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This article studies the collaboration between the Chinese and Vietnamese communists in the socialist transformation of their shared borderlands after the First Indochina War. It both complicates and clarifies the volatile bilateral relationship between the two emerging communist states as they solidified their power in the 1950s. Departing from traditional narratives of Sino-Vietnamese relations which focus on wars and conflicts, this article examines how the timely convergence of Cold War and state expansion transformed the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands from 1954 to 1957. Using both Chinese and Vietnamese archival sources, it contends that the Chinese and Vietnamese communists pursued two interrelated goals in carrying out the political projects at the territorial limits of their countries. First, they wanted to build an inward-looking economy and society at the respective borders by consolidating the national administration of territory. Second, they wanted to impose a contrived Cold War comradeship between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in place of the organic interdependence of people within the borderlands that had existed in the area for centuries. The Sino-Vietnamese border, therefore, was the focus of joint state-building by the two communist governments, which made the cross-border movement of people and goods more visible, manipulable, and, more importantly, taxable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Focuses on the coverage of the major foreign policy crisis in the collapse of Nationalist China to the Communists by American newspapers. Closeness of the event or issue in terms of perceived relevance to American audiences; Divisions between stories in terms of where they appeared in the newspapers; Tradition of foreign war reporting.

Communist anniversaries had always had an important impact on historiography. Numerous works were published and dedicated to celebrated historical events. This was the case for the Romanian Communist Party's Semicentenary. As well, it was the occasion of publishing its „work of identity“ -- an official Party history, the Romanian version of "The Short Course". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illustrates the recruitment profile of the Civil War cohort of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1921. It disputes the traditional historiography, which presents the party as undergoing a linear process of decay and corruption ending in the period of the careerists of the Brezhnev period. Instead it demonstrates that even in the early period of the revolutionary republic the party was an attractive prospect for those wishing to attain position and privilege. Once it had shown itself to be the victor in the conflict, the party enjoyed considerable popularity in unexpected regions, attracting ambitious young peasants from the peripheries of the former Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contours of the Comintern journey 'from below', through the figures of the communist Humbert-Droz family. Following on from the work of Brigitte Studer, the paper rethinks the notions of clandestinity and political work within the communist 'national sections'. The question of borders and the way in which they were crossed by the protagonists is at the centre of this examination. Borders did not only appear in their physical and geographical forms; they also appeared in immaterial conceptions of the border, and as the border between the individual and the rest of society. Life on the margins of European political life and the bourgeois moral enterprise is conveyed, as the authorities, the press and the police each played a role in the anti-communist crusade. To study the relationship between the Comintern and society is to understand the mechanisms of exclusion, and the specific nature of the work of officials of the Communist International. This paper looks at the socio-political relationship between the individual and the Comintern, and the networks that could be created, while also acknowledging the power dynamic that existed and persisted within the relationship of this Comintern family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS PAPER AIMS TO DEVOTE AN ANALYTIC EYE ON THE LIBERALIZATION COURSE ADOPTED BY THE POLISH GOVERNMENT AFTER THE FALL OF THE COMMUNIST REGIME IN 1989. AFTER THE PEACEFUL TRANSITION FROM A TOTALITARIAN COMMUNIST INSPIRED REGIME TO A DEMOCRATIC FORM OF GOVERNMENT, THE NEW POLISH POLITICAL ELITE HAD TO EMBARK IN REFORMS, AIMING TO GENERATE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY AND RECOVER THE BACKWARDNESS COMPARED TO THE WESTERN COUNTRIES, FROM WHICH ADOPTED THE DEVELOPMENT MODEL. THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT IF THE PROPER ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS ARE DEVELOPED BY THE STATES, THEN THE POVERTY IS REDUCED, FROM THE THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE OF INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS, AS PROPOSED BY DARON ACEMOGLU AND JAMES A. ROBINSON. BASICALLY, THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT THE ADOPTION OF INCLUSIVE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS GENERATED PROSPERITY AND ECONOMIC POSITIVE PERFORMANCE FOR POLAND AFTER THE FALL OF THE EXTRACTIVE COMMUNIST REGIME. