Dissident Activity Research Articles

So You Say You Want a Revolution

Existing models of revolutions tend to focus only on the behavior of the revolutionaries and do not account for government actions. This article presents a model that captures the decision making of a repressive government, career dissidents, and revolutionary participants. The model shows that (a) governments rarely offer concessions to protesters, (b) dissident activity is more likely to be successful in motivating large-scale protest under highly repressive conditions, and (c) Kuran's hypothesis that regimes collapse suddenly with little warning is confirmed. The authors use the model to interpret the different outcomes that occurred during the successful Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the failed revolution in China during the Tiananmen Square democracy protests.

The Humanities' Plight

The Humanities’ Plight Alfred Louch What’s Happened to the Humanities? edited by Alvin Kernan; viii & 267 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, $29.95. Congress once tried to define the Humanities. The term em-braces, said the bill establishing the National Endowment for the Humanities, the study of language, linguistics, history, jurisprudence, philosophy, archaeology, comparative religion, ethics, the history, criticism, theory and practice of the arts, those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods . . . well, there’s a bit more, and also a clause or two I have not bothered to include, but let’s stop there. The authors of the bill evidently came to see that any list claiming to be complete would exclude some worthy claimants to the endowment’s funds. Besides any definition describing exactly what humanists do was quite beyond the powers of their humanist advisors and therefore hardly a task for them. So they said in effect: you know what it’s like to study Plato or Shakespeare, the Carthusians or the Cathars, diplomatic manoeuvers among nineteenth-century European powers or religious icons in Byzantine civilization, and of course what it means to acquire the discipline to produce impeccable texts and literate translations. That, and anything like it, is humanistic. The humanities is a family, and its various members share, as Wittgenstein would say, family resemblances. Fair enough. The trouble is, Congress—not to mention academic [End Page 231] administrators and departmental empire builders—wasn’t really interested in likenesses that would justify lumping together a variety of apparently different and sometimes dissident activities and products. They wanted to give or to get money for people and projects overlooked in the great post-war dispensation, when scientists earned society’s munificence because their bombs, long-range rocketry, pills, and hormone-injected livestock demonstrated the manifest contributions of their trades to human welfare. Psychologists and economists had also prospered by artfully misrepresenting what they did or accomplished, in a way that opened to them the deep pockets mesmerized by science. But then those left out said: what about us? And Congress, having thoughtlessly committed itself to the support of education, and not merely to better bombs or corporation-enriching patents, endowed the Humanities and the Arts, and so committed itself to the support of every field of academic study. Those were good times in English literature, philosophy, and history. Enrollments swelled, particularly in graduate schools. Faculties doubled, trebled, quadrupled their size. When I was an undergraduate at Berkeley in the late forties, for example, there were seven faculty in philosophy; the number now I think is around thirty, and the building which then housed all the Humanities is occupied by the English department alone. The bull market peaked around 1970; from then on signs of distress began to appear. The flow of public money reduced to a trickle and private philanthropists looked mostly elsewhere. Academic jobs became scarce, as administrators retrenched by not replacing retiring faculty. Bearishness induced much reflection. Humanists asked: Is philosophy dead? Is history outmoded? Is English literature relevant? And now, as in the book under review, “What’s Happened to the Humanities?” One answer not offered here, or elsewhere so far as I know, must seem plausible to anyone in a position to recall the post-war decade. The current decline is simply the rectification of student numbers artificially inflated by the post war boom. The GI Bill was mainly responsible, though its effect was prolonged by the unchallenged conviction that higher education should be available to all, especially as it appeared that college provided the key to a decent job and the good life. That view motivated people to enter college, but it did not send them in great numbers into the Humanities, where vocational prospects were uncertain. This account is small comfort to students who have burned midnight oil pondering over many a volume of forgotten [End Page 232] lore, only to find themselves flipping hamburgers for a living. It also leaves hanging in the air heretical doubts about the idea of universal education. The contributors to this volume leave that issue alone, so I shall not pursue a path where angels have...

