title: Shannon Larratt

text: Shannon David Larratt (September 29, 1973 – March 15, 2013) was a Canadian writer and artist. Larratt was best known as the creator, editor, and publisher of BMEzine, an online magazine focusing on extreme body modifications. The author of multiple books, Larratt was also known for writing openly about his experiences with mental illness and drug abuse.


title: Shannon Larratt

text: Shannon David Larratt was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on September 29, 1973. His brother is a professional armwrestler, Devon Larratt. Larratt wrote publicly about his father's mental illness causing danger to those around him, which would parallel his own later experiences with mental health. Larratt wrote in 2002 that his father faced restraining orders by multiple neighbors and family members.


title: Shannon Larratt

text: In high school Shannon produced a video titled "SUCKMORD", which was largely a collage of his work and which centered on themes surrounding death. His high consumption of psychedelic drugs during this period was likely connected to his later psychiatric issues. In his final year of high school, he claimed to have been allowed to use LSD by a teacher, while creating an art project that incorporated his own blood.


title: Shannon Larratt

text: Though Larratt claimed to have begun attending university on a full scholarship, he dropped out after the first year.


title: Shannon Larratt

text: Larratt founded "BMEzine" in 1994. In 2002 he was the host of the first of several "BME Pain Olympics", viral videos showing various clips of cock and ball torture.


title: Shannon Larratt

text: In September 2007, there were issues over the ownership of "BMEzine". Larratt claimed to be locked out of "BMEzine", IAM, and his personal blog, "Zentastic".


title: Shannon Larratt

text: In May 2008 Laratt posted on BME's blog that he would no longer be working at BMEzine, and that ownership of BMEzine would be transferred to his ex-wife, Rachel Larratt. In August 2012, he began writing for ModBlog once again.


title: Shannon Larratt

text: Having seen the consequences of his father's mental illness on the family, Larratt made finding coping mechanisms a priority. Following a nervous breakdown, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, leading to him being institutionalized. Zentastic.me</ref>


title: Shannon Larratt

text: In 2010, Larratt was diagnosed with tubular aggregate myopathy, a rare muscle disease. Larratt died in Toronto, Ontario, where he had been living, on March 15, 2013.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953 covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin sought to destroy his enemies while transforming Soviet society with central planning, in particular through the forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin consolidated his power within the party and the state and fostered an extensive cult of personality. Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization of the Communist Party served as Stalin's major tools in molding Soviet society. Stalin's methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps and during famine.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: World War II, known as "the Great Patriotic War" by Soviet historians, devastated much of the USSR, with about one out of every three World War II deaths representing a citizen of the Soviet Union. In the course of World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied Eastern Europe, where they established or supported Communist puppet governments. By 1949, the Cold War had started between the Western Bloc and the Eastern (Soviet) Bloc, with the Warsaw Pact (created 1955) pitched against NATO (created 1949) in Europe. After 1945, Stalin did not directly engage in any wars, continuing his totalitarian rule until his death in 1953.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The mobilization of resources by state planning expanded the country's industrial base. From 1928 to 1932, pig iron output, necessary for further development of the industrial infrastructure rose from 3.3 million to 6.2 million tons per year. Coal production, a basic fuel of modern economies and Stalinist industrialization, rose from 35.4 million to 64 million tons, and the output of iron ore rose from 5.7 million to 19 million tons. A number of industrial complexes such as Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk, the Moscow and Gorky automobile plants, the Ural Mountains and Kramatorsk heavy machinery plants, and Kharkiv, Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk tractor plants had been built or were under construction.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In real terms, the workers' standards of living tended to drop, rather than rise during industrialization. Stalin's laws to "tighten work discipline" made the situation worse: e.g., a 1932 change to the RSFSR labor law code enabled firing workers who had been absent without a reason from the workplace for just one day. Being fired accordingly meant losing "the right to use ration and commodity cards" as well as the "loss of the right to use an apartment″ and even blacklisted for new employment which altogether meant a threat of starving. Those measures, however, were not fully enforced, as managers were hard-pressed to replace these workers. In contrast, the 1938 legislation, which introduced labor books, followed by major revisions of the labor law, was enforced. For example, being absent or even 20 minutes late were grounds for becoming fired; managers who failed to enforce these laws faced criminal prosecution. Later, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 26 June 1940 "On the Transfer to the Eight-Hour Working Day, the Seven-day Work Week, and on the Prohibition of Unauthorized Departure by Laborers and Office Workers from Factories and Offices" replaced the 1938 revisions with obligatory criminal penalties for quitting a job (2–4 months imprisonment), for being late 20 minutes (6 months of probation and pay confiscation of 25 per cent), etc.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Based on these figures, the Soviet government declared that the Five Year Industrial Production Plan had been fulfilled by 93.7% in only four years, while parts devoted to the heavy industry parts were fulfilled by 108%. Stalin in December 1932 declared the plan success to the Central Committee since increases in the output of coal and iron would fuel future development.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: During the Second Five-Year Plan (1933–1937), on the basis of the huge investment during the first plan, the industry expanded extremely rapidly and nearly reached the plan's targets. By 1937, coal output was 127 million tons, pig iron 14.5 million tons, and there had been very rapid development of the armaments industry.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: While making a massive leap in industrial capacity, the First Five Year Plan was extremely harsh on industrial workers; quotas were difficult to fulfill, requiring that miners put in 16- to 18-hour workdays. Failure to fulfill quotas could result in treason charges. Working conditions were poor, even hazardous. Due to the allocation of resources for the industry along with decreasing productivity since collectivization, a famine occurred. In the construction of the industrial complexes, inmates of Gulag camps were used as expendable resources. But conditions improved rapidly during the second plan. Throughout the 1930s, industrialization was combined with a rapid expansion of technical and engineering education as well as increasing emphasis on munitions.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: From 1921 until 1954, the police state operated at high intensity, seeking out anyone accused of sabotaging the system. The estimated numbers vary greatly. Perhaps, 3.7 million people were sentenced for alleged counter-revolutionary crimes, including 600,000 sentenced to death, 2.4 million sentenced to labor camps, and 700,000 sentenced to expatriation. Stalinist repression reached its peak during the Great Purge of 1937–1938, which removed many skilled managers and experts and considerably slowed industrial production in 1937.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Under the NEP (New Economic Policy), Lenin had to tolerate the continued existence of privately owned agriculture. He decided to wait at least 20 years before attempting to place it under state control and in the meantime concentrate on industrial development. However, after Stalin's rise to power, the timetable for collectivization was shortened to just five years. Demand for food intensified, especially in the USSR's primary grain producing regions, with new, forced approaches implemented. Upon joining kolkhozes (collective farms), peasants had to give up their private plots of land and property. Every harvest, Kolkhoz production was sold to the state for a low price set by the state itself. However, the natural progress of collectivization was slow, and the November 1929 Plenum of the Central Committee decided to accelerate collectivization through force. In any case, Russian peasant culture formed a bulwark of traditionalism that stood in the way of the Soviet state's goals.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Given the goals of the first Five Year Plan, the state sought increased political control of agriculture in order to feed the rapidly growing urban population and to obtain a source of foreign currency through increased cereal exports. Given its late start, the USSR needed to import a substantial number of the expensive technologies necessary for heavy industrialization.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: By 1936, about 90% of Soviet agriculture had been collectivized. In many cases, peasants bitterly opposed this process and often slaughtered their animals rather than give them to collective farms, even though the government only wanted the grain. Kulaks, prosperous peasants, were forcibly resettled to Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Russian Far North (a large portion of the kulaks served at forced labor camps). However, just about anyone opposing collectivization was deemed a "kulak". The policy of liquidation of kulaks as a class—formulated by Stalin at the end of 1929—meant some executions, and even more deportation to special settlements and, sometimes, to forced labor camps.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Despite the expectations, collectivization led to a catastrophic drop in farm productivity, which did not return to the levels achieved under the NEP until 1940. The upheaval associated with collectivization was particularly severe in Ukraine and the heavily Ukrainian Volga region. Peasants slaughtered their livestock en masse rather than give them up. In 1930 alone, 25% of the nation's cattle, sheep, and goats, and one-third of all pigs were killed. It was not until the 1980s that the Soviet livestock numbers would return to their 1928 level. Government bureaucrats, who had been given a rudimentary education on farming techniques, were dispatched to the countryside to "teach" peasants the new ways of socialist agriculture, relying largely on theoretical ideas that had little basis in reality. Even after the state inevitably won and succeeded in imposing collectivization, the peasants did everything they could in the way of sabotage. They cultivated far smaller portions of their land and worked much less. The scale of the Ukrainian famine has led many Ukrainian scholars to argue that there was a deliberate policy of genocide against the Ukrainian people. Other scholars argue that the massive death totals were an inevitable result of a very poorly planned operation against all peasants, who had given little support to Lenin or Stalin.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The USSR took over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940, which were lost to Germany in 1941, and then recovered in 1944. The collectivization of their farms began in 1948. Using terror, mass killings and deportations, most of the peasantry was collectivized by 1952. Agricultural production fell dramatically in all the other Soviet Republics.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In the period of rapid industrialization and mass collectivization preceding World War II, Soviet employment figures experienced exponential growth. 3.9 million jobs per annum were expected by 1923, but the number actually climbed to an astounding 6.4 million. By 1937, the number rose yet again, to about 7.9 million. Finally, in 1940 it reached 8.3 million. Between 1926 and 1930, the urban population increased by 30 million. Unemployment had been a problem in late Imperial Russia and even under the NEP, but it ceased being a major factor after the implementation of Stalin's massive industrialization program. The sharp mobilization of resources used in order to industrialize the heretofore agrarian society created a massive need for labor; unemployment virtually dropped to zero. Wage setting by Soviet planners also contributed to the sharp decrease in unemployment, which dropped in real terms by 50% from 1928 to 1940. With wages artificially depressed, the state could afford to employ far more workers than would be financially viable in a market economy. Several ambitious extraction projects were begun that endeavored to supply raw materials for both military hardware and consumer goods.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Moscow and Gorky automobile plants produced automobiles for the public—despite few Soviet citizens affording to buy a car—and the expansion of steel production and other industrial materials made the manufacture of a greater number of cars possible. Car and truck production, for example, reached 200,000 in 1931.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Most of the top communist leaders in the 1920s and 1930s had been propagandists or editors before 1917, and were keenly aware of the importance of propaganda. As soon as they gained power in 1917 they seized the monopoly of all communication media, and greatly expanded their propaganda apparatus in terms of newspapers, magazines and pamphlets. Radio became a powerful tool in the 1930s. Stalin, for example, has been an editor of "Pravda". Besides the national newspapers "Pravda" and "Izvestia," there were numerous regional publications as well as newspapers and magazines and all the important languages. Ironclad uniformity of opinion was the norm during the Soviet era. Typewriters and printing presses were closely controlled into the 1980s to prevent unauthorized publications. Samizdat illegal circulation of subversive fiction and nonfiction was brutally suppressed. The rare exceptions to 100% uniformity in the official media were indicators of high-level battles. The Soviet draft constitution of 1936 was an instance. "Pravda" and "Trud" (the paper for manual workers) praised the draft constitution. However "Izvestiia" was controlled by Nikolai Bukharin and it published negative letters and reports. Bukharin won out and the party line changed and started to attack "Trotskyite" oppositionists and traitors. Bukharin's success was short-lived; he was arrested in 1937, given a show trial and executed.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Industrial workers needed to be educated in order to be competitive and so embarked on a program contemporaneous with industrialization to greatly increase the number of schools and the general quality of education. In 1927, 7.9 million students attended 118,558 schools. By 1933, the number rose to 9.7 million students in 166,275 schools. In addition, 900 specialist departments and 566 institutions were built and fully operational by 1933. Literacy rates increased substantially as a result, especially in the Central Asian republics.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Soviet people also benefited from a type of social liberalization. Women were to be given the same education as men and, at least legally speaking, obtained the same rights as men in the workplace. Although in practice these goals were not reached, the efforts to achieve them and the statement of theoretical equality led to a general improvement in the socio-economic status of women.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Women were notably recruited as clerks for the expanding department stores, resulting in a "feminization" of department stores as the number of female sales staff rose from 45 percent of the total sales staff in 1935 to 62 percent of the total sales staff in 1938. This was in part due to a propaganda campaign launched in 1931 which linked femininity with "culture" and asserted that the New Soviet Woman was also a working woman. Furthermore, department store staff had a low status in the Soviet Union and many men did not want to work as sales staff, leading to the jobs as sales staff going to poorly educated working class women and from women newly arrived in the cities from the countryside.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Stalinist development also contributed to advances in health care, which marked a massive improvement over the Imperial era. Stalin's policies granted the Soviet people access to free health care and education. Widespread immunization programs created the first generation free from the fear of typhus and cholera. The occurrences of these diseases dropped to record-low numbers and infant mortality rates were substantially reduced, resulting in the life expectancy for both men and women to increase by over 20 years by the mid-to-late 1950s.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Komsomol or Youth Communist League, was an entirely new youth organization designed by Lenin became an enthusiastic strike force that organized communism across the Soviet Union often called on to attack traditional enemies. The Komsomol played an important role as a mechanism for teaching Party values to the younger generation. The Komsomol also served as a mobile pool of labor and political activism, with the ability to relocate to areas of high-priority at short notice. In the 1920s the Kremlin assigned Komsomol major responsibilities for promoting industrialization at the factory level. In 1929 7,000 Komsomol cadets were building the tractor factory in Stalingrad, 56,000 others built factories in the Urals, and 36,000 were assigned work underground in the coal mines. The goal was to provide an energetic hard-core of Bolshevik activists to influence their coworkers the factories and mines that were at the center of communist ideology.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Komsomol adopted meritocratic, supposedly class-blind membership policies in 1935, but the result was a decline in working class youth members, and a dominance by the better educated youth. A new social hierarchy emerged as young professionals and students joined the Soviet elite, displacing proletarians. Komsomol's membership policies in the 1930s reflected the broader nature of Stalinism, combining Leninist rhetoric about class-free progress with Stalinist pragmatism focused on getting the most enthusiastic and skilled membership.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Urban women under Stalin, paralleling the modernization of western countries, were also the first generation of women able to give birth in a hospital with access to prenatal care. Education was another area in which there was improvement after economic development, also paralleling other western countries. The generation born during Stalin's rule was the first near-universally literate generation. Some engineers were sent abroad to learn industrial technology, and hundreds of foreign engineers were brought to Russia on contract. Transport links were also improved, as many new railways were built, although with forced labour, costing thousands of lives. Workers who exceeded their quotas, "Stakhanovites", received many incentives for their work, although many such workers were in fact "arranged" to succeed by receiving extreme help in their work, and then their achievements were used for propaganda.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The systematic attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church began as soon as the Bolsheviks took power in 1917. In the 1930s, Stalin intensified his war on organized religion. Nearly all churches and monasteries were closed and tens of thousands of clergymen were imprisoned or executed. Historian Dimitry Pospielovski has estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 Orthodox clergy died by execution or in prison 1918–1929, plus an additional 45,000 in 1930–1939. Monks, nuns, and related personnel added an additional 40,000 dead.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The state propaganda machine vigorously promoted atheism and denounced religion as being an artifact of capitalist society. In 1937, Pope Pius XI decried the attacks on religion in the Soviet Union. By 1940, only a small number of churches remained open. The early anti-religious campaigns under Lenin were mostly directed at the Russian Orthodox Church, as it was a symbol of the czarist government. In the 1930s however, all faiths were targeted: minority Christian denominations, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. In the long run atheism failed to win many souls. Religion strengthened underground and was revived to help fight the Second World War. It flourished after the fall of communism in the 1990s. As Paul Froese explains:


