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This chapter examines President Harry S. Truman's commitment of the National Democratic Party to the cause of racial equality and the responses to them by Deep South authoritarian enclaves. It first provides an overview of the central state, national party, and southern enclaves during the period 1932–1946 before discussing the causes and consequences of the revolt by the States' Rights Party (SRP), also known as the Dixiecrats. It then considers southern enclaves' growing unease with the national party through the 1930s and 1940s, along with the experiences of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. It shows that the Truman shock and responses to it varied within the Deep South depending on different configurations of intraparty conflict and party–state institutions.

This introductory chapter provides a background of the collectivization of agriculture in Romania. The collectivization of agriculture was the first mass action, in largely agrarian countries like the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, and Romania, through which the new communist regime initiated its radical program of social, political, cultural, and economic transformation. Collectivizing agriculture was not merely an aspect of the larger policy of industrial development but an attack on the very foundations of rural life. By leaving rural inhabitants without their own means of livelihood, it radically increased their dependence on the Party-state. It both prepared and compelled them to be the proletarians of new industrial facilities. Moreover, it destroyed or at least frayed both the vertical and the horizontal social relations in which villagers were embedded and through which they defined themselves and pursued their existence.

This chapter examines the formal structure of the Republican Party from county precinct committeemen and committeewomen to the staffing and organization of the state Party. It provides an analysis of the social part of the network that includes the Republican Clubs, the Federation of Republican Women, and the Young Republicans and their contributions. The chapter also introduces the individuals who became elected and appointed officials through their participation in the formal Republican Party structure and identifies their paths to office. The chapter outlines the foundations of the Republican political philosophy, describes campaign fundraising and techniques, and discusses the conversion of Democratic voters to the Republican network.

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution leads many in America to seek out the reasons for its success, as a lesson for their own country. The American Communist Party is founded in 1919. It goes through a set of policy changes until in 1930 Earl Browder is named General Secretary. He tries to develop the Party as a more natively American force – in 1936 he runs for President on the slogan ‘Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism.’ During the 1930’s the Part is a notable presence in various aspects of American politics. This comes to naught, for after Roosevelt’s death in 1945, the Soviets reassert control of the American Party, the leadership of which, apart from Browder, capitulate to Moscow. Truman succeeds Roosevelt and the grounds for the Cold War are laid.

This chapter examines the Party-state campaign for safe, hygienic midwifery practices and the constantly refigured, actively circulating set of stories about the dangerous nature of childbirth in China. It evaluates the impact of the training of new-style village midwives and the retraining of old-style midwives across rural China on maternal and infant mortality rates. It suggests that even after the 1950s, the skilled village midwife who delivered babies at home remained a respected figure, sanctioned by political authorities and relied upon by childbearing women.

Today’s rulers have two main strategies of self-preservation. With one hand they purchase legitimacy in the eyes of the ruled; with the other hand they keep down anything that can threaten their hold on power. The way the regime deals with society is through an intricate good-cop, bad-cop act.

This chapter traces Chinese perceptions of America into the 1980s, with Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “opening and reform” that produced a new era of economic modernization even while producing a struggle for the “soul” of China’s intellectual elites between authoritarian and more liberal, Western-style political concepts. It also discusses the development of propaganda and the Chinese Communist Party’s use of media to inform leaders and control lower-level officials from afar. This new iteration of the Party-state was heavily based on Confucianist politics, which led to administration reform.

This final chapter offers some final analysis of current Chinese thinking before suggesting some conclusions that U.S. policymakers might draw from an understanding of these dynamics in developing competitive strategies. The internal dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party play a role in shaping China’s views of itself, and though America cannot directly influence these views, it can influence the cost of the Party-state’s choices. China still fears America’s true democracy and the American hegemony, and these idealist strategies can be used to America’s advantage. The chapter concludes with a brief sketch of how China might develop further, and what policies would be best in each case.

