Political Commissar Research Articles

ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF INSTITUTIONS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE USSR IN THE 1920s

The article examines the issue of the management system of the first Soviet pedagogical institutions of higher education in the 1920s - institutes of public education. On the basis of normative documents that established the management system of each higher education institution, the scope of duties of the rector, political commissar, activities of institute and faculty councils, commissions, general meetings, etc. were revealed.

Perspective of V.I. Lenin about political commissars, political instructors and one-chief regime in the Red Army

Perspective of V.I. Lenin about political commissars, political instructors and one-chief regime in the Red Army

Федір Редько: від директора київської школи до наркома освіти України

The article highlights the main stages of professional, labor and political activity of the sixth People's Commissar of Education of Soviet Ukraine F.A. Redko in the 1920–1930's. Purpose of the article. Involve and analyze unknown sources, identify differences in the figure of F. Redko among the six People's Commissars of Education of the interwar period, considering that four of them were party functionaries, and the last two came from educational institutions. The research methodology consists of general scientific methods (structural and functional, analysis and synthesis), scientific- historical (comparative, historical biography). Events and phenomena are considered from the standpoint of historicism, objectivity. The statistical methods are partially used. Scientific novelty. For the first time, thereare used the unknown archive documents, which are related to the early stage of F. Redko biography, his social origin, and also pedagogical activities before appointment to the post of People’s Commissar of Education. Conclusion. It is indicated that F. Redko's political characterization was impeccable: no participation in anti-Soviet movements and parties. Peasant by social origin. In the 1920's he promoted the ideas of Bolshevism in educational and cultural institutions, and had a higher pedagogical education. He belonged to the new sovietparty nomenclature in the Ukrainian SSR, and the old one was repressed. The director of the Kyiv school became the People's Commissar of Education. The phenomenon of the nomenclature assignment during the years of great terror. His candidacy was elected and «approved» by a completely renewed squad of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(B)U, that is, the young generation of Ukrainian Soviet figures. They did not criticize the general line of the party, did not belong to the opposition, did not support Stalin's opponents, and fully agreed with his domestic and foreign policies. Educator F. Redko served as political commissar of the Soviet education system in the second half of the 1920's.His social background and maximum adherence to ideological principles saved him from repression. People's Commissar for Education F. Redko was engaged in reforming of higher and secondary school in Ukraine, the Sovietization of the new system in the western regions connected to the Ukrainian SSR. The position of People's Commissar of Education was political, so his activities took place in the coordinate system of Bolshevik ideology. He was its propagandist and a conscious supporter.

War, Snipers, and Rage from <em>Enemy at the Gates</em> to <em>American Sniper</em>

Shooting people, murder and war are inherently violent activities to which the concept of rage might seem inextricably linked, but deeper examination reveals levels of complexity. Despite what we often perceive, soldiers are actually trained to operate in a calm and dispassionate manner. This is especially the case for military snipers, who perform the role of hiding in the battlefield, waiting for the chance to take single aimed shots to kill an unsuspecting enemy. My study examines the concept of rage and compares the level of rage in the film American Sniper (2014), set in the Iraq war with that of Enemy at the Gates (2001), set during the siege of Stalingrad in the Second World War. I argue that a form of controlled rage can be seen in the world of the sniper, and I set this against the acceptance of violence in an America where mass shootings appear to be an ever-growing expression of individual rage.

La primera crónica de Miguel Hernández: El nuevo periodismo (1936-1939)

Este trabajo presenta y analiza la primera crónica periodístico-literaria escrita y publicada por Miguel Hernández: “Defensa de Madrid. Madrid y las ciudades de Retaguardia” durante la Guerra Civil española (1936-1939), quien inicia con ella una serie de crónicas bélicas que establece un género particular de periodismo: la crónica literaria -poético-política-. Miguel Hernández publica en diferentes periódicos del frente como cronista, con su nombre propio y con seudónimo, desempeñando también tareas de director y comisario político. Temáticamente, esta primera crónica muestra su compromiso, su deseo e incluso su estrategia para poder proteger a la capital de España. Metodológicamente, se aborda desde el giro lingüístico en Ciencias Sociales que permite explicar algunas de las peculiaridades del estilo personal del cronista Miguel Hernández. Todo ello pone de manifiesto que el llamado Nuevo Periodismo (narrativo y literario) que florece en la década de los 70, hoy así acuñado, ya había sido practicado profusa y eficientemente por Miguel Hernández 40 años antes. Por ello, Miguel Hernández merece ser no sólo incorporado al colectivo de los grandes periodistas-cronistas junto con otros ya rescatados hasta el momento. Su estilo y calidad literaria le sitúan por tanto en una posición destacada y pionero del género actualmente conocido como Nuevo Periodismo, que es, además, políticamente comprometido.

