scholarly journals About lost futures or the political heart of history

HISTOREIN ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
María Inés Mudrovcic
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Secular State

This article attempts to show that in western societies of today, in the absence of absolute foundations and the lack of a frame of meaning that opens new horizons of expectations, a political self understanding of the present in terms of past, begins to emerge. This is possible because the major “catastrophes” of the 20th century have not established a rupture between past and present on the political plane. What I am trying to show here is that the kind of break between past and present made possible by events such as the French Revolution and the Fall of the Soviet Union, took place because these events provoked political ruptures. Because the catastrophes of the 20th century did not break the political order which gave them birth (the modern secular state), they have created an order of time which, without leaving the future aside, feeds itself from the past.

The future unlike the past: nuclear proliferation and American security policy

1981 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nacht
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Nuclear Arms Control

An examination of the past relationships between nuclear proliferation and American security policy substantiates several propositions. First, the political relationship between the United States and each new nuclear weapon state was not fundamentally transformed as a result of nuclear proliferation. Second, with the exception of the Soviet Union, no new nuclear state significantly affected U.S. defense programs or policies. Third, American interest in bilateral nuclear arms control negotiations has been confined to the Soviet Union. Fourth, a conventional conflict involving a nonnuclear ally prompted the United States to intervene in ways it otherwise might not have in order to forestall the use of nuclear weapons.In all respects, however, the relationship between nuclear proliferation and American security policy is changing. The intensification of the superpower rivalry and specific developments in their nuclear weapons and doctrines, the decline of American power more generally, and the characteristics of nuclear threshold states all serve to stimulate nuclear proliferation. It will be increasingly difficult in the future for American security policy to be as insulated from this process as it has been in the past.

Super Powers and the Changing International System: A Third World Perspective

1982 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
P.S. Jayaramu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Third World ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
System A ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
World Perspective

In any analysis of the role that the Super Powers—the United States and the Soviet Union—would play in the international system in the 1980s and beyond, one has to be careful of the fact that the projections that can be made cannot bear the stamp of definitiveness and are therefore debateable. Consciousness of this limitation notwithstanding, this paper attempts such an analysis. It is the belief of this writer that any projection of the Super Powers' role in the future has its roots in an understanding of the role they played in the past and are playing at present.

Instructed Silence, Constructed Memory: The SED and the Return of German Prisoners of War as ‘War Criminals’ from the Soviet Union to East Germany, 1950–1956

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINA MORINA
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Security ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Nazi Past

After 1950, at least 23,000 German POWs remained in Soviet captivity as ‘war criminals’, and they were pardoned and released in several amnesties from 1950 to 1956. This article examines the political and propagandistic reactions of the ruling SED to the return of those prisoners. It analyses how the SED's attempts to reintegrate ‘war criminals’ into a socialist society related to the official politics of the past (Vergangenheitspolitik) and the construction of a memory of the Nazi past in East Germany. The SED's key strategy in dealing with these returnees – avoiding the question of individual and collective responsibility – is put into the context of the party's central ideological objective, namely to dissociate the socialist GDR from the legacy of Nazi Germany. On the basis of newly accessible documents from the archives of the former Ministry for State Security, the article also describes the intensive involvement of the Stasi in repatriation and reintegration matters at all levels of society.

The Crisis in French Foreign Policy

1954 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-437
Author(s):  
J. B. Duroselle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Short Distance ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
French Foreign Policy

We are living at a time when events move more rapidly than in the past. It is therefore very difficult, even in an article for a review, to sum up the situation, and still more difficult to see even a short distance into the future. This is true for any country, even for those, like the United States and the Soviet Union, which have greater autonomy and greater power in the bipolar world in which we live. But it is probably in the case of France that the task is most difficult of all, for in this country the general problems are complicated by a particular kind of crisis growing out of internal conditions. As I write these lines, it is impossible for me to have the slightest idea as to what French foreign policy will be when the article is published.

Conventional Arms in Soviet Foreign Policy

1980 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Finley
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Significant Determinant ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Military Relations

Military relations between the United States and the Soviet Union over the past decade exhibit an apparent paradox: professed mutual interests in parity yielding in practice to a competitive military buildup. The paper examines four hypothetical explanations—denoted respectively as the hypotheses of mirage, momentum, victory, and spillover—in the context of conventional military force development. While certain valid elements are identified in each hypothesis, the author concludes that it is the appeal of spillover, the non-fighting functions of conventional military advantage, which despite a mixed payoff may be regarded as the most significant determinant of Soviet behavior. The evolution of force levels and military budgets, and the political purposes and activities of the U.S.S.R. in the First and Third Worlds, provide the data for analysis.

