Communist Studies

The historiography on post-war Central and Eastern Europe has proven
highly productive in recent years and challenges many received assumptions about state Socialism that prevail in both Western and regional scholarship and the societal representation of this history. This essay enquires into the making and unmaking of state Socialism, discusses recent and innovative  scholarship, and claims that the analysis of post-war Central and Eastern Europe provides useful methodological insights beyond the region and the specific time frame. In seven interventions, the essay calls for the situational, flexible, and de-centred study of Central and Eastern Europe beyond the constrictions of methodological nationalism and Cold War epistemology and with an emphasis on the processual character of modernity. In consequence, it is held that we need to perceive state Socialism as integral to the multiplicity of modernities and should integrate Central and Eastern Europe into European and global history.

The KDP was arguably the most militant anti-imperialist national organization in the Filipina/o American community during the 1970s, fighting for civil rights and antiwar movements in the United States and democracy and national liberation in the Philippines and beyond. The KDP was also unique compared to other groups in the Third World Left in that its LGBT members occupied leadership positions. In fact, it was the only Asian American organization in the 1970s that allowed gay or lesbian members. But what was it like to be LGBT in the KDP? How did LGBT members navigate homophobia and heteropatriarchy in society, the Third World Left, racism in the gay liberation movement, and the emerging AIDS crisis? Through original oral histories conducted with KDP members from 2015-2018, Hanna offers a glimpse of how activists negotiated and expressed emerging sexual identities while maintaining revolutionary political commitments in the KDP.

Hugo Müller, Neffe Richard Bernascheks, war Teil des Kerns der Linzer Arbeiterbewegung der Ersten Republik. Er arbeitete in der Linzer Tabakfabrik, war leidenschaftlicher Sportler und Bergsteiger, zudem betätigte er sich im Republikanischen Schutzbund. Nach den Februarkämpfen 1934 flüchtete Hugo Müller in die Tschechoslowakei und reiste von dort aus weiter in die Sowjetunion. Müller erlernte in Moskau den Beruf des Drehers und war an zentraler Stelle im Aufbau der alpinistischen Ausbildung im Kaukasus tätig. Ende 1936 ging er nach Spanien um die Republik zu verteidigen, im Rang eines Majors kehrte er 1939 nach Moskau zurück. Nach dem Überfall auf die Sowjetunion kämpfte Hugo Müller in den Reihen der Roten Armee gegen die deutsche Wehrmacht. Ausgebildet zum Kämpfer hinter der Front sprang er mit dem Fallschirm über dem heutigen Slowenien ab und kam als Mitglied der „Kampfgruppe Steiermark“ auf österreichisches Gebiet um hier den Widerstand zu organisieren. Hugo Müller fiel im Herbst 1944 in der Südsteiermark im Kampf gegen SS-Truppen.
Wie die meisten anderen Frauen und Männer, die den in der "Moskauer Deklaration" (1943) geforderten "eigenen Beitrag" zur Befreiung Österreichs geleistet hatten, sollte Hugo Müller erst spät eine öffentliche Würdigung erfahren. Seit 2002 erinnert eine Gedenktafel an der Linzer Tabakfabrik an ihn und weitere Opfer des NS-Regimes.

This article examines the "morally correct" narrative on the communist past which became dominant in early post-communist Romania, and which focused on the former secret police, the Securitate, as a key actor under the former regime. This narrative framed the epoch 1945-89 as a period of confrontation between innocent victims and the secret police, and trivialized as morally incorrect any attempt at redefining the much more complex relation between rulers and ruled under communist rule..

Tanja Zimmermann Der Balkan zwischen Ost unD west Mediale Bilder und kulturpolitische prägungen (OsTeurOpa medial, Band 6) 2014. X, 504 s. 120 s/W-aBB. GB. 155 X 230 mm. € 59,90 [d] | € 61,60 [a] | isBn 978-3-412-22163-8
Der Balkan ist nicht nur ein Produkt der kulturellen und politischen Imaginationen des Westens, sondern entstand viel-mehr im Fadenkreuz der Blicke aus Ost und West. Als Zwischenraum bot er sich für die Übertragung unterschiedlicher kultur politischer Entwürfe eines »dritten Raumes« an-vom Niemandsland bis zum jugoslawischen »dritten Weg«. Die medialen Gestalten des Balkans zeigen den Übergang fester Stereotype in entfesselte, imaginäre Phantasmen. Die Autorin untersucht Balkan-Narrative in unterschiedlichen Medien seit dem Niedergang der philhellenischen Begeiste-rung 1830 bis zur post-jugoslawischen Periode. Tanja Zimmermann hat sich mit der vorliegenden Studie an der Universität Konstanz habilitiert und lehrt dort als Privatdozentin. Weitere inForMationen und doWnloads Finden sie unter WWW.Boehlau-Verlag.coM. böhlau verlag gmbh & cie, ursulaplatz 1, 50668 köln, deutschland, t: + 49 221 913 90-0, f: + 49 221 913 90-11 info@boehlau-verlag.com, www.boehlau-verlag.com | wien köln weimar NAME: ADRESSE: PLZ/ORT: TEL/FAX/E-MAIL: zzgl. versandkosten 0der geben sie diesen abschnitt ihrem buchhändler! Tanja Zimmermann | Der Balkan zwischen Ost unD west | aus dem inHalT OrT, daTum, unTersCHriFT: hierMit Bestelle ich nachFOlGenDen titel eXemplar(e) Tanja Zimmermann der Balkan zWischen ost und West mediale Bilder und kulTurpOliTisCHe präGunGen (OsTeurOpa medial, Band 6) 2014. X, 504 s. 120 s/W-aBB. GB. 155 X 230 mm. € 59,90 [d] | € 61,60 [a] | isBn 978-3-412-22163-8 i. einleitung

