Party Archives Research Articles

Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920: The Key to Victory by Brian s> Murphy (review)

REVIEWS 56I Breyfogle has managed to discuss some very complex issues in a clear and accessiblemanner. It is to be highlyrecommended to studentsof both Russian expansionism and of Russian sectarianism. StMartin'sCollege JOHN SWIFT Lancaster Murphy,Brian.Rostov intheRussianCivilWar,I9I7-I920: 7The Ky to Victogy. Cass Military Studies Series. Routledge, London and New York, 2005. xvi +I96 pp. Maps. Illustrations.Notes. Appendices. Select bibliography. Index. [65.00. STUDIESof the Russian Revolution and Civil War have overwhelmingly tended to focus on higher level political and militaryaffairs.Yet a true understandingof the dynamicsof the period requiresalso a solid knowledge of attitudes and events at a lower level. Workssuch as Orlando Figes'sPeasant Russia, CivilWar:T7he Volga Countgyside inRevolution (Oxford, I989) have gone some way towardsredressingthe imbalance in the historiography,but only to a limited extent. In the case of the Civil War, the Don region is a naturaltargetfor the local historian. It was there, after all, that the Civil War began, with the Cossacks'rebellion against Bolshevikrule and the establishmentof the White Volunteer Army in late I9I7. The Don region and its primary city, Rostov, then changed hands severaltimes in the CivilWar, makingit a usefulfocusfor studiesof the varyingimpact of Red and White ruleand misrulebetween I9I7 and 1920. Peter Holquist'sMakingWar,Forging Revolution: Russia'sContinuum of Crisis (Cambridge,MA, 2002) has providedone usefulstudyin this regard.On its footstepsnow follows Brian Murphy'sRostov in theRussianCivilWar. Murphy's book is not a monograph, but a collection of documents interspersed with commentary. Murphy has taken most of the documents from fond 12 opis 3 of the Communist Party archivesin Rostov-on-Don, although selectionsfrom a number of publishedtexts are also included. The stated aim of the selectionis to 'fillout the socialbackground'to the CivilWar in Rostov, and to 'convey the daily experience of life in the streets' (p. xi). However, because the primary source is the Communist Party archives,the documents inevitably reflect the Red position much more stronglythan the White one. Historiansseekinginformationabout the Communist undergroundin Rostov in the Civil War will find much more of interest than those wishing to learn more about the attitudesand actions of the Communists'opponents, or even of the mass of the Rostov population. For this reason, the selection only partiallyfulfilsits objectiveof fillingout the social backgroundto the events of the period. The advantage of a collection of documents over a monograph is that the original words of those who actuallyparticipatedin the events describedcan bring them to life in a way second-hand reportingcannot. This is not always the case with those assembled here. The chapter on 'Daily Life, I9I8' is quite dry, for instance. By contrast,some of the materialabout the Bolshevik undergroundmakes exciting reading, and I suspect that this section will also be the most useful for historians. 562 SEER, 84, 3, JULY 2006 It is hard to determine exactly who constitutesthe target audience for the book. Some of the commentary suggeststhat Murphy assumesthat there will be readers who know little or nothing of the broader historical picture. He therefore provides context and backgroundwhich will be superfluousto specialists. There is also a mistaken effort to tap into the current 'war on terror'with cover blurbsayingthat 'thepassionateenthusiasmof these revolutionaries may give us some insight into the psychology of young men and women who are called "terrorists" today'. In fact when one reads what these men and women were doing, it went no furtherthan undergroundprinting presses. There is nothing at all relevant to contemporary terrorism.Despite these ratherill-directedeffortsto reach out to some popularmarket,this book is of ratherlimited interest,of use mostly to specialistsin the Russian Revolution and CivilWar, and above all to those wishingto gain some understanding of the dynamics of civil war at the lower levels. For such persons, Rostov in the RussianCivilWarwillprove a usefuland occasionallyquite stimulatingaddition to the existing literature. Department ofPoliticsandInternational Studies P. F. ROBINSON University ofHull Baron, Nick and Gatrell, Peter (eds).Homelands: War,Population andStatehood in Easten Europeand RussiaI9I8-I924. Anthem Studies in Population Displacement and Political Space. Anthem Press, London 2004. xviii + 267 PP. Maps. Tables. Notes. Index. f16.95 (paperback). BETWEEN i86o and I9IO, approximately40 million labourmigrantsfrom Eastern Europeanvillagesleft theirhomelandsto seekwork,wages and, eventually 'bread and butter'. This number included tens of...

