State Socialism Research Articles

Institutional Analysis of China’s Historic Success in Eradicating Absolute Poverty: A Perspective of Political Economy

ABSTRACT China’s eradication of absolute poverty represents a major contribution to world development, a contribution that could not have been achieved without applying a strategy of targeted poverty alleviation. Implementing this strategy has in turn depended fundamentally on the functioning of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. First, the system has been oriented towards comprehensively addressing and systematically solving the problem of absolute poverty through unifying short-term relief with long-term empowerment. Second, the logic underlying the system construction has involved a coupling and interaction between the government and the market. The system of mobilizing resources nationwide for poverty alleviation has featured a “trinity” in which the central government has provided an overarching guide while paired assistance has occurred between developed and less developed areas, and while local governments have played a dynamic role. This involves having subjective and endogenous forces from poverty alleviation to poverty eradication, providing comprehensive assistance in fields from systemic change to intervention at the micro level, and enabling integrated operations in areas from targeting to policy implementation and empowerment. Third, the effectiveness of the system is reflected in the high quality, long-term effectiveness and endogenous motivation that have been features of China’s effort to overcome poverty.

The Logic of Common Prosperity in China

The notion of common prosperity in China is deeply rooted in its historical and cultural traditions and supported by a unique social system logic. As a social ideal, it reflects the enduring intellectual aspirations of the Chinese nation. Deep feelings for the family and country and universal kinship shape the Chinese spiritual worldview, emphasizing a strong sense of community and interconnectedness. As a fundamental principle, it ensures that the essence of the socialist system, defined by labor, is firmly implemented and practically realized in the context of socialism with Chinese characteristics. As a practical endeavor, it harmonizes with historical trends and proactive development, integrating the advanced nature of the political party with scientific policy strategies, thereby clarifying the roadmap for common prosperity. As a Chinese approach, it creates a genuine community amidst diversity and differentiation, fostering a scientific understanding of prosperity in the course of development and progress, and offering a national model for building new forms of human advancement during modernization. China’s historical efforts in promoting common prosperity not only expand the contemporary understanding of “common” in a philosophical sense but also elevate the notion of “prosperity” to new heights in a civilizational context.

A Study on the Sinicization of The Communist Manifesto from the Perspective of Cross-cultural Communication

The Communist Manifesto represents Marxism and matters as a source of Communism. Since the first Chinese translation of The Communist Manifesto was published in 1920, there have been 8 translations according to research. This paper expounds changes in the translation of The Communist Manifesto from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, applying an interdisciplinary research method, and combining cross-cultural communication, translation studies and relevant subjects. This paper shows that the translation of The Communist Manifesto gradually indicates Chinese characteristics with the development of times and introduces three means of international communication of Marxism with Chinese characteristics, which is conducive to promoting translation, broadening the field of Marxism works on translations, strengthening ideal and belief of socialism with Chinese characteristics, constructing discourse system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and enlightening significance for the international communication of Chinese Marxism.

Specific challenges of researching stress in the context of quiet political repression

Political repression beneath the threshold of criminal prosecution is a phenomenon of past and present, predominantly authoritarian, regimes. This so-called quiet repression includes measures such as the limitation of freedom of speech, surveillance of (perceived) political opponents, or the spreading of rumors to socially isolate targets. Such experiences of chronic stress show significant psychological and physiological health consequences in affected individuals. However, societal awareness of quiet repression measures remains limited, hindering victims' access to support and complicating healthcare interventions. In the current paper, we present the design of a study conducted with individuals who endured quiet repression measures in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), a socialist state closely aligned with the former Soviet Union. We discuss the challenges encountered over the course of the study, and present the solutions found. Although every study population has their unique challenges and needs, we wish to inform future sensitive research within the realm of quiet political repression. Given the limited understanding of the phenomenon, there is a pressing need for further investigation aiming to improve acceptance and care for past and future victims.

