Communist Dictatorship Research Articles

Automating Power: Cybernetics and Sovereignty in Cold War North Korea.

This study challenges the conventional Cold War narrative that portrays cybernetics as inherently opposed to communist authoritarianism and the perception of cybernetic control as a mechanism of liberal governmentality. It analyzes the introduction of cybernetics into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) during the Cold War. Previous studies about cybernetics in the socialist world have described how the discipline's emphasis on objectivity and decentralization clashed with orthodox political economists and Stalinist science and led to liberal reforms. Yet in the DPRK, the introduction of cybernetics was followed by an increase in authoritarianism.

The participation of Red Army soldiers in the providing of complete collectivization in Podillia

The purpose of the article is, based on the analysis of archival sources, general and special literature, to shed light on the participation of Red Army soldiers in the providing of complete collectivization in Podillya. The research methodology is based on the principles of objectivity and historicism using both general scientific and special research methods: problem-chronological, historical-comparative, critical analysis method. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the disclosure of an insufficiently studied problem in Ukrainian historiography, designed to clarify the role and place of the Red Army in the establishment of the Bolshevik totalitarian regime in the Podilsk village. Conclusions. The Red Army, from the moment of its creation, was considered by the Bolsheviks as one of the institutions of the implementation of the communist regime. Being 2/3 peasant in terms of social composition, it was to become a school of political education and cultural enlightenment in the spirit of communist ideas for former peasant owners. The strengthening of such work is observed at the end of the 1920s, when the regime's attempt to resume the "military-communist assault" ran into desperate resistance from the peasantry and became a threat to the existence of the communist government. From that time, the Bolshevik leadership not only set specific tasks for the Red Army, but also tried to systematically control the political and moral attitudes of the Red Army. One of the important directions of the work of military units was to assist the authorities in the process of socialization of one-person peasant farms. In the conditions of complete collectivization, the army was entrusted with tasks not only of an educational and propaganda nature, but also of direct participation in the collectivization of the village. In particular, the military units stationed in Podilla were involved in: training personnel for collective farm construction; taking over the villages that were transitioning to complete collectivization; sending groups of Red Army soldiers to collective farms to perform specific tasks; admission to collectives by whole divisions; organization of special Red Army collective farms. By carrying out extensive educational and propaganda work, applying methods of ensuring military discipline and practicing selective repression among the commanding and rank-and-file staff, the Bolshevik authorities managed not only to overcome oppositional sentiments in the army, but also to turn it into an obedient tool of the communist dictatorship.

Transitional Justice in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia in a Comparative Framework

This thesis aims to enhance transitional justice studies with a focus on the Balkan peninsula, by providing a comparative analysis of the extent of transitional justice mechanisms in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. With the fall of military dictatorships in Latin America in the 1980s, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of new states in the 1990s, the concept of Transitional Justice (TJ) saw a significant rise in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was further propelled by the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the prolonged breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992) as well as the fall of the communist dictatorship in Albania (1990). The emergence of new states and the state-building processes that followed the political and social changes also brought new challenges and conflicts, although they marked the end of significantly repressive political regimes. Considering that the implementation of TJ has undergone several changes over time and is dependent on the different settings in which it was employed, it is necessary to conduct extensive comparative research to determine the extent to which TJ differs in post-communist and post-conflict nations. The study has developed three main hypotheses: (1) The limited achievement of lustration law in Albania has conditioned the current status of transitional justice; (2) The state-building process has contributed to the evolution of Transitional Justice in Kosovo; (3) The power-sharing process as a TJ pillar in North Macedonia has fueled TJ in the country. By utilizing a mixed methods approach, data was collected through elite interviews, conducted in the three countries with 44 representatives from academia, politics, media, and civil society. To conclude, two hypotheses are fully upheld in terms of the limited achievement of lustration law and its implications with the current status of transitional justice in Albania; and the contribution of state-building in Kosovo to the evolution of transitional justice. The third hypothesis related to the power-sharing process in North Macedonia as a fueling mechanism for the evolution of transitional justice is partially upheld. Received: 13 February 2024 / Accepted: 30 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024

