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Networks in Opposition: Linking Organizations through Activists in the Polish People's Republic

Maryjane Osa

in Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action

Explores changes in the informal networks of overlapping memberships between opposition organizations in Poland between the 1960s and the 1980s. When civic organizations are subject to severe ... More

Explores changes in the informal networks of overlapping memberships between opposition organizations in Poland between the 1960s and the 1980s. When civic organizations are subject to severe constraints, as in Communist regimes, informal networks are particularly important as alternative sources of resources. There, networks not only operate as micro‐mobilization contexts but also provide the basic infrastructure for civil society. The chapter explicitly takes the time dimension into account, using individual affiliations to chart the evolution of networks over time, and offering an accurate reconstruction of changes in the Polish political system and the emergence of a strong democratization movement.Less

Introduction

Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery

in Peasants under Siege: The Collectivization of Romanian Agriculture, 1949-1962

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 ... More

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.Less

After World War II: Germany, Japan, and Hungary

Zoltan Barany

in The Soldier and the Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas

This chapter examines the democratization of civil–military relations in two former fascist dictatorships, postwar Germany and Japan, whose armies had destroyed and terrorized large swathes of the ... More

This chapter examines the democratization of civil–military relations in two former fascist dictatorships, postwar Germany and Japan, whose armies had destroyed and terrorized large swathes of the surrounding territory. The creation of lasting democratic regimes on the ashes of these dictatorships stands as the signal achievement of democracy promotion. An important part of this process was the building of the new West German and Japanese armed forces. On the other hand, Hungary after World War II illustrates the trajectory of military politics in numerous European states where domestic political forces were defeated by the Soviet Union and its native communist puppets. The chapter then considers the evolution of Hungarian civil–military relations from the end of the war until the March 1953 death of Joseph Stalin, which is a suitable point to mark the consolidation of the Soviet-controlled communist regime and the completion of the armed forces' transformation.Less

Democracy

Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua A. Tucker

in Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes

This chapter analyzes the mechanisms underlying the large and temporally resilient democratic values deficit among residents of post-communist countries. While a number of pre-communist and ... More

This chapter analyzes the mechanisms underlying the large and temporally resilient democratic values deficit among residents of post-communist countries. While a number of pre-communist and post-communist demographic, political, and economic factors affect democratic support patterns, these features of living in a post-communist country alone cannot account for the significant democratic deficit of post-communist citizens. However, the study found very strong support for the effects of exposure to communism at the individual level: the extent of the democratic deficit increases substantially with the length of time a given individual spent living in a communist regime, even after controlling for a citizen's age. The data, therefore, strongly suggest that the legacy of living through communism contributed to anti-democratic attitudes in the post-communist period.Less

Eastern Christianity and Human Security in Postwar Europe

Lucian N. Leustean

in Religion and Human Security: A Global Perspective

This chapter reveals the complex and subtle relationship between Orthodox religion and communist regimes that sought either to destroy the church or to use it for their own purposes. The eventual ... More

This chapter reveals the complex and subtle relationship between Orthodox religion and communist regimes that sought either to destroy the church or to use it for their own purposes. The eventual failure of these regimes was due, at least in part, to their underestimation of the contributions made by Orthodoxy to the human security of its people. This chapter argues that religious communities form just one of the primary actors in securing the welfare, rights, and social desires of their constituents. It provides a broad background of the relationship of religion to the communist regimes, the ways in which the churches responded to these regimes, and a detailed account of how the Romanian church survived amid communist political powers. Indeed, the church's involvement in both domestic and foreign politics continues to create a primary source of human security in contemporary Eastern Europe more generally.Less

Social Welfare

Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua A. Tucker

in Communism's Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes

This chapter examines the mechanisms underlying the greater support for an active welfare state among residents of post-communist countries. The analysis found very strong evidence that additional ... More

This chapter examines the mechanisms underlying the greater support for an active welfare state among residents of post-communist countries. The analysis found very strong evidence that additional years of exposure to communist rule were correlated with greater support for state responsibility for social welfare. Moreover, and in line with the findings from the preceding two chapters, this chapter also shows that adult communist exposure has a greater impact on welfare state attitudes than childhood exposure. However, unlike in the previous two chapters, it appears that the attitudinal imprint of communism affects not only individuals with long personal exposures to communism but also post-communist citizens with very limited personal exposures to communist regimes and welfare states.Less

Invisible Enemies across the Frozen River

Sören Urbansky

in Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian Border

This chapter argues that the rift between Beijing and Moscow had a lasting influence on the situation along the border, with direct and indirect consequences for those living in the area. The two ... More

