ABSTRACT The article attempts to explore the process of formation of a new sphere of relations between the USSR and the countries of the Arctic region 1 1 The Arctic region includes eight Arctic countries, five of which have access to the Arctic Ocean (the USA, Canada, the Russian Federation, Norway and Denmark (Greenland)), and three states are crossed by the Arctic Circle but have no direct access to the Arctic Ocean (Sweden, Finland, and Iceland). in the period from 1986 to 1990. The April Plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee in 1985 laid the groundwork for a profound transformation in both the domestic and the foreign policy of the USSR. It gave a powerful impetus for developing relations between the USSR and the Arctic countries on a completely new basis embodied in the New Political Thinking and the Murmansk Initiative in 1987. The article analyzes diplomatic efforts to establish the first regional non-governmental organisation – The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). The article traces the key stages of the USSR’s participation in these negotiations, examines the main contradictions between the participants and tries to look into the ways in which the participants developed common solutions while working on forming a new regional space in the Arctic.

ABSTRACT This study uses Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2022 as samples to analyze the impact of digital transformation (DT) and venture capital (VC) on employee common prosperity (ECP). The concept of common prosperity originated from the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1953 regarding the development of agricultural production cooperatives, embodying the principles of social equity and economic justice. We use indicators such as labor cash share and the pay gap between management and regular employes for quantitative assessment. The results show that both DT and VC can significantly increase the overall labor income share, thus promoting ECP, and there is a synergistic effect between the two. In addition, we also explored the mediating role of financing constraints and input of production factors. In addition, DT widens the salary gap among employees, while VC can help narrow this gap.

In the early first decade of the twenty-first century, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began reassessing its relationship with capitalism, notably with private entrepreneurs. Following the reassessment, the CCP embraced the private sector in a strategy of “co-optation” and private entrepreneurs joined the party in increasing numbers. From 2012, the new Xi administration pushed for stronger political allegiance from all enterprises, resulting in a shift from “state capitalism” to “party-state capitalism.” As a result, party cells within enterprises of all ownership types have surged. The article employs a two-pronged approach to investigate the intricate relationship between the party and private businesses under Xi Jinping. It examines policy documents and analyses four recent case studies from Guangdong province based on interviews and company documents. Our main finding is that while the push for party integration has been significant, the role and influence of party cells vary notably across private enterprises.

Abstract: This essay examines Chinese and American scholarly exchange during the 1980s and 1990s, following the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and the establishment of US-China diplomatic relations (1979). The essay focuses on one of the period's leading academic figures—Professor Zhang Zhongli of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS)—who worked with American scholar Sherman Cochran to organize international research conferences in China and the United States. The scholarly exchange resulting from these conferences contributed to the opening of important archives such as the Shanghai Municipal Archives. The collaboration between Zhang and Cochran also led to the creation of a new archive funded by the Luce Foundation, the Center for Research Materials in Chinese Business History, at SASS. Today, as the Chinese Communist Party once again has tightened ideological control over China's academic institutions, it is time to reconsider how Sino-American scholarly collaboration was successfully achieved in the late twentieth century.

Abstract: Before the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, about half of the total of 800 million Hong Kong dollars in circulation were in China. This article examines how the new regime carried out an anti–Hong Kong dollar campaign to enforce the use of renminbi currency in economic life. In contrast to the many early campaigns of the People's Republic of China that relied on moral suasion, the leaders of the anti–Hong Kong dollar campaign learned that they needed to adopt economic incentives for people to change their behavior. Even so, Communist leaders faced limitations in their attempts to adjust the exchange rate, which led to uneven impacts on different social groups. Furthermore, local leaders found that they needed a timely supply of goods to sustain the purchasing power of the renminbi, goods they were only able to obtain through trade conducted in Hong Kong. This article thus demonstrates the entanglements between domestic economic life and foreign economic relations in China's revolutionary transformation.

This article examines the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party’s policy toward Protestant Christianity through the lens of wartime governance. It argues that religious regulation under Xi Jinping is best understood as the reactivation of a united front strategy forged in recurrent episodes of war and conflict. Tracing the CCP’s engagement with Protestant institutions and communities from the Republican era through the Cold War to the present, the article shows how Protestantism has consistently been treated as a transnational network subject to co-optation, surveillance, and control. Recovering this historical legacy clarifies contemporary church–state tensions and informs diplomatic and religious engagement amid intensifying U.S.–China rivalry.