The Perception of Fascist and National Socialist Ideologies During the Second World War in Albania

The Albanian Communist Party was born as a Bolshevik-style party, endowed with a non-Bolshevik but social democratic program, such as popular democracy. To shed light on the factors that determined the arrival of the communist regime in Albania, it is necessary to start the analysis from its roots, that is, since the establishment of the communist regime in Albania. For his part, although the communist regime was established in Albania immediately after the end of World War II, the roots of the phenomenon must be sought from the beginning of the war, even a few months earlier when Albania was invaded on April 7, 1939, by fascist Italy. When Albania was invaded by fascist Italy, no one inside or outside the country predicted, nor could have predicted, that at the end of World War II, the Albanian Communist Party would take power into its own hands. There were subjective and objective reasons for this. First of all, when World War II broke out, Albania was the only country in the Balkans that did not have a Communist Party. However, the absence of the Communist Party was largely a subjective factor. The establishment of the communist regime in Albania was for objective reasons a completely paradoxical phenomenon. Albania, the youngest state in Europe, at the same time its most backward state, with a population of one million and forty thousand inhabitants, had no developed industry, ie no working class in the eyes of the proletariat, as conceived by Marxist doctrine. According to Marxist definitions, Albania was a micro-bourgeois country, that is, without capitalist owners and capitalist institutions, to the extent that they justified the socialist revolution. In addition, the Albanian population was overwhelmingly still illiterate. There were only a few isolated nuclei or communist groups with few members composed mainly of artisans and students, who were further characterized by ideological perversion and worse still by political rivalries between them. The question before historians is this: How can it be explained that despite all these disadvantages, the Albanian Communist Party, which was founded two and a half years after the occupation of the country by fascist Italy, on November 8, 1941, managed to face the war against the occupiers within three years. Nazi fascists and against internal nationalist factors, to take political power in Albania at the end of the Second World War? In addition, how is it that the Albanian Communist Party, unlike its Eastern European counterparts, seized political power on its own, without the presence of Soviet armies, which are not known to have invaded Albania? Albania's position during the Second World War and especially the National Liberation War must be judged by ourselves, regardless of who led it. We must judge it as we do in every historical event. The communist dictatorship that was established in Albania should not blind us to the judgment we give in the national liberation war. The communist regime is not a necessary offspring of the National Liberation War. In my opinion, the establishment of the communist regime is the result of mistakes made during the national liberation war, it is a consequence of the poverty of the political culture of the Albanian people, the lack of traditional political parties, the naivety of the Communist Party leaders, the illusions of united nationalists with the National Liberation Front, of myopia, of the leaders of the National Front, which were used by Enver Hoxha to realize under the umbrella of patriotic war his dictatorial ambitions. Received: 25 December 2023 / Accepted: 25 February 2024 / Published: 23 April 2024

The Catholic Church in Hungary and Romania during the Communist Dictatorship: A Comparative Analysis

