Culture, Britain, and Europe

1992 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 390-414
Author(s):  
Geoff Eley
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Single European Market ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
Object Of Study

We are in the midst of a remarkable moment of historical change, in which the very meaning of “Europe” — as economic region, political entity, cultural construct, object of study—is being called dramatically into question, and with it the meanings of the national cultures that provide its parts. While perceptions have been overwhelmed by the political transformations in the east since the autumn of 1989, profound changes have also been afoot in the west, with the legislation aimed at producing a single European market in 1992. Moreover, these dramatic events — the democratic revolutions against Stalinism in Eastern Europe, the expansion and strengthening of the European Community (EC) — have presupposed a larger context of accumulating change. The breakthrough to reform under Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, the Solidarity crisis in Poland, and the stealthful reorientations in Hungary have been matched by longer-run processes of change in Western Europe, resulting from the crisis of social democracy in its postwar Keynesian welfare-statist forms, capitalist restructuring, and the general trend toward transnational Western European economic integration.Taken as a whole, these developments in east and west make the years 1989-92 one of those few times when fundamental political and constitutional changes, in complex articulation with social and economic transformations, are occurring on a genuinely European-wide scale, making this one of the several great constitution-making periods of modern European history.

The Russian Revolution and Music

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAULINE FAIRCLOUGH
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Economic Failure ◽  
The Military

Nearly thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have got used to seeing the Bolshevik Revolution as the prelude to a failed political experiment, albeit one that lasted a remarkably long time. But why do we see it as a failure? After all, the Soviet Union was a vast empire regarded as the military equal of the United States, feared and hated by successive US presidents, whose influence extended far beyond Soviet borders to include regimes in Africa, South East Asia, Central and South America. Had Mikhail Gorbachev not been removed in 1991, and had the Soviet system been able to reform itself into something like the form of communism we see today in China, no one would regard those seventy-plus years of Soviet power as a failure at all. What is meant by failure, in truth, is not really military or economic failure so much as a failure to sustain and uphold the ideals of equality and social justice that originally drew so many to the communist cause. The haemorrhaging of members from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1956, for instance, was a result of widespread feelings of shock and disgust after Nikita Khrushchev's revelations at the Twenty-First Party Conference that year, at which he delivered his so-called ‘secret speech’ condemning Stalin's regime. For those who left the CPGB, and other communist parties across Western Europe, it was painful to realize that what they had for decades dismissed as ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’ had in fact been accurate reportage. Most shocking of all was learning that the mass arrests and disappearances of the 1930s, and even the show trials of prominent Politburo and party members, were not proportionate, if regrettable, responses to plots to murder Stalin and overthrow Soviet power at all, but rather Stalinist crimes of epic and tragic proportions. Right up to the end of the Communist regime in Russia, reports of political and religious repression, the continued use of the Gulag system, confinement and forced treatment of dissidents in mental hospitals, literary and other cultural censorship continued to filter through the Iron Curtain.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

Gorbachev, ideology, and the fate of Soviet communism

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-474
Author(s):  
R. Judson Mitchell ◽  
Randall S. Arrington
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Democratic Centralism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Basic Source ◽  
The Russian Federation

The collapse of the Soviet Union has spurred much scholarly debate about the reasons for the rapid disintegration of this apparently entrenched system. In this article, it is argued that the basic source of ultimate weakness was the obverse of the system’s strengths, especially its form of organization and its relation to Marxist–Leninist ideology. Democratic centralism provided cohesion for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) but also gave inordinate control over ideology to the party leader. Mikhail Gorbachev carried out an ideological revision that undercut the legitimacy of party elites and his restructuring of the system left the party with no clear functional role in the society. The successor party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), has made a surprising comeback for communism, utilizing the Leninist model of party organization, which has proved to be highly effective in the Russian political culture. Furthermore, the CPRF, under party leaders like Gennadi Zyuganov, has avoided Gorbachev’s ideological deviations while attempting to broaden the party’s base through the cultivation of Russian nationalism.

„Socialist postmodernism”: residential architecture in Kyiv Podil district (Ukraine)

BUILDER ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 293 (12) ◽  
pp. 46-51
Author(s):  
Svitlana Linda
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Residential Architecture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Residential Quarters

Despite the short chronological span of the socialist era architecture heritage, it remains little investigated and underappreciated. Given the political and cultural isolation of the Soviet Union republics and strict architectural design regulations, there was a widespread belief that architects should not use innovative trends. This article exemplifies residential quarters in the historic Podil district, designed and built in the 1970s-1980s in Kyiv. They vividly demonstrate the postmodern ideas embodied in Ukrainian architecture. Methodologically, the article bases on the Ch. Jencks definition of postmodernism and in the comparison of his ideology with the implemented Kyiv project. It states that Kyiv architects proposed not typical Soviet construction projects but international postmodern architectural solutions. It proves that, on the one hand, Ukrainian architects had perfect qualifications to draw construction projects implementing advanced world trends of the time. But on the other hand, it highlights that postmodernism in architecture did not merely confine to Western Europe and the United States but also penetrated the Iron Curtain, exemplifying innovative architectural thinking which ran contrary to the modernist paradigm.

