Soviet Union

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its effect on the international politics of the late Cold War era.

The architects who adapted to the demands, whims and chicanery of the Stalinist state.

The nightmarish power of the Soviet passport.

In 1935 Stalin declared ‘life has become better’. This was clearly not the case for everyone, but feelings had to be expressed very carefully.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, had aimed to bring new life to a system in which he believed until the last.

The first of Earth’s creatures to hurtle into the Moon’s orbit were slow and sedentary residents of the Great Steppe.

Those who control the media control the state. Lenin knew this, but by 1991 his Soviet successors had forgotten, to their ultimate cost.

The motives and damage inflicted by George Blake.

Even the retail sector became part of the second Five Year Plan imposed on the Soviet Union by Stalin.

We ask four historians whether the demise of one of the 20th century’s superpowers was as inevitable as it now seems.