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Communism's Collapse, Democracy's Demise?: The Cultural Context and Consequences of the East German Revolution
by L. McFallsBased on original research, this book explores East German political culture and its role in the revolution of 1989 and in reunification. Specifically the book shows how a set of common values stabilised the communist regime until the 1980s, how the undermining of these values motivated revolutionary mobilization, and how the partial survival of this specific culture and its conflict with West German culture have contributed to the post-unification political crisis.
Communism's Public Sphere: Culture as Politics in Cold War Poland and East Germany
by Kyrill KunakhovichCommunism's Public Sphere explores the political role of cultural spaces in the Eastern Bloc. Under communist regimes that banned free speech, political discussions shifted to spaces of art: theaters, galleries, concert halls, and youth clubs. Kyrill Kunakhovich shows how these venues turned into sites of dialogue and contestation. While officials used them to spread the communist message, artists and audiences often flouted state policy and championed alternative visions. Cultural spaces therefore came to function as a public sphere, or a rare outlet for discussing public affairs.Focusing on Kraków in Poland and Leipzig in East Germany, Communism's Public Sphere sheds new light on state-society interactions in the Eastern Bloc. In place of the familiar trope of domination and resistance, it highlights unexpected symbioses like state-sponsored rock and roll, socialist consumerism, and sanctioned dissent. By examining nearly five decades of communist rule, from the Red Army's arrival in Poland in 1944 to German reunification in 1990, Kunakhovich argues that cultural spaces played a pivotal mediating role. They helped reform and stabilize East European communism but also gave cover to the protest movements that ultimately brought it down.
Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes
by Grigore Pop-Eleches Joshua A. TuckerIt has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes.Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality.A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.
Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes (PDF)
by Grigore Pop-Eleches Joshua A. TuckerIt has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes.Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality.A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.
Communist China and Tibet: The First Dozen Years
by GinsburgsThe signing in Peking on May 27, I95I, of the I7-point Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet marked the end of Tibet's latest forty-year interlude of de facto independence and formalized an arrangement which, although in some respects differing from the earlier relationship between China and Tibet, in principle but reimposed the former's traditional suzerainty over the latter~ Since then, the course and pattern of relations between the Central Government and the so-called Local Government of Tibet have undergone aseries of drastic reappraisals and readjustments, culmi and the flight of the Dalai Lama to nating in the rebellion of I959 India. These events, together with the recent degeneration of the Sino-Indian border dispute into a fuIl-fledged military confrontation, have served to dramatize the importance of Tibet from the point of view of global strategy and world diplomacy. Long before that, however, indeed ever since Tibet's occupation by the Chinese Red armies and the region's effective submission to Peking's authority, the Tibetan question had already assumed the status of a major political problem and that for a variety of good reasons, internal as weIl as international. From the vantage-point of domestic politics, the Tibetan issue was from the very start, and still is now, of prime significance on at least three counts.
Communist China and Tibet: The First Dozen Years
by George Ginsburgs Michael MathosThe signing in Peking on May 27, 1951, of the 17-point Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet marked the end of Tibet's latest forty-year interlude of de facto independence and formalized an arrangement which, although in some respects differing from the earlier relationship between China and Tibet, in principle but reimposed the former's traditional suzerainty over the latter. Since then, the course and pattern of relations between the Central Government and the so-called Local Government of Tibet have undergone a series of drastic reappraisals and readjustments, culmi nating in the rebellion of 1959 and the flight of the Dalai Lama to India. These events, together with the recent degeneration of the Sino-Indian border dispute into a full-fledged military confrontation, have served to dramatize the importance of Tibet from the point of view of global strategy and world diplomacy. Long before that, however, indeed ever since Tibet's occupation by the Chinese Red armies and the region's effective submission to Peking's authority, the Tibetan question had already assumed the status of a major political problem and that for a variety of good reasons, internal as well as international. From the vantage-point of domestic politics, the Tibetan issue was from the very start, and still is now, of prime significance on at least three counts.
