Reassessing Communism
Reassessing Communism

Author: Katarzyna Chmielewska

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2021-04-30

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9633863791

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The thirteen authors of this collective work undertook to articulate matter-of-fact critiques of the dominant narrative about communism in Poland while offering new analyses of the concept, and also examining the manifestations of anticommunism. Approaching communist ideas and practices, programs and their implementations, as an inseparable whole, they examine the issues of emancipation, upward social mobility, and changes in the cultural canon. The authors refuse to treat communism in Poland in simplistic categories of totalitarianism, absolute evil and Soviet colonization, and similarly refuse to equate communism and fascism. Nor do they adopt the neoliberal view of communism as a project doomed to failure. While wholly exempt from nostalgia, these essays show that beyond oppression and bad governance, communism was also a regime in which people pursued a variety of goals and sincerely attempted to build a better world for themselves. The book is interdisciplinary and applies the tools of social history, intellectual history, political philosophy, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and gender studies to provide a nuanced view of the communist regimes in east-central Europe.

Pluralism by Default
Pluralism by Default

Author: Lucan Way

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1421418126

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"Focusing on regime trajectories across three countries in the former Soviet Union (Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine), Lucan Way argues that democratic political competition has often been grounded less in well-designed institutions or emerging civil society, and more in the failure of authoritarianism. In many cases, pluralism has persisted because autocrats have been too weak to steal elections, repress opposition, or keep allies in line. Attention to the dynamics of this "pluralism by default" reveals an important but largely unrecognized contradiction in the transition process in many countries - namely, that the same factors that facilitate democratic and semi-democratic political competition may also thwart the development of stable, well-functioning democratic institutions. Weak states and parties - factors typically seen as sources of democratic failure - can also undermine efforts to crack down on political opposition and concentrate political control"--

After the Party
After the Party

Author: Andy Croft

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781907103476

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"Twenty years after the demise of the Communist Party of Great Britain, eight former members, all of whom who stayed in the party until the bitter end, reflect here on some of the personal, political and cultural changes of the last twenty years. The paths of Dave Cope, Andy Croft, Alistair Findlay, Stuart Hill, Kate Hudson, Andy Pearmain, Mark Perryman and Lorna Reith have followed very different political trajectories since 1991 - taking them into the Green Party, the Labour Party, the CPB, SLP, Respect and no party at all. But most have remained politically active" (4ème de couv.).

Gender Politics and Post-Communism
Gender Politics and Post-Communism

Author: Nanette Funk

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-19

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 0429759002

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In the wake of communism’s decline, women’s concerns had become increasingly important in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Yet most discussions of post-communism changes had neglected women’s experiences. Originally published in 1993, this title was the first collection of its kind, presenting original essays by women scholars, politicians, activists, and former dissidents from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, along with essays by Western feminists and scholars. They discuss gender politics during the often turbulent transition and crises of post-communism, offering vivid accounts and analyses of the conditions facing women in each country.

Two Underdogs and a Cat
Two Underdogs and a Cat

Author: Slavenka Drakulić

Publisher: Seagull Books Pvt Ltd

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9781906497286

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A dog named Charlie in Bucharest, a sixty-year-old cleaning woman in Prague, and a cat in Warsaw discuss the transition from Communism to capitalism in the former Soviet Union and contemplate questions about social justice, collective responsibility, and the value of remembering the past.

Reflections on a Ravaged Century
Reflections on a Ravaged Century

Author: Robert Conquest

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780393320862

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A look at the twentieth century examines the factors and events that have sent millions to their deaths, discussing the philosophies that have caused so much conflict, as well as what the future may hold for the human race.

Communism, Political Power and Personal Freedom in Marx
Communism, Political Power and Personal Freedom in Marx

Author: Levy del Aguila Marchena

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-11-23

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 3030828948

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This book investigates communism in Marx’s writings, incorporating a consideration of communist politicity. The author outlines the arguments by which it is possible to sustain—from Marx—the idea that human emancipation against capital also means the elimination of the State, the public, and the political dimension of praxis. He also posits that the concrete tasks of the “management of the common” in a communist society require political mediations that allow us to confront the difference inherent to the personality of freely associated producers, as well as the ontological finitude from which no technical power can evade. Finally, assuming Marx as a starting point whose work remains an inescapable source for “thinking communism,” the book proposes a research agenda from Marx and beyond to continue in this imperative task. ​Levy del Aguila Marchena is Senior Professor and Chair of the Department of Management Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He has published extensively on Marx, political philosophy, and applied ethics.

One Hundred Years of Communist Experiments
One Hundred Years of Communist Experiments

Author: Vladimir Tismaneanu

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9633864062

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Why has communism’s humanist quest for freedom and social justice without exception resulted in the reign of terror and lies? The authors of this collective volume address this urgent question covering the one hundred years since Lenin’s coup brought the first communist regime to power in St. Petersburg, Russia in November 1917. The first part of the volume is dedicated to the varieties of communist fantasies of salvation, and the remaining three consider how communist experiments over many different times and regions attempted to manage economics, politics, as well as society and culture. Although each communist project was adapted to the situation of the country where it operated, the studies in this volume find that because of its ideological nature, communism had a consistent penchant for totalitarianism in all of its manifestations. This book is also concerned with the future. As the world witnesses a new wave of ideological authoritarianism and collectivistic projects, the authors of the nineteen essays suggest lessons from their analyses of communism’s past to help better resist totalitarian projects in the future.