Word: soviet
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most surprising news story in my lifetime is the Soviet Union's collapse. What is yours? - Ed Winters, Suffolk, N.Y. I was born in 1959 in Ridgewood, N.J., so if you think back, it's very hard to single out one thing in a lifetime of 50 years. We lost a very visible war in Vietnam. We won a very visible space race. Though the end of the Cold War and all it has wrought is probably as good an answer...
...author invoked the triumphalist narrative of the U.S. and its western Allies winning World War II and later toppling communism. First of all, the Soviet Union and the Allies won World War II in concert. The U.S.S.R. lost over 25 million people in WW II, whereas Americans half a million. Secondly, the U.S.S.R. was collapsing without very much external influence - succumbing to pressures unrelated to U.S. policy whatsoever. The greatest feats are not always American ones. Nodira Karimova Queanbeyan, Australia...
...What may be more surreal, however, is the resurgent popularity that Stalin is enjoying at the moment in Russia. Just in time for the 130th anniversary of his birth on Dec. 21, the state-run polling agency VTsIOM released a survey showing that despite the millions of Soviet citizens who fell victim to purges, starvation and summary executions under Stalin's regime, 54% of Russians now have a high opinion of his leadership qualities. And when asked about his personal attributes, 50% of respondents said they viewed them as average or above average - up from 45% when the same survey...
...efforts to solidify its power. "The state is hinting that Stalin's tactics are also part of its arsenal for controlling the country," says Sergei Mitrokhin, the leader of the opposition Yabloko party. The widespread sympathy toward Stalin, he adds, is also a result of the lingering impact of Soviet propaganda, which the Russian government never tried to erase from the public consciousness after communism fell. "All countries emerging from totalitarianism and evolving into a normal form of government carried out a long and difficult program of reforms and re-education, of coming to grips with the past," he says...
Wearing a green field cap and military dog tags, 12-year-old Victor steadies a Soviet-made SAM-7 missile launcher on his tiny shoulder, squinting through the crosshairs at the children screaming dizzily on the nearby Tilt-a-Whirl ride. Even without the missile, the SAM-7 launcher is as tall as Victor and doesn't weight much less. But he's having too much fun to be burdened by the weapon's cumbersome dimensions...