This chapter argues that the rift between Beijing and Moscow had a lasting influence on the situation along the border, with direct and indirect consequences for those living in the area. The two communist regimes, armed to the teeth, confronted one another on the border with even more weaponry and soldiers than had been assembled during the Japanese–Soviet arms race in the 1930s. Propaganda campaigns resuscitated old motifs of infiltration, sabotage, espionage, and disinformation, imbuing the border with new legitimacy as a space of enmity. The conflict was, of course, not just about winning or losing the hearts and minds of the people. Though no major war broke out, the war scare affected the security, economy, and demography in the border regions of Hulunbeir and Transbaikalia, and its concomitant outpouring of nationalism altered how the local populace in the divided Argun borderland perceived the border and its adjoining states.Less

Dictators and Democrats in the Dominican Republic

Lindsey A. O’Rourke

in Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War

This chapter argues that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson did not foresee a direct Soviet threat in the Dominican Republic when they decided to intervene. Instead, America pursued the ... More

This chapter argues that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson did not foresee a direct Soviet threat in the Dominican Republic when they decided to intervene. Instead, America pursued the maintenance of a hierarchical regional order in the Western Hemisphere. With this end in view, U.S. policymakers feared that if a socialist or communist regime came to power in the Dominican Republic, its success could spark left-wing revolts in neighboring countries, leading to a cascade of defections from the U.S.-led order and potentially the collapse of U.S. regional hegemony. As such, the chapter investigates a series of hegemonic operations against the Dominican Republic during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Eisenhower initiated a coup d'état plot against America's one-time ally General Rafael Trujillo that came to fruition under Kennedy and resulted in Trujillo's 1961 assassination. In 1962, Kennedy launched a second covert operation to manipulate the country's upcoming presidential elections. After these covert efforts failed to produce a stable government, Johnson overtly intervened during a 1965 crisis to prevent leftist forces from assuming power. Afterward, he reverted to covert conduct to manipulate Dominican elections in 1966 and 1968.Less

On Authoritarian Leadership

Graeme Gill

in Bridling Dictators: Rules and Authoritarian Politics

This chapter outlines the established view of the way leadership in an authoritarian regime operates, emphasizing its arbitrary and violent dimensions. It criticizes this literature in terms of both ... More

This chapter outlines the established view of the way leadership in an authoritarian regime operates, emphasizing its arbitrary and violent dimensions. It criticizes this literature in terms of both its assumptions and its empirical accuracy. The chapter then discusses the key concepts used in the following analysis. It identifies five regime types: single party, electoral authoritarian, military, monarchy and personal dictatorship. It then discusses the nature of authoritarian leadership, conceived in terms of an oligarchy, including the bases upon which personal power can rest. The chapter discusses the nature of rules, introducing the three types of rules identified as central to the conduct of oligarch politics: operational, relational and constitutive rules. An explanation of the structure and a chapter summary of the book follows. An appendix to this chapter lists the twenty-nine rules identified as structuring leadership politics in authoritarian regimes.Less

Jews in Museums: Narratives of Nation and ‘Jewishness’ in Post-Communist Hungarian and Polish Public Memory

Anna Manchin

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 31: Poland and Hungary: Jewish Realities Compared

This chapter reviews how museums in Poland and Hungary have conceived of Jewish history within national history, particularly in the way they represent the interwar years, the Second World War, and ... More

This chapter reviews how museums in Poland and Hungary have conceived of Jewish history within national history, particularly in the way they represent the interwar years, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. It begins by situating them in the context of post-communist history debates. After 1989 the two countries and their museums had similar communist narratives to redefine themselves against. This was driven less by actual similarities of experiences and more by the needs of communist regimes to consolidate and legitimize their power and a Marxist analysis of history as class struggle. In both countries, as in the rest of Soviet eastern Europe, the communists represented themselves as leaders of the anti-fascist resistance, fighting for, liberating, and protecting the working people. They viewed fascism as an extreme form of capitalist exploitation: its racism and antisemitism were beside the point. Accordingly, Jewish victims, persecuted on racial grounds, were universalized and their specific suffering suppressed. In both Poland and Hungary, this communist interpretation meshed well with popular needs and pre-existing interpretations, in particular the need of post-war societies to see themselves primarily as victims rather than (also) as perpetrators of violence.Less

Secrets, Inheritance, and a Generation’s Remains

Maya Nadkarni

in Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary

This chapter demonstrates how the rhetoric of communist terror and the danger of its return would soon extend past party politics to encompass intimate friendships and family relationships. It ... More

