“We All Make Mistakes”: the Communist Party of Australia and Khrushchev's Secret Speech, 1956

This article examines the impact of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Specifically it focuses on the reverberations of Khrushchev's “secret speech” within the CPA leadership for the first six months of 1956. It argues that, in contrast to the received wisdom, the response of the leadership was characterised by confusion rather than consistency, division rather than unanimity. This had implications for CPA members as they struggled to come to terms with the line of the leadership and the authenticity or otherwise of the New York Times version of Khrushchev's speech. The words of [Khrushchev's] speech were like bullets, and each found its place in the hearts of the veteran Communists. Tears streamed down the faces of men and women who had spent forty or more years, their whole adult lives, in the movement […]. 1     

从勃列日涅夫的"干部锻炼" 到戈尔巴乔夫的"迭次更换"——苏联1985-1989年间罗名制的动荡不稳

苏共中央总书记戈尔巴乔夫于 1985-1990 年间,进行了苏共领导层干部的选拔和任命方面的改革.通过研究苏联以及地区(以俄联邦 7 个主体为例)领导层,旨在回答一系列具有现实意义的政治学问题.戈尔巴乔夫用哪些方法形成了党内的职位等级制度?其"精英工程"的意义何在?其干部政策的动员和革新意向之间有何种相互关系?戈尔巴乔夫的干部政策实为"干部的迭次更换"和党内选举的一种结合.这两种实施干部政策的制度使得苏共急速瓦解,是苏联行政管理去党化的第一次浪潮.     

Migrants,Identity and Radical Politics: Meaning and Ramifications of the Visits of Italian Communist Party Officials to Australia

This paper examines ten years (1963–1973) of visits to Australia of Italian Communist Party (PCI) officials. In particular, the visits' origins, meaning and ramifications are analysed and framed against the background of post‐war migrant worker identity discourses and radical politics. They appear to have shaped markedly the direction of the experience of Italian communists in Australia, especially in Sydney, and their interaction with both the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the PCI. Ultimately, they helped spread the message of Italian communism among migrants and encourage the replication on Australian soil of the successful experience of the Europe‐based PCI federations with thousands of worker members. For the CPA, which had been looking for new ways to break through to the hearts and minds of the migrant proletariat, the visits heralded a stronger partnership with its Italian members, a closer link with Eurocommunism, and a potential new stream of recruits that would have reversed the hemorrhaging of membership. The visits were instrumental, as argued in this paper, for the establishment and promotion of an Italian cultural and language space for which far‐left Italian migrants in Australia had long yearned.     

The Transformation of Australian Electoral Analysis: The Two‐Party Preferred Vote — Origins,Impacts, and Critics

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a “two‐party preferred” vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral “swing” and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins — the maternity as well as the paternity – of the “two‐party preferred”. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide‐ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept — technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed “uniform swing”— implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter.     

"A Very Present Menace"? Attlee, Communism and the Cold War!

With the end of the Cold War and the further opening of archives, the role of Western communist parties and their relationship with the former Soviet Union has been the subject of fresh scrutiny. This article examines the conviction of the British Labour Government and its security services that the Communist Party of Great Britain represented, at least in the early Cold War period, a "very present menace". The article discusses the policies of the Soviet Union in Europe and the Communist Party in Britain and explores how these shaped the perspectives of the Attlee Government, especially during the London dock strike of 1949. When placed against this background, Attlee's anti-communism can no longer be accepted, as most commentators do, as simply a product of Cold War paranoia.     

What Does China Want? Discerning the PRC's National Strategy

Abstract

Debates about China's national strategy have surprisingly overlooked an important source: the national strategy as formulated by China's leaders themselves. This article explains how the ruling Communist Party of China formulates its equivalent of a national strategy – defined as the nation's desired end state and guidance on supporting objectives, ways, and means. It explores the current national strategy as published in widely available official documents such as the Communist Party Constitution and Party Congress Work Report, the most recent version of which dates from the 17th Party Congress in 2007. The article considers some implications for observers and policymakers.     

Soviet Repatriation Efforts among “Displaced Persons” Resettled in Australia, 1950–53

In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union made great efforts to persuade its former citizens among the “displaced persons” (DPs) resettled in Australia after the war to repatriate. They sent two undercover military intelligence men to Canberra to identify DPs who might be interested in returning, offer them free passages, and organize the repatriation. The result was a paltry dozen repatriations, out of the estimated 50,000 eligible DPs resettled in Australia. This strange story — hitherto completely unknown and reconstructed on the basis of recently opened Soviet classified material in the State Archive of the Russian Federation and ASIO files in the National Archives of Australia — adds a new angle to our understanding of Soviet‐Australian (and, in general, Soviet‐Western) relations at the height of the Cold War.     

