Reconciling the Irreconcilable? Left-Wing Ukrainian Nationalism and the Soviet Regime

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-354
Author(s):  
Christopher Gilley
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article examines the attempts by left-wing Ukrainian nationalists to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable: Ukrainian nationalism and Soviet socialism. It describes how leftist Ukrainian parties active during the Revolution and Civil War in Ukraine 1917–1921 advocated a soviet form of government. Exiled members of the two major Ukrainian parties, the Social Democrats and the Socialist Revolutionaries, then took this position further, arguing in favor of reconciliation with the Bolsheviks and a return to their homeland. After the Entente recognized Polish sovereignty over Eastern Galicia and Soviet Ukraine introduced a policy of Ukrainization in 1923, many West Ukrainian intellectuals took up this call. The Great Famine of 1932–1933 and the Bolsheviks’ purge of Ukrainian Communists and intellectuals all but ended the position. However, it was more the Soviet rejection of the Sovietophiles that ended Ukrainian Sovietophilism than any rejection of the Soviet Union by leftist Ukrainian nationalists. Thus, an examination of the Ukrainian Sovietophiles calls into question the accounts of the relationship between Ukrainian nationalism and the Soviet Union that have common currency in today’s Ukraine.

scholarly journals Non-Soviet Perspectives on the Great Famine: A Comparative Analysis of British, Italian, Polish, and German Sources

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Fonzi
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe present contribution analyzes systematically diplomatic reports written by German, Italian, British, and Polish representatives in the Soviet Union at the time of the Great Famine. Based on both published documents and unpublished archival sources, the article examines comparatively the perception of the Great Famine in these four countries. After providing a short overview of the diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the four countries at the time of the famine, this article examines how German, Italian, British, and Polish diplomats explained three key issues for understanding the Great Famine: (1) the role of the conflicts between state and peasantry in unleashing the famine; (2) the issue of whether the Soviet government intentionally caused the famine; and (3) the role of intentions in the development of the famine and the relationship between the nationalities policy of the Soviet government and the famine.

Two and Two Make Five

Red Britain ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 60-111
Author(s):  
Matthew Taunton
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Arthur Koestler ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Relationship

The Bolshevik Revolution induced British writers to rethink the politics of number, and this chapter considers the significance of the marked preponderance of numbers, equations, and arithmetic in discussions of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet State. It explores the obsessive use of statistics by the Soviet Union and its British defenders, as a utilitarian form of socialism came to dominate left-wing discussions of politics. The chapter theorizes a ‘Romantic anti-Communism’ that opposed itself to such calculations, and often to the principle of quantitative equality. The chapter also explores—partly via the equation ‘two and two make five’ (featured Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but also in other texts that mediate the relationship between Russian and British socialism)—how the seemingly timeless propositions of mathematics were up for grabs in the debates around Marxist science and dialectical materialism. Writers covered include Orwell, Arthur Koestler, and Bertrand Russell.

Peace Propaganda and Submarines: Soviet Policy toward Sweden and Northern Europe

1985 ◽  
Vol 481 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
INGMAR OLDBERG
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Free Zone ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
East West

Since the late 1970s, as part of an intensified peace propaganda campaign, the Soviet Union has sought to create a nuclear-free zone in Sweden and northern Europe. Simultaneously, it has increased its criticism of Sweden's defense, partly to offset the effects of Soviet submarine violations of Swedish waters. These violations have increased since the stranding of the U-137 in 1981 and have seriously impaired Soviet-Swedish relations. The Soviet leaders perceive new opportunities with the advent of the Social Democrats in Sweden, whose active foreign policy favors détente and disarmament rather than the arms race. Important factors in the background include growing East-West tension, with Soviet superiority in northern Europe, and the political and economic stagnation, militarization, and “KGB-ization” of Soviet society.

scholarly journals Káldor versus Varga – The Hungarian three-year economic reconstruction plan of 1947

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (s1) ◽  
pp. 157-173
Author(s):  
André Mommen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Planning ◽  
Planning System ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Monetary Reform ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Good Trade

After a monetary reform in 1946, the Communists helped by Jenő Varga and the Social Democrats advised by Nicholas Kaldor each drafted an economic reconstruction plan introducing central planning. Having already campaigned for economic planning after the war, Káldor was also in favour of a Keynesian income and fiscal policy. Good trade relations with the Soviet Union were in his eyes a precondition for economic recovery and stability. But the non-participation of Hungary in the Marshall Plan weakened the authority of the Social Democrats vis-à-vis the Communists who were now pressing for a Soviet-type planning system and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

scholarly journals European Left Party – a New Ghost of Communism to Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 16-23
Author(s):  
Boris Guseletov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Left Flank ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union