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: However, according to 2012 official statistics, nearly 15% of ethnic Russians identify as atheist, and nearly 27% identify as unaffiliated.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: As this process unfolded, Stalin consolidated near-absolute power by destroying the potential opposition. In 1936–1938, about three quarters of a million Soviets were executed, and more than a million others were sentenced to lengthy terms in harsh labour camps. Stalin's Great Terror ravaged the ranks of factory directors and engineers, and removed most of the senior officers in the Army. The pretext was the 1934 assassination of Sergei Kirov (which many suspect Stalin of having planned, although there is no evidence for this). Nearly all the old pre-1918 Bolsheviks were purged. Trotsky was expelled from the party in 1927, exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928, expelled from the USSR in 1929, and assassinated in 1940. Stalin used the purges to politically and physically destroy his other formal rivals (and former allies) accusing Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev of being behind Kirov's assassination and planning to overthrow Stalin. Ultimately, the people arrested were tortured and forced to confess to being spies and saboteurs, and quickly convicted and executed.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Several show trials were held in Moscow, to serve as examples for the trials that local courts were expected to carry out elsewhere in the country. There were four key trials from 1936 to 1938, The Trial of the Sixteen was the first (December 1936); then the Trial of the Seventeen (January 1937); then the trial of Red Army generals, including Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky (June 1937); and finally the Trial of the Twenty One (including Bukharin) in March 1938. During these, the defendants typically confessed to sabotage, spying, counter-revolution, and conspiring with Germany and Japan to invade and partition the Soviet Union. The initial trials in 1935–1936 were carried out by the OGPU under Genrikh Yagoda. In turn the prosecutors were tried and executed. The secret police were renamed the NKVD and control given to Nikolai Yezhov, known as the "Bloody Dwarf".


