The Comparative Examination of the Road to the Differing Current Perceptions of László Rajk and Rudolf Slánský

To the Editor: It is widely acknowledged that the methodology and reporting of systematic reviews of adverse effects need to improve (1). Part of the problem is that data about harm are rarely found in randomised clinical trials (RCTs) so that identifying important harms of treatment often require a broad range of data sources, including cohort studies, case–control studies, case series and case reports. As all such studies are subject to bias to a greater extent than RCTs, their findings must be interpreted with caution (2). Given the above, we read with interest the systematic review titled, ‘Deaths after chiropractic: a review of published cases’ (3), by Professor Edzard Ernst. Ernst states in the introduction to his review that, ‘The aim of this study was to summarise all cases in which chiropractic spinal manipulation was followed by death.’ We reviewed Professor Ernst’s article and went to both primary and secondary sources in the peer-reviewed literature to double check the professional identity of the care providers in the 26 cases that he reported finding. We found that in three separate cases, Ernst incorrectly assigned the care associated with death to a chiropractor. The following is a summary of our findings: ‘Regarding the case documented by Schmitt (Reference 11 in Ernst’s review), Terrett (4) states, ‘The original paper reports a heilpraktiker (health practitioner)…’’ ‘Regarding the case documented by Mas et al. (Reference 19 in Ernst’s review), Terrett (4) states, ‘Personal correspondence with Professor Mas (Letter, 1st June 1993) reveals that he is not sure of the professional background of the practitioner involved’.’ ‘Ernst states that one death caused by care delivered by a chiropractor was documented by Dziewas et al. (Reference 27 in Ernst’s review). However, Dziewas in an exchange of letters to the editor (5,6) stated,’ ‘We acknowledge that we do not know whether the patients in question had received prior treatment by a ‘duly licensed chiropractor’ or by a ‘briefly trained chiropractitioner’… Chiropractors as in the USA represent a small minority in Germany, the influence of which can be neglected in our cohort … it would indeed have been wise to use the unspecified term ‘manipulation of the cervical spine’ instead of ‘chiropractic manipulation’.’ In the conclusion to his review Ernst states that he believes, ‘There are reasons to suspect that under-reporting (of death due to manipulation by chiropractors) is substantial…’ Ernst, however, by incorrectly labelling care providers as chiropractors in three separate cases, has added to the over-reporting of deaths associated with chiropractic care. It should be noted that in all three cases the fact that the care providers were not chiropractors is easily confirmed by checking primary and/or secondary data sources readily accessible from the peer-reviewed literature. It is interesting that all three of the errors that Ernst made, in assigning professional identity, were errors that increased the apparent association between chiropractors and death. In general, the quality of systematic reviews of adverse effects might be improved by including a systematic means by which to deal with the biases inherent in many of the non-RCT data sources often included in such reviews. A logical place to start in developing a systematic means by which to deal with such biases would be to search for and review secondary data sources in the peer-reviewed literature. None. AW and MB both contributed to the conception and content of the letter. Both authors read and reviewed the related systematic review. AW acquired data from primary and secondary sources. AW and MB contributed to drafts of the letter and both authors revised, suggested modifications and approved the final version to be submitted for publication.

Carlos Lacerda: The Rise and Fall of a Middle-Class Populist in 1950s Brazil

Public attitudes and risk perception toward land application of biosolids within the south-eastern United States

