Marxist Regimes Research Articles

Living I Was Your Plague: Martin Luther's World and Legacy by Lyndal Roper

Reviewed by: Living I Was Your Plague: Martin Luther's World and Legacy by Lyndal Roper Aaron Klink Living I Was Your Plague: Martin Luther's World and Legacy. By Lyndal Roper. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. 278 pp. Oxford historian Lyndal Roper's collection of essays on Luther's thought and legacy develops her 2017 Wiles Lectures at Queens University, Belfast. The essays are not a complete Luther biography; rather, each of the seven chapters explores a facet of Luther's life and legacy. Like Roper's biography, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (2016), these essays employ psychoanalytic theory. Erik Erikson's Young Man Luther (1958) has made Luther scholars wary of psychoanalytic interpretations of Luther. However, Roper's modest use of psychoanalytic theory and her methodological clarity make her insights worth considering. Roper takes an extensive look at how [End Page 219] Luther's image has appeared from the Reformation to the present day, in everything from Lucas Cranach's Reformation-era portraits to a contemporary Playmobile based on a statue that had to be revised when it was accused of being anti-Semitic. Roper notes the importance of material portrayals of Luther, since "Lutheranism was as much a material and visual culture as it was a musical one" (10). The book begins with an exploration of the efforts of Wittenberg painter Lucas Cranach and his workshop to develop and propagate an image of Luther that would shape popular understandings. Immediately after Luther's marriage, Cranach often included Katie Luther in his portraits. As the shock of Luther's marriage abated among Lutherans, the paintings returned to portraits of Luther alone. Cranach's artistic dilemma, according to Roper, was to find a way of portraying Luther as a powerful reformer without making him look like a Roman Catholic saint, given Lutheranism's rejection of such veneration. In a chapter on Luther's dreams, Roper notes that despite Luther's claim that he put no stock in dreams, he wrote about his own dreams in treatises and letters. Roper especially notes a dream that Luther recounted about his confessor Johann von Staupitz. Luther's dream seems to speak of the rift between him and his beloved confessor who remained faithful to the Catholic Church. Roper notes that these dreams shed light on Luther's psyche. Roper does not say why she chooses a psychoanalytic framework to interpret Luther's dreams, rather than framing them within the biblical dreams with which Luther was familiar. In choosing the psychoanalytic frame, the chapter loses sight of other plausible interpretive frameworks. In a chapter on "Luther the anti-Semite" Roper argues that Luther's polemics against Judaism were more severe than his writings against the pope. The latter contain humor absent in Luther's writings about Judaism. Roper also notes Luther's belief that Jews sought to harm him. Luther's anti-Semitism is far more virulent than other theologians both Catholic and Protestant. Roper argues that Luther's anti-Semitism went far beyond what was considered normal even in his cultural environment. Roper's chapter on Luther's appearance in material culture during and after the Reformation makes an important contribution. She [End Page 220] adds nuance to topics covered by others and adds original insights in her analysis of Luther's appearance in material culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For instance, Roper notes that one German postcard of World War I vintage showed Luther and Bismarck. Another more troubling image comes from the Luther Memorial Church in Mariendorf, Berlin, where the Luther Rose appears next to eagles standing on swastikas, on a pulpit portraying a Hitler youth alongside a brownshirt. In addition, she explores the Wittenberg panorama erected for the 2017 celebrations that shows a struggle between Luther and Thomas Müntzer. Roper notes that the panorama makes it seem that Luther saved the Reformation from the peasants. She notes that a different panorama unveiled in 1989 in the East German city of Frankenhausen shows Müntzer as the hero and celebrates the peasant uprising as a class struggle against wealthy elites. This presented the perspective of the Marxist government. Roper applies the methods of psychoanalytic theory while...

