State Socialist Countries Research Articles

A comparative analysis on how much individuals are left behind in the former state socialist countries of the European Union

This paper examines the extent to which individuals from the former state socialist countries of the EU’s Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have been left behind compared to the rest of EU individuals from Western European (WE) countries and across countries within the CEE bloc. To this end, a fuzzy approach is applied to a multidimensional setting made up of income, material deprivation, and work intensity to measure the ‘Leaving no one behind’ (LNOB) principle of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. A certain process of convergence is found between both blocs of countries over the period 2007–2019 due to a decrease in the level individuals were left behind in the CEE countries, as well as an increase in the level individuals were left behind in the WE countries in the years following the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Significant cross-country disparities in the degree individuals lag behind are also revealed among the CEE countries related to the different models of post-socialist capitalism established in these countries and their subsequent development after joining the EU.

„Diplomaţia conferinţelor” sau intelectualizarea politicii externe a RPR sub regimul lui Gheorghiu-Dej

Once Romania came under the influence of the Soviet Union, the new regime established in 1948 was integrated into the diplomatic system created by the Kremlin. The party-state in Bucharest participated in youth festivals, the world women's movement, intellectuals' conferences, the Christian Peace Movement, and particularly the World Peace Congress. All of these events served as propaganda instruments to discourage a more assertive Western anti-Sovietism. Since 1954, Khrushchev initiated a shift in Soviet policy, one focused on peaceful coexistence rather than confrontation between the two formerly irreconcilable political camps. The Romanian People's Republic, along with other state socialist countries, emulated this novel approach in Moscow. The article explores the impact of the new course on Romania’s cultural diplomacy in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. To establish credible diplomatic efforts, there was a need to rethink socialist culture and revalue the pre-communist heritage. This new culture was based on the Leninist principle of “the new culture, national in form, socialist in content”. It signaled that the regime had moved beyond de-Stalinization, and now possessed internal legitimacy that no longer relied on the presence of Soviet troops in the country. However, this socialist culture drew inspiration from postwar autochthonized Bolshevik (Stalinist) nationalism. The medieval tradition rediscovered by Soviet cultural studies (such as Dmitry Likhachev, Viktor Lazarev, or Boris Rybakov) fueled anti-Soviet sentiments in Bucharest, leading, by 1964, to a significant distancing from Moscow. This article traces the diplomatic efforts of the Romanian People's Republic during this period of latent learning of the new rules of the political game within the socialist camp.

The experiences of the economic transition in Central and Eastern Europe (1990-2000): The case of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland

In the years 1989–1990, economic and political transition in Central and Eastern Europe coincided with the general crisis of state socialism. The transformation process meant the general liberalization (abolition of state subsidies and fixed prices etc.) of the economic system in the former state socialist countries, which coupled with opening their markets to foreign investors. There were substantial differences in the creation of a freemarket economy in the region. Whereas Poland applied the method of shock treatment, based on the concept of the Washington Consensus, Czechoslovakia followed a double policy by mixing the gradualist approach with “shock” rhetoric to avoid the negative impacts of the economic transition. Although the Central and Eastern European countries followed a different road in restructuring their economies in the 1990s, but by the turn of the millennium due to the privatisation of state-owned assets, private companies accounted for 70 per cent of GDP, whilst the share of the state sector was 30 per cent. This paper aims to highlight the experiences of the economic transformation in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland by comparing its main features and stages. Besides macroeconomic stabilization, emphasis will be placed on analyzing the impacts of privatisation and its main consequences. Due to length constraints, the essay will not focus on the social impacts of the transition process in the region.

The Reorganization of Hungarian Sociology after the 1956 Revolution

Abstract The history of Hungarian sociology in the state-socialist period can certainly be described in terms of a general Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) historical model, the most important feature of which is the undivided power of the Communist Party. Under such conditions, the Soviet Union and local political power holders had a direct influence on the institutionalization and functioning of sciences, including sociology. The study contributes to understanding the social impact of the 1956 revolution, particularly its crushing effect on the development of Hungarian sociology in relation to the general model. Firstly, the early development of sociology in the Soviet Union and most state-socialist countries in the 1950s was blocked in Hungary by the 1956 revolution. The trauma of the 1956 revolution made all groups of society, including the intelligentsia, realize that the system could not be changed in the long term. At the same time, it made it clear to the political authorities that the system could not be maintained in the long run with methods of the past. As a result, Kádár’s consolidation relied heavily on a compromising intelligentsia, needed for its expertise (in this case, modern sociological expertise) and legitimizing the system. Consequently, sociology in Hungary started developing and became institutionalized in the early 1960s. In this situation, sociology represented both a critical point of view opposing the system and, at the same time, a tool of its – covert or overt – legitimation.

