Search

Discusses various issues related to the treatment of money and credit in the socialist economies, with specific reference to the erstwhile Soviet Union. Nature of money in the socialist economies; Assumption of Marxism that in a socialist planned economy without markets money would disappear; Retention of a form of paper money with certain restricted social functions; Use of socialist quasi-money and socialist quasi-prices.

The legacy of legal-political ideologists is seldom used as an element of argumentation in court. The situation is different in proceedings focussing on political crimes, in particular, the trials taking place in disruptive moments of history. One of such moments was the period after Poland regained independence, when the Soviet Union posed not only a military threat, but also one of doctrinal influence. The objective of the paper was to verify the hypothesis that the trial of communists which took place in Lwów in late 1922 / early 1923 (known as the St. Jura trial) was significant not only in terms of its legal-criminal aspects, but was also important from a historical and doctrinal perspective. The verification of the hypothesis was based on the analysis of court speeches, especially their elements including references to the legacy of legal-political ideas. Additionally, the paper presents legal-political ideas as highly argumentative material that may be, and perhaps should be, used in legal practice today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at Mikhail Gorbachev's strategy of bringing structural change in the political, economic and social order of Soviet Union. The Soviet Union ruled by Gorbachev and his successor reflects different scenarios including the Communist Party proving itself incapable of maintaining its totalitarian preeminence, the intention of a tightly managed and very limited change and the preservation of the Soviet system with repressive mechanisms and expansionist policies.

