The Decline Of The World Communist Movement

Author : Heinz Timmermann
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2019-07-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781000315820

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The Decline Of The World Communist Movement by Heinz Timmermann Pdf

International Communism today is split on a number of ideological and political issues and is incapable of the kind of unified action implied by the term “movement.†So argues Heinz Timmermann in this assessment of the current state of world Communism. Dr. Timmermann discusses the historical concept of a world Communist movement in connection with the USSR and China. Focusing on Communism in the West, he examines such diverse groups as the Communist parties in Italy, France, Portugal, Cyprus, Chile, and Japan. Communist parties in the West are increasingly adjusting their policies to better fit their own cultures, and the author links this independence to the emphasis the Soviet Union’s Communist Party has been placing on the specifically Russian character of the October Revolution and Soviet state interests. Apparently, Moscow is now showing some flexibility in its response to tendencies toward differentiation and pluralism within the system of Communist parties. Gorbachev is less concerned with ideological orthodoxy than with Communists effectively supporting Soviet foreign policy. The author argues that by acceding to the concept of “unity in diversity,†Gorbachev is signaling that the Soviet leadership is willing to look beyond the myth of a world Communist movement.

Author : Geoffrey Stern
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 1990
Category : History
ISBN : STANFORD:36105038654039

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The Rise and Decline of International Communism by Geoffrey Stern Pdf

>Challenging many of the most deeply held assumptions about the communist world, this original, provocative and wide-ranging book brings new understanding of the international communist movement. The Rise and Decline of International Communismanalyses the changing fortunes of the communist movement from the time of the Comintern to the diffuse and diverse array of socialist and workers parties of today. It argues that while the Bolshevik experiment has left an indelible imprint, still serving as a model for some and a warning to others, national preoccupation's and conflicts of interpretation have produced serious rifts - rifts which have shattered the myth of global communist solidarity and raised question marks over the future of 'communism' as an ideology, movement and way of life. Written by a distinguished academic and broadcaster, lively and accessible, this book is both a basic text and superb overview.

Author : George W. Breslauer
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2021-08-04
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780197579695

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The Rise and Demise of World Communism by George W. Breslauer Pdf

A concise, readable, and novel interpretation of the history of communist states. Sixteen states came to be ruled by communist parties during the 20th century. One, the Soviet Union, was geographically the largest nation in the world and a superpower. Another, China, had the world's largest population. At communism's high point, its adherents envisioned global triumph. Today, however, only five communist regimes remain in power. Why? In The Rise and Demise of World Communism, George Breslauer, a specialist who has spent decades observing the evolution of communist states, provides a sweeping history of the world communist movement, focusing in particular on what communist states shared in common and why they began to differ from each other over time. Throughout, Breslauer explores the relations among communist states as well as the relations between those states and the world of increasingly affluent, and militarily formidable, democratic-capitalist powers. He finds that these regimes all came to power in the context of warfare or its aftermath, followed by the consolidation of power by a revolutionary elite that valued "revolutionary violence" as the preferred means to an end, based upon Marx's vision of apocalyptic revolution and Lenin's conception of party organization. As Breslauer shows, all these regimes went on to "build socialism" according to a Stalinist template and were initially dedicated to "anti-imperialist struggle" as members of a world communist movement. But their common features gave way to diversity, difference, and defiance after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. For many reasons, and in many ways, those differences soon blew apart the world communist movement and eventually led to the collapse of European communism. Even though a few communist regimes still remain in power, the dream of world communism is dead. But the future of the remaining communist regimes is uncertain. An accessible history of one of the most important political phenomena of the past 150 years, The Rise and Demise of World Communism provides readers with a crisp account of the entire movement--from the theories of Marx and Lenin to the on-the-ground policies of Stalin, Mao, Gorbachev, Deng, and other communist leaders-that culminates in our own era.

