Building a Red Navy: Communist Activism and Military Authority in the Baltic Fleet, 1918–1940

This article examines the activities of the Soviet military-political organs in the Baltic Fleet. It shows that the web of party institutions transformed the fleet into a space of political and social activism that had little to do with the strictly military aspects of government policy. Such activism was nevertheless unfailingly promoted, even as it became clear that it compromised core elements of military efficiency such as discipline and well-defined chains of command. This argument has implications for our broader understanding of the nature of the Soviet state. It indicates that once the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary ideology had become institutionalised in the state via the ubiquitous presence of party organs, pragmatic retreats for organisational efficiency became exceptionally difficult to implement.

Centenary of F. M. Dostoevsky's Birth in the Soviet Russian Press

This article considers the attitude towards F. M. Dostoevsky in Soviet Russia during the celebration of his centenary based on materials published in the periodical press. Articles from newspapers and magazines of that era (Trud, Petrogradskaya Pravda, Izvestiya Petrogradskogo sovetа rabochikh i krasnoarmeyskikh deputatov, Narodnoe prosveshcheni, Krasnyy voin, Krasnyy komandir, Krasnaya Nov’, Pechat’ i revolyutsiya, Zhizn’ iskusstva, Sarrabis, Vestnik literatury, Artel’noe delo, Nachala, etc.) were used. Many of these texts have not been previously analyzed by scholars of Dostoevsky’s work. Numerous attempts were made in the Soviet press to interpret the work and ideas of F. M. Dostoevsky in the spirit of socialism. The writer’s negative view of revolutionary ideology was either rejected or distorted by Socialists, however, they were attracted by the image of a former convict and a defender of the “humiliated and insulted”. Certain magazines (Artel’noe delo, Nachala) that appeared in Petrograd during the NEP period, published religious and philosophical articles about F. M. Dostoevsky. The ambivalence of the attitude towards the writer, the presence of socialist and Christian interpretations of his work in the press were a sign of a transitional historical period.

Ideology and Subversion: A Comparative Study of Mrinal Sen’s Padatik and Raghav Bandopadhyay’s Communis

Padatik, the final part of Mrinal Sen’s movies of the Calcutta Trilogy, offers both a historical document on the political mindset of the burgeoning Bengali youth and a personal struggle of Sen himself making sense of the Marxist revolutionary ideology and ascertaining whether or not it is a misguided enterprise. Raghav Bandyopadhyay in his conversation with Dipesh Chakrabarty recollects how during his prison days he had sent a letter to the regional comrades. He had enlisted the reasons why their project had failed, also stating, how it would be best to abort the mission and retreat to "safer shelters" to study and reconsider the struggle. His years as a political activist and a political prisoner were penned down as Communis (1975). This paper is a comparative study of the picture of the 1970s Calcutta that Sen and Bandyopadhyay present in Padatik and Communis respectively, with special attention to the youth upsurge and the violent mission that the contemporary youth had dedicated themselves to. Bandyopadhyay, through his words, paints an equally realistic portrait of the "infernal city" that Sen films in his Trilogy. While Bandyopadhyay has largely been an unsung hero in the canonical growth of Indian Literature, Sen has been a world phenomenon with his brand of parallel cinema. However, both of them offer criticism to the left movement, when it was lying low and was in disarray. The paper would thus assess both their differences and their similarities in their reception and representation of the movement, its ideology, and its subversion.

From Jacobite to Loyalist: The Career and Political Theology of Bishop George Hay

Although Catholics were marginalized and strongly associated with Jacobitism under the early Hanoverians, the reign of George III saw a gradual assimilation of Catholics into mainstream political culture. The Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain played a key role in this process by emphasizing passivity and loyalty. The bishop who most strongly personified this Jacobite to loyalist transition was George Hay (1729-1811). A convert to Catholicism from the Scottish Episcopalian faith, Hay served the Jacobite Army as a medic in 1745 and was imprisoned following that conflict. After his conversion and subsequent ordination, Hay became coadjutor of the Lowland District of Scotland in 1769 and was promoted to the Apostolic Vicarate in 1778. Hay actively engaged with many high-profile statesmen and political thinkers, including Edmund Burke. Most notably, he constructively utilized Jacobite political theology to criticise revolutionary ideology. His public involvement in politics was most remarkable during the American and French Revolutions, when he confidently deployed the full force of counterrevolutionary doctrines that formerly alienated Catholics from the Hanoverian state. However, since the Age of Revolution presented a stark duality between monarchy and republicanism, Hay’s expressions of passive obedience and non-resistance endeared him and the Catholic Church to the British establishment.