Jewish religious life in the Soviet Union is typically the subject of dichotomous depictions that offer only a superficial rendering of this rich and complex environment. This paper aims to complicate this image by pointing out several religious thinkers who engaged with Communist and Marxist ideas and incorporated them into their religious thought, while upholding rabbinic culture. Among the figures and themes examined are Alter Hilewitz's (1906–1994) Hasido-Marxism, Rabbi Avraham Yosef Guttman's (1870–1940) crisis of faith, and Shmuel Alexandrov's (1865–1941) use of Russian Nietzscheanism. Alexandrov was also the narrator who revealed these fascinating ideas to us in a rare collection of his letters, which possesses both a philosophical and a theological nature. These letters, which have received very little attention in previous studies, provide a small window into the conflictual world of rabbis and yeshiva students in the first decade of the Soviet Union. Reviewing the ideas generated in a struggle to make sense of one of the great crises of modern Judaism, and pondering questions of historical perspective and how empathy may distort it, this article wishes to go beyond the image of a defensive preservation of religious life and to re-envision this unique and innovative period of Jewish thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, when China gradually initiated reform and open door policies, Soviet leaders' political agendas were no less appealing to post-Mao China than were Western agendas. This paper will show that Chinese scholars made tactical use of the writings and programs of Vladimir Lenin; this was done to grasp the nettle of Chinese socialism in the early 1980s, after the disastrous Cultural Revolution. According to the secondary scholarship, Chinese Sovietology after 1991 has consistently emphasized the role of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his policies, which (in the eyes of the Chinese communist regime) brought about the downfall of the Soviet empire. In reality, however, Chinese Soviet-watchers were researching various Soviet leaders throughout the 1980s and 1990s - and particularly Lenin, who featured prominently in Chinese writings and claimed equal importance to Gorbachev. In the early 1980s, Chinese scholars used the first Soviet leader, Lenin, and his writings to rebuild faith in socialism and to disperse scepticism of the Chinese communist regime after the disastrous Mao era. While some pieces of work resorted to using Lenin's socialist humanism to attack Maoism and Chinese communist rule, most of the time Chinese scholars used Lenin to strengthen the weakening legitimacy of Chinese socialism without tarnishing the image of Mao, and to command support for new leader Deng Xiaoping's open door policy and future reforms. Their main argument pointed out that Lenin's moderate approach to socialism should be China's model after Mao. Arriving at the conclusion of this paper, first, Lenin's name could be used to help rally Chinese communists against the radical policies that had long prevailed. On many issues, his views were introduced in an effort to justify new policies or rally support behind new proposals in the early 1980s. His stand was invoked to weaken the hold of Maoist remnants in favour of utilising all possible resources for economic construction, and to support reformers in their pursuit of more sweeping changes. Having said this, the use of Lenin was by no means for leading the attack on Mao, but rather for defending the legitimacy of Chinese socialism founded by the Chairman. His theory was intended to help save the Chinese communist regime that had been paralysed by the Cultural Revolution. The first Soviet leader was seen by Chinese officials and scholars as an epitome of the new kind of image the Party forged for itself after the maelstrom of the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese writings played on these positive associations of the Grail of Lenin, making him the moral centre of its representation of post-Mao China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of the USSR significantly affected the economic and political situation of all the republics which gained sovereignty as a result. Among them were countries such as Estonia and Kazakhstan. This article considers whether these countries have coped with the new political conditions. Using known economic indicators, a comparison was made of the economic and financial situation of both countries, pointing to the potential causes of diversification of their socio-economic development. Currently, Estonia is considered the most developed country of the 15 former members of the USSR, and Kazakhstan is in 5th place. The research carried out in this paper shows that the current economy of Kazakhstan is clearly moving away from that Estonia needs radical measures to achieve economic acceleration. The authors, analyzing the strategic activity of Estonia and Kazakhstan and the independence of financial management, concluded that these have had a significant impact on the current state of economic and financial development of the countries in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World War I led to changes both on a European and a global level. Romania is a significant case/example considering the fact that in 1918, after the fall of the multinational empires, it achieved the goal of national unity. In the following years, the Romanian state promoted the peace established then, in order to strengthen its territorial integrity and alliances. The institutions of the national security system worked, since the end of the military actions, to fulfil this strategic objective. Both the army and the national intelligence services were confronted with complex threats. "Great Romania" had, at the time, three neighbouring countries with an obvious revisionist foreign policy and territorial claims - Hungary, Bulgaria and Soviet Russia. By far the most dangerous enemy (both in terms of force and means) was the Soviet Union which never accepted the territorial losses of the Tsarist Empire and the loss of Bessarabia. Lenin's Russia and then Stalin's Soviet Union attempted, in the two decades that separated WW I and WW II, to destabilize the Romanian state through means and methods that echo the modern "hybrid warfare" - from propaganda performed by the communist movement aimed at changing the constitutional order, to various attempts to ignite peasant revolutions (as a pretext for the Red Army intervention), and factory strikes, to an intensive espionage activity. The paper aims to analyse on the one hand the ample subversive actions of the soviet secret services and, on the other, to look at the countermeasures that the Romanian intelligence structures adopted for their annihilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the U.S. adopted foreign policy strategies whose objective was to meet the challenges of Soviet Communism. In the early years of the Cold War, the use of intelligence gathering and covert operations rested on a general consensus regarding the nature of the competition with the Soviet Union. Driven by the apparent urgency of the competition, U.S. policy makers increasingly turned to covert interventions. The CIA which was created in 1947 by the National Security Act has often been accused of interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, especially the third world nations. These interventions were prevalent during the Cold War. Immediately after the end of the Second World War, the United States defined its foreign policy in relation to the Soviet Union, as the two countries battled for supremacy. In other words, American foreign policy was profoundly shaped by the international war which ended in 1945. This paper will therefore have a panoramic view of American foreign policy with emphasis on the instruments of the country's foreign policy and intelligence gathering. The role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in intelligence gathering and covert activities will also be examined critically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlled by the communist movement of the country, the Union of Hungarian Workers of Romania (MADOSZ) was founded in 1934 in the Romanian Kingdom. Shortly after its creation it managed to spark a revolt in the Gyimes valley of the Eastern Carpathians. A national-revolutionary organization at its inception, MADOSZ became one of the few Romanian popular front organizations after 1936, only to be banned with all the political parties in 1938. In this paper, I’m addressing the core questions of the history of the organisation, focusing mainly on the double determination of the movement. Can MADOSZ be solely as the Trojan horse of the interests of the Soviet Union? What other dimensions of its existence can be highlighted? How was the organisation embedded in the political system of the Romanian Kingdom and what were its views regarding the modernisation of Transylvanian society? How were the members of the movement perceived and addressed and how did their fate turn after 1945? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the image of the Soviet people - builders of communism. The object of the study is a series of Soviet posters in different years. In this paper semiotic approach has been used to consider posters as signs. Each poster is a product of the ideology on a denotative and connotative level of the sign. For semiotics verbal messages, color, perspective, the value of the figures, postures, gestures and facial expressions are important. Poster is a complex of the two-roots system. It combines verbal and iconic messages. Images of the Soviet human were constructed from various combinations of the elements from these levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition from a planned command economy to a market economy means tearing down a socio-economic setting where everybody follows orders and nobody bears individual responsibility for anything. The absence of personal responsibility does not promote ethical behavior in any walk of life. Today, the malnourished business ethics in the former Soviet Union creates a critical obstacle to economic development. The paucity of new official rules governing the conduct of business makes the transition process painful and difficult to people habituated to numberless rules and regulations. The first part of this paper surveys the most visible unethical business practices that have been reported by the Western media and those that are causing the largest number of complaints by the local governments and businessmen. The second part of the paper looks at ethical problems that have been under-reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comparative Literature / Primerjalna Književnost is the property of Slovenian Comparative Literature Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista CS is the property of Rafael Silva Vega and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper analyses the potential of a theoretical comparison between communism and colonialism, focusing on the cultural dimension of the Stalinization process in Eastern Europe. The paper applies this theoretical perspective to late 1940s-early 1950s Romanian culture in relation with the appropriation of culture by the communist regime within the late 1940s political and ideological shift in Eastern Europe. The approach uses as a background for its argumentation a theoretical debate which started 2001 and has continued until today (Moore 2001, Kovačević 2008), also reinterpreting on a series of theories developed during as well as at the end of the Cold War (Kulski 1959, Kolarz 1964, Horvath 1972, Katsenelinboigen 1990). The paper uses a series of conceptual tools such cultural transfer, cultural dependences, cultural identity, cultural export, which are applied for the first time to the Romanian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ellenpontok was the only Romanian samizdat periodical. The author was one of the initiators and collaborators. This paper recalls the stages of creating this newspaper and then its cessation in the 1980s. The basic idea of this Hungarian publication was that in the circumstances of the party system it was impossible to ensure the rights of a greater minority in the long run. Besides the conception of the periodical the paper presents the story of the articles, the publication of issues, the persecution of collaborators and the fading memories in the history of this periodical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between political expediency, perception management, and governmental goals. The subject matter forms the research question of “How a tool such as perception management can be used to politically expedite a government’s interests and goals?” It is understood that these ends can be achieved through the usage of perception management by constructing them from a given audience’s interests and values. The concept of perception management is introduced to the reader and illustrated by the example of the United States government’s knowledge of the Katyń Forest Massacre. This article is presented in two parts – the United States’ initial conclusion that the Nazi party was responsible for the massacre and its later reassignment of fault to the Soviet Union. The first instance which involved the reconstruction of truth, was used to politically advance the United States’ cooperation with the Soviet Union in fighting Hitler’s Germany. The second instance also involved the revelation of truth and was used to justify its fight against the North Korean communists. This article should effectively demonstrate how the practice of perception management has been used historically by the United States government to expediate its political goals. The instrumentalization of Katyń is important as it may inspire the reader to consider why certain events take hold of the media’s attention versus others, and how these events specifically may relate to domestic and international political issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the revolutionary origins of Soviet communism this paper argues that symbolic structures were crucial in the making of Soviet communism as a political force. It conceptualizes symbolizations as contingent interpretive acts that capture people in extraordinary situations of dissolutions of political order. In the first part, I identify the dramatic and imaginative sources of the Bolshevik Revolution, which created a schismogenetic system, in which symbolic structures of time, representation, and leadership would become disintegrative forces in Soviet society. In the second part, I elaborate on the creativity of political symbolism by understanding symbolizations as rites of passage, constructions of origins and ends, as well as reality-creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Rather than to know the origins of symbols, the proposition here is to understand how symbolic meanings contributed to the creation not only of the empirical-objective world of Soviet communism but also of dominant social science interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the relationship between the policies of the Soviet Union and the state of communism in Europe following World War Two. The author attests that two fundamental differences arose in the Soviet attitude regarding Europe: the cessation of revolution as a viable means of solving conflicts between states and the emergence of a communist influence that was integral to Europe’s future. The role of Joseph Stalin, who held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee, is discussed. The paper urges that the hostilities that arose between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led to the demise of any potential for international communism.