The structure and cultural characteristics of a society are, in the words of Joseph Schumpeter, “like metal” – they bend and melt but do not readily evaporate. My comparative analysis confirms the diagnosis that the everyday presence of dictatorship cannot be adequately described by the standard top-down models of ideologically driven communist power. The substantive differences in developments between Hungary and Romania suggest that external power is only part of the construct, however rigid the hegemonic structure. By looking at the reactions caused by similar effects in different contexts, it becomes clear what has an impact on what. The relationship of the churches to the state in the countries under study includes similarities and differences shaped by distinct historical trajectories that are partly structural and partly situational. In terms of circumstances, Romania’s Orthodox pattern regarding the relationship between the state and the church also determined the relationship with other denominations and sealed the fate of Greek Orthodox Catholics. The measures taken against Roman Catholics, although more or less the same as in Hungary, also tended more towards the state-church model. However, this feature was not the primary cause of the different impact in Romania compared to Hungary. This is because, just as the relationship between church and state differed from country to country, so did the relationship of the churches to their own “national” societies. Further, no matter how tempting it might be to consider the Catholic Church a closed entity, the comparison clarifies that neither the hierarchical division nor the same (Catholic) norm made behaviour uniform. The differences arising from local configurations of the single norm grew more and more evident in the 1950s. All this suggests that state and church strategies and actions were shaped more by the conflict of contexts and pressures to comply than by the tension between the scope of action and the constraints: the differences between Romania and Hungary are explained by the different contexts and the cross-generational ecclesiastical and social patterns A greater historical understanding explains how bishops in Hungary, in line with previous conditions and established practice, hoped for quasi-freedom in church operations through a “partnership” with the state while the Roman Catholic Church in Romania has been operating under exlex conditions for four decades. That does not mean that a rational-legal approach on its own is the key to understanding what has occurred. Under a dictatorship, we can identify deviance, excesses, abuses and arbitrary actions in relation to the law. However, these “models” can only be understood in the context of processes that transcend political history. The behaviour of the authorities in Bucharest towards the Catholic Church has been dramatic compared to other countries under Soviet influence. With the arrests of Áron Márton and Anton Durcovici, the public hierarchy appointed by the Holy See ceased to exist. The elimination of dioceses by the state was also a unique feature. The resistance organised by the Jesuits and Franciscans, with the support of the faithful, successfully paralysed the ecclesiastical administration, which had been put in place due to state intervention after the arrest of Áron Márton. This process was largely due to the church’s strengthened social embeddedness in previous years and its successful adaptation of strategies developed to cope with its minority status. Over the centuries, the Catholic Church in Transylvania has faced a series of challenges that have threatened its very existence. These pressures have also shaped the thinking of its clergy and its relationship with its faithful. The recoveries from crises have led to innovative and flexible adaptation strategies, making the local church “tough” and thus contributing to its management of the next crisis. The mentality of the church, which was minimally domesticated or determined by the secular power, showed fewer Josephine traits than in Hungary. The relationship between church and state tended towards the passive model, while the relationship between church and society tended towards the active model. The Catholic Church’s double minority status in Transylvania during the Communist years – minority as a Hungarian and minority as a Catholic – created an alternative society that did not allow it to abstain entirely from politics. Beyond individual choices, this also made its confrontational position more flexible and its submission more moderate.

Endeavor for Self-Realization

This paper focuses on the reactions of three professors and architects (Jan E. Koula, Vladimír Karfík, and Alfred Piffl) to how the totalitarian political regime restricted and interfered with creative and academic freedoms in the period starting with the introduction of architectural education at the Slovak University of Technology and ending with the so-called “normalization” period in the former Czechoslovakia. All three of them were already active in interwar Czechoslovakia and thus had rich experience with working under democratic conditions, and their early work was influenced by the interwar avant-garde movements. After World War II, in part thanks to their pioneering work at the Slovak University of Technology, they got caught up in the system of the authoritarian socialist state. The central question that this study asks is how the trio dealt with the totalitarian regime, which stood in contrast with the democratic period of interwar Czechoslovakia that formed them as architects, and brought further limits to their work. Based mostly on material from their personal estates and period publications, we reveal how each of them found his own way to deal with the totalitarian regime, and we argue that even its limitations did not make Koula, Karfík, and Piffl abandon their beliefs and creative credos completely.

Receptarea lui Martin Heidegger în publicistica românească interbelică

This article tries to demonstrate that Heidegger’s philosophy is known and debated in the Romanian culture long before the translation into Romanian of his main texts, wright in the years between the World Wars, when Heidegger was the most prestigious philosopher in Europe, through the work and enthusiasm of the exceptional cultural and intellectual generation of the 30’s and 40’s, until the communist dictatorship. Heidegger texts, mainly Sein und Zeit, were read in German by a generation of intellectuals of which most representatives studied in German or Austrian universities; they themselves disseminated his philosophy in articles published in Romanian cultural magazines in the 30’s and 40’s. Some of these authors were in fact Heidegger’s students in Freiburg.