Xinjiang and the expansion of Chinese communist power: Kashgar in the early twentieth century

Preface 1. Silk Road City in the Land of Mountain and Desert 2. Kashgar and the Chinese Republic 1911-1949 3. Kashgar and the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Republic 1933-4 4. The view from Chinibagh 1: Britain's Consulate-General in Kashgar and Xinjiang under Governor Jin Shuren 5. The view from Chinibagh 2: The Consulate-General and the 1933-4 Revolt in Southern Xinjiang 6. Communist Activists in the Kashgar Region during the 1930s and 1940s 7. Border Security and the Battle against the British and Smugglers: Hu Dong in Tashkurgan 8. Tax and Currency Reform in Kashgar 9. Education and Running a County: Li Yunyang in Kashgar and Maralbashi (Bachu) 10. Educating Girls and Working with Women: Wu Naijun in Kashgar and Maralbashi 11. Kashgar Newspaperman: Wang Mo and Xinjiang Daily 12. Honest and Public-Spirited Official: Xu Liang 13. Political Commissar on the Frontier: Zhou Chunlin 14. Abudukerimhan Mehsum 15. Entry of the PLA into Kashgar and the 'Peaceful Liberation' of Xinjiang 16. Liberating Khotan: Bai Chushi in Southern Xinjiang 17. Colonising Kashgar in the Name of the People

‘The Vanguard of Sacrifice’? Political Commissars in the Republican Popular Army during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

This article analyses the function of political commissars in the Republican Popular Army during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–9. It evaluates the commissariat’s role in fostering soldiers’ political engagement with the war, as well as the challenges maintaining morale and discipline in a revolutionary army. It also examines the complex relationship between commissars and Republican soldiers, and considers political divisions within the commissariat, particularly the rise and domination of delegates affiliated to the Communist Party of Spain. The article argues that commissars were a central component of the Republic’s relatively successful, and heavily improvised, politicized wartime mobilization in the face of considerable challenges.

Intervenciók a Lukács Archívumban. Lukács György és a kortárs képzőművészet II.

Abstract The archive has been one of the most popular topics in the humanities of the past few decades. The archive as such has not only influenced historical, art historical, cultural anthropologi...

The Third Reich at War (review)

Reviewed by: The Third Reich at War Peter Mansoor The Third Reich at War, by Richard J. Evans. New York: Penguin Press, 2009. 926 pp. $40.00. The Third Reich at War is the final segment in Richard Evan's excellent three-volume history of Nazi Germany. The author, the Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, combines narrative history with first-person accounts to provide a holistic description of what life was like under Nazi rule. The Third Reich at War is not a comprehensive history of World War II in Europe. Rather, Evans focuses on key turning points: the conquest of Poland, the fall of France, and the Battle of Britain in the first year of conflict; the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad on the Eastern Front; and the strategic bombing of German cities. He provides a more complete treatment of the mass murder along racial and ideological lines of millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally and physically handicapped, and others deemed unfit to live in the new order of the Third Reich. Extensively researched from published German and English primary and secondary sources and exceptionally well written, The Third Reich at War is an excellent account of the Third Reich during its final years that belongs on the bookshelves of all serious students of World War II. Evans provides just enough narrative of military operations to keep the reader engaged as to the broad sweep of events. He is at his best when describing the impact of occupation on the peoples and areas conquered by the Wehrmacht. In Poland in the last quarter of 1939, for instance, we learn that the Germans murdered 65,000 Poles and Jews, a down payment on the genocide to come. Poland was a model for what would happen in the East in Hitler's new order—its population enslaved, its territory either annexed or stripped of usable resources, and those deemed racially unfit summarily shot or hanged. By 1943 the Germans had ethnically cleansed millions of Poles and others to make room for German settlers, had suppressed local culture and learning, and had Germanicized the language in preparation for the area's eventual incorporation into the greater Reich. [End Page 187] The Nazi order made a sham of the rule of law in Europe. Heralded as a functional, disciplined, efficient governing system, Hitler's Germany was instead riven with criminality and corruption. In every society touched by Nazi tyranny, years of antisemitic and racial propaganda encouraged German soldiers to treat the local Jewish and Slavic populations with contempt and brutality. Nazi policy mandated the concentration of Jews into ghettoes in Poland, where hundreds of thousands died due to disease and starvation even before the final solution sent the remainder to death camps. Hitler's ideology drove his actions, to include the planning for the most important campaign of the war—Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The German people needed lebensraum—living space—and the German economy needed the resources of Eastern Europe. The Red Army, in Hitler's view leaderless since the purges of the 1930s (as proven by its disastrous performance in the Russo-Finish War in 1939-1940) and composed of subhuman Slavic soldiers, would quickly fold. Since the conquest would take no more than a single campaign season, the prospect of a two-front war did not factor into German strategic thinking. The vaunted German General Staff posed no objections. The treatment meted out to the Poles was now replicated on a much larger scale in the Soviet Union. German troops summarily shot political commissars (a loosely defined term), starved prisoners, and subjected Jews to a massive genocidal campaign instigated by SS Einsatzgruppen and aided and abetted by the regular army. Given Nazi ideology and propaganda, it was a small step from the mass killings of Jews in the East to a more organized system of mass murder in killing centers in Poland. Although Hitler never signed a written order mandating the extermination of the Jews, his oral pronouncements were clear enough and provided all the guidance his subordinates needed to initiate the Holocaust. As the war dragged on, Hitler's mismanagement of...