The Hitler book: the secret dossier prepared for Stalin from the interrogations of Hitler's personal aides

Stalin had never been able to shake off the nightmare of Adolf Hitler. Just as in 1941 he refused to understand that Hitler had broken their non-aggression pact, he was in 1945 unwilling to believe that the dictator had committed suicide in the debris of the Berlin bunker. In his paranoia, Stalin ordered his secret police, the NKVD, precursor to the KGB, to explore in detail every last vestige of the private life of the only man he considered a worthy opponent, and to clarify beyond doubt the circumstances of his death. For months two captives of the Soviet Army--Otto Guensche, Hitler's adjutant, and Heinz Linge, his personal valet--were interrogated daily, their stories crosschecked, until the NKVD were convinced that they had the fullest possible account of the life of the Fuhrer. In 1949 they presented their work, in a single copy, to Stalin. It is as remarkable for the depth of its insight into Adolf Hitler--from his specific directions to Linge as to how his body was to be burned, to his sense of humor--as for what it does not say, reflecting the prejudices of the intended reader: Joseph Stalin. Nowhere, for instance, does the dossier criticize Hitler's treatment of the Jews. Today, the 413-page original of Stalin's personal biography of Hitler is a Kremlin treasure and it is said to be held in President Putin's safe. only other copy, made by order of Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1959, was deposited in Moscow Party archives under the code number 462A. It was there that Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, two German historians, found it. Available to the public in full for the first time, The Hitler Book presents a captivating, astonishing, and deeply revealing portrait of Hitler, Stalin, and the mutual antagonism of these two dictators, who between them wrought devastation on the European continent.

The Accessing and Archiving of Electronic Journals

ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses upon the challenges and problems that libraries face relating to the accessing and archiving of electronic journals (EJs) and considers the implications these issues will have on those involved in the information profession. This topic is becoming an increasingly important issue for libraries, which can no longer be ignored, as the usage of EJs has increased radically. The problems associated with the archiving of EJs are great. If archiving continues to be ignored, much information will be lost. This must be prevented at all costs. The dissertation is broken down into 10 chapters. The introduction gives an overview and details the methodology and layout. This is followed by a discussion on the background and current context that EJs operate in. The following chapters then consider the main problems associated with the accessing and archiving of EJs. This involves topics such as what should be archived, who should be responsible for the archiving process, how the materials should be archived and where they should be archived. This requires the study of numerous technical, economic, business, organisational and legal models. The focus is predominantly on libraries but the study would be incomplete without looking at others involved in the information profession, namely publishers and trusted third party archives. The argument is that although technically the archiving process is feasible, poor relations between libraries and publishers make this difficult to achieve. It is hard to reach a consensus on how the process should be carried out and the lack of developed standards exacerbates this problem. Economic, legal, business and organisational models must be considered before the archiving of EJs can be facilitated effectively. The dissertation looks at how these can be achieved and highlights the importance of further detailed research in this field.

Soviet Planning Archives: the Files that Bergson could not see

This paper examines Soviet industrial materials supply planning using official documents from the Soviet state and party archives. It examines the planning practices of the 1930s and uses two criteria suggested by Bergson to examine its efficiency. The actual practices of annual and quarterly planning are viewed in terms of the relationship between the dictator, the industrial ministries and their branch administrations, and producing enterprises. Our results confirm the general picture of operational planning from the Western literature but add a number of new insights into the operation and efficiency of industrial materials supply planning.

Soviet–Yugoslav Relations and the Case of Imre Nagy

The Hungarian Revolution in 1956 caused the process of normalization of Soviet–Yugoslav relations to reach deadlock. This article, based on the documents from the Russian party and diplomatic archives, analyzes the causes of this impasse and reveals the early stages of the new round of Soviet–Yugoslav polemics which arose primarily because the Yugoslav Government provided refuge for Imre Nagy and his political supporters in its embassy in Budapest after the Soviet suppression of the Revolution. It reconstructs the circumstances of their extradition and removal to Romania, and the consequent deportation to Hungary for trial in 1957. The article also explores the role of the Romanian leadership in the neutralization of Nagy's team and the consolidation of the regime of Janos Kadar.

