Soviet Anti-Americanism
Guest: Rósa Magnúsdóttir on Enemy Number One: The United States of America in Soviet Ideology and Propaganda, 1945-1959 published by Oxford University Press.
June 14, 2019
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Stalin’s Short Course
Guest: David Brandenberger on Stalin’s Master Narrative: A Critical Edition of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course published by Yale University Press.
June 7, 2019
The Stories Polish Secret Police Files Tell Us
Guest: Anna Krakus on the stories Polish police files tell us.
May 31, 2019
The Judeo-Bolshevik Myth
Guest: Paul Hanebrink on A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism published by Harvard University Press.
May 24, 2019
“The Reddest of the Blacks”
For the past several months, I’ve been researching the life of Lovett Fort-Whiteman. Here’s a short film I made about his eventual arrest and death in Stalinist Russia.
May 21, 2019
Amerika
US Spy or Nigerian Scam Artist?
The Ryan Fogle spy scandal is unfolding. Who knows what will come of it over the next hours, days, and weeks. At the moment it
May 14, 2013
US Prison Industrial Complex Versus the Stalinist Gulag
In a recent column, “Incarceration Nation, Fareed Zakaria claimed that number of people in the United States under “correctional supervision” exceeded that of Stalinist Russia.
May 11, 2013
Boston Conspiracy Theories Unite Americans and Russians
This week’s Russia! Magazine column, “Tsarnaev Conspiracy Theory Simulacrum“: The bombings in Boston carried out by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev brought the United States and
April 25, 2013
The Tsarnaevs’ Traumatic Narratives
I don’t have much to add about the biographies of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. I certainly won’t presume the cause or intent of their bombings
April 21, 2013
The Let’s Pretend Game
This week’s Russia! Magazine column, “The Magnitsky Minstrelsy“: The passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 last December sent US-Russia
April 18, 2013
Medvedev and Putin Disagree on Libya! The End is Surely Nigh!
Putin and Medvedev disagree on the NATO air strikes on Libya! Sound the alarms! The tandem is collapsing! Oh, the horror! The horror! Yesterday Putin
March 22, 2011
Craving Cold War
Back in late 2008, when Pajamas Media was still having me write articles on Russia (they’ve since stopped asking, I think, because I wasn’t anti-Russian
July 11, 2010
Are your barbecues breeding Bolsheviks?
Are your backyard barbecues breeding Bolsheviks? Deep cover agents posing as a two car garage, 2.3 kid, suburban, all-American family? Mysterious sultry, salon dyed Slavic
July 2, 2010
Stalin’s Shadow over the Tea Party
I don’t usually comment on American politics. I rarely devote my time to reading about the place. The level of hyperbole and rhetorical inanity makes me want to vomit. Also, since I’ve been in Moscow, the US looks even crazier than it does when I’m there (the strange effect of this is that Russian politics looks downright normal). I’ve also totally shied away from US-Russia foreign policy issues. I used to. Not anymore. There are people out there who do it better, and frankly, the debate is so locked in Cold War binaries, I can’t help to find it all a bit boring, repetitive, and quite nauseating. So if you’re here looking for a treatise on START, ruminations on the Great Game, or how America is encircling Russia or how
April 17, 2010
RT’s Agitprop
When I first saw the ads Russia Today is using in its American and UK ad campaign, I immediately had the reaction that most Americans and British probably had. Comparing Obama to Ahmadinejad? That’s like comparing Christ with the devil! Is RT crazy or just stupid!? But then I started to think about the ad, realizing my gut reaction is exactly what it was supposed to provoke.
January 27, 2010