Bauman's Ways of Seeing the World

Drawing on Richard Kilminster and Ian Varcoe's article concerning the main themes of Bauman's sociology, this article emphasizes what was left aside (for example, the discontinuities of the thought under consideration, the shift from a systematic science-minded approach to hermeneutics, or the aporetic, somehow dramatic seizure of the culture-power relations which indeed are the chief pillars of Bauman's interest and scrutiny). Another characteristic quality is focusing on the Polish issues, that is, the native tradition in humanities, the specific vicissitudes of sociology after 1945, Bauman's personal background, his gradual change of philosophic views through the phase of his dissident activity till the 1970s, when he transgressed the Marxist worldview. The way in which way Bauman combines many talents (scholarly and literary, of the researcher and the teacher) is also pointed out and analysed and his latest creative period, opened by the publication of Legislators and Interpreters, is brought to light. Bauman's diagnosis and weighted appreciation of the present-day cultural breakthrough, named postmodernity, were enriched and deepened with each subsequent book. There is a touch of genius in the scope and mode of dealing with this problematic. Bauman's international fame seems to be well deserved and firmly grounded.

In search of faith, part 2: Charter 77 and the return to spiritual values in the Czech republic

When Czechoslovakia was formally divided into two separate republics on 1 January 1993, the momentous gesture of separation occurred, ironically, exactly 16 years after another key event, whose purpose had been one of reconciliation and agreement. The release of Charter 77 came as a reward for the efforts of isolated but determined dissidents who had kept the cause of human rights alive since the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. Even when Czech dissident activities were at their height in the 1980s the declaration was destined to gain no more than 1000 signatures; but from the vantage-point of today, when attitudes to politics, ethics and religious belief have become bitterly polarised, it is worth recalling the unity of beliefs and values which Charter 77 embodied, as well as the process of mutual discovery heralded by its appearance. The 5000-word document, launched on 1 January 1977 for the start of Political Prisoners' Year, focused on discrimination in the areas of education, public expression of opinion, access to information and religious conviction. It also called on Czechoslovakia's communist government to honour its human rights pledges under the 1968 international covenants of the United Nations, which had been reaffirmed in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and entered in the country's Register of Laws the following year.

Government Coercion of Dissidents

The dynamic effect of government coercion on dissident activities has been a controversial issue. It is contended that this relationship is significantly altered when different control variables such as regime type, ideological orientation, and economic performance are employed. Time series data based on 24 countries is used to estimate the net effect of government coercion on two types of dissident activities: protest demonstrations and deaths from domestic group violence. It is shown that in democratic nations, government sanctions provoke a higher level of protest demonstrations. However, in nondemocratic countries, at the extreme, severe sanctions can impose an unbearable cost, resulting in an inverse relationship between sanctions and political deaths. The nature of the regime influences not only the dynamics of the relationship between government coercion and dissident activities, but also the qualitative character of opposition response.

Looking to the Future

Essay| October 01 1992 Looking to the Future Elena Bonner Elena Bonner Elena Bonner, a writer and human rights activist, is a former member of the Communist party who was sentenced in 1984 to five years in internal exile for her dissident activities (she was released, along with her husband, Andrei Sakharov, in 1986). She is the author of the memoir Alone Together (New York: Knopf, 1986). This article was translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Current History (1992) 91 (567): 305–309. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1992.91.567.305 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Elena Bonner; Looking to the Future. Current History 1 October 1992; 91 (567): 305–309. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1992.91.567.305 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCurrent History Search This content is only available via PDF. © 1992 by The Regents of the University of California1992 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Kor and the transformation of political dissent in Poland: the significance of the workers' defence committee

ABSTRACT The emergence in 1976 of KOR, the Workers' Defence Committee, transformed dissident politics in Poland, and its long tradition of clandestine operations, spontaneous action and violent insurrection. By contrast, KOR promoted open, institutionalised dissent involving a process of trial and error subject to public criticism. Establishing itself as a model for dissidence, KOR encouraged the proliferation of decentralised activities including an uncensored samizdat press, and the formation of the independent trade union Solidarity. It also deliberately forged links among groups which had been isolated by the communist regime: the intelligentsia, workers, and peasants; and also between the Roman Catholic Church and non‐believers. KOR's impact on dissident activity survived the imposition of martial law — and its own dissolution — and was seminal to the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989.