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The "Great Purge" swept the Soviet Union in 1937. It was widely known as the "Yezhovschina", the "Reign of Yezhov". The rate of arrests was staggering. In the armed forces alone, 34,000 officers were purged including many at the higher ranks. The entire Politburo and most of the Central Committee were purged, along with foreign communists who were living in the Soviet Union, and numerous intellectuals, bureaucrats, and factory managers. The total of people imprisoned or executed during the Yezhovschina numbered about two million. By 1938, the mass purges were starting to disrupt the country's infrastructure, and Stalin began winding them down. Yezhov was gradually relieved of power. Yezhov was relieved of all powers in 1939, then tried and executed in 1940. His successor as head of the NKVD (from 1938 to 1945) was Lavrentiy Beria, a Georgian friend of Stalin's. Arrests and executions continued into 1952, although nothing on the scale of the Yezhovschina ever happened again.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: During this period, the practice of mass arrest, torture, and imprisonment or execution without trial, of anyone suspected by the secret police of opposing Stalin's regime became commonplace. By the NKVD's own count, 681,692 people were shot during 1937–1938 alone, and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were transported to Gulag work camps.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The mass terror and purges were little known to the outside world, and some western intellectuals and fellow travellers continued to believe that the Soviets had created a successful alternative to a capitalist world. In 1936, the country adopted its first formal constitution, which only on paper granted freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In March 1939, the 18th congress of the Communist Party was held in Moscow. Most of the delegates present at the 17th congress in 1934 were gone, and Stalin was heavily praised by Litvinov and the western democracies criticized for failing to adopt the principles of "collective security" against Nazi Germany.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Two major lines of interpretation have emerged among historians. One argues that the purges reflected Stalin's ambitions, his paranoia, and his inner drive to increase his power and eliminate potential rivals. Revisionist historians explain the purges by theorizing that rival factions exploited Stalin's paranoia and used terror to enhance their own position. Peter Whitewood examines the first purge, directed at the Army, and comes up with a third interpretation that: Stalin and other top leaders, assuming that they were always surrounded by enemies, always worried about the vulnerability and loyalty of the Red Army. It was not a ploy – Stalin truly believed it. “Stalin attacked the Red Army because he seriously misperceived a serious security threat”; thus “Stalin seems to have genuinely believed that foreign‐backed enemies had infiltrated the ranks and managed to organize a conspiracy at the very heart of the Red Army.” The purge hit deeply from June 1937 and November 1938, removing 35,000; many were executed. Experience in carrying out the purge facilitated purging other key elements in the wider Soviet polity. Historians often cite the disruption as factors in its disastrous military performance during the German invasion.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Soviet government had forfeited foreign-owned private companies during the creation of the RSFSR and the USSR. Foreign investors did not receive any monetary or material compensation. The USSR also refused to pay tsarist-era debts to foreign debtors. The young Soviet polity was a pariah because of its openly stated goal of supporting the overthrow of capitalistic governments. It sponsored workers' revolts to overthrow numerous capitalistic European states, but they all failed. Lenin reversed radical experiments and restored a sort of capitalism with NEC. The Comintern was ordered to stop organizing revolts. Starting in 1921 Lenin sought trade, loans and recognition. One by one, foreign states reopened trade lines and recognized the Soviet government. The United States was the last major polity to recognise the USSR in 1933. In 1934, the French government proposed an alliance and led 30 governments to invite the USSR to join the League of Nations. The USSR had achieved legitimacy but was expelled in December 1939 for aggression against Finland.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In 1928, Stalin pushed a leftist policy based on his belief in an imminent great crisis for capitalism. Various European communist parties were ordered not to form coalitions and instead to denounce moderate socialists as social fascists. Activists were sent into labour unions to take control away from socialists–a move the British unions never forgave. By 1930, the Stalinists started suggesting the value of alliance with other parties, and by 1934 the idea to form a Popular Front had emerged. Comintern agent Willi Münzenberg was especially effective in organizing intellectuals, antiwar and pacifist elements to join the anti-Nazi coalition. Communists would form coalitions with any party to fight fascism. For Stalinists, the Popular Front was simply an expedient, but to rightists, it represented the desirable form of transition to socialism.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Franco-Soviet relations were initially hostile because the USSR officially opposed the World War I peace settlement of 1919 that France emphatically championed. While the Soviet Union was interested in conquering territories in Eastern Europe, France was determined to protect the fledgling states there. However, Adolf Hitler's foreign policy centered on a massive seizure of Central European, Eastern European, and Russian lands for Germany's own ends, and when Hitler pulled out of the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1933, the threat hit home. Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov reversed Soviet policy regarding the Paris Peace Settlement, leading to a Franco-Soviet rapprochement. In May 1935, the USSR concluded pacts of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia. Stalin-ordered the Comintern to form a popular front with leftist and centrist parties against the forces of Fascism. The pact was undermined, however, by strong ideological hostility to the Soviet Union and the Comintern's new front in France, Poland's refusal to permit the Red Army on its soil, France's defensive military strategy, and a continuing Soviet interest in patching up relations with Nazi Germany.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Soviet Union supplied military aid to the Republican faction in the Second Spanish Republic, including munitions and soldiers, and helped far-left activists come to Spain as volunteers. The Spanish government let the USSR have the government treasury. Soviet units systematically liquidated anarchist supporters of the Spanish government. Moscow's support of the government gave the Republicans a Communist taint in the eyes of anti-Bolsheviks in Britain and France, weakening the calls for Anglo-French intervention in the war.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Nazi Germany promulgated an Anti-Comintern Pact with Imperialist Japan and Fascist Italy, along with various Central and Eastern European states (such as Hungary), ostensibly to suppress Communist activity but more realistically to forge an alliance against the USSR.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Stalin arranged the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August along with the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement to open economic relations. A secret appendix to the pact gave Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia and Finland to the USSR, and Western Poland and Lithuania to Nazi Germany. This reflected the Soviet desire of territorial gains.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Following the pact with Hitler, Stalin in 1939–1940 annexed half of Poland, the three Baltic States, and Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia in Romania. They no longer were buffers separating the USSR from German areas, argues Louis Fischer. Rather they facilitated Hitler's rapid advance to the gates of Moscow.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Propaganda was also considered an important foreign relations tool. International exhibitions, the distribution of media such as films, e.g.: "Alexander Nevski", as well as inviting prominent foreign individuals to tour the Soviet Union, were used as a method of gaining international influence and encouraging fellow travelers and pacifists to build popular fronts.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Germany invaded Poland on 1 September; the USSR followed on 17 September. The Soviets quelled opposition by executing and arresting thousands. They relocated suspect ethnic groups to Siberia in four waves, 1939–1941. Estimates varying from the figure over 1.5 million.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: After Poland was divided up with Germany, Stalin made territorial demands to Finland for points that would defend Leningrad. Helsinki, backed by world public opinion refused, so Stalin invaded. Despite outnumbering Finnish troops by over 2.5:1, the war proved embarrassingly difficult for the Red Army, which was ill-equipped for the winter weather and lacking competent commanders since the purge of the Soviet high command. The Finns resisted fiercely, and received some support and considerable sympathy from the Allies. A new threat in March 1940 led Finland to ask an armistice. It relinquished the Karelian Isthmus and some smaller territories. London, Washington—and especially Berlin—calculated that the poor showing of the Soviet army indicated it was incompetent to defend the USSR against a German invasion.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In 1940, the USSR occupied and illegally annexed Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. On 14 June 1941, the USSR performed first mass deportations from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: On 26 June 1940 the Soviet government issued an ultimatum to the Romanian minister in Moscow, demanding the Kingdom of Romania immediately cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Italy and Germany, which needed a stable Romania and access to its oil fields urged King Carol II to do so. Under duress, with no prospect of aid from France or Britain, Carol complied. On 28 June, Soviet troops crossed the Dniester and occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler abruptly broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Stalin had made no preparations. Soviet intelligence was fooled by German disinformation and the invasion caught the Soviet military unprepared. In the larger sense, Stalin expected invasion but not so soon. The Army had been decimated by the Purges; time was needed for a recovery of competence. As such, mobilization did not occur and the Soviet Army was tactically unprepared as of the invasion. The initial weeks of the war were a disaster, with hundreds of thousands of men being killed, wounded, or captured. Whole divisions disintegrated against the German onslaught. Soviet POWs in German prison camps were treated poorly, leading to only 1/10 of Red Army POWs surviving German camps. In contrast, 1/3 of German POWs survived the Soviet prison camps.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941, but failed to capture it, due to staunch Soviet defence and counterattacks. At the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943, the Red Army inflicted a crushing defeat on the German army. Due to the unwillingness of the Japanese to open a second front in Manchuria, the Soviets were able to call dozens of Red Army divisions back from eastern Russia. These units were instrumental in turning the tide, because most of their officer corps had escaped Stalin's purges. The Soviet forces soon launched massive counterattacks along the entire German line. By 1944, the Germans had been pushed out of the Soviet Union onto the banks of the Vistula river, just east of Prussia. With Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov attacking from Prussia, and Marshal Ivan Konev slicing Germany in half from the south, the fate of Nazi Germany was sealed. On 2 May 1945 the last German troops surrendered to the overjoyed Soviet troops in Berlin.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: From the end of 1944 to 1949, large sections of eastern Germany came under the Soviet Union's occupation and on 2 May 1945, the capital city Berlin was taken, while over fifteen million Germans were removed from eastern Germany (renamed the Recovered Territories of the Polish People's Republic) and pushed into central Germany (later called the German Democratic Republic) and western Germany (later called the Federal Republic of Germany).