Re-Contextualizing Stage Politics: Interrogating Shakespeare’s Hamlet In Uruguay

For the spectator initiated in the political aspect of the Shakespearean theatre, Carlos Manuel Varela’s Interrogatorio en Elsinore proposes “a kind of extended palimpsest” of Hamlet that connects on stage a troubled, fictional Elsinore to the traumatic reality of Uruguay during the military junta. For the reader fascinated by comparative literary studies and implicated in the theatre world, Interrogatorio en Elsinore resonates with the Bulgarian playwright Nedjalko Iordanov’s the Murder of Gonzago by drawing from parallel extreme ideologies of neo-fascist and communist dictatorships and their institutionalized regime of terror. Both plays showcase the potential of the performance in Hamlet to underpin the role of the artist in the political landscape. Applied to Interrogatorio en Elsinore, such reflections lead the initiated spectator to conclude that Varela’s play proposes a Hamlet who connects on stage a troubled, fictional Elsinore to the traumatic reality of Uruguay.

The Curious Tales of The Scarlet Empire

ABSTRACT The Scarlet Empire (1906) by David Maclean Parry, a former president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), offers an anti-utopian romance set in an authoritarian socialist Atlantis. Supplementing the efforts of NAM to limit the power of unions and diminish the appeal of socialism through political and editorial suasion, the novel promised a new and powerful way of proselytizing middle-class readers by competing with prominent literary utopians and socialists, especially Edward Bellamy and Upton Sinclair. The novel’s protagonist is converted to individualism and capitalism and comes to see socialism as emasculating. Empire bundles capitalism and masculinity together through a redemptive adventure romance narrative that serves capitalist ideological purposes and has the protagonist combining tremendous wealth, a powerful faith in individualism, and a recovered masculine subjectivity to become a captain of industry and paragon of a hegemonic masculinity at the turn of the twentieth century.

MÉCANISMES DE L’HUMOUR DANS LES BLAGUES ROUMAINES d’avant 1989

Under the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, humor served as a defense mechanism that allowed Romanians to cope with the regime's restrictions on freedom and the grim daily reality that blatantly contradicted official propaganda. The political j

The role of temporal analogies in collective movements

AbstractAlthough the importance of temporal perspectives for understanding collective movements has been theoretically emphasised, they are rarely considered in research. Focusing on the mass protests against COVID‐19 policies in Germany, we investigated how protesters make use of temporal references in their protest narratives. Results from 11 multi‐site protest observations and 31 interviews showed that participants (a) drew historical perpetrator and victim analogies and imagined a dystopian future, bolstering perceptions of injustice, (b) drew on resistance narratives and imagined the ideal, utopian future society, increasing their perceived efficacy and (c) countered feelings of insignificance by identifying with past heroes. Protesters living in the East of Germany drew comparatively more resistance analogies than those living in the West, who often likened those complying with the COVID‐19 policies to the perpetrators of the past national‐socialist and communist dictatorships. The findings empirically underline the importance of integrating historical–cultural–future perspectives into models of collective action.

Transitional Justice Status in Albania Through Local Perceptions

This research article aims to enhance regional studies with a focus on the Balkan peninsula, by providing a comprehensive analysis of the extent of transitional justice mechanisms in Albania and its local perception among the citizens. With the fall of military dictatorships in Latin America in 1980s, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new states in 1990s, the concept of Transitional Justice (TJ) saw a significant rise in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was further propelled by the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the prolonged breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992) as well as the fall of the communist dictatorship in Albania (1990). The emergence of new states and the state-building processes that followed the political and social changes also brought new challenges and conflicts, although they marked the end of significantly repressive political regimes. Considering that the implementation of TJ has undergone several changes over time and dependent of the different settings in which it was employed, it is necessary to conduct extensive research to determine the extent to which TJ differs in post-communist and post-conflict nations. The main research question of this article is: How is reflected the current status of transitional justice in Albania in the lens of public perceptions? To achieve the goal, this article employs quantitative data through a survey conducted with 1021 respondents in Albania. The results of the study show that there are significant differences between the responses of participants who reported having knowledge of Transitional Justice and those who reported being unaware, particularly with their understanding of the number of victims affected. p-value <0.05.
 
