Was Tito's Yugoslavia totalitarian?

State authorities in Croatia and Slovenia have recently indiscriminately designated Tito's Yugoslavia as totalitarian without reservations. Neither of these authorities referred to any systematic considerations of totalitarianism, nor did they analyze the manner of the alleged system's presence and its time limits. The current paper indicates that, from the middle of the 60s, millions of copies of religious newspapers were published and economic enterprises operated beyond the state command economy. In addition, the republics were largely autonomous players and catered for their own interests. Although Tito's cult was promoted, his power was limited by the federal nature of the state. Neither any other elements of totalitarianism could be found.     

One Woman’s View of the Early Chinese Communist Movement: The Autobiography of Mme. Zhang Guotao

Abstract

Wei Baqun, leader of the influential Donglan Peasant Movement in southern China in the 1920s and 1930s, was attacked by his Nationalist enemies as a real and dangerous Communist long before he joined the Chinese Communist Party. Meanwhile, some of his Communist comrades were reluctant to admit him into the Party or to recognize him as a genuine Communist even after he joined the Communist Party. But after his death, they all began to promote him as a perfect Communist. Through an analysis of Wei Baqun’s life and revolution, this article shows how controversial and conflicting perceptions of the political identity of a political leader could exert strong influence on the political career of the leader and on local and national politics in revolutionary China. The article also attempts to explain why the confusion and controversy over Wei Baqun’s identity dissipated after his death.     

Pan-Africanism and communism: the Comintern,the ‘Negro Question’ and the First International Conference of Negro Workers,Hamburg 1930

Abstract

This article charts the history of a now largely forgotten Pan-African gathering, the historic First International Conference of Negro Workers, organised by the Communist International (CI) and held in Hamburg in 1930. The CI had taken an interest in organising Africans and those of African descent in the colonies, and in Europe and the US, from its foundation, but the key factor in developing political work concerned with the ‘Negro Question’ was the founding of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in 1928 and the activities of black communists. The difficulties experienced in organising the conference in Hamburg suggest that these activists were key to holding this historic event. The Hamburg Conference linked the communist movement with important black trade union and anti-colonial activists in Africa, the Caribbean, the US and Europe and subsequently had a significant influence on the future development of the Pan-African movement.     

Romania and the Third World during the heyday of the détente

Abstract

All Warsaw Pact countries developed intense relations with Third World countries during the 1970s, following in Moscow’s footsteps, allegedly supporting the struggle against Western imperialism while making profitable arms deals. One Warsaw Pact country, though, saw things differently: it was both American and Soviet imperialism that had to be fought off. This paper reassesses the origins and nature of Romania’s Third World policy in the context of the Soviet–American détente of 1972. Détente was perceived in Bucharest as a risk to the country’s independent foreign policy and a consolidation of the existing bipolarity which is why Romania tried to mobilise small and medium states of the Third World in a fight against hegemony and underdevelopment. Although they adhered to the developmental debates and tried to join the Group of 77, the Romanians viewed underdevelopment not necessarily in structural terms but rather as a product of political obstructions exerted by the superpowers. Refusing the take the Soviet side in the Third World, Romania tried to convince Third World leaders that unity and cooperation among the ‘unprivileged’ were a shield against foreign interference and a guarantee of development.     

Creating a Business School in Romania: Made in the USA,Delivered in Romania

Abstract

This article describes the establishment and maintenance of a successful Executive MBA program in Central Europe funded initially by USAID. The dynamics of a society in transition to a free market economy create special problems of management that require the capabilities of skilled managers. We argue that Executive MBA programs are efficient and effective vehicles for developing managers with the requisite skills. As new conditions occur in rapidly evolving legal and institutional environments, however, the curriculum and organizational structure has to be continuously adapted to these new challenges.     

“Nationalism as a national danger?” Early Romanian socialists and the paradoxes of the national question (1880–1914)

This article traces the gradual accommodation of early socialists in Romania with the predicament of nationalism in the period between 1880 and 1914. The attitudes of Romanian socialists evolved from initial ambivalence toward nationalism to staunch commitment to internationalism in the 1890s, and an inadvertent but unmistakable growing engagement with nationalism after the turn of the century. Locating socialism in the broader political and cultural debates of the time, this article argues that belonging to the Romanian public arena forced socialists to become increasingly more sensitive to the challenges of nationalism. Especially after 1900, the rise of very influential competing nationalist ideologies, as well as the necessity to address the Jewish question and the problem of ethnic Romanians living abroad, turned Romanian socialists into opponents but also implicit partners of dialogue in debates on nationalism. In the long run, however, socialists failed to find a persuasive alternative to nationalism and eventually resorted to the same language, concepts, and imagery they were so vocally dismissing. Engaging the popular nationalist trends of the time required socialists to reevaluate their own theoretical tenets and to put forward different, but essentially no less nationalistic, projects for the future.     