Whose Modernity? Anti-Christianity and Educational Policy in Revolutionary China, 1924-1926

TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA 33 WHOSE MODERNITY? ANTI-CHRISTIANITY AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY IN REVOLUTIONARY CHINA, 1924-1926 MICHAEL G. MURDOCK, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY 1 In December 1926, shop workers from the Silk and Satin Industry Union adorned the eastern Guangdong town of Shantou with copies of a fiercely anti-Christian propaganda poster. Presented as a signed declaration, the notice first recounted developments from the year before: Last year Christian running-dogs of imperialism in eastern Guangdong were taught a lesson and dealt a blow by the antiChristian revolutionary masses. Christian voices faded, their tracks vanished, and they disappeared into heaven. Since then, because the revolutionary masses have been busy with other types of revolutionary work and have gradually relaxed their anti-Christian efforts, the Christian imperialist running dogs have again unveiled their forces and staged a comeback. Daily they spread rumors and crafty speech claiming that “The God of Heaven” and “The Lord Christ” have extraordinary power to eradicate the Anti-Christian Movement. As a result, for the last several months … chapels everywhere again have more asses than seats and consequently the running dog believers have again extended their claws and bared their fangs with greedy vigor! Strong denunciations followed, accusing local Christians of wearing “false masks,” hoarding weapons, rejecting national “awakening,” planning massacres, and operating as the “vanguard of imperialism.” Employing colorful imagery designed to evoke a powerful emotional response, the workers warned their fellow countrymen: “Fire has already singed our 1 Working drafts of this project were presented at the 1997 annual meeting of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations and the 2000 anniversary meeting of the Social Science History Association. Research was completed thanks to the generous support of the College of Family, Home, and Social Science and the History Department at Brigham Young University. I would also like to thank Twentieth-Century China’s two anonymous reviewers for their exceptionally helpful comments as well as Christopher A. Reed and Anne Collinson for graciously lending so much of their time and editing expertise. MICHAEL G. MURDOCK 2005 34 eyebrows; calamity has already begun gnawing at our bellies! The AntiChristian Movement can never again relax midway! Quickly, quickly revive! COMPLETELY KNOCK DOWN THE VANGUARD RUNNING-DOGS OF IMPERIALISM (THE CHRISTIANS); SWEAR … REVENGE FOR OUR HUMILIATION.”2 A similar poster presented by the Anti-Christian Society of Shandong nearly two years earlier, excoriated foreign imperialists for seizing territory, leases, indemnities, and treaties while flooding the land with foreign troops. Demanding the same general destruction sought by Shantou anti-Christians, the Shandong agitators warned: Our Chinese sisters and brothers were violated, captured, and robbed by foreign soldiers … All these disasters have been brought about by the preaching of Christianity … Now the influence of the Christians is more extended, their methods of preaching are cleverer, and it is a more apparent fact that the Christians help the foreign devils to kill and injure Chinese … At this time it is hoped that our brothers and sisters … will rise up without delay to oppose the Christians and knock down the foreign devils.3 Anti-Christian forces had long condemned Christian schools and hospitals, but attacks became particularly acute after January 1924 when the Nationalist Party (國民黨, Guomindang or GMD) added its support. Outside school and hospital walls, anti-Christian students, workers, and peasants picketed entrances, blockaded deliveries, cut electricity and water, held rallies, spread literature, and paraded banners. Inside those same walls, infiltrators coordinated strikes, planned sit-ins, organized defections, submitted petitions, demanded reforms, and interfered with daily operations. Besieged by and infused with anti-Christian propaganda 2 “Wei Tangkeng geming minzhong bei diguo zhuyizhe de zougou Tianzhu jiaotu Jidu jiaotu cansha xuanyan” (Declaration for all revolutionary peoples of Tangkeng brutally murdered by imperialist running-dog Catholics and Protestants), November 1926, Zhongyang qian wubu dang’an (Archive of the first five ministries), Nationalist Party Archives, Taipei, Taiwan [hereafter QWBD] 8751. 3 United States Department of State, “Records of the Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of China, 1910-1929,” National Archives Publications, #329, Washington, D.C.: The National Archives, 1960, series 893.00, [hereafter USDS] 6118, Enclosure 7, Milbourne to Schurman, Jinan, 5 February 1925. TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA 35 and...