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miltiadis Porfyrogenis, a Greek lawyer and communist leader (1903-1958), stood out among the select few high-ranking members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) who boasted academic credentials, fluency in several foreign languages, adept communication skills, and a social stature that facilitated dialogue with fellow travellers, bourgeois politicians, and figures from diverse national backgrounds. Delving into Porphyrogenis's extensive travels, spanning from the early days of his involvement in communism in the late 1920s to the 1950s, this paper endeavours to underscore the pivotal role of travel as a formative experience that profoundly shaped the communist cadres during the Stalinist era. Moreover, it contends that, in Porphyrogenis's case, these travels encompassed not only political but also social and personal dimensions, and played a significant role in moulding a distinct lifestyle for the party elite, distinct from that of simple party members. By discussing Porfyrogenis's mobility, this paper seeks to situate his trajectory and the Greek communist movement within contemporary historiographical debate, addressing both the experience of communist activism and its broader transnational dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DRZEWIECKA, Ewelina. Cyrillo-Methodian Anniversaries in the Context of Socialism (Ideological Functions, National Uses, and Research Perspectives). The aim of the paper is to address the phenomenon of anniversary in regard to the cultural conditions that are typical of the period of socialism in South-East Europe. The focus is on a jubilee discourse that was generated for the purposes of state commemorations of SS. Cyril and Methodius, i.e. the inventors of the first Slavic alphabet and literacy. The starting point is the case of People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946 - 1990), which is perceived as both an example of rewriting the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition under the local conditions of Communist ideology, and a meaningful manifestation of the "culture of jubilee". The paper discusses the continuity of cultural matrix within the Bulgarian modernity despite the distinct semantic shifts in the Cyrillo-Methodian narrative and suggests a great potential of investigating the phenomena with regard to the past that is shared/contested in terms of different national ideologies. It is suggested that a "contrastive grammar" of competing jubilee discourses and practices would be a promising way of interpreting the Bulgarian-Macedonian confrontations and struggles for primacy that emerged during socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe did not bring about a radical and immediate destruction of the material heritage of communist dictatorships in the region. In fact, the process of de-commemoration has been more contested and more protracted than had been anticipated. Thus, what warrants a closer consideration is why this is the case since on the whole public acceptance of the regime change has been very high. This paper considers the case of Poland, the country of the Solidarity movement, which played a major role in the fall of communism in the region. The two-decade-long history of the right-wing nationalists' attempts to legislate street renaming culminating in the so-called de-communization law of 2016 will serve as a lens for investigating the responses that favoured the de-communization of public space. The paper argues that the protracted nature of the remaking of public landscape in Poland has been the result of the country's transitional legacies and different approaches to transitional justice among the former dissident opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to illustrate an often neglected, yet relevant aspect of the collective memory construction in communist Romania. In addition to other forms of collective remembrance, cinematic representations of the recent past have played a significant role for both the political regime and the Romanian society by providing political legitimacy as well as entertainment. The communist resistance was one of the most recurrent topos of collective memory, whereas underground party supporters -- the so called "illegalists" - often had to be presented as figures of identification. The cinema permitted, however, a negotiation of the recent past on different levels. Starting from these considerations and focusing on the film production „Duminică la ora 6” (Sunday at Six, Lucian Pintilie, 1966), the paper brings into discussion the communist resistance discourse during the liberalization period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Quarterly is the property of Cambridge 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.)

In the decade following its founding in 1955, the men who led the foreign policy lobby the Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations faced little concerted opposition to their attempts at preventing even the most minor alterations in the U.S. policy of both isolating and containing Communist China. But beginning with the Fulbright Hearings on China in March 1966, the trend of informed opinion moved sharply against them, as liberal Democrats became newly emboldened and moderates in both parties switched sides, inverting the bipartisan consensus against change the Committee relied upon. The 1968 election of former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who had served alongside Committee hero John Foster Dulles, seemed to offer them newfound hope. But when the "New Nixon" proved unreceptive to the entreaties of his one-time allies, the Committee mounted a furious public relations campaign to rally belatedly the right-wing base and influence public opinion. Its failure illustrated both the limits of power of American conservatives over U.S. foreign policy while détente was ascendant, and the discontinuity in priorities between the Old Right from which the Committee emerged and the New Right that left it behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS PAPER EXAMINES THE GREAT ECONOMIC DIFFERENCE IN TERMS OF GDP EVOLUTION IN ROMANIA SINCE 1989, WHEN THE COMMUNIST REGIME COLLAPSED, WITH THE AIM TO ANSWER THE RESEARCH QUESTION RELATED TO THIS GREAT ECONOMIC DIFFERENCE. IN 1989 ROMANIA HAD A GDP OF $41.45 BLN. COMPARED WITH $301.26 BLN. IN 2022, WHILE THE AIM OF THIS PAPER IS TO ANSWER THE QUESTION OF "WHY IS SUCH A DIFFERENCE?" BASED ON THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK PROVIDED BY THE NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS, IN THE PERSPECTIVE DELIVERED BY DARON ACEMOGLU AND JAMES A. ROBINSON, MY ANSWER TO THE RESEARCH QUESTION, WHICH REPRESENTS THE PAPER HYPOTHESIS, IS THAT THE POST 1989 DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANIA WAS DRIVEN BY ADOPTING INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Djoussour El-maarefa is the property of Association of Arab Universities 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.)