Have Lower Real Wages Helped Industrial Restructuring in Romania?

A reduction in real wages arising from price liberalisation has been a standard feature of economies undergoing industrial restructuring. In this article, the impact of real wages on industrial performance is examined using a panel dataset of Romanian industries from 1990-96. Using both static and dynamic panel estimation, real wages are found not to be negatively associated with either output or employment. These results are consistent with a view that an institutionalist approach, aimed at improving productivity, may be more likely to achieve the long-term objective of successful industrial restructuring than standard adjustment programmes based on neo-classical theory.     

‘I wanted a Communist philosophy,but I wanted us to have a chance to organize our people’: the diasporic radicalism of Queen Mother Audley Moore and the origins of black power

Abstract

This article charts the extraordinary life and legacy of ‘Queen Mother’ Audley Moore (1898–1997). She was one of the most revered figures in twentieth-century black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Communism. A life-long Garveyite and a leading personality in the World War II-era Harlem Communist Party, she understood black women across the diaspora as the vanguard in struggles for self-determination. She broke from the Communist Party in 1950, reinventing herself into an ardent black nationalist. Creatively formulating an idiosyncratic politics combining Garveyism, Marxism, Third Worldism, and feminism, she was central in forging 1960s-era Black Power and the modern reparations movement. Recovering her life reveals the underappreciated importance of black women in building radical, diasporic movements, the legacy of Garveyism and Communism in framing Black Power, and the contours in twentieth-century black radicalism, black internationalism, and black women's activism.     

Rock 'n' roll nation: counterculture and dissent in Romania, 1965–1975

A vibrant countercultural and dissident movement developed in Romania between 1965 and 1975. Young Romanians combined elements of the global youth movement with local cultural and political practices. Thus, Romanian counterculture and dissent shared the era's hippie aesthetic and anti-authoritarianism, but was highly isolationist, vehemently antisocialist and heavily couched in the language of the nation and nationalism. Furthermore, during this early Ceau?escu period, the socialist regime attracted some level of nonconformist support through a program of reform, opposition to Soviet interference, and nationalist rhetoric. These conclusions demonstrate that the rubric of 1960s counterculture needs to be extended to include a variety of ideological and cultural positions beyond the New Left that scholars generally emphasize. Furthermore, scholarly avoidance of Ceau?escu's early period has obscured the existence of an alternative culture, and has led to an un-nuanced interpretation of Romania's postwar history.     

Social(ist) engineering. Taming the devils of the Polish Bieszczady

This article explores the background of social engineering in the Bieszczady in the 1950s and 1960s, when a revolutionary political leadership ventured to impose a new socialist order in an area ravaged by war and ethnic cleansing. The article addresses two questions: first, what were the conditions that resulted in the failure of socialist engineering in the Bieszczady, and second, what were the consequences of this failure for relationships at the local level? One thesis put forward is that the relative weakness of the Polish state vis-à-vis the local setting left plenty of room for local residents to develop a dynamic social order of their own.     

Cultural associations,clothing and food as markers of cultural identity in testimonies of Cameroonian forced migrants in Johannesburg

Abstract

The article examines the construction of cultural identity and the expression of cultural exclusivity in the testimonies of Cameroonian forced migrants in the metropolitan city of Johannesburg. It also explores the way the social conditions of Cameroonians have forged a process of culture integration as a survival mechanism, subverting their impassioned attachment to cultural roots and claims of cultural exclusivity. Here, the article addresses three mediums for the formation of cultural identity, namely cultural associations, clothing and traditional cuisine and one main signifier of integration – intermarriage. It draws on the premise that because of the discrepant political ideologies of Cameroonians in Johannesburg, the construction of identity within this community of migrants has tended to fracture along cultural lines. It also draws on the theoretical underpinning that the upsurge in global migration has increased the chances of culture hybridization.