The foundations of political activity were laid in Equatorial Guinea during the colonial era. At that time, several ethnic-based parties were active, advocating the complete separation of the island of Fernando Po from the continental province of Rio Muni. After decolonization in 1968, power was effectively monopolized by the Fang people. The country was faced with the need to solve problems that could be solved by joint efforts of representatives of various political parties and social movements: improving the living standards of the population, creating health and education systems, economic and infrastructural development. However, in the political system of Equatorial Guinea, one-party rule in the form of the Democratic Party is firmly entrenched. In 1975, the population faced mass repressions, and the state administration as a system almost disappeared. Not only oppositionists were physically destroyed, but also people who were far from politics. In 1991, under pressure from the United Nations, Spain, and the United States, and under threat of suspension of economic aid, several opposition movements were allowed to operate in Equatorial Guinea. But the most active oppositionists ended up in prison. Currently, the role of the opposition in the political life of the country is small, the Democratic Party has dominated the country’s parliament for many years. The political system of Equatorial Guinea does not provide for the existence of an independent State structure whose function is to organize elections. The head of the National Election Commission is the country’s interior minister and one of the main figures in the ruling Democratic Party. For decades, the opposition’s discontent with the policies of the ruling party has been based not only on restrictions on the activities of the opposition itself, but also on the low standard of living of the population. In addition, the regime of one-party rule creates a negative image of the country in the international arena. Foreign donors often cite this former Spanish colony as a glaring example of social inequality.

International audience

Latin Women Take the Helm

Solidarity had come to represent the nation in a far meaningful way than the Communist Party ever had. In the unusual situation of mass upheaval that confronted the Polish state from August 1980 until the military coup in December 1981, the Party/state was limited in its options for a lengthy period. Therefore, it was not free simply to choose whether to repress or not, and instead was forced to struggle with the new social support that enjoyed by Solidarity. This struggle took place not just between Solidarity and the Party, but also within the Party itself. Sometimes, the Party apparatchiks took action against the union on their own. The Bydgoszcz events were just as pivotal to the conflict within the Party, whose divisions became deeper and visible. After the Party Congress, the opposition movement within the Party had been contained, leaving party conservatives freer to continue its offensive against Solidarity. Keywords:Bydgoszcz; Communist Party; Party Congress; Solidarity; war

An evaluation of the usefulness of a number of secondary information sources for retrospective literature searching in the occupational diseases subject area is presented. Several sec ondary sources were found to be of value but no single source provided comprehensive retrieval of relevant information. Thus, despite considerable overlap between sources, several must always be searched if all information pertinent to a query is required. Some recommendations are made as to when particu lar secondary sources should be used.

Europe’s Existential Threats

All European Communist parties define themselves largely in terms of their relationship, amicable or not, to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Consequently, most studies of relations between Communist parties emphasize interactions with the Soviets. However, not all the smaller European Communist parties interact strictly through the medium of Moscow. There exists an extensive, genuinely bilateral aspect to the relationship between Italian and Yugoslav Communists. Both have tended to seek distinctively national paths and, to differing degrees, both have been at odds with the Soviets. The history of Italo-Yugoslav nationality and border disputes, as well as major differences in how the two Communist parties have approached those disputes, has done much to condition inter-party relations. Red Adriatic is the first book to focus on relations between Communist parties in adjacent countries. As such, it offers insights, both practical and theoretical, into problems of inter-party relations. Based on archival sources, as well as on published materials, it also contributes to the individual historiographies of the Italian and Yugoslav Communist parties. The study speaks to several issues in comparative Communist studies, contrasting the different ways in which the two parties have adapted to national circumstances, balancing nationalism and internationalism, and to their different leadership styles.

Amidst the growing incidence of urban crime in Ghana is the proliferation of private security companies (PSCs). As of December 2014, Ghana’s Ministry of Interior, responsible for the registration and regulation of PSCs, reported that there were as many as 176 licensed companies in ‘good standing’ (that is, companies which have renewed their operating licenses) in the country. In broad terms, the proliferation of PSCs reflects a global trend and represents a logical extension of economic liberalization and privatization efforts of the Ghanaian state. The broad proposition in the security literature is that as the state cuts back on public services such as policing and security, the popular doctrine of resilience shifts the burden of security to society and consequently justifying the use of private security organizations. While PSCs have proliferated in recent decades, little studies have been done regarding their conformity with the existing policy, institutional and legal framework that set them up and the public perceptions about their activities and crime prevention in Ghanaian cities. More importantly, the extent to which PSCs have impacted on crime incidence and the public’s perceptions on their operations and accessibility remain to be explored. Based on key informant interviews as well as a survey of 2745 households undertaken in key Ghanaian cities (Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi and Tamale), this study seeks to bridge these knowledge gaps by critically examining households’ perceptions of PSCs and crime in large Ghanaian metropolitan cities. Quite contrary to the dominant propositions in the literature, the household survey identifies job creation/business as the single most important driver for the proliferation of PSCs.