ABSTRACT The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is employing mechanisms inspired by the ‘Fengqiao experience’ to mediate grassroots conflicts. Our findings show that in urban areas, community support officers from the People’s Police have played a critical role in this task. They liaise with residents’ committees and other relevant units to conduct ‘dual authoritative mediation’. This practice reflects the roles of the police as holders of state authority and paternal figures in the community, and it promotes the deep penetration of state power into grassroots communities. The role of the police in mediating disputes between residents is highly valued by the CCP, and China’s police force has been given more responsibility with respect to politics and law and the maintenance of stability than police in other countries.

Importance. “Chinese modernization” is a new concept put forward at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2022. The report of the 20th CPC Congress provided answers to key theoretical and practical questions – what is Chinese modernization, what are its goals, what ways it is implemented and why it is considered as an integral theoretical system. In March 2026 the 4th session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the 14th convocation politically updated the topic by reviewing the draft main provisions of the 15th five-year program for National Economic and Social development (2026–2030). China is entering a new five-year period: in a short period of the country’s history, a program for its modernization will be implemented until 2035 unprecedented in the history of mankind. By 2035 China’s economic power, scientific and technical potential, defense capability, combined national power and international influence will change dramatically, and living standards will increase, which will, in fact, be the final point of the socialist modernization process. Materials and Methods. The source is based on official documents of the CPC and a broad scientific discourse on the ways of Chinese modernization in the world historical and political sciences. The research has incorporated a significant set of general scientific and specialized methods, mainly from historical and political science. Results and Discussion. The research substantiates that the real content of the concept of “Chinese modernization” is not identical to the concept of “modernization of China”. “Chinese Modernization” is a concept and theory with new content. It serves as a theoretical and conceptual generalization of a new stage in the development of China’s modernization practice, as well as a programmatic setting and strategic goal that defines the CPC's activities to lead the Chinese people at a new historical stage. Conclusion. Chinese modernization as a practical policy does not offer a fixed template for the modernization path; its Chinese specificity lies primarily in the articulation of the values and prin ciples underlying China’s modernization. These include: the leadership role of the CPC as a fundamental guarantee; orientation towards the people as a central principle; achieving the universal prosperity of the people; the coordinated development of material and spiritual civilization; the harmonious coexistence of man and nature; following the path of peaceful development.

ABSTRACT Nearly 18,000 people enlisted in international volunteers’ units in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. With many of them being former prisoners of war and foreign workers, the technical and political integration of these recruits required a great deal of effort from the young Red Army. To do this, it relied on foreigners, among them convinced communists, apostles of the world revolution, but also former prisoners of war. The Central Federation of Foreign Groups under the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) took charge of the political training of these new recruits and dispatched political commissars and agitators to the internationalist units. This article looks back at the activities of this Central Federation both to grasp this international volunteer movement in favour of Bolshevik Russia and to explore the origins of the political commissar’s role in the making of the Red Army.

discusses the political history of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP)

ABSTRACT Since at least 2021, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders have adopted a national security concept they call ‘total war’. In the CCP’s usage, total war is national mobilization to develop civilian institutional advantages that convert into warfighting capabilities, and it is implemented on the national level by the integrated national strategic system and capabilities (INSS&C). Leading CCP and PLA strategists also make clear that total war is intended to defeat the ‘strong enemy’ of the United States in long-term competition or, if necessary, military conflict. Total war has been elevated to the highest levels of China’s security policies and public documents, including the National Security Strategy for 2021–2025 and a 2024 update to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military strategic guidelines.

The article is dedicated to the 1987 celebration in the Kurgan Region of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Civil War hero and division commander Nikolai Tomin (1886-1924). The research aims to identify the characteristic features and internal contradictions of the Late Soviet commemoration model, using this regional anniversary as a case study. Based on unpublished documents from the State Archive of Socio-Political History of the Kurgan Region (GASPIKO) and regional periodicals, the study reconstructs the institutional mechanisms of the jubilee campaign, analyzes the forms of visualization and ritualization of memory, and determines the reasons for the failure of the attempt to revive the revolutionary myth. The scientific novelty lies in the introduction of previously unpublished archival documents from the regional and district committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union into scholarly circulation, as well as the application of the memory studies methodological framework to the analysis of a regional campaign during the Perestroika era. The study establishes that by the late 1980s, the command-administrative model of memory management had lost its ability to generate a live response in society. A gap was identified between the scale of organizational efforts and the actual impact on public consciousness, which was undergoing a profound transformation under the influence of Glasnost policy. The study concludes that the 1987 jubilee campaign was one of the final acts of Soviet monumental propaganda in the Kurgan Region, exposing the fundamental contradiction between the state monopoly on memory and the erosion of official ideological legitimacy.