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: An atmosphere of patriotic emergency took over the Soviet Union during the war, and persecution of the Orthodox Church was halted. The Church was now permitted to operate with a fair degree of freedom, so long as it did not get involved in politics. In 1944, a new Soviet national anthem was written, replacing the Internationale, which had been used as the national anthem since 1918. These changes were made because it was thought that the people would respond better to a fight for their country than for a political ideology.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Soviets bore the brunt of World War II because the West did not open up a second ground front in Europe until the invasion of Italy and the Battle of Normandy. Approximately 26.6 million Soviets, among them 18 million civilians, were killed in the war. Civilians were rounded up and burned or shot in many cities conquered by the Nazis. The retreating Soviet army was ordered to pursue a 'scorched earth' policy whereby retreating Soviet troops were ordered to destroy civilian infrastructure and food supplies so that the Nazi German troops could not use them.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Stalin's original declaration in March 1946 that there were 7 million war dead was revised in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev with a round number of 20 million. In the late 1980s, demographers in the State Statistics Committee (Goskomstat) took another look using demographic methods and came up with an estimate of 26–27 million. A variety of other estimates have been made. In most detailed estimates roughly two-thirds of the estimated deaths were civilian losses. However, the breakdown of war losses by nationality is less well known. One study, relying on indirect evidence from the 1959 population census, found that while in terms of the aggregate human losses the major Slavic groups suffered most, the largest losses relative to population size were incurred by minority nationalities mainly from European Russia, among groups from which men were mustered to the front in "nationality battalions" and appear to have suffered disproportionately.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Stalin was determined to punish those peoples he saw as collaborating with Germany during the war and to deal with the problem of nationalism, which would tend to pull the Soviet Union apart. Millions of Poles, Latvians, Georgians, Ukrainians and other ethnic minorities were deported to Gulags in Siberia. (Previously, following the 1939 annexation of eastern Poland, thousands of Polish Army officers, including reservists, had been executed in the spring of 1940, in what came to be known as the Katyn massacre.) In addition, in 1941, 1943 and 1944 several whole nationalities had been deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia, including, among others, the Volga Germans, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks. Though these groups were later politically "rehabilitated", some were never given back their former autonomous regions.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: At the same time, in a famous Victory Day toast in May 1945, Stalin extolled the role of the Russian people in the defeat of the fascists: "I would like to raise a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, before all, the Russian people. I drink, before all, to the health of the Russian people, because in this war they earned general recognition as the leading force of the Soviet Union among all the nationalities of our country... And this trust of the Russian people in the Soviet Government was the decisive strength, which secured the historic victory over the enemy of humanity – over fascism..."


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: World War II resulted in enormous destruction of infrastructure and populations throughout Eurasia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, with almost no country left unscathed. The Soviet Union was especially devastated due to the mass destruction of the industrial base that it had built up in the 1930s. The USSR also experienced a major famine in 1946–1948 due to war devastation that cost an estimated 1 to 1.5 million lives as well as secondary population losses due to reduced fertility. However, the Soviet Union recovered its production capabilities and overcame pre-war capabilities, becoming the country with the most powerful land army in history by the end of the war, and having the most powerful military production capabilities.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Although the Soviet Union received aid and weapons from the United States under the Lend-Lease program, the Soviet production of war materials was greater than that of Nazi Germany because of rapid growth of Soviet industrial production during the interwar years (additional supplies from lend-lease accounted for about 10–12% of the Soviet Union's own industrial output). The Second Five Year Plan raised steel production to 18 million tons and coal to 128 million tons. Before it was interrupted, the Third Five Year Plan produced no less than 19 million tons of steel and 150 million tons of coal.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Soviet Union's industrial output provided an armaments industry which supported their army, helping it resist the Nazi military offensive. According to Robert L. Hutchings, "One can hardly doubt that if there had been a slower buildup of industry, the attack would have been successful and world history would have evolved quite differently." For the laborers involved in industry, however, life was difficult. Workers were encouraged to fulfill and overachieve quotas through propaganda, such as the Stakhanovite movement.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Some historians, however, interpret the lack of preparedness of the Soviet Union to defend itself as a flaw in Stalin's economic planning. David Shearer, for example, argues that there was "a command-administrative economy" but it was not "a planned one". He argues that the Soviet Union was still suffering from the Great Purge, and was completely unprepared for the German invasion. Economist Holland Hunter, in addition, argues in his "Overambitious First Soviet Five-Year Plan", that an array "of alternative paths were available, evolving out of the situation existing at the end of the 1920s... that could have been as good as those achieved by, say, 1936 yet with far less turbulence, waste, destruction and sacrifice."


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In the aftermath of World War II, the Soviet Union extended its political and military influence over Eastern Europe, in a move that was seen by some as a continuation of the older policies of the Russian Empire. Some territories that had been lost by Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) were annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II: the Baltic states and eastern portions of interwar Poland. The Russian SFSR also gained the northern half of East Prussia (Kaliningrad Oblast) from Germany. The Ukrainian SSR gained Transcarpathia (as Zakarpattia Oblast) from Czechoslovakia, and Ukrainian populated Northern Bukovina (as Chernivtsi Oblast) from Romania. Finally, by the late 1940s, pro-Soviet Communist Parties won the elections in five countries of Central and Eastern Europe (specifically Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) and subsequently became People's Democracies. These elections are generally regarded as rigged, and the Western powers recognized them as show elections. For the duration of the Cold War, the countries of Eastern Europe became Soviet satellite states — they were "independent" nations, which were one-party communist states whose General Secretary had to be approved by the Kremlin, and so their governments usually kept their policy in line with the wishes of the Soviet Union, although nationalistic forces and pressures within the satellite states played a part in causing some deviation from strict Soviet rule.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The USSR urgently needed munitions, food and fuel that was provided by the U.S. and also Britain, primarily through Lend Lease. The three powers kept in regular contact, with Stalin trying to maintain a veil of secrecy over internal affairs. Churchill and other top Soviets visited Moscow, as did Roosevelt's top aide Harry Hopkins. Stalin repeatedly requested that the United States and Britain open a second front on Continental Europe; but the Allied invasion did not occur until June 1944, more than two years later. In the meantime, the Russians suffered high casualties, and the Soviets faced the brunt of German strength. The Allies pointed out that their intensive air bombardment was a major factor that Stalin ignored.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Art and science were subjected to rigorous censorship. Where previously The All- Russian Union of Writers (AUW) had attempted to publish apolitical writing, The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) insisted on the importance of politics in literary work, and published content which primarily embodied the hegemony of the working-class values in fiction. In 1925, The RAPP launched a campaign against the AUW chairman Evgeny Zamyatin. It resulted in the defeat of the AUW, and they were replaced by the All-Russian Union of Soviet Writers, which strictly adopted the literary style of socialist realism. Soviet biology studies were heavily influenced by the now-discredited biologist Trofim Lysenko, who rejected the concept of Mendelian inheritance in favor of a form of Lamarckism. In physics, the theory of relativity was dismissed as "bourgeois idealism". Much of this censorship was the work of Andrei Zhdanov, known as Stalin's "ideological hatchet man", until his death from a heart attack in 1948. Stalin's cult of personality reached its height in the postwar period, with his picture displayed in every school, factory, and government office, yet he rarely appeared in public. Postwar reconstruction proceeded rapidly, but as the emphasis was all on heavy industry and energy, living standards remained low, especially outside of the major cities.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The mild political liberalization that took place in the Soviet Union during the war quickly came to an end in 1945. The Orthodox Church was generally left unmolested after the war and was even allowed to print small amounts of religious literature, but persecution of minority religions was resumed. Stalin and the Communist Party were given full credit for the victory over Germany, and generals such as Zhukov were demoted to regional commands (Ukraine in his case). With the onset of the Cold War, anti-Western propaganda was stepped up, with the capitalist world depicted as a decadent place where crime, unemployment, and poverty were rampant.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The late Stalinist period saw the emergence of a tacit "big deal" between the state and the Soviet "nomenklatura" and the experts whose status corresponded to that of the Western middle class under which the state would accept "bourgeois" habits such as a degree of consumerism, romance, and domesticity in exchange for the unflinching loyalty of the "nomenklatura" to the state. The informal "big deal" was a result of World War Two as many of the Soviet middle classes expected a higher standard of living after the war in exchange for accepting wartime sacrifices, and as the Soviet system could not function with the necessary technical experts and the "nomenklatura", the state needed the services of such people, leading to the informal "big deal". Furthermore, during the war, the state had to a certain extent relaxed its control and allowed informal practices to exist that usually contravened the rules. After 1945, this loosening of social control was never completely undone as instead the state sought to co-opt the certain elements of the population, allowing certain rules to be contravened provided that the populace remained overall loyal. One result of the "big deal" was a rise in materialism, corruption and nepotism that continued to color daily life in the Soviet Union for the rest of its existence. Another example of the "big deal" was the publication starting in the late 1940s of a series of romance novels aimed at a female audience; a choice of subject matter that would had been unthinkable before the war.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In particular, the late 1940s saw the rise of the "vory v zakone" ("thieves in law") as Russian organised crime is known who form a very distinctive subculture complete with their own dialect of Russian. Despite their name, the "vory v zakone" are not just thieves, but engage in the entire gamut of criminal activities. The "vory v zakone" did well as blackmarketers in a society that suffered from a shortage of basic goods. The crime wave that gripped the Soviet Union in the late 1940s was the source of much public disquiet at the time. A particular source of worry was the rise of juvenile crime with one police study from 1947 showing that 69% of all crimes were committed by teenagers under the age of 16. Most of the juvenile criminals were orphans from the war living on the streets who turned to crime as the only way to survive. Most of the complaints about juvenile crime concerned street children working as prostitutes, thieves or hiring their services out to the "vory v zakone".