This chapter focuses on the perceived hegemony controlled by the United States and how China incorporated its theory of American decline into this existing theory. In particular, the Chinese Communist Party saw America’s presence in the Middle East and the war on terror as ways to quash China’s rising power. The Party-state did not claim any responsibility for its poor relationship with the United States because China itself was blameless. Despite its covetousness of America’s global role, the regime continually derided America’s choices.

This chapter considers the claim by New York City Teachers Union (TU) opponents and some scholars that the main objective of the Communist-controlled union was not to protect the interest of teachers but to carry out the dictates of the Soviet Union. It first examines the Communist Party of the United States of America's (CPUSA) efforts to form an antifascist popular front and the TU's relationship with popular front politics before discussing the arguments of TU defenders who ignore the CPUSA's influence on the union. It then cites evidence showing that the union supported CPUSA policies, and that its position on certain issues was indistinguishable from that of the Party. However, it argues that the TU did not ignore teachers' interests, as its Communist leadership fought for higher wages, better working conditions, and academic freedom. While supportive of Moscow, the chapter contends that the TU also worked to improve working conditions for teachers. In conclusion, it says the union blurred the line between its work on behalf of teachers and pushing CPUSA policies.

Party-states are dictatorships. All the known ones in history have been dictatorships, and the remaining ones, including China, are dictatorships. Communist rule in China was dictatorial before the communists were in control of all of the country, established itself as a brute dictatorship nationally in 1949, and continued to be a deadly dictatorship under Mao. China today is a sophisticated dictatorship in which citizens are allowed many freedoms but only up to a point. At that point, when necessary, and often enough that no one is in doubt, the party-state clamps down, sometimes in crude and sometimes in subtle ways, and with whatever force is necessary. It bears being set down at the start and then not forgotten that the regime that presents itself to the world as reformed is one that still rules, ultimately, by fear, intimidation, violence, and death.

This chapter examines five satires on the subject of domestic politics. Orange-Amsterdam opposition dominated Dutch politics for much of the seventeenth century and the States Party faction, led by the republican-leaning Amsterdam regents, was driven by two primary concerns: the interruption to trade, particularly with France, caused by William III’s invasion of England and subsequent military exploits; and the curbing of William’s dynastic ambition, which was seen as a direct threat to Holland’s supremacy within the United Provinces. All of De Hooghe’s satires under consideration here are Orangist in viewpoint and accuse Amsterdam of colluding with France in order to maintain lucrative trade alliances and marginalize William III politically. The function of De Hooghe’s satires is the primary focus of this discussion and, to this end, the critical role played by factionalism in Dutch politics of this period will be considered. It will be argued that De Hooghe’s domestic satires were intended for a specific segment of Holland’s governing elite, those in the ‘middle party’ who did not align themselves fully with either the States Party or the Orangist ends of the political spectrum. The chapter concludes that pragmatic considerations were a critical impetus for the domestic satires: for Orangists, the fact that William III needed the financial support of Amsterdam for his military campaigns; and, for the Amsterdam regents, as is articulated in an anonymous anti-Williamite satire, the fear of William III’s monarchical ambitions and the opportunity to consolidate their power in the absence of the Stadhouder-King.

During the reform period, the state has consolidated itself as one dedicated to self-preservation, stability, and economic growth. The reign of Hu and Wen from 2002 to 2012 was entirely devoted to keeping the wheels moving. They did try to lift their gaze from the economic statistics and took to the flowering language of ‘harmonious society’, but there was no determination in it. They left to their successors a state that is in control and fiscally solid and that is presiding over an economically strong nation, but also one that is a bit of a bluff in strength and that maintains stability at the cost of an epidemic of organised crime. As to where the state might be moving with the post-2012–13 leadership, it is in the balance.