This article combines political analysis with ethnographic fieldwork to theorise Communist party's construction of political allegiance and their persistence of power in the democratic context at a local village level in the state of Kerala in India. We provide an inaugural scholarly conceptualisation of an empirical phenomenon, known in Kerala popular parlance as 'party gramam' or the 'party village', as the focus of analysis. As we explain, a 'party village' is an administrative unit where a particular political party dominates not simply electorally but in all lived experience. We posit that the concept of 'party village' is of specific value in our understanding of various forms of current (Communist) politics. The original ascendancy of communism in the village (as in many regions of Kerala) during the twentieth century was due to its progressive ideological challenge to feudal structures of class and caste oppression. However, in democratic post-independence India, the overwhelming dominance of Communist Party in the 'party village' presents the paradox of a party with an egalitarian ideology having adapted to a persistent Hindu caste hierarchy. After situating our work within the conceptual problematisations of political party competition, and in conversation with wider communist studies literature, we provide a background to the politics of Kerala and explain the unique phenomenon of 'party villages' in Kerala. We then provide an insight into the social and economic structures of one such village, explaining the salience of these structures in relation to political allegiances. Next, we illustrate the paradox of continued caste hierarchies in a Communist Party village, and the multiple ways in which Hindu religion and caste structures are important to performing individual identity in social settings. We dissect the various means through which the grassroots Communist Party apparatus in the village maintains its dominance by adapting itself to regressive caste hierarchies for political profit at the same time as laying claim to having challenged them. In our concluding section, we place our village observations in the longer frame of historical north Kerala village politics, noting the changes over time and offering theoretical perspectives upon them. In this sense, through a mix of empirical observation with historical context and theorisation, we highlight the importance and the implications of unconventional democratic dynamics more generally.

Since the end of the Cold War, Cuba has shifted its focus from spreading its revolution in Africa and the Middle East to building a regional bloc of allies in defiance of United States hegemony in Latin America.

Given its history of showing solidarity through military support, Cuba’s continued defense of the Maduro regime in Venezuela amid growing opposition puts into question the lengths that Cuba would go to in order to ensure the security of its closest regional partner. This article analyzes the legacy of the Cuban doctrine of military internationalism by examining the four cases in which the Cuban armed forces intervened directly in foreign conflicts: Algeria from 1963 to 1964, Syria from 1973 to 1975, Angola from 1975 to 1991, and Ethiopia from 1978 to 1989. The analysis shows that Cuban military interventions have had a mixed record of effectiveness in achieving their objectives, particularly with regards to long-term objectives after the withdrawal of military personnel. Nevertheless, given the current interdependence of their regimes, this mixed record of success does not eliminate the possibility that Cuba would intervene militarily in Venezuela should such action be deemed necessary for their mutual survival.

In commons research, the study of the ‘knowledge commons’ has emerged as a new field of interest over the last few years. Our paper begins by providing a brief overview of the state of research in the field, and proceeds by discussing some crucial but relatively underconceptualised issues. The difference between information and knowledge, and the ambiguities surrounding the claim that all sorts of knowledge can be considered part of the commons, are the focal point here. We also pay close attention to education, arguing that it is not a common good, but rather a common-pool resource institution that ensures that some forms of knowledge can be governed as a commons. With regard to these issues, the article provides a case study, one in which we analyse basic education in Communist Hungary, and look for evidence of the commons design principles as outlined in Elinor Ostrom’s IAD Framework. Given the complex nature of basic education, we investigate it from three points of view: as a service, as a set of physical structures (e.g. school buildings), and as a complex of organizational structures (e.g. legal and financial arrangements). On the basis of empirical findings we argue that basic education in the Stalinist epoch did not correspond to Ostromian design principles. Basic education, therefore, was not managed in an equitable way, and its geographical accessibility was uneven. During the ‘technocratic’ Communism of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the education system underwent important changes. However, though the circle of those who had some impact on the governance of education expanded, most individuals involved with the education system were still excluded. As a result, the commons approach did not become stronger in general, nor did spatial unevenness with respect to access to basic education decrease. The paper finishes with a brief conclusion of our findings and a discussion of some questions for future research.