Removing the Core of Power

The Soviet collapse was one of the most significant events in the 20th century. The reason for it is still a controversial issue. The party apparat has been regarded as one of the key aspects of the Soviet-type political regime. It is well known that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had controlled state (executive) organs before perestroika through the party apparat's intervention. In addition, it is also well known that the party lost most of its control under Gorbachev's reform. There were two reorganizations of the party apparat under Gorbachev in 1988 after the 19th Party Conference and in 1990 after the 28th Party Congress. Researching these reorganizations may help us consider the reason for the Soviet collapse.This article investigates the decision-making and implementation processes of the party apparat reorganizations, and also looks into the structure and work of the party apparat. Utilising party archives that became available after the Soviet collapse, this article makes clear the following findings. Firstly, the first attempt to reorganize the party apparat in late 1988 had created a “power vacuum, ” though the party leadership intended to activate the economy by preventing the substitution (podmena) of the executive organs by the party. When the party stopped intervening in the executive organs, these bodies, which had depended on the party for a long time, also stopped working. The presidency, which was created in March 1990 in order to manage the “power vacuum, ” did not properly function either. Secondly, such a situation complicated further reform efforts. The second party apparat reorganization prolonged and not far-reaching especially in relation to security organs, though the party apparat certainly lost most of its ties with other state organs. In addition, despite the party leadership's intention to strengthen “political activity” of the party, the theoretical or ideological work did not improve. Thus, the communist party failed to transform itself into a normal political (or parliamentary) party, partially because of the “power vacuum.” Thirdly, losing its traditional administrative function and failing to achieve a new function, the party lost its raison d'etre. The party organizations were disintegrating well before Russian President Yeltsin's decree on the suspension of the party's activity that was issued immediately after the attempted coup in August 1991.

Ideological Ballast and New Directions in Soviet History

Ideological Ballast and New Directions in Soviet History David L. Hoffmann (bio) While reading the preceding commentaries, I became aware that the commentators misunderstood the basic purpose of my article. I would like to take this opportunity not to refute their statements or engage in polemics but rather to clarify the article's purpose and suggest a more productive approach to the study of Soviet history. My intention was not to argue whether or not the Soviet system was "socialist." Such an assessment would depend on one's definition of socialism; and as I pointed out, there have been other socialist projects that bore little resemblance to the Soviet system. (I certainly do not believe that, to quote Matthew Lenoe's attempt to paraphrase my argument, "if Stalin calls it socialism, it must be socialism" [725].) The purpose of my article was to re-examine one of the ways that Stalinism has been conceptualized and periodized—namely, that Stalinism (at least from 1934 on, according to Timasheff) marked a conscious ideological retreat by Soviet leaders. I rejected this view and argued that the striking changes in Stalinist culture of the mid-1930s resulted instead from Soviet leaders' proclamation at the 17th Party Congress that they had built socialism and reached a new stage in world history. Scholars may disagree as to whether or not Stalin and his fellow leaders actually believed their ideological proclamations, and it is on this point that the commentators and I differ. Evgeny Dobrenko states that "for the Bolsheviks, and above all for Stalin, ideology was only a tool" (675). Jeffrey Brooks asks skeptically, "did Stalin and his inner circle actually wish 'to transform human nature,' and if so, one may ask from what to what?" (718). Lenoe also doubts "the continued seriousness of the socialist project under Stalin" (726), in particular the Soviet authorities' commitment to the creation of the New Soviet Person. My research in former party archives has convinced me that Soviet leaders indeed took ideology seriously and that they endeavored, albeit unsuccessfully, to create the New Soviet Person—a person whose values and ways of thinking were to be qualitatively different from those who [End Page 731] lived under capitalism, a person free of egotism who was ready to sacrifice personal interests for the sake of the collective. To argue that ideology was more than a tool to Soviet leaders is not to pass judgment on whether the Soviet system was in any ideal sense "socialist." We may demonstrate that Soviet leaders' worldview was informed by Marxist-Leninist ideology; that their categories of class analysis derived from Marxism; and that their policies, from the collectivization of agriculture to the outlawing of free trade and the establishment of a state-run economy, were consciously anti-capitalist and yet still refrain from proclaiming the Soviet system "socialist." Depending on one's definition of socialism, one could just as easily see the Soviet system's inequality as evidence that it was not "socialist." In short, I believe that ideology is crucial to understanding Soviet leaders and their policies, but I do not feel a need to rehash Cold War debates over whether the Soviet system was in fact "socialist." A reconceptualization of Soviet history in the post-Cold War era requires that we move beyond debates that reified socialism. It also requires that we set aside models such as Timasheff's that portray Stalinism as a return to traditional Russian ways. The approach that I have proposed sees the Soviet system as one particular response to the ambitions and challenges of the modern era.1 In countries throughout modern Europe, political leaders and social reformers aspired to solve social problems and rationalize everyday life through the inculcation of new cultural norms. Soviet norms of efficiency, hygiene, sobriety, and literacy all reflected this more general ambition to establish a rationalized and aestheticized social order. Soviet norms regarding reproduction and the family similarly reflected the need of modern states to foster large, healthy populations for industrial labor and mass warfare. Stalinist culture also resembled the culture of other European states in the interwar period in that it incorporated elements of folklore and traditional symbols—not to revive...

