Monthly Archives: October 2013

Nuclear Waste and Sustainability in the Russian Nuclear Industry

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Of the scholarly websites and books that I am using for this project I have found a number of similarities. Many of these sources are a form of anthology, where books have chapters the web sites have pages. But, a very distinct feature of the web site is its growth and development. Where a book would have to be republished, or have additional volumes, a web site allows for scholars to access and revise a number of times with relative ease. Additionally, on some internet outlets, the sites allow for commenting on articles or provide links to response pieces. This illustrates an evolving dialogue in the field that a book is, by nature, unable to provide.

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In looking for the number of multimedia sources that this project has prescribed I have developed a number of skills that have already begun to help me in other areas of my research. I have found that much of a topic’s philosophy and history is easiest found in reliable scholarly texts, but having websites or scholarly blogs provide more contemporary and evolving views.

As for my review of Evernote, I must say that it has been difficult to preserve the bibliographies’ citation format while using the program. I have found it useful for storing snippets of information for personal use, as I can access it across platforms. I did not find myself using Evernote to discover other information gathered by users that might pertain to my research, but I can see such a service being useful. Ultimately, the service falls short of our primary need for it — class sourcing — when our primarily shared document, the bibliography,  is so negatively affected.

I have begun plotting a timeline. By going through each source and plotting relevant data on a time scale, I can identify patterns of change. Already I have found correlations between the evolution of reactor designs and the “Green Movement” starting in the 1980, which was unexpected. Many of my preconceptions of Soviet nuclear policy have been changed by the research I’ve done and I feel far more open to interpreting the information than using it to support what I believed to be true.

 

Here’s a link to my bibliography:

http://goo.gl/sMivIq

The Future of Russia’s Higher Education

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Check out this article in The Moscow Times on the future of Russian universities.

Mark Nuckols, a journalist for Moscow Times, points out how Russian universities have not cracked the top 200 universities in the world for another year in a row. Nuckols points to several facts that explain this.

For one, funding universities requires an efficient bureaucracy to coordinate the various in-flows of money. Russia is not well known for this bureaucratic organization.

Russian universities have a higher level of corruption and distrust, creating a poor environment for research and collaboration.

US universities have also collaborated closely with industries and businesses, providing both funding and incentive for innovations.

Top-notch professors in Russia seek employment at the worlds best universities–which as the aforementioned ranking tells us, does not include any Russian universities. Conversely, very few western academics seek employment in Russia due to the less liberal society and restricting laws.

Nuckols goes on to explore potential ways Russia could reverse this trend, but the picture he paints isn’t too optimistic. What does this mean for Russia’s future?

“Bread and Wine”

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The first half of Ignazio Silone’s Bread and Wine follows Pietro Spina, an Italian socialist revolutionary who has returned to Italy after having been exiled.  In order to evade arrest, he disguises himself Don Paolo Spada, a priest who has been sent to live in a rural village in Southern Italy to regain his health.  This disguise is ironic, as Spina has abandoned the religious fervor he had in his adolescence.  Silone uses this plot line to explore the effects of fascism on Catholics and uneducated peasants.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this section of the novel for me is the villagers’ fixation on the greatness of the past.  In one scene, Cristina Colamartini is explaining why her family did not allow her brother, Alberto to marry Bianchina.  She says that “My grandmother and father would consider it not only a disgrace to themselves, but to their forefathers” (Silone 102).  The Colamartinis hold little respect within the village, and are more concerned with returning honor to their family than their son’s happiness.  It is also revealed that Cristina’s aunt never married because her mother refused to allow her a dowry, and didn’t want to create dishonor by not having one.  The Colamartini’s obsession with returning to a former glory after years of poverty and shame mirrors fascist Italy’s fixation on returning to the glory of the Roman Empire.

In his definition of Fascism, Mussolini writes that the Italy is “…rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude.”  This sense of a rebirth is also captured in Bread and Wine.  Many illusions are made throughout the novel to a devastating earthquake which left the villages of Southern Italy in a state of death and destruction.  The area is shown to still be in a state of rebuilding, and an allusion is even made to a new section of a town built after the earthquake, in which the streets “…recorded glorious dates in the history of the government party” (Silone 140).  In this case, there is both rebuilding from the earthquake and a rebuilding of Italy into a respected yet feared nation.

