Free Republic

A monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin erected in Moscow's metro is stirring debate, with some Russians welcoming it as a historical tribute, but others saying it's a mistake to commemorate someone who presided over so much suffering. -snip- Nearly 700,000 people were executed in Stalin's 1937-38 Great Terror amid show trials and purges of his real and perceived enemies. Many other Soviet citizens were sent to the Gulag, a grim network of prison camps, spread across the world's largest country. The Moscow metro said in a statement that the new version of the monument, which was presented to the...

Russia and China warned on Wednesday that Donald Trump’s proposed “Golden Iron Dome for America” missile defense system would destabilize global security and turn outer space into a new arena for armed confrontation. “The recently announced large-scale ‘Golden (Iron) Dome for America’ program is deeply destabilizing,” the two sides said in a joint statement during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow. The U.S. plan “explicitly provides for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space,” it added. -snip- Moscow and Beijing claimed nuclear states must “reject Cold War mentality” and avoid seeking military...

Russia is rejoicing after President Trump ripped up three years of US policy on the war in Ukraine. Lindsey Hilsum reports

Russia's president signs decree late Tuesday, amid visit to city earlier that day Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree renaming the international airport situated in the city of Volgograd to its historical name of Stalingrad. “In order to perpetuate the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, I decree to assign Volgograd International Airport with the historical name ‘Stalingrad’,” said the decree published by the Kremlin late Tuesday. The renaming of the airport comes as Putin conducted a visit to the city earlier that day, which also included talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander...

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday it was up to residents of Volgograd to decide whether the city should revert to the name of Stalingrad, as it was called when Soviet forces defeated Nazi invaders in World War Two's bloodiest battle. Ahead of next week's commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazi Germany, the issue has been raised of restoring the wartime name of the southern Russian city. Putin, quoted by state news agency RIA, was asked at a forum about restoring the city's former name - a sensitive...

Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed a decree late on Tuesday renaming the airport in Volgograd as Stalingrad, as the city was known when the Soviet army defeated the Nazi German forces in the biggest battle of World War Two, APA reports citing Reuters. "In order to perpetuate the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, I hereby decree ... to assign the historical name 'Stalingrad' to Volgograd International Airport," the decree published on the Kremlin's website said.

From Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, Russian schoolchildren are preparing for the most important holiday of the year: Victory Day. Commemorated with a grand military parade on Moscow’s Red Square every May 9, the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany has long been used by authorities to rally support for the state. And it starts in school. In September 2016, three history textbooks were sanctioned by the Ministry of Education, all of which gloss over Stalin’s crimes and his initial alliance with Nazi Germany. “My main issue with the textbooks is that they do not reveal the whole truth,” says historian and...

Stalin, a cynical and clever leader, didn’t experience any epiphany but simply knew that taking it easy on the Orthodox Church was important for winning the war. First, many Soviet citizens remained secretly religious (which was not directly forbidden), so the “legalization” of Orthodoxy helped to keep the nation at war united – quite a crucial thing. Second, the Allies were pushing Stalin towards loosening his grip on the religious: the oppression of the faithful was bad publicity, internationally speaking. Third, in 1943 the Red Army was regaining the Soviet lands previously occupied by Germans. The occupants, trying to gain...

T he head of the Russian Orthodox Church has awarded Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov with an order for "glory and honor." Patriarch Kirill gave the order to Zyuganov in Moscow on June 27, one day after the longtime communist leader celebrated his 70th birthday. Kirill said Zyuganov -- who in 2010 called for the re-Stalinization of Russia and has called the Soviet Union "the most humane state in human history" -- deserves the award as "one of the most famous Russian politicians who has expressed interest in the welfare of the nation and the protection of traditional moral values."...

Ben Rhodes, the president’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, recently told the New York Times Magazine that newspapers no longer have foreign bureaus, so “they call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo.” The average reporter Rhodes encounters is 27 years old and “their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.” One of the things they know nothing about is the major movement of modern times, Marxism-Leninism, also known as Communism, which first appeared nearly 100 years ago in the Union of Soviet Socialist...