"Malenkie liudi" i "bolshaia istoriia": Inostrantsy moskovskogo Elektrozavoda v sovetskom obshchestve 1920-kh-1930-kh gg. (review)

Reviewed by: "Malenkie liudi" i "bol´shaia istoriia": Inostrantsy moskovskogo Elektrozavoda v sovetskom obshchestve 1920-kh-1930-kh gg. Michael David-Fox Sergei Zhuravlev , "Malenkie liudi" i "bol´shaia istoriia": Inostrantsy moskovskogo Elektrozavoda v sovetskom obshchestve 1920-kh-1930-kh gg. ["Little People" and "Big Events": Foreigners of Moscow's Electrical Factory in Soviet Society, 1920-30s]. Moscow: Rosspen, 2000. 351 pp. ISBN 5824301506. At the height of the Soviet industrialization drive in the early 1930s as many as 35,000 foreign workers, engineers, and specialists and their family members had migrated from the countries of the industrialized West to live and work in the Soviet Union, many for long periods of time (29-31). Elektrozavod (after 1932, Elektrokombinat), the Moscow electro-industrial giant welded together from many factories in late 1927 and existing as a single entity until 1938, was an enterprise with one of the most substantial foreign contingents. This center of "socialist construction," like other industrial sites where foreigners were concentrated, held great strategic and symbolic value simultaneously. The electrical industry was central in the earliest Soviet plans for industrial development (47). The "Il´ich lightbulb" and electrification were for many years touted as virtual synonyms for the October Revolution, and during and after the First Five-Year Plan Elektrozavod was a high-priority enterprise that for many became a literal "symbol of socialism" (143). In the Soviet Union as a whole, by far the greatest number of Western economic and political émigrés working in Soviet industry were German, while the second largest group was Americans (29-30). This held true at Elektrozavod, where foreigners meant first and foremost Germans (about 80 percent, many of them Communists and skilled workers from Berlin), followed by Americans (a diverse group including highly paid specialists and returning émigrés from the Russian empire) and a smattering of many other nationalities. While Elektrozavod's foreign colony was a drop in the bucket in terms of the factory as a whole—at its height in 1932, foreigners totaled about 180 employees, not including family members, while the number for the entire factory the next year reached 24,000 (144, 157)—it holds a significance well beyond its numerical size. The lives and experiences of these foreigners are important not only as a window into the broader import of Western expertise into Soviet industry, but because these were the outsiders whose contact with the emerging Soviet system can be counted as among the most sustained, intimate, and often, as it turned out, tragic. [End Page 611] In this thoroughly researched volume packed with revealing new material, Sergei Zhuravlev has written the history of foreigners at Elektrozavod. His task, as he defines it, is to describe the foreign colony as a social entity (sotsium, or, more rarely, mikro-sotsium,sotsial´naia obshchnost´, or obshchestvennyi organizm) within Soviet society. Another of his major goals is to place the experiences of "little people" at the center of the historical process, and to do this especially through the extensive reconstruction of individual biographies within their broader context. While this agenda leaves open certain angles of investigation into the topic that I discuss below, it also informs his work's achievements, which rest on two closely related features of the monograph, its source base and its architectural design. Of the approximately 50 Russian archival collections (fondy) listed in Zhuravlev's bibliography, the most important for the study were the factory archives in the Moscow municipal archive (TsMAM) and the factory party organizations in the former Moscow party archive (TsAODM). Zhuravlev uses the 144 extant personal collections (lichnye fondy) of foreigners in the Elektrozavod collection exhaustively, developing the practice of inserting a biographical sketch in italics directly into his text each time an important personage appears. In 1993, when the author began research for this study, he also gained access to about 40 transcripts of purge-era NKVD interrogations of Elektrozavod foreigners executed or sent to labor in the Gulag, including those of several German proletarian Communists whose life stories are at the heart of the book. These materials from the former KGB archives (FSB RF)—now, as a rule, no longer accessible—not only are prominent in...