Civil-military relations in today's China: swimming in a new sea

Introduction 1. Social Trends in China: Implications for the People's Liberation Army, Tony Saich 2. The Impact of Social Changes on the PLA: A Chinese Military Perspective, Xiaobing Li 3. The New Military Elite: Generational Profile and Contradictory Trends, Cheng Li 4. The Fourth-Generation Leaders and the New Military Elite, Yu Bin 5. The PLA and the Provinces: Military District and Local Issues, Zhiyue Bo 6. The Political Implications of PLA Professionalism, Lyman Miller 7. Unravelling the Myths about Political Commissars, You Ji 8. Searching for a Twenty-First Century Officer Corps, Thomas J. Bickford 9. Educating the Officer Corps: The Chinese People's Liberation Army and Its Interactions with Civilian Academic Institutions, Kristen Gunness 10. China's Defense Budget: Is There Impending Friction Between Defense and Civilian Needs? Joseph Fewsmith 11. The PLA in the New Economy: Plus Ca Change, Plus Ca Meme Chose, James Mulvenon 12. Conscription: From the Masses, Sijin Cheng 13. Demobilization and Resettlement: The Challenge of Downsizing the People's Liberation Army, Maryanne Kivlehan-Wise 14. People's War in the Twenty-First Century: The Militia and the Reserves, Dennis J. Blasko.

Hitlers Heerführer. Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42 (review)

