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Andrei Platonov spawned many an incongruous image and incomprehensible sentence. Compared by some scholars to James Joyce, he was critiqued by Stalin himself, yet he avoided prosecution. We dig into his challenging literary style.

The Battle for Stalingrad turned the tide of WWII in the Allies’ favor. Marked by the loss of nearly 2 million lives, it is one of the most devastating battles of human history. Yet it also continues to be embroiled in controversy, given the complex relationship Russians have toward Josef Stalin. 

Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a time of hunger, suffering, and massive death tolls – even as the papers proclaimed phenomenal success. One former peasant's memoirs give us a window on that terrible time.

How can you be accused of wanting to restore the bourgeoisie when all you've said is that the current policy isn't anti-bourgeoisie enough? Leon Trotsky responds to the nonsense dominating Soviet courtrooms in the 1930's.
 

The assassination of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, set off one of the bloodiest periods in Russian history. Was it a conspiracy involving the highest ranks of leadership? Or was it all planned and carried out by one "lone gunman"? We may never know.

When battling the White Army in 1919, Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev had no idea he would one day become the hero of one of Soviet film's greatest works.

Nikolai Bukharin, the Moscow revolutionary, was on the rise throughout the early twentieth century – but as we all know, what goes up must come down. Turns out you come down especially fast if you meet Stalin at the top.

Lyubov Petrova Orlova was born January 29, 1902 and became the first Soviet movie star and sex symbol. She was also Stalin’s favorite film actress and a highly gifted singer. This is an extended biography of the artist (an abridged version ran in the JanFeb 2012 issue of Russian Life).