Some lost worlds of Eric Hobsbawm: interviews with a communist historian: 1990-2001

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (16) ◽  
pp. 5-29
Author(s):  
Antony Howe
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formative Years

By common consent one of the finest historians of his generation, Eric Hobsbawm was also a longstanding member of the British Communist Party. In particular, his formative years as a historian spanned the period from the popular front communism of the 1930s to the post-war Communist Party Historians' Group. The background and activities of the Historians' Group have been described many times, including by Hobsbawm himself. Nevertheless, in these interviews recorded between 1990 and 2001 Hobsbawm opened up regarding the role of key networks and personalities that did not always figure in accounts like his autobiography Interesting Times. Notably among them are Dona Torr and John Morris, the historian of the classical world with whom Hobsbawm launched the journal Past and Present at the height of the Cold War.

Daily Life of the American Embassy in Czechoslovakia in 1945—1948

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6 (104)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Valery Yungblyud
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Leadership Interactions

The article is devoted to the study of various aspects of daily life of the US Embassy in Czechoslovakia in 1945—1948. The author considers the main areas of its work, major problems and difficulties that American diplomats had to overcome being in difficult conditions of the post-war economic recovery and international tension growth. Special attention is paid to the role of Ambassador L. A. Steinhardt, his methods of leadership, interactions with subordinates, with the Czechoslovak authorities and the State Department. This allows to reveal some new aspects of American diplomacy functioning, as well as to identify poorly explored factors that influenced American politics in Central Europe during the years when the Cold War was brewing and tensions between Moscow and Washington were rising. The article is based on unpublished primary sources from the American archives.

For Socialist Revolution or National Liberation?

2021 ◽  
pp. 249-272
Author(s):  
Evan Smith
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Socialist Revolution ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Surrounding Areas ◽  
The Cold War

In the post-war period, several world events, such as the installation of the so-called People’s Democracies in Eastern Europe, the victory of the Chinese Communist Party and the beginnings of decolonisation across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, led the international communist movement to foresee a period of socialist advance, frustrated by the outbreak of the Cold War. As the Party at the centre of the largest empire at the time, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) had become a conduit between anti-colonialists across the empire and Moscow. While a number of scholars have focused on the role of communists in national liberation movements in the colonies, this chapter focuses on how links with these movements and broader anti-colonial rhetoric was developed by the Communist Parties in the settler colonies, particularly South Africa and Australia. These Communist Parties acted as local representatives of the international communist movement within their spheres of influence, assisting in the anti-colonial struggle in surrounding areas. From the late 1940s until the 1960s, the CPGB, alongside the CPSA and the CPA, were greatly involved in building solidarity with anti-colonial movements across the British Empire. This chapter seeks to uncover the transnational links created by these parties in the era of decolonisation and the ways in which the Communist Parties in the Dominions worked with fraternal organisations in the colonial sphere.

Thomas J. Kiernan and Irish diplomatic responses to cold-war anticommunism in Australia, 1946-1951

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (21) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Gerard Madden
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
State And Society ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Post War ◽  
Views And Perceptions ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Catholic Church

Despite being a peripheral actor in the Cold War, Ireland in the immediate post-war period was attentive to cold war developments internationally, and the influence of the Catholic Church over state and society predominantly shaped the state's response to the conflict. Irish diplomats internationally sent home repo rts on communist activity in the countries in which they served. This article will discuss Thomas J. Kiernan, Ireland's Minister Plenipotentiary in Australia between 1946 and 1955, and his responses, views and perceptions of Australian anti-communism from his 1946 appointment to the 1951 plebiscite on banning the Communist Party of Australia, which ultimately failed. Through analysis of his reports in the National Archives of Ireland – including accounts of his interactions with politicians and clergy, the Australian press, parliamentary debates and other sources – it argues that his views were moulded by the dominant Irish conception of the Cold War, which was fundamentally shaped by Catholicism, and his overreliance on Catholic and print sources led him to sometimes exaggerate the communist threat. Nonetheless, his reports home to Dublin served to reinforce the Irish state's perception that communism was a worldwide malaise which the Catholic Church and Catholics internationally were at the forefront of combatting.

American Communists in the Popular Front Period: Reorganization or Disorganization?

1989 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Sylvers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Active Elements ◽  
Communist Movement ◽  
States Experience ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Cold War

The disintegration of the American Communist Party in the Cold War years is normally ascribed to the repression mounted by most liberals together with the McCarthyites, followed by the general crisis of the international communist movement in 1956 provoked by de-Stalinization and the invasion of Hungary. The recent new histories of the CPUSA, which deal primarily with the 1930s, have replaced the view of the Party as an essentially passive agent directed by Moscow and filled with powerhungry leaders and politically-innocent members by one which sees it as composed of politically-conscious ordinary Americans who were active elements in a society in which they were rooted. This new perspective, which accepts communism as a legitimate part of the United States experience, for the most part sees CP developments in the thirties as constructive.