Reviewed by: Hitlers Heerführer. Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42 Klaus Schmider Hitlers Heerführer. Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42. By Johannes Hürter. München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2006. ISBN 3-486-57982-7. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 719. €=49,80. For the last twenty years or so, scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have endeavoured to come to grips with the issue of the Wehrmacht's complicity in Hitler's war of annihilation against the U.S.S.R. To what extent can the German armed forces in general and the Ostheer in particular be said to have been bystanders, more or less willing accomplices or even key players in the policies which resulted in the death of millions of Soviet civilians and POWs? The views put forward on the issue range from those willing to at least occasionally give the accused the benefit of the doubt (Jürgen Förster, Christian Hartmann, Klaus Jochen Arnold) to those fervently convinced of German guilt (Christian Streit, Omer Bartov, Christian Gerlach). In view of the ink already spilt on the subject (Hürter's bibliography takes up twenty-six pages of very fine print) and the apparent impossibility of reconciling some of the opposing views, the challenge of bringing a genuinely fresh perspective to the debate would seem to be daunting to say the least. Johannes Hürter has managed to do so by adressing the issue of personal responsibility. Rather than cast damnation on "the Wehrmacht" as a collective entity, he puts those individuals in the dock without whose acquiesence not one political commissar or Jewish civilian could have been shot in 1941: the twenty-five generals who during the first twelve months of the war in the East held command of an army, army group, or both. Even though arguably the victorious allies had already attempted to do something similar in 1948 in the twelfth Nürnberg trial, Hürter is able to do so from a much broader documentary base (including many private papers) and [End Page 562] makes a point of incorporating the formative experience each of these officers had gone through, first in the Kaiser's and then the Weimar Republic's army (pp. 21– 122). He follows suit by looking at each individual's reaction—insofar as there is a record of it—to the marriage of convenience between Hitler and the old elites (pp. 123–201). At this point, the chronological structure of the book changes over to a thematic one: while this presupposes a certain foreknowledge of the Russian campaign, it has the major advantage of giving the remainder of the book a very user-friendly setup. After a chapter dealing with the preparations for war and the issuing of the orders which flew in the face of international law (pp. 203–65), the author devotes considerable space to the operational problems involved in actually waging the campaign (pp. 266–358), followed by the Ostheer's treatment of enemy combatants (pp. 359–441) and civilians (pp. 442–508). The final chapter is devoted to examining the role played by his protagonists in the first months of the Holocaust on Soviet soil (pp. 509–99). Apart from the breathtaking thoroughness of Hürter's research, this reviewer was struck by two features which set his work apart from that of most of his predecessors. Firstly, he has a serious grounding in military history and as such, is able to put many of the actions of his "defendants" in a historical context (the small chapter on the daily workings of an Armeeoberkommando is an excellent example of this). Just as importantly, he has by and large managed to withstand the overpowering urge which so many of his predecessors (German ones in particular) have been unable to resist: to relentlessly castigate those responsible for so much human suffering if not in person, then at least in print. As a result, the overall picture which Hürter paints of the actions of this small elite group, while still mostly black, has shades of grey in it and is all the more credible for...

Tim Starr, Trevor West and a positive contribution to operator theory

Robin HarteWe have known Trevor West since before he was Trevor West, and that’s notyesterday. Our first encounter would have been over fifty years ago, when we bothpresented for the Entrance Scholarship Examination for Trinity College. And heknew all about us: the Midleton Mafia and Bennet’s Brewery Boys [17] had ussussed. But they didn’t know about The Plough: “Twixt finger and thumb, thesquat pen sits: I’ll dig with it.” Seamus Heaney [10] knew all about The Plough -it got him a Nobel Prize. And dig with it we did - all through the physics paper- while the young Tim Starr sat and chewed the end of his pencil (they were verypoor in Midleton in those days). This must have disconcerted him, because shortlyafterwards Tim Starr changed his name to Trevor West. Then of course he ralliedhimself, soon scaling the heights of college society. By the time we came out the otherend of Trinity College he had appointed himself our political commissar, vigilant lestwe should reveal to the waiting Brits the depths of our collective ignorance of mattersTripos Three. He fumbled the ball a little on his first outing when he had to bebrought back to the Smythies seminar with a proper proof of Lemma 5 [11]:Hans Freudenthal single handedly kept West and ourself away from partiallyordered vector spaces for nearly twenty years. But then he was handed the verycold hot potato that was the Olangunju thesis, which together with two research

Chinese civil-military relations: the transformation of the People's Liberation Army

Introduction 1. The Chinese Army in Domestic Politics: Factors and Phases 2. China's Evolving Civil-Military Relations: Creeping Guojiahua 3. Deferring to National Interest: Arms Control and Civil-Military Relations in China 4. Civil-Military Dynamics in Chinese Defense Industry and Arms Policy: An Approaching Tipping Point 5. Sorting Out the Myths about Political Commissars, You Ji 6. Servant of Two Masters: the PLA, the People, and the Party, Dennis J. Blasko 7. Company Province: Civil-Military Relations in Xinjiang, Yitzhak Shichor 8. China's Expenditure for Militia and People's Armed Police 9. The PLA and its Changing Economic Roles: Implications for Civil-Military Relations 10. Dual-Use Technologies, Civil-military Integration, and China's Defense Industry.