The “ANRC has Withdrawn its Offer”: Paul Kirchhoff,Academic Freedom and the Australian Academic Establishment*

The main focus of examinations of intellectual suppression and censorship of scholars and academics in Australia has been on the post‐1945 period, particularly the Cold War. The interwar years have, in comparison, received little attention, resulting in a lack of historical understanding of the development of censorious structures and traditions in Australia. In this paper I discuss the exclusion of Paul Kirchhoff, a German anthropologist, a member of the German Communist Party and a Jew, from undertaking anthropological research in Australia, including its external territories, between 1931 and 1932. Kirchhoff applied for a research grant from the Australian National Research Council (ANRC) which, although awarded, was withdrawn once the Executive Committee was informed by the Australian government that the British MI5 considered him a security risk. His membership of the Communist Party was the reason put forward. This case also underlines the transnational aspect of security services and the international reach of academic anthropology. Kirchhoff was a victim of the ANRC's sympathetic collaboration with the Commonwealth Attorney‐General's office to stifle academic and civil freedom.     

History and hero-making: patriotic narratives and the Sovietization of Kazakh front-line propaganda, 1941–1945

This article analyses Soviet agitprop that was produced for Kazakhstani soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. The author argues that one of the main goals of this propaganda was to cultivate a complementary Soviet-Kazakh identity. Conditions at the front made this difficult to accomplish, but Soviet propagandists persisted in tailoring their propaganda for the benefit of Kazakh soldiers. As the war progressed, Kazakh front-line propaganda acquired a more unambiguously Soviet orientation, a consequence of the elimination of key themes derived from Kazakh national history and considered too politically volatile by the Communist Party. The article concludes by suggesting that the narratives articulated during World War II by Soviet propagandists went a long ways towards setting the contours of a prescribed Soviet-Kazakh identity.     

The Melbourne Jewish Left, Communism and the Cold War. Responses to Stalinist Anti-Semitism and the Rosenberg Spy Trial

This article explores the political marginalisation of the Melbourne Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism during the Cold War. Attention is drawn to contending views about the nature of the Council's links with communism. By comparing the Council's response to two coinciding international events during 1952 and 1953 - the anti-Jewish show trials in Stalinist Eastern Europe, and the Rosenberg spy trial in the USA - evidence is derived confirming the dominance of communist influence within the Jewish Council at that time. In order, I examine the Australian Jewish political context in which the Council operated and its relations with the wider Jewish community prior to the Cold War; explore rival arguments concerning the Council's links with communism and the Australian Communist Party; examine the major features of Stalinist anti-Semitism and the Council's response to them; recount the Council's reaction to the Rosenberg Spy Trial and Doctors Plot; and conclude that the Council lost influence because it fell under the control of a pro-Soviet group unwilling to recognise and attack anti-Semitism on the political left.     

From “Endemically Pro‐Israel” to Unsympathetic: Australia's Middle East Policy, 1967–1972

The hardening of Australian Middle East policy toward Israel in the early 1970s is often attributed to the election of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. Whitlam's December 1972 victory may well have opened a new, problematic chapter. But the evidence suggests that a deterioration in Australia‐Israel relations occurred gradually in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. This deterioration reflected changes in Australia's political leadership and change at the top of the Department of External Affairs (renamed Foreign Affairs in 1970). Individual decision‐makers such as Whitlam did play a significant role in determining Australian Middle East policy. As Prime Minister, Sir John Gorton was willing to put aside advice from External Affairs not to antagonise and risk disrupting trade relations with Arab states, and to offer heartfelt support for Israel. His successor Sir William McMahon vacillated under opposing influences of a department determined to secure Australia's trade interests on the one hand, and Australian Jewish leaders and Israel's envoys in Australia on the other. With the support of the Australian Jewish community, Israel sought to influence Australian political leaders — especially within the ALP — from turning away from Israel.     

Finding His Kronstadt: Howard Fast, 1956 and American Communism

The scholarship on the impact on communists of Khrushchev's “secret speech” to the twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 is limited. Generally it is located within broader studies of organisational upheavals and ideological debates at the leadership level of communist parties. Rarely has there been analysis of the reverberations at the individual level. Consistent with James R. Barrett's pioneering approach, this paper seeks to incorporate the personal into the political, and inject a subjective dimension into the familiar top‐down narrative of American communism. It will do this by focusing on the motivations, reactions and consequences of the defection of one Party member, the writer Howard Fast. It will thereby illuminate the story of personal anguish experienced by thousands in the wake of Khrushchev's revelations about Stalin.     

Authoritarian Regimes and Their Permitted Oppositions: Election Day Outcomes in Cuba

Electoral opposition to long‐established authoritarian regimes may be loyal or rejectionist. Loyal oppositionists vote to send a selective signal to rulers; rejectionist oppositionists vote blank or void the ballot in full disapproval. In Cuba, the number of candidates equals the number of seats, yet voters may vote blank, void, or selectively (choosing some but not all candidates on the ballot), although the Communist Party has campaigned for all candidates. This article uses a unique dataset for Cuba's 2013 National Assembly elections to study aggregate opposition outcomes. It shows the emergence of a loyal opposition, which sometimes votes for and sometimes against Communist Party candidates. The rejectionist opposition, stable over time, never votes for Communist Party candidates; it is found where the Communist Party behaves monopolistically. This combined opposition has better national‐level political information; it comes from more educated or larger urban areas or areas closer to Havana.     

