Post-war Political Development Research Articles

The Compromise of Return: Viennese Jews after the Holocaust Elizabeth Anthony

Few Jewish survivors of Nazi terror returned to Germany or Austria after 1945. Several factors weighed against return, including the absence of loved ones and memories of the indifferent, opportunistic, or brutal behavior of neighbors, acquaintances, and coworkers. Elizabeth Anthony’s examination of Viennese Jews who did re-emigrate considers the range of motivations that led them to come back. Her book, particularly commendable for its sensitivity to survivors’ voices, takes into account pre-Anschluss Jewish life in Vienna, hardships under the Nazis, emigration, deportation, and returnees’ experiences after the war. Anthony’s presentation unfolds via four main chapters linked by the notion of return and the draw of Heimat (homeland). These central components are bookended by an introductory section establishing historical context from approximately 1848 to 1945, and a final chapter examining the impact of postwar political developments on everyday Viennese Jewish life and Jewish organizations, as well as the influence of the...

Contention, Violence and Stalemate in Post-War Libya

Post-war Libya provides an interesting case study for how weakly institutionalized political opportunity structures shape and are shaped by decisions of emergent groups, especially newly mobilized Islamist actors. For mainstream actors, these interactions produced incentives for de-escalation during dozens of violent skirmishes that took place from 2011 to 2014 that, in other contexts, could have tipped into civil war. At the same time, the stalemated environment gave Jihadist groups incentives to put down roots, husband resources and then intensify their terrorism campaigns. This article describes, decomposes and assesses patterns of contention produced by these interactions, and explains how they influenced post-war political developments.

A View on the Political Trend of the Second KMT-CPC Cooperation From “Chongqing Negotiation”

After the success of Anti-Japanese war, China faced the threats of “civil war, dictatorship and splitting”. KMT and CPC conducted Chongqing Negotiation to establish a coalition government to lead the post-war political development. However, due to KMT’s political strategy of civil war, it attempted to wipe out CPC while negotiating. In response to KMT’s civil war strategy, CPC adopted the political strategy of fighting a war while negotiating, and striving for the intermediary powers to counter it. Finally, the results achieved in Chongqing Negotiation were submerged in the full-blown civil war between KMT and CPC.

From Central planning to the Market: The American Transition, 1945–1947

The orthodox view of U.S. reconversion after World War II relies on unacceptable GDP figures for the wartime economy and misinterprets the low level of unemployment during the war. For the postwar transtition, the emphasis on consumer demand financed by drawing down liquid assets accumulated during the war is inconsistent with the facts. The success of the transition depended on the reestablishement of “regime certainty,” which in turn depended on diminishing the influence of the more zealous New Dealers. Wartime and postwar political development created sufficient regime certainty for the postwar market system to generate genuine prosperity.

Reflections on the Medieval German Nobility

As TIMOTHY REUTER OBSERVED, the nobility has been one of the main concerns of medieval historians since the second world war, but surprisingly little European scholarship on the subject is generally known in the English-speaking world.' Except for Reuter's own translations of a number of important articles, only Georges Duby's studies have been readily accessible to English and American students.2 German scholars have concentrated on the origins of the nobility, the structural transformation of the aristocratic kindred, and the rise of the ministerials. German medievalists began to investigate these topics during the Nazi period,3 but two postwar political developments have stimulated German interest in the nobility. The movement for a united Europe that has invoked Charlemagne as its patron saint-the headquarters of the Common Market are located in the Charlemagne Building in Brussels4-has focused attention on the common Frankish heritage of France and Germany and the nobility's role in the creation

Labour and Labour Parties in Malaya

S INCE IN THE NOT DISTANT FUTURE Singapore and the Federation of Malaya will have elected Legislatures,' it is only natural that there should now be a heightening of local political fervour along with the usual calls for support by political parties to the electorate. One of the more interesting aspects of post-war political development in Malaya and Singapore, has been the birth of several groups or parties professing labour or aims. The role of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) is only too well-known and need not be elaborated.2 The other left-wing groups sometimes expressed a genuine desire to implement socialist programmes, but otherwise were not representative of large sections of labour, nor did they in fact directly aim at supporting the demands of the workers. They came to life to give voice to the sectional, communal and personal interests of small groups and of the individuals who led them. With the quickening of the movement towards self-government, and the impact of the Emergency,3 views and groups became eventually more clarified, and out of the complex political scene in Malaya and Singapore, five groups have emerged which may be considered to have at least some of their aims similar to those of Labour parties or more or less left-of-centre groups in the West, and which draw quite clear and rationally given support from small and large sections of Malayan labour, whether or not unionised, and from individuals with left-wing views. These may extend from light pink to red-from so-called democratic socialists to Communist sympathisers. Of most of the latter it is often difficult to say whether they are more imbued

Post-War Government and Politics of Communist China

In discussing post-war political developments in China, it is necessary to begin with some account of conditions at the end of the War, as these conditions are still not widely known. It is only recently that the mythical Communist Northwest has disappeared from the American press and it still lingers in England. There has also been widespread misapprehension of the role of Yenan. Only a few days before its fall the New York Times published an editorial arguing that Yenan was the one place that it was essential for the Communists to defend. In fact, the center of population of China was, by 1945, somewhere in southern Hopei or southwestern Shantung and there was no formal political organization above the Liberated Area which roughly corresponded to a province. Yenan was only the capital of Shensi-KansuNinghsia which was the oldest, but one of the smallest, of the areas. The area was important during the War because it was the only one not subject to periodic Japanese penetration. For this reason Yenan was the location of the Party Central Committee and, after 1941, of Army Headquarters. It was also a big educational center. But there was comparatively little physical equipment that tied these organizations to Yenan. No doubt the Japanese could have captured Yenan but an offensive across the Yellow River and the mountains on either side would have been extremely expensive for the Japanese and only an inconvenience for the Communists. Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia also had some political imporb ance because it was the one area that the Kuomintang consistently recognized as having some legal right to existence, though its boundaries were a matter of dispute.1 Otherwise the area was not important. The popu-