Japanese warships steam into Port Arthur, Manchuria, bombarding Russian defenses and ships. Sidney Reilly purportedly sold Japanese information about the port when he lived there just before the war.

Bolshevik

The Mysterious Sidney Reilly

by Vince Hawkins

On the evening of November 5, 1925, Prisoner #73 was taken from his cell in the infamous Lubyanka Prison and driven to a woods in the Sokolniki district outside Moscow. Read more

Polish cavalry operates in rough terrain against German forces. Not surprisingly, elite Polish cavalry units were among the last to surrender to the Germans in October 1939.

Bolshevik

WWII Polish Cavalryman: Lance-Wielding Anachronism?

By Alex Zakrzewski

In the late afternoon of September 1, 1939, the 18th Uhlan Regiment of the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade was holding its position along Poland’s heavily forested northwest frontier when orders arrived to attack the flank of the advancing German 20th Motorized Infantry Division. Read more

When did World War I end? Ostensibly, it's an easy question to answer. However, the end of the conflict was by no means absolute by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

Bolshevik

When Did World War I End?

by Mike Haskew

At least ostensibly, World War I ended first with the cessation of armed hostilities between the warring powers at the famed “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month,” that is November 11, 1918. Read more

Bolshevik

The Fate of Nazi Germany’s Cossacks

By Don Haines

Between 1944 and 1947, over two million Russians who had been living in the occupied countries of Europe, some voluntarily, some not, were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Read more

Bolshevik

Vyacheslav M. Molotov: Steel’s Hammer

By Blaine Taylor

The arrival of Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in Berlin on a rainy November 12, 1940, was a solemn, strained occasion. Read more

Bolshevik

The Russo-Finnish War: Why Stalin Tried to Invade Finland

By Arnold Blumberg

Prior to the Russo-Finnish War, problems were already setting in for Russia and Germany. The hugely cynical German-Soviet nonaggression pact, concluded in August 1939, assigned the Baltic region of eastern Europe to the exclusive sphere of influence of Communist Russia. Read more

Bolshevik

Polish Ciphers and the Miracle on the Vistula

By Arnold Blumberg

The Russo-Polish War of 1919-1920 was the most portentous event facing post-Versailles Europe. It was not just the continuation of a centuries-long contest between Russia and Poland to determine which would dominate eastern Europe, but a struggle involving a new ideology—communism—which the Bolshevik regime in Moscow had to spread throughout the Continent to survive. Read more