Author : Marco Di Maggio
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2020-12-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9783030632571

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The Rise and Fall of Communist Parties in France and Italy by Marco Di Maggio Pdf

This book analyzes the dynamics through which the two major communist parties of the capitalist world—which in the 1970s had great influence on their respective national political contexts since the 1980s are increasing their marginality and, although in different forms and with different timeframes are unable to stem the decline of their political and cultural influences on the working classes.

Author : George C. Guins
Publisher : Springer
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789401505017

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Communism on the Decline by George C. Guins Pdf

Communist dictatorship rests not only on a police regime supported by terror. As this writer tried to explain in his previous work, Soviet Law and Soviet Society, the Communist regime is founded to a large degree on the economic dependence of all citizens on the State, as an universal monopolist and a single employer. It is impossible to support such a regime by means of coercion only. Communism tries therefore to impress people with its achievements and to suggest great expectations. It declares itself infallible and invincible. The decay of Communism starts when its achievements cease to satisfy people, when its promises do not raise enthusiasm, and its infallibility becomes exposed; when people begin to understand that the Communist philosophy is based on illusions and its regime is vicious and despotic. When this occurs then coercion proves to be more and more inefficient, and it becomes more and more difficult to secure the people's support. The government begins to feel that the roles are changed and that it is the govern ment which depends on the people rather than the people on the government.

Author : David Priestland
Publisher : Grove Press
Page : 728 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Political Science
ISBN : STANFORD:36105124128823

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The Red Flag by David Priestland Pdf

Communism was one of the most powerful political and intellectual movements of the modern world; at the height of its influence over a third of the worlds population lived under Communist rule. And yet very few predicted either its bewildering rise or sudden decline, while even close observers were mystified by its frequent convulsions and turbulent politics.In The Red Flag, David Priestland provides an original account of the Communist movement that fully explores its global impact. He not only discusses the ideas and motivations of its principal thinkers and leaders - from Marx to Mao, from Stalin to Che Guevara, but also asks why Communism inspired its rank and file from the militants of 1920s Russia and the guerrilla fighters of China to the Marxist students of Ethiopia and the urban terrorists of Europe in the 1970s. At same the time The Red Flag explores the experience of living under Communism for its millions of subjects.In his lively and absorbing narrative Priestland stresses how varied a phenomenon Communism was. He traces its emergence in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and shows how those early ideas evolved and mutated as they moved across time and place, from the barricades of Europe in 1848 to the villages of Nepal today.As Priestland shows, Communists may have promised to build just and modern societies, but just as they destroyed old structures of privilege, they simultaneously built new ones. This central paradox, together with economic failure and a history of horrifying violence would, by the 1980s, leave the Communist project in tatters. Even so, Communist parties are still in power in Asia and Latin America and, as Priestland emphasizes, Communism has played a central role in the history of the modern world - not only through its militaristic political systems, but also its broader influence on ideas and culture. At a time when the post-Cold War order is itself in crisis and we enter a new phase of global political and economic uncertainty, The Red Flag is essential reading.

Author : Leslie Holmes
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2009-08-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780199551545

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Communism: A Very Short Introduction by Leslie Holmes Pdf

The collapse of communism was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction examines the history behind the political, economic, and social structures of communism as an ideology.

Author : Maud Bracke
Publisher : Central European University Press
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2007-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9637326944

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Which Socialism, Whose D‚tente? by Maud Bracke Pdf

"The 1968-1969 Czechoslovak crisis was first and foremost a major crisis of European detente. While the Prague Spring was made possible by the immediate and unchecked consequences of early detente in Europe, its crushing sharply brought out the contradictions of detente as understood by the global Cold War protagonists. In a similar way as the Czecho-slovak crisis reflected the ambivalence at the heart of detente, the West European Communist Parties' responses to it revealed the ambivalence of detente as a context for radical social change, either in the East of the West. The scholarly literature on the PCI and PCF has, often in an unproblematic way, understood the shift from Cold War to detente on the European continent in the mid-1960s as a development essentially positive to these parties. The present study argues against this and demonstrates how the shift from the Cold War of the 1950s to detente in Europe reformulated the impasse of revolution or radical change in the West, rather than putting an end to it." Book jacket.

