Workers Party Research Articles

ОФОРМЛЕНИЕ ЮРИДИЧЕСКОЙ БАЗЫ ПОДПОЛЬНОГО ДВИЖЕНИЯ ЛЕНИНГРАДСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ 1941 ГОДА

Currently, the source study part of the underground movement of the Leningrad region is poorly investigated. The problem is that over the past 82 years there have been no works where the authors would have conducted a detailed analysis of them. This applies not only to diaries and memoirs, but also to legislative acts. In the presented article, the author analyzes in detail those of them that were published by the governing bodies of the USSR, Leningrad, and Leningrad region in June – December 1941. Based on them, the process of their creation, adoption and further implementation was described. They were created taking into account the military situation that existed during the period concerned. This process was also influenced by the fact that many Leningrad party workers did not take part in the Civil War and had no experience in creating underground organizations. Despite this, they laid the foundation for the formation of an underground movement.

The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic, Socialist, Feminist

The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic, Socialist, Feminist

The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic Socialist Feminist by Donna Haverty-Stacke

Reviewed by: The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic Socialist Feminist by Donna Haverty-Stacke Janine Giordano Drake The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic Socialist Feminist. By Donna Haverty-Stacke. New York: New York University Press, 2021. 312 pp. $50.00. In the Cold War-era narratives of U.S. history that predominated the twentieth century, radical socialism and Christianity were inherently opposed to one another. In this framework, Dorothy Day's [End Page 79] Catholic Worker Movement appeared as an exception to the rule. And yet, Donna Haverty-Stacke's well-written biography of Grace Holmes Carlson, the Catholic Trotsykist, psychology professor, political candidate, outlaw, and Catholic university reformer, reminds us that Dorothy Day is no exception. Carlson, too, had a foot in both the political left and the churches as she sought to change both Christian definitions of social justice and patriotic definitions of American democracy. Grace was raised in Catholic schools under the leadership of Archbishop John Ireland, a fierce Progressive-Era advocate for labor justice. She excelled academically and went on to pursue a doctorate in Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where she also met her husband, Gilbert. For her, it felt like a seamless transition from supporting union struggles during the Depression to carrying on this work within the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) of the 1940s. Within the SWP orbit, Grace and her sister Dorothy found their voices as political leaders. Grace ran for public office and, after she was forced to resign her teaching position due to her socialist leanings, she worked for the party. This decision took a strain on both her marriage and her faith, and for a period she stopped calling herself a Catholic and had a relationship with another man. Yet, less than a decade later and after a brief detention in prison for her political beliefs, Grace decided to leave the party and return to both her husband and what she described as the Catholic Church. In Grace's telling of the story, her return to Catholicism was not a rejection of socialism but an affirmation of a part of her that had always been there. She made a "personal" decision stemming from the death of her father to return to her more spiritual roots. Contrary to some of our presumptions about patriarchy and anti-socialism pervading Catholicism in 1950s, Roman Catholic sisters in Minneapolis gave the former felon sanctuary and respected her expertise and sense of "mission." At St. Mary's Junior College, Grace took on leadership roles in campus ministry. She was also invited to help design a general education curriculum that prepared students for the challenge of committing oneself to social justice, ethics, and truth [End Page 80] while also following a secular vocation. As Haverty-Stacke tells the story, Grace's mature support for a "modern, engaged Catholic activism" was more of a fulfillment of her lifetime of political experiences than a rejection of the Trotyskyist politics of her young adulthood. Moreover, her invitation to Catholic leadership was also a fulfillment of Roman Catholic social and political goals. Grace also traveled and spoke broadly on the value of a Catholic liberal arts education which nurtured Catholics' sense of justice and respect for human beings, and which integrated this with their vocational mission of redeeming and transforming society. One wonders to what extent her ideas inspired Catholic vocational work in other institutions. When, in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson officially pardoned Grace's felony and restored her voting rights, one wonders who really proved victorious in the culture war between Leftists and American Catholics. In many respects, the interests of the Left and the Roman Catholic Left had become indivisible by 1965. Indeed, perhaps the most significant scholarly contribution of the book is its spotlight on the intimate relationship between Roman Catholicism and left-wing labor politics in the twentieth century. The book leads us to wonder how many Americans who ended up supporting the Socialist Workers' Party were similarly steeped in Catholic labor support throughout the 1910s–1930s, and how many of them also quietly declared victory through the significant shifts in the meaning of "Catholicism" in the 1960s. If Grace...