Much of what the post-Mao leaders have said and done suggest an end of ideology, and that is a plausible hypothesis. However, the party-state is a structure that craves ideology. The state has its justification from the party, but the party needs its own justification and has nowhere else to turn for it than from the realm of ideas. The party demands obedience, but if that is to make sense, it must be working for a purpose that legitimises its claim on obedience. Since the party-state claims much—an absolute right to lead and an absolute duty on others to follow—it would seem to need a purpose that is grand and imposing. Along the continuum from the death of ideology to the revival of ideology, three hypotheses present themselves, which the author calls ‘the triviality hypothesis’, ‘the welfare hypothesis’, and ‘the power hypothesis’.

This chapter concerns the KMT party-state's expansion of the system of penal reformation and its extension beyond prisons in support of state-building agendas to attain legal-penal modernity, reorder urban society, eradicate the drug problem, and suppress the Communist insurgency. In the 1930s, the sustained mass incarceration of drug and political offenders destabilized prisons and undermined the reformative ideal. But this also brought an impetus to prison reform, expansion, the planning of rural labor camps, and the spread of the reformation system to new specialized carceral institutions for drug and political offenders. The new institutions adapted KMT versions of Soviet techniques of party-training and political indoctrination for settings modeled on the existing institutional patterns of penal reformation. Tensions between prison officers and party cadres were minimized through a coalescence around the reformative ideal and its value to their shared sense of paternalistic duty to reform talented “youths” for the nation. By the mid-1930s, party activists, mainly internal security agents, led the political prisons known as self-examination institutes and were promoting their politicized reformation to the prisons and for broader social use just as a wider convergence developed between penal reformation and state programs for national political training and civic-moral suasion.

This chapter introduces, in broad strokes, what the individual chapters will cover in detail. It focuses on the official narrative put forward by the Chinese Communist Party to illuminate the Party-state’s effort to simultaneously emulate and oppose America under the concept of the Great Telos of Return. It covers the history of U.S.-China relations from the Qing dynasty to the rise of communism and Mao Zedong’s death, through Deng Xiaoping’s introduction of Taoist nationalism and the Tiananmen Square massacre, to 2012. Briefly it covers the international aspects of both relationships, and where the Chinese people see themselves on the world stage.

The final chapter reflects on the implications of the case study's findings for our understanding of local patterns of governance and political behavior in rural China today. It highlights the importance of understanding the unwritten rules of Chinese officialdom for understanding the resilience of the one-Party state. While patronage networks serve as vehicles for official corruption and private interests, patronage politics also provides a supplementary set of rules that facilitates Party and government business. In a political environment characterized by personal power relations, bureaucratic indiscipline and administrative fiat, patronage networks provide supplementary channels for coordination across Party and government agencies, which brings a degree of stability to local decision-making processes. By regulating political competition, patronage networks also provide the Party-state with a degree of order.

This chapter focuses on a crucial period in the history of the New York City Teachers Union (TU): the revocation of its charter. The mid-1930s through early 1940s was a very difficult period for the TU. Factionalism had ripped the union apart. To make matters worse, the union was accused by both the American Federation of Labor and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) of being in the hands of Communists. The argument that the union was Communist-controlled was the reason why it was thrown out of the AFT. The anti-Communist forces were also successful in winning an AFT charter for the social democrats who had created a rival union, the Teachers Guild. A number of scholars and writers have argued that the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) abandoned its fight for racial equality once the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany. They contend that the CPUSA's priority was to protect the Soviet Union against Nazism and fascism, rather than racial equality.

This chapter turns to the inquiry’s first main “friendly” or cooperative witness, Brooklyn College (BC) English professor, Bernard Grebanier. Windels began by investigating BC because of its reputation for left-wing activism and the involvement of teachers and students in Popular Front causes. Grebanier, like many of his colleagues, joined the Communist Party because of its strong stance against European fascism, anti-Semitism, and right-wing movements in the United States. Although Grebanier was an unreliable witness, Windels led him to promote the myth that Brooklyn faculty indoctrinated their students.