Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: The Second World War and a New World Order

Pact with the Devil, Joseph Stalin shakes hands with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop at the Kremlin, Moscow, 1939. Based on photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H27337 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE.

The Second World War was both a catastrophe and a crucible for the Soviet Union. It transformed the USSR from an embattled revolutionary state into one of the two global superpowers — but at a staggering human cost.

The Pact with the Devil
In August 1939, the world was stunned by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union, sworn enemy of fascism, signed a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany. A secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. When Germany invaded Poland from the west on September 1, the Red Army marched in from the east two weeks later, seizing territory promised in the pact. Within a year, the USSR had annexed the Baltic states and parts of Romania, and waged a bitter war against Finland in the Winter War of 1939–1940.

Operation Barbarossa: The Shock
At dawn on June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion in history. Three million German soldiers, supported by allies, surged into Soviet territory. Stalin had ignored multiple warnings from Western intelligence and his own spies, convinced Hitler would not break the pact so soon. The result was chaos: Soviet forces were encircled, millions captured, and vast swathes of land overrun in the first months.

A War of Survival
Yet the Soviet Union did not collapse. Moscow did not fall. The Soviet leadership relocated industry east of the Urals, away from German bombers. Ordinary citizens endured unimaginable hardship — cities under siege, villages burned, families torn apart. The Siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days, killing over a million through starvation, shelling, and cold. The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943) became the turning point: a brutal, house-to-house struggle that ended with the surrender of an entire German army.

The Road to Berlin
From Stalingrad onward, the Red Army went on the offensive. In 1944, Operation Bagration annihilated Germany’s Army Group Centre, liberating Belarus and pushing west. Soviet troops advanced through Poland, Romania, Hungary, and into the heart of Germany. On May 2, 1945, Berlin fell to Soviet forces, and on May 9, the USSR celebrated Victory Day.

The Human Cost and Political Gain
The Soviet Union emerged victorious, but the toll was staggering: at least 20 million dead, countless wounded, and vast destruction of towns, farms, and infrastructure. Yet geopolitically, the USSR gained enormous influence. Communist governments, backed by Soviet military presence, took power across Eastern Europe. The wartime alliance with Britain and the United States soon gave way to suspicion and rivalry — the Cold War was already germinating.

Further Reading:

• Richard Overy – Russia’s War (1997)

• Antony Beevor – Stalingrad (1998)

• Catherine Merridale – Ivan’s War (2006)

• Evan Mawdsley – Thunder in the East (2005)

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: From Lenin to Stalin - Building the Soviet State

Joseph Stalin

The birth of the Soviet Union in 1922 was both the conclusion of the revolutionary struggle and the beginning of a new experiment in governance. The Bolsheviks had won the Civil War, but they inherited a country ravaged by years of conflict, famine, and economic collapse.

Lenin’s Pragmatic Retreat
To stabilize the economy, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. It was a tactical retreat from full socialism: small businesses and private markets were allowed to operate, peasants could sell surplus grain, and foreign investment was cautiously welcomed. The policy brought modest recovery, but also ideological unease among hardline communists.

The Succession Struggle
When Lenin died in January 1924, he left no clear successor. The ensuing power struggle pitted Leon Trotsky — charismatic leader of the Red Army — against Joseph Stalin, the party’s General Secretary. Stalin used his position to quietly build alliances, control appointments, and marginalize rivals. By the late 1920s, Trotsky was exiled, and Stalin stood unchallenged.

The First Five-Year Plan
In 1928, Stalin launched the First Five-Year Plan, aiming to transform the USSR from an agrarian economy into an industrial superpower. Massive projects such as the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and the Magnitogorsk steelworks became symbols of progress. Industrial output surged, but at tremendous human cost — workers endured harsh conditions, shortages, and strict discipline.

Collectivization and Famine
In the countryside, Stalin forced millions of peasants into collective farms. Those who resisted — labelled “kulaks” — were deported or executed. Grain was requisitioned to feed cities and finance industrialization, even during poor harvests. The result was famine on a massive scale. In Ukraine, the Holodomor of 1932–1933 killed millions, a trauma that still shapes Ukrainian–Russian relations.

