scholarly journals The Response of Donbas Population to the Events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

2017 ◽  
pp. 525-528
Author(s):  
Ihor Karetnikov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Hungarian Revolution

The article deals with the response of residents of Voroshylovhrad and Stalin (modern — Luhans’k and Donets’k) regions to the uprising against the communist regime in Hungary in autumn 1956. The author notes that the Hungarian Revolution was a factor behind the growth of public dissent in the Donbass, provoking a rise of critical sentiments related to the internal problems of Soviet society.

scholarly journals “If Hope is Sin, Then We Are All Guilty”: Romanian Students’ Reactions to the Hungarian Revolution and Soviet Intervention, 1956–1958

2008 ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Johanna Granville
Keyword(s):  
Communist Regime ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Hungarian Revolution ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Soviet Invasion ◽  
Romanian Revolution ◽  
The 1960S

The events of 1956 (the Twentieth CPSU Congress, Khrushchev’s Secret Speech, and the Hungarian revolution) had a strong impact on the evolution of the Romanian communist regime, paving the way for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania in 1958, the stricter policy toward the Transylvanian Hungarians, and Romania’s greater independence from the USSR in the 1960s. Students complained about their living and studying conditions long before the outbreak of the Hungarian crisis. Ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania listened closely to Budapest radio stations, and Romanian students in Budapest in the summer of 1956 were especially affected by the ferment of ideas there. For the Gheorghiu-Dej regime, the Hungarian revolution and Soviet invasion provided a useful excuse to end the destalinization process and crack the whip conclusivel —carrying out mass arrests, but also granting short-term concessions to ethnic minorities and workers. Of all segments of the Romanian population, university students were the most discontented. Drawing on archival documents, published memoirs, and recent Romanian scholarship, this paper will analyze and compare the student unrest in Bucharest, Cluj, Iaşi, and Timişoara. Due to a combination of psychological, logistical, and historical factors, students in the latter city were especially vocal and organized. On October 30 over 2,000 students from the Polytechnic Institute in Timişoara met with party offi cials, demanding changes in living and study conditions, as well as the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania. Another 800-1,000 students convened on October 31, calling for the release of students who were arrested the day before. Obvious discrepancies between the Romanian and Hungarian media sparked their curiosity about events in Hungary, while their cramped dorm rooms actually facilitated student meetings. In the Banat region itself, a tradition of anti-communist protest had prevailed since 1945. Although arrested en masse, these students set a vital precedent—especially for the Timişoarans who launched the Romanian Revolution thirty-three years later.

US Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Success Story?

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-79
Author(s):  
John Robert Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Radio Free Europe

AbstractThe post-'9/11' revival of interest in US public diplomacy encompasses a wide variety of opinions, all overwhelmingly critical. In view of falling global favourability towards and the foreign policy challenges of the United States during this period, the purveyors of these opinions ultimately agree that US public diplomacy efforts are flawed and ineffective. Of these critical observations, it is interesting to track a thread of logic that yearns for the restoration of public diplomacy's Cold War-era standing, which holds that the spread of liberal democracy behind the Berlin Wall owes a debt to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, that cultural exchanges with influential members of Soviet society helped to create the groundswell that undermined the communist regime, and that public diplomats made these outcomes possible by being equipped with the necessary tools of statecraft, as well as by wielding an important measure of influence over policy-makers. The fall of the Soviet Union merely underscores their notion that public diplomacy during the Cold War was a success. It would thus seem that the problems of today could be remedied by adopting lessons from the past. This article explores the viability of this claim by reviewing the ongoing debate on how the historical memory and lessons of Cold War-era public diplomacy may be applied to the challenges of the post-'9/11' era. Of particular importance is ascertaining the degree to which the Cold War's campaigns of information, influence and engagement could be viewed as a success. By subdividing public diplomacy's activities in these ways, greater potential exists to attribute these activities to more compelling determinations of success or failure.

scholarly journals Communist Party in the Power System of the USSR

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-35
Author(s):  
A. Ya. LIVSHIN
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Party State