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: The Great Patriotic War despite the immense sufferings and losses, came to be looked backed nostalgically as a time of excitement, adventure, danger, and national solidarity while life in the post-war era was seen as dull, stagnant, mundane and as a time when people put their own individual interests ahead of the greater good. There was a widespread feeling that though the war had been won, the peace had been lost as the wartime expectations and hopes for a better world after the war were dashed. The post-war era saw the emergences of various subcultures that usually in some way deviated from what was officially ascribed (for an example listening to smuggled records of Western pop music), and depending upon the nature of the subcultures were either tolerated by the authorities or cracked down upon. Another post-war social trend was the emergence of greater individualism and a search for privacy as the demand grew for private apartments while those in urban areas sought to spend more time in the countryside, where the state had less control over daily life. For members of the "nomenklatura", the ultimate status symbol came to be the dacha in the countryside where the "nomenklatura" and their families could enjoy themselves far from prying eyes. Others sought their own personal space by devoting themselves to apolitical pursuits such as the hard sciences or by moving to a remote region such as Siberia where the state had less control. Informal networks of friends and relatives known as "svoi" ("one's own") emerged that functioned as self-help societies, and often became crucial to determining one's social success as the membership of the right "svoi" could improve the odds of one's children attending a prestigious university or allow one to obtain basic goods in short supply such as toilet paper. Another example of the social trend towards a greater personal spaces for ordinary people was the rise in popularity of underground poetry and of the "samizdat" literature that criticized the Soviet system.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Despite the best efforts of the authorities, many young people in the late 1940s liked to listen to the Russian language broadcasts of the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), leading to a major campaign launched in 1948 intended to discredit both radio stations as "capitalist propaganda". Likewise, the journals "Amerika" ("America") and "Britanskii Soiuznik" ("British Ally") published by the American and British governments were very popular with young people in the late 1940s, selling out within minutes of appearing on kiosks in Moscow and Leningrad (modern St. Petersburg). The German historian Juliane Fürst has cautioned the interest of young people in the Anglo-American culture was not necessarily a rejection of the Soviet system, but instead reflected mere curiosity about the world beyond the Soviet Union. Fürst wrote that many young people in the late 1940s-early 1950s displayed ambivalent attitudes, being on one hand convinced that their nation was the world's greatest and most progressive nation while at the same time displaying a certain nagging self-doubt and a belief that just might be something better out there. The way that Russian nationalism had merged with Communism during the Great Patriotic War to create a new Soviet identity based equally upon pride in being Russian and being Communist allowed the authorities to cast criticism of the Soviet system as "unpatriotic", which for the time seemed to rebuff the elements of self-doubt that were residing with certain segments of the people.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Another sign of a growing search for a personal space of one's own after 1945 were the popularity of apolitical films such as musicals, comedies and romances over the more political films that glorified Communism. The late 1940s were a time of what the Hungarian historian Peter Kenz called the "film hunger" as the Soviet film industry could not release enough films owning to the problems posed by post war reconstruction, and so as a result Soviet cinemas showed American and German films captured by the Red Army in the eastern parts of Germany and in Eastern Europe, known in the Soviet Union as "trophy films". Much to the worry of the authorities, American films such as "Stagecoach", "The Roaring Twenties", "The Count of Monte Cristo", and "Sun Valley" proved to be extremely popular with Soviet audiences. The most popular of all the foreign films were the 1941 German-Hungarian romantic musical film "The Girl of My Dreams", which was released in the Soviet Union in 1947, and the 1941 American film "Tarzan's New York Adventures", which was released in the Soviet Union in 1951. The musician Bulat Okudzhava recalled: "It was the one and only thing in Tbilisi for which everyone went out of their minds, the trophy film, "The Girl of My Dreams", with the extraordinary and indescribable Marika Rökk in the main role. Normal life stopped in the city. Everyone talked about the film, they ran to see it whenever they had a chance, in the streets people whistled melodies from it, from half-open windows you hear people playing tunes from it on the piano".


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: As early as the late 1940s, the Austrian scholar Franz Borkenau contended that the Soviet government was not a monolithic totalitarian machine, but instead divided into vast "chefstvo" (patronage) networks extending down from the elite to the lowest ranks of power with Stalin more as the ultimate arbiter of the various factions instead of being the leader of a "1984" type state. Borkenau's techniques were a minute analysis of official Soviet statements and the relative placement of various officials at the Kremlin on festive occasions to determine which Soviet official enjoyed Stalin's favour and which official did not. Signs such as newspaper editorials, guest lists at formal occasions, obituaries in Soviet newspapers, and accounts of formal speeches were important to identifying the various "chefstvo" networks. Borkenau argued that even small changes in the formalistic language of the Soviet state could sometimes indicate important changes: "Political issues must be interpreted in the light of formulas, political and otherwise, and their history; and such interpretation cannot be safely concluded until the whole history of the given formula has been established from its first enunciation on".


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Terror by the secret police continued in the postwar period. Although nothing comparable to 1937 ever happened again, there were many smaller purges, including a mass purge of the Georgian Communist Party apparatus in 1951–52. Starting in 1949, the principle enemy of the state came to be portrayed as the "rootless cosmopolitans", a term that was never precisely defined. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" in practice was used to attack intellectuals, Jews and frequently both. Stalin's health also deteriorated precipitously after WWII. He suffered a stroke in the fall of 1945 and was ill for months. This was followed by another stroke in 1947. Stalin became less active in the day-to-day running of the state and instead of party meetings, preferred to invite the Politburo members to all-night dinners where he would watch movies and force them to get drunk and embarrass themselves or say something incriminating.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In October 1952, the first postwar party congress convened in Moscow. Stalin did not feel up to delivering the main report and for most of the proceedings sat in silence while Nikita Khrushchev and Georgy Malenkov delivered the main speeches. He did suggest however that the party be renamed from "The All-Union Party of Bolsheviks" to "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union" on the grounds that "There was once a time when it was necessary to distinguish ourselves from the Mensheviks, but there are no Mensheviks anymore. We are the entire party now." Stalin also mentioned his advancing age (two months away from 73) and suggested that it might be time to retire. Predictably, no one at the congress would dare agree with it and the delegates instead pleaded for him to stay.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: On 1 March 1953, Stalin's staff found him semi-conscious on the bedroom floor of his Volynskoe dacha. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Stalin died on 5 March 1953. An autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral hemorrhage and that he also suffered from severe damage to his cerebral arteries due to atherosclerosis. It is possible that Stalin was murdered. Beria has been suspected of murder, although no firm evidence has ever appeared.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: Stalin left no anointed successor nor a framework within which a transfer of power could take place. The Central Committee met on the day of his death, with Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev emerging as the party's key figures. The system of collective leadership was restored, and measures introduced to prevent any one member attaining autocratic domination again. The collective leadership included the following eight senior members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union listed according to the order of precedence presented formally on 5 March 1953: Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and Anastas Mikoyan. Reforms to the Soviet system were immediately implemented. Economic reform scaled back the mass construction projects, placed a new emphasis on house building, and eased the levels of taxation on the peasantry to stimulate production. The new leaders sought rapprochement with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and a less hostile relationship with the United States, pursuing a negotiated end to the Korean War in July 1953. The doctors who had been imprisoned were released and the anti-Semitic purges ceased. A mass amnesty for those imprisoned for non-political crimes was issued, halving the country's inmate population, while the state security and Gulag systems were reformed, with torture being banned in April 1953.


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: In 1950, the Soviet Union protested against the fact that the Chinese seat at the United Nations Security Council was held by the Nationalist government of China, and boycotted the meetings. While the Soviet Union was absent, the UN passed


title: History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)

