scholarly journals The Silent Revolution: Decollectivization from Below during the Cultural Revolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 796-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Dikötter
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Deng Xiaoping ◽  
Planned Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
Silent Revolution ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

AbstractThis article uses fresh archival evidence to point at a rarely noticed phenomenon, namely the undermining of the planned economy by a myriad of dispersed acts of resistance during the last years of the Cultural Revolution. Villagers reconnected with the market in some of the poorest places in the hinterland as well as in better-off regions along the coast. This silent, structural revolution often involved the quiet acquiescence, if not active cooperation, of local cadres. In conclusion, the article suggests that if there was an architect of economic reforms, it was the people and not Deng Xiaoping: as with his counterparts in Central Europe and the Soviet Union, Deng had little choice but to go along with the flow.

Soviet Assessments of China after Mao

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-221
Author(s):  
Chris Miller
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Reform ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Deng Xiaoping ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Agriculture Industry ◽  
Investment Law

This article examines Soviet analyses of the economic reforms that China implemented during the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping. Many historians have argued that Soviet economic reform efforts during the Perestroika era might have been more successful had the Kremlin more closely followed Chinese efforts. This article shows that Soviet economists and sinologists carefully studied China’s reforms to agriculture, industry, and foreign investment law. By the mid-1980s, the article suggests, a significant section of the Soviet intelligentsia believed that China’s market-based economic reforms were working and that the Soviet Union should learn from them.

scholarly journals Bending the Arc of Chinese History: The Cultural Revolution's Paradoxical Legacy

2016 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 613-631
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Walder
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Central Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Foundations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

AbstractContrary to its initiators’ intentions, the Cultural Revolution laid political foundations for a transition to a market-oriented economy whilst also creating circumstances that helped to ensure the cohesion and survival of China's Soviet-style party-state. The Cultural Revolution left the Chinese Communist Party and civilian state structures weak and in flux, and drastically weakened entrenched bureaucratic interests that might have blocked market reform. The weakening of central government structures created a decentralized planned economy, the regional and local leaders of which were receptive to initial market-oriented opportunities. The economic and technological backwardness fostered by the Cultural Revolution left little support for maintaining the status quo. Mao put Deng Xiaoping in charge of rebuilding the Party and economy briefly in the mid-1970s before purging him a second time, inadvertently making him the standard-bearer for post-Mao rebuilding and recovery. Mutual animosities with the Soviet Union provoked by Maoist polemics led to a surprising strategic turn to the United States and other Western countries in the early 1970s. The resulting economic and political ties subsequently advanced the agenda of reform and opening. China's first post-Mao decade was therefore one of rebuilding and renewal under a pre-eminent leader who was able to overcome opposition to a new course. The impact of this legacy becomes especially clear when contrasted with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, where political circumstances were starkly different, and where Gorbachev's attempts to implement similar changes in the face of entrenched bureaucratic opposition led to the collapse and dismemberment of the Soviet state.

Subjugation

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Baberowski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Total Power ◽  
Joseph Stalin ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Rapid Industrialization ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

This chapter describes Stalinism as a dictatorship of subjugation. It argues that Stalinism was a war against its own people that respected no boundaries, whose violence arose not from ideas but from situations and their possibilities. It shows how the atmosphere of total arbitrariness and uncertainty ruling the Soviet Union at this time allowed Joseph Stalin to live out his fantasies of total power and sate his lust for violence. The Bolsheviks' crusade against old Russia opened the floodgates of unabated violence. In the chaos created by the campaigns of the Cultural Revolution, by the collectivization of agriculture, and by the rapid industrialization every violent act could be justified by invoking higher purposes and ideals. This chapter examines Stalin's war against religion and the peasants as well as the birth of the Gulag.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Women's Roles ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Women’S Roles ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The introduction lays the foundation for the book. First, the introduction examines culture as a revolutionary weapon, including a comparison of socialist realism in the Soviet Union and social realism Mexico. Second, the chapter considers the relationship between culture and the construction of a Mexican postrevolutionary identity. And lastly, the introduction analyzes the making of the cultural revolution in Mexico, including a consideration of women’s roles, and Mexico City as the destination for radical transnational artists.