In this article major mechanisms and different stages of the  Bolshevik party’s transformation into a “party-state” are examined.  The Communist party has been brought to the surface of political life and power by the Russian revolution; the organizational  principles of the Party along with its approaches to political process  have to a larger extent evolved as results of the revolution.  Therefore the system of power which has reached its peak during  Stalin’s rule has both been the product of continuity as well as  change of the Russian political tradition. The Communist ideology  has served as main instrument of communication between the  authorities and the people. The Party occupied central position in  that system of communication; one of the most important tools of  the Party’s control over the Soviet society was propaganda. However the process of the communist regime acquiring legitimacy  has been rather lengthy; it was completed only by the late 1920s.  The basic principles of “unity” within a ruling group were rejected  when rivalry for power ended in Stalin’s favor. The central element in  the Communist party’s system of power was the ruling  elite – nomenclature. During World War II the institution of “party- state” has reached the highest degree of centralization; but  on the other hand, the decision-making system was rather flexible and adaptable as compared with the previous period. After  the War even within Stalin’s dictatorship the contours of oligarchic “collective leadership” were emerging. N. Khrushchev used  the same instrument as Stalin did – control over the Party apparatus – while consolidating his power. One of the important  results of Khrushchev’s rule was the institutionalization of the ruling  bureaucracy. Maintaining “stability” became the slogan for the new  stage of the Communist regime’s evolution. Socio- economic system  was getting increasingly complex and less manageable; different hierarchies, including local and industrial elites, have been failing to  make timely and correct decisions due to their rigidness and  sluggishness. The Party was attempting to compensate those  deficiencies, but was less and less capable of doing so. Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” which was based on the idea of democratic socialism  has finally ended the rule of the “party-state”. Having lost its internal  integrity the system of power has rapidly deteriorated.

Apocrypha from the History of the Jewish Military Union and its Authors

2008 ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Dariusz Libionka
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
History Of

This article is an attempt at a critical analysis of the history of the Jewish Fighting Union (JFU) and a presentation of their authors based on documents kept in the archives of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. The author believes that an uncritical approach and such a treatment of these materials, which were generated under the communist regime and used for political purposes resulted in a perverted and lasting picture of the history of this fighting organisation of Zionists-revisionists both in Poland and Israel. The author has focused on a deconsturction of the most important and best known “testimonies regarding the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising”, the development and JFU participation in this struggle, given by Henryk Iwaƒski, WΠadysΠaw Zajdler, Tadeusz Bednarczyk and Janusz Ketling–Szemley.A comparative analysis of these materials, supplemented by important details of their war-time and postwar biographies, leaves no doubt as to the fact that they should not be analysed in terms of their historical credibility and leads one to conclude that a profound revision of research approach to JFU history is necessary.

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL AND LEGAL DISCOURSE OF ETHNIC AND NATIONAL CONFLICTS IN RUSSIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-64
Author(s):  
ANDREY KURIUKIN ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
New Research ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Developing System

The issue of ethnic relations and the conflicts generated by them is acutely relevant. Many branches and directions of modern science study it. Political science and jurisprudence are in the foreground of the modern study of ethno-national conflictology. Over a long period of research, they have developed several influential approaches that have become widespread. The growing complexity of the surrounding political and legal reality, the escalation of conflict in society, including ethno-national, require the search and application of new research paradigms. One of these is the analysis of political and legal discourse, which consists in studying the ways of how legal meanings, ideas, opinions and preferences, which are carried by legislators, are technically and meaningfully embodied in the texts of normative acts, subsequently forming a specific political and legal reality. Analyzing the domestic ethno-conflictological political and legal discourse, the author concludes that in the era of the Russian Empire, the legalization of ethno-national relations had little attention from legislators, the documents adopted in the 19th century carried widespread ideas of the legislative theory and existed unchanged until 1917. The basic paradigm of the Soviet political and legal regulation of ethno-national relations was the ideological dogmas of the theorists of Marxism-Leninism, within which, in Soviet society, such a phenomenon as an ethno-national conflict was denied, but, in fact, existed. At the present stage, after the acute events of the second half of the 1980s - 1990s, a serious system of political and legal regulation of ethno-national relations was developed. It bore fruit. Today, the domestic political and legal regulation of ethno-national relations has the character of a developing system designed to adequately respond to changes. The article can be used to improve the state social and legal policy of the Russian Federation. Also, the materials presented can provide the interest of students, graduate students, teachers, researchers and other people who are interested in the current social, political and legal development of Russia.

Student construction squads: to the question of the movement origins

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
O. L. Ryabchenko
Keyword(s):  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Voluntary Basis

The article deals with the illegitimacy of the identification of the mobilization campaigns of the 1920's and 1930's with the student construction movement of the 1950s-80s. It is noted that mobilizations were conducted compulsorily throughout the academic year, the students were suspended from classes for different terms, while student building units from the very beginning were formed on a voluntary basis for working during summer holidays. It is noted that the students work in the early Soviet society was not notable for enthusiasm and uplifting, since the cases of mass negative attitude towards it were recorded.

Ideology and Politics in Soviet Society

1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-44
Author(s):  
R. Medvedev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Society
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