Execution of the Romanov family by Bolsheviks. Background[edit] On 22 March 1917, Nicholas, no longer a monarch and addressed with contempt by the sentries as "Nicholas Romanov", was reunited with his family at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo.[4] He was placed under house arrest with his family by the Provisional Government. Surrounded by his guards, confined to their quarters, the Imperial family was inspected on Nicholas' first night back at home.[4] The same night a band of soldiers broke into Grigory Rasputin's tomb and, lifting the putrefying corpse with sticks, flung it onto a pyre of logs and drenched it with gasoline.
The body burned for six hours as Rasputin's ashes were scattered by the icy winds.[4] The ex-Tsar remained calm and dignified and even insisted on the children resuming their lessons, with himself as tutor in history and geography. In August 1917, Alexander Kerensky's provisional government evacuated the Romanovs to Tobolsk, allegedly to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. Execution[edit] Dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. The increasing political unrest led the establishment of the Soviet military and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to attempt a coup d'état to oust Mikhail Gorbachev and re-establish a strong central regime in August 1991.[2] On December 26, 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was finalized by declaration no. 142-H of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union,[1] acknowledging the independence of the twelve republics of the Soviet Union, and creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
On the previous day, 25 December 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, declaring his office extinct, and handed over the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That same evening at 7:32 P.M. the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the Russian tricolor. 1985[edit] Ukrainian Famine. Revelations from the Russian Archives The dreadful famine that engulfed Ukraine, the northern Caucasus, and the lower Volga River area in 1932-1933 was the result of Joseph Stalin's policy of forced collectivization. The heaviest losses occurred in Ukraine, which had been the most productive agricultural area of the Soviet Union. Stalin was determined to crush all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism.
Thus, the famine was accompanied by a devastating purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and the Ukrainian Communist party itself. The famine broke the peasants' will to resist collectivization and left Ukraine politically, socially, and psychologically traumatized. The policy of all-out collectivization instituted by Stalin in 1929 to finance industrialization had a disastrous effect on agricultural productivity. Nevertheless, in 1932 Stalin raised Ukraine's grain procurement quotas by forty-four percent. Memorandum on Grain ProblemTranslation of memorandum. Siege of Leningrad. Background[edit] Preparations[edit] German plans[edit] Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad, its primary objective.
Von Leeb's plan called for capturing the city on the move, but due to Hitler's recall of 4th Panzer Group (persuaded by his Chief of General Staff, Franz Halder, to transfer this south to participate in Fedor von Bock's push for Moscow),[15] von Leeb had to lay the city under siege indefinitely after reaching the shores of Lake Ladoga, while trying to complete the encirclement and reaching the Finnish Army under Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim waiting at the Svir River, east of Leningrad.[16] Finnish military forces were located north of Leningrad, while German forces occupied territories to the south.[17] Both German and Finnish forces had the goal of encircling Leningrad and maintaining the blockade perimeter, thus cutting off all communication with the city and preventing the defenders from receiving any food or supplies.
American espionage in the Soviet Union. Since the formation of the Soviet Union in 1917, the United States of America has had presence in the Soviet Government. American espionage was not centered around the same goals and ideals as the Soviet Union; in which the Soviets tried to steal American technology and other American advances, along with American battle plans, location of nuclear weapons, equipment, military bases, and other military operations. Mostly, America focused on the latter, as Soviet technology was not of interest to the United States. The United States conducted espionage through the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA), while the Soviet Union conducted espionage through the KGB. American and Soviet Espionage[edit] Throughout the Cold War, acts of espionage, or spying, became prevalent as tension between the United States and Soviet Union increased. KGB[edit] However, during a large fire on March 28, 1991 at the American Embassy, the KGB was believed to have stolen several classified documents and equipment.
Soviet Scorched-Earth Warfare: Facts And Consequences. Soviet Scorched-Earth Warfare: Facts And Consequences By Walter N. Sanning The Soviet scorched-earth policy has many facets: Military, economic, and so on. In The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry I touched only on those which are of importance in connection with the demographic changes of Eastern European Jewry. Here I want to emphasize the economic side of a little-known portion of the Second World War. The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty of 23 August 1939 provided for the following territorial divisions: Estonia and Latvia would fall into the Soviet sphere of interest while Lithuania would fall into the German.
While Germany was engaged in the Western Campaign from 10 May until 24 June, 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the entirety of Lithuania between 16 and 22 June following the ultimatum of 15 June - that is, including even that portion which was to remain within the German sphere of interest according to the treaty. Scorched Earth According to Soviet Prof. Hunger. Operation Barbarossa. Operation Barbarossa (German: Fall Barbarossa, literally "Case Barbarossa"), beginning 22 June 1941, was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II.[17][18] Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km (1,800 mi) front,[1][4][19] the largest invasion in the history of warfare.
In addition to troops, Barbarossa used 600,000 motor vehicles and 750,000 horses.[20] The ambitious operation was driven by Adolf Hitler's persistent desire to conquer the Soviet territories as embodied in Generalplan Ost. It marked the beginning of the pivotal phase in deciding the victors of the war. The German invasion of the Soviet Union caused a high rate of fatalities: 95% of all German Army casualties that occurred from 1941 to 1944, and 65% of all Allied military casualties from the entire war.
German intentions[edit] Nazi Germany policy towards the Soviet Union[edit] Germany plans the invasion[edit] Great Purge. Partial view of a plaque with photos of victims of the Great Purge who were shot in the Butovo firing range near Moscow. The photos were taken after the arrest of each victim. The Great Purge was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1934 to 1939. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants and the Red Army leadership, and widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and arbitrary executions.
In Russian historiography, the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina (Russian: Eжовщина; literally, the Yezhov regime), after Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the Soviet secret police, NKVD. In the Western world, Robert Conquest's 1968 book The Great Terror popularized that phrase. Introduction[edit] The Great Purge has provoked numerous debates about its purpose, scale and mechanisms.
Background[edit] Moscow Trials[edit] Katyn massacre. Map of the sites related to the Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, mord katyński, 'Katyń crime'; Russian: Катынский расстрел Katynskij ra'sstrel 'Katyn shooting'), was a series of mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. Originally the term "Katyn massacre" , also known as the Katyn Forest massacre, referred to the massacre at Katyn Forest, which was discovered first and was the largest execution of this type.
The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943. When the London-based Polish government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Red Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it. In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the massacre.[5] Background[edit] Discovery[edit]