The Communist Economic Challenge (Routledge Library Editions: Soviet Economics #2)
by David IngramThe Communist Economic Challenge (1965) examines the substantial industrial development in the Soviet Union, and its European satellites, and China, looking at Khrushchev’s boast that by 1970 the USSR’s industrial output would surpass that of the USA. The book analyses the communist record, and evaluates the reality of the Soviet claims that its growth was a mark of the ‘inherent superiority’ of its economic system over capitalism.
The Communist Economic Challenge (Routledge Library Editions: Soviet Economics #2)
by David IngramThe Communist Economic Challenge (1965) examines the substantial industrial development in the Soviet Union, and its European satellites, and China, looking at Khrushchev’s boast that by 1970 the USSR’s industrial output would surpass that of the USA. The book analyses the communist record, and evaluates the reality of the Soviet claims that its growth was a mark of the ‘inherent superiority’ of its economic system over capitalism.
The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions (Routledge Studies in Modern History)
by Oleksa DrachewychThis book analyzes the stance of international communism towards nationality, anti-colonialism, and racial equality as defined by the Communist International (Comintern) during the interwar period. Central to the volume is a comparative analysis of the communist parties of three British dominions, South Africa, Canada and Australia, demonstrating how each party attempted to follow Moscow’s lead and how each party produced its own attempts to deal with these issues locally, while considering the limits of their own agency within the movement at large.
The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions (Routledge Studies in Modern History)
by Oleksa DrachewychThis book analyzes the stance of international communism towards nationality, anti-colonialism, and racial equality as defined by the Communist International (Comintern) during the interwar period. Central to the volume is a comparative analysis of the communist parties of three British dominions, South Africa, Canada and Australia, demonstrating how each party attempted to follow Moscow’s lead and how each party produced its own attempts to deal with these issues locally, while considering the limits of their own agency within the movement at large.
The Communist International in Central America, 1920–36 (St Antony's Series)
by Rodolfo Cerdaz-CruzA report on the activities of the Komintern in the Isthmus in a crucial period of time. Cerdas-Cruz discusses the debates, reports and resolutions adopted by that organization on such issues as the revolution and its character, and the Party and its nature.
The Communist Manifesto: The Authorized English Translation, Edited and Annotated by Friedrich Engels
by Karl Marx Friedrich EngelsOne of the world's most influential political treatises, The Communist Manifesto outlines the base principles of communism as they relate to class struggle, economics, and politics.Originally published in 1848 as the Manifesto of the Communist Party, The Communist Manifesto was foundational to the development of modern communism and socialism.
The Communist Manifesto in the Revolutionary Politics of 1848: A Critical Evaluation (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms)
by David IrelandThis book examines why, on the eve of the pamphlet’s 175th anniversary, the Communist Manifesto left so faint an imprint on Europe’s most revolutionary year of 1848, when it has had such a huge impact on posterity. The Manifesto that year misread bourgeois intentions, put too much faith in the industrial proletariat, too little in peasants, too much emphasis on the German states, and none on England. Marx and Engels preferred in 1848–9 to focus on the middle-class Neue Rheinische Zeitung, declining to galvanise working-class groups whose leadership they had actively sought. They neglected to return swiftly to the German states in their crucial 1848 ‘March days’. The Manifesto’s programme barely overlapped with contemporary campaigners or comparative pamphleteers, or the replacement Demands of the Communist Party in Germany. The book considers the consequences of Marx opting to write the Manifesto alone in January 1848. It also questions the source and significance of the pamphlet’s most memorialised phrase, ‘the spectre of Communism’, whether it was written for the ‘working men of all countries’ addressed in its finale, and whether Marx and Engels regarded the Manifesto as highly in 1848, as they undoubtedly did in later life.
The Communist Manifesto (PDF)
by Friedrich Engels Karl MarxThe Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, is one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated.
