Political Repression in The Soviet Union

Political Repression In The Soviet Union

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union millions of people became victims of political repression (according to western historiography), which was an instrument of the state since the October Revolution. Culminating during the Stalin era, it still existed during the "Khrushchev Thaw", followed by increased persecution of Soviet dissidents during the Brezhnev stagnation, and didn't cease to exist during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika. Its heritage still influences the life of modern Russia and other former Soviet states.

Read more about Political Repression In The Soviet Union:  Origins and Early Soviet Times, Red Terror, Collectivization, Great Purge, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers, Gulag, Repressions in Annexed Territories, Post-Stalin Era (1953-1991), Loss of Life, Difficulties in Counting The Repressed, Remembering The Victims

Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, political, repression, soviet and/or union:

    Nothing an interested foreigner may have to say about the Soviet Union today can compare with the scorn and fury of those who inhabit the ruin of a dream.
    Christopher Hope (b. 1944)

    [The political mind] is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeur at another time. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    People with a culture of poverty suffer much less from repression than we of the middle class suffer and indeed, if I may make the suggestion with due qualification, they often have a hell of a lot more fun than we have.
    Brian Friel (b. 1929)

    They were right. The Soviet régime is not the embodiment of evil as you think in the West. They have laws and I broke them. I hate tea and they love tea. Who is wrong?
    Alexander Zinoviev (b. 1922)

    If the union of these States, and the liberties of this people, shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming time.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)