Towards a New Socialism: Preface to Czech Edition
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“For a More Perfect Communist Revolution”: the Rise of the SKWP and the Twilight of “Unitary Socialism”
UCLA UCLA Historical Journal Title “For a More Perfect Communist Revolution”: The Rise of the SKWP and the Twilight of “Unitary Socialism” Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/87d59236 Journal UCLA Historical Journal, 29(1) ISSN 0276-864X Author Jo, Kyu-Hyun Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California ARTICLES “For a More Perfect Communist Revolution”: The Rise of the SKWP and the Twilight of “Unitary Socialism” Kyu-hyun Jo University of Chicago Introduction In stark contrast to meticulous efforts to understand the Korean War as a conflict that involved both halves of the peninsula, very little has been discussed about the complexities of Communist activism in southern Korea. My central thesis is that the roots of the Korean War can be found in southern Korea as an anti- Rightist civil war with the rise of the Southern Korean Workers’ Party (Nahm Jo-suhn Noh-dong Dahng, hereafter shortened as SKWP), the largest Communist organization in southern Korea before the war, especially through the leadership of the party’s fervent Communist leader Pak Hŏnyŏng. In making this argument, I will also suggest that the civil war symbolized a failure of the non-ideological centrist politician Yǒ Un-hyong to realize a unitary non-partisan Korea. Pak, the son of an impoverished farmer and a widow, was active in the Korean Communist movement during the 1920s and was an outspoken critic of Japanese imperialism. By 1946, contrary to American suspicion that Pak’s control of the SKWP was evidence of the Communists “being under complete Russian control,” Pak already had a lengthy résumé as a seasoned theorist and a revo- lutionary.1 Seizing the leadership of a Communist party had always been Pak’s ambition, and as he personally believed, his destiny.2 A precocious polyglot and an avid reader of Marxist theory who called Capital his “Bible,” Pak had built an extensive and deep knowledge of Marxism such that he won all the top honors © 2018 Kyu-hyun Jo. -
The Rise of Communism in China∗
The Rise of Communism in China∗ Ting CHENy James Kai-sing KUNGz This version, December 2020 Abstract We show that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) experienced significantly faster growth in counties occupied by the Japanese Army than those garrisoned by the Kuomingtang (KMT) during the Sino-Japanese War (c. 1940-45), using the density of middle-to-upper rank Communist cadres (5.4%) and the size of the guerilla base (10.3%) as proxies. The struggle for survival and humiliation caused by wartime sex crimes are the channels through which the CCP ascended to power. We also find that people who live in former Japanese- occupied counties today are significantly more nationalistic and exhibit greater trust in the government than those who reside elsewhere. Keywords: Communist Revolution, Peasant Nationalism, Struggle for Survival, Humilia- tion and Hatred, Puppet Troops, China JEL Classification Nos.: D74, F51, F52, N45 ∗We thank seminar participants at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and National University of Singapore for helpful comments and suggestions. James Kung acknowledges the financial support of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong (GRF No. 17505519) and Sein and Isaac Soude Endowment. We are solely responsible for any remaining errors. yTing Chen, Department of Economics, Hong Kong Baptist University, Renfrew Road, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]. Phone: +852-34117546. Fax: +852-34115580. zJames Kai-sing KUNG, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]. Phone: +852-39177764. Fax: +852-28585614. 1 Introduction \Precisely because of the Japanese Imperial Army, which had occupied a large part of China, making Chinese people nowhere to go; once they understood, they began taking up arm- struggle, resulting in the establishment of many counter-Japanese military bases, thereby creating favorable conditions for the coming war of liberation. -
Open Loop in Natura Economic Planning
Open Loop In Natura Economic Planning Spyridon Samothrakis Institute for Analytics and Data Science University of Essex Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ [email protected] Abstract The debate between the optimal way of allocating societal surplus (i.e. products and services) has been raging, in one form or another, practically forever; following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the market became the only legitimate form of organisation — there was no other alternative. Working within the tradition of Marx, Leontief, Kantorovich, Beer and Cockshott, we propose what we deem an automated planning system that aims to operate on unit level (e.g., factories and citizens), rather than on aggregate demand and sectors. We explain why it is both a viable and desirable alternative to current market conditions and position our solution within current societal structures. Our experiments show that it would be trivial to plan for up to 50K industrial goods and 5K final goods in commodity hardware. 1 Introduction With the advent of industrial revolution and the almost homicidal conditions that this ensued, ensued, voices arose which insisted there must be superior ways of organising society to the markets. The end and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 killed most (if not all) “living” attempts to create a non-market economy. The rule of experts and democracy, the two major facets of modernism [Scott, 1998], were to be permitted expression only through market mechanisms. As this paper is written, very few domains of social life remain outside the whims of the market and a state that serves it. -