Popular justice and policing from bush war to democracy: Uganda 1981–2004

The National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Yoweri Museveni against the Obote regime in Uganda saw itself as a peoples army leading a peoples war. The bush war 1981-1986 was according to an NRA political commissar no mere elite power struggle; it was a revolution aimed at replacing the old regime with structures moulded during the course of the struggle by the masses in accordance with their interests and the demands of the times (Ondoga ori Amaza 1998 p. 28). Those structures were to be institutions of self-government down to the village level that included justice and policing. Fresh from the Frelimo training camps of Mozambique the NRA leadership was enthralled with the possibilities of popular justice: a justice that was said to be popular in form because its language was open and accessible; popular in functioning because its proceedings involved active community participation; and popular in substance because judges were drawn from the people and gave judgment in the interests of the people (Museveni 1997 p. 30).They no longer followed the Weberian tradition that the state alone should make law and establish order; that rational bureaucracy and formal justice were the very essence of the modern world (Weber 1954). Instead they recognised that norms and systems of ordering can also arise spontaneously and that from time immemorial people had generated their own forms of popular justice. (excerpt)

The Bulgarian Military: In Search of New Alignments

At the beginning of its democratization process, Bulgaria inherited armed forces that had been shaped to serve the Soviet Union’s military doctrine. There was no doubt that, among all the Warsaw Pact members, Bulgaria was the most loyal and reliable. In September 1945, in a matter of days, the Bulgarian armed forces transferred their allegiance from the still too young Tsar (and from being an ally of Nazi Germany) to a new world power—Stalin’s Russia. The same troops that, until a few days before, were fighting Yugoslav partisans under Tito and their Greek counterparts now had to cooperate with them. This generally confusing situation, where enemies suddenly became allies and now had to cooperate on the front line, caused many problems and internal confusion, as could be expected. However, it was the beginning of a thorough purge within the military. Regular troops were joined by units of the Bulgarian partisans, and each unit, from the platoon level and up, received (as was the case in the Red Army) a deputy commander for political affairs—or a political commissar—with wide-ranging orders to control the commander. Under this political pressure and the tension of battle, troops were shaped to become the new armed forces of Communist Bulgaria. Until 1947–48, practically all military positions were filled with people loyal to the Communist regime—Soviet-trained officers of Bulgarian background, or guerilla cadres, who were rapidly retrained in Soviet military academies. Only a few old-timers were relieved of their command functions and reassigned to the military schools and academies. Even those captains who had helped the Communists to seize power, and were elevated to the rank of general, were expelled from active duty. Many officers, even those from the last classes to graduate from the military schools, were sentenced and, if they succeeded in evading capital punishment or death in the labor camps, served long prison terms and were denied the possibility of continuing their profession. Moreover, the purges reached even the glorified guerilla commanders—such as Generals Slavcho Trunski, Dencho Znepolski, and many others—on such grounds as pro-Yugoslav sympathies, or affiliation to resistance groups that were considered to be not quite submissive enough to the Moscow-based Communist leadership. When in 1954 a relatively obscure local activist, Todor Zhivkov, came to power on a wave of anti-Stalinist enthusiasm, and especially after he established his position between 1956–62, his guerilla unit, Chavdar, became the main reservoir for cadres for

The Sidney Hook memorial award address: Speaking truth to power

I deeply appreciate this honor. I am particularly honored that it comes from hands of Senator Moynihan who, more than any other individual, represents ideal of scholar in public life, more concerned with what is objectively t r u e than what is expedient or subjectively reassuring. The Almanac of American Politics, 1996, has justly called him the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson. The Almanac goes on to say that Moynihan is the kind of philosopher-politician who Founding Fathers hoped would people Senate. Though American universities have emerged in past century in ways that have expanded our intellectual horizons, increasingly university's underlying responsibility to truth has been violated by those controlling academic power structure. Rather than speaking truth to power, they have spoken power to truth. They have done this by denying possibility of objective truth, by forbidding consideration of certain subjects, by refusing to acknowledge error in past judgments, and by shamelessly separating behavior from rhetoric. James Coleman, first recipient of Hook Award, in 1990, noted that greatest enemies of academic freedom in university are norms that exist about what kinds of questions may be raised in research. 1 Those norms, he said, were more often than not established by self-suppression, for fear that research might lead to results that would elicit disapproval by those colleagues we see regularly. ~ Coleman was nearly expelled from American Sociological Association for violating those norms. To Fang Li-Zhi, second Hook Award recipient, norms established by political commissars were greater enemies of academic freedom than norms of timorous faculties. Fang insisted that free research is one of effective ways to break down ideological barriers erected by totalitarians. s Fang risked more than disapproval of his colleagues. Like other Chinese--Harry Wu, for example-he risked his life pursuing freedom of inquiry. How much more are we in West, with our tradition of scientific inquiry and religious tolerance, obligated to raise academic questions whether or not they are embarrassing or politically incorrect? As C. Vann Woodward, third Hook Award recipient, put it, the university is a place where unthinkable can be thought, unment ionable can be discussed, and unchallengeable can be challenged. 4 At least it should be such a place.

