Alliance Management in Eastern Europe: (The New Type of International Relations)

1975 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nish Jamgotch
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Territorial Defense ◽  
East European ◽  
Alliance Management ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Functional Aspects ◽  
New Type ◽  
Transitional Phase

The theory of international relations of a new type characterizes Soviet-East European relations. Six functional aspects include pragmatic adjustments to polycentric communism; theoretical provisions for a transitional phase prior to the realization of communism on an international level; emphasis upon the East European subsystem as an indispensable core of Soviet national security; organizational efforts toward economic and political integration through COMECON and WTO; Communist summit conferences to forge and publicize unity; and the internationalist duty of socialism with special military obligations toward the territorial defense and security of Marxist-Leninist regimes. Faced with the unacceptable costs and military risks in forcibly expanding the international socialist system, the Soviets have concentrated on the maintenance of their East European subsystem: for as long as the Soviet Union maintains its exclusivist Marxist-Leninist doctrine, Eastern Europe will constitute the only dependable source of regime security and ideological fulfillment for the CPSU.

The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 3)

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political System ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
External Context ◽  
Final Segment ◽  
Extended Analysis ◽  
The Impact

This is the concluding part of a three-part article that discusses the transformation of Soviet-East European relations in the late 1980s and the impact of the sweeping changes in Eastern Europe on the Soviet Union. This final segment is divided into two main parts: First, it provides an extended analysis of the bitter public debate that erupted in the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991 about the “loss” of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The debate roiled the Soviet political system and fueled the hardline backlash against Mikhail Gorbachev. Second, this part of the article offers a concluding section that highlights the theoretical implications of the article as a whole. The article, as the conclusion shows, sheds light on recent literature concerning the diffusion of political innovations and the external context of democratization and political change.

scholarly journals Sociology in Eastern Europe: Trends and Prospects

Slavic Review ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogdan Denitch
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
East European ◽  
Social Science Community ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Major Stage ◽  
Science Community ◽  
The One ◽  
Seventh World

The Seventh World Congress of Sociologists in Varna, Bulgaria, held in September 1970, marked a major stage in the development of social science, particularly sociology, in the one-party states of Eastern Europe. Taking place in the most orthodox country of an increasingly diverse bloc, the congress was characterized by the largest and best-organized participation to date of sociologists from Eastern Europe. One country in the area—Albania—did not participate at all; and Yugoslavia, which is probably the country with the most developed social science community and institutions, had a notably small delegation. Yet the fact is that for prestige reasons, if no other, the East European countries and the Soviet Union did their best to show the state of their current development of sociology. This was shown in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Most delegates presented papers.

The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 1)

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

The largely peaceful collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 reflected the profound changes that Mikhail Gorbachev had carried out in Soviet foreign policy. Successful though the process was in Eastern Europe, it had destabilizing repercussions within the Soviet Union. The effects were both direct and indirect. The first part of this two-part article looks at Gorbachev's policy toward Eastern Europe, the collapse of Communism in the region, and the direct “spillover” from Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union. The second part of the article, to be published in the next issue of the journal, discusses the indirect spillover into the Soviet Union and the fierce debate that emerged within the Soviet political elite about the “loss” of the Eastern bloc—a debate that helped spur the leaders of the attempted hardline coup d'état in August 1991.

Dissent and Consent under State Socialism

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
David Lane
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
State Socialist

Professor Bauman's article is certainly a welcome contribution to the analysis of state socialist societies. He succeeds in breaking away from the myopic Kremlinological study of individuals and he also conducts his argument on a comparative sociological plane transcending the Sovietologist's ideographic viewpoint. However, he may be criticised at many points: it is very doubtful whether the state under capitalism is as ‘autonomous’ an institution as Bauman suggests; distinctions should be made between the socialist states of Eastern Europe, for what may be true of Poland and Rumania may not be true of the Soviet Union; international relations, particularly those between the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe and between East and West, have important effects on the political culture and significantly restrict the possibilities for social change; the diachronic development of the societies under consideration needs to be given more prominence, for what may have been the case in Soviet Russia in 1920 or in Poland in 1948 may not be so for either society in 1971. Here, I shall have to leave on one side such general criticisms to concentrate on a number of specific points in Bauman's argument relating to stratification in Eastern Europe which seem to me to be debatable.

Willy Brandt's Eastern Policy

Worldview ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Donald Brandon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union

Five years ago West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder launched a tentative “Opening to the East” which marked a break with Konrad Adenauer's relatively rigid approach to, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The “Grand Conbtion” of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats continued the experiment from 1966-1969. The Hallstein Doctrine—no diplomatic relations with any country which had such relations with East Germany (the Soviet Union being the sole exception)—was abandoned. West Germany established diplomatic relations with the maverick Rumanian regime, and re-established relations with Tito's Yugoslavia. Several trade and cultural exchange agreements were entered into with East European Communist nations.

Curtain of Lies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The West ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cold War

Curtain of Lies examines the role of truth in the political culture of the Cold War by looking at Eastern Europe during the period from 1948–1956. It examines how actors on both sides of the Iron Curtain tried to delineate the “truth” of Eastern Europe and how this worked to set the parameters of knowledge about the region. Eastern Europe’s Communist governments, under the guidance of the Soviet Union, tried to convince their citizens that the West was the land of imperialist warmongers and that Communism would bring a glorious future to the region. Their propaganda efforts were challenged by competing discourses emanating from the West, which claimed that Eastern Europe was a totalitarian land of captive slaves, powerless in the face of Soviet aggression. Curtain of Lies investigates the ways that ordinary East Europeans were affected by and contributed to these two ways of thinking about their homelands, concentrating on the interactions between refugees who illegally fled Eastern Europe in the early 1950s and American-sponsored radio stations that broadcast across the Iron Curtain. These broadcasters interviewed refugees as sources of knowledge about life under Communist rule. Careful analysis of these interviews shows, however, that the meanings East European émigrés gave to their own experiences could be influenced by what they had heard on Western broadcasts. Broadcasters and their listeners (who also served as their sources) mutually reinforced their own assumptions about the meaning of Communism, helping to create the evidentiary foundation for totalitarian interpretations of Communist rule in Eastern Europe.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document