Esilio di Camilian Demetrescu in Italia. Militantismo, anticomunismo e professionalità

"Anti-communist by excellence in spirit, the painter, sculptor and illustrator Camilian Demetrescu left Romania and went to Italy, tired of the continuous persistent attempts of the Securitate to attire him into becoming a collaborator. He left Romania legally in 1969, with a passport, and when the visa expired, he asked for political asylum. His stay in a capitalist country, but most of all the depths of his cultural and political exile, reflected in the articles of the Italian printed press and in the participation to actions or congresses, determined the Securitate not only to target him informatively, but also to threaten him, fact that did not stop him from being up to the end, with stoicism and determination, a convinced and militant anti-communist, a promoter of democracy and of human rights, but also an artist, who kept in his paintings, illustrations and sculptures the emotional relationship with Romania. Keywords: anticommunism, political exile, militantism, art, democracy "

A Study of American Cultural Export to China From 1910 ---1949

Since the Opium War, China has gradually degenerated into a semi colonial and semi feudal society, and the major powers of the world have invaded China one after another to seize various privileges and interests. As an emerging capitalist country, the United States has different ways of aggression. This was related to the national strength and world situation of the United States at that time, but it was more based on the consideration of the national strategic interests of the United States. Based on the historical facts, this paper mainly studies the cultural export of ancient China from the perspective of American education and medical treatment, so as to further explore the purpose of this cultural export and its impact on Chinese society.

In spaces in between–From recollections to nostalgia: Discourses of bridge and island place

Creation of a terrestrial connection to the mainland from Saaremaa Island (Estonia) has been discussed among politicians, scientists and the general public for the last decade. A fixed link has been a dream, hope, and fear in a situation where the island faces enormous societal changes in a rapidly developing young capitalist country. Islanders and visitors feel threats to their home place with or without the bridge. This paper explores public discourse of textualized landscapes as context-dependent multiple realities. Questions related to the perceptions of change of material landscapes as well as symbolic meanings of lived environment in the transition and rhetoric of everyday spatial practices are examined. The rhetorical ‘journey’ of a planned terrestrial fixed link (a bridge from an island to the mainland) is followed. Materials from an online public forum from five years related to the topic and approximately 120 online articles with more than 1800 comments from the general public were examined to reveal major themes of discourse on island place, landscape of identity as well as possible transformations of related concern. Idealized landscapes of a nostalgic past are voiced equally yet differently among political powers, islanders themselves and tourists.

Democracy Assistance for Botswana: Maintaining the Status Quo in a Peripheral Capitalist Country

Given that Botswana is considered a stable democracy, the need for democracy assistance does not at first glance seem necessary. Yet, democracy assistance is an important feature of Botswana’s political regime. The rationale for democracy assistance is couched in terms of strengthening the country’s democratic institutions, enhancing the state’s capacity, and bolstering Botswana’s civil society. However, contrary to these stated objectives, this article reveals that democracy assistance serves the agenda of Western donor countries and certain multilateral institutions—an agenda concerned with keeping Botswana politically stable and its state institutions efficient so that the country is attractive to investors. This agenda is pursued at the cost of not making certain long overdue political reforms.

Imposed institutions and preferences for redistribution

To what extent do imposed institutions shape preferences? We consider this issue by comparing the market-versus-state attitudes of respondents from a capitalist country, Finland, and from an ex-communist group of Baltic countries, and by arguing that the period of communist rule can be viewed as an ‘experiment’ in institutional imposition. We find that, consistent with some earlier related work, citizens from ex-communist countries tend to be more supportive of state ownership than respondents from capitalist economies. However, they also favour increasing inequality and competition as the means to enhance incentives. We conclude that, in some important relevant dimensions, institutional imposition (which lasted for about 50 years) had a limited effect on preferences.

The Union of Free Eastern European Sportsmen

This chapter considers the U.S. propaganda's use of defecting athletes in revealing a negative side of life behind the Iron Curtain. After all, no propagandist could say it better than someone who had lived under communist rule—for although athletes from Eastern Europe could be symbols of communist supremacy, they could just quite as easily be symbols of its frailty. For this reason, the Hungarian National Sports Federation (HNSF) and the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE) constantly lobbied the IOC to change its rules on the admission of stateless athletes, and from their efforts emerged the Union of Free Eastern European Sportsmen (UFEES). The prospect of a refugee athlete competing against the government of their communist homeland, or even under the flag of a capitalist country, was marvelous propaganda that would seriously damage a communist regime's prestige.

The Role of Rents in the Transition from Socialist Redistributive Economies to Market Capitalism

In this paper the authors make a critical distinction between inequalities arising from profits and wages and inequalities arising from rents, following Sorensen and 19th century economist Ricardo. Their new contribution is to articulate how rents are especially important in post-communist capitalist transition. Without the concept of rents, the mechanisms of corruption cannot be understood. The authors identify three types of rent-seeking behavior, which can be observed in any capitalist country, that play a particularly important role in post-communist transition: (i) market capture by political elites; (ii) state capture by oligarchs; (iii) capture of oligarchs by autocratic rulers through selective criminalization and the redistribution of their wealth to loyal new rich.

Alternative Networks of Globalisation: Latvian Neorealism in the Films of Laila Pakalniņa

This paper examines the development of neorealist tendencies in the oeuvre of contemporary Latvian filmmaker Laila Pakalnina. Her work is positioned within the global dissemination of cinematic neorealism, and its local manifestations, which, it is argued, develop in specific national contexts in reaction to dramatic societal and political changes. Pakalniņa’s films are examined as a documentation of the change from a communist satellite state to an independent democratic, capitalist country. Heavily influenced by the Riga School of Poetic Documentary, a movement in Latvian cinema that adhered to the conventions of poetic documentary filmmaking, the article analyses how her films replicate and further develop the stylistic and aesthetic devices of the Italian neorealists and the succeeding cinematic new waves. In doing so the argument is put forth that Pakalnina has developed neorealism Latvian style.

‘MARXISTS OF STRICT OBSERVANCE’? THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL, NATIONAL DEFENCE, AND THE QUESTION OF WAR

In August 1914, as war broke out, socialist parties across Europe offered support to their own governments. The Socialist International was shattered. This rush to defencism has traditionally been seen as a volte face in which the International's frequent protestations in favour of peace and international working-class solidarity were suddenly abandoned. The collapse has been variously ascribed to socialist helplessness, betrayal, or ideological incoherence. This article examines the International's attitudes to war and peace as developed and espoused in the decades before 1914, and finds that the decisions of the constituent socialist parties in 1914 were understandable within this context. Socialists were not abandoning past ideals, but attempting to put them into practice. The circumstances of modern war, however, made traditional distinctions – between aggressor and defensive belligerents, and between ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ nations – difficult to maintain. For some socialists, this meant that socialists of every country had a certain justification in rallying to their nation's defence. For Lenin and the Bolsheviks, however, if no capitalist country could be considered innocent, then all must be guilty.