Suchergebnisse

pt. 1 Origins to 1917. Communism before Marxism ; Marx and Engels ; Communism in Europe ; Russian Variations ; The October Revolution ; The first Communist state -- Pt 2. Experiment: 1917-1929. European revolutions ; Communism and its discontents ; The Communist International ; Probing America ; Making sense of Communism ; The USSR in torment ; The Soviet model -- pt. 3. Development: 1929-1947. World strategy ; Stalinist ideology ; Inside the parties ; Friends and foes ; Communism in the World War ; Forcing the peace -- pt. 4. Reproduction: 1947-1957. The Cold War and the Soviet Bloc ; The Yugoslav road ; Western Europe ; Warring propaganda ; The Chinese Revolution ; Organising Communism ; Against and for reform -- pt. 5. Mutation: 1957-1979. Détente and expansion ; China convulsed ; Revolutionary Cuba ; Communist order ; Rethinking Communism ; Europe East and West ; Reduced expectations ; Last of the Communist Revolutions -- pt. 6. Endings: From 1980. Roads from Communism ; Anti-Communism in Eastern Europe ; China's capitalist Communism ; Perestroika ; The comrades depart ; Accounting for Communism

This article widens the analysis of international organisations by including communist organisations, in particular the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). Drawing on archival research in Moscow, Bucharest, Berlin, Geneva and Rome, this article traces the origins, the evolution and the collective actorness of both organisations. Both COMECON and the Warsaw Pact went through a process of institutionalisation, reorganisation and multilateralisation and began to share many characteristics with their Western counterparts, such as the European Economic Community and NATO. Contrary to conventional wisdom these organisations thus developed into multilateral international organisations, which the other members could use to challenge Soviet unilateralism. Comparing COMECON and the Warsaw Pact with each other and with their Western counterparts, this article shows how these Eastern European international organisations contributed to shifting the balance of power within the Soviet Bloc by empowering their members as sovereign states and themselves as collective actors.

Drawing on recently declassified Albanian, Soviet, East German, and Western archival sources, as well as a rich historiography on Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech and the Hungarian revolution of 1956, this article investigates the little-known events of 1956 in Albania. Rejecting de-Stalinization, the Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha was able to vindicate his position against Yugoslavia's brand of socialism abroad, fortify his rule at home, and claim more aid from Moscow, Beijing, and the Soviet bloc. This article discusses the Tirana Party Conference of April 1956, treating the Albanian Party of Labor (the Communist party) as an "information society." The article assesses deliberations over security and ideology at the highest levels and demonstrates how tiny Albania came to embody, in exaggerated form, both the promises and the perils of socialist exchange, in addition to mirroring the profound inconsistencies of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign. Adapted from the source document.

"Once the pride of interwar Czechoslovakia, and key during the forced industrialization of the Stalinist period, during the 1970s and 1980s the Czechoslovak railway sector showed the symptoms of the political tiredness and economic exhaustion of the Soviet Bloc. This book examines the failure of central economic planning through the lens of this national transport system. Based on the presentation of its history and on the detailed scrutiny of the actors, institutions, internal mechanisms, and conditions of the railway sector, the analysis reveals the identities of the real stakeholders in the state administration. This case shows how the country was governed by Communist Party institutions and government ministries, and how developments in the transportation sector-like in every sector-reflected their priorities. Numerous tables with selected statistics underscore the economic analysis and black and white photos offer a glimpse on the technical base of the railway sector. The book is filled with enlightening comparisons of the Czechoslovak transportation industry with its counterparts in the whole Eastern Bloc. Integration into the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) of the Bloc could have been an asset, yet the records have more to say about conflicts than cooperation"--

It is argued that extended deterrence in the bipolar subsystem has contributed to the prevention of war in the past. It makes sense to assume that past success repeats itself in the future, if past success is theoretically well understood and the expectation of future success theoretically defensible. But most deterrence theorizing suffers from a decisive flaw, its inability to maintain a consistent attitude to the rational action assumption. Even if this shortcoming could be overcome, there still are other problems. The stability of extended deterrence between blocs rather than merely between the superpowers requires not only a stable balance of terror nullifying hopes for victory, but keeping the blocs together. In essence, bloc stability is not compatible with social and political change which undermines the affiliation of some nations with the American bloc and of others with the Soviet bloc. Still, such events might occur. In addition to strategic rationality dilemmas and social change dilemmas, there are collective action dilemmas. The assumption that nations behave, as if they were (represented by) unitary and utility-maximizing actors is questionable. If this simplifying assumption is dropped, then the achievement of stable deterrence becomes even more doubtful or miraculous.

This text is the first scholarly exploration of how Christian Democracy kept Cold War Europe's eastern and western halves connected after the creation of the Iron Curtain in the late 1940s. Christian Democrats led the transnational effort to rebuild the continent's western half after World War II, but this is only one small part of the story of how the Christian Democratic political family transformed Europe and defied the nascent Cold War's bipolar division of the world. The first section uses case studies from the origins of European integration to reimagine Christian Democracy's long-term significance for a united Europe. The second shifts the focus to East-Central Europeans, some exiled to Western Europe, some to the USA, others remaining in the Soviet Bloc as dissidents.