 Received: 6 September 2023 / Accepted: 29 November 2023 / Published: 5 January 2024

Rola i znaczenie Kościoła katolickiego w PRL i Cerkwi prawosławnej w ZSRR w procesie przemian systemowych u schyłku lat 80. XX w. Przyczynek do analizy

The participation of the Catholic Church in the systemic changes in Poland is unquestionable. The significant role of church hierarchs, middle- and lower-level pastors in accelerating the erosion of the communist dictatorship in Poland over the years, and especially in the last decade of the Polish People’s Republic, is unquestionable. Analogous processes of political, social, economic and cultural changes taking place in neighboring countries where Catholicism was the dominant religion were also stimulated to a large extent by representatives of the clergy. However, the issue of the importance of the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union for the systemic changes at the end of the 1980s remains slightly more complicated. Therefore, the article compares two powerful Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, from the point of view of analogy and diff erences in the role, influence and importance of these institutions for the collapse of both authoritarian systems.

„Eine verschollen geglaubte Textsammlung ruft die Vergangenheit auf“1: Rezension zu: die bewegung der antillen unter der schädeldecke. junge rumäniendeutsche lyrik zwischen 1975 und 1980. Eine (historische) Anthologie herausgegeben von Walter Fromm, 1. Auflage, Ludwigsburg: Pop Verlag 2022. Erweiterte, kritische Neuauflage 2022 mit einem einleitenden Essay von Prof. Dr. Waldemar Fromm und einer soziokulturellen Kontextualisierung von Prof. Dr. Anton Sterbling. Reihe

Abstract The present text is dedicated to an anthology of German poetry from Romania, which was collected in 1980 but could not be published during the communist dictatorship and was subsequently published in 2022 to great success on the German book market. The anthology illustrates the fact that a modern movement parallel to the one in Germany emerged within the insular German-language literature in Romania, developing a set of very distinct particularities.

Looking for the Personal and Professional-pedagogical Identification of Middle School Teachers during the Communist Period (1949–1989) in Hungary

The aim of this thesis is to show how identity and professional-pedagogical identification in pedagogy were transformed in the second half of the 20th century under the totalitarian communist dictatorship in Hungary. He gives examples and wants to demonstrate that memory (remembering) not only makes the present but also reveals the experience of the past and transfers it in its personal character into the present. Memory (the practical past) makes possible what is lost through the repeated experience of life. Furthermore, she uses the personal life histories of secondary school teachers to demonstrate that remembering has a significant impact on the production of (new) historical knowledge at both individual and group levels (Gyáni, 2020, p. 354).

Specifics of media coverage of anti-government protests in Cuba (2021)

The article is devoted to revealing the features of coverage of the Anti-Government demonstrations in Cuban information space in July 2021. They began due to the social and economic crisis. According to the Cuban government, the crisis was caused by sanctions from the USA. On the other hand, the opposition considers that it is the consequence of the communist dictatorship reigning in the country. The authors of the article set themselves the goal of investigating media interpretations of the events as in the traditional media controlled by the state, and in the specific social and communication environment of the Internet space. Having analyzed the publications of the largest Cuban mass media, such as the newspaper «Granma» and portal «Cubadabate», as well as the materials of social networks, the authors have come to the conclusion that the massive spread of the Internet in 2018 marked the beginning of gradual changes in the media landscape of the country: social media have become an alternative source of information that has influenced the Cuban social and political life. They have served as social organizers not only online but also offline when having the popularity and taking a new platform for the promotion of anti-government ideas. One of the examples of its phenomenon were the protests on July 11, 2021, which have become a new challenge to the political leadership of a country that has been fighting the US economic blockade for decades.

