Foundation for the History of Totalitarianism

Essay competition:
Jung Chang and the Cultural Revolution

The subject of the 2024-25 sixth form essay prize is “Jung Chang and the Cultural Revolution”.

We are delighted to announced that Jung Chang herself will present the prizes at the awards ceremony next year.

Jung Chang’s book, Wild Swans, was an international sensation when it was published and has sold over 13 million copies around the world.  The book tells much of the story of modern China through the lives of her grandmother, her mother and herself. She herself became a Red Guard but became sickened by what she was expected to do. Her mother was paraded in the streets and made to walk on her knees on broken grass.

The competition is to write an essay in which the experiences of her family and the overall story of the Cultural Revolution are both told.

Click on this button for more information.

AT DAWN THEY CAME

by Giles Udy

Repression and Terror in the Soviet Union 1917-1953

Concise, fully illustrated with full timeline

Ten books about totalitarianism

Ten books on totalitarianism: masterpieces, best-sellers or both.

Learning about Holodomor

Resources for teachers and students

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact:

its significance and Stalin’s real plan

Roger Moorhouse is the author of “The Devils’ Alliance”.

What Nazism and communism have in common

Daniel Finkelstein

Warsaw Ghetto handstamp

The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German occupying forces in November 1940.

Repression in pre-war Nazi Germany

Winning essay in the 2023-24 essay competition.

A T55 tank purchased for exhibition

The kind of tank used to suppress the Prague Spring in 1968.