scholarly journals “Some deputies hesitated until the last moment.” On the road to Ukrainian independence

Author(s):  
Anton KRUTIKOV

The reluctant alliance between Ukrainian nationalists and the Communist Party and economic nomenklatura in August 1991 was one of the key factors in the declaration of Ukrainian independence. The Ukrainian political class preserved its monolithic character, which was reflected in the decorative and mostly formal changes that took place in the country after 1991. Instead of a profound transformation of the political system and structure of the political power, Ukrainian society received essentially the same set of institutions, political practices and actors. Personal interests of Ukrainian elites, guided by the instinct for self-preservation, played a decisive role.

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Brovkin

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.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Werner

Martin Luther King and East Germany are connected both directly and indirectly. The Communist Party had the power to make public decisions on agenda-setting topics related to Martin Luther King. The Christian Bloc Party mostly represented the state and published books by Martin Luther King, which churches and the civil rights movement liked to use. Moreover, pacifists and civil rights activists used these books to undermine the political system in East Germany. Church institutions reported by far the most on Martin Luther King. This empirical study, which can also act as a basis for further research on Martin Luther King and East Germany, will appeal to both church staff and admirers of Martin Luther King.


2020 ◽  
pp. 606-618
Author(s):  
Ibitayo Samuel Popoola

This probing thesis in this study is on how the political class in colonial and post-colonial Nigeria established, maintained, improved and controls the machinery of the state through the press. While establishing media ownership and unequal media access as key factors responsible for the emergence of the political class, the study similarly discovered that the political class emerged because they were read, advertised or packaged by the press. Robert C. North (1967:301) says “politics could not exist without communication, nor could wars be fought.” The media are also the playing field on which politics occurs” (Perloff 2014:37). They are also the strategic routes through which aspiring politicians must travel during elections. Through a case study method of analysis, this study discovered that the political class emerged because they were read, advertised, and publicized by the press. For this reason, the political class regarded the press as partners in progress.


Slavic Review ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. von Lazar

This article examines the relationship between the semantics of ideology and political practice under the pressure of socio-economic change in Hungary of the early 1960s, especially 1962-63. The events of 1956 forced the Communist Party elite to recognize the imperative need for internal social change and for control over its dynamics. Manipulation of social forces and ideological currents became a day-to-day concern as soon as it was realized that the political system must rely to an increasing extent upon the introduction of policies which induced support for the system itself—a need undoubtedly arising out of the social transformation that accompanies a developing and modernizing industrial society.


1966 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-132
Author(s):  
Ralf Dahrendorf

Imperial Germany had a monopolistic elite which managed to establish and uphold, with the assistance of an authoritarian welfare state, the apparent paradox of an industrial feudal society. Members of this elite held many of the leading positions in German society themselves, but others they passed into strange, if safely controlled hands. The monopoly broke along with the political system of Imperial Germany. But the memory of—and at times nostalgia for— the masters of the monopoly, whose passing turned out to be a long process, followed their surviving servants throughout the Weimar Republic. In any case, no distinct new political class emerged before that created by the National Socialist leadership clique and this was, once again, if in a more precarious version, monopolistic. East German society has followed in this tradition in its own, apparently similar, although substantively peculiar, manner. Moreover, there can be no doubt that these traditions reverberate in West German society as well; not even total defeat produces a social tabula rasa. But two features characteristic of traditional German elites are now absent: first, the monopoly of one elite, or indeed the claim to it; and secondly, the nostalgic memory which the leadership groups of the Weimar Republic had of such a monopoly.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 796-801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Casson ◽  
Michael McKenna ◽  
Stephen High