Gulag Archipelago and Labor Camp

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In the Gulag Archipelago,  Solzhenitsynt describes the labor camps in which mass numbers of prisoners and political undesirables were literally worked to death. The first question this article elicits from me is if these prison workers had the same frame of mind Podlubnyi had in his diaries. The labor process was used as a means of rehabilitation for the mind of a law breaker or political deviant, and maximum efforts were vehemently supported by the state. The state was also extremely unsympathetic towards the humans rights violations that the prison laborers worked through on a daily basis. It was estimated that 1% of the original total of workers died per day, but the social protocol was that every worker “managed” their obstacles. Statisticians lied about the number of labor related deaths, and logically deduced that since there were 100,000 workers at the projects beginning, and 100,000 at its end, than there must have been zero total deaths, despite the fact that it all of these workers had been replaced.

the labor camps in which mass numbers of prisoners and political undesirables were literally worked to death. The first question this article elicits from me is if these prison workers had the same frame of mind Podlubnyi had in his diaries. The labor process was used as a means of rehabilitation for the mind of a law breaker or political deviant, and maximum efforts were vehemently supported by the state. The state was also extremely unsympathetic towards the humans rights violations that the prison laborers worked through on a daily basis. It was estimated that 1% of the original total of workers died per day, but the social protocol was that every worker “managed” their obstacles. Statisticians lied about the number of labor related deaths, and logically deduced that since there were 100,000 workers at the projects beginning, and 100,000 at its end, than there must have been zero total deaths, despite the fact that it all of these workers had been replaced.

The Gulag were a Soviet Union government agency that was used by Stalin as a form of political repression and social control. During this era, many civilians were arrested and unfairly tried because they were assumed to be political threats. Along side with labor camps, Stalin would also use purges as a form of political control. Although purges had been taking place since as early as 1921 by the Bolsheviks, they were very heightened during Stalin’s Terror in the 1930’s and greatly altered the social dynamic between the citizen and the state.

Did these workers have the same Soviet mindset as Podlubnyi? Did they see themselves as Stalin and the party saw them? What was the civilian populated that wasn’t under containment by Stalin thinking? How did societies structure fluctuate with paranoia?

Women in Italian Society

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When attempting to create a new political party, and from that party, a successful party government, the ideology cannot be too extreme, relative to the beliefs and the ideas of the populace. For example, the degree of Nazi anti-Semitic polices seems extreme to outsiders, but general German distrust and distain for Jews allowed the Nazis to implement these policies. In his novel, Bread and Wine, Ignazio Silone depicts the role of women in Italian society, clarifying how and why extremely masculine movements developed in early 20th century Italy.

In “The Futurist Manifesto,” in 1909, FT Marinetti states that the movement seeks to glorify war, militarism, patriotism, destruction, and contempt for women. This attitude towards women is seen again in Fascist policies that attempted to keep women in traditional roles. Mussolini himself declares in “What is Fascism” that war is the ultimate test of a nation. War excludes women, for the most part, therefore, women are not nearly as important to the nation as men. In Bread and Wine, the main character, Don Paolo, says to a prospective nun, “ ‘You would have the other possibility that life offers most women…You could become a good wife and mother of a family’ ”(Silone 101). Women had two choices in life: the Church or a family. These were the places for women in society. And if a woman were to stray from these honorable paths, like Bianchina, and, for example, become pregnant out of wedlock, she dishonors herself and her family. This social view is reflected in Italian laws that forbid abortions.

In Fascist Italy, the role of women was clear and traditional. Don Paolo even feels that he must “get away from the tedious female atmosphere by which he was surrounded”(Silone 112). This expresses men’s distain toward women, as well as the fear of appearing too feminine, and possibly homosexual, like Gabriele in Ettore Scola’s A Special Day.

How and why did masculine movements developed in early 20th century Italy? Was it the fear of the rising status of women or the fear of the loss of masculinity? Was it both? Was it neither? Why?

