PCE, Santiago Carrillo: enero de 1977 o el giro sacrificial de la Transición

La Transición española a la democracia ha sido objeto de uno de los más sólidos relatos construidos por el periodismo y refrendado por la sociedad civil. En su corazón tiene lugar un momento de violencia que se concentra en la llamada semana negra de enero de 1977, cuyo clímax está representado por la matanza de Atocha. El presente artículo analiza las distintas etapas de cristalización de ese relato: un capítulo de La Transición (Elías Andrés, Victoria Prego, 1995), Siete días de enero (J.A. Bardem, 1978), un reportaje de Interviú (febrero de 1977) y las crónicas periodísticas de El País, Diario16 y Mundo Obrero. Especial atención se presta a la figura de Santiago Carrillo, identificado con la estrategia del PCE, cuya consideración cambió radicalmente durante esa semana.

Usos mediáticos del carisma de Dolores Ibárruri en los inicios de la Transición

El artículo ofrece un análisis de la función cumplida por Dolores Ibárruri, Pasionaria, durante la Transición a la democracia en España. Se centra en dos acontecimientos en los que la líder comunista tuvo un papel relevante: su retorno del exilio el 13 de mayo de 1977 y su presencia en la sesión inaugural de las primeras Cortes democráticas el 13 de julio de ese mismo año. A través del análisis del tratamiento de los medios de estos actos, se defenderá la idea del reciclaje del carisma, observando cómo un liderazgo carismático construido en un periodo histórico (la Guerra Civil) fue reutilizado en otro: la transición a la democracia. En este caso, con el fin de legitimar el proceso e instalar la idea de reconciliación en el relato de la Transición.

The European Union Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia: The Limitations of the Opening towards the East

This article intends to study the evolution of the European Union foreign policy in the Southern Caucasus and Central Area throughout the Post-Cold War era. The aim is to analyze Brussels’ fundamental interests and limitations in the area, the strategies it has implemented in the last few years, and the extent to which the EU has been able to undermine the regional hegemons’ traditional supremacy. As will be highlighted, the Community’s chronic weaknesses, the local determination to preserve sovereignty and an increasing international geopolitical competition undermine any European aspiration to become a pre-eminent actor at the heart of the Eurasian continent in the near future.

El PCE y el movimiento comunista internacional (1969-1977)

El artículo se centra en la actividad internacional del Partido Comunista de España (PCE) desde las secuelas de la represión de la Primavera de Praga hasta 1977. Fue un período caracterizado por el principio del declive definitivo del movimiento comunista internacional. El análisis abarca múltiples cuestiones. Examina las crecientes críticas del PCE hacia el modelo soviético, y sus repercusiones en las relaciones entre el partido liderado por Santiago Carrillo y el movimiento comunista. Además, el artículo explora el intento del PCE de promover un nuevo tipo de internacionalismo en Europa occidental, auspiciando una renovada colaboración entre comunistas y socialistas y aprovechando las condiciones brindadas por la distensión. En este contexto tuvo lugar el surgimiento del eurocomunismo, que el ensayo analiza ilustrando los factores internos y externos que determinaron su crisis en la segunda mitad de los setenta.

Post-Crisis Belarus: Marxism and the Lender of Last Resort

Existing literature has examined the predictions and proscriptions of Karl Marx in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. However, the suggestions put forth by the Marxist-leaning literature never took hold and state-level banking and finance policies have remained largely unchanged. While many criticisms of Marxism exist, this paper examines Belarus, a ‘neo-communist’ or ‘market-socialist’ state, to provide a new perspective on the continuation of capitalism in the United States and Europe. In the case of Belarus, the International Monetary Fund and the Eurasian Economic Community's Anti-Crisis Fund provided both the critical liquidity needed to temporarily quell the effects of the financial crisis. Their demands meant that Belarus agreed to speed its move away from the Soviet-era finance and banking policies and more towards its western capitalist neighbors. Its failure to implement these policies further hurt its recovery. Examining Belarus' path to and out of its financial crisis makes apparent that the role of the international lender of last resort (LOLR). The LOLR acts as a key element in protecting states embroiled in the financial crisis from facing the possibility of making the difficult policy changes put forth by the Marxist literature. By ignoring its promises under the loan conditions from its LOLRs, Belarus moved further from the recovery promised by the Marxist suggestions.

Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You or a "Wondrous Strange" Tale of Contemporary Romanian Theatre

Like its title, Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You, Alexandru Dabija’s production at the Odeon Theatre, Bucharest, was a tongue-in-cheek invitation to the audience that at once aimed to tease past and recent Romanian endeavours and to tease out the stage potential a Shakespeare play holds today. My examination of the production re-constructs the local cultural contexts the production plays with and against, referring to the Romanian ways of making Shakespeare this production enters into dialogue with. Take 1, an all-female version casting the mature stars of the Odeon, I read against both Elizabethan all-male stage practice and Andrei Serban’s all-female Lear at the Bulandra (2008). Take 2, “an old device” (V.1.50): a teacher-student “devising” session at the Academy of Theatre and Cinema, I read against critics’ “more strange than true” (V.1.2) parlance on “theories of perception and reception” and against hi-tech Shakespeare dominating the Romanian stages in the first decade of the third millennium. Take 3, local political banter on ethnic discrimination, I read as “satire keen and critical” (V.1.54) on both communist censorship and the recent rise of nationalism in Romania. Take 4, a “cold” reading-cum-improvisation performed by the technical crew – this production’s mechanicals – I read as “palpable-gross play” (V.1.376) on both acting and spectating practices. What I argue in this article is that Dabija’s production goes beyond its local context and mores, and proposes a re-assessment of Shakespeare’s cultural currency in (European) Romania and Europe at large by exposing current tyrannies in Shakespeare studies: from translation and adaptation, through directing and acting, to viewing and reviewing.

Hans Siebert - zur erziehungsgeschichtlichen Spur eines emigrierten politischen Pädagogen

Hans Siebert war als exponierter SED-Funktionär der wirkungsstärkste Vertreter stalinistischer Erziehungsauffassungen in der SBZ und frühen DDR. Die nachstehende biographische Recherche erhellt insbesondere die Entstehungsgeschichte seiner Auffassungen im englischen Exil. Dabei wird den bislang kaum beachteten Erziehungs- und Schulungsunternehmungen der KPD nachgegangen. Es wird deutlich, daß Siebert, der besonders eng an sowjetische Vorbilder gebunden war, nur bis in die fünfziger Jahre tatsächlich Einfluß auf die Bildungspolitik hatte und danach in eine Außenseiterposition geriet. (DIPF/Orig.)

Unas «cartas de Francia» de Josep Pla en Destino : Aproximación a la IV República francesa en los inicios de la Guerra de Argelia

This article means a first approach to the information given to its readers by the magazine Destino about the France of the IV French Republic, exactly during Pierre Mendès-France´s term in 1954, and having its origin in four articles published by the journalist and writer Josep Pla just when the Algeria conflict started. That information was determined by the obsessive anti-communist editorial policy of the aforementioned charismatic publication of the francoist Spain.

Napalm and After: The Politics of Grace Paley's Short Fiction

Comparatively few contemporary writers have accompanied American POWs home from Hanoi, been arrested on the White House Lawn, or been dragged off in shackles to serve time in the Greenwich Village Women's House of Detention. Paley's pacifist, socialist politics are also deeply rooted in a family past where memories were still fresh of Tsarist oppression - one uncle shot dead carrying the red flag, and parents who reached America only because the Tsar had a son and amnestied all political prisoners under the age of twenty-one. At this point, Paley's father (imprisoned in Archangel) and her mother (in exile) took their chances (and all their surviving relatives) and very sensibly ran for their lives. Her grandmother recalled family arguments around the table between Paley's father (Socialist), Uncle Grisha (Communist), Aunt Luba (Zionist), and Aunt Mira (also Communist). Paley's own street-wise adolescence involved the usual teenage gang fights, between adherents of the Third and Fourth Internationals. This article is copyright MHRA 2001, and is included in this repository with permission.