Этапы становления регулярной армии: невыученные уроки Афганистана

In this article, the author looks into the stages of formation of the military organization and the transformation of the armed forces’ role in the political system of the Afghan state from the moment the country gained independence to the present day. The goals that were assigned to the army by the leaders of Afghanistan at different periods of time, the degree of their implementation, as well as the methods of reformation and ideological motivation of the armed forces are analyzed. The interdependence between the formation of the armed forces of Afghanistan and the strengthening or weakening of statehood is examined. The issues of forming the national armed forces are studied in the context of three main stages in the development of the modern Afghan state, each of those determined the special role of the army as a political institution and at the same time reflected the impact of the military organization of the army on political development. The first period refers to the formation of the modern Afghan state starting from 1919, when the country gained independence as a result of the Third Anglo-Afghan War, and ending with the events of 1978 (the ‘Saur Revolution’). The second one represents the time spent in Afghanistan by a limited contingent of Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, as well as the time the Marxist government was in power and introduced their reforms. The third period is marked by the destruction of previously established institutions under the influence of deepening civil conflict and the consequences of the US military operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ (2001–2014) and NATO-led ‘Resolute Support’ mission (2014–2021).

Comment: Ethiopia's Quest for an Appropriate Law: ‘An Answer’ from a Brother from Afar

There have been three waves of foreign influence in the ‘flesh’ and ‘soul’ of the Ethiopian legal regime ranging from the reception of liberal laws from Western modern legal systems to the socialist legality borrowed from the Marxist regimes of the pre-1990s. While the first epoch turned to the West for emulation, socialist legality went East. From the1990s onward, Ethiopia seems to have a hybrid (guramaile) of the two. Once again, Ethiopia’s post-2018 legal regime is rehearsing yet another chapter in its quest for the appropriate law. This comment reflects these pursuits and challenges, and it indicates the need for insight from an indigenous African wisdom of Sankofa.

The Political Dimensions of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Bulgarian Reception: Between Structuralism and Impressionism

The swift reception in Bulgaria of Bakhtin became embroiled in various strategies for opposing the prevalent dogmatic doctrine of the “theory of reflection.” Structuralists were mistrustful of Bakhtin’s ideas, suspecting them of implied authoritarianism, while so-called impressionists took them in two diverging directions: one proto-post-structuralist, the other one rightist-nationalist and retro-utopian. Paradoxically, the last one was favored by the supposedly Marxist regime, which might provide a glimpse on the early etiology of present-day nationalism.

Scripts, religion, and ideology

Religion often determines the choice of alphabets. So do other ideological factors that have impact on religious ones—such as nationalism and Marxism. Opposition to the influence of religion led Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to switch the spelling of Turkish and Judeo-Spanish from Arabic and Hebrew letters to Latin characters. Nationalism led Romania to switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to Latin characters. Marxist regimes did not switch alphabets and writing systems but altered them. Thus, many Chinese characters were simplified by Chairman Mao. And in the Soviet Union, Yiddish words of Hebrew origin were spelled phonetically rather than traditionally, and final forms of letters were eliminated. In each of these and other cases discussed in this article, belief or identity was reflected in the writing systems of these various languages.

Zgodovina kot servis

During the downfall of Marxist regimes in Eastern Europe, the communists in Slovenia were focused on the further implementation of their far-reaching plans. While doing so, they did not forget to maintain the conscience of the past. During the preparations for their eleventh congress, the commission for history of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia and the Section for Ideological Questions of Historiography of the Marxist Centre of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia had a joint meeting on 7 November 1989. Both authorities rejected the full-scale listing of the Party in the past as being unreasonable; they also opposed the discontinuation of the authorities whose purpose in the Party was to preserve the conscience of the past. Božo Repe, the author of the record of the meeting, stated that the Party needed them as a “service”. At the meeting, the communists also formed guidelines for individual entries in the Encyclopaedia of Slovenia, which proves a strong political and ideological interference with the work of the editorial board.

