Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Marx, Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, proletarian internationalism, and a dictatorship of the proletariat based on working-class self-emancipation and mass democracy. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Joseph Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. R is an American actor. He made his film debut in a small role in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness. He appeared in several notable films, including The Indian Runner (1991), Carlito's Way (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Daylight (1996), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), G.I. Jane (1997), A Perfect Murder (1998), A Walk on the Moon (1999), and 28 Days (2000).
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich, also Kahanovich, was a Soviet politician and administrator, and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin. He was one of several associates who helped Stalin to seize power.
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell from Stalin's favour and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge.
Photograph manipulation involves the transformation or alteration of a photograph. Some photograph manipulations are considered to be skillful artwork, while others are considered to be unethical practices, especially when used to deceive. Photographs may be manipulated for political propaganda, to improve the appearance of a subject, for entertainment, or as humor.
Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and a Soviet politician who served as the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet government from March 1918 to July 1930.
Julia Karin Ormond is an English actress. She rose to prominence by appearing in The Baby of Mâcon (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), First Knight (1995), Sabrina (1995), Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) and The Barber of Siberia (1998). She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, for her role in the HBO film Temple Grandin (2010). She is also known for her role in The Walking Dead: World Beyond (2020) as a main antagonist.
Roman Vishniac was a Russian-American photographer, best known for capturing on film the culture of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. A major archive of his work was housed at the International Center of Photography until 2018, when Vishniac's daughter, Mara Vishniac Kohn, donated it to The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley.
"A picture is worth a thousand words" is an adage in multiple languages meaning that complex and sometimes multiple ideas can be conveyed by a single still image, which conveys its meaning or essence more effectively than a mere verbal description.
Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore is a British historian, television presenter and author of popular history books and novels, including Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003), Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2008), Jerusalem: The Biography (2011), The Romanovs 1613–1918 (2016), among others.
Rory MacLean FRSL is a British-Canadian historian and travel writer who lives and works in Berlin and the United Kingdom. His best known works are Stalin’s Nose, a travelogue through eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall; Magic Bus, a history of the Asia Overland hippie trail; and Berlin: Imagine a City, a portrait of that city over 500 years. In 2019 John le Carré wrote that MacLean "must surely be the outstanding, and most indefatigable, traveller-writer of our time."
Whitewashing is the act of glossing over or covering up vices, crimes or scandals or exonerating by means of a perfunctory investigation or biased presentation of data with the intention to improve one's reputation.
Censorship of images was widespread in the Soviet Union. Visual censorship was exploited in a political context, particularly during the political purges of Joseph Stalin, where the Soviet government attempted to erase some of the purged figures from Soviet history, and took measures which included altering images and destroying film. The USSR curtailed access to pornography, which was specifically prohibited by Soviet law.
Vladimir Pavlovich Milyutin was a Russian Bolshevik leader, Soviet statesman, economist and statistician who was People's Commissar for Agriculture in the original soviet government formed on the day of the Bolshevik Revolution, but resigned in protest against Vladimir Lenin's decision to impose one party rule.
Eastern Bloc media and propaganda was controlled directly by each country's communist party, which controlled the state media, censorship and propaganda organs. State and party ownership of print, television and radio media served as an important manner in which to control information and society in light of Eastern Bloc leaderships viewing even marginal groups of opposition intellectuals as a potential threat to the bases underlying communist power therein.
Elena Herzog is a Russian-American visual artist and photographer.
The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation is a ministry of the Government of Russia responsible for state policy in cultural spheres such as art, cinematography, archives, copyright, cultural heritage, and censorship.
David King was a British graphic designer, design historian, and writer, who assembled one of the largest collections of Soviet graphics and photographs. From this collection, he created a series of books covering the history of the Russian Revolution and its associated art and propaganda. In addition to Soviet-era photographs, posters, and other materials, his collection included items related to the Spanish Civil War, Maoist China, the Weimar Republic, and American labour organizations. King, a "leftist with Trotskyist leanings", in particular collected photographs and ephemera related to Leon Trotsky, who was extensively doctored out of revolutionary photographs and records under Josef Stalin's regime.
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the time the three Moscow trials were given extravagant titles:
- the "Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center" ;
- the "Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center" ; and
- the "Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites'".
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the former Soviet Union face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Since 1 January 2016, in Estonia followed by Latvia, same-sex couples have recognition called a cohabitation agreement that gives the same legal protections available to opposite-sex couples. On 11 January 2019, the Supreme Court of Lithuania ruled that same-sex spouses must be granted residence permits, while a cohabitation agreement is pending.