Современная цивилизация китайской нации в творческой трансформации традиционной культуры

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has insisted on combining the basic tenets of Marxism and Chinese outstanding traditional culture, promoted the creative transformation and innovative development of outstanding Chinese traditional culture, and determined the direction of building the modern civilization of the Chinese nation. General Secretary Xi Jinping deeply understands the outstanding continuity of Chinese civilization, and uses elements of traditional culture to develop the core values of socialism. It promotes the humanistic spirit embodied in traditional culture, forming the spiritual family tree of Chinese communists, realizes the unity of Chinese civilization, constantly improves the socialist state system with Chinese characteristics, develops the potential of party workers, promotes the peaceful and inclusive character of Chinese civilization, and pursues the policy of building a Community of Shared Destiny humanity, proposes a Chinese global governance program.

Changed life worlds and survival strategies in disintegration after the regime change in Hungary: a former industrial town in the shadow of the factory giant

ABSTRACT In the literature of post-1989 Eastern European history, the disintegration of traditional industries and the decline of the factory towns that had been based on them is a well-known topic. Less attention has been paid to the transformation of the countryside or the villages that often served as the supportive network for the factory towns, a phenomenon that was also very typical of Hungary, where migrant or commuter workers became the subject of academic interest long before the collapse of state socialism. This study offers an international perspective and case study of the catchment area of Ózd, a former industrial and factory city located in northeastern Hungary that was once an important centre of Hungarian metallurgy and mining. In my analysis I address the related topic of how the decline of traditional industries affected this former industrial city and its surrounding villages, whose inhabitants mostly worked in industry until the industrial landscape and its society disappeared. This study focuses on Ózd and its surroundings, where the survival and sustenance of the population was directly threatened by the closure of collective farms, factories, plants and mines in the area.

Războiul Rece la periferie. RSS Moldovenească în ordinea mondială bipolară (1970-1980) / The Cold War on the Periphery. The Moldavian SSR in the Bipolar World Order (1970-1980)

This article uses unpublished documents from the Archive of Social-Political Organizations of the Republic of Moldova, the former archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldavia, in order to identify and describe the main tendencies of the Cold War in the Moldavian SSR in the period from 1970 to 1980. The decade presented in this study is characterized by multiple and multi-level changes both within capitalist and socialist systems. In this context, the periphery became the main arena for the Cold War and a place where the concept of boundaries between the two rival systems underwent significant changes.

Новейшая российская историография о жилищной реформе в годы «хрущевской оттепели»

This article focuses on analyzing specific recent works by Russian scientists that have made a significant contribution to studying the housing reform of the late 1950s – early 1960s. In their writings, they proved the historical significance of the implementation of the social program in the era of the “Khrushchev thaw”, unprecedented in scope for all the years of the existence of the Soviet state, which partially eliminated the housing crisis. The considered latest historiographical sources give grounds to draw a number of conclusions. Modern Russian scientists fairly objectively assess the reasons that predetermined the “shock” build-up of the housing stock in the era of the “Khrushchev thaw”, which made it possible for millions of Soviet citizens to get personal housing by moving from communal apartments and barracks to separate apartments with all amenities. Researchers generally do not biasively characterize the content and focus of housing reform implemented in a team-planned manner. They express original ideas regarding the institutional foundations of the coexistence of the implemented economic practice of the “mass-gross” approach in housing construction with the desire of the socialist state to develop housing construction for the benefit of the Soviet people, and also demonstrate important value judgments on a number of other controversial issues that have not received comprehensive scientific understanding.

From “At Risk” to “Dangerous” People. The Roma Between Development Policies and Practices of Expulsion

Over more than three decades since the fall of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, the position of the Roma in the region is rather ambivalent. Numerous European institutions, inter-governmental development agencies, national governments and European and national/local non-governmental organizations are involved in a pan-European effort to turn the tide for the Roma. The paper argues that although there are numerous efforts to implement development policies and programs to bridge the gap between Roma and non-Roma, there is still a gap between the discourses and inclusion policies developed at the European and national level and those at the sub-national level. There is a tendency to move away from the framing of Roma as an “at risk” group to seeing them as “dangerous people”, who pose threats to the security of others. The paper uses two sets of data sources. First, it employs a secondary analysis of three recent databases: – SocioRoMap – Sociographic mapping of Roma communities in Romania for community-level monitoring of changes regarding Roma integration (2017) and two surveys conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2011 and 2016). The second data source is based on semi-structured interviews carried out in several research projects that the author has participated in over the last few years. In conclusion, I argue that the two political projects of institutional developmentalism and securitization of the lifestyle of the poorest Roma can coexist, but the abandonment of the former can lead to complex social problems in the future.