“Bread and Wine” by Ignazio Silone

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Bread and Wine is a novel written by Italian author Ignazio Silone in 1935. It primarily deals with the betrayal of the Catholic Church in it’s agreement with Fascism, and the underground communist revolutionary movement in Italy at the time. The first half of the book follows the life of a recently returned socialist opponent of the regime, named Pietro Spina, but disguised as Don Paolo Spada. Spada is a priest and is sent to live in a small rural village, in order to regain his health. While in the village, he faces an internal battle between his adolescent religious feelings which return, and his current socialist revolutionary stance.

An interesting theme that runs throughout the text is the depiction of the Church’s persecution of those holy men who do not follow the party line. These men, most specifically portrayed by Don Benedetto, Spina’s childhood teacher and mentor, are shown to be dishonored by the official church but accepted by the peasants. In the scene where Spada is talking to Don Pasquale Colamartini, richest man in the small village, Colamartini states that Benedetto advised his daughter to not join the church, advice that was contradictory to the local pastor’s. While Colamartini does not wish to force his daughter to choose a path, he implies his agreement with Benedetto, who is not in favor with the Church, when he states that “there is no doubt that there have been very few saints [such as Benedetto] who have not been suspected and persecuted by the Church” (p.99).

This statement raises the interesting question on the beliefs of the Church on a rural level. While the Vatican’s deal with Fascism may have been criticized at the highest level, it is questionable whether rural societies, especially in Southern Italy, had developed to the extent that they would consider questions of faith. Rural societies in Europe have traditionally been depicted to have believe the words of the local pastor to be the truth of the gospel, especially since Catholic mass was usually conducted in Latin, which was not a common language. While this image had drastically changed by the early part of the 20th century, it must be remembered that Southern Italy was, and still is, one of the least developed regions in Western Europe. In conclusion, my query is regarding not only the ability of South Italian peasants ability to question and understand the Church’s compromise, but also their desire to question such a development in relation to their own lives. The latter is especially confusing as it must be acknowledged that Silone himself grew up in rural conditions, but he was also a dedicated communist and might have written with certain biases.

Penal Systems of World Powers

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Abladen grosser Steinbrocken am Weissmeer-Ostsee-Kanal, 1932

The organization of Soviet labor camps hoped to accomplish a number of purposes. These projects were improvements on the infrastructure of the Soviet Union and, ultimately, the economy. Considering how swiftly the Belomor was completed (“Twenty months and it must be built cheaply” –Stalin) and the lack of material resources, this success was based primarily on the re-purposing of an otherwise idle prison population. Granted, the ‘labor camp’ style of  punishment in the Russian penal system was established long before Soviet rule but the Soviets were the first to implement it on such a large and effective scale. Removal of ‘undesirables’ was, as we can see from Stalin’s policies, a high priority. These “enemies of the State” would then (hopefully) be re-educated by exposure to a good Soviet work ethic. This pool of shiftless ‘kulaks’ isolated to the wilderness would provide the Soviet Union with a valuable resource key to large projects, such as the Belomor Canal, developing in the Union –cheap labor.

At the same time, the United States was facing some of the earliest waves of incarceration increases while also not greatly revising her penal system.Moving into the 1930s, labor derived from the then locally-managed institutions was made illegal and a national “Bureau of Prisons” was formed. Now in charge of more than 160 institutions, and with very little experience, the Bureau prescribed a “penopticon” model to their prisons –a style which allowed for maximum surveillance of a maximum number of inmates. The prison population would not stop increasing until the onset of America’s involvement in World War II. Many Capturehistorians argue that American productivity and mass of troops helped turn the European front. But, how different is this from the labor in the Soviet camps? We can say that the quality of life was far better and the pay, of course. But, the camps were focused on a mass of cheap labor. When the prisons were releasing such numbers of inmates, a mass  of labor was definitely produced and the larger general supply of labor provided lower wages to employers — though not the free prison labor of Stalin’s camps.

If we examine both countries now, when the U.S. and Russia are both among the world’s top ten largest incarceration rates (716/100,000 citizens and 490/100,000 respectively), should we expect any change in penal policy?