The South African Communist Party has a century-long history of exploring socialism amid hardships. As a Marxist-Leninist party, it has led the working class in struggles while upholding communist ideals. It integrates Marxism-Leninism with South Africa’s realities and advances the national democratic revolution via alliance with the ANC. Facing current challenges, it reflects deeply, forms new perceptions, and uses its century-long experience to boost the innovation and development of South Africa’s socialist cause.

Red Culture is a unique spiritual symbol and valuable ideological resource formed by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China in the great practice. Its inherent progressiveness, revolutionary nature, practicality, people-oriented nature, and national character are highly aligned with the fundamental task of fostering virtue and nurturing talents in higher education. The systematic integration of red culture into college students' ideological and political education has multi-dimensional value connotations. On the basis of defining the core concept of red culture, this paper expounds its value from the four dimensions of political guidance, educational efficiency, cultural soul-casting and psychological empowerment, and based on this, constructs a progressive practice path system of "core element foundation–method innovation–field expansion", and finally realizes the organic unity of value guidance, knowledge transfer, ability cultivation and personality modeling.

With the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence, Large Language Models (LLMs) are being increasingly applied in the field of machine translation. However, their performance in high-difficulty domains such as political text translation still requires systematic evaluation. Using the Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the research corpus, this study selects four mainstream LLMs—DeepSeek, Doubao, ChatGPT, and Gemini—as research subjects. Taking the official Japanese version translated by the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee as the reference text, this study quantitatively evaluates the Chinese-to-Japanese translation results of each model using two automated evaluation metrics: BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) and TER (Translation Edit Rate), supplemented by qualitative analysis through case comparisons. The results indicate that Gemini performed best across both BLEU and TER metrics, with its translations approaching human standards in terms of structural restoration, terminology handling, and stylistic conformity. ChatGPT and DeepSeek showed moderate overall performance, with differences that were not statistically significant. Doubao performed the worst in both metrics, with primary issues concentrated in the inappropriate use of honorifics (Keigo) and the mistranslation of specific technical terms. The conclusions of this paper provide empirical evidence for the application of generative AI in professional translation and offer references for the optimization of models for political text translation in the future.

This paper analyzes strategies for developing Vietnamese cultural "soft power" in the context of the country entering a new era of development as guided by the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Based on discussions about soft power and the Vietnamese context, this article systematizes the country's cultural power resources, analyzes the components and limitations in the process of transforming cultural values ​​into political and economic advantages in international relations, and proposes strategic solutions for building a national brand in the digital age. The study affirms that Vietnamese culture and people are the most important "endogenous strength," needing to be awakened and developed in proportion to the country's historical stature and increasingly elevated position in the international arena.

By 2025, China has achieved its initial "dual carbon" goals. However, due to differences in local understanding of policies and constraints of regional economic conditions, the effectiveness of achieving "dual carbon" goals is not comprehensive in some areas. Some regions still rely heavily on traditional fossil energy, while others face problems such as insufficient capital investment, inadequate policy implementation, and imperfect market incentive mechanisms. These issues will directly affect the progress and effectiveness of achieving the overall "dual carbon" goals. Therefore, this study adopts the literature research method. Through the interpretation of relevant literature, it aims to empower the better achievement of "dual carbon" goals with the theory of "degrowth eco-socialism". Research shows that the theory of degrowth eco-socialism is consistent with the direction, implementation paths, and goals of The Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Fully, Accurately and Comprehensively Implementing the New Development Concept and Doing a Good Job in Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality Work (hereinafter referred to as The Opinions). Thus, in the process of realizing the goals of The Opinions, Kozo Saito’s theory of "degrowth eco-socialism" can be effectively learned from and integrated, thereby providing new ideas and directions for the better achievement of the "dual carbon" goals.

