共产党员的信仰与先进性

共产党由共产党员组成,共产党的先进性由每一名共产党员具体体现。信仰共产主义从思想上保证了党员的先进性,一方面政党对成员的要求决定了共产党员必须信仰共产主义;另一方面,马克思主义的科学性决定了共产主义信仰是科学的信仰。     

Against fascism,for racial equality: communists,anti-racism and the road to the Second World War in Australia,South Africa and the United States

The Second World War (after June 1941) was a high point for the international communist movement with the Popular Front against fascism bringing many new people into Communist Parties in the global West. In the United States, South Africa and Australia, the Communist Party supported the war effort believing that the war against fascism would eventually become a war against imperialism and capitalism. Part of this support for the war effort was the support of black and indigenous soldiers in the armed forces. This activism fit into a wider tradition of these communist parties’ anti-racist campaigning that had existed since the 1920s. This article looks at how support for the national war effort and anti-racist activism intertwined for these CPs during the war and the problems over ‘loyalty’ and commitment to the anti-imperial struggle that this entanglement of aims produced.     

全球化与社会主义的选择

“全球化“是一个相当长期和异常复杂的历史过程,是人类生活高度社会化的集中体现,是人类文明和进步的重要标志,是人类社会发展到一定阶段的必然结果.“全球化“发展趋势同“社会主义“发展趋势是一致的;“全球化“是世界社会主义产生和发展的重要历史条件;“全球化“在本质上属于社会主义;全球性问题的根本解决依赖于社会主义;真正的“全球化“时代是世界社会主义时代.     

马克思"改变世界"理想的公共性旨趣

马克思的新世界观作为一种“改变世界”的理论,既内蕴了对现存世界超越的公共理想目标,同时也意味着对各种共产主义和社会主义的“公共性”品格所作的批判性超越。这种超越不仅是理论上的,也是实践中的;不仅表明着自身在功能指向上的变化,而且也表明着其在性质上的根本变化,而标志着马克思新世界观在性质上的变化的是,马克思把自己的哲学与共产主义,特别是与无产阶级的公共实践结合了起来,发动了一场由无产阶级担当的、以改变现实世界为历史使命、以谋求人类最终解放为公共价值追求的公共实践运动,并在这一过程中完成了对公共实践基础上的公共主体观的历史性创生。     

“冷战”时期之禁毒与美国外交取舍

"冷战"时期,以美国为代表的西方社会,以联合国为舞台,借助新闻媒介之手,曾经展开过一场禁毒遏共外交活动。这既是当时特殊的"冷战"背景下美国遏制与孤立新中国的产物,更是美国对外政策实施过程中以话语权优势制衡对手的惯有手法,而由此助长了东南亚"金三角"毒品源地的坐大,则显然是以意识形态为标尺的"冷战"背景下禁毒外交取舍不当之"苦果"。唯有摒弃意识形态领域的偏见,保持禁毒的初衷不变,国际禁毒事业方能得以长足发展。     

Remembering the Indonesian Peasants’ Front and Plantation Workers’ Union (1945–1966)

The absence of a strong national peasant and agricultural workers’ movement in Indonesia can be traced back to the violent destruction of the Indonesian Peasants’ Front (BTI) and Plantation Workers’ Union (SARBUPRI) in 1965–1966. This contribution reflects on their role in building a progressive movement of peasants and workers in the face of continual attempts to squash them by the Indonesian state and military. How did the cadres learn about the situation and problems in rural areas, and what were their priorities in working with the peasants? Unpublished reports from the last round of the BTI's local-level ‘participatory action research’ conducted in 1965 provide some answers to these questions.     

A Comparison of Transition Capacities of New EU Countries: Public Administration as a Key Influence in Democratic and Economic Change

In the network of political and public administrative actors the public administration plays a key role. Countries previously influenced by socialism or communism, that joined the European Union in the two most recent accession waves, and are now undergoing strong change, are investigated to determine whether—and to what extent—public administrations influence transition processes to more democracy and market economies. With a regression analysis it is demonstrated that a qualitatively better functioning public administration makes a positive impact on transition, its effectiveness, and sustainability. The regression analysis also offers arguments for the view that public administrations are important actors when it comes to the implementation of EU standards.     

Revisiting Representation: Communism,Women in Politics,and the Decline of Armed Conflict in East Asia

This research note evaluates one of the commonly used measurements for political gender equality: representation of women in parliaments. It demonstrates that caution is called for when interpreting results where this variable is used, because parliamentary representation implies different things in different settings. Societies with more women in parliament tend to have fewer intrastate armed conflicts. We investigate this statistical association with a particular focus on East Asia. This region has seen a shift from extremely intense warfare to low levels of battle deaths at roughly the same time as great strides have been made in the representation of women in parliaments. This research note shows, however, that this statistical association is driven by authoritarian communist regimes promoting gender equality as a part of communist ideology, and these countries’ representative chambers have little influence over politics. Using statistical tests and empirical illustrations from East Asia, the note concludes that the political representation of women is an invalid indicator of political gender equality in East Asia. There is thus a need for nuance in assessing the picture painted in earlier research. In addition, the suggestion that more women in parliament will lead to fewer armed conflicts runs the risk of being forwarded as an oversimplified solution to a complex problem, and we briefly discuss the instrumentalization of gender equality in peace and security studies.     

The Paradoxes of the Revolutions of 1989 in Central Europe

Abstract

The self-limiting revolutions of 1989 in Central Europe offer an alternative paradigm of revolutionary change that is reminiscent more of the American struggle for independence in 1776 than the Jacobin tendencies that grew out of the French Revolution of 1789. In order to understand the contradictory impulses of the revolutions of 1989—the desire for a radical renewal and the concern for preservation—this article takes as its point of departure the political thought of Hannah Arendt and Edmund Burke.     

Sexual Slander and the 1965/66 Mass Killings in Indonesia: Political and Methodological Considerations

Indonesia has been haunted by the “spectre of communism” since the putsch by military officers on 1 October 1965. That event saw the country's top brass murdered and the military attributing this putsch to the Communist Party. The genocide that followed was triggered by a campaign of sexual slander. This led to the real coup and the replacement of President Sukarno by General Suharto. Today, accusations about communism continue to play a major role in public life and state control remains shored up by control over women's bodies. This article introduces the putsch and the socialist women's organisation Gerwani, members of which were, at the time, accused of sexual debauchery. The focus is on the question of how Gerwani was portrayed in the aftermath of the putsch and how this affects the contemporary women's movement. It is found that women's political agency has been restricted, being associated with sexual debauchery and social turmoil. State women's organisations were set up and women's organisations forced to help build a “stable” society, based on women's subordination. The more independent women's groups were afraid to be labelled “new Gerwani ” as that would unleash strong state repression. This article assesses the implications of these events for the post-1998 period of Reformasi and reviews some recent analyses of 1965, state terrorism and violence and reveals blind spots in dealing with gender and sexual politics. It is argued that the slander against Gerwani is downplayed in these analyses. In fact, this slander was the spark without which the bloodbath would not have happened and would not have acquired its gruesome significance.