Soviet Union

Trotsky in 1905

Rex Winsbury describes how the attempted Russian Revolution of 1905 was the prologue to greater events in 1917.

Trotsky’s War Train

Rex Winsbury describes how, for two and a half years during the Russian Civil War, Trotsky’s headquarters were his mobile train.

Soviet Nuclear Testing in the Arctic

During the Cold War, 224 nuclear weapons were denotated at Novaya Zemlya in the Soviet Union’s remote Arctic north. Only with the collapse of the USSR in 1989 did the true scale become known.

Revolution in Russia

The impact of the Soviet Revolution in October 1917 has been so overwhelming that we seldom look back to the February days when the Tsar was compelled to abdicate forty-eight hours after the outbreak of disturbances, and even more seldom to the First Revolution of 1905. Yet, A.J. Halpern writes, October came as a culmination of the February crisis, and 1905 was the necessary prologue to the 1917 drama. 

Marinetti, Futurist and Fascist

David Mitchell inspects Marinetti’s various admirations: the beauty of speed and war, and the destructive gestures of anarchists.