Violence and Xenophobia as Means of Social Control in Times of Collapse: The Soviet Occupation of Post‐War Germany, 1945–1947*

This article explores an overlooked aspect of the Soviet occupation of post‐war Germany, namely, the influence of wartime violence on German behavioural patterns during the post‐war period. Whilst many historians have noted that violent Soviet conduct in Germany merely encouraged the intensification of existing anti‐Soviet attitudes therein, few have attempted to thoroughly investigate its influence on German behaviour. The conclusions made by those few historians who have done so are unsupported by the Soviet archival evidence drawn upon in the article. Using this evidence, the article highlights the tentative links between the violent repression of an occupation force and the muted responses of its subjects. It concludes that the nature of the repression and of the broader occupation landscape in which it developed, was integral in ensuring that the characteristically docile behaviour of the German population toward the Soviet occupier continued unabated throughout much of the occupation period.     

戈尔巴乔夫现象的历史诠释——再析苏联解体的深层次原因

苏联解体之后,学界围绕苏联解体、戈尔巴乔夫功过的争论一直存在.一般认为,戈尔巴乔夫的新思维以及公开性、民主化、构建人道的民主的社会主义等理论观点的提出,扰乱了苏联原有的主流意识形态,瓦解了共产党队伍,在此理论指导下提出的急于求成的改革,造成了苏联的最终解体.但事实远没有这样简单,戈尔巴乔夫现象的出现有着深刻的历史渊源和肥沃的生长土壤.本文试图从历史角度来诠释这一现象,揭示苏联解体的深层次原因.     

新时代中国共产党跳出历史周期率的成功之路——学习习近平总书记关于全面从严治党的重要论述

历史周期率是黄炎培基于家、国、团体兴衰现象向毛泽东提出的历史问题。就中国共产党来说,历史周期率与两个阶级、两条道路、两种社会制度的斗争联系在一起。中国共产党长期执政的地位和使命与跳出历史周期率合二为一。以毛泽东为核心的中国共产党对跳出历史周期率开辟出航道。跳出历史周期率、实现长期执政,是新时代中国共产党接续探索的课题。从根本上说,跳出历史周期率问题伴随统筹推进“四个伟大”的历史进程。全面从严治党是新时代党跳出历史周期率的战略举措和成功实践。以自我革命精神推进党的建设伟大工程,永葆党的先进性和纯洁性,把党锻炼成坚强的马克思主义政党,是破解历史周期率的治本之策。     

Are Russian Judges Still Soviet?

The Soviet model of judging incorporated an educational and political role for judges. In addition to resolving disputes, judges were expected to use cases as a way of inculcating Soviet values. They could sidestep the law when it conflicted with the interests of the state and/or the Communist Party. In recent years, reforms aimed at raising the status of judges and stripping away their Soviet veneer have been introduced. In theory, the introduction of the principle of adversarialism should shift responsibility away from judge and onto litigants. The article explores how these reforms have played out. It draws on field work in arbitrazh courts, including observations of judicial proceedings, conversations with judges and litigants, and review of case files.     

英国殖民政策与马来亚人民抗日军

本文主要从英国殖民政策的角度,分析马来亚人民抗日军建立及解散的原因。重点探讨:太平洋战争前英国殖民政策与马共的活动;1941年太平洋战争爆发后英国殖民政策与马抗的建立与解散;英军政策与马抗解散的关系。笔者认为,英国对日宣战,为马共获得合法地位和组建马抗提供了条件,英国战时的马来亚政策和马共的被动应对,是战后初期马抗听命解散的重要原因之一。     

1929年10月红四军挺进东江行动新探

19 29年9月中共中央指示红四军挺进东江,在指导思想上是符合发展革命力量、创建和扩大红色区域要求的,是原则上的,不是具体的。红四军在挺进东江的具体过程中军事上失利,不能说是中共中央的指示不切合实际。虽然红四军挺进东江在军事上失利,但不能因此否定其作用。以历史发展的角度和更加宽广的视野来看,红四军挺进东江行动的作用表现在:推动了东江革命斗争的发展;扩大了党和红军的影响,促进了东江各级苏维埃政权的建立;帮助壮大了东江红军;密切了东江苏区与闽西、赣南苏区的关系,为此后中央苏区的发展与巩固起了重要作用;使红四军对本身存在的问题有了更深的认识,有利于此后古田会议的召开。红四军挺进东江行动,是得大于失的。     

The Aftermath of the 19th Conference of the CPSU: A Soviet Economy Roundtable

The aftermath of the 19th Conference of the Communist Party, held in Moscow from June 28 to July 1, 1988, is analyzed by eight Western observers. The discussion covers impacts of the Conference on Soviet society and abroad, General Secretary Gorbachev's speech at the Central Committee Plenum on July 29, 1988, and reviews results of his policies since 1985. It proceeds to look at the current transitional period of Soviet reforms, including the formation of new enterprise forms and horizontal links in the economy. Finally, the discussants view prospects for political and economic development in the future. journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 113.