The Deadly Isms

The covert and overt sins of a celebrated scholar. By Kevin Williamson.

Two new books find committed leftists wrangling with the grisly legacy of October 1917. By J.P. O'Malley.

Space-themed vacuum cleaners, and more.

At a time when many in Moscow have again come to view the United States as an implacable foe, renewed examination of this period could yield important lessons for today. By Richard Purcell.

Before former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia collapsed on a park bench in Salisbury on 4 March, the only other person confirmed to suffer the effects of novichok was a young Soviet chemical weapons scientist.

A new book says the conflict began in the late 19th century and subsumed even World War II as our defining event. By Leon Hadar.

How an ACLU founder became an apologist for Soviet tyranny. By Matthew Harwood.

He lives the life of an average American today, but nearly four decades ago as a child Volodymyr Polovchak whipped up a Cold War storm by refusing to return from the United States to the Soviet Union.

The number of Russians who regret the collapse of the Soviet Union is the highest in nearly a decade, according to an independent Levada Center poll published Monday. In polls taken since 1992, an average two-thirds of respondents said they lamented the collapse of the USSR, peaking at 75 percent in 2000 and dipping to 49 percent in 2012.

Trofim Lysenko’s spurious research prolonged famines that killed millions. So why is a fringe movement praising his legacy?

Unlike Westerners, Soviets preferred to vacation at sanatoriums, which were modernist structures infused with a sense of utopia.

An expert on Russia discovered that bureaucrats and spies secretly gathered to watch Soviet movies. By Brian Bethune.

A centenarian who lived through Stalin's repression recounts the hardships and some of the happier times of her life.

One of the most historically important documents of the past century is going on display in the UK for the first time, The Independent can exclusively reveal. Exactly a hundred years after the Russian Revolution set in motion events that would change Russian and world history forever, the paper that ushered in the dawn of communism will be put on show at the Tate Modern next week.

The petite Soviet fighter pilot, known as the White Rose of Stalingrad, became the first woman in history to kill enemy combatants in the air. By Edward White.

This widely overlooked conflict changed world history forever. By Erin Kelly.

Russian officials and Orthodox priests on Tuesday (Sep 19) unveiled a statue in Moscow of inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose iconic AK-47 assault rifle has claimed countless lives worldwide. A priest sprinkled holy water on the seven-metre tall statue of Kalashnikov gripping his deadly creation, which will now loom over motorists from a traffic island in one of the sprawling capital's central thoroughfares.

The long, strange history of Soviet mind control experiments. By Giovanni Vimercati.

On the 80th anniversary of Stalin's 'Great Terror' purge, the late Soviet dictator is being hailed as a national icon who defeated the Nazis.