ECONOMIC JOURNALISM OF THE NOVOYE VREMYA OF THE 1880 S

The article represents the first attempt at a comprehensive analysis of the economic journalism in A.S. Suvorin’s newspaper Novoye Vremya in the 1880s. It was a period when after heated discussions about the role of private and state capital in the economy, the public sentiment and government policy increasingly shifted in favor of the necessity of state ownership in such strategically important areas of the national economy as railways, mining plants and forests. After A.S. Suvorin acquired ownership of the Novoye Vremya in 1876, the newspaper took on a noticeable national-democratic slant, which became increasingly more conspicuous over the years. Despite the editor’s allegiance to the authorities, his contemporaries deservedly saw him as an independent figure. The influence of Suvorin’s newspaper was so significant that the famous parlor general E.V. Bogdanovich tried (not always successfully) to use it to his advantage. Bogdanovich, who initially advocated the “concession” nature of the Siberian Railway, later supported its construction at the expense of the treasury. A.S. Suvorin himself, as well as such regular newspaper contributors as V.K. Petersen and K.A. Skalkovsky were also initially supporters of private capital, concerning it an active creative force. At the same time, Novoye Vremya assessed the German experience of “state socialism” quite positively, but pointed out its inapplicability to Russian conditions and the lack of a suffcient number of active and incorruptible officials in the country. In 1883 K.A. Skalkovsky engaged in polemics with M.N. Katkov, criticizing his project to create state-owned grain elevators. However, from the mid-1880s the editors of Novoye Vremya were forced to support “statist” tendencies in the economic life of the country. In general, the economic policy of that time was not as dogmatic as in the subsequent socialist era. Subject to political interests, it was rather instrumental, practical and situational in its orientation, and the ambiguity of the position of the publicists of Suvorin’s periodical largely resulted from the latter circumstance.

Tourism Diplomacy in Cold War Europe: Symbolic Gestures, Cultural Exchange and Human Rights

The post-war boom in international travel made tourism a question for international diplomacy. Focusing on the growth of bilateral tourism agreements during the Cold War, this article shows how the meaning of tourism was negotiated by and between governments on either side of the East–West divide. While previous research on tourism in the Cold War has focused on the threat tourist traffic posed to national security in socialist states, the present study also considers the dilemmas it presented to liberal democracies. The article analyses the intersections of tourism with issues of foreign trade, cultural exchange and human contacts, which shaped the contestations over tourism throughout the Cold War.

The Entropics of Discourse: the Nihilistic Teleology of Philipp Mainländer

Abstract This article examines the teleological historical system of Philipp Mainländer, an under-researched 19th-century German philosopher in the Schopenhauerian tradition. From both theogonical and physical arguments, Mainländer endorses a theory of general entropy, whereby the sum of forces in the universe gradually expends itself to the point of annihilation. Consistent with this, Mainländer presents the course of history as the movement of individuals both politically and spiritually towards a paradoxical “willed will-lessness” in terms of a Socialist state and spiritual heaven.

Socialist Sex Education and Its Transnational Entanglements: Monika Krause and the Effort to “Teach Tenderness” to the People

AbstractThis article traces the transnational circulation of socialist reforms in the field of sex education through the work of Monika Krause, a citizen of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) who migrated to Cuba and became the “Cuban Queen of Condoms.” For Krause, the overarching goal of sex education was to “teach tenderness” to the people. The socialist state’s mission to prepare the population for love, marriage, partnership, and family in Cuba and the GDR involved using complex measures. This paper describes these, contextualizes them in transnational debates, and explains some of the internal reasoning behind their institutionalization. It also explains why looking at state-level efforts to “teach tenderness to the people” matters for a transnational history of sex education.