POST-TRUTH AND NEOLIBERALISM AS FACTORS OF THE CRISIS OF THE HUMANISTIC TRADITION AND EDUCATION: SOME DISCURSIVE ASPECTS OF MODERN THEORETICAL DISCUSSIONS

The article analyzes the results of the latest theoretical discussions in Western political theory, whose participants explore the specific features of the formation of the neoliberal discourse of “post-truth” that destroys the traditions of rational politics and the foundations of the humanistic paradigm of education that emerged during the European Renaissance and Enlightenment. In the modern world, classical humanism contrasts sharply with political realities and ideas prevailing in social discourses, including in the field of social sciences. Nowadays, many intellectuals, politicians and scientists consider it an almost immutable fact that we have all finally transitioned to the world of “post-truth” and “post-humanism”. Therefore, we must come to terms with endless streams of lies, manipulations, meaningless propaganda that significantly primitivize the prevailing ideas about democratic norms and institutions and try to develop a conceptual apparatus that reflects the new reality. At the same time, modern concepts of post-truth in many of their aspects develop ideas that arose at the turn of the 1960s-1970s, when the contours of the “postmodern turn” were only outlined in Western political discourse. Moreover, the historical origins of the modern phenomenon of post-humanism go back to counter-revolutionary ideology and philosophical controversy with the legacy of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, which was initiated at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries in the works of the “founding fathers” of modern conservatism - Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald. After World War II, an intellectual assault on humanism became one of the hallmarks of French structuralism and subsequent more radical post-structuralist doctrines. The article substantiates in detail the thesis that today the topic of discourse claims to be a kind of “hegemon”, often dictating to the participants in discussions the nature and direction of the argumentation. Scientists’ disputes on various aspects of political dominance, political communication and education are no exception in this regard. In the process of dispersing this trend, it became obvious that a necessary prerequisite for analyzing the language of politics is an understanding of the specifics of its various levels - from “high” political theory to personal, subjective characteristics.

M. M. Prishvin and N. A. Semashko: literary image of the “gymnasium friend” in works of the writer

The subject of this article is the analysis of the history of relations between M. M. Prishvin and N. A. Semashko since gymnasium childhood until the last days of life. It is demonstrated that if the biographical material on enduring friendship between Prishvin and Semashko, contained in reminiscences of their contemporaries and works of the writer himself, is given considerable attention, then his diary notes, which significantly transform the representations on true nature of their relations, have not yet become the subject of research. The article employs the method of historical reconstruction of ideological-political context of life of the Soviet society, which gives a better perspective on the peculiarities of artistic interpretation by M. M. Prishvin of the party and state activity of N. A. Semashko. The novelty of this article consists in introduction into the scientific discourse of the new facts from Prishvin’s Diary that consisted of 18 volumes and was published only in post-Soviet time  (1991-2017), which is a testimony that his relations with the People's Commissar of Public Health N, A, Semashko were often tainted with irreconcilable ideological and worldview discrepancies. It is no coincidence that in his autobiographical novel “The Chain of Kashchei”, Prishvin portrayed Semashko not only as an ideological supporter of Leninism, but also a nihilist-Nietzschean Yefim Nesgovorov. Morveover, the history of relations with Semashko sheds light on the reasons of Prishvin's disappointment with the revolutionary ideology of Bolshevism.

Cuba and the Soviet Bloc: Searching for the Last Guardians of Socialism

Based on a wide array of original documents from over 20 archives in Eastern Europe, the US, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, this paper traces the complex interplay between Havana’s revolutionary ideology and pragmatic state instincts which governed Cuba’a relations with the Soviet bloc from the ouster of Fulgencio Batista until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It overviews their relations by hearing the candid voices of Moscow’s closest East European allies (Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia) regarding Cuba’s continuous transformations. Additionally, the views of the other East European socialist states, which were not among Moscow’s closes backers, namely Albania, Yugoslavia and Romania, are also taken into account. In so doing, this paper seeks to enrich our understanding of the complex trajectory Cuba, the Soviet Union and the remaining East European socialist states underwent in their struggle against the common enemy, the United States. It also seeks to paint a more nuanced picture of the interplay between the realist imperative of state survival and the ideological drive of revolutionary expansionism, which marked Havana’s relations with the East, the West and the South throughout the Cold War.

Becoming militant: embodying the Guinean revolution and Guinea–China relations

This article considers the role of embodied experience in promoting revolutionary ideology in Guinea. The Republic of Guinea has long held close ties with China, and in the 1960s and 1970s the country pursued its own Cultural Revolution. While Chinese songs and aesthetics had little direct artistic influence, the Guinean state embraced Maoist ideals of social and self-transformation and discipline. Such ideals were translated into daily life through the regulation of bodies, including practices of dance, movement and physical gesture that sought to create revolutionary subjects. I show here how embodied practices, including the circulation of dancers and official delegations, cultivated Guinea's relationship with China; and how practices of movement and dance were inwardly experienced within Guinea during its own Cultural Revolution. In so doing, I address some of the contradictions of the Revolution and of Guinea–China relations. While the regime pursued its goals through violence and brutality, former revolutionary subjects today remember the moment for both its pain and its pleasures – for the hardships the body had to endure and for the nationalist pride that many still feel today.