Cathedral of Power: Battersea Power Station in Dystopian Visual Culture

Cathedral of Power: Battersea Power Station in Dystopian Visual Culture

ИЗ АРХИВНЫХ ДАННЫХ О ПРЕБЫВАНИИ КАЗАХСКИХ ГОЛОДОБЕЖЕНЦЕВ НА МЕСТАХ ОТКОЧЕВКИ (1931 – 1933)

This article deals with issues related to the famine of the early 1930s in Kazakhstan, an issue that is still not sufficiently studied, requiring close attention of the expert community, a comprehensive consideration of all its aspects without exception. One of these aspects, of course, is the issue of famine refugees from Kazakhstan, their stay and adaptation in new places. The paper presents the opinions of leading foreign scholars regarding the scale of the famine, its consequences, as well as the policy of the authorities, their perception of the tragedy. In addition, the article widely presents archival materials containing data both on the scale of the tragedy and the opinions of its witnesses themselves. The above documents provide information about the fate of the “nomadic migrants” (“откочевники”), the policy of the local authorities towards them, and also generally allow us to see the tragedy of the mass famine of the early 1930s through the eyes of responsible party workers.

Theoretical Research on the Construction of Innovative Party Organizations in Colleges and Universities

Theoretical research on the construction of innovative party organizations in colleges and universities is conducted in this paper. The construction of a learning-oriented party organization in colleges and universities can only vigorously promote cultural inheritance and innovation, and realize the quality of talent training and school-running level. The party's grass-roots organization is the basis for all the party's work and combat effectiveness in colleges and universities. In strengthening the construction of grassroots party organizations in colleges and universities, it is necessary to adapt to changes in management models and discipline settings. Improve the way the party organization is set up, so that the party's previous work extends to the academic level. This paper gives the novel ideas of dealing with the issues.

Precarious Democracy

This book review examines Precarious Democracy: Ethnographies of Hope, Despair, and Resistance in Brazil (2021), edited by Benjamin Junge, Sean T. Mitchell, Alvaro Jarrín, and Lucia Cantero. The edited volume contains ethnographies addressing the Brazilian social landscape after Workers Party administrations. These chapters discuss the mechanisms of Bolsonarismo and the contradictory ways through which people show support to President Jair Bolsonaro. The book has sixteen chapters, authored by scholars hailing from different parts of the globe, who examine this topic in different parts of Brazil. As a rigorous yet accessible anthropological work, I argue that the book is an important addition to current discussions on Brazil’s sociopolitical and economic situation.

The Herrin Massacre of 1922: Blood and Coal in the Heart of America

The Herrin Massacre of 1922: Blood and Coal in the Heart of America

The Consequences of Stalinist Economic Policy in Hungary (1949-1953)

By 1948, with the eradication of private property ownership and multi-party-system, the institutional background of the Soviet-type dictatorship was created by the Hungarian Workers Party (HWP). In economic terms, forced industrialisation became buzzword, whereas both agricultural and infrastructural development were neglected by the communist leadership. The forced collectivisation in the agriculture, accompanied by the postponement of necessary investments led to a permanent shortage of goods. Compulsory deliveries coupled with the application of the principle of quantity further aggravated the situation of the agrarian sector. As a result of aggressive campaign against the wealthy peasants and forced collectivisation, 300 000 people ceased to work in the agriculture and were employed by industry. Within the centrally planned economy, profitability, cost of production, marketability and quality of products were neglected. Only one principle was taken into account, which was the fulfilment or overfulfilment of the global production plan index and all other criteria were ignored by decision-makers. Foreign trade relations were embedded within the framework of the command economy. Foreign trade corporations were set up and world market prices became hermetically isolated from domestic prices. Within Comecon, the endeavour of the USSR was to reduce any dependency of the socialist bloc on world markets and to achieve self-sufficiency. The introduction of fixed prices in 1950 led to serious price distortions, whilst Hungary depended on increasing import of raw material, which was essential for the development of heavy industry. Therefore, the targets of foreign trade were not fulfilled during the period 1949-53. The irrational economic objectives of the first Five-Year Plan produced lasting damages in the national economy of Hungary.

Unity and Closure through Performatism: A Possible Replacement of Postmodernism?

