Vladimir Tismaneanu

Situating the rise and fall of Romanian communism within the world revolutionary movement, Stalinism for All Seasons shows that the history of communism in one country can illuminate the development of communism in the twentieth century."

A Political History of Romanian Communism

Stalinism for All Seasons

Despite Democratic successes in places such as the Czech Republic and Poland, Tismaneanu argues that it would be a mistake for the West to assume that liberalism will always triumph in post-Communist Europe. "Fantasies of Salvation" is a thought-provoking book for both academic and nonacademic readers who wish to understand the forces shaping one of the world's most important and unpredictable regions.

Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe

Fantasies of Salvation

Bogdan Cristian Iacob

This volume gathers authors who wrote important works in the fields of the history of ideologies, the comparative study of dictatorships, and intellectual history. The book is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of the ideological commitments of intellectuals and their relationships with dictatorships during the twentieth century. The contributions focus on turning points or moments of breakage as well as on the continuities. Though its focus is on an East-West comparison in Europe, there are texts also dealing with Latin America, China, and the Middle East giving the book a global outlook. The first part of the book deals with intellectuals' involvement with communist regimes or parties; the second looks at the persistence of utopianism in the trajectory of intellectuals who had been associated earlier in their lives with either communism or fascism; the third tackles intellectuals' role in national imaginations from either the left or the right; and, the fourth ties late twentieth century phenomena to current phenomena such as the persistence of anti-Semitism in the West, the slow erosion of the values upon which the EU is built, the quagmire in Iraq, and China's rise in the post-Cold War era. The collection provides a comprehensive big-picture of intellectual genealogies and dictatorial developments.

Intellectuals, Dictators, and the Totalitarian Temptation

Ideological Storms

Eastern Europe has become an ideological battleground since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with liberals and authoritarians struggling to seize the ground lost by Marxism. In Fantasies of Salvation, Vladimir Tismaneanu traces the intellectual history of this struggle and warns that authoritarian nationalists pose a serious threat to democratic forces. A leading observer of the often baffling world of post-Communist Europe, Tismaneanu shows that extreme nationalistic and authoritarian thought has been influential in Eastern Europe for much of this century, while liberalism has only shallow historical roots. Despite democratic successes in places such as the Czech Republic and Poland, he argues, it would be a mistake for the West to assume that liberalism will always triumph. He backs this argument by showing how nationalist intellectuals have encouraged ethnic hatred in such countries as Russia, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia by reviving patriotic myths of heroes, scapegoats, and historical injustices. And he shows how enthusiastically these myths have been welcomed by people desperate for some form of "salvation" from political and economic uncertainty. On a theoretical level, Tismaneanu challenges the common ideas that the ideological struggle is between "right" and "left" or between "nationalists" and "internationalists." In a careful analysis of the conflict's ideological roots, he argues that it is more useful and historically accurate to view the struggle as between those who embrace the individualist traditions of the Enlightenment and those who reject them. Tismaneanu himself has been active in the intellectual battles he describes, particularly in his native Romania, and makes insightful use of interviews with key members of the dissident movements of the 1970s and 1980s. He offers original observations of countries from the Baltic to the Black Sea and expresses his ideas in a vivid and forceful style. Fantasies of Salvation is an indispensable book for both academic and nonacademic readers who wish to understand the forces shaping one of the world's most important and unpredictable regions.

Offers an analysis of the relationship between communism and fascism. This title examines the ideological appeal of these radical, revolutionary political movements, the visions of salvation and revolution they pursued, the value and types of charisma of leaders within these political movements, and their legacies in contemporary politics.

Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century

The Devil in History

Kate C. Langdon

This book studies the cultural, societal, and ideological factors absent from popular discourse on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, contesting the misleading mainstream assumption that Putin is the all-powerful sovereign of Russia. In carefully examining the ideological underpinnings of Putinism—its tsarist and Soviet elements, its intellectual origins, its culturally reproductive nature, and its imperialist foreign policy—the authors reveal that an indoctrinating ideology and a willing population are simultaneously the most crucial yet overlooked keys to analyzing Putin’s totalitarian democracy. Because Putinism is part of a global wave of extreme political movements, the book also reaffirms the need to understand—but not accept—how and why nation-states and masses turn to nationalism, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism in modern times.

Ideology, Myth, and Violence in the Twenty-First Century

Putin’s Totalitarian Democracy

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

Political Culture and Civil Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia

Marius Stan

Reckoning with mass crimes perpetrated by an ideologically driven regime entails engaging in a thorough-going exploration of its utopian foundations. In the case of Romania, such an analysis requires an interpretation of the role of personality in the construction of a uniquely grotesque and unrepentant form of neo-Stalinist despotism. Of all the revolutions of 1989, the only violent one took place in Romania. Confronting its communist past therefore involves addressing the abuses committed by the communist regime up to its very last day, its failure to engage in Round Table-type agreements with democratic representatives, and the repression during the first post-communist years, a direct legacy of the old regime. This book shows how moral justice can contribute to a restoration of truth and a climate of trust in politics, in the absence of which any democratic polity remains exposed to authoritarian attack.

Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice

Romania Confronts its Communist Past

Bogdan C. Iacob

The twentieth century has left behind a painful and complicated legacy of massive trauma, monstrous crimes, radical social engineering, or collective/individual guilt syndromes that were often the premises for and the specters haunting the process of democratization in the various societies that emerged out of these profoundly de-structuring contexts. The present manuscript is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of how the interplay between memory, history, and justice generates insight that is multifariously relevant for comprehending the present and future of democracy without becoming limited to a Europe-centric framework of understanding. The manuscript is structured on three complementary and interconnected trajectories: the public use of history, politics of memory, and transitional justice. Key words 1. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1989– 2. Collective memory—Europe,Eastern. 3. Memory—Political aspects—Europe, Eastern. 4. Democratization—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern. 5. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Socialaspects. 6. Europe, Eastern—Historiography—Political aspects. 7. Social justice—Europe, Eastern. 8. Post-communism—Europe, Eastern. 9. Fascism—Socialaspects—Europe, Eastern. 10. Dictatorship—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern.