Stalinism, and Soviet Rail Transport, 1928–1941 by E. A. Rees

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 641 Martin V. Melosi Dr. Melosi is professor of history and director of the Institute for Public History at the University of Houston. He is completing a book entitled The Sanitary City: Technology, Environment, and Urban Growth in America From Colonial Times to 1995. Stalinism, and Soviet Rail Transport, 1928-1941. By E. A. Rees. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Pp. xiv+307; illustrations, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $65.00. The opening ofarchives in the former Soviet Union has permitted far more comprehensive analysis of the social, political, and eco­ nomic forces that shaped that nation. Taking advantage of this op­ portunity, E. A. Rees gives us in this monograph a political history of Soviet railroads during the first thirteen years of Stalin’s rule. When Stalin took power in 1928, he forced the nation into breakneck industrialization. Economic ministries such as the Peo­ ple’s Commissariat ofWays of Communication (i.e., transport) were crucial to the effort. The Soviet Union stretched across eight time zones. The distance between natural resources and industry could be bridged only by railroad. As Rees points out, it was no simple matter to rebuild and modernize Soviet rail. Transport officials de­ bated how to divide resources among the tasks of building new su­ pertrunk lines and rebuilding old rail. They protested the regime’s insistence that they find reserves of capital and labor in annual ap­ propriations. They lamented each annual plan that set higher nu­ merical targets for wagons loaded, tons carried per kilometer, speed of transport, and so on, all ofwhich were forced on them by political commissars and seemed inevitably to lead to short-term declines in performance. When the People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry, which was responsible for producing new wagons and rail, failed to meet its targets, the transport ministry often paid the price. The Communist Party berated its leadership. In fact, each new target produced disappointment, increased pres­ sures from above, and led to more disappointment. The frequency of accidents skyrocketed; worker safety was discounted; and targets were readjusted downward. Repression followed failure. A special railway procuracy and “comradely courts” viewed this failure as criminal activity, breach of discipline, or “wrecking,” and imposed purges, prison, even execution as punishment. Another source of tension at the transport ministry—and in rap­ idly modernizing Soviet society generally—was class-based, in this case between specialists and communists. Many of the first persons put on show trial in the Soviet Union for economic crimes against the regime were engineers connected with the railroad. Still, in 1933 the transport ministry forged contacts with the Academy ofSciences 642 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE to secure the input of technical experts. The Academy’s transport commission studied axles, couplings, and other weak links in rail transport, and recommended changes in manufacture to fight this source of accidents. Yet even these scientific studies were subjected to the criticism that their authors were “limiters,” that is, individuals who created mere scientific obstacles to the superhuman targets which the party had set. Superhuman “Stakhanovites,” workers who set new production norms, were expected to show the “wreckers” the right way to work. Unfortunately, Soviet Rail Transport lacks a comparative perspec­ tive that would enable the reader to understand how technical and political debates over the chosen path of railway development re­ flected peculiarly Stalinist influences rather than issues faced by eco­ nomic planners and railway specialists elsewhere. What can railroads tell us about Soviet technological style? The Soviet economic and technical debates that Rees recounts remain hidden in long lists of names, appointments and reappointments, figures on tonnage and wagons, and bureaucratic reorganizations. Passive voice abounds. Decisions were made; tonnage increased; construction was acceler­ ated. There is little flesh and blood to this story. It may be that Rees allowed the rich Russian archival sources to speak for him. But the result is that his chapters lack analytical verve. Subheadings interrupt constantly. Chapter 3, for example, which covers the period 1932-33, has eight main headings and fifteen sub­ headings in twenty-five pages. Perhaps these problems derive from Rees’s attempt to weave a history around an evaluation of...

The Soviet Military before and after the August Coup: Departization and Decentralization

The August coup was a major quake in a series of political tremors that continue to shake the lands of the former Soviet Union. Societal forces had been building towards a break with the traditions of the unitary Soviet state under authoritarian Communist party rule. Gorbachev lost control and fell from power while attempting to harness rising demand for political pluralism and republican self-government. The Soviet military struggled to contain the same forces. This article is a brief political history of the Soviet military's adjustment to political pluralism and republican political power from March 1990 through September 1991. It chronicles the end of the political commissars, that quintessential Marxist-Leninst military institution, and the beginning of the breakdown of the USSR's unified, extraterritorial, multinational armed forces.