Religion, politics and the dilemma of modernising Ethiopia

Ethiopia is an old society often confronted with new ideas and foreign values. As a result, social changes and modernisation were important contentious points especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some wanted change and progress at the expense of indigenous values, specifically cultural and political independence, while others opted for a more cautious approach. Inasmuch as Ethiopia’s context was one in which the church and the state were accustomed to seeing themselves as two sides of the same coin, the discourse of modernisation had both a political and religious flavour to it. This article therefore aims to examine the volatile dynamics between religion (especially the Protestant churches of the ‘southern peripheries’) and the Marxist regime in modernising Ethiopia. Specifically, the article intends to explore how state-church relations transformed social thinking in Ethiopia. I begin by sketching the historical background and proceed to unravel the dilemma of modernisation. In the final part, I discuss how Protestantism contributed to modernising three aspects of social structure: the understanding of the human person, state-church relations and social organisation.

Perspektif Rusia Tentang Hubungan Internasional Pasca Perang Dingin

After the Soviet break-up and the Marxist regime collapsed, many of alternative notions emerged in the academic community in Russia, including alternative ideas in the field of International Relations (IR). A number of Russian IR scholars attempted to reconstruct the theories of IR, not just the IR theories that developed in Russia during the era of Marxism, but also against Western IR theories. Although the post-Cold War aspirations to create a distinct national school of International Relations in Russia, but these efforts are not free from the ideology and political goal that directing and guiding Russian foreign policy. Even, IR scholars in Russia have come to shared with the Russian government in terms of building the IR theories with the Russian characteristics, especially in challenging Western hegemony in the social sciences and international relations. This article tries to elaborate three intellectual traditions of international relations that developed in Russia, namely Westernism, Statism, and Civilizationism. Westernizer IR heavily influenced by Western liberalism, Statism more inspired by the realism, while Civilizationism is more of a hybrid between the constructivism and Russian essentialism.

Gender justice discourse in the educational system of Afghanistan during the Marxist period (1978–1992)

This study examines women’s access to education (‘gender justice’) during the rule of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992, using a qualitative research methodology and discourse analysis at the operational level from the perspective of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The data collected in this research were extracted from textual sources concerning the role of women in education in Afghanistan in the Marxist era: the importance of the data concerns an understanding of the intellectual and political atmosphere, particularly with regard to women’s education, in the government of the time. It is concluded that several factors contributed to the failure of the hegemonic discourse, despite intensive efforts made by Marxist government to realize hegemony and gender justice. Political agents, availability, credibility and exclusion, as elements of the hegemonic discourse, were evaluated and it is further concluded that these elements were unable to play an effective role in the discourse, as had been expected, and were gradually marginalized.

Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain by Jack Doherty

Reviewed by: Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain by Jack Doherty Edward Jeremy Miller Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain. By Jack Doherty. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016. 442pp. $18.99. There are some curiosities to note about this book from the outset. It is not a normal 442-page book. The type is large and double spaced, having about 250 words per page, and so it reads quickly. It is a self-published book, and this is a second curiosity. Such authors take upon themselves producing the text digitally, proofreading it themselves, and then marketing it online. (CreateSpace, an Amazon Company, helps in this endeavor.) There are surely expenses an author assumes in self-marketing a paperback before royalties might roll in but I could not discover them. Third, the title betrays a harshness, often severe, toward institutional Roman Catholicism that only becomes evident in the second portion of the book. [End Page 103] The book’s first portion reads like a personal memoir. Doherty is an American Redemptorist priest pursuing a doctorate in theology in the late 1960s, first in Tübingen, then transferring to Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Beginning in March, 1969, he becomes ever more deeply involved in smuggling religious texts into Czechoslovakia, in the beginning making border crossings himself in a book-loaded car and later, when he was restricted from entering Czechoslovakia himself, by using mail. The Prague Spring of 1968 had eased postal restrictions vis-à-vis the West. I found his memoir rather heroic at this point. He had been assisting with liturgies at Patch Barracks near Stuttgart, a very large American military command facility. With the help of the service wives of the Catholic parish, he engineered an “Iron Curtain Book Project.” The parish would box for mailing thousands of religious texts, using unsuspicious Czech addresses supplied to him by the underground Czech Catholic Church. He had made a deal with the Herder Book Company for all of its “extra” books, and truck loads of Herder books morphed into 2–3 pound boxes of them shipped from the “off-base” addresses of parishioners. Thousands of books served an oppressed and persecuted Catholic Church, many of whose members never heard of the Second Vatican Council. When he was making border crossings in 1968 bearing books, Doherty’s other aim was to make contact with the Czech and Slovak Redemptorists. This he did, especially with Father Jan Jaros, their superior in secret. These men, ministering under the Communist radar, had menial civilian jobs. Many had been imprisoned, some tortured. But all of them wanted their stories to be known and valued. The book’s second portion is no longer first-person memoir in two senses: By September, 1971, Jack Doherty was no longer allowed into the Eastern Block, persona non grata in his words. Secondly, his tone becomes adversarial at the very outset of Part Two: “When the churches were no longer oppressed [by Communists] and the underground church became publically [sic] known, the Vatican treated with suspicion and distrust the secret bishops and priests who suffered and [End Page 104] were tortured and jailed under atheistic Marxist governments to preserve the faith. They were not offered church positions and were accused of not being ordained” properly (197). Part One had situated three groups of Catholic priests: those few legitimately ordained and/or consecrated, acting somewhat openly, and known by the Vatican and the Communists to be Catholic clergy, such as Bishop, later Cardinal, Tomasek who participated at Vatican II; priests collaborators, either already spies when ordained or having been ordained and then making allegiance with Communism, called the “pacem in terris” clergy; and the secret bishops and priests (Doherty’s heroes) who moved so much in the shadows that not even Rome or legitimate local bishops knew most of them, and written records of their ordinations would have been too dangerous to maintain. Some of these clergy-in-secret were exposed, imprisoned, and tortured. Some married men were ordained because their family identities and secular jobs kept them undercover. Doherty relates a...