Coming to terms with traumatic pasts in democratic societies

Remembrance, History, and Justice

Sorin Antohi

The tenth anniversary of the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe is the basis for this text which reflects upon the past ten years and what lies ahead for the future. An international group of academics and public intellectuals, including former dissidents and active politicians, engage in an exchange on the antecedents, causes, contexts, meanings and legacies of the 1989 revolutions. The contributors address various issues including liberal democracy and its enemies; modernity and discontent; economic reforms and their social impact; ethnicity; nationalism and religion; geopolitics; electoral systems and political power; European integration; and the demise of Yugoslavia.

The Revolution of 1989 and Their Aftermath

Between Past and Future

Deals with the period of takeover and of 'high Stalinism' in Eastern Europe (1945–1955). These years are considered to be fundamentally characterized by institutional and ideological transfers based upon the premise of radical transformism and of cultural revolution. Both a balance-sheet and a politico-historical synthesis that reflects the archival and thematic novelties which came about in the field of communism studies after 1989.

The Establishment of Communist Regimes in East-Central Europe

Stalinism Revisited

Reinventing Politics gives an account of East European politics from the time of Soviet domination to the 1989-90 revolutions, and considers the effect of tyranny on East European culture and politics, the chances for successful and harmonious development in the region, and its relationship with the rest of Europe. “Using primary materials from Eastern European democratic movements, Tismaneanu shows how dissident enclaves, grassroots political groups, independent unions and underground initiatives spearheaded the spontaneous outbursts of discontent that led to the nonviolent collapse of communist dictatorships…In an illuminating, exciting comparative analysis of the breakup of the Soviet Union's outer empire, Tismaneanu …identifies bureaucratic inertia, renascent authoritarian tendencies and the lure of populist adventurers as key obstacles to democracy.” —Publishers Weekly

Reinventing Politics

Rudra Sil

Marc Morje Howard

World Order after Leninism examines the origins and evolution of world communism and explores how its legacies have shaped the post-Cold War world order. The lessons of Leninism continue to exert a strong influence in contemporary foreign affairs--most visibly in Poland and other post-communist states of the former Soviet Union, but also in China and other newly industrialized states balancing authoritarian impulses against the pressures of globalization, free markets, and democratic possibilities. World Order after Leninism began as a conversation among former students of Ken Jowitt, professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley from 1970-2002 and whose monumental career transformed the fields of political science, Russian studies, and post-communist studies. Using divergent case studies, the essays in this volume document the ways in which Jowitt's exceptionally original work on Leninism's evolution and consolidation remains highly relevant in analyzing contemporary post-communist and post-authoritarian political transformations.

World Order after Leninism

Jordan Luber

Why has communism's humanist quest for freedom and social justice without exception resulted in the reign of terror and lies? The authors of this collective volume address this urgent question covering the one hundred years since Lenin's coup brought the first communist regime to power in St. Petersburg, Russia in November 1917. The first part of the volume is dedicated to the varieties of communist fantasies of salvation, and the remaining three consider how communist experiments over many different times and regions attempted to manage economics, politics, as well as society and culture. Although each communist project was adapted to the situation of the country where it operated, the studies in this volume find that because of its ideological nature, communism had a consistent penchant for totalitarianism in all of its manifestations. This book is also concerned with the future. As the world witnesses a new wave of ideological authoritarianism and collectivistic projects, the authors of the nineteen essays suggest lessons from their analyses of communism's past to help better resist totalitarian projects in the future.

One Hundred Years of Communist Experiments

Why has communism’s humanist quest for freedom and social justice without exception resulted in the reign of terror and lies? The authors of this collective volume address this urgent question covering the one hundred years since Lenin’s coup brought the first communist regime to power in St. Petersburg, Russia in November 1917. The first part of the volume is dedicated to the varieties of communist fantasies of salvation, and the remaining three consider how communist experiments over many different times and regions attempted to manage economics, politics, as well as society and culture. Although each communist project was adapted to the situation of the country where it operated, the studies in this volume find that because of its ideological nature, communism had a consistent penchant for totalitarianism in all of its manifestations. This book is also concerned with the future. As the world witnesses a new wave of ideological authoritarianism and collectivistic projects, the authors of the nineteen essays suggest lessons from their analyses of communism’s past to help better resist totalitarian projects in the future.

A fresh interpretation of the contexts, meanings, and consequences of the revolutions of 1989, coupled with state of the art reassessment of the significance and consequences of the events associated with the demise of communist regimes. The book provides an analysis that takes into account the complexities of the Soviet bloc, the events? impact upon Europe, and their re-interpretation within a larger global context. Departs from static ways of analysis (events and their significance) bringing forth approaches that deal with both pre-1989 developments and the 1989 context itself, while extensively discussing the ways of resituating 1989 in the larger context of the 20th century and of its lessons for the 21st. Emphasizes the possibility for re-thinking and re-visiting the filters and means that scholars use to interpret such turning point. The editors perceive the present project as a challenge to existing readings on the complex set of issues and topics presupposed by a re-evaluation of 1989 as a symbol of the change and transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

Vladimir Tismaneanu

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