Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stirred controversy after paying tribute to a monument complex to Soviet soldiers killed in Hungary during the suppression of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising. Hungary's law states that the present day freedom ‘blossomed' out of that uprising also known as the ‘1956 revolution' and anyone ‘justifying the crimes committed by the communist system is to be punished'. This means that Putin's commemoration of the soldiers violates Hungarian law. Despite government officials denying that Putin laid a wreath at the monument specifically commemorating Soviet invaders, an advance of the itinerary of Putin's visit said that he would...

The first man in outer space 50 years ago believed fervently in the Almighty — even though the atheistic Soviet government put famous words in his mouth that he had looked around at the cosmos and did not see God. Mankind’s first space flight lasted 108 minutes on April 12, 1961. It was the height of the Cold War. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was proclaimed by the Soviet leadership to have announced, “I went up to space, but I didn’t encounter God.” However, he never uttered those often-quoted words, says a close friend. And it seems that the Soviet Union lied...

I remember our daily food always coming from a long, long line at the end of which was a loaf of bread, a liter of milk, a stick of butter, a bottle of murky cooking oil, or a kilo of bones with traces of meat and fat on them. [...] If we wanted to eat, we learned at a very young age that we had to stand in long lines every day, often in bitter cold at 4 a.m. in hopes that the store would not run out of bread or milk by the time we made it to the...

For twenty years now, the Western politicians, journalists, businessmen, and academics who observe and describe the post-Soviet evolution of Russia have almost all followed the same narrative. We begin with the assumption that the Soviet Union ended in 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev handed over power to Boris Yeltsin and Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the Soviet republics became independent states. We continue with an account of the early 1990s, an era of “reform,” when some Russian leaders tried to create a democratic political system and a liberal capitalist economy. We follow the trials and tribulations of the reformers, analyze...

Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Obama and politicians in both countries have been trading barbs for months as the countries' relations have plunged ever southward. But what about the countries' citizens? Are they as at odds as their leaders' rhetoric suggests? WorldViews delved into recent opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center and Gallup. Together, the data provide interesting insights into what Russians and Americans think about each other and themselves, how they differ in certain ways, and how they are similar when it comes to other aspects. Ways Americans and Russians think differently Less than half of all...

[T]he suppression of the minority of exploiters, by the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday, is a matter comparatively so easy, simple, and natural that it will cost far less bloodshed… and will cost mankind far less. Lenin wrote this in The State and Revolution . In the end, 66 million people were killed in the USSR between 1917 and 1959: tortured, shot, starved, frozen or worked to death. This figure was calculated by Professor of Statistics I. A. Kurganov and quoted by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago . Others say that the figure is 45 million,...

Viorel Florescu/staff photographer Retired Washington Township math teacher Miriam Moskowitz, 98, leaving federal court in New York City on Thursday with Caren Ponty, left, and her nephew Ira Moskowitz, after U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled against her petition to reverse her 1950 felony conviction related to atomic espionage. Miriam Moskowitz has been called a lot of things in her 98 years of life — feisty, aggressive and possessing a violent temper, among them. But the one label that bothers her most is spy for the former Soviet Union — a moniker given to her by the government.  That...

A new report out of Europe says that Russian military confrontations and "near misses" with NATO nations have seen a dramatic uptick in 2014. It warns that Russia must reevaluate its military policy and that NATO and Russia must improve communications to avoid potentially catastrophic confrontations. The report, released today by the European Leadership Network (ELN), a British think tank focused on regional security, chronicles some 40 incidents over eight months in which Russian military forces committed "violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, and other dangerous actions" across Europe and near North...

Winston Churchill urged the United States to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union to win the Cold War, a newly released document reveals. The previously unseen memorandum from the FBI archives details how Britain’s wartime leader made his views known to a visiting American politician in 1947. Churchill believed a pre-emptive strike on Stalin’s Russia might be the only way to stop Communism conquering the West. The note, written by an FBI agent, reports that Churchill urged Right-wing Republican Senator Styles Bridges to persuade President Harry Truman to launch a nuclear attack which would ‘wipe out’ the Kremlin...

The man responsible for what the military called the Navy’s biggest betrayal is dead. John Anthony Walker, the former Senior Warrant Officer from Norfolk who supplied the Soviets with damaging tactical and military data, died in federal prison on Thursday in Butner, North Carolina. 29 years ago, Walker’s career as a spy came to an end in Norfolk Federal Court.

The Admiral Nakhimov heavy cruiser is to receive new ordnance, putting it ahead of the Russian fleet’s current flagship, the Peter the Great missile cruiser. Military sources say the installation of the new long-range S-400 and Poliment-Redut anti-aircraft missile systems, part of the modernization of the Russian fleet, will not change the ship's combat missions. Heavy nuclear missile-bearing cruiser Admiral Nakhimov in the Barents Sea. Source: Oleg Lastochkin / RIA Novosti Russia’s Admiral Nakhimov nuclear cruiser is to receive the new long-range S-400 and the middle-range Poliment-Redut anti-missile systems, as well as Caliber cruise missiles, as part of the ongoing...