Purpose — The aim of this paper is to show that there could still be the possibility of a complementary relationship between capitalism and socialism (effective state), so that a higher human, social and economic order is realised. Design/methodology/approach — The paper is a meta-analytical study, which relied on secondary sources of information. It is a qualitative study that is based on conceptual analysis, theory building and "emic" perspective (authors' viewpoint). Findings — With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1998 and the fall of the famous Berlin Wall, the final victory or triumph of capitalism over its alternatives was heralded. This development saw nations, most especially the developing ones, rushing to infuse themselves into the capitalist global system, which is reflected by the opening of borders to the capitalist onslaught. However, soon after this euphoric capitalist triumphalism, capitalism seems to be heading to another cross-road, which is capable of undermining the aforesaid euphoria. As capital is now set to continue its accumulation, expansion and profitability, unemployment is on the rise, as government ability to create lasting employment has become ineffective due to the privatisation of the public sectors, retrenchment by private business, etc. The state of affairs is exacerbating the crime rate (both within nations and globally), ethnic and global tension, poverty and ill-feeling. Hence, there could be other better global alternatives to the current single capitalist triumphant orthodoxy. Practical implications — Socialism has failed and capitalism is in the process of failing. Therefore, the only hope left to resurrect socialism and resuscitate capitalism, is a complementary and comprehensive ideological order. In that sense, there is a need to complement the positive aspects of both ideologies. Originality/value — This paper is original, since no other paper has taken up the topic of "Triumphant capitalism and the future of human, social and economic progress in the post-Cold War era". The suggestion given in the paper could help to achieve a higher level of human, social and economic progress in the post-Cold War era, most especially in the developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the question of mass participation in the Great Terror in the Soviet Union in 1937. The author analyzes the proliferation of repressive measures both in and through unions by tracing party directives from the Central Committee down to union members. Moreover, the author contends that repression was a mass phenomenon. Repression was closely related in 1937 with a campaign for union democracy, a mass movement for secret ballots and worker participation. Furthermore, the paper also highlights Stalinism, social movements and comparative genocide.

