The Smolensk Scandal and the End of NEP

Slavic Review ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Brower

The events of the last years of NEP—the New Economic Policy—confront historians with two complex and still controversial issues: the effect of these “new” policies on the Russian economy, on society, and on methods of Communist rule in the country and the political conflict dividing the party leadership in the late 1920s. The first issue raises the question of the extent to which NEP was evolving in a direction compatible with the Communists' dream of a socialist society, with the short-term political needs of the Soviet state, and with the priorities of economic development. The second issue focuses on the political instability generated by the controversy over domestic policy and methods of rule, as well as by the personal antagonism between the two key political leaders, Nikolai Bukharin and Stalin. The debate on these questions, answers to which are crucial to our understanding of the origins of Stalinism, has for the most part relied on evidence drawn from central party and state activities, giving the discussion a panoramic view of the history of those years.

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
Ram Krishna Tiwari

This paper deals with the political development of Nepal and its history of armed conflict. The formation of Nepali nation-state is not very long, again throughout its political history Nepal remained an independent country, but this country experienced a decade long political conflict from 1996 to 2006. The failure of political change of 1951 and 1990 prepared a political ground for the official beginning the People’s War, and after 2006 the country is moving into the path of peace process. Similarly, the formation of political parties has not a long history compared it with the beginning of democratic movement in India, China and other countries of the world. The poor political vision of the political leaders failed to institutionalize the political change of Nepal, and now the ongoing peace process of Nepal should erase all the weaknesses and conclude it for building prosperous nation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleida Assmann

The first part of the article invites a fresh look at the often defined concepts of ‘space’ and ‘place’, connecting them to different subject positions, mental frames and projects. The second part addresses memory issues that underlie the political conflict between the state of Israel and Palestinians in the Near East. It will analyse two seemingly incompatible memories related to the same events and topography. The focus of the essay is not only on the divisive force with which two incompatible histories are constructed in the same landscape but also on recent memory practices and performances that raise awareness of this impasse and work towards a more complex and inclusive transnational memory of the entangled history of 1948.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-178
Author(s):  
Girdhari Dahal

The people of Nepal have witnessed different political movements in the political history of Nepal. The political movements are influenced by different philosophies. Gita philosophy as well has marked distinct impact in the politics of Nepal. The people of Nepal had to bear a lot of injustice, oppression and exploitation during Rana rule. Although the governments prior to Rana rule were also not so much democratic, to some extent they were directed to public welfare. At the time of Rana rule there had taken place many reformations in global politics, but Nepali people were denied off very common citizen rights. So, there was a need for a democratic movement in Nepal. In the campaigns for democratic movements then, there was a very significant impact of Gita philosophy. It is found from this study that four martyrs of 1997BS and founder leaders of Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party were influenced by the ideas of Gita philosophy and the general public has a great faith on the Gita philosophy. Gita philosophy has formed the foundations for the democratic movement in Nepal. And even after the establishment of democracy in Nepal, there were series of political changes in Nepal. And in the revolutions or campaigns for restoration of democracy or for the republic, there has been a role of different political leaders and as many of the first-generation leaders are still in active politics, we can find direct or indirect influence of Gita philosophy in Nepalese politics. Though the later generations of leadership seem to have less knowledge about Gita, their activities and the political interests matched with the principles of Gita philosophy.


1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Powell

The political history of Liberalism in the twenty years after 1886 was dominated by two great concerns: the need to find a unifying platform for the party which would be capable of sustaining it as an effective political force in the post-Gladstonian era and the need to come to terms with the growing economic and political strength of organized Labour. It was axiomatic that the two concerns were closely connected and that ‘social reform’ was the crucial link between them. It seemed clear that a more active social policy would not only renew the reforming impetus of Liberalism, but would also enable the Liberals to retain working-class support and so help to prevent the formation of a separate Labour party. This was the assumption that spurred Liberals to a redefinition of their political creed and led to the formulation of a ‘new Liberalism’ committed to policies of state intervention and social reform of the kind implemented by Asquith, Churchill and Lloyd George after 1906.3 However, while the New Liberalism may have acted as a cohering influence on the Liberal party (itself a moot point) and provided a firm intellectual justification for its policies, it proved less successful as a means of retaining Labour's undivided electoral support. With the formation, first of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and then of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, there was set in train the formal organizational separation of the Liberal and Labour parties that was so drastically to affect the subsequent fortunes of Liberalism and so decisively to shape the pattern of modern British politics. The question that remains is whether this rift was the result of the tardiness with which the Liberals adopted their new policies, whether it was the product of other, quite separate factors, or whether in some way the nature of the New Liberalism itself may have contributed to the breach.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Sakaki