Now that nearly twenty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet bloc there is a need to understand what has taken place since that historic date and where we are at the moment. Bringing together authors with different historical, cultural, regional and theoretical backgrounds, this volume engages in debates that address new questions arising from recent developments, such as whether there is a need to reject or uphold the notion of post-socialism as both a necessary and valid concept ignoring changes and differences across both time and space. The authors' firsthand ethnographies from their own countries belie such a simplistic notion, revealing, as they do, the cultural, social, and historical diversity of countries of Central and Southeastern Europe

Does socialism have a future in the world of the twenty-first century? If not, what is the future for progressive politics? This is a major contribution to contemporary social and political thought written by one of the world's leading critical historians. Gabriel Kolko ask the difficult questions about where the left can go in a post-Cold War world where neoliberal policies appear to have triumphed in both the West and the former Soviet bloc. In trying to answer this, he interrogates both the origins and development of socialist ideas and the contemporary dynamics of the globalized economy dominated by American military, cultural and political might. While avoiding the temptations of either pessimism or utopianism, Kolko offers an original and practical solution about the way forward for a liberal politics.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to disclose farmers' awareness of environmental responsibility in terms of eco‐efficiency and cleaner production in the post‐soviet bloc. Theoretical modeling and survey methods were applied. Original empirical data were collected in Lithuanian farms in 2019. The results demonstrate that the patterns of farmers' environmental responsibility are diverse when taking into account farm's characteristics (e.g., size, years in operation, type of farming) and demographic farmer's characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education). The major share of Lithuanian farmers stated eco‐efficiency and cleaner production characteristics being important factors regarding purchasing decisions of farm equipment and machinery. These factors appeared along with other environmental responsibility characteristics. At the same time, research elucidated the gaps of Lithuanian farmers' environmental responsibility and accordingly relevant policy implications are proposed.

Starting with the third decade of post-communism, the political landscape of the world that once belonged to the Soviet bloc or its satellites has been marked by important transformations at institutional and individual levels. So far, relatively little is known about how political parties respond to recent challenges and developments in politics and societies. This Focus seeks to address this gap in the literature and pursues theoretical, empirical and methodological objectives. The collection of articles seeks to outline a few theoretical models of adaptation to the political realities, to identify and explain various ways in which political parties respond to challenges and continue to perform their function of representation, and to measure variables and concepts that were previously approached only from a normative or descriptive perspective.

During the Cold War, young people in Eastern Europe were often seen as mere recipients and reproducers of Western popular culture. This article examines the role of musical programming in broadcasts by Radio Free Europe (RFE) to Czechoslovakia, focusing on the content, impact, and audience reactions. The article shows that the audience took an active part in the cultural exchange and helped shape the programming on RFE and other Western radio stations. Drawing on RFE's own records as well as archival collections in Prague, including former State Security files, plus memoirs and recollections of former RFE employees and their listeners, the article highlights RFE's impact over time in Soviet-bloc societies, as well as the shifts in thinking, cultural preferences, and behaviors of different strata or groups within these societies.

Although prison order rarely rests on naked force, its availability defines a prison. A penological truism holds that officers' deployment of force signals a breakdown in order, not normality. However, is the truism universally valid? Adding evidence from a former Soviet bloc country, the study examines the place of force in officers' daily work in a men's medium-security prison in Ukraine. Drawing on a semiethnographic study, the findings show that even though availability of force was central to preventing escapes and securing prisoner compliance, its actual deployment was relatively rare. Officers' consideration and actual use of both legal and illegal force depended on legal ramifications, the position of the superiors, and prisoner reaction. It also reflected their views on the adequacy of formal penal power and legitimacy of force for corrective purposes.

The progressive version of public relations history present it as a by-product of pluralist political systems or a democratic dividend. It has been claimed that public relations thrives within open media systems and market economies but struggles in highly controlled governmental systems (dictatorships, juntas, and closed economies). This paper considers how political history and political systems affected the formation of public relations practices in regions of Europe that, after 1945, were under military dictatorships (Spain and Portugal), a military junta (Greece) and were contained in the Soviet bloc. Using comparative history methodology, the notion that public relations operates solely in democracies is challenged, although it is conceded that practice thrived in post-war Western Europe but struggled to develop in parts of southern and eastern Europe.

Traditionally, Sweden has been portrayed as an active bridge-builder in international politics in the 1960s and 1970s. The country advocated a "third way" toward democratic socialism and greater "justice" in international affairs, but these foreign policy prescriptions were never applied to European affairs. This article examines Sweden's relations with Europe by contrasting European integration with the Cold War. Negotiations on Swedish membership in the European Communities and Swedish policy at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe were influenced by a general Berührungsangst toward Europe, which persisted during the years of détente. Because Swedish decision-makers believed that heavy involvement in European affairs would constrict Sweden's freedom of action, Swedish leaders' moral proclamations were applied exclusively to distant Third World countries rather than the egregious abuses of human rights in the Soviet bloc.

After defeating the Third Reich, the Western Allies and the Soviet Bloc began their own intelligence war. Both sides recruited from among their former mutual enemies: Nazi security personnel. In the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD) the largest employer of such persons was the Gehlen Organization, which in 1956 became the core of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the BRD's foreign intelligence service, with Reinhard Gehlen as its first chief. In 2010 the BRD revealed career details of early officials who had Nazi backgrounds. The author of this note clarifies the identities of some Holocaust perpetrators who later served in West German intelligence, and also suggests why German authorities released only partial information and only about certain employees, most of whom been identified earlier in declassified US documents. Adapted from the source document.