The Great Terror
By the mid-1930s, Stalin’s paranoia turned inward. A wave of purges swept the Communist Party, the military, and the intelligentsia. Show trials extracted confessions through torture; executions and Gulag sentences followed. Entire generations of revolutionary leaders vanished. Yet even as fear spread, the Soviet state consolidated its grip, and Stalin’s image as the “Father of Nations” was cultivated through propaganda.

The Soviet Union on the Eve of War
By the end of the 1930s, the USSR was a formidable industrial power with a centralized command economy. The human toll had been immense, but Stalin believed the sacrifices had prepared the country for the challenges ahead — challenges that would arrive sooner than anyone expected.

Further Reading:

• Stephen Kotkin – Stalin: Paradoxes of Power (2014)

• Robert Service – Stalin: A Biography (2004)

• Orlando Figes – Revolutionary Russia 1891–1991 (2014)

• Sheila Fitzpatrick – Everyday Stalinism (1999)

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: 1917 - Two Revolutions and a Civil War

The year 1917 was a whirlwind that shattered centuries of monarchy and reshaped the map of Eurasia. It began with bread queues and strikes, and ended with the birth of the world’s first socialist state.

February: The Fall of the Tsar
By February, Petrograd was gripped by strikes and food riots. Soldiers refused orders to fire on crowds and joined the demonstrators instead. Within days, the centuries-old Romanov dynasty collapsed. Nicholas II abdicated, and a Provisional Government took over, promising liberal reforms and elections.

Dual Power and Disillusionment
The Provisional Government shared power uneasily with the Petrograd Soviet, a council of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies. The government kept Russia in World War I, hoping to honor alliances with Britain and France. This decision proved disastrous, as the war continued to drain resources and lives. Radical parties gained support, especially the Bolsheviks, who called for “Peace, Land, Bread.”

October: The Bolshevik Takeover
Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks staged an armed uprising on October 25 (November 7 in the modern calendar). They seized key points in Petrograd and toppled the Provisional Government almost without bloodshed. The new Soviet regime withdrew from the war through the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ceding large territories to Germany.

Civil War and Red Victory
From 1918 to 1922, Russia descended into civil war. The Bolshevik Red Army fought the White forces — a mix of monarchists, republicans, and foreign intervention troops — across a vast front. Nationalist movements sought independence in Ukraine, the Baltics, and the Caucasus. The Reds ultimately triumphed, consolidating control through the Cheka secret police and “War Communism,” which requisitioned grain and suppressed dissent. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was officially proclaimed.

Further Reading:

• John Reed – Ten Days That Shook the World (1919)

• Sheila Fitzpatrick – The Russian Revolution (1982)

• Richard Pipes – The Russian Revolution (1990)

• A. Beevor – Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 (2022)

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: The Fuse to the Powder Keg - Russia Before 1917

Tsar Nicholas II

In the early 20th century, the Russian Empire was vast, diverse, and unstable — a giant straddling Europe and Asia, rich in resources yet poor in governance. Tsar Nicholas II sat atop an autocratic system that resisted meaningful reform, even as the world around it modernized. The gap between the ruling elite and the majority of the population was staggering.

A Land of Peasants and Aristocrats
Over 80% of Russians were peasants, living in rural villages bound by centuries-old traditions. Many still carried the memory of serfdom, abolished only in 1861, and freedom had brought little improvement. Small plots, heavy taxes, and outdated farming methods left millions in chronic poverty. Meanwhile, a tiny aristocracy — less than 2% of the population — owned vast estates and enjoyed lives of comfort and privilege.

Industrialization Without Inclusion
By the late 1800s, Russia was industrializing, but unevenly. St. Petersburg and Moscow had textile mills, metal works, and railways. Harsh factory conditions, long hours, and low pay bred resentment among workers. The new urban proletariat had no political voice; trade unions were illegal, strikes often met with armed force. Russia’s economic modernization created the very class that would later become the backbone of revolutionary movements.

The Empire of Many Nations
Russia was not a homogeneous state. It ruled over Poles, Ukrainians, Balts, Finns, Armenians, Georgians, and Central Asian peoples — many of whom resented Russian dominance. Nationalist movements grew in strength, often clashing with the imperial government, which sought to “Russify” minorities by imposing the Russian language and Orthodox religion.