lmost all estimates of the figure of Alexander Solzhenitsyn are not related to literary criticism. Most studies evaluate his role, intentions and results. His figure is assessed in the context of the fate of the country, public perception and attitude to the country, which is Motherland for some, and mental and political enemy for the others. And for this purpose it is not even important who is right from the historical and political point of view. The point is who and how perceived the USSR and the entire Soviet project. Solzhenitsyn is seen as the enemy of the USSR and the Soviet project by those who popularized and helped him, and also according to his self-evaluation. Therefore, for those who identify themselves with the Soviet Union, its heritage and the entire Soviet project Solzhenitsyn represents the enemy and bearer of evil. For those who are hostile to the Soviet Union and the Soviet project, Solzhenitsyn is an ally in their struggle and bearer of good. Which of these parties is right is the issue of history and morality. 66% of Russian citizens support the first point of view, and the second point of view is supported by 25% of the population. Nowadays 88 % of Russian citizens know who Solzhenitsyn was. 31% consider him to be moral authority for them. 8% of the people believe that Solzhenitsyn presented true facts in his books.

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 260-275
Author(s):  
Victor V.  Aksyuchits
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
Russian Intelligentsia

In the article the author studies the formation process of Russian intelligentsia analyzing its «birth marks», such as nihilism, estrangement from native soil, West orientation, infatuation with radical political ideas, Russophobia. The author examines the causes of political radicalization of Russian intelligentsia that grew swiftly at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and played an important role in the Russian revolution of 1917.

Brazilian historiography on the participation of the USSR in the Second World War

2021 ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Boris Martynov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Correct Treatment ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
International Authority ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Second World

The article deals with the evolution of views of the Brazilian authors on the role, played by the Soviet Union in the WWII and its contribution to the victory of the anti-Hitlerian coalition. It contains a historiographical review of the works, written by the Brazilian authors on the theme, beginning from 2004. One follows the process of their growing interest towards clarifying the real contribution of the Soviet part to the common victory, along with the rise of the international authority of Brazil and strengthening of the Russo – Brazilian ties. One reveals the modern attitude of Brazilian authors towards such dubious or scarcely known themes as the Molotov – Ribbentrop pact, the battles for Smolensk and Rhzev, town–bound fights in Stalingrad, liberation of the Baltic republics, the Soviet war with Japan, etc. The author comes to conclusion, that in spite of the Western efforts to infuse the people`s conscience with the elements of the “post – truth” in this respect, the correct treatment of those events acquires priority even in such a far off from Russia state, as Brazil.

scholarly journals Piotr Piotrowski Awangarda w cieniu Jałty. Sztuka w Europie środkowo-wschodniej w latach 1945–89 (Avant-Garde in the Shadow of Yalta. Art in East-Central Europe, 1945–1989) 2005.

Nordlit ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Piotr Bernatowicz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Research Field ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Virgin Land ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Polish Art ◽  
East Central European

Mieczysław Porębski, a distinguished Polish art historian of the 20th century, once expressed the demand for Polish art history to be researched simultaneously with foreign studies - as parallel fields. "We entered the research field of the old masters' art as partners in, so to say, a ‘furnished household', whereas in the field of contemporary art we are co-explorers, exploring a ‘virgin land'", as Porębski put it. The book by professor Piotr Piotrowski Awangarda w cieniu Jałty. Sztuka w Europie środkowo-wschodniej w latach 1945-89 (The Avant-Garde in the Shadow of Yalta. The Art in East-Central Europe, 1945-1989) fully accomplishes this demanding postulate which nowadays seems to be rather rarely remembered by Polish art historians. The explored area, the East-Central European countries, which emerged, as a result of the Yalta Conference, between the iron curtain and the border of The Soviet Union (including former Yugoslavia) appears at least as an ‘old maiden' land, where scientific penetration still seems to be necessary.

scholarly journals The national camp and the concept of a federation during the Second World War

1970 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 256-276
Author(s):  
Dariusz Miszewski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Global Level ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

During the Second World War, the national camp preached the idea of imperialism in Central Europe. Built peacefully, the Polish empire was supposed to protect the independence and security of countries in Central Europe against Germany and the Soviet Union, and thus went by the name of “the Great Poland”. As part of the empire, nation-states were retained. The national camp was opposed to the idea of the federation as promoted by the government-in-exile. The “national camp” saw the idea of federation on the regional, European and global level as obsolete. Post-war international cooperation was based on nation states and their alliances.

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