World dominates thoughts and religious intellectuals in Iran

In every period of history and implicitly the twentieth century, the dominant schools of thoughts and ideas have been ruled. Since 1917 and after the Russian Revolution, Marxism transformed its power from theory into practice and until the late 1980s, when the Soviet Marxist regime crumbled, his thought process was continued. It was the shadow of Marxism on religious enlightenment in Iran either (religious enlightenment in Iran as well affected by Marxism); and doctor Ali Shariati as one of the most important religious intellectuals before the revolution in Iran, could not stay away from the dominance over global thinking in his works. But after the demise of Marxism, liberalism developed his constituents around the world more than ever by getting its authority back; meantime, this study analyses the views of Dr. Soroush, alongside with some parameters attempted to determine correlation between his thoughts and ideas that have emerged as the dominant world. So, the question of the present paper will be posed in this way: To what extent religious intellectual, according to the comments from doctor Shariati and doctor Soroush, has been affected by the global dominant thinking? The hypothesis of this article is how global dominant thinking at their time has influenced these two theorists analyzed in two different times. In this study, an analytical method is selected to examine match case study brighter. Data collection instruments are of documental-library type.

Distortion of Marxism in Duong Thu Huong’s <i>Novel Without A Name</i> and Kim Echlin’s <i>The Disappeared</i>

In Novel Without A Name (1996) and The Disappeared (2010), the brutalities of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War are depicted vividly. The implementation of suspect Marxist doctrines and ideologies is portrayed as the main factor that led to such atrocities. Thus, the central issue or theme of these two novels is the distortion of Marxism. This is foregrounded not only through incidents that take place on the battlefield, but also through the relationships between characters. The latter are not much explored by scholars to examine the main theme, the distortion of Marxism. Hence, this study investigates the importance of relationships in reflecting and developing the theme, the distortion of Marxism, as depicted in Duong Thu Huong’s Novel Without A Name and Kim Echlin’s The Disappeared via the concept of Marxism. By referring to the true set of Marxist ideologies, the distorted Marxist doctrines implemented in the Marxist regime depicted are shown. This paper reveals that the distortion of Marxist doctrines has a negative impact on the relationships depicted in Novel Without A Name and The Disappeared. There are three main types of relationship portrayed in the novel, namely love, siblings and friendship. All these relationships reflect the theme of both novels, the distortion of Marxism, because all of them are broken or severed at the end of the novels due to the distorted Marxist ideologies and doctrines implemented in the regimes depicted.

