Milovan Djilas on the self-destruction of Communism

2021 ◽  
pp. 300-317
Author(s):  
Andrei B. Edemsky ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
New Class ◽  
Protective Reaction ◽  
Natural Result ◽  
The Cold War

The chapter presents the results of an examination of the attitude of Milovan Djilas (1911- 1995), the world's most famous opponent of Communist power and the Communist system during the Cold War, who was removed from the ranks of the political elite in the early 1950s for his critique which predicted the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the monopoly of Communist power. Djilas was convinced of the inevitability of such a finale from the second half of the 1950s, describing in his article “Storm in Eastern Europe” the theoretical beginning of the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. The validity of the three stages and the protective reaction of the USSR he predicted was confirmed in 1968 in Czechoslovakia. His hypotheses about the process of changes in Eastern Europe, the mutual influence of processes in the USSR and Eastern Europe, Stalinism as a logical continuation of Leninism, the futility of returning to Lenin's practice, and the idea of the rotting and decomposition of the governing stratum of the Communist bureaucracy (the “New Class”) as a natural result of its evolution formed the basis for his assessments of processes in the Soviet camp in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Djilas focused in his writing mainly on the activities and personality of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The complex nature of Djilas's ideas and their evolution from Marxism to critical positivism are also confirmed in the third book of his trilogy Managers and the Collapse of Communism, written in the early 1990s, about the “new class” as the losing stratum of Communists.

The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 1)

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

The largely peaceful collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 reflected the profound changes that Mikhail Gorbachev had carried out in Soviet foreign policy. Successful though the process was in Eastern Europe, it had destabilizing repercussions within the Soviet Union. The effects were both direct and indirect. The first part of this two-part article looks at Gorbachev's policy toward Eastern Europe, the collapse of Communism in the region, and the direct “spillover” from Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union. The second part of the article, to be published in the next issue of the journal, discusses the indirect spillover into the Soviet Union and the fierce debate that emerged within the Soviet political elite about the “loss” of the Eastern bloc—a debate that helped spur the leaders of the attempted hardline coup d'état in August 1991.

scholarly journals The Bridges of Ideas: Transnational Network of the Book Program for Eastern Europe, 1956-1990

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Sowinski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Free World ◽  
Transnational Network ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
The U.S

<div>This proposed contribution reflects on how one, relatively small U.S.-led program of cultural diplomacy shaped the attitude of Polish intellectuals towards liberalization and openness to the free world during the Cold War. The importance of the topic lies in the fact that this long-lasting literary service could be considered as a vital tool for creating more space for political and cultural freedom in Soviet-bloc countries. The program represented the spirit of solidarity and friendship between Eastern Europe and the U.S. that, even now, should not be forgotten. That thirty years after the book program ended, Eastern Europe still lacks a transnational perspective on defending universal liberal values and the process of gaining freedom in the region before 1989 demonstrates the importance of bringing the Eastern and Western narratives closer together, by reexamining the legacy of the book program today.</div>

scholarly journals The Bridges of Ideas: Transnational Network of the Book Program for Eastern Europe, 1956-1990

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Sowinski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Free World ◽  
Transnational Network ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
The U.S

<div>This proposed contribution reflects on how one, relatively small U.S.-led program of cultural diplomacy shaped the attitude of Polish intellectuals towards liberalization and openness to the free world during the Cold War. The importance of the topic lies in the fact that this long-lasting literary service could be considered as a vital tool for creating more space for political and cultural freedom in Soviet-bloc countries. The program represented the spirit of solidarity and friendship between Eastern Europe and the U.S. that, even now, should not be forgotten. That thirty years after the book program ended, Eastern Europe still lacks a transnational perspective on defending universal liberal values and the process of gaining freedom in the region before 1989 demonstrates the importance of bringing the Eastern and Western narratives closer together, by reexamining the legacy of the book program today.</div>

scholarly journals Sad delusions: The decline and rise of Greater Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 187936652199975
Author(s):  
Richard Sakwa
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Order ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Fundamental Tension ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
West European

The end of the Cold War was accompanied by the idea that the fall of the Berlin Wall represented the beginning of the unification of Europe. Mikhail Gorbachev talked in terms of a “Common European Home,” an idea that continues in the guise of the project for a “Greater Europe.” However, right from the start, the transformative idea of Greater Europe was countered by the notion of “Europe whole and free,” whose fundamental dynamic was the enlargement of the existing West European order to encompass the rest of the continent. This was a program for the enlargement of the Atlantic system. After some prevarication, the enlargement agenda proved unacceptable to Moscow, and while it continues to argue in favor of transformation its main efforts are now devoted to creating some sort of “greater Eurasia.” There remains a fundamental tension between Atlanticist and pan-continental version of the post-–Cold War international order in the region. This tension gave rise to conflict and war: in 2008 (the Russo-Georgian War) and again from 2014 (Ukraine), and to what some call the Second Cold War. The continent is once again divided. However, pan-continentalism is far from dead, and although Greater Eurasian ideas have thrived, some sort of Greater European continentalism remains on the agenda. Is this, though, no more than a “sad delusion” or a genuine possibility?

scholarly journals “We Are Not Copyists”: Socialist Networks and Non-alignment from Below in A. Philip Randolph’s Asian Journey

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 402-428
Author(s):  
Su Lin Lewis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Trade Unionist ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
Hearts And Minds