Through the use of aesthetically mediated devices, the contemporary literary theory is argued, by Raoul Eshelman, to have ushered into a new epoch making era of performatism by assigning unity and closure to the current art works in the world. Eshelman attempts to apply his newly formed concept in different art works ranging from literary writings to architecture, movies and paintings in his book, Performatism or End of Postmodernism in 2008. This paper is an attempt to overview and analyse the concept of Performatism by applying it, as an example, on a recent Pakistani narrative The Party Worker by Mohsin Hamid Shahid. The rationale for the selection of this work is owing to the claim by Eshelman that Performatism has seeped into art works globally. The textual analysis of the selected novel signifies that Eshelman’s view of contemporary state of literary theory cannot be neglected as there are attempts at unification and closure of the narratives, a departure from postmodern disintegration and fragmentation. However, the imposition of unity and closure owing a great deal to the use of aesthetic devices and authoriality through the strategic maneuvering by the writer poses a threat to the smooth shifting from postmodernism to performatism.

Reverse Discourse, Queering of Self-Determination, and Sexual Ruptures: Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdistan Workers Party, and the Problem of the Nation-State

ABSTRACT The idea of self-determination through independent state formation served as a crucial political principle for groups and organisations resisting colonial domination and the capitalist world system during the post-World War II era. Kurdish political movements and parties were no exception. They embraced the idea that, as a nation, they were entitled to a state that exercised exclusive territorial control. One of these parties was the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which emerged in the context of Turkey’s Kurdish issue and developed into one of the most important political actors in Kurdistan of the last 40 years. In the 2000s, the PKK started to question whether or not self-determination ought to be conceptualised and practiced through state construction. As a result, self-determination became redefined in terms of societal self-organisation, an idea beyond that of the centralised nation-state. This article shows how the PKK has shifted the concept of self-determination away from the idea of the state and towards the self-organising and self-administering capabilities of all people. This queering of self-determination has enabled a radically new understanding of resistance: the building of a post-capitalist, post-state, and post-patriarchal society.

The Far Left, Scottish Independence and Brexit

The far left comprises a large number of parties and movements, but the most significant are the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain, and the Scottish Socialist Party. In the referendums of 2014 and 2016, most of them supported Scottish independence and the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. These stances corresponded both to long-held positions and adaptation to the changing political situation in Scotland. The parties developed distinctive arguments and campaigns, which differentiated them from their adversaries at the other end of the political spectrum.

Guns, Torches and Badges: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre, the Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally, and the Lasting Impacts of Racial Violence on Black and anti-Racist Communities

One of the most tragic examples of extreme racial violence occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 3, 1979, when the multi-racial Communist Workers Party (CWP) planned a demonstration to protest against the notorious Ku Klux Klan (KKK). As protestors gathered for the “Death to Klan” march, a group of Nazis and Klansmen drove through the protest site in a nine-car caravan. The Nazis and Klansmen unloaded eighty-eight seconds of gunfire into the crowd killing five Communist Workers Party members. That same hatred and violence in Greensboro perpetuated by neo-fascists appeared again on August 12th, 2017, in an eerily identical fashion when Heather Heyer, a thirty-two-year-old, White woman, was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heyer lost her life after white supremacist, James Fields, Jr., plowed his car into demonstrators protesting at a “Unite the Right” rally that had been orchestrated by white nationalists. In an instant following Heather Heyer’s murder, Charlottesville became reminiscent of Greensboro and 2017 blatantly mirrored the dawn of the 1980s, a troubling period of racial conflict and frayed politics. The case study of Morningside Homes illuminated a disregard and invisibility that black communities often suffered at the hands of law enforcement, city officials, white supremacists and other community members. The tragedy of Charlottesville illustrated not only the continuation of that invisibility, but also the traditional hindering of political organizing as a result of trauma, fear, and distrust of those sworn to protect the communities in which they serve. Despite how progressive America attempts to position itself, local histories continue to reflect national divisions of race and politics that relentingly facilitate rage, violence, and white supremacy in an alleged Post-Racial Society.

