She was part of an advance guard of Soviet apologists who came of age during the collapse of the Soviet Union and its disclosures about the true horrors of life in Soviet Russia. Confronted with hard, incontrovertible evidence of the horrible reality of the crimes of Soviet communism they could not deny the truth about the Soviet Tragedy as earlier generations of communist apologist historians had done, so they choose to minimize the horror and provide bogus “context” in an academic rear guard effort to excuse and obscure the crimes of the guilty. The new Soviet revisionist historian goal was to miscast the forcible imposition of Marxist -Leninist communism and collectivism on the Russian people on the as the inevitable excesses resulting from what they saw as the grand and noble adventure and epic experiment with social transformation, not the reign of terror it actually was.
As such, Nellie was ( and is) a proponent of the old “have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” argument for communism, updated for the then current post Soviet collapse disclosures of the reality of the crimes, horrors and lies about true history of Soviet Russia painstakingly documented Soviet archives
Ironically, major parts of the the Soviet archives landed at the much hated by the Left Hoover Institute located on Stanford campus where Nellie was studying at the time and Hoover hosted a good number of amazing Russian archivists and historians who lived the history as part of the transfer of records.
These Russians became part of an academic struggle with Western Leftist revisionist historians who wanted to control the narrative on the critical first draft of post Soviet Collapse history of Russia to minimize and apologize for the revelations of the horrific crimes and oppressions committed by the Soviet Union against the Russian people
Nellie Hauke and her apologist revisionism of Soviet history was held in very low esteem by the Russian historians who actually lived the history.
“Nellie Hauke and her apologist revisionism of Soviet history was held in very low esteem by the Russian historians who actually lived the history.”
I think Ugly-Ohr is held in low esteem by anyone paying attention these days....