This dark handshake only expired because MI6’s fascist asset was resistant to joining forces with other Ukrainian anti-Communist forces, therefore jeopardizing plans by Washington and London for all-out war with the Soviets in Donbas. That plot, intended to ultimately collapse the entire USSR, has eerie, direct echoes of the current Ukraine proxy war. So too Britain’s willingness, then and now, to go even further than the U.S. in building alliances with the most reactionary, dangerous Ukrainian ultranationalist elements, in service of balkanizing Russia.

...

The “British position,” as described in the study, was Bandera’s “importance” had been perennially“underestimated by the Americans, as a rallying symbol in the Ukraine, as leader of a large émigré group [and] as a leader favored by the homeland headquarters.” This did not conform to the reality on the ground as detected by the CIA, but MI6 had a vested interest in maintaining the fascist demagogue as an agent. An April 1951 Agency memo summarizing recent “talks” with British intelligence “on operations against the USSR” noted:

“[MI6 is] seeking progressively to assume control of Bandera’s lines…[MI6 argues] Bandera’s name still carried considerable weight in the Ukraine…[and OUN-B is] the strongest Ukrainian organization abroad, is deemed competent to train party cadres, [and] build a morally and politically healthy organization.”

Mathematical Analysis For School Students by Lev Pontryagin
A book for school students, and not only for them!
Released under Creative Commons by Share Alike 4.0
#mathematics #books #soviet #calculus #integration #highschool #oer
https://archive.org/details/lev-pontryagin-mathematical-analysis-for-school-students-mir-titles-2025

Empty shelves in #Trump tainted #America is very reminiscent of #Soviet #Russia. 
#Putin is pleased with his #puppet in the White House! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/25/trump-has-two-weeks-to-save-america-from-empty-shelves/
#Resist #TrumpRussiaCollusion to #SaveAmerica. #USpol

#Soviet #MiG21 abandoned in #Mongolia There were many such aircraft left behind during the Soviet withdrawl in the final years of the #ColdWar #photo #photography #travel #TravelPhotography

Today in Labor History April, 21, 1913: Andre Soudy and Raymond Callemin, members of the anarchist Bonnot Gang, were executed. Callemin had started the individualist paper "L'anarchie" with author and revolutionary Victor Serge. The Bonnot Gang was a band of French anarchists who tried to fund their movement through robberies in 1911-1912. The Bonnot Gang was unique, not only for their politics, but for their innovative use of technology, too. They were among the first to use cars and automatic rifles to help them steal, technology that even the French police were not using. While many of the gang members were sentenced to death, Serge got five years and eventually went on to participate in (and survive) the Barcelona and Soviet uprisings. Later, while living in exile, Serge wrote The Birth of Our Power, Men in Prison, Conquered City, and Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #illegalism #BonnotGang #Revolutionary #VictorSerge #Revolution #uprising #barcelona #soviet #writer #author #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon

One day I will organise and process all my photos and be a better person for it. This one is titled #Sunset in #Ashgabat and was taken last May in the former #Soviet Republic of #Turkmenistan #photo #photography #travel #TravelPhotography

"Putin praises Elon Musk, compares him to father of Soviet space program"

...

Oh Mr. #Putin! Mr. Putin sir!

I understand you are buttering up Elon #Musk's manchild ego for... reasons

But just a teensy footnote for you sir:

#SerhiyKorolyov (which is misspelled as Sergei Korolev), the father of the #Soviet Space Program, was #Ukrainian

(here's a nice post I made about Serhiy in January for his birthday:

https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/113814835495125167 )

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-praises-elon-musk-compares-him-father-soviet-space-program-2025-04-16/

Today in Labor History April 14, 1919: Workers in Limerick, Ireland, initiated a General Strike against the British military occupation. They ran the city as a soviet for two weeks. Workers printed their own newspaper and issued their own currency, which local businesses accepted. They also regulated food supplies to keep prices low and prevent profiteering. Numerous other soviets were created during the Irish War of Independence.

Soviet monument and lantern

#myfotokempi

Today in Labor History April 13, 1953: CIA Director Allen Dulles launched the MKUltra mind control program. The program ran from 1953 to 1973. It involved giving human subjects LSD and other drugs, often without their knowledge. Then, researchers would try to “weaken” their minds and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. Over 7,000 U.S. war veterans were unwitting test subjects, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians. The program was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilized mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the CIA, recruited many of these Nazi torturers in the wake of World War II to exploit their knowledge and research. MKUltra was headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who later devised plans to kill Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar, and saturating his shoes with radioactive thallium to make his beard fall out. He also tried to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo, with poison. Several well-known liberals and radicals knowingly participated in MKUltra and its OSS predecessors, either as test subjects (e.g., Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hunter), or as researchers (e.g., anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson). Others who have been alleged to have been victims or volunteers include Sirhan Sirhan, Ted Kaczyinski, Charles Manson, and Whitey Bulger.

For a really fascinating look at Margaret Mead's and Gregory Bateson’s exploration with hallucinogens and their connection to MKUltra, check out the recent book, Tripping on Utopia, by Benjamin Breen. And for a truly amazing documentary on the 1961 CIA-supported coup in Congo, check out the 2024 documentary, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.” But the film is really about so much more than the coup. It covers Cold War machinations, propaganda, and covert operations in the early 1960s; the superpowers’ jockeying for control of puppet regimes and spheres of influence in the global south; the Pan-African movement; racism in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement, and the repression against it; and, of course, jazz music, including tons of interviews and live footage of Lumumba, Ghanian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, activist and writer Andree Madeleine Blouin, Malcolm X, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, surrealist artist Rene Magritte.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #cia #mindcontrol #torture #lsd #mkultra #castro #nazis #oss #allenginsberg #lumumba #malcolmx #coltrane #jazz #imperialism #kenkesey #margaretmead #charlesmanson #mescaline #castro #soviet #coldwar #books #nonfiction #ussr #communism #film #documentary @bookstadon

Today In Labor History April 7, 1870: German-Jewish anarchist and pacifist, Gustav Landauer, was born. He was friends with, and influenced, the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. He served as the Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction during the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, during the German Revolution of 1918–1919, but was killed when the republic was overthrown. He was also the grandfather of film director, Mike Nichols (The Odd Couple, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate).

Today in Labor History April 6, 1919: The Bavarian Soviet Republic was declared. Novelist, B. Traven (Death Ship, Treasure of the Sierra Madre), served on its Central Council of Workers, Soldiers and Farmers. The socialist republic was quashed a month later by the Freikorps, which included Rudolf Hess and other future members of the Nazi party.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #soviet #socialism #communism #germany #nazis #btraven #fiction #fascism #writer #author #books @bookstadon

#Dugin er en som fôrer #Putin med #ideologi, og bakgrunnen hans er viktig.

Det er jo alltid vanskelig å skille mellom hva som er #propganada og at man blir sitt eget ekkokammer. Men det virker som om denne mannen ikke stiller spørsmål ved egne ideer, og det er den ene ideen som tar den andre.

Vesten har aldri ønsket noen krig med #Soviet/#Russland, men de har vist seg til å ikke kunne stoles på, noe de demosntrerte ved å invadere #Ukraiana

https://www.abcnyheter.no/nyheter/norge/2025/04/06/196080178/putins-filosof-aleksandr-dugin-ser-likhetstrekk-mellom-usa-og-russland

Sure, I have no idea what the Soviet-era Armenian art film called The Colour of the Pomegranates is about, but each shot is so carefully and beautifully staged like a photograph or painting that it is hard not to find it intoxicating. Free on YouTube.