Vladimir’s Bakarić’s Idea of a Socialist (Croatian) Nation: From Communist Historicism to Depoliticization

This article examines how the long-serving Croatian communist leader Vladimir Bakarić conceptualized the Croatian self-managing nation from a set of ideas that involved decentralization, the depoliticization of national identity, and the forging of a classless self-managing nation. As the centralism of the 1950s, originally envisioned to serve the progress of socialism, eventually brought about the gradual rise of inter-national antagonisms between republics in Yugoslavia, Bakarić assumed that empowering the authorities of the republics and the autonomous provinces should serve as the necessary precondition to prevent national identity from being the source of any potential future conflicts. Subsequently, Bakarić conceptualized decentralization as a means that would eventually lead to the depoliticization of national identity, which was necessary to unleash the building of a classless self-management society accompanied by the withering away of state. This article will show how Bakarić’s concept of the nation suffered from two serious shortcomings. The first one stemmed from the 1960 purge of socialist Yugoslavism of any notion of ethnicity, since any idea of Yugoslav ethnic identity had been linked to the Greater-Serbian legacy of the pre-war Yugoslav Royal Dictatorship. The second one stemmed from the fact that ethnic nationalism was latently maintained by the deployment of historical narratives of the communists as the heirs of the true national traditions and the best guardians of the national interest.

Dyplomacja Nicolae Ceauşescu wobec przemian politycznych w Polsce w 1989 roku

Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Diplomacy in the Face of Political Changes in Poland in 1989 In 1989, Romania belonged to the communist countries, which particularly strongly attacked communist Poland for carrying out democratic reforms. For many months the diplomacy of communist leader Nicolae Ceaşescu tried to organize a conference of socialist countries on the subject of Poland, but as a result of Moscow’s opposition it did not come to fruition. During the Gorbachev era, the Soviet Union rejected the Brezhnev doctrine, while Romania actually urged its restoration. This was in contradiction with the current political line of Ceauşescu in favor of not interfering in the internal affairs of socialist countries. However, in 1989 it was a threat to communism, which is why historians also have polemics about Romanian suggestions for the armed intervention of the Warsaw Pact in Poland. In turn, Romania did not allow Poland to interfere in the problems of the Polish minority in Bukovina.

The YMCA and the Protestant Elite Welcome the Revolution

Following World War II, the Chinese began the task of rebuilding their nation. Protestant churches and schools joined these efforts, and Protestant leaders such as Ginling College’s president Wu Yifang represented the Nationalist republic to the world. The wartime alliance between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists broke down in 1946, and a civil war ensued, ending with a Communist victory in 1949. The YMCA secretary Wu Yaozong took the lead in preparing the churches and the Protestant elite for life under the new regime. Consulting with the Communist leader, Zhou Enlai, Wu published the Christian Manifesto, which was a statement confessing the church’s complicity in Western imperialism and expressing her determination to support the revolution. The Korean War added a sense of urgency to these actions, and a new church structure, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, was established to better serve the new relationship between state and church.

Galaksija: Representation of science in Yugoslavia’s socialist-era popular science magazine

Popular science coverage in Soviet countries was often determined by the ideological function of the media. But this was not always the case, especially on the periphery of the Soviet Union. I analyse science coverage in a cult popular science magazine published at the edges of the communist East, socialist Yugoslavia, in the mid-1970s at the height of the magazine’s circulation and during the reign of the country’s communist leader Josip Broz Tito. This analysis shows that at least some Yugoslav media rose above the East/West ideological divide, freeing science from the shackles of US and Soviet ideology, while imparting a unique Yugoslav ideological vision of the world to media science coverage.

Religious Regulation in Autocracies

Unlike democracies, the stability and longevity of autocracies are solely dependent on the ability of the paramount leader to maintain and wield power effectively. Whether the autocracy is composed of an absolute monarch or a supreme authoritarian, religious, military, fascist, or communist leader, the autocrat strengthens legitimacy by controlling competing power centers within the state. Autocrats are both envious and fearful of organized religion’s ability to mobilize the citizenry. Whether dealing with large religious organizations or organized religious believers, autocrats can choose to implement negative religious regulations to control or eliminate foreign and domestic religious threats, positive religious regulations to co-opt religious powers, or transformative religious regulations to create new organizations that consolidate and maintain autocratic rule. Adopting an interest-based theoretical approach, the autocratic religious regulations of four countries (China, England, Italy, and Japan) are divided into three categories (negative, positive, and transformative religious regulations). Autocrats within the four countries adopted formal regulations to consolidate their hegemonic control over societal forces within and outside the state.