The Ebola disinformation surfaced in a Liberian newspaper on September 9, 2014, in a letter by an American professor. The “Dear World citizens” column, by Dr. Cyril Broderick, has since been picked up by various Internet sites and “news” organizations, including Alex Jones’ Infowars, Global Research, Iranian Press TV, Information Clearing House, and something called 21st Century Wire. Labeled by some critics as the “nutty professor” and a crackpot, the professor’s “research profile” claims he is president of the International Society of African Scientists. Other local and regional sources, such as “Face 2 Face Africa,” described as “The Premier Pan-African...

Russia’s leaders have continued to criticize the economic sanctions imposed by the West over their invasion of Ukraine, but the official complaints from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have recently taken a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone. The sanctions, Lavrov and others suggest, won’t really hurt the Russian economy in the long term, but are damaging to international cooperation in general. Related Stories Moody's cuts Russia's sovereign rating by one notch to Baa2 MarketWatch Russia warns of ‘prolonged’ period of cold relations with U.S. Fortune [$$] Russia's Debt Downgraded The Wall Street Journal Russia's Investment Grade Status Teeters On Edge Following Moody's Downgrade Forbes...

Soviet Agent Award for Mother Jones Reporter Cliff Kincaid — April 12, 2013 David Corn, the liberal writer and MSNBC analyst who based a story about Republican Senator Mitch McConnell on a secret and possibly illegal tape recording, is scheduled to accept an award named for Soviet agent of influence I.F. Stone. The identification of Stone as a Soviet agent is not in serious dispute, except among his most loyal and sycophantic followers.Equally scandalous, Corn is being presented the award by Jeff Cohen, who has started a petition through his radical organization, RootsAction, to give accused traitor Bradley Manning the...

It was the most notorious spy case of the Cold War — the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union — and it rested largely on the testimony of Ms. Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, an Army sergeant who had stolen nuclear intelligence from Los Alamos, N.M. For his role in the conspiracy, Mr. Greenglass went to prison for almost a decade, then changed his name and lived quietly until a journalist tracked him down. He admitted then, nearly a half-century later, that he had lied on the witness stand to save...

Russia is currently in the process of expanding and modernizing its navy. This might have something to do with Moscow’s apparent appetite for military conquest — although Russia also has a few nuclear submarines that are dangerously past their prime, considering the fissile materials that are still stored onboard. In 2009, one rusted behemoth was transported to a factory in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok, close to the Korean peninsula, for decommissioning. With the vessel fully out of water, the pictures offer an amazing perspective on how massive and complex even an outdated class of nuclear submarine really...

Vulgar chants about Vladimir Putin before he arrived for a regional summit in Belarus did not augur well for the Russian president's hopes of bringing the leaders of former Soviet republics closer together. Matters got even worse when bickering broke out at the start of the meeting, revealing fault lines over the Ukraine crisis and deepening doubts about the future of the loose grouping known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Jibes between Putin and the leader of Moldova, and barbs aimed at the absent Ukrainian leader, raised new questions about his ability to woo countries to the Eurasian Economic...

Designers competing to create an aircraft that could directly support troops on the battlefield were hampered by the weight of the ‘flying tank’, low air speed and flimsy protection. The Il-2 was the answer to these challenges. One of the key lessons of the First World War was that the airplane had a crucial role to play in effective military campaigns in the new era. With this in mind, in the 1920s and 1930s Europe’s leading nations expended significant efforts and resources on developing new aircraft that could be used to provide support for infantry and tanks. The Soviet Union...

Strange thing about Flood Wall Street, the financial-district protest that followed the People’s Climate March: Nobody had much to say about the climate — what they came to talk about was capitalism. “Stop Capitalism,” “End Capitalism,” “Capitalism Kills,” the placards read. Kshama Sawant, the socialist Seattle city-council member who funds her crusade against capitalism by being married to a man with Microsoft money, called for a “radical, militant” movement linking environmental concerns to such traditional socialist enterprises as heavy government intervention into targeted industries, including energy and transportation. Question: What happened to the environment the last time people with radically...

WARSAW (Reuters) - More than 200 Polish miners blocked trains carrying Russian coal at a border passage in northern Poland to protest against the cheaper Russian coal being brought in at a time when local mines are struggling, mining union leaders said on Wednesday. Poland, which uses coal to generate about 90 percent of its electricity, produced 76.5 million tonnes in 2013. It exported 10.6 million tonnes but at the same time imported 10.8 million, mainly from Russia and the Czech Republic. Imported coal proves cheaper than that from Poland's largest miners such as Kompania Weglowa or JSW. Faced with...