The 13th of December 1981 in the political history of Poland: view through 35 years

Author(s):  
Vladislav Strutynsky

By analyzing one of the most eventful periods of the modern history of Poland, the early 80s of the XX century, the author examines the dynamics of social and political conflict on the eve of the introduction of martial law, which determines the location of the leading political forces in these events in Poland, that were grouped around the Polish United Labor Party and the Independent trade union «Solidarity», their governing structures and grassroots organizations, highlighting the development of socio-political situation in the country before entering the martial law on the 13th of December and analyzing the relation of the leading countries to the events, especially the Soviet Union. Also, the author distinguishes causes that prevent to reach the compromise in the process of realization different programs, that were offered to public and designed by PUWP and «Solidarity» and were “aimed” to help Polish society to exit an unprecedented conflict. This article provides a comparative analysis of the different analytical meaningful reasons, offered by historians, political scientists, lawyers, and led to the imposition of martial law in the Republic of Poland. The author also analyses the legality of such actions by the state and some conclusions that were reached by scientists, investigating the internal dynamics of the conflict and the process of implementation of tasks, that Polish United Workers’ Party (which ruled at that time) tried to solve with martial law and «Solidarity» was used as self-determination in Polish society. Keywords: Martial law, Independent trade union «Solidarity», inter-factory strike committee, social-political conflict, Polish United Workers’ Party, the Warsaw Pact, the Military Council of National Salvation

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 575-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Ciscel

The politics of language identity have figured heavily in the history of the people of the Republic of Moldova. Indeed the region's status as a province of Russia, Romania, and then the Soviet Union over the past 200 years has consistently been justified and, at least partially, manipulated on the basis of language issues. At the center of these struggles over language and power has been the linguistic and cultural identity of the region's autochthonous ethnicity and current demographic majority, the Moldovans. In dispute is the degree to which these Moldovans are culturally, historically, and linguistically related to the other Moldovans and Romanians across the Prut River in Romania. Under imperial Russia from 1812 to 1918 and Soviet Russia from 1944 to 1991, a proto-Moldovan identity that eschewed connections to Romania and emphasized contact with Slavic peoples was promoted in the region. Meanwhile, experts from Romania and the West have regularly argued that the eastern Moldovans are indistinguishable, historically, culturally, and linguistically, from their Romanian cousins.


Author(s):  
Ulambayar Denzenlkham

This article discusses Mongolia’s 15 years of diplomatic efforts to join the United Nations, the main factors that influenced it, and the changing policies and positions of the Soviet Union, the Kuomintang of China, the United States, and other great powers. Although the Mongolian People’s Republic was able to join the United Nations in 1946, it was influenced by the Soviet Union’s communist position. Since 1946, Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese policy and position have been a major obstacle. The history of the Republic of China, which existed on the mainland between 1912 and 1949, was the history of the struggle for power between the warlords, the history of the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communists. In the nearly 40 years since the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, neither the warlords nor the Kuomintang have been able to exercise their sovereignty on the mainland, but they are keen to see Outer Mongolia as part of their territory. The Kuomintang was expelled from the mainland in 1949, shortly after 1946. During the Korean War, initiated by Kim Il-sung, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, Mongolia stood firmly behind North Korea, providing both moral and material support. It has not been mentioned anywhere that this resulted in Mongolia’s efforts at the UN being postponed for many years. When Communist China entered the Korean War, the Kuomintang, which fully supported the US-led UN military operation (peacekeeping), not only continuously provoked at the Security Council of the United Nations, but also presented false documents about the MPR - described as “a Chinese territory seized by the Soviet Union” - sending troops to North Korea.The United States, which has recognized the status quo of the Mongolian People’s Republic, has made it clear that it has played an important role in the country’s admission to the United Nations. Thus Mongolia’s attempt finally succeeded and it became the 101st state to join the United Nations. As a consequence, Mongolia’s independence has been approved by a recognize of Western powers and it began to emerge out of its isolation, participate in decision of global issues, and cooperate with the international community. However, not only did this opportunity not be fully exploited, but due to the Cold War, Mongolia became a hotbed of ideological competition between the socialist and capitalist systems at the United Nations, the speakers’ rostrum Nevetheless,Post-Cold War, a whole new era of cooperation between Mongolia and the United Nations began.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-90
Author(s):  
Gisela Parak

The enforcement of martial law in Poland in December 1981, a major setback to the policy of détente, contributed to a cooling of international diplomacy and triggered a second phase in the Cold War. This analysis of the photo book Pologne by Magnum photographer Bruno Barbey, published in 1982, shows how the photo book commented on the political situation in Poland and gave a vivid testimony from major protagonists in the field. This article argues that the book was not merely a ‘documentary’, but also dared to offer a transnational response to the events of the day and, as such, reflected wider French sympathy for the aims and requests of Polish citizens, as seen by a French photographer. Moreover, Barbey attempted to introduce Polish history in general, and Poland’s burdened relationship to the Soviet Union in particular, in order to suggest that it belonged to the history of Western democratic states across the Iron Curtain.