BRITAIN'S ROYAL BALLET IN APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA, 1960

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
LAURA QUINTON
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cold War ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Advantage ◽  
Cultural Cold War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
First Time

Abstract This article reconstructs and analyses, for the first time, the Royal Ballet's state-sponsored tour of apartheid South Africa from February to April 1960. It traces the public outcry surrounding the company's decision to exclude its only dancer of colour, as well as the tour's planning, execution, and continuation through the Sharpeville massacre, local reception, and aftermath. In this episode of the post-war period, politics and high culture operated in tandem to sustain Britain's imperial connections amid decolonization and the Cold War. The article proposes a reframing of the ‘Wind of Change’ moment, analyses the role of ballet in Britain's cultural Cold War, and underscores the British state's willingness to set aside human and moral concerns for political advantage. Above all, it argues that, rather than being peripheral to, or merely reflecting, the British state's agenda, ballet enacted its politics.

scholarly journals 1947: Decolonisation in the Shadow of the Cold War: the Case of French Cameroon

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Rechniewski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
World War ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
The Us ◽  
French Colonies ◽  
Vital Component ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Independence Movements

The immediate post-World War Two period was marked by the consensus across the major French political parties that the retention of the empire was a vital component in the nation’s bid to recover its role in the world. This consensus extended to the French Communist Party (PCF) that had emerged as the largest post-war party and participated in the tripartite governments of the IVth Republic until May 1947. The support or lack of support that the PCF gave to independence movements in the French colonies has been widely studied in relation to Indochina and Algeria. However very little has been published on its role in the UN Trust Territory of French Cameroon, where a widely supported independence movement, the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC) sought to free the territory from French control. The focus of this article is on the evolution of PCF policy towards the colonies and on the relations between the UPC and the PCF in the crucial years 1947-57 that led up to the independence of Cameroon, through an analysis of articles in the communist press, correspondence between the two ‘fraternal’ parties, and reports by French authorities. The path that led to the suppression of the UPC in Cameroon must be understood in the context of the role of the other major players in this Cold War confrontation: the USSR and the US, the UN and the international community more broadly, and successive French governments.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

The 1945 World Order – Process with «Open» Continuation

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-79
Author(s):  
V. T. Yungblud
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
International Order ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Bipolar Structure ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War

The Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, established by culmination of World War II, was created to maintain the security and cooperation of states in the post-war world. Leaders of the Big Three, who ensured the Victory over the fascist-militarist bloc in 1945, made decisive contribution to its creation. This system cemented the world order during the Cold War years until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the destruction of the bipolar structure of the organization of international relations. Post-Cold War changes stimulated the search for new structures of the international order. Article purpose is to characterize circumstances of foundations formation of postwar world and to show how the historical decisions made by the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition powers in 1945 are projected onto modern political processes. Study focuses on interrelated questions: what was the post-war world order and how integral it was? How did the political decisions of 1945 affect the origins of the Cold War? Does the American-centrist international order, that prevailed at the end of the 20th century, genetically linked to the Atlantic Charter and the goals of the anti- Hitler coalition in the war, have a future?Many elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations in the 1990s survived and proved their viability. The end of the Cold War and globalization created conditions for widespread democracy in the world. The liberal system of international relations, which expanded in the late XX - early XXI century, is currently experiencing a crisis. It will be necessary to strengthen existing international institutions that ensure stability and security, primarily to create barriers to the spread of national egoism, radicalism and international terrorism, for have a chance to continue the liberal principles based world order (not necessarily within a unipolar system). Prerequisite for promoting idea of a liberal system of international relations is the adjustment of liberalism as such, refusal to unilaterally impose its principles on peoples with a different set of values. This will also require that all main participants in modern in-ternational life be able to develop a unilateral agenda for common problems and interstate relations, interact in a dialogue mode, delving into the arguments of opponents and taking into account their vital interests.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Systems Thinking ◽  
Critical Systems ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Future Visions

The book proposes that the Cold War period saw a key debate about the future as singular or plural. Forms of Cold War science depicted the future as a closed sphere defined by delimited probabilities, but were challenged by alternative notions of the future as a potentially open realm with limits set only by human creativity. The Cold War was a struggle for temporality between the two different future visions of the two blocs, each armed with its set of predictive technologies, but these were rivaled, from the 1960s on, by future visions emerging from decolonization and the emergence of a set of alternative world futures. Futures research has reflected and enacted this debate. In so doing, it offers a window to the post-war history of the social sciences and of contemporary political ideologies of liberalism and neoliberalism, Marxism and revisionist Marxism, critical-systems thinking, ecologism, and postcolonialism.

‘There shall be no musical servitude’: Towards a Multitudinous Shostakovich in the West

2020 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-505
Author(s):  
EIRINI DIAMANTOULI
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

Ideologically motivated attempts to elucidate Shostakovich’s political views and to determine whether and how they may be coded into his compositions have come to characterize the Western reception of the composer’s works since his death in 1975. Fuelled by the political oppositions of the cold war, Shostakovich’s posthumous reputation in the West has been largely shaped by two conflicting perspectives. These have positioned him on the one hand as a secret dissident, bent and broken under the unbearable strain of totalitarianism, made heroic through his veiled musical resistance to Communism; and on the other hand as a composer compromised by his capitulation to the regime – represented in an anachronistic musical style. Both perspectives surrender Shostakovich and his music to a crude oversimplification driven by vested political interests. Western listeners thus conditioned are primed to hear either the coded dissidence of a tragic victim of Communist brutality or the sinister submission of a ‘loyal son of the Communist Party’.1 For those prepared to accept Shostakovich as a ‘tragic victim’, the publication of his purported memoirs in 1979, ‘as related to and edited by’ the author Solomon Volkov, presents a tantalizing conclusion: bitterly yet discreetly scornful of the Stalinist regime, Shostakovich was indeed a secret dissident and this dissidence was made tangible in his music.

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