Although much IR theory focuses on balancing, this paper examines a version of the wedge strategy, what Stalin allegedly called being “the laughing third man in a fight.” This is the practice of advancing one’s goals by setting up other states to fight each other. The first case study is Soviet strategy in Europe from September 1939 until June 1941. The second is Soviet strategy in the Far East in 1941–45. What I am looking at here is a policy of deliberately encouraging the start of a war and/or aiding its prolongation in order to weaken both sides. The two case studies indicate that the Soviet Union used such a strategy at times in place of the usual forms of balancing, discussed in the international relations literature. Additionally, analysis of Moscow’s conduct, statements by Soviet leaders, and the policies of a number of foreign communist parties indicate that, in addition to any security goals, Stalin’s agenda included furthering the USSR’s goal as a revolutionary state, even thought this had at times to be constrained by realpolitik .

Evidence drawn from the intersection of historical memory and politics in Russia underline not only on-going framing battles over the Soviet past. The evidence suggests that the Kremlin is unwilling to develop and impose on society historical narratives which promote chauvinism, hypernationalism, and re-Stalinization. Although such an agenda has some support among incumbent elites and in society, it remains subordinate in terms of political influence as of early 2016. Instead, the regime is now extending support to groups in society and the political establishment which favor a critical assessment of the Soviet era, including Stalinism. This emerging criticism of the Soviet past serves a number of important goals of the leadership, including re-engagement with the West. To this end, the Kremlin recently approved new history textbooks critical of the Soviet past as well as a significant program that memorializes the victims of Soviet repressions. Yet the regime is unlikely to usher in thorough de-Stalinization which would threaten its power. Instead, the Kremlin is attempting to assemble a grand narrative that approves, as well as criticizes – in different measures – each of the regimes that existed in the 20th century (tsarist, communist, and post-communist). This incipient narrative constitutes a form of bricolage , which involves the retrieval and reassembly of diverse, often conflicting, elements to solve a problem. Here the problem is the long-standing, divisive issue of how to evaluate the history of 20th century Russia and its different regimes. The Kremlin now seeks to knit together the diverse identities of these regimes through the unifying historical thread of the Russian state. This act of bricolage also seeks to reconcile the contradictions within each regime: elements of the new narrative can be expected to condemn the inhumanity of Stalin and Stalinism while other facets will extol industrialization and the Great Patriotic War as the achievements of Russian-led Soviet society. From this perspective, neither re-Stalinization nor de-Stalinization is likely to occur in Putin’s Russia. Nevertheless, if recent initiatives remain in place, critical assessments of Soviet foreign and domestic policies will become increasingly commonplace.

The research is focused on the image of the Soviet Union and that of its successor — the Russian Federation — in the minds of the Russian student youth. The concept of collective memory, being interdisciplinary and highly debatable, has been used in the given paper in its broad socio-cultural sense meaning the attitudes of interconnected social groups regarding the past and the present. The participants of the poll were 100 students from the leading Moscow universities. They had been born after the Soviet Union collapse, so, the majority of them have a very obscure idea of the Soviet reality, simultaneously feeling nostalgia for the Soviet political past. The results of the research show that the image of the Soviet Union drastically differs from that of Russia in the young people’s minds being positive and negative, respectively.

Vladimir Putin provides us with an excellent example of a politician whose attitude toward ideology is instrumental to his political longevity. He has shown that in the fight between ideology and political expedience, to maintain authority and control within the country, or to achieve geopolitical ambitions in the international arena, ideology will almost always lose the battle. It is well known that the major threat to political power stems often not from the adversary who holds diametrically opposite views, but from the rivals who share almost the same ideological position. The closer the ideological position is of a rival, the more intense the competition. For just this reason Putin is implacable toward Communists who share many of his views. He tries as much as possible to reduce the political role of the Communist party – the most serious opposition to the regime – by using the same underhanded tactics which are used against the liberals.

During his second term, Putin’s foreign policy was strongly influenced by the belief that the West’s hostility could help the opposition change the current regime, as the West had done in Ukraine and Georgia. A regime change would deprive the ruling elite, mostly people from the security police and army, of their power and illegally acquired wealth. Moscow restored, in early 2000, the ideology of Russia’s “encirclement” from the 1920s, which suggested that the country was surrounded by enemies in order to legitimize the regime. At the same time, as in the past, Moscow tried to punish the Western governments for their disrespect for the regime with an aggressive and uncooperative foreign policy.

The article is about Putin's ‘Jewish anomaly’. Against all expectations, Putin during his tenure as president of the Russian Federation showed in various ways his concern about the life of Jews in his country.

This paper will examine the phenomenon of betrayal in patronage networks in Soviet higher politics by considering one of the most high-profile and significant cases: the betrayal of Lavrenty Beria by two of his top lieutenants, Sergei Kruglov and Ivan Serov, during the post-Stalin succession contest in the spring of 1953.

Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov recently claimed that no more than 2 million people could have perished from collectivization, famine, execution, terror, and forced labor in the USSR during the 1930s. Prior demographic confirmation of this estimate was provided by Anderson and Silver who contended that killings were unlikely to exceed a few million and could not be more than 4.8 million victims. This essay disproves both these contentions by introducing new demographic evidence proving that Stalin killed at least 5.2 million Soviet citizens 1927-1938, with a best estimate in the vicinity of 10 million.