SOCIOLOGY 9191A Social Science in the Marxian Tradition Fall 2020
SOCIOLOGY 9191A Social Science in the Marxian Tradition Fall 2020 DRAFT Class times and location Wednesday 10:30am -12:30pm Virtual synchronous Instructor: David Calnitsky Office Hours by appointment Department of Sociology Office: SSC 5402 Email: [email protected] Technical Requirements: Stable internet connection Laptop or computer Working microphone Working webcam “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” – Karl Marx That is the point, it’s true—but not in this course. This quote, indirectly, hints at a deep tension in Marxism. If we want to change the world we need to understand it. But the desire to change something can infect our understanding of it. This is a pervasive dynamic in the history of Marxism and the first step is to admit there is a problem. This means acknowledging the presence of wishful thinking, without letting it induce paralysis. On the other hand, if there are pitfalls in being upfront in your desire to change the world there are also virtues. The normative 1 goal of social change helps to avoid common trappings of academia, in particular, the laser focus on irrelevant questions. Plus, in having a set of value commitments, stated clearly, you avoid the false pretense that values don’t enter in the backdoor in social science, which they often do if you’re paying attention. With this caveat in place, Marxian social science really does have a lot to offer in understanding the world and that’s what we’ll analyze in this course. The goal is to look at the different hypotheses that broadly emerge out of the Marxian tradition and see the extent to which they can be supported both theoretically and empirically. -
Introduction the Vietnamese Revolution in World History
Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-15402-5 — Vietnam's Communist Revolution Tuong Vu Excerpt More Information Introduction The Vietnamese Revolution in World History The odds are stacked against revolutionaries in any society. Most have never had a chance to wield state power because even weak govern- ments command sufi cient forces to defeat them. Even if revolutions suc- cessfully overthrow the ancien régime , young revolutionary states from France to Russia have often faced powerful foreign enemies that make their survival even more remarkable. This book focuses on Vietnam as one of those rare exceptions in modern world history when revolution succeeded and endured. In this study, I trace the worldview of Vietnamese revolutionaries over an eighty- year period, starting from the 1920s when they were a band of outlaws who dreamed of building a communist paradise; through the decades in between, when they struggled to seize power, build a new society, and defeat foreign interventions; and to the late 1980s when they attempted in vain to save socialism at home and abroad. The revolu- tion effectively ended then, but its legacies are surprisingly resilient: the communist regime is under tremendous pressure for change but has stubbornly refused to abandon its widely discredited ideology. Thus, this book places ideology at the center of nearly a century of modern Vietnamese history. I argue that ideology helped Vietnamese communists persevere against great odds, but did not lead them to success and left behind dismal legacies. In the popular image, Vietnamese revolutionaries appear as pragmatic nationalists who inherited strong patriotic traditions and whose heroism deserves great admiration. -
The Communist International, the Soviet Union,And Their Impact on the Latin America Workers’ Movement
The Communist International, the Soviet Union,and their impact on the Latin America Workers’ Movement DAN LA BOTZ Abstract: The Soviet Union and A L the Communist International had an adverse influence on the Latin CONTRA American workers’ movement, ), 1957-1964. continually diverting it fighting for UCIÓN L a democratic socialist society. They ALHE T REVO A DE subordinated the workers’ movements L ( to the interests of the Soviet . Union’s ruling class, the Communist IQUEIROS PORFIRIANA bureaucracy. At one moment, they led S the workers’ movement in disastrous ARO F L uprisings, while in a subsequent era A they encouraged it to build alliances DICTADURA AVID with capitalist and imperialist power. D Keywords: Soviet Union. Communist International. Communist Parties. Cuba. Workers Movement. A Internacional Comunista, a União Soviética e seu impacto no movimento de trabalhadores da América Latina Resumo: A União Soviética e a Internacional Comunista tiveram uma influência adversa no movimento latino-americano de trabalhadores, frequentemente, distraindo-o de sua luta por uma sociedade socialista democrática. Ambas subordinaram os movimentos de trabalhadores aos interesses da classe dominante na União Soviética, a burocracia comunista. Em um momento, dirigiram o movimento de trabalhadores para levantes desastrosos, DAN LA BOTZ enquanto em um período subsequente encorajaram-no a fazer alianças com Ph.D in American history and poderes capitalistas e imperialistas. professor at the Murphy Institute, the Palavras-chaves: União Soviética. labor school of the City University Internacional Comunista. Partidos of New York. He is the author of ten Comunistas. Cuba. Movimento de books on labor, social movements, Trabalhadores. and politics in the United States, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Indonesia. -
