Part I: Morning Session The View from Above

1990 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-6
Author(s):  
Alexander Motyl
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Morning Session ◽  
The Past ◽  
Soviet Empire ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Time To Build ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
One Year

When we met last year, the situation in the Soviet Union, although fluid, was still hopeful. One year later, things seem to have become immeasurably worse. Some will, perhaps, dispute this assessment and argue that the situation is even more hopeful than it was in the past. Such arguments remind me of socialists who think that now is the time to build socialism in Eastern Europe. Clearly, the situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan is out of control. I need not remind you of the Lithuanian “events,” to use that memorable Soviet term, the miners' strikes in mid-1989, and last, but not least, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, which is the decisive event of that year and, perhaps, of the second half of the twentieth century. Communism's demise obviously casts a totally different light on the nationality question in general and on the dynamics of the Soviet empire in particular.

Agwan Dorjiev’s Questions about the Past and Future of Mongolian Buddhism

2020 ◽  
pp. 416-437
Author(s):  
Matthew W. King
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
British Raj ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Competing Models ◽  
Letter Exchange

This chapter translates a 1924 letter exchange between two luminaries of the final years of prepurge Buddhism in Mongol and Buryat lands: the Khalkha polymath Zava Damdin Luvsandamdin (1867–1937) and the diplomat, reformer, and abbot Agvan Dorjiev (1854–1938). Both figures were deeply engaged with revolutionary intellectual currents circulating between China, the British Raj, Russia, Siberia, Tibet, Japan, and Mongolia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Both sought an advantage for Buddhist monastic life in competing models of revolutionary development and emancipation being debated in the Soviet Union and Mongolian People’s Republic. In the exchange translated here, these two tragic figures debate topics as diverse as the prehistory of the Mongolian community, the whereabouts of the fabled “land of Li,” and how best to counter the threat of scientific empiricism.

The Current Ethnic Situation in the USSR: Perennial Problems in the Period of “Restructuring”*

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.M. Khazanov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Soviet Empire ◽  
The Soviet Union

It has already been pointed out by many scholars that the supranational Soviet state meets many sociological criteria of an empire. Thus, it is populated by many different ethnic groups; they did not join the state voluntarily, having all been conquered in the past or incorporated into the state by force; and they are still forcefully kept together, even though force is far from being the only factor. Last but not least, the Soviet empire, like any other, has one dominating nation: the Russians. Thus, many regularities in other empires may also be applicable to the Soviet Union.

The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 1)

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

The largely peaceful collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 reflected the profound changes that Mikhail Gorbachev had carried out in Soviet foreign policy. Successful though the process was in Eastern Europe, it had destabilizing repercussions within the Soviet Union. The effects were both direct and indirect. The first part of this two-part article looks at Gorbachev's policy toward Eastern Europe, the collapse of Communism in the region, and the direct “spillover” from Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union. The second part of the article, to be published in the next issue of the journal, discusses the indirect spillover into the Soviet Union and the fierce debate that emerged within the Soviet political elite about the “loss” of the Eastern bloc—a debate that helped spur the leaders of the attempted hardline coup d'état in August 1991.

scholarly journals Muzyczne reprezentacje przeszłości w dziecięcych filmach animowanych wyprodukowanych w Europie Środkowo- Wschodniej w latach komunizmu

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Lidia Babulewicz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Animated Films ◽  
Musical Representations ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Made In

Musical Representations of the Past in Animations for Children Produced in Central and Eastern Europe in Times of Communism The subject of the article is the composition strategies of presenting the bygone time in animated films produced in the integrated cultural space that was, during the communist era, Central and Eastern Europe. Productions made in two countries – in the Soviet Union and in Poland – are considered. The discussion of film examples is conducted in an approximate chronological order, according to the time of production of individual pictures. The presentation of specific productions is not intended to exhaustively analyse these audiovisual works, but to review thematic threads related to the past and in their context compositional ideas and tendencies.

Popular Opinion Under Communist Regimes

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The State ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
Over Time

The totalitarian nature of communist states is generally understood to exclude the existence of a public sphere sufficiently independent of the state to allow the expression of a range of opinions. However, popular opinion, if not a public sphere, did exist and it was monitored extensively by these states, since leaders needed to know about popular responses to their policies and campaigns. This essay explores the limits on the expression of popular opinion in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe, and the ways in which those limits shifted—and were challenged—over time. If it may be argued that the transformation of popular opinion into a ‘public sphere’ followed the collapse of communism in Poland, and possibly Hungary, ‘civil society’ was relatively insignificant in the collapse elsewhere (or indeed its persistence in the case of China).

