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.

scholarly journals Ideology and Political Mobilization: The Soviet Home Front during World War II

1994 ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Richard J. Brody
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
World War ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
Party Members

World War II was a defining experience for the identity of the Stalin-era Soviet Communist Party. The war accentuated fundamental problems in the identity of the civilian party as an instrument of political mobilization. The war also highlighted a deeper disjuncture between popular political mentalities within Soviet society and the official ideology of the Stalin-era party. This essay will examine efforts by party political organs to propagate the official ideological line among party members during World War II and the problems party leaders encountered in training political workers to transmit the party's propaganda message to the public.

Iraq: Civil-Military Relations from the Monarchy to the Republics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed S. Hashim
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Saddam Hussein ◽  
Military Relations

Iraq is a young state, having been founded in 1921 by a colonial power, Britain. Its army was created several months beforehand, with its nucleus being Iraqi Sunni Arab officers of the former Ottoman army. As the mandate power in Iraq, Britain wanted a small internal security establishment while the officer corps and the monarchy wanted a large army that would act as a nation-building institution to make Iraqis out of the disparate ethnic groups who found themselves reluctant subjects of this new entity. As the strongest institution in the fragile state, the army played an important role in the political process and ultimately launched the first coup in the Arab world in 1936. As the older and more pliant senior officer corps retired, younger, more nationalist officers came to the fore; they were discontented with the overbearing presence of the British, the rampant cronyism and corruption in the royal court and among the ruling elite, and by the backwardness of their country. A small group of militant nationalist officers seized power and fought a brief and unsuccessful war against Britain. The power of the ruling elite was seemingly consolidated in the period after World War II. Both Iraq and the rest of the Middle East were in turmoil as colonial powers found themselves facing a rising tide of movements striving for independence. Leading the way were junior and middle-ranking officers, and in Iraq they launched a bloody coup-revolution in 1958 that destroyed the monarchy and established a republic. The Iraqi republic was unstable, due mostly to the inability of elites to establish solid institutions for governing the country and channeling mass politics effectively. The fragility and lack of legitimacy of governments provided ample opportunity for the military—which was riven by factionalism and ideological differences—to intervene regularly in the political process. The seizure of power by the nationalist and socialist Baath Party under Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein effectively put an end to the military’s political role; the Baath Party implemented a series of stringent “coup-proofing” measures between 1968 and 2003 when it was displaced from power by the U.S. invasion. The Baath Party’s measures did not mean that members of the officer corps did not try their hand at overthrowing the Baath regime; many did, but all failed, often at tremendous costs to themselves and their families. The measures of control had a deleterious effect on the professionalism and combat performance in the conventional wars that it fought between 1980 and 2003. The Americans tried to build a new Iraqi army and sought to professionalize it, but their efforts had little success. The removal of the brutal authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein did not change Iraqi politics for the better. Sunni Arab dominance was replaced by Shia Arab dominance. Post-Baath governments were kleptocratic, corrupt, and characterized by ethno-sectarian favoritism and cronyism. These characteristics pervaded the new military itself but the military’s ability to interfere in the political process has been stymied by its focus on fighting the dangerous jihadist fighters of the Islamic State (Daesh), the proliferation of government security services, and by the emergence of heavily armed and motivated pro-government militias. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

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.

Nationalism, Not Islam

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faridullah Bezhan
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Religious Establishment

Wish Zalmiyan or the ‘Awaken Youth Party’ (AYP) was the first political party to operate openly in Afghanistan. It enjoyed support from the intelligentsia and the monarchical regime. The AYP’s key ideological elements were nationalism and constitutionalism. While they made the party popular with a segment of the ruling elite and the intelligentsia, they brought resentment from the religious establishment for which Islam was the only ideology to be followed and the Quran the only constitution the country needed. This chapter examines how, in the aftermath of World War II, most members of the urban Afghan educated class leaned towards nationalism and constitutionalism as the driving forces for new political dynamics and the progress of the country. It explores what type of nationalism the Wish Zalmiyan party was advocating.

Mobile Media and Political Communication

2020 ◽  
pp. 228-243
Author(s):  
Ran Wei
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Personal Communication ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Mobile Phone Technology ◽  
Political News ◽  
Communication Devices ◽  
The Impact

To fully understand the impact of mobile phone technology on politics, this chapter provides a state-of-the-art overview of research and identifies an emerging subfield concerning the relationship between mobile media and politics. The chapter traces the evolution of mobile media from personal communication devices to tools for political participation. The growing literature on the role of various mobile devices in civic and political life is reviewed and critiqued. The specific uses of mobile media as tools in political communication, such as informational use, mobile political news, and mobile public sphere, are explicated and synthesized. The chapter also sheds light on the question of how the attributes of mobile media influence the political process in democratic and non-democratic countries. The chapter outlines key issues concerning mobile media in civic and political communication, highlighting significant predictors and mediators. Unresolved issues and debates are highlighted, and directions for future research are suggested.