text: a resolution condemning North Korean actions and eventually offered military support to South Korea. After this incident the Soviet Union was never absent at the meetings of the Security Council.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: The Color of Friendship is a 2000 television film based on actual events about the friendship between two girls; Mahree & Piper, one from the United States and the other from apartheid South Africa, who learn about tolerance and friendship. The film was directed by Kevin Hooks, based on a script by Paris Qualles, and stars Lindsey Haun and Shadia Simmons.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: In 1977, Piper Dellums is a black girl who lives in Washington, D.C. with her father, Congressman Ron Dellums, an outspoken opponent of the South African apartheid system and the oppression of black South Africans, her mother Roscoe Dellums, and two younger twin brothers, Brandon and Erik. Piper, who has been taking an interest in the different nations of Africa, begs her parents to host an African exchange student.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: Meanwhile, in South Africa, Mahree Bok is a white South African who lives in a manor house with her parents and little brother Rian. They comfortably benefit from the system of apartheid without questioning its morality; Mahree's father, Pieter Bok, is a South African policeman who cannot hide his joy when Stephen Biko (a black South African man fighting against apartheid) has just been captured. They also have a black maid, Flora, whom Mahree considers her best friend, not realizing that Flora is not satisfied with her life under apartheid. Flora is a kindly woman who is friendly with the Bok children. Flora tells Mahree that when she was a little girl she would observe the weaver bird, which has many different styles of plumage, and its communal nest-building, which is used as a metaphor for the possibility of racial harmony that Mahree does not understand at the time. Mahree also asks her parents for permission to study in America, which is granted by her father, who believes she will either get homesick or realize that America is not a paradise.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: Upon meeting each other, both Mahree and Piper have misconstrued notions about each other's countries: Mahree does not think that there are black politicians, only knowing the patriarch of her host family is "Congressman Dellums", and although Piper is expecting a South African exchange student, she does not realize there are white residents. Mahree reacts with horror bordering on panic when confronted with this new situation, and locks herself in Piper's bedroom when she is brought to the Dellums' home. Eventually, Piper picks the lock on the door to bring Mahree some fries and a chocolate shake. Mahree is standoffish, and Piper, upset by her attitude, tells Mahree how disappointed she is in her. Stunned by this, Mahree sees how rude she's been, and agrees to stay and try to make this work. Roscoe tries to play peacemaker, chalking up Mahree's reaction to misunderstanding and culture shock, while telling Ron and Piper they have been judgmental as well.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: During Mahree's stay, she and the Dellums family grow close. Mahree sees people of different races getting along and realizes how much she and Piper have in common. The two become good friends and Mahree also begins to see her host family as individuals and learns to live among them day to day. Gradually, she develops a better understanding of what life under apartheid must be like for black South Africans.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: When Stephen Biko dies under suspicious circumstances in the custody of South African police, there are mass protests around the world, including at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. In the wake of these protests, South African embassy diplomats arrive at the Dellumses' house and take Mahree to the embassy, intending to send her back to South Africa. In response, Ron goes to the South African embassy. After he threatens to tell the press that the embassy kidnapped Mahree from her host family, the embassy releases Mahree. Mahree returns to the Dellums' without fully understanding what happened to her and why, and during her discussion with Piper she makes a cold offhand comment about Biko's death. Outraged, Piper shouts at her for being blind to the racial struggle happening in South Africa. Hurt, Mahree runs outside but Ron follows her. He tells Mahree that the United States had a long, hard history of trying to overcome problems, which is what South Africa is doing now, and she finally fully grasps what the liberation fighters in South Africa stand for. She then reconciles with Piper


title: The Color of Friendship

text: An epilogue-like scene at the end of the movie shows Mahree with the Dellumses at an African pride event back in America. Ron Dellums delivers a speech that includes the weaver-bird story, as told to him by "a new friend from South Africa."


title: The Color of Friendship

text: Mahree leaves the United States, now a very different person. When she returns home, the first person she greets is Flora. Secretly, Mahree shows her an ANC flag sewn inside her coat, signifying her decision to side with the black liberation movement. Flora is touched and pleased. Mahree then releases the weaver-bird.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: "The Color of Friendship" was written by Paris Qualles and directed by Kevin Hooks. The film is based on two separate instances in which the Dellums family hosted a white South African teenage girl as an exchange student. Both instances were combined into a single story for the film. Filming took place in Canada, and was underway in Toronto during September 1999. The film's production designer was Arthur W. Herriot.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: "The Color of Friendship" premiered on Disney Channel on February 5, 2000, during Black History Month. The film was released on VHS on January 8, 2002.


title: The Color of Friendship

text: Lynne Heffley of "Los Angeles Times" praised the cast and called the film "surprisingly compelling", and stated that while it is "frequently predictable", it "delves unexpectedly deeper, too." David Kronke of "Los Angeles Daily News" noted that the film did an "admirably handy job" of educating children about apartheid, and called it a "thoughtful, entertaining family film that tackles its issues matter-of-factly and directly". Ramin Zahed of "Variety" praised the cast and noted the "smart usage of '70s songs" as well as Herriot's "picture-perfect production design."


title: The Color of Friendship

text: Scott Hetrick of the "Sun-Sentinel" called the film "entertaining and enlightening," stating that it had a "terrific story that is wonderfully told and thoroughly fulfilling." "The Seattle Times" wrote that the film "breaks the nauseatingly simple 'after-school special' mold of most child-friendly teleflicks" and that it "is certainly one of the better films you'll see on the channel". Paul Schultz of "New York Daily News" wrote that the film "grapples with apartheid head on, yet incorporates it into an engrossing, and touching, family story." Schultz further wrote that the "changes of heart" between Mahree and the Dellums family are "most affecting" and that the "story and the human dynamics here are so inherently dramatic that the heartfelt script seems to write itself. The performances are wonderful, and when politics arise it seems natural."


title: The Color of Friendship

text: In June 2011, Stephan Lee of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that the film "rocked!" In 2012, "Complex" ranked the film at number 10 on the magazine's list of the 25 best Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs). In May 2016, Aubrey Page of Collider ranked each DCOM released up to that point, placing "The Color of Friendship" at number 15. Page stated, "It's totally fair that "The Color of Friendship" is one of the most lauded installments in the Disney franchise," writing that the film features a "comparatively unflinching look at race relations" and that it "scores extra points for refusing to shy away from the more difficult sides of racism, making sure to drive home the harsh realities of racially-motivated violence." That month, Ariana Bacle of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that Disney Channel "took a risk by unapologetically making a completely necessary albeit heavy statement about prejudice with one of their kid-focused films, and it was well worth it."


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney was an American radio network operated by the Disney Radio Networks unit of Disney Branded Television within the Disney General Entertainment Content, headquartered in Burbank, California.


title: Radio Disney

text: The network broadcast music programming oriented towards children, pre-teens and teenagers, focusing mainly on current hit music and a heavy emphasis on teen idols (particularly those signed with Disney Music Group record labels, such as Hollywood and Walt Disney); compared to most CHR stations, Radio Disney was far more aggressive in playing only current hits and eschews recurrent rotation.


title: Radio Disney

text: For many years Radio Disney affiliated with stations in markets of varying size, mainly large and mid-sized markets; however, by the early 2010s, Disney had begun to phase out the network's affiliations with terrestrial radio stations, and sold its owned-and-operated Radio Disney stations (with the exception of KDIS in Los Angeles) to third-parties, in order to focus more on its programming, marketing, creating revenue producing events and distribution of Radio Disney as an internet radio outlet on digital platforms.


title: Radio Disney

text: In 2015, Radio Disney partnered with iBiquity to distribute the network terrestrially via its HD Radio platform, and with iHeartRadio for further digital distribution. In the same year, Radio Disney launched a spin-off service, Radio Disney Country, which carried a country music format catered towards a similar audience; in 2017, this service replaced the main Radio Disney service on KDIS, which was renamed KRDC. The network also lent its name to the Radio Disney Music Awards, an annual music awards presentation broadcast on television since 2014 by Disney Channel.


title: Radio Disney

text: On December 3, 2020, Disney announced that Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country would be shut down in the first quarter of 2021. On April 14, 2021, Radio Disney ceased broadcast when its last remaining terrestrial station, KRDC in Los Angeles, was quietly changed to a simulcast of KSPN 710 AM, an ESPN Radio frequency.


title: Radio Disney

text: Disney had for a long time been involved in the music business, building off its success in movies and TV shows, which later became Disney Music Group. However, with radio, Disney was not committed to the medium only doing a few shows. Radio Disney is Disney's third foray into radio. In late 1955, Walt Disney started "The Magic Kingdom" radio show—running Monday through Fridays and which was heard on ABC Radio. Even before the 1996 Disney-CC/ABC merger, Disney and ABC Radio considered as early as 1991 planned for a children's radio network but dropped the idea. Starting on July 31, 1994, Disney started a weekend radio show, "Live From Walt Disney World", that originated from both Disney World and Disneyland on Radio AAHS.


title: Radio Disney

text: In November 1995, ABC Radio Networks and Children's Broadcast Corp. reached an agreement for ABC Radio to provide marketing and sales to Radio AAHS. After Disney's acquisition of CC/ABC, Disney had ABC Radio cancel the agreement in August 1996 plus announced the start of its own children's network and ended AAHS's Disney World broadcasting rights.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney was test launched on November 18, 1996 in four markets, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, and Birmingham, Alabama by ABC Radio Networks. In late March 1997, a fifth test market was added, Seattle on former KidStar station KKDZ.


title: Radio Disney

text: Pleased with the results in those four test markets, ABC Radio Networks announced on May 8, 1997 that Radio Disney would begin a nationwide rollout, with the network having 14 affiliates by the end of the year. On August 26, 1997, Radio Disney was launched in Los Angeles on KTZN/710.


title: Radio Disney

text: By August 1998, 28 stations had affiliated with Radio Disney, with an expected 63 stations by the end of 1999. Radio Disney purchased KAAM (AM) (Plano, Texas) for $12 million and switched the station to the network in July. In 1998, the network was based out of its Dallas station.


title: Radio Disney

text: Other than music, the network aired other programs such as "Mickey & Minnie's Tune Time", a two-hour weekday toddler program, and two 60-second features per hour which included contests, "ABC News for Kids" and "Gross Me Out". The network ran its Radio Disney Project Family Initiative from July 1 to September 15, 2003 with family-themed programming and events to get family to sign on to the Radio Disney Family Pledge.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney would later begin being carried on XM Satellite Radio in 2001, with the station launching on Sirius Satellite Radio in 2002.