Between diplomacy and solidarity: Western European support networks for Sandinista Nicaragua

Between the 1960s and 1980s, political crises in the Third World became a source of inspiration and action in Western European societies. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was one of the most famous instigators of transnational activism. All over Western Europe, locally organised committees staged public actions, collected funds and educated their societies about the plight of this Central American nation, whose Marxist government faced strong international opposition from the Reagan administration as well as domestic social, political and economic turbulence. This article looks at Third World solidarity activism from a new perspective, assessing the active role of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in the emergence and development of activism in Western Europe. It argues that FSLN diplomacy – initially by exiles and later by official diplomats – initiated the creation of transnational networks, driven by the quest for international support. They fuelled activism by providing activists with fresh information, contacts and avenues for action, but also cemented cross-border co-operation between activists and stimulated a ‘Europeanisation’ of local activism.

East German Military Aid to the Sandinista Government of Nicaragua, 1979–1990

The East German regime provided extensive military assistance to developing countries and armed guerrilla movements in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In the 1980s, the pro-Soviet Marxist government in Nicaragua was one of the major recipients of East German military assistance. This article focuses on contacts at the level of the ministries of defense, on Nicaraguan requests to the East German military command, and on political and military decision-making processes in East Germany. The article examines the provision of weaponry and training as well as other forms of cooperation and support. Research for the article was conducted in the formerly closed archives of the East German Ministry for National Defense regarding military supplies to the Third World as well as the voluminous declassified files of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (the ruling Communist party).

Afghanistan: Withdrawal Lessons

Afghanistan: Withdrawal Lessons

Karl Marx: a nineteenth-century life

Between his birth in 1818 and his death sixty-five years later, Karl Marx became one of Western civilization's most influential political philosophers. Two centuries on, he is still revered as prophet of modern world, yet he is also blamed for darkest atrocities of modern times. But no matter in what light he is cast, short, but broad-shouldered, bearded Marx remains-as human being-distorted on Procrustean bed of political isms, perceived through partially distorting lens of his chief disciple, Friedrich Engels, or understood as figure of twentieth-century totalitarian Marxist regimes. Returning Marx to Victorian confines of nineteenth century, Jonathan Sperber, one of United States' leading European historians, challenges many of our misconceptions of this political firebrand turned London emigre journalist. In this deeply humanizing portrait, Marx no longer is Olympian soothsayer, divining dialectical imperatives of human history, but scholar-activist whose revolutionary Weltanschauung was closer to Robespierre's than to those of twentieth-century Marxists. With unlimited access to MEGA (the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, total edition of Marx's and Engels's writings), only recently available, Sperber juxtaposes private man, public agitator, and philosopher-economist. We first see Marx as young boy in city of Trier, influenced by his father, Heinrich, for whom the French Revolution and its aftermath offered an opportunity to escape narrowly circumscribed social and political position of Jews in society. For Heinrich's generation, this worldview meant no longer being member of so-called Jewish nation, but for his son, reverberations were infinitely greater-namely life inspired by doctrines of Enlightenment and an implacable belief in human equality. Contextualizing Marx's personal story-his rambunctious university his loving marriage to devoted Jenny von Westphalen (despite an illegitimate child with family maid), his children's tragic deaths, catastrophic financial problems-within larger historical stage, Sperber examines Marx's public actions and theoretical publications against backdrop of European continent roiling with political and social unrest. Guided by newly translated notes, drafts, and correspondence, he highlights Marx's often overlooked work as journalist; his political activities in Berlin, Paris, and London; and his crucial role in both creating and destroying International Working Men's Association. With Napoleon III, Bismarck, Adam Smith, and Charles Darwin, among others, as supporting players, Karl Marx becomes not just biography of man but vibrant portrait of an infinitely complex time. Already hailed by Publishers Weekly as a major work ...likely to be standard biography of Marx for many years, Karl Marx promises to become defining portrait of towering historical figure.