Intelligence analysis is inextricably linked to the CIA, where it was established and developed as a specific professional activity. Based on a short-lived experience, accumulated during World War II, the CIA's first analytical structure, the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE), faced the difficulty of producing intelligence products on the new security environment of the early Cold War period, with the focus on the threat posed by the USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries, many women have been at the forefront of the struggle for emancipation and political changes. Efforts at integrating the idea of emancipation into society was an important part of the Bolshevik ideology; thus, the October Revolution of 1917 brought women new hope and new expectations. The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to successfully open the door to new economic and educational opportunities for women. In 1917, the Bolshevik legislative initiatives provided them with full political and civil rights while new legislation made women legally equal to men. The constitution adopted in July 1918 secured the political and civil equality of women and men. However, the gender policy developed and implemented by Lenin significantly changed after his death. Until the second half of the 1930s, the Soviet Union remained the world leader in terms of providing women with equal rights. However, after the new leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin, came to power, the government policy on women and equality substantially transformed. During Stalin's rule, the concept of "a new type of woman" was created. The early Bolshevik policy, which started with a radical liberal vision of individual freedom and women's rights, devolved into an abyss of cynicism that burdened women with a disproportionate responsibility for unpaid work in the household. The purpose of this work is to study the role of women during the early Soviet period and to examine legal and political changes in women's status. The study aims at explaining what the main goal of the Soviet gender policy was in fact, whether it actually changed the status of women and what crucial changes it ultimately brought to them. Using the method of content analysis, the content of official documents, press and scientific literature was analyzed. At the same time, attempts were made to identify and analyze the positive and negative results of the Soviet policy by applying the method of critical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Institute of Latvian History / Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnāls is the property of University of Latvia, Institute of Latvian History and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main objective of this paper is to define, negotiate and debate radical socio-cultural approaches of landscape creation in today's megacities, within a strict capitalist context. For this reason, it investigates both the theoretical and concrete manner of the spatial expression within an imposed contemporary Foucauldian state of disciplines. Therefore, the research methodology simultaneously develops two different hypotheses in order to bridge the gap between the theoretical explorations and concrete dimension of architectural creation. The primary hypothesis is based on the Lacanian dimension of doubt that is considered in this work as the Chomskyan primitive power that gives birth to every idea or concept, having the potential to exasperate the radical imaginary of each society such as it is defined in Castoriadis' writings. The second main hypothesis is based on an analytical exploration of space creation within strict political and economical contexts. For this purpose, a post-Soviet country served as a case study in order to investigate the cultural landscape values in both communist and capitalist regimes. Hence, focusing on Armenia and especially on Yerevan's landscape transformations during the transition from communism to capitalism, this article first departs from the need to employ a deep theoretical analysis of non-economic factors in order to guide capitalist societies through cooperation with the disadvantaged social structure that has no space in today's megacities and, second, details an original landscape creation sketched by a real recent architectural competition that is seen here as a contemporary Foucauldian state of disciplines. The main object of the architectural composition presented in this contribution is to fulfil the competitions' guidelines – having in mind, however, consolidation of the imposed image of global capitalism with local elements in order to form a Foucauldian heterotopia by allowing different socio-cultural identities to debate, contest or doubt the proposed iconic spatial expression. The article offers a new approach regarding the notion of doubt seen here as a positive element of architectural practice by proposing its continuous existence in the conceptual dimension of architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Relaciones Internacionales, Estrategia y Seguridad is the property of Revista de Relaciones Internacionales, Estrategia y Seguridad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Historiae Scientiarum is the property of Jagiellonian University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Historia Contemporanea is the property of Historia Contemporania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Discusses the implications of Stalinism for politics in the Soviet Union. Implementation of grandiose schemes of industrial construction to transform the country's productive base within one decade; Arguments on the vast inefficiencies and structural imbalances generated by the command economy; Absence of market mechanisms regulating supply and demand.