The Slovak provincial organisation of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers’ Party was formed in 1918, evolving out of its pre-war existence as an autonomous section of Hungarian Social Democracy. Its integration into the organisational structures of the Czech Social Democratic Party reflected both long-standing cooperation between the two movements since the late nineteenth century and the political realities created by the establishment of the Czechoslovak state. This realignment was framed by the doctrine of Czechoslovakism, which postulated the existence of a unified Czechoslovak nation and functioned as an integrative response to ethnic nationalism and centrifugal tendencies within a multinational polity. In the early years of the Republic, Slovak Social Democrats aligned themselves closely with the defence of Czechoslovak state unity, together with the Agrarian Party and the Czechoslovak National Socialists. Although this stance initially proved electorally advantageous – most notably in the parliamentary elections of 1920 – it soon became a political liability. As Slovak political life matured, electoral support increasingly shifted towards autonomist programmes, articulated most effectively by Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party. As a result, Slovak Social Democracy experienced a sustained decline in electoral support, descending from a leading political force to a marginal, albeit persistent, presence within the party system. This trajectory was further exacerbated by an internal party crisis in the early 1920s, when the secession of radical socialist factions and the establishment of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia significantly weakened the party’s organisational base. The resulting fragility constrained its ability to translate electoral representation into durable influence within executive office, despite the prominence of several individual figures at the national level. The party’s final political engagements unfolded against the backdrop of the Munich crisis of 1938, when its leadership participated in negotiations over Slovak autonomy. Its initial refusal to endorse the Žilina Agreement proved short-lived; the subsequent reversal, however, failed to prevent the party’s dissolution. During the Second World War, former Social Democratic activists were relegated to clandestine political activity. Beyond formal politics, Slovak Social Democrats sought to shape public discourse through the party press and affiliated organisations. Persistent financial constraints, however, rendered these initiatives structurally fragile, resulting in a volatile landscape of short-lived periodicals at provincial and local levels. In contrast to the Czech lands – where dense networks of affiliated organisations enhanced Social Democratic mobilisation – the Slovak organisation remained comparatively under-institutionalised. This dimension of Social Democratic activity in Slovakia has thus far received only limited attention in the historiography.

In the context of a deeply digitized media environment, the communication logic of revolutionary sites is shifting from "venue exhibition" to a composite model of "platform connection—scene expansion—interactive participation". Guangdong, with its comprehensive revolutionary site resource system, mature urban media conditions, and large youth population, provides a typical sample for observing how digital media reshapes the communication of Red culture. Based on spatial production theory, the spatialization of media research, and the perspective of youth cultural communication, this paper analyzes the specific mechanisms through which digital media promotes the spatial reproduction of revolutionary sites and the construction of youth identity. This analysis is combined with public cases such as the Guangdong Red Map, Online Red Exhibition Hall, the WeChat mini-program "Check-in Guangdong Red", the AR metaverse project of the Memorial of the Site of the Third National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Shaoguan Long March Digital Experience Base, the immersive stage play themed on the Whampoa Military Academy, and the "Heroic Flowers Blooming in a Heroic City" campaign. The study concludes that digital media is not merely adding a technological shell to physical sites; rather, through digital mapping, scene reconstruction, interactive participation, and community diffusion, it transforms the way Red culture enters the life world of youth, turning revolutionary sites from mere "destinations" into "public cultural interfaces accessible at any time." However, concurrently, there are issues such as technological showboating overshadowing historical interpretation, unbalanced regional platform construction, and data evaluations overly biased toward traffic metrics while neglecting deep-seated identity. The digital communication of Guangdong revolutionary sites should adhere to a content-based approach, youth co-creation, cross-platform synergy, and ethical governance, enhancing ideological depth, historical richness, and value-guiding power while increasing visibility.

In the early 1980s, large-scale, creative demonstrations against NATO's double-track decision mobilized thousands across Europe. This article examines the disarmament and peace protests of this period, not primarily through the lens of Cold War geopolitics but rather by exploring how perceptions of the bipolar conflict shaped ideas and practices of popular participation and exposed the limits of Western liberal democracies. Notably, the article will set out a comparison of the peace movements in Italy and Spain. Spain was undergoing a complex democratic transition away from a long-standing authoritarian and military regime, and Italy was recovering from the institutional repression of the radical movements of the 1970s and the terrorism of the extreme right and left during the so-called ‘years of lead’. Both countries possessed deeply-rooted Catholic cultural traditions alongside the pivotal yet contentious roles of the Communist parties and other radical leftist factions. Focusing on a comparative analysis of Italy and Spain – two countries with distinct paths to liberal democracy and protest traditions – the study investigates civic engagement in societies sometimes seen as hostile to popular participation. By highlighting peace movements in these Southern European contexts, the article challenges the narrative of 1980s European political apathy, offering new insights into political activism beyond Northern Europe's more documented histories. Drawing on diverse primary sources – including declassified CIA files, activist journals, and grassroots documents – the article explores how Spanish and Italian activists linked peace to broader debates on democracy and emerging forms of individualization of political participation. Ultimately, it asks: to what extent did efforts to influence foreign policy and depolarize East–West tensions reshape political action and participation in Italy and Spain during the early 1980s?