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The paper on the base of archive materials, published documents and scientific literature analyzes situation that occurred at Slovak universities after Communist coup in February 1948, with a focus on ideological pressure of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in this segment of society. The paper documents means that Communist Party of Czechoslovakia used to transform educational process and other activities in such a way that universities became subservient to communist ideology - the Marxism-Leninism. The paper is devoting attention to setting-up the Marxism-Leninism as the self-standing topic into academic program of universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of sexologist Wilhelm Reich's most ambitious and enduring theories claims that sexuality and sexual repression play a central role in the production and reproduction of class structures and hierarchies. From 1927–1933, Reich combined his sexological work with his communist political convictions in a movement that became known as sex‐pol. Reich developed some of his most provocative and potentially emancipatory theories through this empirical work with members of working‐class communities. Though they often remain anonymous in his writings, the traces of their voices remain audible throughout. In this paper, I employ a Gramscian method, developed by post‐colonial scholars, to read for the trace of proletarian voices in Reich's archive. I argue that these subjects helped to theorize the role of sex in producing and reproducing class oppression. Reading for the trace of proletarian voices in the archive expands our understanding of how working‐class subjects in early twentieth‐century Germany and Austria helped to produce concrete sexological knowledge from below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the content of the cadre file of Henri H. Stahl preserved in the Archives of the University of Bucharest’s Rectorate. In the form in which it has been preserved after 1989, the personnel file of H.H. Stahl seems, from several points of view, atypical. If we compare it with the cadre files of the 1950s, it surprises by the apparent “goodwill” of the communist cadres towards H.H. Stahl. This ideological solicitude is manifested in the interpretation given to main cultural and political events in H.H. Stahl’s life. In other circumstances such political past could be labeled as unusable in a communist context. Equally curious and noteworthy is the issue of the ethnic origin attributed (and not necessarily real or assumed by the one described in the file), more precisely the issue of Stahl’s nationality ( Jewish) which was recorded in the file. Analyzing Stahl cadre file we can wonder if the integrity of this dossier has not been compromised by removing, extracting or modifying documents by the personel staff services or by someone else. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the Papers of the International Colloquium of Romance Civilizations, Literatures and Languages (Bucharest, 14--27 Sept. 1959)--held under the aegis of the Romanian National Commission for UNESCO and of the Academy of the Popular Republic of Romania--as well as on an unpublished document from the private archive of Alphonse Dupront, the present article describes the visit to communist Romania made by the Sorbonne historian, the former director of the French Institute in Bucharest (1932-1940/1941). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Peet was the most important interlocutor between Britain and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Through his journal, Democratic German Report ( DGR), which he edited between 1952 and 1975, Peet had considerable influence among left-of-centre public opinion in Britain. His positive portrayal of the GDR was among the GDR's most believable and powerful propaganda in Britain. This articles reassesses Peet's decision to live and work in the GDR and his subsequent disillusionment with ‘really existing socialism’ in eastern Europe. Making use of Peet's personal papers and the archival holdings about Peet located in various German archives, the article presents Peet as a ‘liberal communist’ who was deeply influenced in his political choices by his experiences in inter-war Britain and by his fight against fascism in Spain. Although he came to dislike many things about the GDR, his loyalty to the ideals of communism always remained stronger than his desire to criticize the eastern European dictatorships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the role of the archives in dealing with the communist past, that is, in regard to the public debates about the contested archival materials and the problems which researchers have been facing in Croatia over the last two decades. It will inquire into the past practice of Croatian historians in carrying out research on the communist period. The article examines the state of the archives in Croatia, especially with regard to the most critical archival fonds – the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia (CK SKH) and the files of the State Security Service (SDS) of the Republic Secretariat of Internal Affairs, which are kept in the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb. Since the independence of Croatia, those archival materials have been the subject of many debates in Croatian public and political life. Finally, this article will showcase the practical consequences of the newly adopted legal changes, especially in the case of the Horizon 2020 project “COURAGE – Cultural Opposition: Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent” (2016-9). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed contentious public debates in Poland, as in other Eastern European countries, concerning the public uses of the Communist Secret Service files and the ensuing politics of history and memory of the state socialist past. The key terms of these debates are articulated mainly by the liberal and conservative elites, within an abstractly conceived national history/memory framework that does not address the conflicts across class lines, or recognize the “estranged” of the new Poland, who remember the recent past “positively.” Departing from the national history/memory framework, this paper calls for another kind of history: one that is minor as it is global. Drawing on a file compiled by the Polish Communist Secret Service on a certain self‐identified socialist from Turkey, who migrated to Poland in the late 1980s, I attempt to provide a parallel history to the fall of the Berlin Wall. I read the file not only for what we can gather from it, but also for what we cannot know from what is positively presented by it. Concentrating on the fragmented, minor, inconclusive story of this politically engaged working man, I call for the use of Communist Secret Service archives to produce a global history of socialisms and of the Cold War that traces the lives and movements across the Second and Third Worlds. In so doing, I gesture to what Karol Modzelewski has suggested in a different but related context as “loyalty to the strangers/the unknown ones” (lojalność wobec nieznajomych). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mikhail Borodin, a Bolshevik Party member, became one of Moscow's most influential foreign operatives in China in the early 1920s. The access to many previously inaccessible Russian and Chinese archival sources after the collapse of the former Soviet Union made it possible for scholars to conduct a new study on Borodin's Mission to China. Perhaps the most extraordinary finding to emerge from the new sources is that it was not the Comintern, but the Soviet Politburo, acting on Stalin's recommendation, sent Borodin to China. His assignments there went far beyond "making revolution." While in China, he was involved in almost every important aspect of Soviet operations, including secret diplomacy, dealing with all factions: the Nationalists, the Communists, and the various warlords, as well as the warlord-controlled Beijing government. Without a proper understanding of Borodin's Mission to China, it would be next to impossible to comprehend Moscow's policies toward China in the 1920s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the latest findings in Romanian archives and also from recent works in Romanian historiography, beside several important international bibliographic resources, this essay is centered around the Sino-Soviet conflict and its immediate aftermath in the communist world from three major perspectives, already announced in the title: development, security and strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the oral history of the American Left, an oral history archive devoted to radicalism. Topical areas which is the focus of the collection; Highlights of the interviews on different groups of people across the spectrum of anarchist, socialist and Communist attachments; Information on the difficulties that are present in interviews with the radicals.