This chapter demonstrates how the rhetoric of communist terror and the danger of its return would soon extend past party politics to encompass intimate friendships and family relationships. It discusses the problem of the communist regime's informers that inspired public debate in the second decade of postsocialism. The chapter also analyzes the call to accountability as a matter of generational inheritance, in which Hungary's cultural “children” reconceptualized the problem of socialism's remains as not only the challenge of banishing the past, but the fear of reproducing it in the future. It looks at one of the crucial ways the conflicts took shape through the charged idiom of family and generational conflict and whether that entailed betrayal by cultural elders or actual parent. The works of celebrated filmmaker István Szabó and novelist Péter Esterházy are also mentioned in the chapter.Less

Whose Nation, Whose State? Working-Class Nationalism and Antisemitism in Poland, 1945‒1947

Padraic Kenney

in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 13: Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath

This chapter studies working-class nationalism and antisemitism in post-war Poland. It argues that in early post-war Poland, citizen–state relations expressed themselves in part through national ... More

This chapter studies working-class nationalism and antisemitism in post-war Poland. It argues that in early post-war Poland, citizen–state relations expressed themselves in part through national identity. In this context, antisemitism took on new meaning in Poland because it became not only an expression of fears about national identity and cultural vulnerability, but also a means of defining the state and citizenship. Thus, national identity paradoxically sharpened as Poland approached homo-ethnicity. Before and during the war, Polish workers had expressed a strong national consciousness, and post-war reconstruction invoked national themes. The professed class nature of the new state, however, and the practical concerns of the workers eventually made allegiance to the state a central issue. That allegiance was potentially based not just upon prosperity or nationalism, but upon agreement with certain programmes and policies of the communist regime.Less

Moscow

Sean McMeekin

in The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willy Munzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West

This chapter studies the status of Moscow after the Bolsheviks evacuated European Petrograd for the ancient Russian capital of Muscovy in March 1918, which led to the Moscow Kremlin assuming an ... More

This chapter studies the status of Moscow after the Bolsheviks evacuated European Petrograd for the ancient Russian capital of Muscovy in March 1918, which led to the Moscow Kremlin assuming an almost mystical status for socialists all over the world. Inside its stone walls were Lenin's embattled communist regime—holed up as if in hiding from its many domestic and foreign enemies, while the war raged on outside the Kremlin's confines. There was the first armed White resistance to Red rule, launched by the generals Alekseev and Kornilov in the Don Cossack region in winter of 1917–18; the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion along the trans-Siberian railway in summer of 1918; the establishment of two anti-Bolshevik armies in the east, headquartered at Samara and Omsk, in Siberia; and the Polish invasion of White Russia in the west, launched in April 1920.Less

The Fading of Structural Postmodernism and a Triumphal Exception: Francis Fukuyama

in On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath

The accelerating globalization in the post-1945 world raised entirely new questions about progress. On the one hand, particularly, globalization supplied a new opposition to favorable views of ... More

The accelerating globalization in the post-1945 world raised entirely new questions about progress. On the one hand, particularly, globalization supplied a new opposition to favorable views of progress. On the other hand, the spread of the capitalist market economy into all corners of the world and its competition with Communist regimes as well as democratic socialist countries brought a variety of defenses of progress. The strongest support for progress views of history came from the so-called modernization theories. These saw progress fueled primarily by economic forces that were guided and enhanced by technological innovations and capitalist ordering principles. They implied a promise of a universal human condition free of the most burdensome cares, problems, and sufferings of the past.Less

Milton in Serbian/Montenegrin: from behind Bars

Marjan Strojan

in Milton in Translation

The focus of this chapter is the first Serbian translation of Paradise Lost, which appeared in Belgrade in 1989. It was a reprint of Djilas’s translation of the epic, published twenty years earlier ... More

The focus of this chapter is the first Serbian translation of Paradise Lost, which appeared in Belgrade in 1989. It was a reprint of Djilas’s translation of the epic, published twenty years earlier in the USA. Djilas’s task of translation was also an act of intellectual rebellion and a means of keeping himself sane during his long years of incarceration in a Yugoslav prison. The chapter analyses select passages of Djilas’s translation alongside their counterparts from the original as well as with some extant Serbian renderings of the poem. This analysis demonstrates that, in his translation, Djilas successfully brought together the culturally different epic traditions of his native Montenegro and of the nearby Dalmatian coast, but he was less successful in solving the fundamental prosodic question of how to make Milton’s dense iambic pentameter fit an equally compact trochaic verse.Less