A well-defined co-translational pathway couples the synthesis and translocation of nascent polypeptides into and across the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), thereby minimizing the possibility of the hydrophobic signals and transmembrane domains that such proteins contain from being exposed to the cytosol. Nevertheless, a proportion of these co-translational substrates may fail to reach the ER, and therefore mislocalize to the cytosol where their intrinsic hydrophobicity makes them aggregation-prone. A range of hydrophobic precursor proteins that employ alternative, post-translational, routes for ER translocation also contribute to the cytosolic pool of mislocalized proteins (MLPs). In this review, we detail how mammalian cells can efficiently deal with these MLPs by selectively targeting them for proteasomal degradation. Strikingly, this pathway for MLP degradation is regulated by cytosolic components that also facilitate the TRC40-dependent, post-translational, delivery of tail-anchored membrane proteins (TA proteins) to the ER. Among these components are small glutamine-rich tetratricopeptide repeat-containing protein α (SGTA) and Bcl-2-associated athanogene 6 (BAG6), which appear to play a decisive role in enforcing quality control over hydrophobic precursor proteins that have mislocalized to the cytosol, directing them to either productive membrane insertion or selective ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 119-127
Author(s):  
Viktor Mironenko ◽  

The fourth and final article prepared in the Centre for Ukrainian Studies of the Institute of Europe of the RAS for the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence cycle, devoted to the way in which the features of transformation of Ukrainian society and the State addressed in previous articles were reflected in the celebrations, discourses and narratives. The opportunity to analyse the country’s path has not been fully exploited. The anniversary events were held, leaving a sense of understatement. This to a certain extent characterizes the situation – internal and external – in which the Ukrainian Republic found itself at the beginning of the fourth decade of its sovereign independent existence. His romantic period is over, and the realistic one has not been started yet. A sense of general uncertainty and political indecision has been left from the events and judgments of the anniversary year. The conclusion proposed by the author of the article is that the time for waiting, declarations and palliatives for Ukraine has passed. It is time for sober judgment and decisive action. Countries face a decisive reboot of the political system and a critical review of the goals, means and pace of modernization and development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-297
Author(s):  
Shang-Jen Chen

The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness is Reinhold Niebuhr’s major treatise on democratic theory. A reassessment of the book with particular attention to Niebuhr’s theological analyses of human sinfulness, individual ownership, and toleration may help us to understand the political and economic situation in China. The Communist Party of mainland China (CPC) consistently upholds the exclusiveness of the Party’s leadership and a one-party political system. This article will explore whether it is plausible to construct a free, just, and affluent society without democracy, as the CPC proclaims.


Author(s):  
Alexandr V. Guschin ◽  

The article is devoted to the analysis of the main trends in the internal political development of Ukraine within the year since coming to power of President Vladimir Zelensky and the “Servant of the People” party. The author identifies key factors contributing to the recessionary trends in the work of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, examines the main shortcomings of the personnel policy of the new authorities, analyzes the possibility of the collapse of the parliamentary majority, characterizes the problem of a drop in the ratings of the current government and the growth of sympathy for the opposition parties among voters of the party “Servant of the People”, provides a forecast of a possible electoral scenario in the local elections in the autumn of 2020, considering the impact of the coronavirus epidemic in the political life of the country. Special attention is paid to the confrontation between local and central authorities, as well as to the problem of regionalization of Ukraine, taking into account the risk of its transition to an uncontrolled state. The author concludes that, although the Ukrainian authorities have managed to achieve certain tactical successes, they have not yet managed to systematically strengthen their position in the eyes of the society, or start reformatting the country. Many election promises have not been fulfilled; the government’s initiatives are declarative and do not affect the foundations of the Ukrainian political system, which needs radical reform.


Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Wolin

This chapter considers the political uses of “democracy” in relation to two diametrically opposed notions that symbolize two equally opposed states of affairs. One is the settled structure of politics and governmental authority typically called a constitution, and the other is the unsettling political movement typically called revolution. Constitution signifies the suppression of revolution, while revolution signifies the destruction of constitution. The two notions, though opposed, are connected by democracy. The English revolution of 1688, the American one of 1776, and the French of 1789 are generally considered major milestones on the road to modern democracy. The first two have long been interpreted as culminating in constitutional settlements that, in effect, justified and fulfilled the prior revolutions. In contrast, the French continue to look back on their revolutionary past with far more ambivalence than either the British or Americans.


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