Chen Duxiu and Leon Trotsky: New Light on their Relationship

1985 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 253-276
Author(s):  
Peter Kuhfus

After the 1927/28 upheaval in the communist movement, a complex relationship evolved between Chen Duxiu (1879–1942) and Leon Trotsky (1879–1940). To date little has been written about this relationship in the west. The relationship between Chen and Trotsky, however, deserves treatment in its own right for various reasons. First, an elucidation of the contacts between them should close a significant gap in the respective biographies of the two Opposition leaders. The intention is not only to define Trotsky's role as seen from Chen's perspective, but also to emphasize the Far Eastern component hitherto underestimated in biographies of Trotsky. Secondly, the reconstruction of the relationship between Chen and Trotsky constitutes an important, correcting supplement to our knowledge of the developments ( = Wirkungsgeschichte) of “Trotskyism” in China, as it has been described as a concrete phenomenon as well as an ideological-political undercurrent. Thirdly, a study of the relationship between Chen and Trotsky should provide a better understanding of relations between the Communists of China and of the Soviet Union.

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES L. GIBSON ◽  
RAYMOND M. DUCH

Political tolerance is a democratic value that has often been studied by those interested in the relationship between mass public opinion and democracy. Yet most research efforts have been mounted in relatively democratic regimes. Little is known about political tolerance in relatively totalitarian regimes. The authors' purpose in this article is to explore intolerance within the mass public of the Soviet Union. Focusing on two surveys of public opinion conducted in the USSR in 1990, the authors demonstrate that political intolerance is fairly widespread in the Soviet Union. Moreover, the objects of intolerance are focused, not dispersed pluralistically. Many of the predictors of intolerance found useful in the West (e.g., perceptions of threat, closed-mindedness) are also good predictors in the Soviet Union. Level of education plays an especially interesting role, contributing to support for more general democratic values, but not directly to political tolerance. The authors conclude this article by speculating about the future of the democratization process in the USSR in light of regnant intolerance in that country.


Author(s):  
Herbert Marcuse

This chapter examines the potentials of international Communism, focusing on countries on the basis of their value as representatives of the different areas in which the ideology is now a significant factor in terms of the immediate availability of resources. The report traces the evolution and expansion of the Communist movement since its inception, noting how the main focus has shifted from the highly advanced countries of the West to the relatively backward area of the Eastern orbit. It suggests that Communism in the Eastern orbit has become a vast political, economic, and military system outside the capitalist world, with central power and direction located in the Soviet Union. The chapter also considers the Communist program, with particular emphasis on the “Two-Camp” theory and the chief components of the Communist plan today, including expansion in Asia. It concludes with an assessment of the assets and liabilities of world Communism.


Author(s):  
Anne E. Gorsuch

Focusing on the transnational flow and exchange of ideas, rather than on divisions and borders, this chapter emphasizes the ways in which early debates about ‘Sovietness’ related to multiple imaginings, understandings, and experiences of the ‘West’. This perspective builds on work that has reconsidered the history of the Soviet Union within the larger framework of European and North American modernity. ‘Being Soviet’ in the formative years of Bolshevism included ideas, technologies, and cultures that were ‘Western’. Some were openly and positively identified as such; others were covert or unacknowledged. The relationship was deeply ambivalent. But the resultant heterodoxy was notably different from Cold War concepts of the Soviet Union as rigid and impermeable.


1961 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Scalapino ◽  
Chong-Sik Lee

In the summer of 1921, the Communist world was preparing for the first major conference of Far Eastern peoples. This conference was originally scheduled for Irkutsk in the late summer or early fall of that year. It was intended as a sequel to the Baku Conference of September 1920, which had been attended mainly by delegates from the Middle East. But it was also planned as the Soviet answer to the Washington Conference, as is well known. Competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for the support of the Asian people can be dated from this time, although initially Moscow was much more aware of this fact than Washington.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-23
Author(s):  
Jeremy W. Lamoreaux ◽  
Nicholas Dyerly

AbstractAs early as 1994, scholars, analysts and policymakers began to wonder the extent to which the Baltic States mattered in the relationship between Russia and the West. The general consensus for the following 20 years was that the Baltic States matter considerably, especially following their inclusion in both the EU and NATO in 2004. However, in the past few years two trends have emerged which begin to call this accepted knowledge into question. First, the relationship between Russia and the West has turned more hostile following nearly 20 years of detente. The West insists (especially NATO) insists that it is within its right to protect states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union/Russia’s “near abroad”. Russia, on the other hand, insists that NATO incursion into the “shared neighborhood” is a violation of trust and overstepping normal geopolitical bounds.Second, the Baltic States who once presented something of a united front for the West against Russia, no longer appear to have a common approach to foreign policy. While Estonia leans toward Scandinavia, and Lithuania leans toward Poland and Ukraine, Latvia is a bit of an odd man out with nowhere to turn. Furthermore, even other states in the Shared Neighborhood no longer seem to see Latvia as a valuable ally within the West. Considering this state of affairs, this paper considers whether Latvia matters anymore in regional geopolitics, or whether they are losing relevance.


Author(s):  
Yuriy Makar

On December 22, 2017 the Ukrainian Diplomatic Service marked the 100thanniversary of its establishment and development. In dedication to such a momentous event, the Department of International Relations of Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University has published a book of IR Dept’s ardent activity since its establishment. It includes information both in Ukrainian and English on the backbone of the collective and their versatile activities, achievements and prospects for the future. The author delves into retracing the course of the history of Ukrainian Diplomacy formation and development. The author highlights the roots of its formation, reconsidering a long way of its development that coincided with the formation of basic elements of Ukrainian statehood that came into existence as a result of the war of national liberation – the Ukrainian Central Rada (the Central Council of Ukraine). Later, the Ukrainian or so-called State the Hetmanate was under study. The Directorat (Directory) of Ukraine, being a provisional collegiate revolutionary state committee of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was given a thorough study. Of particular interest for the research are diplomatic activities of the West Ukrainian People`s Republic. Noteworthy, the author emphasizes on the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic’s foreign policy, forced by the Bolshevist Russia. A further important implication is both the challenges of the Ukrainian statehood establishing and Ukraine’s functioning as a state, first and foremost, stemmed from the immaturity and conscience-unawareness of the Ukrainian society, that, ultimately, has led to the fact, that throughout the twentieth century Ukraine as a statehood, being incorporated into the Soviet Union, could hardly be recognized as a sovereign state. Our research suggests that since the beginning of the Ukrainian Diplomacy establishment and its further evolution, it used to be unprecedentedly fabricated and forged. On a wider level, the research is devoted to centennial fight of Ukraine against Russian violence and aggression since the WWI, when in 1917 the Russian Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, started real Russian war against Ukraine. Apropos, in the about-a-year-negotiation run, Ukraine, eventually, failed to become sovereign. Remarkably, Ukraine finally gained its independence just in late twentieth century. Nowadays, Russia still regards Ukraine as a part of its own strategic orbit,waging out a carrot-and-stick battle. Keywords: The Ukrainian People’s Republic, the State of Ukraine, the Hetmanate, the Direcorat (Directory) of Ukraine, the West Ukrainian People`s Republic, the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, Ukraine, the Bolshevist Russia, the Russian Federation, Ukrainian diplomacy


1989 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-111
Author(s):  
Amos A. Jordan ◽  
Richard L. Grant

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