soviet union

"Joshua Rubenstein's riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952 when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin's murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower with armed force, and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin's sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the twentieth century. The Last Days of Stalin is an engaging, briskly told account of the dictator's final active months, the vigil at his deathbed, and the unfolding of Soviet and international events in the months after his death. Rubenstein throws fresh light on: the devious plotting of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other 'comrades in arms' who well understood the significance of the dictator's impending death; the witness-documented events of his death as compared to official published versions; Stalin's rumored plans to forcibly exile Soviet Jews; the responses of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles to the Kremlin's conciliatory gestures after Stalin's death; and the momentous repercussions when Stalin's regime of terror was cut short"--.

Recounts the experiences of Shukhov, a prisoner at a Soviet work camp in Siberia, as he struggles for survival.

Twelve-year-old Ivan has escaped from the siege of Leningrad, but when the town he has taken refuge in is occupied by Hitler's troops, he sees his chance to help the partisans he has met--and to rescue to German shepherd puppies, Zasha and Thor, from the cruel Commander Recht.

When her best friend disappears in the summer of 1942, Liza resolves to rescue her no matter the cost, entangling herself in an increasingly dangerous web with two former classmates, one a member of the militia and other other forced to live in Leningrad's tunnels.

"Historian Sean McMeekin traces the origins and events of the Russian Revolution, which brought an end to Romanov rule and ushered the Bolsheviks into power"--Provided by publisher.

Set during the height of the Russian Revolution and told in alternating voices, sixteen-year-old Evgenia--a peasant and proud member of the Bolshevik party--agrees to help a seventeen-year-old bourgeois girl traverse the war-torn countryside in search of safety, but Anna is harboring a secret that could cost them their lives. Includes historical note and author's note.

Nina, a young girl unsure of her role in her communist society, befriends a dog named Laika, who dreams of finding a home and is being studied in Nina's father's lab as part of the Soviet space program.

"World War I and the Russian Revolution together shaped the twentieth century in profound ways ... Dominic Lieven connects the two events, providing both a history of the war's origins from a Russian perspective and an international history of why the revolution happened"--Back cover.

"The extraordinary true story of America's forgotten invasion of Russia: one-thousand miles north of Moscow, five-thousand brave U.S. troops from Michigan fought the Red Army during the winter of 1918-1919 in brutal arctic conditions"--Provided by publisher.

In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil. Based on the author's family, includes a historical note.