Polityka oświatowa i edukacyjna jako element polityki historycznej (1989-2014). Dynamika zmian treści dotyczącej Polski Ludowej

Wydział Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa

Solidarity, the network and the history of workers' self-management from the Gdańsk Agreement to shock therapy

This PhD thesis is an empirical research project in the field of modern Polish history. The thesis focuses on Solidarity, the Network and the idea of workers’ self-management. In addition, the thesis is based on an in-depth analysis of Solidarity archival material. The Solidarity trade union was born in August 1980 after talks between the communist government and strike leaders at the Gdansk Lenin Shipyards. In 1981 a group called the Network rose up, due to cooperation between Poland’s great industrial factory plants. The Network grew out of Solidarity; it was made up of Solidarity activists, and the group acted as an economic partner to the union. The Network was the base of a grass-roots, nationwide workers’ self-management movement. Solidarity and the self-management movement were crushed by the imposition of Martial Law in December 1981. Solidarity revived itself immediately, and the union created an underground society. The Network also revived in the underground, and it continued to promote self-management activity where this was possible. When Solidarity regained its legal status in April 1989, workers’ self-management no longer had the same importance in the union. Solidarity’s new politico-economic strategy focused on free markets, foreign investment and privatization. This research project ends in July 1990, when the new Solidarity-backed government enacted a privatization law. The government decided to transform the property ownership structure through a centralized privatization process, which was a blow for supporters of workers’ self-management. This PhD thesis provides new insight into the evolution of the Solidarity union from 1980-1990 by analyzing the fate of workers’ self-management. This project also examines the role of the Network throughout the 1980s. There is analysis of the important link between workers’ self-management and the core ideas of Solidarity. In addition, the link between political and economic reform is an important theme in this research project. The Network was aware that authentic workers’ self-management required reforms to the authoritarian political system. Workers’ self-management competed against other politico-economic ideas during the 1980s in Poland. The outcome of this competition between different reform concepts has shaped modern-day Polish politics, economics and society.

Los caminos de Carmen Lyra

La contribución intelectual y política de la pensadora Carmen Lyra, militante comunista, maestra y escritora costarricense, puede identificarse como una dádiva que aportó luz en la construcción de una sociedad costarricense más justa. Exilada política, murió en México, el país que la recibió, rogando volver para fallecer en su Patria, petición humanitaria que le fue negada por la jerarquía política de la Suiza Centroamericana. Hoy, su pensamiento y su praxis han sido despojados por el imaginario oficial del contenido político que movió su pluma y su vida. Palabras claves: Carmen Lyra, María Isabel Carvajal, comunismo costarricense, pensamiento político femenino costarricense Abstract The intellectual and political deeds of Costa Rican thinker Carmen Lyra, communist, writer and teacher, can be understood as an inheritance that shed light for the building of a more justice Costa Rican society. She was exiled to Mexico and died there begging Costa Rican authorities to allow her return to the Homeland for her final days. This humanitarian request was refused by the rulers of the so-called Central American Switzerland. Today, Carmen Lyra ́s thought and deeds are being swept away of its political content that moved her writing and her entire life by the official ideology. Key words: Carmen Lyra, María Isabel Carvajal, Costa Rican Communism, Costa Rican female political thought

Por dentro da ordem : os comunistas na Assembleia Constituinte de 1946

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em História, 2016.