The Socialist Calculation Debate and New Socialist Models in Light of a Contextual Historical Materialist Interpretation
THE SOCIALIST CALCULATION DEBATE AND NEW SOCIALIST MODELS IN LIGHT OF A CONTEXTUAL HISTORICAL MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION by Adam Balsam BSc [email protected] Supervised by Justin Podur BSc MScF PhD A Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada December 11, 2020 Table of Contents The Statement of Requirements for the Major Paper ................................................................................. iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ iv Foreword ...................................................................................................................................................... vi Section I: Introduction, Context, Framework and Methodology .................................................................. 1 Preamble ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Context of this Investigation ................................................................................................................. 5 The Possibilities of Socialist Models .................................................................................................. -
Why Did the Communists Win the Chinese Revolution?
Why Did the Communists Win the Chinese Revolution? From 1911 to 1945, China experienced a revolution, a struggle against warlords, a civil war between the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek and the Communists led by Mao Zedong, and invasion by the Japanese. After the defeat of the Japanese in World War II in 1945, a full-blown civil war erupted again in 1946. The Nationalists were backed by the United States and the Communists had support from the Soviet Union. By 1949, Chiang and the Nationalists, despite having more soldiers than the Communists, were defeated and forced to evacuate the Chinese mainland for the island of Taiwan. Historians point to a number of factors for the nationalists defeat. Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek. Chiang’s Kuomintang government was filled with incompetent and corrupt officials. The people especially hated the tax collectors, who were commonly called “blood-sucking devils.” Chiang himself held dictatorial powers, but his orders were often ignored. He had little success in rallying Chinese nationalism to win an unpopular war against the Communists. Chiang’s decision to go to war against the Communists in 1946 came at the cost of postponing the economic reconstruction of China. This meant diverting tax revenues, investment, and other resources to the war effort rather than to the needs of the people. Heavy taxes, a huge government debt, inflation, unemployment, and food shortages caused many, especially in the cities, to lose faith in the Nationalist government. Economic discontent in the cities led to thousands of labor strikes. Students, newspaper editors, and intellectuals protested against Chiang’s Nationalist government. -
RED PLENTY PLATFORMS Nick Dyer-Witheford
CULTURE MACHINE VOL 14 • 2013 RED PLENTY PLATFORMS Nick Dyer-Witheford Introduction: Red Plenty Shortly after the great Wall Street meltdown of 2008, a novel about obscure and remote historical events provided an unexpected node for discussion of the ongoing crisis. Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty (2010) offered a fictionalized account of the failed attempt by Soviet cyberneticians of the 1960s to establish a fully computerized system of economic planning. Mixing historical figures – Leonid Kantorovich, inventor of linear programming equations; Sergei Alexeievich Lebedev, pioneering Soviet computer designer; Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party – with imaginary ones, and setting them all in motion through Kremlin corridors, rural collectives, industrial factories and the Siberian science-city of Akademgorodok, Red Plenty succeeded in the unlikely mission of making cybernetic planning a page-turner. But the interest it attracted from economists, computer scientists and political activists was not solely due to its narrative of scientific endeavor and political intrigue; it also owed much to timing. Appearing amidst austerity and unemployment, as the world market still teetered on the brink of collapse, Red Plenty could be interpreted in different ways: a) as a cautionary tale that, recalling Soviet debacles, reminds us capitalism remains the only game in town, even if it has behaved badly (‘There Is No Alternative’); or b) contra- wise, as a recollection of unrealized potentialities, whispering not just the quaint altermondialiste slogan, ‘another world is possible’, but what David Harvey (2010: np) identifies as the more cogent and subversive possibility, that of ‘another communism’. This paper takes Spufford’s novel as a starting point from which to embark on an examination of the computing platforms that would be necessary for a contemporary ‘red plenty’. -