Despite having lived rather different lives, Karl Marx and Charles Dickens have worked on similar issues like class diversification, poor conditions of the working class, and consequences of the Industrial Revolution etc. They both advocated for better lives of the Proletariat. Where Dickens expressed his view through fictions, Marx came up with concepts like Marxism through works like the famous Communist Manifesto. In fact, Robert J Shiller, in his research on Narrative Economics, talks about the importance of fiction in propagating an idea, a philosophy and an ideology. Similarly, Charles Dickens was able to propagate Marxism with a vigour that Marx's Communist Manifesto could not. Even so, Marx himself spoke of how authors like Dickens helped him in spreading his new ideas. Though numerous reviews and analysis have been done on the works of both these exceedingly exceptional figures, this particular research paper explores the similarities between two of their major works, the Communist Manifesto and Great Expectations. Great Expectations, through its protagonist Pip, explores ideas found in the Communist Manifesto, whether it be the image of the working class as the social scum, the jealousy of the Proletariat, the standoffish attitude of the Bourgeoisie, or even the materialistic family relations of the Bourgeoisie. In conclusion, while the Communist Manifesto strongly communicated its ideas across nations, books like the Great Expectations conveyed those ideas in the form of a story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 1945, following German occupation and the atrocities committed during World War II, the German minority living in the reestablished Czechoslovak state was exposed to violent acts of retribution. Despite the state authorities' initial endeavors to prose -cute some of the acts of violence committed after the war, the Communist takeover in February 1948 rendered the post-war persecution of Germans taboo in Czechoslovakia. It was only the Velvet Revolution of 1989 that paved the way for both academic discussion and public commemoration of those tragic events. However, it was only at the turn of the millennium that the Czech society's stance towards the post-war violence started to change. The initial taboo and resentment were partially replaced by public opinion assessing post-World War II anti-German violence more critically. Newly established sites of memory dedicated to post-World War II violence are often seen as one of the signs of a changing culture of remembrance in Czech Republic. There is, however, a lack of rigorous research exploring these monuments and plaques. The aim of this study is to analyze various aspects of these sites as part of a social framework shaping public opinion in the Czech Republic on a local level. In doing so, it seeks to answer the question of how Czech society is coming to terms with the "negatives" of its past. Drawing on oral history interview s, the paper explores the process of establishing current sites commemorating anti-German violence in today's Czech Republic, as well as the often grass-roots initiatives that lay behind them. Furthermore, the analysis will focus on the monuments' inscrip tions and the message they send to the public, shaping its historical awareness. Understanding society as a structure consisting of various memory communities, the paper contributes to the under-researched area of a Czech culture of remembrance at a local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Copyright of Vegueta: Anuario de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia is the property of Vegueta: Anuario de la Facultad de Geografia e Historia 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.)

This article examines the three journeys undertaken by the Greek writer and intellectual Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) to the Soviet Union during the 1920s. It also investigates his involvement with communism during the interludes between these journeys and his subsequent activities. By scrutinising the conditions under which these journeys were conducted, this paper sheds light on the influence of communism on Nikos Kazantzakis, his receptivity to communist ideology, and its integration into his distinctive worldview. Furthermore, this examination elucidates the communist movement's strategic planning regarding the travels of intellectuals from Western countries, and the incorporation of these journeys into the cultural diplomacy of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vietnam war (1955-75) was a conflict that made its mark on global history. It was a truly multidimensional conflict, where the frontlines were not separate from the heartlands. To bring order to the chaotic situation created by the aftermath of French withdrawal from Indochina, the United States of America decided to involve itself in the pacification of South Vietnam. They wanted to create a stable US-aligned regime which would curtail communist efforts in the region. In order to achieve this, they launched multiple intelligence-gathering and pacification campaigns. But despite the considerable efforts and resources brought to bear, South Vietnam fell to communism in 1975. In this paper, I will give a brief overview of US pacification attempts, and the problems relating to fighting such a difficult battle, where there are no clear sides, and anyone can be a potential enemy. Given the nature of the subject, few such works have been made that attempt to compare the methods listed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the thought of the Indian revolutionary and philosopher M.N. Roy (1887–1954). The essay argues that Roy's pivot from Marxism to a liberal 'New Humanism' over the course of the 1930s and 1940s was shaped by his thinking about fascism and represents a broader turn away from a materialist reading of history and loss of confidence in the Indian working class. The paper begins with an analysis of Roy's early communism, and considers his later critique, elaborated from the 1930s onwards, that 'Gandhism' represented an Indian form of fascism, and explores how these arguments led to his rejection of Marxism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Diacovensia is the property of Catholic Faculty of Theology, J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek 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.)