A Socialist Pluralism of Opinions: Glasnost and Policy-Making under Gorbachev

Alexander Herzen, attempting to explain the sensation occasioned by the publication of Peter Chaadaev's famous "Philosophical Letter" in 1836, characterized it as a "shot that rang out in the dark night." The scandal, he records in his memoirs, testified to the power of the word in a country, shaped by Nicholas I's policies of "official nationality," that had grown disaccustomed to open, independent speech. The essay appeared after a decade in which many of Russia's boldest intellectual spirits had been exiled, a time when "to speak was dangerous-and there was nothing to say anyway." Glasnost' has demonstrated the continuing power of the word in Russia. From the leadership's standpoint, glasnost' is a principal fulcrum in a massive effort at social engineering directed as much at reconstructing Soviet political culture as at reforming the structures of power. As its architects have formulated the matter, glasnost' is narrowing the "gap between words and deeds"-a formula widely used in the late 1970s and early 1980s by both reformist and orthodox wings of the political elite to deplore the disparity between commonly accepted norms of public and private behavior, and the pieties of party-mindedness and collectivism to which everyone was expected to pay obeisance. Alluding to Orwell's famous concept of double-think, the venerable Soviet scholar Igor' Kon analyzed this gap as a problem of social psychology. Double-think he regards as a condition in which "a different meaning is imputed to the same words; and the same person, depending on the situation (for example, at a meeting or at home) with equal sincerity affirms diametrically opposing things."2 This discrepancy was in fact less between "words and deeds," or, in social-scientific terms, culture and behavior, than between two interdependent but opposed codes of language and behavior: one for the realm of the unsanctioned-private, whether collective (such as dissident activity, religion, small-scale graft and illicit enterprise, and large-scale organized crime), or individualistic (including various forms of private rebellion and

Proxy contests and the governance of publicly held corporations

Analysis of 60 proxy contests for seats on the boards of exchange-listed firms during 1978–1985 shows that three years after the contest less than one-fifth of the sample firms remain independent, publicly held corporations run by the same management team. Proxy contests are typically followed by managerial resignations, even when dissidents fail to obtain a majority of board seats, and are often followed by sale or liquidation of the firm. The average stockholder wealth gains associated with proxy contests are largely attributable to gains by companies in which dissident activity leads to sale or liquidation.

Soviets to permit Sakharov to visit U.S.

In a dramatic illustration of the changes in Soviet science and society wrought by Mikhail S. Gorbachev's policy of glasnost (openness), physicist and human rights leader Andrei D. Sakharov has been given permission by the Soviet government to visit the U.S. next week. Two years ago, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate was still in internal exile in Gorki because of his dissident activities. Sakharov was denounced by prominent fellow scientists and political leaders, and suffered through seven years of isolation and harassment that ended only in December 1986. Now, back in Moscow, he has resumed scientific work, heading a department of cosmology at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He has met several times with Gorbachev and, further climaxing his remarkable rehabilitation, was elected earlier this month by fellow scientists to the academy's policy-making presidium. The U.S. visit will be the first trip abroad for Sakharov, barred previously from travel for his knowledge of state secrets ...

Deterrence or Escalation?

Aggregate data studies of domestic political conflict have used an Action-Reaction (AR) model that has produced contradictory findings about the repression/dissent nexus: Repression by regimes may either increase or decrease dissent by opposition groups. To clarify these findings I propose an alternative Rational Actor (RA) model from which are derived three propositions. (1) An increase in a government's repression of nonviolence will reduce the nonviolent activities of an opposition group but increase its violent activities. (2) The balance of effects, that is, whether an increase in the regime's repression increases or decreases the opposition group's total dissident activities, depends upon the government's accommodative policy to the group. (3) Consistent government accommodative and repressive policies reduce dissent; inconsistent policies increase dissent. The RA model thus accounts for the contradictory findings produced by the AR-based aggregate data studies of repression and dissent.