1905: The First Shockwave
The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) was meant to project imperial power but ended in humiliation. The defeat sparked unrest at home, culminating in the events of January 9, 1905 — “Bloody Sunday” — when troops fired on peaceful demonstrators in St. Petersburg. Nationwide strikes, mutinies, and uprisings followed. The tsar reluctantly granted a parliament, the Duma, but its powers were limited, and opposition parties were repressed. The monarchy had dodged collapse, but its legitimacy was badly weakened.

World War I: The Breaking Point
When war broke out in 1914, patriotism ran high, but Russia’s military was poorly equipped and badly led. Casualties mounted into the millions. The home front suffered from food shortages, inflation, and collapsing transport networks. By 1916, the tsar’s decision to take personal command of the army tied him directly to its failures. Meanwhile, political intrigue in the capital, symbolized by the influence of the mystic Rasputin, discredited the monarchy further. The empire was a powder keg — and the spark was coming.

Further Reading:

• Orlando Figes – A People’s Tragedy (1996)

• Hugh Seton-Watson – The Russian Empire 1801–1917 (1967)

• S. A. Smith – Russia in Revolution (2017)

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: Placing the War in Ukraine in Historical Context

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it was more than a war between two countries. It was the most direct challenge to Europe’s post–Cold War order, the most violent conflict on the continent since the Second World War, and a shockwave with global repercussions.

For many, the war seemed to erupt suddenly — a bolt from the blue. But the roots of this confrontation run deep, woven through a century of revolutions, wars, ideological struggles, and shifting borders. To understand the decisions being made today in Moscow, Kyiv, Brussels, and Washington, we must first understand how we got here.

This series of blogs is meant to provide that context. It will trace the modern history of Russia, Ukraine, and the wider post-Soviet space from the last years of the tsars to the present day. It is not just a story of leaders and battles, but of societies in transformation — and of how history shapes political choices, national identities, and international relations.

Why Ukraine Matters to the World
Ukraine’s struggle is not only about its own survival. It is also about:

• Whether borders in Europe can be changed by force.

• Whether smaller nations have the right to choose their alliances without pressure from larger neighbors.

• How the outcome of this war will influence the future of European security, global trade, and the balance of power between democracies and autocracies.

What This Series Covers
The historical arc will be told in a number of blog items, beginning with the social and political forces that led to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and moving through the rise of the Soviet Union, the Cold War, the collapse of the USSR, the chaotic 1990s, and Russia’s resurgence under Vladimir Putin — culminating in the events of 2014, the invasion of 2022 and the mess we are in today.

Anne Applebaum on Why Putin Refuses Peace

Anne Applebaum.

Anne Applebaum has argued that one of the biggest mistakes in understanding the war in Ukraine is to see it as a struggle over territory. Russia already stretches across eleven time zones, with vast regions it can barely populate. It does not “need” Donetsk, Crimea, or any other piece of land. For Putin, the war is not about geography but about power—the power to dominate Ukraine and pull it back into Russia’s orbit.

This is why talk of “land for peace” has always missed the point. Even when Western leaders hinted at deals that would have given Moscow large concessions, Putin was uninterested. He still believes he can win outright. That belief rests on a simple calculation: Americans are unreliable, Europeans are weak, and Ukrainians will eventually be bombed, starved, or demoralized into submission. If victory is still within reach, why settle?

Applebaum likens the war to France’s colonial fight in Algeria. Imperial powers often cling to the illusion that colonies can be held against their will. But just as Algeria was not French, Ukraine is not Russian. Both wars reveal the same truth: occupation cannot manufacture belonging. The question is not whether Moscow will one day accept this, but when.

Until that reckoning comes, Applebaum warns, hopes for quick ceasefires or neat compromises are illusions. Russia will only stop when defeat becomes undeniable, and the West’s task is to hasten that realization.

Further Reading

• Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (2020)

• Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (2017)

• Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018)

• Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015)

• Mark Galeotti, Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (2022)

• Michael Kimmage, Collision: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability (2023)