The Institute of the Scientific Atheism and the transformation of the field of religious studies in the USSR in the 1960–80s

This article examines the history of the opening of the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU in the context of the transformation of Soviet religious studies in the mid 20th century. The author relies on a wide range of archival materials published and not previously introduced into scientific circulation. The author analyses the reasons for the emergence of the institution, examines the organisational units on the basis of which a new institution emerged. Close attention is paid to the reconstruction of the internal structure of the Institute of Scientific Atheism and its staff. Within the framework of the first of the named plots, the author studies both the evolution of problem groups of the institute and the peculiarities of the organisation of its regional branches, represented by support points and branches. Analysing the personnel structure of the Institute of Scientific Atheism, the author notes that its main feature is the active involvement of former party workers in the work of this center, who gradually acquired the necessary qualifications (in particular, candidate and doctoral dissertations). And although in the 1970–80s all employees of this center met the formal requirements for Soviet social scientists, the memory of the scientific community retained the names of only a few figures recognised as classics of Russian religious studies. Having reconstructed the main directions of research activities of the Institute of Scientific Atheism, the author comes to the conclusion that his employees were guided by the study of the most relevant and practically significant topics related to atheistic education or the religious situation in the modern world. That is why it was the activities of the Institute of Scientific Atheism that provided a significant narrowing of the research field of Soviet religious studies, which since the mid 1960s began to develop in the space of Soviet philosophy.

Relevance of Centralized Education Activities in the Communist Party of China

Carrying out concentrated education activities within the Party is an original fine tradition of the CPC since its century-long history, an inherited and innovative achievement by carrying forward its political advantages, and a key form of sublimating the Party's self-revolution, and a fundamental way to improve the overall strict governance of the Party, which not only maintains the purity and advancement within the CPC, but also focuses on improving the quality of the Party's construction, and provides an opportunity to strengthen and improve the new development stage of the Party's construction work, clarifying the goal. Tracing the history of 100 years of Centralized Education activities in the Party, it can be clearly concluded that 100 years of Centralized Education in the Party contains the same development characteristics and has important practical significance for the new development stage, thus further highlighting the decisive role of the new great project of Party building, ensuring the Party's eternal youthful vigor and strong vitality, and promoting the development of the Party in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. "This will ensure that the Party remains youthful and vigorous and promote a good start for the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist country in the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

The Everyday Nationalism of Workers: A Social History of Modern Belgium

The Everyday Nationalism of Workers: A Social History of Modern Belgium

Left Behind: Labor Unions and Redistributive Policy under the Brazilian Workers' Party

How do leftist governments negotiate the trade-off between courting union support and maintaining the business sector's trust? Scholars have argued that leftist parties will remain accountable to their labor base when powerful unions have strong ties to centralized leftist parties. However, I argue that strong party-union ties and party leadership centralization may, in fact, insulate leftist presidents against redistributive pressures from below. When party-union ties allow labor leaders to develop careers as professional politicians, these leaders become more responsive to the party's goals than to their union base. Further, a centralized party organization can exclude unions and leftist factions from the design of redistributive policies. To test my argument, I use a case study of Brazil under the administration of the Worker's Party (PT).

‘Class Against Class’: The leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain during the Comintern’s Third Period, 1928–1934

ABSTRACT A prosopographical survey employed statistical analysis of data detailing the origins, occupations, prior affiliations, political careers and destinations of the 66 leading Communists who served on the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) during the Comintern’s Third Period, 1928–1934. There was significant innovation in composition: consonant with transformed politics, around 62% of CC representatives were newcomers, turnover accelerated significantly compared with 1923–1927 and the Old Guard was discarded. The committees were younger, although mean age only declined from 37 to 34 years, and female representation more than doubled. The CC remained overwhelmingly working-class – slightly more than in earlier years – with strong representation from skilled manual workers and miners. Only a small minority met the Comintern prescription that the committee be revitalised by electing factory militants; by the end of the Third Period, 90% of members were paid party workers. Short-term change failed to produce an enduring renewal of the Communist leadership. Some 75% of Newcomers during the ‘Class Against Class’ years failed to survive beyond them as CC representatives, with negative implications for the construction of an experienced cadre. A core of 12 who served before, during and after the Third Period was reinforced by 10 Newcomers who continued in the leadership after 1934. In succeeding decades, none of them challenged in prominence and prestige the core of leaders in place prior to 1929.

Nature Is Healing

Nature Is Healing

Delisting the PKK as a Terrorist Organization

Delisting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization would be a bold, imaginative move by Turkey, the European Union (EU), and the United States (US), among others, that might contribute to the peace process and benefit all concerned parties. However, Turkey presently does not want to acknowledge collective rights for its ethnic Kurds, and is willing to grant merely limited and begrudgingly individual rights such as mother-tongue language in the schools and a Kurdish TV channel, among a few others. Thus, there remains a very long way still to go, but delisting the PKK is surely one important start along this necessary journey.