The view of the communist party as a tightly organized, highly disciplined, efficient political structure is largely a myth. The communist party which achieved power in the Soviet Union, and which was the prototype for this myth, was unable to generate high levels of organizational autonomy, integrity and coherence. Instead it developed as an instrument of a dominant leader and, internally, was structured on the basis of the patrimonial principle. This meant that organizational linkages between different levels of the party were weak. In this context, the ideology and the leader cult intertwined so as to sustain and reinforce the patrimonial structure of power within the party. This linkage of organizational structure, ideology and cult has created real problems for those like Khrushchev and Gorbachev who have sought to replace the patrimonial structure by one based more on the party's organizational norms.

The practical significance of creating 'ethnic territorial units' within the Russian fed-eration remains unclear. Since 2003 the Russian Government has implemented a policy of merging ethnically defined autonomous okrugs (districts) into larger units. The former okrugs have been ...

ABSTRACT Like the Russia of the tsars, the USSR locates its identity in opposition to the West. The dynamic of Soviet foreign policy lies in a competition, even if peaceful, against a Western rival that is at one and the same time enemy and model. For decades, the process of competition has been conducted without opening up Soviet society or its economy lo any great extent to international life. At the same time, internal constraints have had but a feeble influence on foreign policy.Analytical schemes that are founded on the hypothesis of an ultimate objective of the Soviet regime, be it revolutionary or state expansionism, now reveal their inadequacy. But the interpretation around the concept of convergence with Western societies is not more convincing. The Gorbachev experience certainly affects the traditional approach to Russia's relations with the outside world and confronts the Soviet system with increasing challenges, both at home and in power relations. The search of a new identity, freed of old communist dogmas, nevertheless continues to be carried out in the sustained face a face with Russia's rival self, the West.

On 30 December 2020, amid the turmoil caused by the COVID pandemic, Argentina approved the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Law, which legalizes abortion until the fourteenth week of pregnancy. In public hospitals, the procedure is now free of charge. Prior to this milestone, which was enacted on 14 January 2021, abortion was only permitted in cases of rape or when pregnant women's health was at risk. The law is the result of years of activism and protests against prevailing conservatism in a country heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, led by a grassroots women's movement, known as the green wave, which unites many different organizations that have been working towards the same goals.

Nationalism has always posed a problem to communists, especially in undeveloped countries. It is obviously a factor which requires great care and political imagination. It was a sensitive issue in China just as it was in South Africa. Mao, who ultimately came to lead the Chinese party, and Moses Kotane, who became General-Secretary of the South African party and led it for over thirty years, were in the thick of their parties’ attempts to deal with it. The objective situations in China and South Africa at the time were in many ways similar but at the same time rather different. The first thirty years of the twentieth century  was  a momentous epoch for the world and for communists –Japan’s defeat of Czarist Russia, the 1910 Act of Union in South Africa, followed by the founding of the Native National Congress [later to become the African National Congress], the World War, the Bolshevik Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, the founding of the Communist Party of South Africa [CPSA], the first congress of the Chinese Communist Party - both in 1921 - the Rand Rebellion in 1922 and finally in 1928 the 6th Congress of the Communist International passed a resolution introducing the concept of a ‘Native Republic'. Kotane and Mao were both  products of this epoch as well as influential players. This comparative analysis of the political thought and action of Mao Zedong and Moses Kotane attempts to trace their roles in the growth of the Chinese and South African Communist parties and examine how they handled the national question, with a view to understanding later developments in the two countries.

In order to better introduce the document I’ve chosen to publish, I largely explained the broader context which encompass the moment when it was written. Vanda Nicolski, a major leader of the Communist Party of Romania, a member of the Central Committee and of the Political Bureau during the ‘30s, wrote a large report in August 1938, when she was in Moscow. Clearly, her confession, written during the Great Terror, wasn’t an innocent piece of evidence scrutinizing the history of the C.P.o.R. per se, but it was meant to incriminate as many professional revolutionaries as possible. I tried to explain what stood behind of her statement. The contents exposed by Vanda Nicolski refers mostly to the complex and fluid relationships established into the inner circle of Party’s leaders and details what steps the C.P.o.R. took in order to meet the Comintern’s expectations during Popular Front era.