This study analyzes the impact of the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968–1969 on the two major communist parties in the West: the Italian and French ones. Discusses the central strategic and ideological tensions which these parties needed to deal with: domestic belonging versus allegiance to the world communist movement, doctrinal orthodoxy in a context of rapid societal changes, and the question of revolution and reform. These key problems were situated in different contexts: the crisis in the "world communist movement" after 1956 and the Sino-Soviet rift, socio-economic modernization and political radicalization in Western Europe, and the shift from Cold War to early détente on the European continent. The research for this work is based on the study of a large collection of recently released primary sources, particularly, the internal records of various communist parties in Europe.
The Mediterranean sea has been a key geopolitical territory in the global international relations of the twentieth century; of crucial importance to the US, the Middle East and in the history of the EU. As Cold War documents become declassified and these archives become accessible to western historians, this volume reassesses the secret war waged over three decades for control of the Mediterranean Sea. An 'American lake' in the 1950s, a battlefield for influence in the Cold War of the 1960s, and an increasingly important political arena for the oil-rich Gulf States in the 1970s, the Mediterranean offers a focal point around which the major themes and narratives of Cold War history were constructed. "Detente in Cold War Europe" draws together detailed analyses of the major moments of post-WWII history through the prism of the Mediterranean - including the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, the Jordan crisis of 1970, the Soviet role in the Yom Kippur war, the Cyprus emergency of 1974, US-Soviet detente and US-Israeli relations under President Nixon. This book is a vital work for historians of the twentieth century and for those seeking to understand the importance of the Mediterranean in the political history of the Cold War.
Town twinning refers to the postwar phenomenon of administrative exchange between analogous municipalities. Cold War-related research has mostly interpreted it as an instrument to pursue European integration, or to solidify détente "from below". However, municipalities were not only administrative, neutral actors, but also bearers of political content. This is particularly visible in the case of Italian towns located in the Western bloc, guided by socialist-oriented administrations, and their "twin" counterparts in the German Democratic Republic. This volume explores the connections initiated by such towns in the 1960s-1970s, focusing on socialist-specific conceptions which fueled the policies implemented by "red" municipalities, in managing local economies and social policies, but also in maintaining a lively and interconnected transnational microsociability among grassroots activists. Despite the increasing ideological divergences between Eastern and Western communists, and between Italian democratic communists and the more dogmatic and repressive, strictly pro-Soviet ones in the GDR, communication continued to flourish on the local level. The book explores what still linked the two worlds together, the "bright side of socialism": in this case, a common symbolism related to the past, practical exchanges in the present dimension, and a shared future imagination and conception of the town on the basis of a socialist horizon, built around welfare and services for citizens and workers.
The monumental events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union must be understood, Jan Van Oudenaren argues, in the context of a process of East-West détente begun in 1953 in the aftermath of Stalin's death. Van Oudenaren's comprehensive and timely study examines the development of Soviet-Western détente from the death of Stalin to the unification of Germany. In redefining détente as a process, rather than a code of conduct, Van Oudenaren looks to its origins in Soviet policy earlier than previously identified and analyzes both its history and character. His study explores the restoration of four-power negotiations in Germany and Austria in the mid-1950s, their subsequent breakdown in the Berlin crisis, their unexpected revival in 1990 in the form of "two plus four" talks on German unity, and the future of the Soviet Union as a European power. Among the key elements of détente discussed are diplomacy, particularly the role of summit conferences; cooperation among parliaments, political parties, and trade unions; arms control; economic relations; and links among cultural institutions, churches, and peace movements.
The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.
This book analyzes the dynamics through which the two major communist parties of the capitalist world—which in the 1970s had great influence on their respective national political contexts since the 1980s are increasing their marginality and, although in different forms and with different timeframes are unable to stem the decline of their political and cultural influences on the working classes.
In the decade after 1945, as the Cold War freeze set in, a new Europe slowly began to emerge from the ruins of the Second World War, based on a broad rejection of the fascist past that had so scarred the continent's recent history. In the East, this new consensus was enforced by Soviet-imposed Communist regimes. In the West, the process was less coercive, amounting more to a consensus of silence. On both sides, much was deliberately forgotten or obscured. The years which followed were in many ways golden years for western Europe. Democracy became embedded in Germany, and eventually triumphed over dictatorship in Spain, Portugal, and Greece. Britain and France faced up to the necessity of decolonization. The European Economic Community was founded and went from strength to strength, as the economies of western Europe bounced back from the devastation of the war. The countries of the East lagged far behind and seemed caught in a perpetual game of catch-up, but even there conditions had improved since the end of the war, albeit at a much slower rate. Above all, throughout this period the European world continued to be sustained by the broad anti-fascist consensus that had emerged in the years after 1945. However, as Dan Stone shows in this new history of the continent since the war, this fundamental consensus began to break down in the wake of the oil shocks of the 1970s, a process which has rapidly accelerated since the end of the Cold War. Globalization, deregulation, and the erosion of social-democratic welfare capitalism in the West, and the collapse of the purported Communist alternative in the East, have all fatally undermined the post-war anti-fascist value system that predominated across Europe in the first four decades after the end of the Second World War. Ominously, this has been accompanied by a rise in right-wing populism and a widespread revision of the anti-fascist narrative on which this value system was based. The danger of this shift is now evident: financial and social crisis, an increasing inability on the part of European populations to resist historical myth-making, and the re-emergence of fascist ideas. The result, as Dan Stone warns, is socially divisive, politically dangerous, and a genuine threat to the future of a civilized Europe.
A long-time U.S. policy insider’s scholarly and encyclopedic history with unprecedented analysis of the official documents of the Cold War explores its Marxist-Leninist totalitarian roots, faltering pre-Reagan U.S. strategies of Containment, MAD, and Détente, and the Reagan Revolution. This book details Reagan’s integrated new strategies in defense, arms control, diplomacy, information and intelligence, and support for the faiths and forces of freedom that collapsed the Soviet ideology and empire.