What Have We Learned from the Collapse of Communism?

2015 ◽  
pp. 642-677
Author(s):  
Olga Nicoara ◽  
Peter Boettke
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
Communist Countries

Following the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe (1989) and the Soviet Union (1991), the field of comparative political economy has undergone multiple stocktakings and revisions. In the former communist countries, Marxist economics was abandoned in favor of neoclassical economics, which dominated the profession in the West. But was neoclassical theory equipped to suggest adequate institutional arrangements in support of the transformations to capitalism in the former centrally planned economies of central and eastern Europe (C and EE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU)? What have economists working in the field of comparative political economy learned from the collapse of communism and the experience of transition so far? This chapter surveys the thoughts of leading transition scholars and assesses the new lessons learned in comparative transitional political economy.

scholarly journals Prisoners of the Media: Television in Russia Since the Collapse of Communism

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Brassard
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
Special Case

In 1991 one of the most oppressive regimes in history collapsed and millions of people were set free. Following the implementation of glasnost and perestroika Soviet communism proved untenable and was consigned to the trash heap of history. The Soviet media itself played a tremendous role in facilitating the collapse. After Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev removed censorship from the Soviet press they began looking into the past transgressions of their nation and reported it aggressively. Thus, as the Soviet state and its Russian successor became a much weaker power agent, other agents of power appeared to challenge the power of the state with regards to the media. Television, as the most important medium in Russian society came to be a special case. The power relations in Russian television are essentially a historical map of power relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Power in Russian media is made up of a complex set of relationships that is worth exploring.

scholarly journals Communism and Hunger: Introduction

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Andrea Graziosi ◽  
Frank E. Sysyn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
State Policies ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Systematic Comparison ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union

<p>Over the past two decades, important studies of the famines in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China have transformed our understanding of these events and laid the groundwork for the first attempts at comparative analysis.  Nevertheless, the great twentieth-century famines caused by state policies remain relatively little studied. We still lack a systematic comparison of their features, at least in part because of the difficulty in conceptualizing the possibility of man-made famine in modern times and because a topic like “Communism and Hunger” may seem to be a contradiction in terms. Yet even a simple list of the past century’s major famines suggests that the topic is badly in need of attention...</p>

The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 2)

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Final Part ◽  
East European ◽  
Demonstration Effect ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

This is the second part of a three-part article that looks at the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the repercussions of those events in the Soviet Union. The first part focused on the “direct” spillover from Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union, whereas this segment examines the “indirect” spillover, which took four forms:(1) the discrediting of Marxist-Leninist ideology, (2) the heightened sense of the Soviet regime's own vulnerability, (3) the diminished potential for the use of force in the USSR to curb internal unrest, and (4) the “demonstration effect” and “contagiousness” of regime change and democratization in Eastern Europe. These factors together made it considerably more difficult for Gorbachev to prevent the Soviet Union from unraveling. The final part of the article will be published in the next issue of the journal.

Whether by Visible or Invisible Hand: The Intractable Problem of Russian and East European Catch up

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Haynes ◽  
Rumy Husan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Western World ◽  
East European ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Modern Economic Growth ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Intractable Problem

Can a strong convergence process be set in motion which will give hope that transition countries begin to catch up with the Western world? The collapse of Soviet control in Eastern Europe in 1989, and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, led everywhere to a re-evaluation of the past and a more optimistic appreciation of the pre-1945 potential of this part of the European economy. Specifically, what has been suggested is that before 1945 the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were already well into the process of modern economic growth and towards convergence with the advanced West, and that the subsequent imposition of centralised planning did long term harm to the region's prospects. Envious comparisons have been made with near neighbours such as Austria or more distant examples such as Spain and Italy. This historical revisionism has been used to support the view that, once they were freed from state control in the 1990s, these new market economies would have bright prospects. Nowhere, however, have these high hopes been borne out. This paper argues that a precondition for the explanation of this failure has to be a recognition that this optimistic view of the past is false, and that these economies have been and continue to be the victims of much longer run inequalities in the world economy.

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