The following paper analyzes changes in Soviet gender politics of the 1920s and 1930s. It starts with a general discussion of the relationship between Marxism and feminism, emphasizing issues especially relevant in the Soviet context. The second focus of the article is Fedor Gladkov’t, a novel originally written between 1922 and 1924 but reworked several times during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, as the official policy on omen was changing. By sketching out the differences between the first and later version of Cement, the author shows how Stalinism emerged also as a response to the 1920s inability to deal with undermined traditional gender relations (and not just as a result of Stalin’s consolidation of power). Consequently, it seems, all projects that aim to construct a “better society” must start with an analysis of sexual difference and desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS PAPER ANALYZES the Communist Party of Canada's view of the woman question, the role women played in the party, and the party's successes and failures in its attempts to organize working-class women. The Communist Party's view of the woman question was shaped by the advice of the USSR and the Communist International, as well as by the party's social base and the political understanding of its own membership. The Communist Party's Women's Department helped to create a new national organization for women, the Women's Labor Leagues, which, led by Florence Custance, experienced substantial growth in the 1920s. The Communist Party gave more attention to women's inequality than had previous socialist parties, although it failed to live up to its stated aims to organize working-class women and encourage women's participation in the revolutionary movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the issues involved in the plan-market economic relationship in the Soviet Union. The three major groups of economic units are: state enterprises, collectives, households. Interactions among units in an economic system fall into two main categories: vertical and horizontal. Vertical interactions are those between units in a hierarchy wherein each unit possesses administrative authority over the units below it. Horizontal interactions are characterized by direct interrelations between units, in which neither unit has administrative authority over the other. In the literature on Soviet economic planning and centralized economic planning in general, it would appear that many hold the view that only vertical mechanisms and interactions matter. The horizontal relations that we will discuss take three forms: 1) rationing, 2) monetary payment, 3) free acquisition (besplatnyi). There is, again, a tendency in analysis of the Soviet economic system to associate rationing with central planning, monetary transactions with the market, and free goods with full communism.

