This may steer too much towards the sobering/pessimistic than what you asked for but I found it quite clarifying (tldr: it’s hard, chances for impact are low, your own ego will get in the way, do your best and pray): https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/on-being-useful/
The Wall was to keep its own people from emigrating. The country was losing so many people to emigration during the fifties, especially young people, especially educated people, that it decided to basically imprison the rest (gee I wonder why Reisefreiheit was one of the big demands of the 1989 protests). The Stasi kept tabs on people in order to suppress any sort of civil society independent of or critical of the party. If you wondered aloud whether the elections were fair or if economic policy was in the best interest of all and your teacher/college roommate/neighbor informed on you, you could be barred from high school/college/a job or end up in prison (with amenities such as solitary, no light, ankle deep cold water). Oh and your partner too and your children. Etc. Also, June 1953.
Wikipedia puts the population of the USSR in 1941 at 190-200 million: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union. Are you talking about Russia specifically? Doesn’t the 25 million number include people from other SR as well?
·6 months ago
·9 months ago
·9 months ago
·10 months ago
Removed by mod