title: Radio Disney

text: Disney entered a joint venture to launch Capital Disney digital radio channel in Britain and operated from 2002 until June 29, 2007. In 2004, Disney paid the former Children's Broadcasting Corporation (which operated children's radio network Radio Aahs) $12.4 million in a lawsuit settlement.


title: Radio Disney

text: In April 2002, Radio Disney began using a new logo, which was followed by the network redesigning its website, and changing its slogan to "Your Music, Your Way" on May 28, 2002.


title: Radio Disney

text: On July 30, 2003, ABC Radio Networks founded the Radio Disney Group, who took over operations of most of Radio Disney's stations.


title: Radio Disney

text: 2006 marked the network's 10th anniversary; Radio Disney rebroadcast its first hour of programming from November 18, 1996, on June 6, 2006, at around 4:58 pm. ET on stations in select markets, such as WQEW. Also, as part of the 10th anniversary, Radio Disney held the "Totally 10 Birthday Concert" on July 22, 2006, at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California. It also included a simultaneous live webcast on the Radio Disney website. A second concert was held in Dallas, Texas, on November 18, 2006, at the Dallas Convention Center.


title: Radio Disney

text: In August 2006, operational duties of Radio Disney were transferred to the company's Disney–ABC Cable Networks Group (currently d.b.a. Disney Channels Worldwide), which otherwise operates Disney's cable television properties, except for ESPN.


title: Radio Disney

text: On June 12, 2007, Disney spun off and merged its ABC Radio Networks with Citadel Broadcasting into Citadel Communications while retaining its ESPN Radio and Radio Disney networks and stations.


title: Radio Disney

text: In March 2008, Radio Disney and Gracenote signed a licensing agreement starting immediately that allow the lyrics be seen along with the song online on Radio Disney Internet Radio Player. The channel began streaming live on iTunes Radio Tuner in August 2008. In November 2008, Radio Disney relocated its main operations from Dallas to Los Angeles. The former radio studio that housed Radio Disney in Dallas began to be used by The Kidd Kraddick Morning Show in 2008.


title: Radio Disney

text: The network launched on October 8, 2008 the Next Big Thing feature which allows listeners vote on young unsigned artists' songs to be played. In 2013, the Radio Disney Music Awards began airing on the Disney Channel.


title: Radio Disney

text: Sometime in 2009, in September at the latest, Radio Disney changed its logo to the one they still used until their closure.


title: Radio Disney

text: By 2009, Radio Disney was starting to reduce its station footprint to the larger markets to make the network more profitable. In January 2010, Radio Disney Group requested permission from the FCC to "silence" five of its owned-and-operated stations (along with a sixth station operating under a local marketing agreement with another company) while the stations were being sold. Disney sold six AM stations and one FM station that year. In June 2013, Disney announced the sale of seven owned-and-operated stations in medium-sized markets, in order to refocus Radio Disney's broadcast distribution on the top-25 radio markets.


title: Radio Disney

text: On April 10, 2014, it was announced that Radio Disney's "Top 30 Countdown" would become a syndicated radio show, distributed by Rick Dees' Dees Entertainment. Aha Radio, Slacker and ShowMobile signed online carriage agreements with the network in mid-2014.


title: Radio Disney

text: On August 13, 2014, Radio Disney's general manager Phil Guerini announced plans to sell all but one of its remaining owned-and-operated stations on or before September 26, 2014, in order to focus more on the network's programming, co-branded events, and digital outlets. Listenership reports indicated that the majority of Radio Disney's audience listened to the network via satellite radio and other digital platforms, and only 18% via terrestrial AM/FM radio. KDIS remained operational to serve as the originating station for the Radio Disney network, while the remaining stations would continue carrying Radio Disney programming until their respective sales were completed. The last five Radio Disney owned-and-operated stations for sale were sold on September 15, 2015 to Salem Media Group (who was the largest purchaser of the stations) for $2.225 million.


title: Radio Disney

text: On April 13, 2015, Disney announced that the Radio Disney network would move to HD Radio subchannels; the network will be distributed by iBiquity via deals with broadcast companies (CBS Radio, Entercom, Cumulus Media, etc.) with ad sales handled by its HD Radio Digital Network. A network representative that the move was intended to target families as in-car listeners. Eventually, those deals ended quietly after a few years. On August 6, 2015, Radio Disney was made available for listening on iHeartRadio.


title: Radio Disney

text: It was announced that on November 25, 2019, Disney has secured a deal with Entercom to bring Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country to the company's Radio.com platform.


title: Radio Disney

text: On December 3, 2020, Disney announced that both Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country would shut down in the first quarter of 2021 as part of its restructuring plan to focus more on producing content for the television networks and Disney+, with KRDC being put up for sale. Radio Disney began to wind down operations on December 31, 2020 as their DJ's hosted their final shows, and was discontinued on SiriusXM on that same date. Radio Disney Country was completely shut down at noon Pacific Time on December 31; KRDC subsequently returned to the main Radio Disney feed. On January 1, the station ceased its Top 40 format and switched to an automated throwback playlist which mainly consisted of songs from throughout the 24-year history of the network. The Radio Disney app and website shut down on January 22, 2021, while the station continued to broadcast on iHeartRadio until it was removed sometime during March. At that point, the station was only heard in the Greater Los Angeles Area and San Diego County on terrestrial radio until April 14, 2021 at 10 am PT, when it was quietly discontinued and switched to a simulcast of sister station KSPN. The final song Radio Disney played prior to being switched was “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield.


title: Radio Disney

text: Despite the station now being defunct, Radio Disney’s Instagram and Twitter remain active to promote other Disney movies and TV shows, mainly those airing on Disney+.


title: Radio Disney

text: On March 25, 2021, Disney launched Disney Hits, at the time exclusively on SiriusXM. Unlike Radio Disney, Disney Hits only include music from The Walt Disney Company's productions.


title: Radio Disney

text: In August 2022, Disney announced a partnership with Audacy Inc. to launch nine additional Disney-branded audio feeds through the Audacy mobile app, in addition to making Disney Hits available on that platform. The nine channels include jazz, a sing-along channel, decades channels devoted to the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, a "Disney Reimagined" channel, a Spanish language channel, a channel devoted to music from Disney Channel, and an LGBTQ-oriented "Disney Pride" channel. The announcement noted that additional Disney channels, including at least one Christmas music channel, would be added later in 2022.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney played a large selection of songs from stars and programs on Disney Channel, along with popular songs from mainstream pop and R&B artists that are found on conventional radio stations. The network aired edited versions of some Top 40 songs (which remove profanity and any other suggestive content) to make them appropriate for younger listeners. The specialized radio format favored music which often takes on a sound reminiscent of "bubblegum pop" of the 1960s and '70s.


title: Radio Disney

text: In July 2010, Radio Disney debuted its first scripted serial called "My Dream," a contemporary story utilizing a format reminiscent of serials from the 1940s. Unlike Depression-era radio serials that typically featured episodes lasting 15 to 30 minutes, episodes of "My Dream" runs for only 90 seconds and play multiple times throughout the day. "My Dream" stars Daphne Blunt as a 14-year-old girl trying to make a name for herself in the music industry while dealing with the usual struggles, responsibilities and emotional ups and downs of an everyday teen.


title: Radio Disney

text: From 2001 to 2019, Radio Disney held an annual awards ceremony, the Radio Disney Music Awards, to honor popular music artists featured on the network. Similar to the Teen Choice Awards and Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, teenagers would vote to select the winner of each category including Best Female Artist, Best Male Artist, Best Music Group, Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Fiercest Fans, Artist with the Best Style, Most Talked About Artist and more. Hilary Duff is the biggest winner with 21 awards and 35 nominations. There were no awards between 2009 and 2012, as well as 2020.


title: Radio Disney

text: In 2000 and 2001, Radio Disney launched two separate "world tours" that traveled to major U.S. cities including Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. In 2000, the tour featured up-and-coming talent (No Authority, Myra) and then Radio Disney DJs, Mark and Zippy. The tour played in theatrical venues and had audiences of up to 2,000 people per show (there were four shows each weekend in each city).