Researching the life of Abe Lazarus, a leading Communist Party figure in 1930s Britain, raises important wider questions about how to investigate ‘mass leaders’ in the era after the Cold War. With the availability of more archives, including ‘official’ Security Service (MI5) files and ‘unofficial’ personal memoirs, there is now the possibility of exploring past communist lives in greater depth and free from traditional orthodoxies. In the case of Lazarus, while there has been some recognition of the leading role he played in the Pressed Steel and Cutteslowe Walls disputes and anti-fascist politics in interwar Oxford, the later period of his political career has remained something of a mystery. Arthur Exell, former Morris Motors worker and Communist Party comrade of Lazarus, began a biography in the early 1980s under the supervision of Raphael Samuel, who prompted him to consider not only what Lazarus’s political activism achieved in the thirties but also more difficult times later and the ways in which Lazarus’s later life might be said to reflect the wider predicaments of the Communist Party. Exell never completed his work. This article addresses those questions with the aid of new material and, with the purpose of exploring Lazarus’s political life in its widest context, it draws on Samuel’s The Lost World of British Communism.

This chapter highlights the Fifth Land Conference in 1940, which, after the Eighth Zagreb Conference, was the next pivotal moment in Marshal Tito's political career. It explores the question of whether the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) could finally hold a congress, like any other exotic communist party in the far corners of the world. It also looks at Tito's intention to merge the Communist Party of Slovenia, the Communist Party of Croatia, and the CPY due to his own political motives and unlimited ambitions. The chapter mentions Franz Honner who founded the underground Austrian Communist Party in 1940 after meeting Tito in Split. It elaborates how Tito would go on to retain a substantial influence on the Italian party and politics for the rest of his life.

The article analyzes Ukrainian and Polish source literature on the war over the control of Donbas that has been waged by Russia and Ukraine since 2014, and military volunteers who participated in the conflict. The evolution of Ukrainian military volunteerism as a way of life of the ethnos and a cultural phenomenon merits further ethnological research in Ukraine and Poland. For this reason, historical literature, literature on sociology and social pedagogy, journalistic sources and other source literature should be analyzed to explore difficult war circumstances, new military traditions and volunteerism. The establishment and evolution of military volunteerism in contemporary Ukraine as a social and cultural phenomenon has not yet emerged as a major topic of ethnological research in Ukraine or Poland. The article draws upon literary sources that lay the historical foundations for volunteerism through mutual assistance and acts of good will on behalf of Ukrainian citizens. Scientific literature and journalistic sources concerning volunteerism should also be reviewed.
 Academic papers (reports from scientific conferences, political negotiations, dissertations), opinion journalism (memoirs and interviews) and literary works (novels, essays, short stories and poetry) published in contemporary Poland and Ukraine constitute important sources of information about the armed forces and military volunteers.

Despite the diversity of managed realignment approaches adopted in different countries, there are certain elements of commonality that provide relevant lessons that can be applicable to facilitate and improve the implementation of managed realignment in general. Public perception and stakeholders’ engagement are often cited as a factor limiting the wider implementation of managed realignment. Considering the scale and importance of managed realignment in national and regional strategies in many countries, gaining wider public acceptance is fundamental. To take adequate actions that can improve social uptake of managed realignment, it is first necessary to understand the differences between public perception and the current knowledge of practitioners and researchers. This chapter describes the current thinking of researchers and practitioners about the potential, performance and limitations of managed realignment and contrasts these with the perception of stakeholders. Critical differences are identified and ways to address these with the aim to increase the social acceptance of managed realignment are suggested.