Russia Follow

The recently republished ABC of Communism is a remarkable historical document of the attempt to create a socialist society in Russia after the 1917 October Revolution.

The revolution in Russia in February 1917 created a very unstable situation with two sources of power – the provisional government and the soviets, or workers’ councils. Lenin called this "dual power".

The First World War placed an enormous strain on Tsarist Russia.

Recent headlines have warned of a "new Cold War" between the US and Russia. It is a chilling prospect. The Cold War, which began in 1947 with the US’s Truman Doctrine, marked a shift in US policy against Russia and brought the world closer to destruction than it has ever been.

Abusing hooded prisoners is not the work a few rogue soldiers, but a systemic US policy of torture that dates back to the start of the Cold War. The US military watched with interest the Russian show trials of the 1930s and 1940s, in which opponents of the regime stood up and admitted to anything and everything they were accused of.

Tony Wood, Verso, £12.99

Anna Politkovskaya, Harvill Secker, £17.99

The media reaction to the death of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin was curiously split. Right wing newspapers couldn’t decide whether to celebrate Yeltsin as "the man who brought down Communism" or lampoon him as a drunken fool who wrecked Russia’s economy.

Socialists have often felt rather uncomfortable with Futurism. This Italian art movement, founded in 1909, sang the praises of new technology, aeroplanes and the mass media – but it also exalted war and colonialism.

9th CompanyDirected by Fyodor BondarchukFilm out now Set during the Soviet Union’s ill-fated Afghanistan war in the 1980s, Fyodor Bondarchuk’s film 9th Company is Russia’s equivalent to the Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now films.

The modern gay rights movement began in 1969 with the Stonewall riots in New York.

A few years ago post Communist Russia was commonly dismissed as a basket case, argues Pete Glatter, but today fear of a resurgent Russia is driving a new agenda.