Apartment Choice

In a recent friendly telephone conversation , Russian President Vladimir Putin may well have exclaimed to U.S. President Donald Trump , "Darn that dream I dream each night, but it haunts me and it won't come true." It would be a timely commentary on present day Russia . On this 100th anniversary of the October 1917 Russian Revolution , it is  useful to assess the existence and the failure of the dreams of 20th century Russian Bolsheviks with their aspirations for a new society and a world Communist revolution , and the consequent disillusionment of the faithful, and their sad fate, resulting from the disastrous reality of the Soviet regime led by Josef Stalin. Compelling narratives have been related concerning the drama and tragedy of the Old Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union in powerful and compelling works by Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Victor Kravchenko, among others. Now, the narrative is recounted in a massive 1,100 page, brilli...

We’re pleased to share the prelude, titled Freundschaft, of Kristen Ghodsee’s upcoming book Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism. In Red Hangover Ghodsee reflects on the lived experience of postsocialism and how many ordinary men and women across Eastern Europe suffered from the massive social and economic upheavals in their lives after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This text is not final, but we hope it gives you a taste of this impactful new book, to be published in late October. Two pairs of earrings, four bracelets, and a mixtape inspired me to write this book. I was in the Stadtmuseum in the German city of Jena, peering into the various display cases of an exhibit called Freundschaft! Mythos und Realit ät im Alltag der DDR (Friendship! Myth and reality in everyday life in the GDR [German Democratic Republic]). The exhibit ruminated on the official and unofficial uses of the word “friendship” in the context of communist East Germany between 1949 and 1989. In one c...