This study analyzes conflicts caused by the different perceptions held by the United States and the Soviet Union about the democratic subjects and the problem of selecting the representatives of the democratic subjects in the Korean Peninsula after World War II. American democracy was based on freedom, exceptionalism and moralism, whereas Soviet democracy was based on the dictatorship of the proletariat for the real working class. These two conceptions of "democracy" collided in the Korean Peninsula after World War II. During the First U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Commission, the heart of American democracy was conveyed as the freedom to express opinions. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, argued that true democracy should represent the workers and peasant. With respect to what kind of "democratic" government should be established in the Korean Peninsula, the United States tuned the concept of American democracy and prepared more concrete ideas for a national system and electoral methods based on American democracy. The Soviet Union envisioned election based on the People's Committee and the establishment of the People's Congress in the North. The United States and the Soviet Union did not agree on the democratic subjects and the form of democratic government in the Korean peninsula. Consequently, a Communist government of the democratic people was established in the North. In the South, a democratic government far from the application of the authentic American democracy was established after the failure of integrating the left and the right groups. For the Republic of Korea, but it was an urgent matter to make room for securing various voices against the threat of independence and communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Censorship existed and still exists, in different forms, in all kinds of social regimes and in all the states of the world. The most harsh and destructive form of censorship was applied and is still being applied by the totalitarian regimes, among which Romania was a part of, during the period 1948-1989. At the beginning censorship and the political regime in Romania were imposed by the Soviet Union. Later on, the Romanian totalitarian regime promoted its own form of suppressing the freedom of speech for its citizens. After the formal abeyance of censorship in Romania, the majority of writers, journalists and artists appealed to self-censorship in order to not get into any conflict with the state's authorities. The censorship of the communist regime in Romania stimulated the creative imagination of a number of talented writers, who managed to find solution to publish their works, as well as the methods to promote Romanian culture worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1934, the Society of Jesus was asked to respond at global and regional levels to the increasing threat of world Communism. In North America, the Jesuits initiated plans to meet the twin threats of Communism and atheism. Between 1934 and 1939, two separate streams of Jesuit anti-Communism began to emerge. The first was a macro-style vision grounded in social reconstruction, which the Jesuits called "Establishing a Christian Social Order," known colloquially as the "XO" program. The other plan was put forward as early as 1934, and elaborated in July 1936 at the Jesuit meeting in West Baden, Indiana, by the writer and editor John LaFarge. LaFarge's plan, known as the United Front, has never been evaluated by historians. It was a localized program of reactive initiatives meant to meet the gains of the CPUSA with effective Catholic counter-Communist public attacks. LaFarge aimed to recruit students, pastors, and fellow Jesuits to see to it that CPUSA gains in labor, culture, education, government, and churches were met with equal and effective public counterattacks. In 1937, the publication of the papal encyclical Divini redemptoris signaled that social reconstruction could become a part of authentic Catholic anti-Communism, indicating the eclipse of LaFarge's United Front. After 1939, when the Jesuit general Włodzimierz Ledóchowski called for an adoption of the "positive message" of social reconstruction as the dominant means of Jesuit anti-Communism, LaFarge's more bumptious and militaristic plan began to fade for good. This article chronicles the heretofore unknown struggle between these two antipodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the World War I gave rise to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist who served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Lenin and his Bolshevism annihilated ten times the dead of World War I.

Copyright of HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory is the property of University of Chicago Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Institutional theory’s understanding of unplanned change in fragmented and complex environments has made the connection between institutional work at the micro level and institutional logics at the macro level a central issue. Change that is not planned is contingent on events. In practice an event, as a single occurrence of an unexpected, unanticipated or unacknowledged process, connects these levels, as the event is selected for attention, enacted in meaning, and organizationally coded. Not all events are selected, enacted and coded, of course. The recognition, attributes and potential of events depend on selections made from and meaning given to past events and those conceived as coming into being in the future perfect. The concept of recursive contingency describes how unique occurrences become connected in an evolving process over time; in doing so, it stresses the important role of the unexpected in regard to institutional change. Using a theoretical framework derived from Luhmann’s work, in which institutions are seen as relatively autonomous self-closed subsystems generating contingency, we define an event as such by the fact that what it means and what is to be done with it cannot be decided by the application of a rule: choice is demanded that requires coding it as a specific type of event. A recursive view of contingency can be connected to an institutional theory of change in which the central role of institutional codes and networks of communication is stressed, producing a new theoretical approach to the explanation of institutional change. To illustrate the argument we make reference to one of the most significant counterfactual cases for questioning the solidity of institutions: the collapse of the key organization of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the downfall of the Soviet Union and the Communist regimes in 1989 in Eastern European satellite states. The author argues that this collapse and the subsequent end of the Cold War mainly came about because of foreign policy reforms instituted by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as opposed to increased public opposition to Communist rule in these countries. The relationship between policy, protest, and a lack of dedication among Communist leaders within the Warsaw Pact countries is explored.