Jindai Guangdong de zhengdang shehui guojia--Zhongguo Guomindang jiqi dangguotizhi de xingchengguocheng (Party, Society, and State in Modern Guangdong: The Evolution of the Chinese Nationalist Party and its Party-State System) (review)

Reviewed by: Jindai Guangdong de zhengdang shehui guojia—Zhongguo Guomindang jiqi dangguotizhi de xingchengguocheng [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="01i" /] [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="02i" /] (Party, society, and state in modern Guangdong: The evolution of the Chinese Nationalist Party and its party-state system) Patrick Fuliang Shan (bio) Fukamachi Hideo [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="03i" /] . Jindai Guangdong de zhengdang shehui guojia—Zhongguo Guomindang jiqi dangguotizhi de xingchengguocheng [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="04i" /] [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="05i" /] (Party, society, and state in modern Guangdong: The evolution of the Chinese Nationalist Party and its party-state system). Beijing: Shehuikexue Wenxian Chubanshe [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="06i" /] (Social Science and Literature Press), 2003. 358 pp. Paperback RMB ¥25.00, ISBN 7-80149-991-3 Fukamachi Hideo's heroic effort in writing Chinese history in the Chinese language rather than in his native Japanese deserves high praise. In this adventurous work, Fukamachi offers new interpretations of the early history of the Nationalist Party (KMT) and the formation of China's party-state political system through an examination of one particular province: Guangdong. The time span covered by Fukamachi's study ranges from the 1890s to the 1920s, a vital period during which China experienced dramatic change. The curtain was raised with the Revolution of 1911: a dynasty collapsed, a parliamentary democracy failed, and a party-state system was finally consolidated. The whole of China experienced the first two developments, but the creation of the party-state system, which had a long-lasting impact on China in the twentieth century, was initially a unique product of Guangdong. In seven core chapters, Fukamachi stresses the extraordinary importance of Guangdong as a base for revolutionary activity in China, first against the Manchu dynasty and then against the warlords, and finally as a stronghold from which the KMT launched the new movement. By examining revolutionary organizations, local society, and changing regimes in Guangdong, Fukamachi offers a panoramic view that enables the reader to see how the party-state system evolved there. The establishment of the party-state system took decades, and the people of Guangdong played a key role. In the late Qing, frequent contact with the outside world along with their special local circumstances enabled the Cantonese to become the chief organizers for the China Revival Society (Xingzhonghui) in 1894 and the Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui) in 1905. After 1911 the KMT emerged, but it soon lost influence when it was suppressed by Yuan Shikai. Subsequently, in 1914, Sun Yat-sen established the Chinese Revolutionary Party (Zhonghua Gemingdang), and in 1919 he reorganized the Nationalist Party. Sun always saw Guangdong as an exceptional base for his activities and endeavored to penetrate into the province by recruiting locals into his party. While engaged in his experiment in Guangdong, Sun clashed with local elites such as Chen Jiongming, who was more interested in maintaining provincial [End Page 82] autonomy. However, Sun moved ahead with his aim to establish a national republic. By the time Sun assumed the presidency of the republic in Guangdong in 1921, the Nationalist Party was playing a vital role in the new regime since more than half of its officials were Party members. In the ensuing years, the Nationalist Party further consolidated its power in Guangdong by requiring Party membership for those in important government positions. At the county level, non-Party members were not even allowed to fill vacant positions. Nationalist rule thus received its empowerment not from legislative enactment but rather from the Party apparatus. After Sun's death, Chiang Kai-shek further solidified the position of the Nationalist Party, which in turn assisted Chiang in monopolizing political activity and in completing the process of formation of the party-state system. Some features of this book deserve attention. The author has made extensive use of numerous types of historical materials, such as Party archives, provincial and county annals, memoirs and biographies, newspapers and magazines, and other...

THE FISCHER CONTROVERSY OVER GERMAN WAR AIMS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND ITS RECEPTION BY EAST GERMAN HISTORIANS, 1961–1989

The Fischer controversy of the 1960s was a major landmark in post-war West German historiography. Surprisingly few historians to date have devoted their attention to the East German reception of Fischer's work, however. This article seeks to fill this gap by looking at some of the critical reviews published in East German academic journals and also at internal records from the Socialist Unity Party archive. Particular emphasis is placed on the period after 1965 when East German scholars began to explore the historiographical and national implications of the Fischer controversy with a greater degree of sensitivity but also with a greater degree of caution (for strategic political reasons). A mutually beneficial exchange of ideas between Fischer and German Democratic Republic scholars working on the First World War continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s, although ironically this was at a time when both sides were moving ever further away from the idea of a possible reunification of the two Germanies in the future.

A century of violence in Soviet Russia

Alexander Yakovlev played a unique role in the transformation of the Soviet Union that led to its collapse in 1991. It was he who developed the concept of perestroika and persuaded Gorbachev to pursue it, despite the cataclysmic though deeply desired changes he knew would ensue. Since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev has devoted himself to understanding its tragic history. This text is the outcome of ten years of research and a lifetime of reflection on the evils of the system of which he was a part and which shaped the country he loves. Using his privileged access to the Presidential Archives and other state and party archives, Yakovlev seeks to put Soviet history into a unique perspective: like Churchill, he was both participant and witness. Indicting the Soviet system from its inception, Yakovlev focuses chapter by chapter on different groups of victims. In all, the author estimates that 60 million citizens were killed during the Soviet years and millions more died of starvation. His work brings into sharp focus the facts and events of the Soviet Union's legacy of terror.