Urban communist politics of the everyday in Graz, Austria

The everyday communist politics of local politicians in Graz offers a potential way forward for the left more broadly In September 2021, the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) won the municipal elections in Austria’s second-largest city, Graz, and Elke Kahr became the city’s mayor. Kahr has governed in a coalition with the Green Party and the Social Democrats, replacing the former conservative and far-right coalition that had lasted for eighteen years. A different kind of local politics has since then proved possible, even in conservative Austria. Graz local communists practise a politics that is sensitive to class injustice and engaged in the local community. Its slogan for the last thirty years has been ‘A party for everyday life’. The party’s success is based on its focus on everyday concerns such as housing, tenants’ rights, public health, education and mobility issues, as well as its battles against austerity and neoliberal privatisation. Its community-oriented approach, strongly committed to social infrastructure at the scale of people’s everyday experiences is explicitly critical of top-down state solutions ‐ and thus stands in stark contrast both to the previous neoliberal and profit-oriented policies in Graz, and to the centralist ways of governing of the socialist states. KPÖ politicians voluntarily cap their salaries at the level of the average worker, with the surplus going into a social fund for emergency help for those on low incomes. This has been criticised by some as a charity commitment rather structural change, but it can also be read as an attempt at lived solidarity. Drawing from local media coverage as well as interviews with politicians and local residents, the article discusses the everyday politics of Graz communists through the lens of relational care ethics, and discusses the potential international movements that could be built on this approach to communist municipal politics. The focus is on alternative social norms in urban cultures of care: solidarity among all members of society, and a recognition of people’s everyday practices and needs.

Letters from Exile: Canadian Media, the Romanian Diaspora, and the Legionary Movement

This article traces the post-Second World War immigration of Romanians to Canada, and addresses themes of self-identification versus outside perception, national identity, and myth-making in the Romanian-Canadian community. It subsequently documents the scrutiny faced by the Romanian diaspora for supposed links to the interwar Romanian far-right Legionary Movement. Beginning in the 1950s, Romanian exiles in Canada forged their own community organizations, churches, and media, in which a unique synthesis of national identity and far-right politics was promoted, placing these new immigrants at the center of intracommunity and inter-ethnic conflict. Following the release of the Deschênes Report on war criminals living in Canada in 1986, as well as a series of unsolved terrorist attacks, Romanian-Canadians were subject to investigations by the mainstream Canadian media for potential involvement in far-right organizing. In the years since the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, significant strands of the Romanian diaspora in Canada have continued to embrace historical figures of the Legionary Movement, synthesizing a diaspora identity flavored by anticommunism, radical right politics, and (ultra-) nationalism well into the post-communist period.

From disagreement to rupture: the Soviet-Albanian conflict of 1960-1961

The Soviet-Albanian conflict epitomized centrifugal tendencies within the global socialist system. This article draws on a diverse array of sources, including previously unpublished materials, such as documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, as well as memoirs of key leaders (N. Khrushchev, E. Hoxha, R. Alia), and various official records. Notably, the TASS bureau in Tirana provided invaluable insights, collaborating with diplomats and journalists from other socialist nations to produce analytical reports, some of which were directed to the upper echelons of the CPSU. The article explores the evolution of discord between Moscow and Tirana, its culmination in open conflict, and the subsequent severance of party and state relations. Key findings include: 1) The conflict's primary catalysts were the divergent socialist models adopted by the USSR and Albania, coupled with the disparity in interests between the superpower and the bloc's smallest member; 2) The PLA's reluctance to conform to Soviet-style reforms was construed in Moscow as a challenge to the CPSU's hegemony within the global communist movement, while the PLA leadership viewed them as encroachments on its authority; 3) Disagreements pervaded all spheres, with ideology assuming heightened significance compared to conflicts with Yugoslavia; 4) External influences on the conflict's trajectory were marginal, with developments driven by internal dynamics, including Tirana's increasing alienation from the CPSU and the catalytic effect of deteriorating Soviet-Chinese relations; Western powers monitored events closely but refrained from direct intervention; 5) While objective factors underpinned the Soviet-Albanian discord, subjective elements were of secondary importance, yet pivotal in precipitating the conflict's acrimonious turn.