Author : Ying Ching-yao
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 70 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Communism
ISBN : OCLC:233984493

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The Decline of the International Communist Movement by Ying Ching-yao Pdf

Author : Jacob Zumoff
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 455 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2014-08-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9789004268890

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The Communist International and US Communism, 1919-1929 by Jacob Zumoff Pdf

Since the Cold War, most historians have set up an opposition between the “American” and “international” aspects of early American Communism. This book examines the development of the Communist Party in its first decade, from 1919 to 1929. Using the archives of the Communist International, this book, in contrast to previous studies, argues that the International played an important role in the early part of this decade in forcing the party to “Americanise”. Special attention is given to the attempts by the Comintern to orient American Communists on the role of black oppression, and to see the struggle for black liberation and the fight for socialism as inextricably linked. The later sections of the book provide the most detailed account now available of how the Comintern, reflecting the Stalinisation of the Soviet Union, intervened in the American party to ensure the Stalinisation of American Communism.

Author : Tom O'Lincoln
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Australia
ISBN : 0977504778

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Into the Mainstream by Tom O'Lincoln Pdf

How are the mighty fallen. At the end of World War II, the Communist Party was a major force in Australian working class life. Yet by the 1980s it had diminished to a demoralised rump. And today it's only a memory. Did the party deserve this fate? Its courage and hard work brought together thousands of working class fighters. It led them in important struggles. But then it inflicted on them the bitterest of disappointments.Into the Mainstream traces the party's decline from an influential movement, plagued by its bureaucratic Stalinist politics, to a shrinking organisation trying desperately to re-invent itself as a radical force, but finally drifting into the political mainstream. The story is set against such historic events as the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet split, and the social radicalisation of the late sixties. It offers lessons for revolutionary activists today

Author : A. James McAdams
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2019-11-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691196428

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Vanguard of the Revolution by A. James McAdams Pdf

The first comprehensive political history of the communist party Vanguard of the Revolution is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. A. James McAdams argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. He shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. Vanguard of the Revolution is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

Author : Paul Hollander
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1999-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0300144202

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Political Will and Personal Belief by Paul Hollander Pdf

The unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signaled the demise of a political and economic system that was widely perceived as durable, the preeminent rival to that of the United States. Less conspicuous than the momentous political transformations were the altered beliefs, aspirations, and illusions of the individuals who had maintained and led that system. In this original interpretation the eminent sociologist Paul Hollander focuses on the human aspects of the failure of Soviet communism. He examines how members of the Soviet political elite, leaders in communist Czechoslovakia and Hungary, high-ranking officials in agencies of control and coercion, and distinguished defectors and exiles experienced the erosion of ideals that undermined the political system they had once believed in.Hollander analyzes an array of autobiographical and biographical writings, journalistic accounts, and scholarly interpretations of the unraveling of Soviet communism. The Soviet Union fell apart not merely because of severe economic shortcomings, Hollander argues, but because of the double impact of the conflict between official ideals and practical realities and an eroding sense of legitimacy in the highest echelons. In his conclusion, the author considers how Marxist theory both shaped and undermined the system.

Author : Francesco Di Palma
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2019-08-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781789200218

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Perestroika and the Party by Francesco Di Palma Pdf

Countless studies have assessed the dramatic reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, but their analysis of the impact on European communism has focused overwhelmingly on the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc nations. This ambitious collection takes a much broader view, reconstructing and evaluating the historical trajectories of glasnost and perestroika on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Moving beyond domestic politics and foreign relations narrowly defined, the research gathered here constitutes a transnational survey of these reforms’ collective impact, showing how they were variably received and implemented, and how they shaped the prospects for “proletarian internationalism” in diverse political contexts.

Author : S. A. Smith
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 672 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2014-01-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191667527

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The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism by S. A. Smith Pdf

The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.