Browse

Making an addition to the new historiography of mid-twentieth-century Soviet history, the author of this book has researched the history of Soviet diplomacy from 1930 to 1939 through a variety of now-accessible diplomatic, political, administrative and social archives. The book adds into the mix the memories and testimonies of diplomatic personnel. The political system established by Stalin in the USSR during the 1930s has remained in part an enigma because little attention has been paid to those who made it function. This book sheds light on the workings of the Soviet bureaucracy and in particular the role of Maxim Litvinov, Soviet Foreign Minister, and his relations with Stalin. The author examines Soviet foreign policy and the process of Stalinisation, and argues that these ‘men of influence’ were not simply agents of the Kremlin, but were able, through the 1930s and with the emergence of Soviet power on the eve of the Second World War, to initiate and pursue their own agendas.

Explores the momentous changes that have taken place in the Russian national identity discourse since Putin’s return to the presidency Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 marked a watershed in post-Cold War European history and brought East–West relations to a low point. At the same time, by selling this fateful action in starkly nationalist language, the Putin regime achieved record-high popularity. This book shows how, after the large-scale 2011–2013 anti-Putin demonstrations in major Russian cities and the parallel rise in xenophobia related to the Kremlin’s perceived inability to deal with the influx of Central Asian labour migrants, the annexation of Crimea generated strong ‘rallying around the nation’ and ‘rallying around the leader’ effects. The contributors to this collection go beyond the news headlines, focusing on aspects of Russian society that have often passed under the radar, such as intellectual racism and growing xenophobia. These developments are contextualised by chapters that provide a broader overview of the latest developments in Russian nationalism – both state-level nationalism and independent, bottom–up-driven societal nationalism, and the tensions between the two are explored.