Moscow and Tokyo: An Uneasy Peace

1985 ◽  
Vol 481 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
HIROSHI KIMURA
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Northern Territories ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines why Soviet-Japanese relations since 1945 have been so poor at the political, economic, and military levels. It first analyzes recent changes in Moscow's foreign policy toward Japan and then looks at the major determinants shaping this policy. Kimura assesses recent Soviet policy and concludes that the Soviet Union has few diplomatic options open to improve the Soviet-Japanese relationship. Soviet diplomacy in the past has been heavy-handed, clumsy, and inflexible, especially as regards the so-called Northern Territories. Soviet attitudes must evidence greater flexibility and a willingness to negotiate before the relationship can be significantly improved.

scholarly journals Islamic Consolidation in Kazakhstan: Success Story and Challenges of the Future

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ario Bimo Utomo
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Stable Condition ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Success Story ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Muslim Majority

This article attempts to explain the process of Islamic consolidation in Kazakhstan, a young Muslim-majority state in Central Asia which became independent following the demise of the Soviet Union. Unlike its turbulent regional neighbors, Kazakhstan has virtually been not troubled by the threat of extremists, making its success an interesting case to discuss. There are some aspects which this essay is going to analyze. First, using the consolidation framework, I am going to examine how the rise of Islam is facilitated after the demise of the Soviet Union. Second, I also add another element namely securitization. This paper argues that securitisation is the additional strategy which creates a stable condition of Islamic consolidation in Kazakhstan. This paper concludes with giving some reflections on the future of Islam and the political stability in Kazakhstan. 

Latin America and the Soviet-Chinese Conflict (the 1960s – mid-1970s)

2021 ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Andrey Schelchkov
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
New Left ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The disagreements and rupture between the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) were the most important event in the history of the International Communist Movement in the 60s and 70s of the 20th century, which had a huge impact on the fate of communist parties around the world. Latin America has become a place of fierce rivalry between Moscow and Beijing for influence on the political left flank. Moscow's tough opposition to any attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to increase its influence in the continent's communist parties without resorting to splitting them caused a backlash and a change in the policy of criticism within the parties to a policy of secession of independent “anti-revisionist” communist parties. Maoist communist parties emerged in all countries of the continent, opposing their policies to the pro-Moscow left parties. Maoism was able to penetrate not only the old communist movement but also the ranks of socialists, leftist nationalists and even Christian democrats. It often became the ideological and political basis for a break with the “traditional” left parties, a kind of transit bridge towards the “new left”. The ideas of Maoism were partly accepted by the trend of the “new left”, which gained special weight among the intelligentsia and students of the continent. This article is devoted to the emergence and development of the Maoist Communist Parties, the reaction of Moscow and Havana in the political circumstances of Latin America in the 60s of the 20th century.

Internationalist Mobilization during the Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Moldovan Elections of 1990

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Alan Mason
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet Socialist Republic ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union

In September 1989, speaking to the Republican Strike Committee of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), Erkin Nurzhanovich Auel'bekov, assistant chairman of the All-Union Soviet of Nationalities, asked a question of great importance to Soviet citizens in the increasingly fragile union: “Is there such a thing as a Soviet narod (people), or is this just an empty fiction?” For Auel'bekov and the assembled strike committee, the answer was not in doubt. “Certainly for all of us here,” he continued, “there is such a narod. There is a passport, there are Soviet people (sovetskie liudi) and, moreover, there is justification for thinking that this is the most important achievement of the past seventy years of Soviet power.” Soviet patriots, they agreed, needed to protect this narod from the process of “nationalization” that threatened the Soviet Union and its constituent people both locally in Moldova and more broadly in the union in general. The protection of this achievement in Soviet nation building became the mission of an “internationalist' ” movement as it moved from a strike campaign to stop language laws in 1989 to an election campaign in 1990. The political strike of 1989 had achieved none of its immediate goals and as internationalist activists moved into the second phase of the conflict over the future of Moldova they invoked imperiled Soviet achievements as they first attempted to take the Moldovan government through the ballot box, and failing at that, to take the eastern region of Transnistria out of Moldova.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document