The Mensheviks and NEP Society in Russia

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Brovkin
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
New Period ◽  
History Of

AbstractContemporary scholarship on the development of the Soviet political system in the 1920s has largely bypassed the history of the Menshevik opposition. Those historians who regard NEP as a mere transition to Stalinism have dismissed the Menshevik experience as irrelevant,1 and those who see a democratic potential in the NEP system have focused on the free debates in the Communist party (CP), the free peasantry, the market economy, and the free arts.2 This article aims to revise some aspects of both interpretations. The story of the Mensheviks was not over by 1921. On the contrary, NEP opened a new period in the struggles over independent trade unions and elections to the Soviets; over the plight of workers and the whims of the Red Directors; over the Cheka terror and the Menshevik strategies of coping with Bolshevism. The Menshevik experience sheds new light on the transformation of the political process and the institutional changes in the Soviet regime in the course of NEP. In considering the major facets of the Menshevik opposition under NEP, I shall focus on the election campaign to the Soviets during the transition to NEP, subsequent Bolshevik-Menshevik relations, and the writings in the Menshevik underground samizdat press.

The Malayan Communist Party and the Indonesian Communist Party: Features of Co-operation

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hara Fujio
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
World War ◽  
Representative Office

AbstractThis is an analysis of the relations between the Malayan Communist Party and the Indonesian Communist Party in several areas. It will begin with a discussion of the mutual support between the PKI leaders and the Kesatuan Melayu Muda prior to the declaration of Emergency in 1948, followed by an examination of their cooperation immediately after World War II. The second part will look at the activities of the MCP members in Indonesia up to the establishment of the Representative Office of the Malayan National Liberation League in Jakarta. There will be an account of the overt activities of the Representative Office and its covert activities after its closure. The article will also ascertain the actual relations between the two based on a close examination of the official documents of the two parties.

Revitalizing the State's Urban “Nerve Tips”

2000 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 806-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Read
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Urban Residents ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Base Level ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Party State ◽  
Mao Era

While observers of China have always paid attention to the “base-level” administrative institutions and mass organizations created by the Communist party-state, urban Residents' Committees (RCs; jumin weiyuanhui) have received relatively little study in recent years. Though the RCs remain pervasive in most areas of most cities and engage the energies of millions of activists and volunteers, this neglect is understandable. During the Mao era, Western writing on neighbourhood organizations emphasized their role in helping to police and administer the harsh political order that gripped the cities. In the 1980s and 1990s, the authorities have yielded much greater space to a private sphere in which law-abiding individuals are relatively free from intrusion. Instruments of state penetration such as the RCs have seemed less worthy of analysis. They also lack the requisite autonomy to qualify as part of an emergent civil society, and moreover their limited progress in serving as a focus for democratic participation earns them much less international attention than their rural equivalents, the Villagers' Committees. They may even seem worthy of derision rather than study; merely mentioning the term juweihui often brings an amused smile to people's faces, as it connotes ageing, officious busy bodies poking into people's personal matters.

Dr. Radan Angelov Sarafov and his sacrifice for democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-247
Author(s):  
Ilko Drenkov
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The People ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Public Audience ◽  
The Cold War

Dr. Radan Sarafov (1908-1968) lived actively but his life is still relatively unknown to the Bulgarian academic and public audience. He was a strong character with an ulti-mate and conscious commitment to democratic Bulgaria. Dr. Sarafov was chosen by IMRO (Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization) to represent the idea of coop-eration with Anglo-American politics prior to the Second World War. Dr. Sarafov studied medicine in France, specialized in the Sorbonne, and was recruited by Colonel Ross for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), remaining undisclosed after the with-drawal of the British legation in 1941. After World War II, he continued to work for foreign intelligence and expanded the spectrum of cooperation with both France and the United States. After WWII, Sarafov could not conform to the reign of the communist regime in Bulgaria. He made a connection with the Anglo-American intelligence ser-vices and was cooperating with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for more than a decade. Sarafov was caught in 1968 and convicted by the Committee for State Securi-ty (CSS) in Bulgaria. The detailed review of the past events and processes through personal drama and commitment reveals the disastrous core of the communist regime. The acknowledgment of the people who sacrificed their lives in the name of democrat-ic values is always beneficial for understanding the division and contradictions from the time of the Cold War.

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