The Sensitivity of Family-Related Behaviors to Economic and Social Turbulence in Post-Socialist Countries, 1970-2010

Many demographic challenges and new trends have been observed across formerly state socialist countries after embarking on their political and economic transition. Including countries that range from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, this study explores whether some family-related events were more sensitive to the transformation that occurred in the 1990s than others, and whether the disruption was immediate or delayed across this wide range of contexts. Based on year-specific hazard ratios over four decades, results point to changes in fertility patterns being clearly linked to the transition. Second birth rates reacted almost immediately to societal disruption, whereas a more delayed change occurred for first births. Although abrupt changes in marriage and divorce rates also occurred, these changes often began before the transition and therefore may be part of longer-term developments. That second births were the most sensitive family event to the immediate change in conditions may be due to economic costs, but also unique characteristics related both to its lack of conferring a new social role on the individual, such as in the case of marriage and parenthood, and the narrower window of time in which this event usually occurs. The delayed changes in first births may instead reflect changes in norms and culture that influenced younger individuals when they reached childbearing ages. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Demographic Developments in Eastern and Western Europe Before and After the Transformation of Socialist Countries”.

Sustainable Rural Development through Local Cultural Heritage Capitalization—Analyzing the Cultural Tourism Potential in Rural Romanian Areas: A Case Study of Hărman Commune of Brașov Region in Romania

This paper explores the issues connected between rural sustainable development in formerly state-socialist countries and the local cultural heritage of rural areas. It pays specific attention to the potential of cultural tourism which can enhance local rural development. This paper is a case study of the Hărman commune, and this area is investigated in depth. It is one of the most important rural and cultural areas located in Brașov County of Romania, a country with an impressive cultural heritage concentrated in its rural areas. The study uses a mixed-method analysis combining quantitative and qualitative research (focus groups, interviews, oral histories, and personal conversions), participatory ethnographic observation, and logical framework analysis (LFA). The main findings of the study illustrate that the Hărman commune has an important cultural heritage which could be more capitalized on in the future through the lens of cultural tourism to ensure local sustainability and to open up new perspectives in terms of local development, connecting rural and cultural tourism with other economic activities. Furthermore, the main findings of this study represent, beyond an informative platform for the local actors in rural development, an inspiring instrument that could frame new policies in local rural sustainable development and fertile backgrounds for new debates in local rural sustainability, enriching local agendas on rural sustainable development through cultural heritage capitalization and cultural tourism.

Trans-systemic mobility, travel reports and knowledge acquisition in Cold War Hungary in the 1960s and 1970s

ABSTRACT How did the state socialist regimes of the Soviet Bloc acquire knowledge about the ‘West’? Despite the ready-made ideological framework about the nature of Western capitalism and ‘imperialism’, state socialist authorities constantly sought out and relied on new information about the societies and governments beyond the Iron Curtain. Since this learning process exceeded the competences and the energies of the Party and state organs, they relied on the observations and assessments of privileged individuals who were allowed to explore the world outside the Soviet Bloc. Focusing on the cultural and scientific contacts between Hungary and the United States, the article analyses a specific form of information-gathering: travel reports that reflected on work and study trips to the ‘West’ . Hungary, like most of its regional neighbours, became more open in the 1960s, signing a series of economic and cultural agreements with capitalist countries. The regime encouraged tourism and the number of travellers from and to the West quickly increased. Scholarly exchanges with the United States started through the Ford scholarships (since 1964) and then the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) (since 1968), and connections multiplied as Hungarian academics, artists and professionals were integrated into transnational networks. While the authorities could not control and shape all aspects related to the cross-systemic mobility of information, goods and people, they aimed to monitor closely the process through institutional bodies like the Institute for Cultural Relations which had strong ties to the State Security. All officially monitored travellers were required to attend an ‘orientation’ session before leaving and were expected to produce a written report afterwards in which they evaluated their trip, their hosts and the experience. The article investigates the form and the function of such travel reports in the wider context of covert and public knowledge production and dissemination about the ‘West’ in state socialist countries.