Labour’s approval rating has slumped to its lowest ever level in a grim start to the New Year for Keir Starmer. The YouGov survey showed that 63% of voters now disapprove of the government’s performance, compared to just 16% who approve. That gives an overall approval rating of minus 47, down two points on the last poll at the end of December. Separately, the poll also found that 40% of Labour voters disapprove of the government’s performance, compared to just 36% who approve. The findings are a fresh blow for Starmer as he tries to get on the front foot...

<p>The story of one of the most effective and brutal spymasters in U.S. history & beginning of an infamous love affair with napalm.</p><p>It was long past time for Donald Nichols to go home. He had been spying in Korea for five years, rarely taking a day off, never returning stateside to see his family. His bosses in the U.S. Air Force had not seen an agent work so hard for so long. They called him a “one man war” & the “best intelligence operator” in the Far East. He “performed the impossible,” his commanding general said. Still, air force rules were clear: He must rotate back to United States.</p>

Historian Norman Naimark argues that today's narrow definition of genocide is Stalin's lasting legacy Murder on a national scale, yes – but is it genocide? “The word carries a powerful punch,” said Stanford history Professor Norman Naimark. “In international courts, it’s considered the crime of crimes.”

The movie came out on January 25, 2024. There had been very little of the usual promotion. Lockshin’s name was omitted from posters. His name was absent from all marketing materials, such as they were. In any event, the movie was a sensation. The public went to see it, quickly making it the top-grossing Russian movie of all time, in the over-18 category.Furious, the state and its propagandists got to work. As Lockshin says, “a whole campaign” was launched against him and the movie. Propagandists called him a “criminal” and a “terrorist,” and demanded that the movie be pulled from...

Recently, Kahlo has become a polarizing figure in the conversation about cultural appropriation. While some express profound admiration and reverence for the artist, others passionately argue that Kahlo profited off an exoticized, calculated self-image at the expense of Indigenous people. To some, this accusation may seem like a wrongful application of the concept of cultural appropriation. After all, Kahlo was a citizen of the country from which her clothes originated, and she was immersed in Indigenous culture. Therefore, some claim that she was justified in wanting to embrace her Indigenous roots as a form of self-expression. Both supporters and...

When a recently-freed political prisoner who was foreign and black (and a former communist terrorist by his own admission) visited the U.S. in 1990 to request economic and diplomatic sanctions against the segregationist government that jailed him the U.S. media and political establishment went absolutely bonkers with acclaim and adulation. “The hero of oppressed people everywhere!" (hailed ABC.) "A larger than life figure!" (gushed CNN) "A virtual symbol of freedom!" ( heralded CBS). "His name has a mystical quality--a worldwide hero!" (rhapsodized Dan Rather.) “A Hero in America!” (headlined Time magazine.) Other reports compared Nelson Mandela to the Pope, Jesus...

Federal officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed "Iranian hackers stole confidential information from the Trump campaign and forwarded it to the then-Biden-Harris campaign in June and July of this year in an effort to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process." Karoline Leavitt, Trump Campaign National Press Secretary, said "it is interesting to see that stealing confidential information from our campaign to give to what is now the Harris/Walz campaign is described so blandly. Kamala and Biden must come...

On Friday’s Mark Levin Show, you are watching a Communist battle taking place within a Marxist party. The Democrat party and the media have brought us to this point. 14 million Democrats cast their votes for Biden, millions of dollars were contributed to get Biden the nomination and now they are calling for a mini primary. A mini-primary in which there is no primary, in which the real primary voters are disenfranchised, and the man who was saving democracy and abortion-on-demand is kicked to the curb. Like other Marxist political parties, the civil war within the Democrat Party, between the...

A Vain Battle If there was ever a battle fought in vain, this was it. Or at least, so it seemed at the time. The year is 1924. Vladimir Lenin, the father of the communist revolution, is dead; over 900,000 people pass through the Hall of Columns during the four days and nights that Lenin's body lay exposed to the public. Josef Stalin succeeds him as the new leader of the Soviet Union. During the following thirty years, he would murder 50 million of his own people. Jews and Judaism would be one of his primary targets. He sets up...

Transcript available. Lots of footage, Russian sub-titled. Shows how Russia is now that the elections are over. No reading of comments from viewer. This is all narrating of Konstantin and footage illustrating. Basically a sh!t show.