Abstract In 1952, A. Philip Randolph, the head of America’s largest black union and a prominent civil rights campaigner, traveled to Japan and Burma funded by the American Committee for Cultural Freedom. In Asia, he encountered socialists and trade unionists struggling to negotiate the fractious divides between communism and capitalism within postwar states. In Burma, in particular, Western powers, the Soviet bloc, and powerful Asian neighbors used propaganda, aid missions, and subsidized travel to offer competing visions of development while accusing each other of new forms of imperialism and foreign interference. In such an environment, a battle for hearts and minds within Asian labor movements constituted the front lines of the early years of the Cold War. Randolph’s journey shows us how Asian socialists and trade unionists responded to powerful foreign interests by articulating an early sense of non-alignment, forged in part through emerging Asian socialist networks, well before this was an official strategy. The Asian actors with whom Randolph interacted in Japan and Burma mirrored his own struggles as a socialist, a trade unionist, and a “railway man” while furthering his campaign for civil rights at home. This article uses Randolph’s journey to examine parallels and divergences between African-American and Asian socialists and trade unionists during the early Cold War, an age characterized by deepening splits in the politics of the Left.

Book Reviews: Women and Politics in New Zealand, Voters' Vengeance: The 1990 Election in New Zealand and the Fate of the Fourth Labour Government, The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, The Politics of the Training Market: From Manpower Services Commission to Training and Enterprise Councils, Public Policy and the Nature of the New Right, Managing the United Kingdom: An Introduction to its Political Economy and Public Policy, Citizenship and Employment: Investigating Post-Industrial Options, Government by the Market? The Politics of Public Choice, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate, Regulatory Politics in Transition, The Politics of Regulation: A Comparative Perspective, Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War and Revolution since 1945, Welfare States and Working Mothers, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States, Japan and the United States: Global Dimensions of Economic Power, Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan, Japan's Foreign Policy after the Cold War: Coping with Change, Soviet Studies Guide, Directory of Russian MPs, Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of Soviet Power, Red Sunset: The Failure of Soviet Politics, Six Years that Shook the World: Perestroika — The Impossible Project, The Politics of Transition: Shaping a Post-Soviet Future, Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference, Probabilistic Voting Theory, Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing, Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power

1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-730
Author(s):  
Preston King ◽  
Marco Cesa ◽  
Martin Rhodes ◽  
Stephen Wilks ◽  
Christopher Tremewan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Political Biography ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Regulatory Politics

Revisiting the 1954 Coup in Guatemala: The Soviet Union, the United Nations, and “Hemispheric Solidarity”

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Denise Getchell
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Cold War

This article reevaluates the U.S.-backed coup in 1954 that overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The coup is generally portrayed as the opening shot of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere and a watershed moment for U.S.–Latin American relations, when the United States supplanted its Good Neighbor Policy with a hardline anti-Communist approach. Despite the extensive literature on the coup, the Soviet Union's perspectives on the matter have received scant discussion. Using Soviet-bloc and United Nations (UN) archival sources, this article shows that Latin American Communists and Soviet sympathizers were hugely influential in shaping Moscow's perceptions of hemispheric relations. Although regional Communists petitioned the Soviet Union to provide support to Árbenz, officials in Moscow were unwilling to prop up what they considered a “bourgeois-democratic” revolution tottering under the weight of U.S. military pressure. Soviet leaders were, however, keen to use their position on the UN Security Council to challenge the authority of the Organization of American States and undermine U.S. conceptions of “hemispheric solidarity.” The coup, moreover, revealed the force of anti-U.S. nationalism in Latin America during a period in which Soviet foreign policy was in flux and the Cold War was becoming globalized.

Illiberal deliberation: Communist regime travel controls as state capacity in everyday world politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-233
Author(s):  
Astrid Hedin
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The West ◽  
Democratic Reform ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes

Much social theory takes for granted that transnational people-to-people dialogue is inherently liberal in process and content – a haven of everyday authenticity that shelters ideas of human rights and democratic reform. In contrast, this contribution shows how communist regimes built and institutionalised an encompassing administrative state capacity to control and shape micro-level professional contacts with the West. This extensive but secret system of coercion, which was brought to light only with the opening of former communist regime archives, set a markedly illiberal framework for everyday East–West deliberations during the Cold War. Effectively, the travel cadre system may not only have delayed the demise of Soviet bloc communism, by isolating the population from Western influences. It was also intended to serve as a vehicle for the discursive influence of Soviet type regimes on the West. The article provides one of the first and most detailed English language maps of the administrative routines of a communist regime travel cadre system, based on the East German example. Furthermore, drawing on social mechanisms methodology, the article sets up a micro-level ‘how it could work’ scheme over how travel cadre systems can be understood as a state capacity, unique to totalitarian regimes, to help sway political discourse in open societies.

Tropical Russian Bears: Jews and Soviet Animation During The Cold War

Images ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-90
Author(s):  
Maya Balakirsky Katz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Mickey Mouse ◽  
Social Mapping ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

After Stalin consolidated the major animation studios and closed down smaller regional studios to create a single Moscow-based drawn and puppet animation studio in 1934–36, the animation studio Soyuzmultfilm became the largest animation studio in Eastern Europe. In the 1960s, Soviet Jewish animators focused on the theme of social geography and developed individual characters in relationship to social mapping. This essay analyses the enigmatic Cheburashka, the Soviet Mickey Mouse, whose popularity as a Communist ideal led to his starring role as Soyuzmultfilm’s most enduring logo. It is particularly concerned with the development of the ethnically-unidentifiable Cheburashka against the history of the Moscow Zoo and its inter-species exhibitions.

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