Informal institutions such as culture, trust, social relations, norms or values have a strong effect on countries' development patterns, their role being enhanced in those states where formal institutions are poorly regulated. Therefore, in order to foster economic development, institutional change remains one of the core issues, and differs depending on the levels of social analysis. The current paper aims at outlining a general perspective regarding the relation between institutional efficiency and economic development within the European Union, with a specific focus on the Eastern member states. These have similar development patterns and structural challenges, considering their shared communist past and inheritance which have left strong imprints on Eastern European societies and welfare. Overall, the paper argues that institutional efficiency is closely linked to the countries' levels of prosperity, and consequently, to the manner in which their governments pay attention on development policies, especially in those states that are economically and spatially more peripheral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines recent social interventions in Serbia and Montenegro, a Montenegrin tax reform aiming to increase salaries and a Serbian-wide scheme of cash transfers. These cases are examined through the prism of populism and political pragmatism trying to show how social policies and social interventions are prone to be used as part of the efforts to generate wide electoral support. The paper discusses social policies in the post-communist environment arguing that communism generated a set of norms and expectations that make social policies in Central and Eastern Europe more vulnerable to being manipulated for acquiring political gain than in some other countries. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the need for more serious and more long-term social planning which will not be subordinated to the short-term political goals. Only with that being achieved, countries in the Western Balkan will be able to see higher socio-economic progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just as Quine and others have argued for a deflationism about the property of truth, Sinan Dogramaci has argued for a deflationism about rationality. Specifically, Dogramaci claims that we have no reason to think that the basic, deductive, epistemic rules we call "rational" have any sort of "unifying property." A "unifying property" is a property that is necessary, sufficient, and explanatorily illuminating. My goal in this paper is to undermine Dogramaci's argument for this radical position. I do this by first outlining Dogramaci's distinctive view on the function of our epistemically evaluative terms. This view, called epistemic communism, has it that the function of terms like "rational" is to support the coordination of our community on a single set of epistemic rules. I offer a reconstruction of Dogramaci's argument from epistemic communism to deflationism about rationality. I next raise an objection to Dogramaci's argument: different sets of epistemic rules do not equally support the coordinative function. Dogramaci has a response to this objection, but I argue that this response is less than satisfactory. I illustrate that this response is unsatisfactory by employing work by David Enoch and Joshua Schechter. After pushing my objection to Dogramaci's argument, I develop, on Dogramaci's behalf, an objection to my non-deflationary attempt to undermine his argument. In the final section of the paper, I reply to this objection offered on Dogramaci's behalf and conclude that whether we are epistemic communists or not, we need not accept deflationism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered relations of power contribute to the signification inherent in political parties. The formal rules and informal processes through which hegemonic gender regimes are reproduced and contested in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) are subjected to Feminist Institutionalist analysis here. In addition, the institutional belonging and political self-making of women party members are also assessed in the state of West Bengal. The experiential concepts of institutional belonging and self-making can enhance Feminist institutionalist research by identifying the processes that shape gendered behaviour of actors in institutions. The idealised revolutionary communist subjectivity that represents the institutional standard of appropriateness of gendered behaviour in the CPI(M) is explored. The co-constitutive relationship between institutions and political subjectivities is elaborated. The paper argues that the institutional belonging and political self-making of women in the CPI(M) are characterised by a politics of boundary-creation from as well as horizontal solidarities with fellow women colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of news topic modeling, this paper investigated how the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) uses organizational information communication to serve organizational goals—"Keep the Party Assured and the Youth Satisfied" ("让党放心, 让青年满意"). Using the Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm, we performed a topic analysis on 1898 news articles published on the CYLC website. We discovered that nearly all of the CYLC's news centered on the achievement of its organizational goals, reflecting the characteristics of information dissemination that is highly supportive of organizational objectives. We discovered distinct differences in the dissemination of organizational information between the central, provincial, municipal, county, and school league committees through cluster analysis. The various league organizations have distinct positioning and distinguishing characteristics. In addition, correlation analysis reveals that higher-level league organizations prioritize the dissemination of "Keep the Party Assured" information. While lower-level organizations gradually implement "Keep the Youth