Strategies under Surveillance: Reading Irmtraud Morgner as a GDR Writer

Westgate, Geoffrey. Strategies under Surveillance: Reading Irmtraud Morgner as a Writer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002. 276 pp. $47.00 paperback. My interest in this book was initially piqued by the fact that its author is male. After the appearance of Trobadora Beatriz in 1974, the writer Irmtraud Morgner became the domain of (above all, western) feminist critics who focused on questions of female subjectivity, emancipation and creativity. Male critics tended to write Morgner off as a women's author, and few bothered to read the long, involved novels for which Morgner was mainly known. What would a male British Nachwuchsgermanist-Westgate's book is based on his University of Oxford dissertation-have to say about Irmtraud Morgner, and especially now, more than a decade after the demise of the and the subsequent relativization of literature? After acknowledging and reviewing the previous scholarship on Morgner, Westgate sets out in a new direction, placing Morgner in the political and cultural of the and looking at the entire trajectory of her work, from her early days as Lektorin at neue deutsche literatur in the late 1950s up through Das heroische Testament, the fragmentary third part of her trilogy, left unfinished at the author's death in 1990. It is Westgate's thesis that Morgner was a political writer, that her writing was primarily influenced by the ideal and its deformation in the GDR (3), that her texts walked the political tightrope within the context (12), and therefore must be read against this background in order to be properly understood. His overall objective is to show that Morgner deserves a lasting place in the literary canon. In carrying out his study, Westgate made ample use of numerous archives which were generally inaccessible before 1989/1990: the party archives of the SED, archives of the Ministry of Culture (of the Hauptverwaltung in charge of publishing), the Stasi archives administered by the Gauck-Behorde, archives of the national and Berlin offices of the Schriftstellerverband, as well as publishers' archives and those of the East Berlin Akademie der Kunste. he also had access to Morgner's Nachlass, and spoke and corresponded with former functionaries, friends and family members, in his effort to piece together and weigh the information he had gathered. The book is divided into five parts: three literary critical chapters, in which he traces the development of Morgner's writing from the relative orthodoxy of the 1950s, through the socialist modernism of her 'breakthrough' novel Rumba auf einen Herbst, which, written in the early 1960s, became a victim of the infamous 11^sup th^ Plenum in 1965-a pivotal point in her life, as Westgate shows-to the avant-garde experiments of the underdiscussed texts of the late 1960s, to the grand self-confidence (17) of Trobadora Beatriz and the ultimate disillusion and cultural pessimism of Amanda and the posthumously published Das heroische Testament. …

'We are not Seeking Strength for its Own Sake': The British Labour Party, West Germany and the Cold War, 1951-64

Despite its vocal left wing, the Labour Party was committed to the Western alliance from its inception in 1949. By the 1950s, this seemed imperilled by the newly rearmed Adenauer government's hard line towards the Soviet bloc. Antagonism towards the new Federal Republic was strengthened by the anti-militarism and anti-capitalism inherent in British socialism. In order to forestall internal party attacks on NATO, the leadership of the Labour Party sought to push West Germany towards a less intransigent anti-Communist position, more commensurate with facilitating East-West negotiation. Using Labour Party archives, this article seeks to demonstrate that Labour's anti-Adenauer policy was designed to marginalize the pro-GDR and anti-NATO factions within the Labour movement and strengthen support for a non-revisionist West Germany within NATO.

Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography

Recently released files from the collection (fond) of Josif Stalin's papers in the former Central Party Archive in Moscow have shed new light on the development of postwar S viet diplomatic historiography, particularly in relation to Stalin's personal role in framing the official rationale and justification for the Nazis viet pact of 1939–1941. This episode gave rise to a policy of archivebased publications in the mid 1950s and pr vided the foundation for later Soviet (and posts viet) treatments of the diplomatic history of the Second World War and other topics.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Julie A Buckler, The Literary Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Imperial Russia.Sergey M Solovyov, Vladimir Solovyov: His Life and Creative Evolution.Leslie Dorfman Davis, Serapion Sister: The Poetry of Elizaveta Polonskaja.Sergei Bogatyrev, The Sovereign and His Counsellors: Ritualised Consultations in Muscovite Political Culture, 1350s–1570s.Isolde Thyrêt, Between God and the Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia.Kimitaka Matsuzato, ed., Zemskii fenomen: Politologicheskii podkhod.Abraham Ascher, P. A. Stolypin: The Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia.Virginia Martin, Law and Custom in the Steppe: The Kazakhs of the Middle Horde and Russian Colonialism in the Nineteenth Century.Barbara T. and Jehanne M Gheith Norton, eds., An Improper Profession: Women, Gender, and Journalism in Late Imperial Russia.Lindsey Hughes, ed., Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives.Anthony Cross, Catherine the Great and the British: A Pot‐Pourri of Essays.G. S. Smith, D. S. Mirsky: A Russian‐English Life, 1890–1939.Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals.Guive Mirfendereski, A Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea: Treaties, Diaries, and Other Stories.Norman E. Saul, War and Revolution: The United States and Russia, 1914–1921.Rex A. Wade, The Russian Revolution, 1917.Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Lenin.Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I.Manfred Hildermeier, Die Sowjetunion, 1917–1991.Christopher Lawrence Zugger, The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin through Stalin.Balzhan Zhimbiev, History of the Urbanisation of a Siberian City: Ulan‐Ude.Dietmar Neutatz, Die Moskauer Metro: Von den ersten Plänen bis zur Groβbaustelle des Stalinismus (1897–1935).Paul R. Gregory, ed., Behind the Façade of Stalin's Command Economy: Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives.David R. Stone, Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933.Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin.Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution.Timothy R. Vogt, Denazification in Soviet‐Occupied Germany: Brandenburg, 1945–1948.Samuel H. Baron, Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union: Novocherkassk, 1962.Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000.Paul Hollander, Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism.Stephen L. Webber, School, Reform and Society in the New Russia.Jeni and Albert Motivans Klugman, eds., Single Parents and Child Welfare in the New Russia.Petra Rethmann, Tundra Passages: History and Gender in the Russian Far East.Vlad E. Genin, ed., The Anatomy of Russian Defense Conversion.Stephen Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post‐Communist Russia.Peter Naray, Russia and the World Trade Organization.

Ideologicheskie komissii TsK KPSS, 1958-1964: Dokumenty (review)

Several years after being ousted from the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev recalled the precariousness of the Thaw in his memoirs. "We were scared - really scared," he observed. "We were afraid the thaw might unleash a flood, which we wouldn't be able to control and which would drown us." 1 Lacking Khrushchev's intimate knowledge of the cultural politics of the era, a handful of scholars have struggled since the late 1950s to make sense of the Thaw by using thick journals, newspapers, and autobiographical accounts. 2 Over the last ten years, a steady stream of archival revelations has enriched this body of literature, but compared to the recent work on the 1920s and 1930s, this archival "gold rush" has been distinctly modest. 3 The vast majority of high party and state materials from the post-Stalin period have not yet been declassified, and phenomena as critical as the inner dynamics of the Thaw remain obscure. 4 Happily, the present [End Page 356] anthology, Ideologicheskie komissii TsK KPSS, 1958-1964, provides historians with one of the first published windows into the central party archives of the post-Stalin period. 5 The book is remarkable for its illumination of the everyday activities of the cultural apparat during the Thaw, and its portrayal of a society which, from the official standpoint, was rapidly spinning out of control.

Behind the Façade of Stalin's Command Economy: Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives. Ed. Paul R. Gregory. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2001. ix, 202 pp. Index. Tables. $18.95, paper.

Behind the Façade of Stalin's Command Economy: Evidence from the Soviet State and Party Archives. Ed. Paul R. Gregory. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2001. ix, 202 pp. Index. Tables. $18.95, paper.

Percepciones de las instituciones y actitudes políticas de la sociedad en la posguerra

Political attitudes and public opinion in post-war Spain are becoming the focus of increasing attention by historians. This article examines their development through ordinary people’s perceptions of Francoist institutions. Mainly based on material from the Communist Party archive concerning the situation in the province of Valencia, the main focus of the article is on the experience of the working and urban middle classes.

Stalin and the Creation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party in Iran, 1945

Based on new documents from the former party archive in Baku, this article describes the highpoint of Soviet involvement in Iran during 1945. In tracing the rise and fall of the Soviet attempt to create an Azeri nationalist movement in Iran, the article illustrates the importance of the Azeri party chief Bagirov in shaping the course of events, while uncovering a lack of clarity on Stalin's part as to where the project would end. Stalin emerges from this story as a flexible power-politician, willing to use whatever instrument would serve his purpose to retain a seat at the table of great powers.