LefteastSimon Pirani is a researcher and historian, and author of The Russian Revolution in Retreat 1920-24: Soviet workers and the new communist elite (Routledge, 2008). He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, has published widely on energy issues in the former Soviet Union, and teaches history at Canterbury Christ Church University.
Simon Pirani is a socialist writer and historian. His books include The Russian Revolution in Retreat 1920-24: Soviet workers and the new communist elite (Routledge 2008). This article is based on a paper he delivered at a conference on “Twenty Five Years After the USSR” at the German Historical Institute, Moscow, 10 June 2016. […]
By Simon Pirani Novocherkassk, June 1962. The workers’ revolt against the Soviet “workers’ state”, put down by the army and the KGB. The revolt for “meat, butter and a pay rise” that ended with tanks shooting into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators (killing at least 26 and wounding many dozens). The revolt against Nikita Khrushchev, […]