Das Deutsche Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung im Zweiten Weltkrieg

Abstract The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the largest institute of its kind in Germany, will celebrate its centenary in 2025. It was founded as the Institute for Business Cycle Research (IfK) on July 16 1925 by Ernst Wagemann, then President of the German Statistical Office. The Institute’s research on the war economy 1939 to 1945 has not yet been examined in a well-founded manner. As the DIW itself does not possess the necessary archival records, the secret studies had first to be made accessible from various archives of the authorities which had requested this research. Only then could the studies and reports which the IfK/DIW had done on the war economy be presented here. With Wagemann losing his dual function as head of the Institute and as President of the German Statistical Office in 1933, the IfK/DIW had no longer a smooth direct access to internal statistics of the Statistical Office. In order to be able to work in an expert capacity, the Institute and its President had to secure their clients’ trust through convincing professional competence. The article elaborates on the Institute’s struggle for the status of vital importance for the war, which awarded a special position compared with other institutes, e.g. in the Reich’s Research Council (Reichsforschungsrat). Wagemann’s skill in presenting his Institute as an indispensable economic research institute certainly contributed to its prominent status. He also asserted and made himself indispensable to the National Socialist system.

Multilevel Democratic Iterative Coordination (MDIC): A Path for Socialism beyond the Market/Central Planning Dilemma

Interest in socialism is growing throughout the world. But “socialism” too often simply means belief in equality, democracy, and solidarity with working and oppressed people. That vision remains crucial; but we also need to re-develop the theory of a socialist system—not just a middle path, a “mixed economy” between the excesses of market-driven behavior (“capitalism”) and the inadequacies of central planning (“socialism”). A re-envisioned socialism can draw upon both historical experience and modern technology, to become a new and distinctive way of life, one that truly meets the awesome challenges of human potential.

Endeavor for Self-Realization

This paper focuses on the reactions of three professors and architects (Jan E. Koula, Vladimír Karfík, and Alfred Piffl) to how the totalitarian political regime restricted and interfered with creative and academic freedoms in the period starting with the introduction of architectural education at the Slovak University of Technology and ending with the so-called “normalization” period in the former Czechoslovakia. All three of them were already active in interwar Czechoslovakia and thus had rich experience with working under democratic conditions, and their early work was influenced by the interwar avant-garde movements. After World War II, in part thanks to their pioneering work at the Slovak University of Technology, they got caught up in the system of the authoritarian socialist state. The central question that this study asks is how the trio dealt with the totalitarian regime, which stood in contrast with the democratic period of interwar Czechoslovakia that formed them as architects, and brought further limits to their work. Based mostly on material from their personal estates and period publications, we reveal how each of them found his own way to deal with the totalitarian regime, and we argue that even its limitations did not make Koula, Karfík, and Piffl abandon their beliefs and creative credos completely.

World War II and the Theme of Genocide in the Public Memory of Socialist Yugoslavia

The internal Yugoslav massacres and genocide committed during the Second World War left the postwar Yugoslav state with a complicated legacy. How could the new authorities rebuild the country, drawing on the heroic memory of the victories of the communist-led partisans against the wartime occupiers and collaborators, while at the same time explaining the large-scale war crimes and genocide committed by Yugoslavs against other Yugoslavs? This article surveys the ways in which the internal Yugoslav war crimes were described and explained as part of public memory of the Second World War in Socialist Yugoslavia. It explores how the history of massacres and genocide coexisted with the glorious partisan myth and how the history of these massacres in a way contributed to creating a usable memory out of the Second World War. Moreover, it shows how wartime memory was profoundly changed when the history of internal Yugoslav massacres was increasingly understood as part of what Jasna Dragovic-Soso has called a ‘theme of genocide’ during the last decades of the socialist state. The article suggests that the thematisation may have been a logical and necessary rethinking of Second World War history. Yet, it also argues that the substantial revisiting of this history was sometimes accompanied by irresponsible manipulation which contributed to enabling highly problematic types of memory politics both during and after Yugoslavia's existence.