Leaders of the Solidarity Movement: A Sociological Portrait

Data on the social backgrounds of 33 leading activists of the Polish Solidarity movement are examined in the context of the character of the movement, its social basis, and historical background of mass dissent in Poland. In the light of a typology suggested by the author, the recruitment and composition of the leadership could be seen as reflecting the anti-partocratic and crisis-triggered character of the movement. The top Solidarity activists were leaders and organizers of the 1980 strikes. They were predominantly young and skilled industrial workers, manual and non-manual, employed in the large factories in traditional centres of workers' unrest. They represented this section of the `generation of People's Poland' whose upward mobility in a climate of political optimism generated high expectations and aspirations. These aspirations, frustrated by political exclusion and the economic crisis, led to the rebellion against the partocratic institutions. Although most of the Solidarity leaders were not involved in dissident activities before summer 1980, their backgrounds show a clear link with the political history of Poland and testify to the dramatic failure of the mechanisms of political participation and cooptation.

Indonesia in 1985: A Year of Trials

Introduction The year 1985 will, perhaps fortunately, have no great claim on Indonesian history. It will be remembered as a year of violent incidents jolting Indonesians into soul-searching of a darker sort, and as the year of trials of prominent dissidents. While neither the government nor Indonesia's overall polidcal stability was seriously threatened, the polidcal atmosphere in 1985 remained tense and unsettled. The economic outlook was dampened by recession and sluggishness caused by softening markets and falling prices for most of the mineral and agricultural commodities which form Indonesia's primary source of income. In foreign policy, the country showed some dynamism and a desire for a higher international profile, regaining international prominence through the thirtieth anniversary of the historic Bandung conference. The year was marked by two other anniversaries: the fortieth year since the proclamation of independence, and the twentieth year of the New Order government. In the long celebration, particular emphasis was placed on the role played by President Suharto himself in promoting economic development since his accession to power in 1965. Prominent posters and murals depicting Suharto's personal involvement in various development programmes sought to elevate him further as the Father of Development. A spate of violence brought to an end a decade of calm and tranquillity ? quite unusual in the Indonesian political situation ? with disaffected Muslims being the main source of this activity. Increased dissident activity, both violent and non-violent, was precipitated by a riot in September 1984 in a Jakarta port-side slum, in which Muslim activists, incensed by what they saw as official efforts to undermine their faith, clashed with government troops. This Tanjung Priok affair, the most serious rioting in the Indonesian capital since the Malari riots in 1974 has created a situation* in which a significant section of Muslim opinion has become alienated from the mainstream of the country's political life, particularly in the urban areas. The year 1985 began with the bombing of the ancient Borobudur stupa, causing extensive damage. This was followed by the continuing rash of unexplained fires and explosions which gutted public buildings throughout Indonesia, including Jakarta's oldest department store, Sarinah, the Sultan's palace in Solo, Central Java, the Jakarta headquarters of Radio Republic Indonesia, and its station in South Kalimantan, and several military bases. In Northern Sumatra, a fire swept through 16,000 hectares of rubber and 5,000 hectares of oil palm plantations, areas of smouldering disputes over land rights. While many of these incidents have officially been classified as accidental, their very number has led to speculation that they may be connected. There was also an apparent increase in the circulation of anti-government pamphlets and cassette tapes, as well as bomb threats. One cause of political tension was a series of five controversial bills introduced in the Parliament early in the year requiring all three political parties and all mass organizations to adopt the state ideology, Pancasila, as their sole ideological foundation, to reflect this in their parry symbols, and to open their membership to all Indonesian