Editorial

This special issue of VIEW aims to shine a light on television satire in Eastern Europe during the period of state socialism and beyond. Satire has been studied as a vehicle for challenging political and religious power as well as established norms and values. Even more so, satire is powerful in challenging established (state) ideologies, values, beliefs, and conduct. Yet in the state socialist countries of the former Eastern Bloc, satire - including television satire - was also employed by the state apparatus to target ideological opponents. This issue looks into the complex and often subtle and contradictory ways in which satire has disputed the relations between television, audiences and power in this specific geopolitical region of Europe.

Contextualising Appraisal and the Destruction of the Soviet Design Institute’s Archives

Recently, historians and theorists of architecture have started questioning the neutrality of traditional archival research methods by uncovering the operations of power and authority inherent to the creation, appraisal, accessioning, or erasure of historical documents and the institutionalisation of official and unofficial archives. Most of this research is based on analyses of archiving in Euro-American and (post-) colonial contexts; consequently, there is limited understanding of the politics and practices of archiving architecture in both former and current state-socialist countries. The paper addresses this lacuna by exploring different ways of archiving a single design practice, the Giproteatr Institute, one of the central organisations behind the construction of buildings for culture and the performing arts in the Soviet Union and beyond. By reconstructing the changing material and economic conditions of architectural labour in the late Soviet and immediate post-Soviet periods, precedents of authorised and unauthorised destruction of architectural documents, archival regulations, and appraisal procedures, the paper demonstrates that Giproteatr Institute’s archives are in themselves historical and carry different definitions of archival value and of the architectural profession. Therefore, the paper further problematises the notion of ‘evidence’ in architectural history and advocates for strengthening the focus on analysis of material processes of archiving.

The Variable Disadvantage of Nonstandard Employment for Entering Homeownership in Russia and Urban China: The Potential Role of Mortgage Prevalence

AbstractNonstandard employment (NSE) is a disadvantage for entry into homeownership because it is associated with both lower average income and greater uncertainty of future income. These features of NSE make formal mortgage loans from banks riskier to take on and harder to obtain. This mechanism implies that the relative disadvantage of NSE for homeownership entry is greater in societies where, due to institutional and macro-economic factors, mortgages are a more prevalent means to acquire homes. We test these theoretical expectations by analyzing entry to homeownership using panel surveys from Russia and urban China, two former state socialist countries with comparable labor market regulations, housing regimes, and welfare protections, but different mortgage prevalence. NSE is associated with lowers rates of entering homeownership in urban China, where mortgages are far more common, but not in Russia. Moreover, this negative effect in urban China pertains only to home acquisitions via mortgages, not to homeownership entry via other paths. Our findings broaden sociological understanding of how NSE contributes to inequality by highlighting the role of income uncertainty. They also suggest that cross-national differences in financial institutions may moderate the disadvantages of NSE and thus shape the consequences of market transition for stratification.

Energy and the Environment

Research has highlighted the relationship between production expansion and the creation of sacrifice zones in advanced capitalist economies. Yet, less attention has focused on the establishment of such regions within authoritarian, state-socialist countries. We draw theoretical and conceptual insights from treadmill of production theory and the Gramscian theory of hegemony to delineate the interaction between legitimation processes used by authoritarian states to justify the physical destruction of the environment. Our analysis focuses on the historic case of environmental destruction in Czechoslovakia’s North Bohemian coal mining region. We analyze data from various sources, including in-depth interviews with residents, state media articles, and state archival sources. We find that the interactive processes of coercion, domination, and consent were used to propel the development and legitimation of environmental exploitation in this area. We argue that these processes, and the resultant sacrifice zones, are a central component of the treadmill of production. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for further analyses of sacrifice zones.

‘New eugenics,’ gender and sexuality: a global perspective on reproductive politics and sex education in Cold War Europe

ABSTRACT The article addresses reproductive politics and sex education in Cold War Europe in light of novel historical research. Integrating sex education into reproductive politics it delineates four hitherto little discussed conceptual and topical areas in the field, and points to possibilities for further research. Most importantly, the article places the globalized character of post-World War II reproductive politics at the center of historical investigation. It sheds light on the position of (state socialist) Europe in the global processes that shaped fertility- and sexuality-related discourses, policies and practices during the Cold War, and the role of transnational agencies. Secondly, the article highlights the postwar persistence of eugenic thought in reproductive politics, still largely missing especially from the historiography of state socialist countries. It points to the ways in which “new eugenics” is related to its earlier manifestations in Europe as well as how it adapted to state socialist contexts. Third, the article discusses the important contribution of gender and intersectional scholarship on the history of sex education and reproductive politics in Europe to the social and welfare history of the region. Finally, the article pays specific attention to the role of the Catholic Church in the former “Eastern bloc.” It underlines how reproductive issues enabled the Church to affect politics and engage with the state in heterogeneous ways beyond opposition. The article suggests that further historical analysis could importantly contribute to a better understanding of the present rise of populist right-wing discussion focused on the demise of the traditional family and the fall of birth rates.