Although Japan–South Korea relations have been volatile throughout the postwar era, ties deteriorated to an unprecedented degree after 2011, with mutual mistrust hitting unseen heights. Focusing on this time period, the chapter analyzes the causes of the downturn. Previous studies show that bilateral tensions stem from clashes in the two countries’ national identity conceptions and historical disagreements more generally. While this chapter acknowledges the continuing relevance of these underlying sources of friction, it argues that ties have come under additional pressure from two spheres. First, pressure has built from the “inside”—the domestic-societal contexts—pushing the respective political leaders, who are mindful of public support and electoral effects, toward more nationalist positions vis-à-vis the other country. Consequently, the political room for mutual accommodation and compromise has shrunk. Second, pressure has built from the “outside”—from changes in the international arena. Tokyo and Seoul hold differing views on how to prioritize and respond to key international challenges, sowing mutual strategic mistrust. At the same time, Japan’s relative importance to Korea has fallen amid shifting economic ties in the region. With rising pressure from both “inside” and “outside,” the traditional bonds underpinning mutual cooperation have eroded, sending relations to their lowest point in the history of bilateral normalized relations since 1965.


2000 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 124-127
Author(s):  
Susan R. Henderson

These two books concern major chapters in the history of mass housing: Amsterdam in the first two decades of the century and “Red Vienna.” Both programs were models of state welfare reform, but the political contexts are totally at odds: Amsterdam, with its settlement initiatives achieved through a corporatist compromise among moderate parties, and Vienna, where the Social Democrats attempted literally to build socialism in the midst of “a highly charged, often violent political conflict between left and right” (Blau, 13).


Author(s):  
Andrey L. Yurganov ◽  

The article studies the concept of “general line” in the history of the Bolshevik Party during the second half of the 1920s. N.I. Bukharin first introduced that concept into the political lexicon, speaking at the Fourteenth Party Conference (1925). The concept fixed the basic idea of the new economic policy – that it was necessary to fight against two tendencies: against considering the kulaks as the main peasant force in the village and against ignoring the main figure in the village – the middleman. That notion had a debatable meaning – above all. It was actively used by representatives of the united opposition. It was not until the beginning of 1929, when the transition from the new economic policy to the methods of military-administrative management of agriculture was outlined, that the notion of the “general line” of the Party began to express the opinion of the Central Committee of the Party and the General Secretary personally. At the beginning of 1929, Stalin posed the question that any disagreement, even the slightest, with the “general line” of the Party in conditions of aggravation of the class struggle meant a “rightwing deviation”. Subsequently, the concept became the symbolic designation of totalitarianism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 26-34
Author(s):  
T. C. Falana

The challenge in the philosophical understanding of ‘suicide’ is aptly a rarely researched aspect of Yoruba social history. The recent conscious of the concept depicts an anti-social behaviour which the society disapproved, while the pre-colonial understanding of it paints an honour and heroic move often made not only by the Alaafins but as well as other well-respected individuals in the society. However, the key to accepting the position of suicide hides in the Yorubas’ general understanding of death as well as their multilayered history of their traditional political leaders and military heritage. This paper opines that the philosophy behind the concept of suicide in Old Oyo Empire is motivated by the heroic understanding of death as well as a power play. This paper, however, stresses the role in which this belief has helped grow and negatively affect the empire. The research will however assist in understanding the philosophy of suicide in the state formation and growth of the old Oyo Empire. The work relied on both primary and secondary sources. It employed both descriptive and analytic methods in analyzing the data used for the study.


2019 ◽  
pp. 68-121
Author(s):  
Arvind Elangovan

This chapter examines the political history of the tumultuous years leading up to several political discussions on the eve of India’s decolonization. Conventionally appreciated only for its politics, this chapter underscores the influence that this political history had on ideas of constitutionalism. Fundamentally, the chapter points out that the Constituent Assembly (the body that eventually framed independent India’s constitution) emerged out of this political conflict and hence any claim of a presumed sovereignty of the Constituent Assembly must be tempered in the light of this history.


Author(s):  
Ioan Chirilă

"The church has had to accept the national division of Europe since the Middle Ages and adapt to this situation. This issue is relatively unclear in the case of Tran-sylvania. N. Iorga stated about the Orthodox Christian consciousness that “it was so strong that it hindered the creation of a strong national consciousness”, and this would allow us to see in the ecclesiastical organization a form of expression of uni-tary organization of Romanian ethnicity in Transylvania. The time of Transylvani-an principalities and voivodeships shows us that most often the ecclesiastical leaders were also the political leaders (see the case of Prince Andrew Báthory who was Archbishop of Warmia – Poland); so, the two concepts of ethnicity and confession reflected the same historical reality during those times. The two concepts will be-come separated only later, after the emergence of confessions other than the Eastern rite. In support of our statement, we have the correspondence between the Hungar-ian kings and officials and the papacy. Before dealing with these perspectives, we shall pin down the terminology to grant the reader the possibility to understand the historical situations through a kind of thinking marked by the imprint of the Holy Scripture. Keywords: ethnicity, people, confession, dynamic status, national consciousness, Transyl-vania, the church. "


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