An Unknown Leningrad Museum

Tempo ◽  
1962 ◽  
pp. 17-18
Author(s):  
Gerald Seaman
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World

In a far corner of St. Isaac's Square in Leningrad, overshadowed by the gold-domed cupola of the city's most famous cathedral, stands the Institute of Cinema, Theatre and Music. Few foreign visitors to Leningrad realize that on the first floor of that building is contained one of the largest collection of folk instruments in the world, a collection which, though primarily devoted to the Soviet Union, nevertheless contains instruments from Western Europe, China, India and Japan.

scholarly journals Mikhail Gorbachev's First Visit to Britain: 30 Years on

2014 ◽  
pp. 95-101
Author(s):  
K. V. Shlykov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Strategic Stability ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Uk ◽  
New Political Thinking

The article explores the significance of Mikhail Gorbachev's first journey to the UK in December 1984 for the East-West relations. The visit was initiated by Margaret Thatcher who wanted to get acquainted with the potential Soviet leader as she hoped to become a trusted intermediary between Moscow and Washington. The revitalization of contacts with the USSR was a part of Britain's resurgence as a major world player after the Falklands victory. The discussions in London focused on the issue of strategic stability, though they could only serve to give the parties a better understanding of each other's position, as no political agreement could be reached due to the nature of the visit and the fact that any agreement on the subject had to be between the Soviet Union and the United States. The bilateral relations issues being discussed included mostly economic cooperation and such problems as human rights in the USSR and Soviet assistance to the British miners' strike. Gorbachev's speech on "new political thinking" and "a common European home", expressions first used during the visit to Uk, rang hollow to London, however Thatcher had the impression that she could deal with the Soviet politician in future. The British public opinion also saw Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife favourably. Later statements of Lady Thatcher and Gorbachev's critics on the meeting being defining for the foreign policy of the perestroika era should be seen as exaggerated, as the demise of the Communist system and the USSR were not foreseen by anyone in 1984, either in London or in Moscow.

The Helsinki Accord: A Growth Industry

1990 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 53-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Korey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Negotiation Strategies ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Growth Industry

Despite conservative opposition, in the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter turned the tide in favor of the Helsinki Accord by taking a strong stand in fostering U.S. participation in it. Korey focuses on the U.S. delegation to the Commission on Security and Cooperation (CSCE) in Europe and credits the success of the Helsinki Accord to U.S. adroit negotiation strategies, beginning with the Carter administration. By 1980, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev came to embrace the “humanitarianism” of the treaty. The Vienna review conference's (1986–89) effort peaked when a milestone was reached in the human rights process, linking it directly to security issues equally pertinent to the East and the West. The author contends that the United States' ardent participation in the monitoring of compliance was particularly effective in putting pressure on the Soviet Union to uphold the agreement within its territory, yielding enormous progress in human rights

Everyday Life in Wartime Europe

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Mick
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Standards Of Living ◽  
Foreign Occupation ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Working And Living Conditions ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses everyday life under foreign occupation during the Second World War. Living conditions were very different depending on class, race, location, and time. People living in Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the occupied territories of the Soviet Union were not only much more exposed to terror and mass crimes; their standards of living were also much lower than in western Europe. Some experiences, however, were shared. The chapter focuses on certain common daily experiences: procuring food and other daily necessities; the relationship between peasants and urban populations; the working and living conditions in cities and towns; the role of families and the importance of networks; and the impact of terror, destruction, and insecurity on society and individuals. Living under foreign occupation partly corrupted the moral standards governing human relations, but there was also solidarity which focused on a core group of people consisting of family and close friends.

The Role of Historical Memory in the Socio-Political Processes of Chechnya (1986—1994)

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10 (108)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Cécile Druey
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Autonomous Republic

During the years that preceded and followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Autonomous Republic of Chechnya in the south of Russia has experienced an intensive movement of civil society mobilisation, nationalist radicalisation and armed conflict. Referring to the case of the society “Kavkaz” as an example for the emerging movement of civil society, this paper traces the mobilising role of history and historical memory during the period of reform under Mikhail Gorbachev in the late-1980s, until the onset of the first Chechnya War in 1994. It argues, that the use of historical memory is not that much a cause, than it is an indicator of conflict and radicalisation in society, and that these processes of radicalisation are closely linked to their context at a local, national and international level. Drawing on data collected from interviews with representatives of the Chechen national movement, from local newspapers and legal acts, the paper tracks the evolution of civil society movements in Chechnya in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Doing so, it departs from a relational approach to conflict analysis (della Porta, 2018; Alimi, Bosi, and Demetriou, 2012; Tilly and Tarrow, 2015; Hughes and Sasse, 2016). Located at the intersection between conflict- and memory studies, the paper thus adds insights to the study of the pre-war period in post-Soviet Chechnya, and in general to the conceptual discussion about the link between historical memory, mobilisation, radicalisation and conflict.

Neil Kinnock’s perestroika: Labour and the Soviet influence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Davis
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Free Market ◽  
New Right ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Market Economic ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

The Labour Party’s socialism changed dramatically in the 1980s. Neil Kinnock’s restructuring of Labour occurred at the same time as the international socialist movement moved away from the statist model of economics and turned, in varying degrees, to more market-orientated ideas. This chapter assesses the ways in which Labour’s political thought adapted both to New Right realities and to the fact that much of world was adopting free market economic ideas. The particular focus here is the development of Kinnock’s ideas in light of the changes in Soviet socialism after Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his reform programme. The Soviet Union had long influenced Labour’s ideology in both positive and negative ways, and this chapter shows how it continued to do so in 1980s. It examines the relationship between Kinnock’s Labour and Gorbachev’s USSR, and it shows how the changes introduced by both leaders began to lead to a convergence of ideas between Eastern and Western European versions of socialism.

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