Eugenia Ginzburg's Perceptions Of Communism

Stalin’s early promises compromised of socialism and a life free from exploitation in regards to his social policies. However, he soon realised his error and reverted to a more conservative form of rule, whereby the interest of the state was given priority. Many describe his soviet social policy during the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’, it was named this as his policies saw a return to earlier social policies under the Tsar and former leaders. It is debatable as to how far his actions were a retraction of previous decisions…and the areas impacted were women, family, and education. A common theme of the great retreat was the gender role in society.

On the whole, does Goodbye, Lenin paint a positive or negative picture of life in communist East Germany?

The perpetrators in the book are all view differently by Funder as they all vary in levels of dedication to the GDR, Stasi and communism ideology. Despite in different levels of devotion, they all establish themselves as self-important officers who are unremorseful with their past actions. The interview with Herr Winz highlights that he was a strong believer in the system as he still lives within the past. Funder describes him as a man who still plays spy games even 7 years after the fall of the wall underlined by him hiding his identity as a westerner before the meeting Funder. A very strong believer in the GDR, Herr Von Schnitzler, was descried as “a grumpy old puppet, throwing scorn on proceedings from on high,’ as despises the current system of Germany, and still supports communism. However, both Herr Kock and Bohnsack portrayed a different character compared to the other Stasi officials. Koch was used for propaganda as a child and was described as a “poster boy for the new regime.” Despite being a part of the system since a child, Koch still became a victim, due to his resignation from the stasi, and battle in keeping his marriage intact. Bohnsack was “a man with nothing to prove,” as he was

The Great Terror was one of the single greatest loss of lives in the history of the world. It was a crusade of political tyranny in the Soviet Union that transpired during the late 1930’s. The Terrors implicated a wide spread cleansing of the Communist Party and government officials, control of peasants and the Red Army headship, extensive police over watch, suspicion of saboteurs, counter-revolutionaries, and illogical slayings. Opportunely, some good did come from the terrors nonetheless. Two of those goods being Sofia Petrovna and Requiem. Both works allow history to peer back into the Stalin Era and bear witness to the travesties that came with it. Through the use of fictional story telling and thematic devises Sofia Petrovna and Requiem, respectively, paint a grim yet descriptive picture in a very efficient manner.

Were it a testimony to the rigors and cruelness of human nature, it would be crushing. As it is, it shatters our perception of man and ourselves as no other book, besides perhaps Anne Franke`s diary and the testimony of Elie Wiesl, could ever have done. The prisoners of the labor camp, as in Shukhov?s predicament, were required to behave as Soviets or face severe punishment. In an almost satirical tone Buinovsky exclaims to the squadron that ?You?re not behaving like Soviet People,? and went on saying, ?You?re not behaving like communist.? (28) This type of internal monologue clearly persuades a tone of aggravation and sarcasm directly associated to the oppression?s of communism.

Both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis shared a fundamental commitment to create a creating a higher human type. However, the ideals and approaches of both regimes towards this mission differed substantially. While the Nazis sought to create a master race above all in European hierarchy, the Bolsheviks sought a system of liberation of their entire race and complete equality. Within both ideologies, the role of women was a hotbed of debate and instigated a period of change. In Germany, women confined to roles that were ‘natural’ or intended by nature, while in Russia, although women ‘received’ previously inaccessible rights and freedoms, it became more of a burden rather than a boon, The creation of “new men and women,” became more about the removal of undesirable classes or nationalities and the integration of the rest of the population with particular characteristics. Women were expected to accept state-propagated guidelines for conduct and appearance, and conform to certain gender roles that were defined by the state. In Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ideology, the rebirth of the nation, its prosperity and survival depended directly on women’s conformity to the propagated feminine ideal and thus, their participation was severely influenced by the regime’s economic, social and political policies. In this essay, I

Heda Margolis Kovaly’s memoir, Under a Cruel Star, briefly touches on her experience at Auschwitz during the Holocaust and then focuses more extensively on her life after her escape when living in Czechoslovakia. Heda’s story covers how life under two different totalitarian regimes was. One of these regimes was the reign of the communist Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. The government’s primary method used to regulate, maintain and control society was making people’s involvement in politics imperative to not only thrive but survive under the Soviet Union.