The FBI and the American Legion Contact Program, 1940-1966

Historians of twentieth-century American politics have sharply contrasted the federal government's repression of dissident activities during World War I with its general tolerance of civil liberties during World War II. The exception was the internment of Japanese-Americans; but in that case racial considerations were more important than antiradical intolerance. As one reason for this difference, some historicans have cited the government's nonreliance on private vigilante organizations during World War II, in contrast to the formal relationship with the American Protective League (APL) during World War I. Operating as a private vigilante organization with a publicly sanctioned mission, conservative members of the APL investigated American citizens involved in unpatriotic trade union and antiwar activities. Some even stepped beyond this line to arrest individuals, without legal authority, for failing to comply with draft registration requirements. Summarizing this general consensus in her thoughtful study of the APL, historian Joan Jensen has claimed that one positive legacy of World War I repression was that federal officials refrained during World War II from recruiting private patriotic organizations to investigate dissident activities. 1

The Nature and Philosophy of Baltic Dissent: A Comparative Perspective

Opposition to Soviet rule has deep roots and traditions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Modern dissentism, however, is a response to Soviet rule different from what we call opposition in the West. In the Baltic republics it must be dated from 1968, the watershed year in the rise of human rights movement in the Soviet Union. In Estonia and Latvia, dissident activity was galvanized to life primarily by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia which provoked vocal criticism. In Lithuania, reaction to Czechoslovakia's occupation coincided with the growing concern that an increasingly severe implementation of prohibitive anti-religious legislation will choke off the existence of the Catholic church. Concern for religious rights served as the primary catalyst for the reborn dissent movement in Lithuania.

Taiwan's dissidents

The arrests and trials last spring of publishers, writers and others following the ‘Kaohsiung Incident’ on Human Rights Day, 10 December 1979, have focused international attention on human rights in the ‘other’ Republic of China – the island nation of Taiwan. The recent government crackdown ended a period of intense dissident activity, but in fact the past 30 years in Taiwan have seen several cycles where growing political debate was followed by repression, although in general there has been an easing of government harshness over the years. This article looks at the evolution of political dissent and official responses to it in Taiwan – particularly as these have affected writers and intellectuals.

Vanguards and Followers: Youth in the American Tradition

Vanguards and Followers is the first thorough attempt to explore the long history of youth as a community in competition with adult society. Louis Filler examines the question: what is the tradition connecting Randolph Bourne with Abbie Hoffman, Adah Menken with Joan Baez, or Vachel Lindsay with Bob Dylan? He looks back to the fundamental social, economic, and cultural conditions that created opportunities for youthful expression. The first part of the book is an analysis of early dissident activities from the seventeenth century to World War II. He shows that youth movements were a part of American society almost from its beginnings. The second part of the book centers on the quarter century after the war. Filler examines the postwar climate that helped stimulate the youth eruption. Vanguards and Followers will appeal to a wide audience, including sociologists, cultural historians, and philosophers.

Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov as futurologists

while the dissident activities of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov have received considerable attention in the West, far less note has been taken of the futures aspects of their writings. Both authors present a reasonably clear image of a desirable future for the USSR: these images are intellectually rooted in the literary or scientific milieu from which each author has emerged and also in their common criticism of the present regime. Not surprisingly, given the current political environment and the exceptionally wide spectrum of opinion within the dissident community, these two images of the future can be seen both as Utopias and as programmes: they are intended not only to be important statements in the (frequently contentious) discussion among dissidents about the future of Soviet society, but also to act as guidelines for would-be reformers.

KOR I TEATR

The article is an attempt at characterizing the connections between KOR (the Workers’ Defense Committee, established by a group of Polish oppositionists in June 1976) and theatrical practice. Theatrical references are mentioned together with the prevailing literary –regerences in two areas: biographical (the founders of the movement were writers, poets, songwriters, and actors) and ideological. The biographical area also serves as an introduction to the other perspective which can be referred to as ideological. The theatre became a breeding ground for thoughts defying the communist reality. It was a meeting place for the broadly defined opposition, a cradle of ideas hostile to the system based on “workers and peasants” and the alliance with the Soviet Union. The resulting works included politicized performances of the classics as well as performances presented by alterative groups: Teatr Ósmego Dnia: Teatr 77, Jedynka, Provisorium and Teatr Stu. KOR’s activity from 1976 to the beginning of martial law introduced on 13 December 1981 clearly shows that the links between the revolutionary movement and the theater were an important feature of dissident activity and helped to reinforce and popularize its ideological values.