2021 ◽  
pp. 213-239
Author(s):  
Aleksander Głogowski

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MILITARY AND CIVIL UNDERGROUND IN THE VILNIUS REGION IN 1939-1941 The first years of the occupation of the Vilnius Region were an unusual period in terms of the history of the Polish Underground State and the Polish armed resistance movement. This area was occupied after September 17, 1939 by the Soviet Union, but part of it was transferred to the Republic of Lithuania, along with which it was re-incorporated into the Soviet Union. The Lithuanian occupation was a considerable challenge both for the Polish authorities in exile and for the inhabitants of the Vilnius Region. Meeting such a challenge required certain diplomatic talents (not to worsen the situation of Poles living in this area) as well as knowledge of the relations in the area, which was a problem for the Polish authorities in France, and especially in Great Britain. The Polish inhabitants of the Vilnius Region considered the legal status of their land to be illegal occupation, while the Lithuanians claimed that thanks to a new agreement with the USSR, the period of occupation of these lands by Poles ended. These opinions, together with the mutual resentments and stereotypes flourishing for nearly 20 years, made the peaceful coexistence of two nations difficult, or even impossible. The government of the Republic of Poland tried to prevent the attempts to start an anti-Lithuanian uprising, not wanting to provoke the other two occupiers into military intervention. To this stage, it sought an intermediate solution between the abandonment of any conspiracy (which carried the threat of forming armed groups beyond the control of the legal Polish authorities) and its development on a scale known, for example, from the German or Soviet occupation. The Vilnius Region was to become the personnel and organisational base for the latter. The dilemma was resolved without Polish participation at the time of the annexation of the Republic of Lithuania by the Soviets. Then the second period of the Soviet occupation began, characterised by much greater brutality than the first one, with mass arrests, executions and deportations. The policy of repression primarily affected the pre-war military staff and their families, who were the natural base for the resistance movement of the intelligentsia. Fortunately, this process ended at the time of the German aggression against the USSR. Those that survived the period of the “second Soviet invasion” could in the new conditions continue their underground activities and prepare for an armed uprising in the circumstances and in the manner indicated by the Home Army Headquarters and the Polish Government in London.


Slavic Review ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Evans Clements

Traditionally in surveys of Soviet history, if Alexandra Kollontai is mentioned she is presented briefly as the advocate of the “glass of water theory of sex,” a woman who practiced free love as freely as she preached it. The lecturer then moves on to more serious concerns, having ignored the history of a tormented, perceptive woman intimately involved in the early Soviet experiment in female emancipation. Kollontai advocated far more than free love, and the role she played was far greater than that of mistress to Alexander Shliapnikov. From 1917 until her departure from the Soviet Union in 1923 she held positions of major importance in the young government and in the Bolshevik party. Kollontai worked first as an agitator in 1917, then took the post of commissar of state welfare from November 1917 to March 1918, when she resigned in protest against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In 1921 she joined the Workers' Opposition, adding to Shliapnikov's proposals for trade-union reform her own call for party and government democratization and giving articulate voice to those demands in an often-cited pamphlet, The Workers' Opposition. Throughout the revolutionary years she was recognized as a major authority on the problems of women and child care. Since Kollontai did play an important role in the early period of Soviet history, her personality and ideology warrant study. That study in turn reveals a woman who perceived the problems of womanhood with clarity and who wrote about and sought a liberation beyond the comprehension of many of her contemporaries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 963-971
Author(s):  
K. V. Yumatov ◽  
K. N. Sivina

The research featured the history of the interstate relations between Azerbaijan and the Republic of Turkey, its main stages and issues, as well as its dependence on various internal political changes and political figures. What began as an internal conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan during Perestroika in the Soviet Union grew into an interstate affair, which currently involves the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The author believes that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh after the military conflict of 2020 is an important part in historical and political studies on the Azerbaijan – Turkey relations. Initially, Turkey took a pro-Azerbaijani position in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, its negative attitude to Armenia put it on the periphery of the peacekeeping process in the OSCE Minsk Group. Guided by the ideology of "one people, two countries", Turkey helped Azerbaijan to overcome the political and economic crisis in the 1990s, as well as to lobby its interests in the UN, the NATO, the OSCE, and the OIC. In 2020, Erdogan’s expansionist policy allowed Azerbaijan to regain most territories annexed by Armenia during the Karabakh war in the 1990s.


