Pragmatists and Believers: Dynamics of Ideology and Compromise within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1941-1942

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-63
Author(s):  
Daniel Stotland
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Impact

The significance of World War II within the Russian historiography is unequivocal– but the impact of that great cataclysm on the Soviet state and Soviet society is frequently understated or overstated. The early 1940s brought massive losses to the upper echelons of the Communist Party, resulting in a rapid mobilization of the state, but these upheavals took place in a society that was already hamstrung by both the traditional scarcity of qualified professionals and the strain that Marxist-Leninist purism placed on an already strained education system. Long before the October Revolution, Russia was plagued with the enduring problem of scarcity of the qualified managerial cadres; after the Revolution, this problem was exacerbated by factional disputes between ideologues, who were primarily concerned with the ideological purity of the Soviet state, and pragmatists, who favoring a greater focus on vocational education. Caught between these two factions was the proto-middle class from which the professional stratum of Russian society was to be recruited. During the opening years of World War II, the demand for educated professionals rose, forcing compromises in their ideological purity. In the long term, the result was a gradual, piecemeal shift toward pragmatic compromise. In the short term, however, faced with a dilemma between under-staffed and under-indoctrinated, caught in a decision-making paradigm locked in by Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet matrix opted for personalized networks and regional cliques over the professional apparatus in its quest for short-term efficiency. Drawing on archival materials such as memoir literature, epistolary documentation and state reports from Moscow and provincial (particularly those of the Tver’ Oblast’) collections, this article examines the tensions that underpinned the conditions of the proto-middle class from throughout the 1940s, tracing the ideological constraints that structured the political landscape, the repeating cycles of essentially identical attempts at reform, and the ways in which the strain of the ideological/pragmatic conflict on Russian professionals was, and was not, resolved in the wake of World War II.

Burn Out and Fade AwayMarxism in Italian International Legal Scholarship

2020 ◽  
pp. 234-261
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Gradoni
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Burn Out ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact

Against the prevailing opinion, the present chapter argues that the impact of Marxism on Italian international legal scholarship, although quantitatively marginal, has been important and fruitful, so much so that its rediscovery should not be seen as merely a matter of antiquarian interest. This minor tradition of legal studies failed to take root in the first quarter of a century after World War II, despite the endorsement of a powerful communist party. Cultural changes that took place in the 1960s reverberated throughout international legal scholarship only during the 1970s. Although Marxist international legal studies subsided within the space of a few years they produced a significant body of work whose pioneering character and unsurpassed subtlety should be acknowledged in the context of current revivals of Marxist legal studies.

East, West, and the Return of ‘Central’: Borders Drawn and Redrawn

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Lee ◽  
Robert Bideleux
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The European Union ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Impact ◽  
East West

Western Europe has not only met but also married Eastern Europe, even if there are rumours that it was a marriage of convenience, consummated in ‘EU Europe’. Nevertheless, a significant outcome of the cohabitation has been the resurgence of debates about the status, location, and distinctiveness of ‘Central Europe’; the changing nature of borders and borderlands; and the emergence of ‘new’ East/West divides. Because World War II was predominantly fought on the Eastern Front, almost 95 per cent of Europe's fatalities of war and genocide were in Central and Eastern Europe (including Germany and Austria). These mass killings, combined with the paramount role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of the Third Reich, led to substantial reconfigurations of the borders and ethnic compositions of European states. This article examines the reconfigurations of European territories at the close of World War II, the drastic redrawing of European borders during 1945–1948 and again in the late 1980s and 1990s, the impact on European borders of the European Union and its ‘deepening’ and ‘widening’, and Europe's new East/West divide.

The Legal Framework for the Sovietization of Czechoslovakia 1941–1945

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 255-268
Author(s):  
Basil Dmytryshyn
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Asylum ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Literature in many languages (documentary, monographic, memoir-like and periodical) is abundant on the sovietization of Czechoslovakia, as are the reasons advanced for it. Some observers have argued that the Soviet takeover of the country stemmed from an excessive preoccupation with Panslavism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by a few Czech and Slovak intellectuals, politicians, writers and poets and their uncritical affection and fascination for everything Russian and Soviet. Others have attributed the drawing of Czechoslovakia into the Soviet orbit to Franco-British appeasement of Hitler's imperial ambitions during the September 1938, Munich crisis. At Munich, Czechoslovakia lost its sovereignty and territory, France its honor, England its respect and trust; and the Soviet Union, by its abstract offer to aid Czechoslovakia (without detailing how or in what form the assistance would come) gained admiration. Still others have pinned the blame for the sovietization of Czechoslovakia on machinations by top leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, who, as obedient tools of Moscow, supported Soviet geopolitical designs on Czechoslovakia, who sought and received political asylum in the USSR during World War II, and who returned to Czechoslovakia with the victorious Soviet armed forces at the end of World War II as high-ranking members of the Soviet establishment. Finally, there are some who maintain that the sovietization of Czechoslovakia commenced with the 25 February 1948, Communist coup, followed by the tragic death of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk on 10 March 1948, and the replacement, on 7 June 1948, of President Eduard Beneš by the Moscow-trained, loyal Kremlin servant Klement Gottwald.

scholarly journals Slovenski učbeniki zgodovine o španski državljanski vojni

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-107
Author(s):  
Branko Šuštar
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
The Impact

SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN SLOVENIAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKSThe article examines the image of the 1936–1939 Spanish civil war as presented in Slovenian history textbooks for primary and secondary schools 75 years after the war. In textbooks, this topic is important for presenting the period before World War II in Europe as well as the social and political differences present in Europe at that time. The Spanish civil war raises questions of democracy, fascism, communism, social reforms, violence and revolution in Europe. Initially, the textbook authors briefly discussed the Popular front, democracy and elections, communists and revolution, as well as the support of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to Franco’s Nationalist faction and the support of Soviet Union to the Republican faction. After 1980, textbooks included a more detailed presentation of the broader social situation, the attitude of artists towards the Spanish civil war, and the impact of war on political divisions in Slovenia during World War II. The first textbooks generally mentioned that a number of Yugoslavs were fighting for the Republican faction, whereas later authors provided more information in accordance with research studies, i.e. that 500 Slovenians participated in the International Brigades.

Defining the McCarthy Era

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Lichtman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Repression ◽  
World War ◽  
Mccarthy Era ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Tactics ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Communist Party Usa

This chapter considers the combination of circumstances and events following World War II that held the seeds of political repression during the McCarthy era. These developments signaled unmistakably that the Soviet Union and its allies threatened America’s security on the international scene. On the domestic front, McCarthy-era repression targeted the Communist Party USA and alleged “Communist front” organizations. Whether a significant internal Communist threat existed in the postwar years was open to question. However, the widespread belief that such a threat did exist, and the related claim that liberal Democrats—New Dealers and their political successors—bore responsibility and could not be trusted to respond adequately, would soon become a reality in American politics. McCarthyism was energized not by opposition to communism but by the linkage of Marxism with liberalism. It was also energized by bare-knuckle partisan political tactics.

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