Satisfied" initiatives. This paper fills a gap in research on mass organizations in the field of information dissemination and serves as a resource for other political organizations involved in public information dissemination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the activities of the Catholic Church in the regions of Montenegro inhabited by the population of ethnic Albanians, from 1945 to 1955. In the preparation of the paper, we have predominantly used relevant historical sources stored in the State Archives of Montenegro and relevant literature, which give various information about the subject of the Catholic Church. The aim of this paper is to point out that in the first decade of socialist rule in Montenegro, the Catholic Church was active among the Albanian population, not allowing the Communist Party to question its prestige in the area, and achieve significant influence among Albanians of the Catholic faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the image of Taiwan (the Republic of China) in the Polish communist press in the mid-1950s. It focuses on the news coverage related to the two Polish cargo ships – the Praca and the Prezydent Gottwald – which were detained by the Taiwanese authorities in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Based on the press narratives and supported by declassified government documents, the paper analyses the impact of the Cold War conflicts and divisions on the detention of Polish ships and its coverage by the Polish communist media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper accompanies a dataset containing information regarding the stagings of Molière's plays during the 42 years of the communist regime in Romania, from 1948 to 1989. It offers a quantitative overlook of 120 productions, through statistics and visualizations, in an attempt to make sense of the data and find trends and directions otherwise difficult to detect. The data was collected from a public repertory database, supplemented by information from the theaters' archives and reviews from period magazines and newspapers. We have strived to let the data 'speak,' minimizing speculative commentary to where we felt it was needed to add colour or emphasize certain possible patterns. For network graphing and analysis, we used Gephi 0.9 software, and for the analysis and visualization of geospatial data, QGIS 3. Data processing and graph generation were carried out using Microsoft Excel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how many of the Communist refugees — German, Austrian and German-speaking Czechs — who were in exile in Britain during the Second World War, followed the dictates of the Party and returned home after the war to help rebuild their war-torn countries physically, politically, economically and socially. While the British authorities permitted the Czechs, as 'friendly aliens', to leave without too much delay, obstacles were put in the way of the German and Austrian refugees who frequently could not leave Britain until late 1946 or thereafter. The paper examines the relations between frustrated refugees and British officialdom as well as the reception the refugees received from their compatriots on their eventual 'homecoming'. Generally speaking, the returning Communists did not fare well. In Austria, the returnees, many of whom were of course Jewish, were met with continuing antisemitism as well as anti-communism; in Czechoslovakia, as the Cold War set in, some were arrested while others fled once again; and in the GDR, the preferred destination of the returning German Communists, the label of 'Westemigrant' could prove a considerable handicap. All in all, despite the initial idealism, the common experience was one of disillusion and disappointment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the widely observed 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the fall of 2022, observers brought to public attention the replacement of quite a few previously hopeful candidates for top positions in the CPC with ones that were not comparable in seniority and age but had all been colleagues of Xi Jinping before Xi became the top leader of China. Such an unexpected precedent-breaking arrangement was also seen in the selection of members of the new Central Military Commission (CMC). China still advocates the decades-old tenet that the Party commands the gun yet without forgetting at the same time the equally long-lasting principle that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Therefore, control over the military is essential to the consolidation of political power. That is where the pivotal role of the CMC comes into play. What are the strategic implications of the new line-up of the CMC after the 20th CPC National Congress? To the surprise of quite a few observers, Zhang Youxia retained his position as one of the two vice chairmen of the commission. The other vice chairman is He Weidong, a new addition to the CMC. The other two new members of the seven-person CMC, including President Xi, who serves concurrently as chairman of the commission, are Liu Zhenli, who is the Chief of the CMC Joint Staff Department, and Li Shangfu, the new defense minister. The other two members, including Miao Hua and Zhang Shengmin, have been on the commission since the 19th CPC National Congress. What are the considerations behind the reshuffle in China's top military decision-making and command body? All these questions are to be dealt with in this paper. The generals and admirals mentioned above shall be the subjects of analysis. Their backgrounds and specialties may be the reason why they were chosen for their positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers have studied memory for decades, but there is currently a renewed interest in places of postmemory: sites to which memories of a past are connected, that engage those who have no living memory of the past in question. By combining a process-tracing approach to several post-communist surveys with in-depth interviews with members of the younger generation