How street name changes can affect electoral results: evidence from Polish decommunisation

ABSTRACT The article presents the process of changing street names in Poland after the central government introduced a law in 2016 requiring the elimination of all communist symbols from the public space; it also provides a quantitative analysis of the impact of changing street names on the electoral results of the ruling party. The study results, based on outcomes from over 26,400 polling stations, demonstrate that stations located near streets with decommunised names produced lower election results for the ruling party than in other parts of the country. This suggests that – although the majority of the Polish society has a negative view of the communist dictatorship – introducing an ideologically and politically motivated policy that generates economic costs for citizens may lead to a drop in the ruling party’s electoral results.

Rising Patriarchy and Declining Economic Opportunity: Life Courses and Social Change in Egypt between 1965 and 2018

AbstractDespite Egypt's economic growth and educational expansion, gender inequalities and a lack of economic opportunities for young adults persist. Existing studies on social change in Egypt often rely on aggregate trend indicators or focus on isolated point‐in‐time work or family outcomes. This study adopts a life course perspective to (1) trace cohort changes in work‐family life courses for individuals born between 1956 and 1988 (N = 19,970) from 1965 to 2018, (2) assess gender inequality trends in life courses across cohorts, and (3) link different life course patterns to aggregate development indicators. Using retrospective data from the Egyptian Labor Market Panel, multichannel sequence and cluster analyses identify ten typical life course profiles that can be divided into: a state‐structured life course; and various manifestations of family‐ and market‐structured life courses. The economically secure state‐structured life course declined in favor of rising market‐structured and family‐structured life courses. Gender inequality in employment increased across cohorts. GDP growth was associated with economically insecure market‐structured life courses for men and family‐structured life courses of economic inactivity for women. Cohort change in life courses was most rapid in the transition period from authoritarian socialism to unregulated crony capitalism (1980–1990) when cohorts born in the 1970s reached adulthood.

“The Sisters of the Redeemer in the Trauma of Dispersion”. •

AbstractWhile researching the history of the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer, also referred to as the Sisters of the Redeemer, it became clear that the ordeals of the Second World War and the Communist dictatorship had a profound impact on the congregation, which was engaged in nursing and teaching. The sources allow us to reconstruct the horrors of the advancing battlefront and the sisters' flight, along with their determination to provide social assistance and their role in saving Jews. The Communist regime that emerged after the war forced the congregation into an increasingly impossible situation, depriving them of their teaching positions and nursing vocation. Their internment in 1950 and the revocation of the congregation's operating license seemed to have eliminated the community entirely. However, recollections of the events of the 1950s and 1960s, together with state security reports, attest that the congregation survived in the form of a “subterranean stream,” and that tiny communities of sisters continued to pursue their monastic vocation, often in a single apartment that functioned as a mini convent. The traumas they had experienced rarely crushed the sisters' inner sense of peace, and they strove to cope with the harassments inflicted by the party-state by adapting to the new situation.

Dealing with the Material Legacies of Italian Fascist Colonialism in Post-Communist Tirana

Albania was Italy’s most short-lived colony, under official fascist control only from the Italian invasion in 1939 until the collapse of Mussolini’s regime in 1943. However, although the fascist occupation was brief, there had been a significant Italian involvement in Albania since 1923. Thus, the influence of Fascism on Albania and especially on the capital city of Tirana was immense, not least in the areas of urban planning and architecture, most of which was retained intact by the Communist dictatorship which ruled from 1944 to 1990. This essay investigates the afterlives of this fascist-era architecture in post-Communist Tirana. In the panoply of Italy’s imperial territories, Albania was unique in passing from a fascist dictatorship to a Communist one and this trajectory provides important nuance to the current debates regarding the legacies of fascist heritage in the 75 years since the regime’s fall and especially in the twenty-first century. This essay pays particular attention to the years 2016–2020 during which two notable examples of fascist-era architecture in Tirana, namely the city’s football stadium and the National Theatre, have been at the centre of major political and public debates about the future of the city, the country and its governance, asking what these recent cases can reveal about the memory of fascist imperialism in post-Communist, democratic Albania and contributing to ongoing debates about the management, treatment and reception of the material legacies of Italian colonialism more broadly.