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney Networks is an American radio network that is owned by Disney Channels Worldwide, Inc., a subsidiary of Walt Disney Television, a primary component of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Media Networks segment. Radio Disney Networks broadcasts three separated digital channels, Radio Disney, Radio Disney Country and Radio Disney Junior, via radio station's HD channel or by online stream sites. The original Radio Disney network play music and other content aimed at preteens and young teenagers; it can be described as a youth-targeted contemporary hit radio format with heavy emphasis on teen idols. Recently Radio Disney has become a Mainstream Top 40 Indicator reporter on Nielsen-BDS eventually being upgraded to monitored status with Nielsen-BDS. Radio Disney is also a monitored reporter on the Mediabase 24/7 Top 40 panel. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney Junior was available via the Watch Disney Junior app in August 2014. On November 4, 2015, Radio Disney Networks launched a country music-focused internet radio station, Radio Disney Country. Disney Channels Worldwide replaced its Watch app series with the singular, DisneyNow, which combines its TV and radio channels the week of September 29, 2017. On November 13, 2014, Radio Disney and Radio Disney Junior became available on Slacker Radio with Radio Disney's Top 30 Countdown starting on November 15, 2014.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney Country is a defunct country music focused internet radio network that launched on November 4, 2015, and was initially exclusive to Radio Disney's own digital platforms. The service focused upon current songs, current and past material from popular artists, and pop songs featuring country musicians. Guerini explained that the format of the channel was meant to allow it to draw from a wider range of songs than traditional country radio stations, owing to the format's "embrace" of rock, hip-hop and pop-oriented songs (with "Rolling Stone" noting its airplay of Lil Nas X's Western-trap song "Old Town Road" in 2019 as an example of this strategy). The network's launch coincided with the 2015 CMA Awards. Like its sister station, Radio Disney Country emphasized current hits and used little recurrent rotation.


title: Radio Disney

text: On June 9, 2017, Disney announced that it would expand the network's distribution to include other digital platforms, such as iHeartRadio and TuneIn, as well as curated playlists on Apple Music and Spotify, and terrestrial radio with the flip of KDIS to the network as KRDC 99.1 FM and AM 1110 (the main Radio Disney network continued to be carried locally on a subchannel of KRTH until late 2018 when its contract to carry the network expired).


title: Radio Disney

text: The station's "Let the Girls Play" segment premiered on December 5, 2018. In July 2019, Radio Disney Country opened a Nashville Music Row based studio. In July 2019, Disney agreed to license Radio Disney video content to Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation to telestream via a patented process the content to the web and the audio to a radio station, WIGO-AM, as "The Radio Disney Hour" (working tile).


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney Country's targeted audience was women aged 18 to 34 years old. The network's mix of music would be every thing with 60% popular artists and 40% up and coming artists. It ceased in the afternoon of December 31, 2020.


title: Radio Disney

text: On February 14, 2011, a Radio Disney Junior block was launched in tandem with the Disney Junior on Disney Channel block. The hour long block focused on music for the preschool age plus fun "audio theater" with Disney Junior characters.


title: Radio Disney

text: Despite being music-oriented, the network was carried primarily on AM stations. The Walt Disney Company owned most of the network's affiliates, though some stations were operated through local marketing agreements that had varying degrees of local management. The last separately-owned Radio Disney affiliate, WOLF in Syracuse, New York, left the network on February 1, 2014.


title: Radio Disney

text: On August 13, 2014, it was announced that all of Radio Disney's remaining stations, excluding KDIS, were to be sold in an effort to focus more on digital distribution of the Radio Disney network. KDIS would be retained to serve as the originator of Radio Disney's programming, and its operations was assumed by the network's national staff. However, Disney later announced that it would syndicate Radio Disney through affiliations with HD Radio subchannels.


title: Radio Disney

text: Many former Radio Disney stations have diverse histories prior to the network affiliation. The call signs of Radio Disney stations (particularly those owned by The Walt Disney Company) were variations on the Disney name and that of Mickey and Minnie Mouse; at least one appeared to be named for Goofy (WGFY), and another after Walt Disney World (WDW).


title: Radio Disney

text: Internationally, there are Radio Disney stations in Australia, Chile, Japan, Poland, Argentina, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru. There are plans to resume broadcasting of a Disney-branded radio station in the United Kingdom, but this time under the 'Radio Disney' brand, aimed at a younger audience than its predecessor in the UK. On October 21, 2010, Radio Disney launched in Brazil. From October 1, 2013 to July 28, 2022, Radio Disney was available in Russia via Disney.ru. It plans to broadcast in the Philippines and Sweden in the near future.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney is available in Latin America via terrestrial broadcast. Similar to Radio Disney in the U.S., it broadcasts in Spanish to Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Uruguay, Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and in Portuguese to Brazil. Radio Disney Latin America is a separate operation and won't be affected by the decision to shutter Radio Disney in the United States.


title: Radio Disney

text: Radio Disney planned to begin broadcasting on the digital radio platform in the United Kingdom by the end of 2008. On July 6, 2007, Ofcom, the communications regulator of the United Kingdom, announced that the 4 Digital Group, a consortium headed by Channel 4 and featuring Emap, UTV, British Sky Broadcasting, Global Radio, Carphone Warehouse and UBC, had been awarded a license to run a new digital radio multiplex which would include Radio Disney as one of ten new national radio stations. On October 10, 2008, Channel 4 withdrew plans to launch 4 Digital, ending the probability of Radio Disney launching on the service.


title: Radio Disney

text: A similar station, Capital Disney began broadcasting in 2002 on the DAB digital radio network, on Sky Digital (Digital Satellite) and various digital cable television providers in the UK. The station was a joint venture between the UK's Capital Radio Group and Disney. The idea being to use Capital Radio's programming experience to assist Disney in launching a radio station in the UK. In early 2007, both Capital Radio (by now called GCap Media) and Disney agreed to pursue different goals, and as a result, Capital Disney closed down on June 29, 2007.


title: 2016–17 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. season

text: The 2016–17 season was Tottenham Hotspur's 25th season in the Premier League and 39th successive season in the top division of the English football league system. Along with the Premier League, the club competed in the FA Cup, League Cup and the Champions League. Upon finishing 3rd in the group stage of the Champions League they then qualified and entered into knock-out stage of the Europa League.


title: 2016–17 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. season

text: They played their home domestic fixtures at White Hart Lane and their home European fixtures at Wembley Stadium. The season covers the period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017.


title: 2016–17 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. season

text: It was the club's final season at White Hart Lane before it was demolished to make way for the new stadium. Tottenham went the season unbeaten at their old stadium in all competitions: it was the first time they had been unbeaten at home in a league campaign since the 1964–65 season. In winning their final fourteen home league matches, they equalled the club record set over the final nine games of 1986–87 and the first five of 1987–88.


title: 2016–17 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. season

text: On 1 March 2016, it was announced that Tottenham would participate in the Australia edition of the 2016 International Champions Cup. On 24 June, it was announced on the Tottenham Hotspur website that they would also play against Inter Milan in Norway.


title: 2016–17 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. season

text: On 8 May 2017, Spurs confirmed a return to Hong Kong to play an exhibition match against Kitchee SC, which closed Spurs' season.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel "Schindler's Ark", the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, which won the Booker Prize in 1982. The book would later be adapted into Steven Spielberg's 1993 film "Schindler's List", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Both Keneally's parents (Edmund Thomas Keneally and Elsie Margaret Coyle) were born to Irish fathers in the timber and dairy town of Kempsey, New South Wales, and, though born in Sydney, his early years were also spent in Kempsey. His father, Edmund Thomas Keneally, flew for the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, then returned to work in a small business in Sydney. By 1942, the family had moved to 7 Loftus Crescent, Homebush, a suburb in the inner west of Sydney and Keneally was enrolled at Christian Brothers St Patrick's College, Strathfield. Shortly after, his brother John was born. Keneally studied Honours English for his Leaving Certificate in 1952, under Brother James Athanasius McGlade, and won a Commonwealth scholarship.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally then entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly, to train as a Catholic priest. Although he was ordained as a deacon while at the seminary, after six years there he left in a state of depression and without being ordained to the priesthood. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist and was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70).


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use his real first name.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally's first story was published in "The Bulletin" magazine in 1962 under the pseudonym Bernard Coyle. By February 2014, he had written over 50 books, including 30 novels. He is particularly famed for his "Schindler's Ark" (1982) (later republished as "Schindler's List"), the first novel by an Australian to win the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film "Schindler's List". He had already been shortlisted for the Booker three times prior to that: 1972 for "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith", 1975 for "Gossip from the Forest", and 1979 for "Confederates".


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Premièred at London's Royal Court Theatre, the play "Our Country's Good" by Timberlake Wertenbaker is based on Keneally's book "The Playmaker". In it, convicts deported from Britain to the Empire's penal colony of Australia perform George Farquhar's Restoration comedy "The Recruiting Officer" set in the English town of Shrewsbury. Artistic Director Max Stafford-Clark wrote about his experiences of staging the plays in repertoire in his book "Letters to George".


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in Fred Schepisi's "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" (1978) (based on his own novel) and played Father Marshall in the award-winning film "The Devil's Playground" (1976), also by Schepisi.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally was a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council from 1985 to 1988 and President of the National Book Council from 1985 to 1989.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally was a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where he taught the graduate fiction workshop for one quarter in 1985. From 1991 to 1995, he was a visiting professor in the writing program at UCI.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: The Tom Keneally Centre opened in August 2011 at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, housing Keneally's books and memorabilia. The site is used for book launches, readings and writing classes.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally is an ambassador of the Asylum Seekers Centre, a not-for-profit that provides personal and practical support to people seeking asylum in Australia.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally was the founding chairman (1991–93) of the Australian Republic Movement and published a book on the subject "Our Republic" in 1993. Several of his Republican essays appear on the website of the movement. He is also a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. In 2004, he gave the sixth annual Tom Brock Lecture. He made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film "The Final Winter".


title: Thomas Keneally

text: In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's biography "Lincoln" to President Barack Obama as a state gift.


title: Thomas Keneally

text: Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former senior Australian Labor Party Senator, Kristina Keneally. She is also a former Premier of New South Wales and Sky News Australia newscaster.