about their postmemories of the communist past, this paper explores places associated with postmemories of communism amongst young people in contemporary Romania, focusing on two types of place: (1) mega-constructions, prisons and deportation sites; and (2) sites connected to everyday life (home, shops, hospitals). The findings suggest that "postmemories in places" are reproduced and co-produced by younger people in a nuanced and complex way. Spatial postmemories of communism are not simply formed by parental or grandparental experiences of communism itself, but are also shaped by experiences of the initial post-communist period. Younger people's complex range of "postmemories in places" toward the communist past are politically multivalent: postmemory of specific sites related to the cultural welfare of the communist past did not necessarily indicate a political commitment to its restoration amongst interviewees; and postmemories of political violence associated with particular sites did not preclude unilateral pride in national achievements prior to 1989. Furthermore, "postmemory in place" is not a passive process, but one that is shaped by both a critical attitude to the responses of older generations toward particular places, and the challenges of the capitalist present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My papers investigates two of the latter volumes by Romanian author Monica Pillat, Invitație la vis (An Invitation to Dream, 2014), and Croitorul de cărți (The Book Tailor, 2019), in which the literary experience elevates and transcends life itself, as a form of rewriting/healing the past and, maybe, of projecting one's dreams into the future. It relies on criticism of two stories from the respective volumes, which investigates the sites of memory, such as the family mansion, which is the central piece around which the fantasy world woven by the author gravitates. Since Monica Pillat descends from a whole line of literary masters, her gift for writing is in fact a form of recuperating and also compensating for the family past, in which especially her father (Dinu Pillat) was very much afflicted by political persecution during Communist times. In my paper, I will dwell upon the less factual connection between life and literature - that of a mutual mirroring and influencing - in the attempt to prove that the experience of writing can make up for the l osses encountered in reality. In this sense, being a literary author may offer one the chance of re-inventing one's self (or imaginatively amending the life of your loved ones) and - for Monica Pillat - it certainly offers the greatest reward of all: a continual dwelling inside the family lineage, in the company of the kindred spirits that have guided and protected her since she was born. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Social Sciences & Philosophy is the property of Research Center for Humanities & Social Sciences, Academia Sinica 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 presents the pastor Jaroslav Vyskočil, an important figure of the Czechoslovak Church. The paper is focused on the 1950s, when Jaroslav Vyskočil served in the city of Brno. The paper is not a biography, but aims to demonstrate specific manifestations of communist church policy at the local level on the example of the pastor Vyskočil. At the same time, the paper offers an image of a believer who is actively trying to express his religion in the environment of a totalitarian communist state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion observed, in the last half-century, in the theorisation of intelligence activity has magnetically attracted the need for an ethical topography of intelligence services' behaviour and states. Drawing on the fundamental concepts and theories of this discipline, the article applies a complex evaluation grid to a recent case, subsumed within a less popularized operation in the history of the intelligence service of communist Romania. By accumulating evidence from open sources, books, studies and corroborating all available records in declassified archives, the paper presumes that the investigations and measures undertaken by the State Security Department (Securitate) in the sphere of the cinematographic environment are suitable for an analysis from an ethical angle. Attempting to answer some fundamental ethical questions, the article includes a brief presentation of the main theories in the field of intelligence ethics, followed by a historical illustration of the main milestones in the issues addressed, during Ceauşescu's rule (1965-1989). Then, the combination of the two results in the ethical judgement, which is the fundamental subject of the article. The ethical perspective is enriched by the author's proposal of a theoretical model for evaluating and deciphering the case under inspection. The model has an adjuvant role and does not imply its dissociation from the pre-existing theoretical foundation. Its purpose is to contextualise the ethical interpretation and create a scale applicable to the subjects and facts examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the legal consciousness of Chinese enterprise managers has transformed in the face of drastic changes brought along by major events in socialist China. During the past 70 years, there have been in place a series of radical and pervasive changes in the legal framework constituted by a communist system frequented by mass political campaigns, trailed by a massive liberalized move towards a market economy. By building upon the thesis of legal-consciousness narratives suggested by Ewick and Silbey, this paper discusses how Chinese managers have evolved through various states of "With the Law," "Against the Law," and "Under the Law" legal consciousness. It is suggested that, in the coming era of globalization under socialist China, Chinese enterprise managers may start to embrace a new narrative of legal consciousness—"In the Law"—by participating more actively in the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]