The Crisis of Communism and Party Change PDF Download

Author: Juan Botella
Publisher: Institut de Ciencies Politiques I Sociais
ISBN:
Category : Communist parties
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Author: Joseph Robert Starobin
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
In 1943 the American Communist Party was a large, politically influential, broadly based movement. In 1957 it was a small, weak, and isolated political sect. The Party's decline in the intervening Cold War years is the subject of this book-an analysis of a major radical movement that touched millions of Americans and pervaded many aspects of American life. The author, at one time active in the Party and foreign editor of its paper, the Daily Worker, and now a scholar and professor of political science, has combined personal experience with careful scholarship to analyze what happened to a revolutionary organization that found itself unable to make a revolution. His approach is not autobiographical, but rather analytical. Mr. Starobin places the Party in its historical and political context and describes its unsuccessful efforts to adapt to the demands of the American political situation. Throughout the book are fresh interpretations of important events: the struggle in 1945 between Earl Browder and William Z. Foster for leadership of the Party, the outcome of which had a profound effect on the Party's future course; the nature of Browder's policies and Moscow's eventual rejection of him; the Henry Wallace movement of 1948; the right-left battle within the CIO in the late forties; the "Communist conspiracy" problem of the fifties; the Party's relationship with the Soviet Communists; the origins of the "Black liberation movement." The author's basic conclusion is that American Communists were on their way to becoming an authentic and powerful radical movement in American life but were defeated by a basic contradiction: they could not continue to be part of a world movement dominated by Leninist concepts and yet consolidate their relative success within the United States, where these concepts were not applicable. To survive, the Party had to change. It had to anticipate by fifteen years and to endure the two tendencies that would develop within world Communism: the Russian quasi-revolutionary strain and the Chinese ultra-revolutionary. It tried, Mr. Starobin shows, and it failed. American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957 will interest not only history-minded readers but also anyone concerned today with social change. The book has much to say to the new left-giving historical material necessary for an understanding of its past and its potential.

Author: James Klugmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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This is Volume Five of a comprehensive history of the British Communist Party in the twentieth century, and covers the period from 1951 to 1968. The cold war was at its most intense during this period, and it was also the time of the dramas of 1956 - Khruschev's critique of Stalin, the Hungarian uprising and the Suez crisis. Then in the 1960s the opening up of new possibilities for radicalism began, leading up to the events of May 1968. The impact of these events on the Party is extensively analysed, drawing on evidence from detailed archival research and many interviews with former activists. Topics covered include: the nature of the Party and its Soviet 'ecology'; its responses to the events of 1956; its involvement in anti-colonial struggles; its positions on international and economic issues and perspectives on class struggle; its relationship with the Labour Party and the trade unions; and the forces for change in the Party in the 1960s. Times change, and John Callaghan's book differs from previous volumes in this series in a number of ways - most obviously, in that it was written after the demise of the Soviet Union and the Party, and thus with much better access to archives and the views of former party members. In addition, it is organised thematically rather than chronologically, and is written from a more critical position than previous titles in the series. It shares with its predecessors, however, the idea that a history of the CPGB has some importance, not least for the light it casts on some of the key issues of the twentieth century.

Author: David S Mason
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000310035
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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The year 1989 marked a turning point in world history, a watershed year of unprecedented drama and political significance. No matter how one looks at those events–as the fall of communism, the democratization of Eastern Europe, or the end of the cold war–it is important to understand how the world travelled the distance of time, space, and ideology to arrive at the Berlin Wall and tear it down. David Mason provides that understanding in a concise synthesis of history, politics, economics, sociology, literature, philosophy, and popular, as well as traditional, culture. He shows how all these elements combined to yield the year that effectively closed the twentieth century–and promised to launch the new century on a hopeful note. Starting with Poland's elections in June 1989, the countries of then-communist Eastern Europe one by one revolutionized their governments and their polities; Hungary opened its borders to the West, East Germany rushed through, Czechoslovakia elected Vaclav Havel president, Bulgaria changed both party and leadership, and Romania executed Ceausescu. Although Gorbachev enabled many of these changes, he did not cause them. The illumination of the complex symbiosis between dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is one of the greatest contributions this book makes. With undercurrents emphasizing the power of ideas, the spirit of youth, and the multifaceted force of culture and ethnicity, Mason takes the reader far beyond the events of change and into their impetus and outcomes. He applies theories of social movements, democratization, and economic transition with an even hand, showing the interaction of their effects not only regionally but worldwide. The concluding chapter puts the revolutions in Eastern Europe into international perspective and highlights their impact on East-West relations, security alliances, and economic integration. Mason discusses the European Community, the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Third World in relation to the new East-Central European configuration. Using delightful and provocative cartoons from Eastern European and Soviet presses, interesting photos, valuable tables of data, and illuminating figures, Mason emphasizes important points about the role of nationalism, ethnicity, public opinion, and harsh economic reality in the revolutionary process.