Communist Parties Revisited: Sociocultural Approaches to Party Rule in the Soviet Bloc, 1956-1991
by Rüdiger Bergien and Jens GiesekeThe ruling communist parties of the postwar Soviet Bloc possessed nearly unprecedented power to shape every level of society; perhaps in part because of this, they have been routinely depicted as monolithic, austere, and even opaque institutions. Communist Parties Revisited takes a markedly different approach, investigating everyday life within basic organizations to illuminate the inner workings of Eastern Bloc parties. Ranging across national and transnational contexts, the contributions assembled here reconstruct the rituals of party meetings, functionaries’ informal practices, intra-party power struggles, and the social production of ideology to give a detailed account of state socialist policymaking on a micro-historical scale.
The Communist Party and Soviet Science: (pdf) (Studies in Soviet History and Society)
by Stephen Fortescue
The Communist Party of Great Britain Since 1920
by J. Eaden D. RentonA new single volume history of the Communist Party of Great Britain examining the party from its foundations in 1920 to its demise in the early 1990s. Drawing on original research and a reading of specialist texts, the authors analyze the rise and fall of the party and evaluate its role on the left of British politics. Whilst sympathetic to the ideals and commitment of many British communist activists, the book is sharply critical of much of the actual practice of the party.
Communist Power in Europe, 1944-49: (pdf) (Studies In Russian And East European History And Society Ser.)
by Mary McCauley
Communist Propaganda at School: The World of the Reading Primers from the Soviet Bloc, 1949-1989 (Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe)
by Joanna WojdonCommunist Propaganda at School is based on an analysis of reading primers from the Soviet bloc and recreates the world as presented to the youngest schoolchildren who started their education between 1949 and 1989 across the nine Eastern European countries. The author argues that those first textbooks, from their first to last pages, were heavily laden with communist propaganda, and that they share similar concepts, techniques and even contents, even if some national specificities can be observed. This volume reconstructs the image of the world presented to schoolchildren in the first books they were required to read in their school life, and argues that the image was charged with communist propaganda. The book is based on the analysis of over sixty reading primers from nine countries of the Soviet bloc: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia from the period. Written with simplicity and straightforwardness, this book will be a valuable resource, not only to international academics dealing with the issues of propaganda, censorship, education, childhood and everyday life under communism in Eastern and Central Europe, but can also academics dealing with education under communism or with the content of primary education. It also brings educational experiences of the Soviet bloc to international researchers, in particular to researchers of education under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
Communist Propaganda at School: The World of the Reading Primers from the Soviet Bloc, 1949-1989 (Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe)
by Joanna WojdonCommunist Propaganda at School is based on an analysis of reading primers from the Soviet bloc and recreates the world as presented to the youngest schoolchildren who started their education between 1949 and 1989 across the nine Eastern European countries. The author argues that those first textbooks, from their first to last pages, were heavily laden with communist propaganda, and that they share similar concepts, techniques and even contents, even if some national specificities can be observed. This volume reconstructs the image of the world presented to schoolchildren in the first books they were required to read in their school life, and argues that the image was charged with communist propaganda. The book is based on the analysis of over sixty reading primers from nine countries of the Soviet bloc: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia from the period. Written with simplicity and straightforwardness, this book will be a valuable resource, not only to international academics dealing with the issues of propaganda, censorship, education, childhood and everyday life under communism in Eastern and Central Europe, but can also academics dealing with education under communism or with the content of primary education. It also brings educational experiences of the Soviet bloc to international researchers, in particular to researchers of education under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
Communist Psychology in Argentina: Transnational Politics, Scientific Culture and Psychotherapy (1935-1991) (Latin American Voices)
by Luciano Nicolás GarcíaThis book presents an intellectual history of the reception of Soviet psychology in Argentina as part of the communist scientific culture promoted by the Argentine Communist Party. This research reconstructs the material conditions, the political conjunctures and disciplinary disputes that allowed the international circulation of the works and ideas of Ivan Pavlov and Lev Vygotsky, and analyzes how pavlovism and vygotskianism impacted psychology, psychiatry and the wider mental health field in Argentina between 1935 and 1991.Starting on the 1930s, a group of professionals, scientists and intellectuals who belonged to the Argentine Communist Party introduced Soviet psychology in Argentina as an effort to promote the philosophical and political principles of Marxism-Leninism in Argentinean psychological and psychiatric academic circles, as well as in mental health institutions. This book shows how the efforts of this group contributed to the diffusion of communist scientific ideas and practices in South America as part of a transnational circuit of communist scholars and intellectuals that included France, Spain and the USA, which fostered scientific exchange and politicized science during the years of antifascist struggle and the Cold War. Communist Psychology in Argentina: Transnational Politics, Scientific Culture and Psychotherapy (1935-1991) will be of interest to historians of psychology and psychiatry concerned with the study of the relationship between Marxism and psychology in the 20th century, as well as to historians of science in general attentive to the study of the circulation of scientific ideas, as the book reconstructs the networks of the international communist movement as an effort to provide a scientific basis for the development of a socialist program in different parts of the world.
