Secret State Police Operations in Cold War Czechoslovakia
Secret State Police Operations in Cold War Czechoslovakia

Author: Václava Jandecková

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published:

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 3643913613

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"Jandečková pulls back the curtain to give us a glimpse of the inner workings of Communist Czechoslovakia’s secret police in connection both with the false border operation ‘Kamen’ and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk. A fascinating study that enhances our understanding of this tragic period." James R. Felak, University of Washington "The author has long experience with security police archives and brings together material never before presented in a joint analysis. The text will be very valuable to all who are interested in the operations of Soviet-style authorities and in secret police methods generally." Geoffrey Hosking, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London "This study is a meticulously researched and convincingly argued masterpiece. It is also immensely readable and full of fascinating depictions of the personalities involved. It is a marvelous piece of work, a major contribution to our understanding of the early postwar years of the Cold War." Igor Lukes, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University

Security Empire
Security Empire

Author: Molly Pucci

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0300242573

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A compelling examination of the establishment of the secret police in Communist Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Eastern Germany ​This book examines the history of early secret police forces in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. Molly Pucci delves into the ways their origins diverged from the original Soviet model based on differing interpretations of communism and local histories. She also illuminates the difference between veteran agents who fought in foreign wars and younger, more radical agents who combatted "enemies of communism" in the Stalinist terror in Eastern Europe.

Justice in Conflict
Justice in Conflict

Author: Mark Kersten

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-08-04

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0191082945

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What happens when the international community simultaneously pursues peace and justice in response to ongoing conflicts? What are the effects of interventions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the wars in which the institution intervenes? Is holding perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable a help or hindrance to conflict resolution? This book offers an in-depth examination of the effects of interventions by the ICC on peace, justice and conflict processes. The 'peace versus justice' debate, wherein it is argued that the ICC has either positive or negative effects on 'peace', has spawned in response to the Court's propensity to intervene in conflicts as they still rage. This book is a response to, and a critical engagement with, this debate. Building on theoretical and analytical insights from the fields of conflict and peace studies, conflict resolution, and negotiation theory, the book develops a novel analytical framework to study the Court's effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. This framework is applied to two cases: Libya and northern Uganda. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the core of the book examines the empirical effects of the ICC on each case. The book also examines why the ICC has the effects that it does, delineating the relationship between the interests of states that refer situations to the Court and the ICC's institutional interests, arguing that the negotiation of these interests determines which side of a conflict the ICC targets and thus its effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. While the effects of the ICC's interventions are ultimately and inevitably mixed, the book makes a unique contribution to the empirical record on ICC interventions and presents a novel and sophisticated means of studying, analyzing, and understanding the effects of the Court's interventions in Libya, northern Uganda - and beyond.

Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945-1968
Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945-1968

Author: Philip Muehlenbeck

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2015-11-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781137561442

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This book explores Czechoslovakia's diplomatic relations with African states and places them within a wider Cold War historiography, providing contextual background information on the evolution of communist Czechoslovakia's pro-Soviet foreign policy orientation. This shift in Soviet foreign policy made Africa a priority for the Soviet bloc.

Czechoslovakia's Lost Fight for Freedom, 1967-1969
Czechoslovakia's Lost Fight for Freedom, 1967-1969

Author: Kenneth N. Skoug

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 1999-08-30

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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This fascinating account, by a Czech-speaking American diplomat who lived in Czechoslovakia from 1967-1969, describes the collapse of a repressive Communist regime, the subsequent unprecedented explosion of popular freedom, the surprise Soviet occupation, and the spirited passive resistance of the population until the gradual strangulation of the Prague Spring. Drawing on his own journal, recent memoirs, and documentary materials in the National Archives, the author shows how American diplomats and senior U.S. officials analyzed and reacted to ongoing events. He explains how reform leader Alexander Dubcek became wedged between enthusiastic popular support and the objections of ultra-orthodox Soviet leaders. Skoug's economic and commercial responsibilities gave him considerable access to Czechoslovak officials even in the Novotny period, and he was an eyewitness to the invasion and many other crucial events of the period, including the great patriotic demonstration of March 1969 which the Soviet Union exploited to force Dubcek's resignation. Despite overt Soviet pressure, neither Prague nor Washington anticipated intervention. The Johnson Administration, courting Moscow for help on Vietnam, displayed calculated indifference to the dispute and reacted tepidly to developments. Left alone, the Czechoslovak population met the invader with militant, if passive, resistance, but the Dubcek leadership capitulated to Soviet demands and acquiesced in an occupation that gradually betrayed all of the gains achieved. Subsequent reluctance by Washington to criticize Moscow helped the Soviet Union cut its diplomatic losses. On the other hand, the Czechoslavak crisis may have helped to persuade Gorbachev to allow Eastern Europe to resolve its own affairs in 1989.