Can Land Reform Avoid a Left Turn? Evidence from Chile after the Cuban Revolution

Abstract Following the creation of the Alliance for Progress in 1961, several structural reforms were implemented in Latin America in response to the political effects of the Cuban Revolution. Among these, land reform was arguably the most important policy. Using a unique dataset of land expropriations, and a plausible exogenous variation in land concentration, this paper studies the causal effects this policy had on political support for the incumbent party in the central government. In a context where the incumbent was losing political support (and the power of the left wing was rising), municipalities affected by land reform voted by 3–5 percentage points higher for the incumbent than municipalities not affected by this process. Although it did not prevent the first democratically elected Marxist government, land reform decreased the political support for the left wing party. I discuss several theoretical mechanisms that can explain this empirical result.

Cuban Sports Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War Period: International Identity versus Domestic Realities

Summary For many years an important segment of Cuba’s public diplomacy has focused on Cuban sports. The Cuban regime politicized sports policies and athletic triumphs and attempted to use them to enhance its international influence. This, in turn, reflected a key dimension of the Cuban revolution: the effort to alter pre-revolutionary culture by creating a ‘new man’. Mass participation in sports and the victories of elite athletes alike showed Cuban socialism in action. During the post-Cold War era, however, replete with difficulties for Marxist regimes, budget cuts, leadership changes, reordered priorities and the reintroduction of capitalism have adversely affected Cuban sports. Cubans today lack the access to first-rate facilities that they once enjoyed. Many athletes have defected, while the skills of trainers and coaches have been sold abroad. These developments have threatened Cuba’s revolutionary sports culture and undermined the effectiveness of its sports diplomacy. The Cuban example suggests that the efficacy of sports diplomacy is related not only to the quality of athletic performances but to the manner in which underlying cultural norms either support or detract from diplomatic endeavours.

Contemporary Philosophical Aesthetics in China: The Relation between Subject and Object

AbstractThis article presents a historical account and philosophical analysis of the development of philosophical aesthetics in China in its Marxist regime, focusing on the relation between subject and object. It enters into the picture of the search for new philosophical aesthetics in Marxist China and engages the related debates and reforms. The representing four schools of aesthetics in the early decades of the new China are introduced, which were led by Gao Ertai, Cai Yi, Zhu Guangqin and Li Zehou. Each of them presents a different relationship between the subject and the object in the aesthetics process and initiates debates and controversies among themselves. In the 1990s aestheticians of the younger generation suggested a modern aesthetics system in which a new aesthetics notion was reconstructed. The article analyzes the nature and the structure of this notion “ganxing”, and demonstrated the struggles in its search for a balance and merge integration among traditional Chinese aesthetics, Contemporary Western philosophies and Marxist aesthetics. Finally, this article also points out the Deweyan influences on the notion which is popular in PRC, and demonstrates that Chinese aesthetics in the contemporary scene has more concerns to add on, which is the application of its new aesthetical thoughts to the rapidly developing art scenes and social changes in contemporary China.

The 1970s: The Anti-Apartheid Movement's Difficult Decade

The 1970s were a pivotal decade in the Southern African liberation struggle. In 1975 Mozambique and Angola won their independence from Portugal, transforming the Southern African region. In South Africa, after a period in the late 1960s when internal opposition seemed crushed, the Black Consciousness Movement and the growth of independent trade unions signalled the growth of a new resistance. At the same time, changing attitudes to race in a postcolonial world made apartheid more difficult to defend. Even international corporations, whose high rates of profit depended on the subsistence wages they paid their black employees, needed to find an acceptable rationale for continuing to invest in South Africa. These changes threw up new challenges for the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). The establishment of Marxist governments in the former Portuguese colonies and the involvement of Cuba in Angola thrust Southern Africa into the frontline of the Cold War. It was unclear how the emergence of the new movements in South Africa would affect the course of the struggle and the role of the African National Congress (ANC). And the arguments for constructive engagement put forward by business interests ran counter to the AAM's advocacy of the total isolation of South Africa. These arguments gained currency in sections of the British trade union movement, the churches and other constituencies to which the AAM looked for support. This article examines how the AAM responded to these challenges and how it emerged to become a mass movement in the 1980s.