China and Indian Communism

1972 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 272-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhabani Sen Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Masses

Unlike the Bolshevik revolution, the Chinese revolution had little impact on the Indian nationalist elite. The liberation of the working class from the shackles of capitalism in Russia had stirred the minds of many leaders of the Indian nationalist movement, including Nehru. The liberation of the masses of the peasantry from the shackles of feudalism in China had no comparable impact. The Indian Communist Party (CPI) hailed the Chinese revolution as an epoch-making event, but continued to regard the Soviet Union as the fountainhead of doctrinal as well as tactical directions.

The Trials of Arnošt K.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gordin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Soviet Authority ◽  
The Soviet Union

The Prague-born philosopher and historian of science Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979)—who often published under his Russian name Ernest Kol’man—has fallen into obscurity, much like dialectical materialism, the philosophy of science he represented. From modest Czech-Jewish origins, Kolman seized opportunities posed by the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution to advance to the highest levels of polemical Stalinist philosophy, returned to Prague as an activist laying the groundwork for the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, was arrested and held for three years by the Soviet secret police, returned to work in Moscow and Prague as a historian of science, played vastly contrasting roles in the Luzin Affair of the 1930s and the rehabilitation of cybernetics in the 1950s, and defected—after 58 years in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—to Sweden in 1976. This article argues that Kolman’s biography represents his gradual separation of dialectical materialism from other aspects of Soviet authority, a disentanglement enabled by the perspective gained from repeated returns to Prague and the diversity of dialectical-materialist thought developed in the Eastern Bloc. This essay is part of a special issue entitled THE BONDS OF HISTORY edited by Anita Guerrini.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1929 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 956-971 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel N. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Political Machine ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Center ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Revolution

A salient feature of the Soviet order set up in Russia by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is the provision for a single, mobilized political center, striving to organize all social processes to conform with its particular ideology and program. The Communist party is this political center of the Soviet Union, enjoying a monopoly of legality in respect of organization. Only an outline of the methods by which this political machine exercises its leadership is possible within the limits of the present note. The emphasis will be on the structure which the Communists have given to their party, in order more effectively to carry the responsibility of leadership assumed by them. The word “party” is used, but one has here an organization which differs sharply from political parties of parliamentary systems. Also in its relations to the formal governmental bodies the Communist party presents several features which differentiate it from the party systems of other countries.The special methods of organization adopted and the peculiar position enjoyed by the Communist party in the Soviet Union permit of several theoretical interpretations. One of these is that the Revolution contemplated by the Communists has three distinct stages, of which only the second has as yet been reached. There was the successful seizure of power, finally consolidated after some three years of civil war. Then came the present period of transition, the length of which will depend upon the success of the party in the exercise of its leadership. Only the successful achievement of the present party leadership will bring the final triumph of the Revolution as the third and last period.

Vanguard of the Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This book 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. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It 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. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

Restating Classicist Monumentalism in Soviet Architecture, 1930s–early 1950s

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-88
Author(s):  
William C. Brumfield
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
The Soviet Union

This article examines the development of retrospective styles in Soviet architecture during the Stalin era, from the 1930s to the early 1950s. This highly visible manifestation of communist visual culture is usually interpreted as a reaction to the austere modernism of 1920s Soviet avant-garde architecture represented by the constructivist movement. The project locates the origins of Stalin-era proclamatory, retrospective style in prerevolutionary neoclassical revival architecture. Although functioning in a capitalist market, that neoclassical reaction was supported by prominent critics who were suspicious of Russia’s nascent bourgeoisie and felt that neoclassical or neo-Renaissance architecture could echo the glory of imperial Russia. These critics left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, but prominent architects of the neoclassicist revival remained in the Soviet Union. Together with the Academy of Architecture (founded 1933), these architects played a critical role in reviving classicist monumentalism—designated “socialist realism”—as the proclamatory style for the centralized, neoimperial statist system of the Stalin era. Despite different ideological contexts (prerevolutionary and Stalinist), retrospective styles were promulgated as models for significant architectural projects. The article concludes with comments on the post-Stalinist—and post-Soviet—alternation of modernist and retrospective architectural styles.

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