The article discusses the origins of the Asian Cold War and the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960. The author explains that most scholars have rejected the idea that the Malayan Emergency was a result of instructions from Moscow, Russia, translated by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). The author explains that it was domestic issues which caused the violence and that the MCP was mostly unprepared. The author argues that a "two camp" international communist line played a significant role in deciding local debates concerning the revolt.

The article presents an examination of Romania's decision to not become involved with the Soviet Union-led military intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The article argues that during the period of 1964 to 1968 the Romanian communist government undertook a variety of actions that were largely reflective of the attitudes held by Romanian society. Additionally, the article shows that in 1968 the country began a nation-building project aimed at establishing the county as an ethnically homogeneous socialist nation.

Cold War historiography, in many instances, explained the delimitation of borders in Central Asia as a part of Moscow's divide and rule policy in Turkestan. However, the viability of this approach can be challenged by an examination of the archival documents of the time and the actual publications of the nationalities commissariat under Stalin. Among the Bolsheviks of Turkestan, Uzbeks were leading the drive towards the repartition of Turkestan, along with their Turkmen comrades who were trying to gain land from the former Khivan Khanate, at that time the People's Soviet Republic of Khorezm. The partition of Khorezm between three newly created administrative divisions, Uzbekistan, Turkmenia and Kirgizia, played a key role in the demarcation of borders in 1924. However, from the point of view of communists from the European parts of the former Tsarist Empire, as well as others from the region, delimitation was first a betrayal of internationalism; second it was an immature project both economically and theoretically; and third, it was believed that the liquidation of the traditional Muslim states of Turkestan, namely the Bukharan Emirate and the Khivan Khanate, would have a negative impact on the image of the Soviet revolution in the eyes of reformers in other Muslim countries in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the promotion of scientific research and development by the Soviet government. Following World War I, geologist Vladimir Vernadsky promoted the role of scientific development in Russian society. The Bolsheviks regarded science and technology as tools for the modernization of the Soviet Union and nationalized private science institutes, resulting in decreased autonomy but improved social status for scientists. Scientists such as J.D. Bernal promoted Marxist concepts of science. The influence of ideology on science in disciplines such as eugenics and physics is discussed. The career of Soviet physicist Pavel Cherenkov is noted.

The article discusses the fundamental ideological tensions in the Soviet discourse of the self, shown in their propaganda using large technological projects, such as the space program, as signs of the construction of socialism and communism. The author examines the norm of the new Soviet man through its iconic representations from Joseph Stalin period to the Nikita Khrushchev era. He cites that self is considered as an active agency and as part of a technological system. He also talks on human engineering's application of principles to the training of cosmonauts, the formation of their identity, and the conflict between their professional and public identities.

This article offers two main arguments, both of which have important corollaries. First, the author argues that religion, and a specific form of religion, played a major role in the downfall of communism and the Soviet Union. A corollary is that religious motivations furnished important impetus to the development of democracy in former communist countries (FCC). Second, the author argues that courts, and more specifically constitutional courts in FCC, played a major role in promoting democracy in those nations. A corollary to that assertion is that constitution courts in most FCC have demonstrated considerable respect for and promotion of the role of religion in FCC. These assertions and their corollaries are discussed in light of scholarly studies on the place of religion in the modem constitutionalism movement in former colonial and communist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the public discourse regarding kitchen as a central site for the linked projects of modernization and advanced construction of communism in the Cold War context of peaceful competition in Soviet Union. Impact of the achievements of modern science and technology on socialism; Official attitudes to the kitchen during the Khrushchev era; Public education in modern and scientific housekeeping for women.

Focuses on Russian poet Anatolii Zhigulin's publication of the 'Chernye Kamni,' a tale of young rebels and secret meeting in light of the formation of the Communist Party of Youth in the Soviet Union. Inclusion of journalists of 'Komsomol'skaya pravda and Molodoi kommunist' (KPM) in the story; Characterization of members of the KPM in the years of perestroika.