Party-Military Relations in the PRC and Taiwan: Paradoxes of Control. By Cheng Hsiao-shih. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990. xiv, 178 pp. $28.50 (paper).

The origin and evolution of the Political Commissar System (PCS) in China the functions and structure of the PCS the rationale and operational problems of the PCS the PCS in People's Republic of China's politics the PCS in Taiwan politics conclusion.

Δελτίο Κέντρου Μικρασιατικών Σπουδών ( Bulletin of the Center for Asia Minor Studies ) (review)

140 Reviews paragraph about the dilósies who acted on Party orders was omitted. In E. K. (6: 248) the whole text is given including further minor details also omitted in the published version. This means that the source here is not the Rizospástis but the Central Committee archives. I may mention that Ilioú in Avyi (5 January 1980) only had a Russian translation at his disposal. Apart from these shortcomings, the new volume contains a lot of interesting new material. For special mention I would single out the following items: the decision about the Athens Party Organization (no. 786), the letter to the political commissars (no. 806), the declaration about the Macedonian question (no. 806), the December 1947 announcement about the Provisional Government (pp. 447451 ) and the letter from Zahariádis (p. 444). There are also several documents relating to peace offers and proposals from the Provisional Government, and in view of present day politics, an interesting reminder: a message to HarÃ-laos Florákis and Diamantis congratulating them on the liberation of Karpénisi . . . (no. 790). While there are no really sensational items here, it is still a great service to historians to have made these documents easily available. I would warn the reader, however, that old copies of Saránda hrónia tu KKE (1958) should not be thrown in the dustbin when the Episima kimena series is complete. That book is also part of KKE history, just as is the present one. Ole L. Smith University of Copenhagen Paschalis M. Kitromilides (editor), Δελτίο ΚÎ-ντϕου Μικϕασιατικών Σπουδών (Bulletin of the Center for Asia Minor Studies), Vol. V. Athens. 1984-85. Pp. 608. Drs. 2000. The Center for Asia Minor Studies, the oldest research center in Greece, is devoted to the preservation of the hellenic heritage in Asia Minor. It was founded in 1930 by Melpo Logotheti-Merlier and her husband Octave Merlier (a well-known French philhellene and neohellenist) who together not only conceived of such an institute but also collected the books, manuscripts, photographs (they number Reviews 141 4832), records, oral reports (a unique collection of 144, 883 pages of oral history classified in geographic units) and other material necessary to a serious research center. The Center, now housed in a handsome, neoclassic building in Plaka (Kydathenaion 11 — 13), includes a large library, up-to-date archival rooms, seminar rooms, and a large hall for lectures and conferences. Its able director since 1980, Paschalis Kitromilides, also edits its publications. The publications of the Center testify to the effectiveness and productivity of the center. Begun in 1948, they include studies on musicology, ethnicity, and the language and literature of Asia Minor. In 1977 the Center started publishing its Bulletin, a series of large volumes covering a wide variety (cultural, historical, economic) of issues concerning hellenism in Asia Minor. Four volumes are already in circulation. Volume V of the Bulletin (1984-1985), the subject of this review, includes articles covering the Hellenistic, Byzantine, and modern periods in Asia Minor written by Greek scholars who have made use of unpublished archival material to discuss crucial subjects for the area: historical demography, the formation of national consciousness, and the institutions of collective life of the Greek communities in Asia Minor. I here offer a brief review of these articles. Pinelopi Stathis discusses two 18th century patriarchal letters written in Karamanli (i.e. Turkish written in the Greek alphabet) and addressed to the Orthodox population of the interior of Anatolia, which spoke only Turkish. In another article, Anastasia PapadiaLaIa investigates the problems confronting the city of Smyrna following the famous Russian naval expedition led by the Orlov brothers during the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774 and the Ottoman naval defeat off the coast of Chesme in July 1770. Papadia-Lala makes use of unpublished documents of the Venetian Consulate in Smyrna. These two articles are a welcome addition to the historiography of the period and demonstrate the tremendous development of the social and cultural life of the Greeks in Asia Minor during the 18th century. Walter Puchner maintains that the "delayed enlightenment" of 19th century Anatolia is best exemplified in the play of Michail Moussaios, The Marriage of Malonis Antifantis (1823). Puchner considers...