In Plato’s book, the Republic, in a story that the ancient Greek philosopher shows to his student Glaucon, by using an allegory of peoples that are condemned to live in a cave for all their lives, the philosopher shows how people can be deceived by many images that they see from the distance and when they have not enough information to judge them. The life of the people who lived in the communist Eastern Europe during the second half of the twentieth century resembled very much with Plato’s prisoners. Isolated from the rest of the world, often misinformed about what was going on behind the iron curtain, they were deprived from understanding what was going on with the rest

Set at the end of the Cold War in East Germany, the movie Goodbye Lenin is the story of a young man, Alex, trying to protect his mother, Christiane, who just spent the last eight months in a coma. Christiane is a personification of the values and ideology of socialism. She carries them out in her interactions with society, and is very hopeful towards the success of the regime. During her absence, the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the German Democratic Republic leads to a radical and turbulent change in society: the fall of socialism and the triumph of capitalism. Because of the shocking effect of such information and the danger of another heart attack, Alex creates for Christiane an ideological form of socialism. Fundamental themes in the movie are the difference between ideal and reality of socialism, as well as the positive and negative aspects of the transition to free market capitalism. Such themes are carried out through a juxtaposition of an ideal society and its reality in the form of a constructed reality of socialism. This idealized version of socialism served as an oasis from the chaotic transition from a problematic socialist regime to free market capitalism.

I was born in Kaunas, Lithuania on June 27, 1869 to a Russian-Jewish family. My mother’s name was Taube Bienowitch and my father’s name was Abraham Goldman. In 1881, after the assassination of Russian Czar Alexander II my family moved to East Prussia. There I was educated in St. Petersburg. Throughout my entire childhood and early adolescence I lived in a world filled with fear of Russia's secret police and not being able to live how I wanted to with my family. I detest having no freedom to do what I please unlike the rich and powerful Russian government. In my teenage years this dislike grew more into hatred and I chose to embrace ideas of a Russian revolutionary movement. I believe society should be of free equals, compared to a society of

The year is 1945, World War Two has just been concluded with an allied victory. Josef Stalin is the General Secretary of the USSR and possess greater dreams for his country. This In turn leads to a several decade engagement between the world's largest superpowers, ironic that peace would result in war, but that is the world we reside in. Josef is set upon a communist ideology for his people. When he would travel across the soviet state, upon arrival the first person in his welcome crowd to stop applauding him was set to execution or work camp. This was rule under the Stalin, the man of steel.

“The Communist threat inside the country has been magnified and exalted far beyond its realities”(273). Accusations have been made, irresponsible citizens are spreading fears. Multiples of suspicions had been made. Innocents are being considered as disloyalty. “Suspicion grows until only the person who loudly proclaims the orthodox view, or who, once having been a Communist, has been converted, is trustworthy” (273). Suspects are those who are unorthodox, who does not followed military policymakers. The fear has driven citizens to the folds of the orthodox. The fear was to be investigated, to lose one’s job, etc. These fears have driven many people to sorrow. These fears have effected younger generations. “This pattern of orthodoxy that is shaping our thinking has dangerous implications” (274). Douglas believes the great danger if we become victims of the orthodox school. They can limit our ability to change or alter. Douglas believes a man’s mind must be free.

The first part of Goodbye Lenin! paints an elaborate picture of what a totalitarian regime looks like. Some of the many aspects of a totalitarian

PRC personal warn prisoners that they have to remodel their entire thinking and behavior.The workers of the camps often use remodeling of the thinking and behavior in sociopolitical compulsion. The PRC personal think of the prisoners as hopeless Chinese citizens that are “a mere grain of incohesive sand in a shifting social sand dune” and treat them as such.The camps advocate psychological reconstruction for the prisoners. The camps believe that the only way to deal with socialist citizens is to force them to become prisoners and participate in labor for the city. They believe this forced labor will make the prisoners non-exploitive, law- abiding citizens.The government is free from limiting sentencing of any individual. The more severe end

And for her friend Peter, the obverse of communism isn’t necessarily democracy or capitalism, right-wing politics or a welfare state, but any system that does not involve totalitarian oppression. The counterpoint to communism thus takes on many different forms, shifting across speakers and political positionings. The third and final point is that in uncertain political and economic times, social memories of communism and, in particular, of communism’s downfall provide a much needed sense of national unity. These forms of recollection not only promote collective visions of past and present but are also crucial facets of shared visions of the future. Despite the emphasis on different generations, personal narratives, activist declarations, and official remembrances bring together old and young, linking together those who collaborated (in the past) with those who were not yet born during this time, and implicating all of them in a singular past (living through totalitarianism) and therefore, in very broad terms, in a single future—that is, a future without communism—whatever range of shapes it might