Thunder from the Right

The essays in this volume probe Ezra Taft Benson’s remarkable, though controversial, career as a religious leader in the Mormon Church, political figure in the Eisenhower administration, and anti-communist leader in American presidential politics. Each essay is written by an experienced scholar of Mormon history and is informed by archival material previously underutilized or unavailable to researchers. The essays explain why Latter-day Saints loved Benson--and why they found him polarizing. An underlying theme is that Ezra Taft Benson’s intense patriotism and fierce ultraconservatism made him a controversial figure within the Mormon community.

Wilhelmstrasse

Wilhelmstrasse evolved over several centuries from an upscale residential quarter to the center of German government. Its architecture was considered less culturally and artistically significant than Unter den Linden and more tainted by association with the Prussian-German state and the NSDAP in particular. In the late 1940s, Berlin planners intended for the area to continue serving as government center. They began to transform Wilhelmplatz into a larger square, Thälmannplatz, with a memorial to honor the fallen Communist leader. After the state founding of the GDR, Ulbricht and leading GDR planners shifted planning for the government center to Marx-Engels Square, leaving Wilhelmstrasse as an area of secondary concern. Socialist realism had limited impact here, as decisions over demolition and preservation hinged more on utilitarian spatial value than architectural merit or place-based meaning. Nazi structures were cleansed of iconography and preserved, while older residential structures were demolished.

Narratives of memory in commemorative Spanish documentaries about the democratic transition: Adolfo Suárez. Mi historia and Bucarest, la memoria perdida

This article analyses different narratives of memory used in commemorative Spanish documentaries. It first considers the state of the question of the relationship between documentary, history and memory and then examines television productions made in democratic Spain that have advocated either a hegemonic memory of the transition or a counter-memory of the recent past. The second part of the text focuses on two biographical documentaries: Bucarest, la memoria perdida, about the Communist leader Jordi Solé Tura, and Adolfo Suárez. Mi historia, which centres on the figure of the former prime minister. The article interprets these documentaries as narratives of memory that evoke the democratic transition in different ways.

Elena Ceauşescu’s personality cult and Romanian television

Elena Ceau?escu, spouse of the Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceau?escu, generated in the 1980s a gigantic homage industry, as she was the object of a personality cult as strong as that of her husband?s. This paper briefly outlines the origin and elements of Nicolae Ceau?escu?s personality cult, to focus then on Elena Ceau?escu?s cult: how at first it was merged with the cult of her husband, her being a mere companion of the head of state, and then grew to the point of paralleling that of Nicolae Ceau?escu during the last years of communist rule in Romania. The second part focuses on the evolution of Romanian state television and its crucial role in the diffusion of her personality cult, showing how this state institution became completely subordinated to the presidential couple in the 1980s, and pointing to a paradox of the period: the shorter Romanian television?s daily broadcasting time, the larger the amount of programming on Ceau?escu. Finally, the paper shows how January was infused with anniversary dates meant to consolidate the personality cult of the presidential couple and to reinvent communist traditions.

Zadnja bitka v Stalinovem imenu: Vittorio Vidali, komunizem na obalah Jadranskega morja in boj Informbiroja proti Titu (1947-1954)

The essay aims to analyse the "Adriatic communism" policy implemented in the period from World War II to the eve of the schism between Stalin and Tito in 1948, with the subsequent rift in relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and the expulsion of Belgrade from the socialist camp. The essay focuses on the figure of Vittorio Vidali, an Italian communist leader (born in Muggia, near Trieste) with a long and prominent militant role in the Soviet intelligence services as evidenced by his involvement in various events both in Europe and the United States.The choice to focus the analysis on Vittorio Vidali is based on the decisive role he played in the "Adriatic communism" in the stages immediately preceding the Tito–Stalin split and then during the years of the Cominform's opposition against the Party and the Yugoslav regime after 1948.