Developmental pluralism and stratified developmental citizenship: an alternative perspective on Chinese post-socialism

ABSTRACT Developmental citizenship, which assumes the qualities of both political and social citizenship, has decisively shaped the political, social as well as economic relations between many postcolonial states and their respective citizenries. It is the historical imperative of national development that has even induced many state-socialist countries to embark on ideologically self-contradicting paths toward various types of market economies. In China’s so-called pragmatist reform, for instance, the nominally communist leadership still monopolizes political power under the premise that its developmental mission necessitates both dictatorship and the market economy. Its sociopolitical governance in the reform era presupposes the societal validity and necessity of developmental citizenship. However, it should be noted that China’s accommodation of liberal socioeconomic institutions and practices has not necessarily required a full abolishment of socialist institutions and practices. China’s developmental pluralism, insinuated in Deng Xiaoping’s famous call for ‘black cat, white cat’, has ended up resuscitating many socialist-era institutions and practices as integral elements of the so-called socialist market economy. Chinese people’s developmental citizenship in the reform era has closely reflected an extremely complicated socioeconomic order under which socialist institutions and practices both mitigate and amplify market-embedded inequalities.

Men’s First Partnership Formation in Four Former State-socialist Countries during the Transition Period

Non-marital cohabitation has become increasingly common in advanced societies, although somewhat less so in Central-Eastern Europe in the period immediately following the fall of state socialism. In this paper we focus on changes in men’s first partnership patterns in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania between the 1980s and early 2000s, specifically addressing gender differences with respect to the effects of educational attainment. Data on men and women extracted from the first round of Generations and Gender Programme in these countries are analysed, relying on proportional hazards event history models with piecewise constant baseline intensity for entering a first union (cohabitation or direct marriage – as competing risks). We find a positive educational gradient for marriage formation among men in all countries analysed, but only in Hungary for women. No such gradient is seen for cohabitation among men with the exception of Poland. The popularity of cohabitation increased over time while the trend for marriage entry declined, resulting in non-marital unions replacing marriage as the main form of first partnerships by the late 1990s-early 2000s, except for Romania. Declining marriage trends paralleled by women’s growing educational advantage are likely to be related to the limited (and decreasing) supply of highly educated men as most attractive marriage partners in the region. The main contribution of this study is to fill the knowledge gap on changes in family formation patterns with emphasis on men’s first co-residential unions in Central-Eastern Europe in the period of major societal transition. The results point to the importance of gendered effects of educational attainment with respect to the type of first union formed.

Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953–1961

Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953–1961

The cold war and the Women’s International Democratic Federation: defending women’s rights and inspiring women with achievements of the state socialism?

This paper is dedicated to the history of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (further WIDF), the influential transnational organization of the period of the Cold War. The scholars who were dealing with the history of this organization have different opinions about its activities and historical role. Indeed, several researches have shown that the federation realized a lot of solidarity work; the federation was important not least with respect to the anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles as well for cooperation between women from inside and outside Europe. But on the other hand, historically this organization was seen as dependent from the Soviet Union or as the organization where Communist ideas and Soviet bloc’s geopolitical interests have played an important role. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the contradictory aspects of the WIDF’s ideology and activities. I use the WIDF’s official publications, first of all, the federation’s journal Women of the Whole World/ Zhenshchiny mira (published from 1951 in English, French, Russian and, later on German, Spanish and Arabic) vis-à-vis the material from the archive in Moscow, belonging to the WIDF’s member organization from the Soviet Union (GARF, Fond of the Committee of the Soviet Women). In this paper I discuss the federation’s use of the achievements of the state socialist countries on the way to women’s emancipation as well as WIDF’s main political concepts and some of their interpretations. Thus, I explore the contradictions with respect to how the concepts as human rights, democracy and women’s rights were used in WIDF’s documents from different periods as well as discuss conflicts connected to their use.

