Stalin liked a good purge! Between 1929 and 1953, 777,975 people were executed after rigged show trials – and that’s just the official figure. Add to that number another half a million who received a bullet to the back of… Read More ›
Stalin
Why was Stalin anti-semitic?
What lay behind the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s increasingly hostile attitude towards Jews? Was he always anti-semitic or did his anti-Jewish policies result from increasing paranoia? Let’s investigate why the head of the USSR victimised and murdered Jewish communists and… Read More ›
Life and Death of Nicolae Ceaușescu – Romanian dictator
When communism collapsed, most of the former communist leaders from East Germany to Bulgaria slid into disgraced retirement or short spells in prison. Some went into the private sector, using their detailed knowledge to get rich. But one leader faced… Read More ›
Stalinism – how the USSR became a bureaucratic nightmare
How and why the 1917 Russian revolution degenerated into the totalitarian and bureaucratic nightmare of Stalinism
Communism and Islam – the Bolsheviks attempt an alliance
Communism and Islam moved closer together in the former Russian empire in the period after 1917 but the alliance didn’t last
The woman who killed Trotsky (yes, really!)
Ramon Mercader assassinated the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky but the key role of Ramon’s mother Caridad is often overlooked
Marxism Explained 