Mapping the Liminal Experience of Eastern Europe in Selected American Works, 1965-2002

The purpose of this dissertation is to study literary representations of Eastern Europe in the works of celebrated and less-known American authors, who visited and narrated the region between the mid-1960s and early 2000s. The main critical body focuses on Eastern Europe before 1989 and encompasses three major voices of American literature: John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth. However, in the last chapter I also explore American literary perceptions of the area following the collapse of communism. Importantly, the term “Eastern Europe” as used in this dissertation is charged with significance. I approach it not only as a space on the map or the geopolitical construct which emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, but rather as a conceptual category and a repository of meanings built out of fact and fantasy: specific historical, political and cultural realities interlaced with subjective worldviews, preconceptions, and mental images. The critical framework of this dissertation is twofold. I reach for the concept of liminality to elucidate the indeterminacy and malleability which lies at the heart of the object of study—the idea, image, and experience of Eastern Europe. Bearing in mind the nature of the works under analysis, all of which were inspired by actual visits behind the Iron Curtain, I propose to interpret these transatlantic literary journeys in terms of generative experience, where Eastern Europe is mapped as a liminal space of possibility; a contact zone between cultures and, potentially, the locus of self-discovery and individual transformation. If liminality is the metaphor or a lens that I employ in order to account for the nature of the analyzed works and the complex terrain they map, imagology, whose purpose is to study the processes of constructing selfhood and otherness in literature, provides me with the method and the critical vocabulary for analyzing selected literary representations. The dissertation is divided into six chapters, the last of which serves as coda to the previous discussion. The first two chapters constitute the critical foundation of this work. Then, in chapters 3, 4, and 5 I study American images of Eastern Europe in the works written by John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth, respectively. The last, sixth chapter of this dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first one, I discuss new critical perspectives and avenues of research in the study of Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism. Then, I carry out a joint analysis of four works written after 1989 by Eva Hoffman, Arthur Phillips, John Beckman, and Gary Shteyngart. The dissertation ends with conclusions in which I summarize my findings and reflections, and suggest implications for future research. As this dissertation seeks to demonstrate, Eastern Europe portrayed in the analyzed works oscillates between contradictory representations which are contingent upon a number of factors, most importantly who maps it and in what context. Even though each experience of Eastern Europe is distinct and fueled by the profiles, identities, and interests of the characters and their creators, I have found out that certain patterns of othering are present in all the works. Thus, my research seems to suggest that there is something of a recurrent literary image of Eastern Europe, which goes beyond the context of the Cold War. Accordingly, while this dissertation hopes to be a valid contribution to the study of literary and cultural mappings of Eastern Europe, it also generates new questions regarding the current, post-communist representation of the area and its relationship to the national tropes explored in my work.

«Imagine, c’est le socialisme et personne ne s’en va» : l’intelligentsia littéraire est-allemande et la chute du mur de Berlin

En 1989, la Pologne, la Hongrie, la Tchécoslovaquie et la République démocratique allemande (RDA) furent secouées par des mouvements de protestations qui précipitèrent la dissolution de leur régime communiste. Il est souvent admis, dans l’historiographie comme dans la mémoire populaire, que les intellectuels, dont plusieurs écrivains, ont joué un rôle déterminant lors de ces bouleversements. Or, l’analyse de la révolution en Allemagne de l’Est et des prises de position de son intelligentsia littéraire démontre qu’une telle conclusion s’applique mal à cet État : les auteurs phares de la RDA, qui se sont pourtant présentés pendant et après la révolution comme des victimes et des opposants au régime, n’ont jamais partagé les revendications anticommunistes de leurs concitoyens et ont conservé un discours socialiste. Ce mémoire entend expliquer cette réaction particulière des écrivains les mieux établis de l’Allemagne de l’Est – soit Christa Wolf, Heiner Müller, Stefan Heym, Volker Braun et Christoph Hein. En étudiant leurs textes non fictifs et en analysant la relation qu’ils entretenaient avec le régime, la population et l’idéologie promue en RDA, nous démontrerons que ces auteurs avaient développé, avant l’ouverture du mur de Berlin, une stratégie d’action alliant loyauté socialiste et critique de l’autoritarisme, ce qui leur avait permis de cumuler un important capital social et culturel. À l’automne 1989 et lors du processus de réunification allemande, l’intelligentsia littéraire a en fait agi en fonction de cette même stratégie ; celle-ci, toutefois, n’était pas adaptée aux nouvelles conditions sociales.