Social Stratification and Its Perception in Austria and Its Central-East European Neighbouring Countries from 1960 to 2015: Historical Legacies, Socialist Pasts and Recent Developments

This article compares Austria with three of its former state-socialist neighbouring countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The authors are guided by the assumption that it is necessary to analyse changes in both the structure and the perception of inequality and that the two are interconnected. They assume that some general differences exist as a result of the legacy of state socialism in the three post-communist countries, but also that significant differences exist between those three countries themselves that stem from their different paths of development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the first part of this article, differences in the societal-political aims of a Western country such as Austria and those of state-socialist countries are discussed. The authors argue that the state-socialist countries were able to contain income inequality but were less successful at limiting other aspects of inequality. Austria, on the other hand, was able to avoid the severe income inequalities of the capitalist system by introducing democratic-corporatist institutions and a strong welfare state. In the second part of the article the authors investigate the subjective perception of inequality based on the ISSP inequality surveys. The majority of the population in all four countries think that income differences are too large, but there are significant differences in how people perceive and evaluate the stratification structure: in Austria, individuals rank themselves significantly higher than do people in the other three countries and see their society as dominated by the middle classes. The opposite is true in Hungary, where most people think that they live in a society characterised by a small elite, and they see the mass of the people at the bottom.

Revisiting State Socialist Approaches to International Criminal and Humanitarian Law: An Introduction

Abstract This introductory essay provides an overview of the scholarship on state socialist engagements with international criminal and humanitarian law, arguing for a closer scrutiny of the socialist world’s role in shaping these fields of law. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the historiography on post-1945 international law-making has been generally dominated by a post-1989 sense of Western triumphalism over socialism, where the Soviet Union and its allies have been presented as obstructionists of liberal progress. A wave of neo-Marxist scholarship has more recently sought to recover socialist legal contributions to international law, without however fully addressing them in the context of Cold War political conflict and of gross human rights violations committed within the Socialist Bloc. In contrast, this collection provides a balanced understanding of the socialist engagements with international criminal and humanitarian law, looking at the realpolitik agendas of state socialist countries while acknowledging their progressive contributions to the post-war international legal order.

The Specificity of Architecture: Architectural Debates and Critical Theory in Hungary, 1945–1989

Post-war Hungary may seem the ideal place to develop a critical theory of capitalist society: the work of Georg (György) Lukács, the internationally acclaimed Hungarian philosopher whose 1923 book, <em>History and Class Consciousness</em>, was a major inspiration behind later neo-Marxist theories, offered a vantage point by which to assess the dominant ideologies. However, the authoritarian state-socialism of Hungary permitted only apologetic theorizations, using the Marxist critique of capitalist society and culture to justify its own form of domination. But even to philosophers of the Frankfurt School in Germany the reality of authoritarian socialism was a challenge they refused to confront. Was a critical theory in state-socialist societies even possible? And if so, how did it affect the theory of architecture? As in other state-socialist countries, architectural debates in Hungary between 1960 and 1990 displayed conflicting lines of thought. Critical theory was indeed possible in state-socialist Hungary, and it gave rise to the development of two characteristic positions: insistence on the ‘specificity’ of architecture, on the one hand, and the critique of ‘étatist’ planning, on the other. Both largely developed on a neo-Marxist or a post-Marxist basis. Therefore, the critique of a system that claimed the Marxian tradition for itself meant rejecting a monolithic ‘critical theory’, analyzing the objectivations, institutions and practices of state-socialist society.

Freedom of Culture in and after Yugoslavia. An Interview with Branka Prpa

Abstract The historian Branka Prpa was the director of the Historical Archives of Belgrade after Slobodan Milošević’s regime ended in 2000. Jacqueline Nießer spoke to Prpa about how she set about reforming Belgrade’s Historical Archives during Serbia’s democratic opening-up under Zoran Djindjić. Prpa has fostered preservation of the cultural history of socialist Yugoslavia, so the focus of the interview was cultural freedom in and after Yugoslavia. The historian elaborates on how culture both then and now has been in conflict with politics, her remarks leading on to a discussion about how a future may be imagined in the 21st century. The interview was conducted during the COURAGE project, which between 2016 and 2019 has researched the cultural heritage of dissent in the former state socialist countries of Eastern Europe.