Bryant is remembered.
More here and much more here.
posted by digaman
on Nov 9, 2005 -
4 comments