The article analyzes the phenomenon of the emergence and development of a new pan-European political Party of the European left in the political arena. Its forerunner was a Forum of the new European left, formed in 1991, close to the Communist and workers’ parties and the group «European United Left – Nordic Green Left» in the European Parliament, which emerged in 1995 through the merger of «Confederal Group of the European United Left» faction of environmentalists «Left-wing Green of the North». Many experts viewed these parties as a vestige of a bipolar world, and believed that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they should finally disappear from the political arena of Europe, giving up the left flank to the socialists and social Democrats. However, European Communists and left-wing radicals demonstrated incredible political vitality and in the tenth years of the twentieth century in a number of EU countries (Greece, France, the Czech Republic) managed to bypass their opponents on the left flank. In 2004 a pan-European party of the European left was created, which is characterized by a commitment to unorthodox Communist and environmental values and a moderately eurosceptic view of the EU’s development prospects. In the last European elections in 2019, this party lost some ground, but nevertheless managed to maintain its small faction in the European Parliament. So today it is difficult to speak about prospects of the European left, although the strength of parties in Germany, Greece, Spain, France and other countries, as well as the weakening of the party of European socialists, gives us reasonable confidence in the fact that the radical left will be able to maintain its presence on the political stage of Europe in the next 10-15 years. The author of the article tried to identify the causes of this political force and its future prospects.

RESTORATION OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF YALTA IN 1944

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (72) (4) ◽  
pp. 24-36
Author(s):  
N. D. Borshchik
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
Recreational Facilities ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Resorts ◽  
Post War ◽  
Short Time

The article considers little-studied stories in Russian historiography about the post-war state of Yalta — one of the most famous health resorts of the Soviet Union, the «pearl» of the southern coast of Crimea. Based on the analysis of mainly archival sources, the most important measures of the party and Soviet leadership bodies, the heads of garrisons immediately after the withdrawal of the fascist occupation regime were analyzed. It was established that the authorities paid priority attention not only to the destroyed economy and infrastructure, but also to the speedy introduction of all-Union and departmental sanatoriums and recreation houses, other recreational facilities. As a result of their coordinated actions in the region, food industry enterprises, collective farms and cooperative artels, objects of cultural heritage and the social and everyday sphere were put into operation in a short time.

Implications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Middle Position ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

This chapter turns to the present and explains the implications of the current study for the ongoing debate about the Soviet Union in the Second World War and in particular about the role of loyalty and disloyalty in the Soviet war effort. It argues that this study strengthens those who argue for a middle position: the majority of Soviet citizens were neither unquestioningly loyal to the Stalinist regime nor convinced resisters. The majority, instead, saw their interests as distinct from both the German and the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, ideology remains important if we want to understand why in the Soviet Union more resisted or collaborated than elsewhere in Europe and Asia.

Czech Social Democracy and its “cohabitation” with the Communist Party: The story of a neglected affair

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lubomír Kopeček ◽  
Pavel Pšeja
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

This article attempts to analyze developments within the Czech Left after 1989. Primarily, the authors focus on two questions: (1) How did the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) achieve its dominance of the Left? (2)What is the relationship between the Social Democrats and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM)? We conclude that the unsuccessful attempt to move the KSČM towards a moderate leftist identity opened up a space in which the Social Democrats could thrive, at the same time gradually assuming a pragmatic approach towards the Communists. Moreover, the ability of Miloš Zeman, the leader of the Social Democrats, to build a clear non-Communist Left alternative to the hegemony of the Right during the 1990s was also very important.

Alexandre Bennigsen in the Eyes of the Soviet Press

1986 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Michael Rywkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Delivery Vehicles ◽  
The Moment ◽  
General Relations ◽  
The Given

Soviet reactions to Western writings on the Soviet Union are as old as the Soviet regime itself. They are handled in an organized manner, with targets, delivery vehicles and gradation of response carefully coordinated and measured.Soviet response is, moreover, not solely connected to the perceived degree of offensiveness of the given Western work; in addition, such considerations as general relations between the USSR and the country from where the publication came, as well as political opportunities of the moment, are given even more importance than the committed “offense.”

Overcoming Barriers to Cooperation: Territorial and Issue Neutralization as Tools of Conflict Management

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Michael O. Slobodchikoff
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Conflict Management ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Design Feature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cooperative Relationships ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Post Soviet Space

This article investigates how states can begin to cooperate and form bilateral relationships given severe barriers to cooperation. Certain issues can prevent cooperation from occurring despite strategic interests in doing so by both states. However, if states agree to use the institutional design feature of territorial or issue neutralization, then conflict can be averted even if some of the major hindrances to cooperation remains unresolved. I examine in greater detail how both territorial and issue neutralization are used as institutional designs feature in building a cooperative bilateral relationship. Through two major case studies, the self-imposed territorial neutralization of Finland in its relations with the Soviet Union as well as issue neutralization in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union, I am able to show that territorial and issue neutralization may be effective tools for resolving conflict in the post-Soviet space and could create cooperative relationships instead of conflictual ones.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document