Communist Women in Scotland: Red Clydeside from the Russian Revolution to the End of the Soviet Union (International Library of Political Studies)
by Neil C. RafeekScotland, and especially the industrial conurbation surrounding Glasgow, played a pivotal role in radical politics in the twentieth century. The protesters challenged the capitalist social order and, on occasion, the state itself, thus earning the tag 'Red Clydeside'. However, the role of women in this movement has been marginalised. In this original and meticulously researched study, Neil Rafeek addresses this gap in the literature, critically examining the experience of women in the Communist Party in Scotland, from the formation of the Party in 1920 to the end of a century of tumultuous upheaval and social and political change. Rakeek engages critically with many of the key issues of debate, traversing gender relations within the Party, the importance of the Socialist Sunday School and other formative influences on political consciousness as well as the involvement of communist women in the world wars, the developing struggle for women's rights, the 1960s, the revolutions and anti-Vietnam war/nuclear weapons campaigns. This book privileges the memories and voices of participants, and relies upon new oral interview evidence, accumulated by the author, from those women who lived through and were directly involved in these events. Rafeek describes women's experiences of meeting leading international personalities of the era: Khrushchev, Gagarin, Tereshkova, Castro and Ceauescus. Using rich and evocative personal testimony blended with sensitive analysis, Rafeek shows the idealistic socialist motivation behind the establishment of 'Red Clydeside' and the subsequent growing strains and discord in Communism and the labour movement generally, internationally and in Scotland.
Communists and National Socialists: The Foundations of a Century, 1914–39
by Ken PostA study of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the coming to power of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 in light of the marxist proposition that revolution would come in advanced capitalist societies. The implications of the actual cases for the theory are drawn out, and an original theorization of capitalist crisis combining economic and political factors is put forward.
Communists in Closets: Queering the History 1930s–1990s
by Bettina ApthekerCommunists in Closets: Queering the History 1930s–1990s explores the history of gay, lesbian, and non-heterosexual people in the Communist Party in the United States. The Communist Party banned lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people from membership beginning in 1938 when it cast them off as "degenerates." It persisted in this policy until 1991. During this 60-year ban, gays and lesbians who did join the Communist Party were deeply closeted within it, as well as in their public lives as both queer and Communist. By the late 1930s, the Communist Party had a membership approaching 100,000 and tens of thousands more people moved in its orbit through the Popular Front against fascism, anti-racist organizing, especially in the south, and its widely read cultural magazine, The New Masses. Based on a decade of archival research, correspondence, and interviews, Bettina Aptheker explores this history, also pulling from her own experience as a closeted lesbian in the Communist Party in the 1960s and ‘70s. Ironically, and in spite of this homophobia, individual Communists laid some of the political and theoretical foundations for lesbian and gay liberation and women’s liberation, and contributed significantly to peace, social justice, civil rights, and Black and Latinx liberation movements. This book will be of interest to students, scholars, and general readers in political history, gender studies, and the history of sexuality.