The Rise and Fall of Communism
The Rise and Fall of Communism archie brown To Susan and Alex, Douglas and Tamara and to my grandchildren Isobel and Martha, Nikolas and Alina Contents Maps vii A Note on Names viii Glossary and Abbreviations x Introduction 1 part one: Origins and Development 1. The Idea of Communism 9 2. Communism and Socialism – the Early Years 26 3. The Russian Revolutions and Civil War 40 4. ‘Building Socialism’: Russia and the Soviet Union, 1917–40 56 5. International Communism between the Two World Wars 78 6. What Do We Mean by a Communist System? 101 part two: Communism Ascendant 7. The Appeals of Communism 117 8. Communism and the Second World War 135 9. The Communist Takeovers in Europe – Indigenous Paths 148 10. The Communist Takeovers in Europe – Soviet Impositions 161 11. The Communists Take Power in China 179 12. Post-War Stalinism and the Break with Yugoslavia 194 part three: Surviving without Stalin 13. Khrushchev and the Twentieth Party Congress 227 14. Zig-zags on the Road to ‘communism’ 244 15. Revisionism and Revolution in Eastern Europe 267 16. Cuba: A Caribbean Communist State 293 17. China: From the ‘Hundred Flowers’ to ‘Cultural Revolution’ 313 18. Communism in Asia and Africa 332 19. The ‘Prague Spring’ 368 20. ‘The Era of Stagnation’: The Soviet Union under Brezhnev 398 part four: Pluralizing Pressures 21. The Challenge from Poland: John Paul II, Lech Wałesa, and the Rise of Solidarity 421 22. Reform in China: Deng Xiaoping and After 438 23. The Challenge of the West 459 part five: Interpreting the Fall of Communism 24. -
Vietnam/Korea/Southeast Asia
Name: ___________________________________________ Date: _______ Regents Review Ms. Carey Vietnam/Korea/Southeast Asia The Korean War and the Cuban missile crisis are most closely associated with: (1) communist aggression (2) religious tensions (3) the overthrow of monarchies (4) the failure of the Kyoto Protocol Base your answer to the following question on the map below and on your knowledge of social studies This map depicts Vietnam during which time period? (1) 19th-century imperial rule (2) World War I (3) World War II (4) Cold War Base your answer to the following question on the political cartoon below and you knowledge of social studies Which action of Kim Jong Il is the subject of this 2009 cartoon? (1) poorly managing North Korea’s economy (2) polluting North Korea with industrial waste (3) seeking humanitarian aid for North Korea (4) proposing the unification of North and South Korea _______________________________________________________________________ Since 1990, many countries have expressed grave concerns about North Korea and Pakistan because these two countries have (1) developed nuclear programs (2) withdrawn from the United Nations (3) experienced large increases in the number of AIDS-related deaths (4) adopted a communist system of government • French intent to recolonize Indo-China after World War II • United States desire to prevent the spread of communism • United States support for the French in Southeast Asia These ideas are most closely associated with the: (1) causes of the conflict in Vietnam (2) reasons for the Nationalist settlement of Taiwan (3) factors that led to the Korean War (4) results of the Marshall Plan _______________________________________________________________________ A. -
The Place of Communism in Chinese History: Reflections on the Past and Future of the People's Republic of China
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by DigitalCommons@Macalester College Macalester International Volume 18 Chinese Worlds: Multiple Temporalities Article 8 and Transformations Spring 2007 The lP ace of Communism in Chinese History: Reflections on the Past and Future of the People's Republic of China Maurice Meisner University of Wisconsin - Madison Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl Recommended Citation Meisner, Maurice (2007) "The lP ace of Communism in Chinese History: Reflections on the Past and Future of the People's Republic of China," Macalester International: Vol. 18, Article 8. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol18/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester International by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Place of Communism in Chinese History: Reflections on the Past and Future of the People’s Republic of China Maurice Meisner I. Introduction Critics of Mao Zedong often compared the late Chairman to Qin Shihuangdi, the First Emperor who in the year 221 B.C. united the vari- ous feudal kingdoms of ancient China into a centralized empire under the Qin dynasty, the first in a long 2000-year line of imperial regimes. In traditional Confucian historiography, the First Emperor is portrayed as the epitome of the evil and tyrannical ruler—not least of all because he burned Confucian books and buried alive Confucian scholars.