Mussolini’s Warmongering Fascism

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In Benito Mussolini’s What is Fascism, the dictator attempts to define Fascism by casting it against what he sees as changing world politics. He describes Fascism to be the new man’s type of government, a drastic shift away from the 19th and 20th century’s swing towards liberalism and democracy. He breaks Fascism also from the supreme left of Marxism. He goes on to describe Fascism as a fast, warmongering – along with an exceedingly nationalistic core – belief system.

Overall, Mussolini’s message comes across very similar to his Italian acquaintance, F.T. Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto in its aggressive warmongering and nationalistic message. Mussolini immediately describes the “manly” Fascist ideal of war as a perpetual means not to an end but instead to as an integral part of a political institution. In historical perspective, this idea of the Fascist war as a necessary part of Mussolini’s new direction for Italy is another sharp change from Italy’s previous policies. Prior to the war in Europe, Italy had been unable to show any regional dominance or evidence of successful imperialism. Mussolini, in his concluding remarks of his work, discusses this idea of expansion. His attempts to suppress the Libyan revolts and take Ethiopia were both examples of his attempts for regional hegemony in Africa. While it was obviously followed by World War II, these early imperialist tendencies set the example for which he argues so clearly argues for.

Overall his work describes a strict clamp down on individual freedoms and a severely increased importance of the state and its needs. The warmongering part, similar to the Futurist ideal is only one facet of the Fascist ideology used to increase Italian power. This drastic shift from the rest of Western Europe towards an idea of “perpetual peace” with a league of nations calls into question the Italian motivation to become so radical. The idea of Fascism as a change away from the left and the right calls into question the deeper social cultural situation of Italy at the time for both the genesis and peoples’ rallying around this system.

What is Fascism, 1932

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In Mussolini’s What is Fascism, he attempts to portray the fascist agenda and how these ideals can be applied to Italy society. He emphasized how fascism and socialism were opposites on the political spectrum. The nineteenth century overwhelmingly stressed liberal ideals and democratic initiatives towards government. Mussolini wished to break this trend and create an Italian collectivist society that views the state as an absolute; individuals would be regarded solely by their relation to the state. Expansion and empire building were also essential components of Mussolini’s doctrine because he believed that growth of the empire is “an essential manifestation of vitality.”

Mussolini stressed how the nation was in dire need of for a fascist state to provide authority, direction and order. After World War One Europe as a whole attempted to incorporate liberal ideals towards governance. The success of these governments was oftentimes very short lived, leaving countries in a dismal state of affairs. People were forced to consider other form of government that would better tackle the problems of the time. I believe that fascism was easily accepted in Italy because an overwhelming percent of the population believed that it is preferable to exchange the right to some natural freedoms in order to obtain the benefits of political order.

Both Hitler and Mussolini believed that expansion of the nation was a vital component of rebuilding their respective countries. In hindsight, do you believe that the international community should have been able to predict the impending war that would break out? After all, in order to expand the nation the land must be taken from somewhere/somebody, thus causing unavoidable violence.

Mussolini’s View on Fascism

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Benito Mussolini, the “founder” of the modern fascist idea, gives us in this article “What is Fascism” his definition of this form of government. Mussolini views Fascism in comparison to Marxism as ideologies that are on the complete opposite of the political spectrum. In Mussolini’s view the state holds complete control over the rights and ideas of the individual. In contrast to Marxism, which has the goal of creating a workers paradise, run by the workers. In a Fascist state each individual is considered “relative” to greater need of the state. The idea that man serves the state, not the other way around was vital in Mussolini’s view to the growth of a strong healthy nation.

Mussolini directly contrasts Fascism and the Marxist idea in the article. He feels that his political idea “now and always, believes in holiness and heroism…in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect.” This view conflicts with the economic view of history that Marxism relies on to explain conflict through history. Mussolini does not believe in the Marxist idea of class warfare dictating the course of history. To Mussolini the idea of a class system is pointless. Fascism does not take into account the will of the majority. Mussolini’s ideal Fascist state is one where a hierarchical society exists. He postulates that in this world there is a “fruitful inequality of mankind.” He believes that fascism with its innate hierarchical form is the only way to properly direct civilization.

Although Mussolini’s idea of a hierarchical society is somewhat drastic, is it really that much different then the “democracies” that existed in the inter war period?