Author: M. Spirova
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230605664
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This is a study of party development in the post-communist world. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bulgaria and Hungary, as well as aggregate data from twelve post-communist states, this study provides an explanation of the behaviour of parties since 1990, and offer new insights into the party behaviour in the future.

Author: Graeme Gill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134485565
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The collapse of communism was widely heralded as the dawn of democracy across the former Soviet region. However, the political outcome has been much less uniform. The post-communist states have developed political systems from democracy to dictatorship. Using examples and empirical data collected from twenty-six former Soviet states, Graeme Gill provides a detailed comparative analysis of the core issues of regime change, the creation of civil society, economic reform and the changing nature of post-communism. Within these individual cases, it becomes clear that political outcomes have not been arbitrary, but directly reflect the circumstances surrounding the birth of independence. Students of Comparative Politics, International Relations and Russian and Post-Soviet Studies should find this book essential reading.

Author: Elisabeth Bakke
Publisher: BWV Verlag
ISBN: 3830527020
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
HauptbeschreibungOn 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened, signalling the beginning of the end of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. By 1990, free elections had been held in most countries in the region. Forty - in some cases fifty - years of communism had come to an end. However, the 'revolutions' of 1989 were not uniform processes: the starting points were different, the trajectories were different - and outside Central Europe even the outcomes of the transitions from communism were different. The fall of communism also caused the Soviet empire to crumble, and the Soviet Union itself fell apart in December 1991 - as did Czechoslovakia in 1993, and Yugoslavia in a gradual process that was to last from 1991 to 2008. This book originated in a conference held in Oslo 11-13 November 2009, arranged by the E.ON Ruhrgas scholarship programme for political science, and commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 'revolutions' in Central and Eastern Europe. The 16 chapters take stock of developments after 1989, with special emphasis on the causes and effects of the transitions, including the processes of state unification and separation that followed in the wake of the 'revolutions'. The book is divided into four main parts: regime transitions from communism; state unification and separation; party system continuity and change since 1989 (in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland); and on the effects of German unification on external and internal German relations. The geographical scope thus varies from chapter to chapter, but the main emphasis is on Germany and its closest Central European neighbours.Elisabeth Bakke is Associate Professor at Department of Political Science, University of Oslo. Ingo Peters is Associate Professor at Department of Political and Social Sciences, Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Freie Universitnt Berlin."

Author: Keith Middlemas
Publisher: Deutsch
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Efter en indledning om Kominternperioden (Den Kommunistiske Internationale) koncentrerer forfatteren sig om udviklingen inden for de vesteuropæiske kommunistpartier efter 2. Verdenskrig. Der er separate kapitler om udviklingen inden for kommunistpartierne i Frankrig, Italien, Spanien og Portugal på grundlag af mange kilder og interviews med partimedlemmer m.v.

Author: Even Sandvik Underlid
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004442901
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Cuba Was Different explores Cuban Communist Party (PCC) views following the collapse of Eastern European and Soviet socialism through the lens of the official daily newspaper Granma (1989-1992) and interviews conducted later with Cuban PCC members who reflected back on that momentous period.

Author: Robert W. Strayer
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9780765600035
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Coming Apart: The Final Days of the Soviet Union -- QUESTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES: Why a Peaceful Death? -- QUESTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES: Meaning and History -- Suggestions for Further Study -- Index -- About the Author