Menotyra ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Skirmantė Smilingytė-Žeimienė

After celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Lithuania and turning back to the field of reflection of Lithuanian art, one can enjoy mature publications by art historians and the exposure of various stages and aspects of art life. However, one gap is noticeable: the creative heritage of individual artists is too little publicised and investigated. The article aims to activate the scientific dialogue on the prospects of research into activities of sculptor Juozas Zikaras (1881–1944), the Lithuanian art “signatory” and the main creator of visual-artistic signs of the young Lithuanian State. This is why the fragments of his biography so far unknown are raised. For example, in the summer of 1912, J. Zikaras created decorations for the performance “Duke of Pilėnai”; in 1923, he was ill for a long time and visited Italy; and in 1940, when he was nearly sixty, he entered the Riflemen’s Union witnessing the impending threat of the Soviet Union to his country. Most importantly, remarks are presented about the most notable catalogue about artist Juozas Zikaras up to the present time (prepared in 2009 by the National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum as the main custodian of his creations, authors Miglė Banytė and Vaiva Laukaitienė). The list of sculptural works is completed, and the attributes, dates and history of some works are updated. An attempt is made to identify prominent individuals of the pre-war era in the sculptural portraits created by J. Zikaras: undoubtedly – Colonel Stepas Rusteika, supposedly – Jonas Bielinis, Jonas Yčas, Povilas Žadeikis or Petras Klimas. After all, an extensive gallery of sculptural images is not just a series of realised artistic orders but also an ideological expression of the sculptor’s position – the society should know and recognise its characters. The newly attributed works and the revised dates established in the historiography allow us to say: we need a closer look at the artistic inheritance of the sculptor and to check the facts that became axioms. A more in-depth study of J. Zikaras’ creation and the spreading of art image and cultural relations during the past century in general would benefit from the summary of data about the circulation of author’s works, replicas and the change of owners of his works. On the other hand, in order to open the artistic creation as a whole, it is necessary to supplement the catalogue of his works with the surviving ones (there are sculptures in Lithuania that are not included in the catalogue, and the situation with works that are taken abroad is not known at all) as well as works considered lost.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth P. Coughlan

On December 13, 1981, the Polish military under the leadership of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law, effectively ending sixteen months of popular protest and bargaining between the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP) and the independent trade union Solidarity. In the West, and particularly in the United States, martial law was interpreted as the Polish military declaring war on its own people on the orders of the Soviet Union. It was assumed and repeatedly asserted that the military was loyal to the Communist Party and to the Soviet high command, that they were little more than communists in uniform.  Such an assertion, however, leaves one hard pressed to explain the acquiescence of the militaries across Eastern Europe to the changes of 1989 and the ability of those militaries to adapt to noncommunist regimes to the point of being willing and even eager to join NATO.


Author(s):  
A. A. Tokarev

Abstract: One year ago, the referendum was held in the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea which resulted in the peninsula becomino part of Russia. This article discusses all Crimean voting, including referendums and elections: from the first referendum in the history of the Soviet Union in January 1991, to the last election to the State Council of the Republic of Crimea within the Russian Federation in September 2014. For each vote, except for the regional elections, the average results of the main candidates are presented in the Crimea and in Ukraine. Sevastopol always has particular identity and special administrative status of the city, regardless of the sovereign center title (Moscow or Kyiv). That`s why we give the data for Sevastopol in addition to the Crimea for each vote. The author analyzes the voting results and compares them with those in other south-eastern regions of Ukraine. A special Crimean identity postulates in this case and changing of regional political trends in Ukraine in the mid-2000s are given. After 2002, Donetsk and Luhansk regions provided 70-100% of support to ”Party of Regions“ and its leader. While their main rivals always received minimum points from the Donbass. Crimea and Sevastopol were always in second position supporting the ruling party until the end of their Ukrainian history. For a visual comparison of the difference in votes of the Crimea, Sevastopol and the whole Ukraine, the author offers the original graph. In addition, the article focuses on the results and sociological basis of the last Crimean referendum held in March 2014. On the one hand its procedure creates many questions: the lack of equality in the agitation, the presence of paramilitaries, the vote in the absence of actual voter lists, etc. On the other hand, there are, at least, 4 researches of Ukrainian and American sociological services, according to which the sovereignty of Russia is a real value perceived by the majority of Crimea and Sevastopol citizens.


Author(s):  
Vadim Moldovan ◽  
Eugeniu Rotari ◽  
Vadim Tarna ◽  
Alina Zagorodniuc

The Republic of Moldova is a small post-Soviet country that has been “transitioning” from a socialist to capitalist economy since the 1990s. Once a prosperous region of the Soviet Union, it is now among the poorest countries in Europe, facing many social problems that call for a strong social work profession. However, social work is new to the country and the profession is challenged by low societal status, meager resources, and lack of cohesion. Social work in Moldova is struggling to meet these challenges with the help from the West and the emergence of an indigenous model of professionalization. Child welfare, elder care, mental health, as well as the history of social work in Moldova, current state of social work education with its obstacles to and opportunities for progress will be discussed.


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