The Secret World of American Communism PDF Download

Author: Harvey Klehr
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300137834
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The hidden world of American communism can now be examined with the help of documents from the recently opened archives of the former Soviet Union. Interweaving narrative and documents, the authors of this book present a convincing new picture of the Communist Part of the the United States of America (CPUSA), providing proof that it was involved in espionage and other subversive activitives. 16 illustrations.

Author: George W. Breslauer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197579698
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A concise, readable, and novel interpretation of the history of communist states. Sixteen states came to be ruled by communist parties during the 20th century. One, the Soviet Union, was geographically the largest nation in the world and a superpower. Another, China, had the world's largest population. At communism's high point, its adherents envisioned global triumph. Today, however, only five communist regimes remain in power. Why? In The Rise and Demise of World Communism, George Breslauer, a specialist who has spent decades observing the evolution of communist states, provides a sweeping history of the world communist movement, focusing in particular on what communist states shared in common and why they began to differ from each other over time. Throughout, Breslauer explores the relations among communist states as well as the relations between those states and the world of increasingly affluent, and militarily formidable, democratic-capitalist powers. He finds that these regimes all came to power in the context of warfare or its aftermath, followed by the consolidation of power by a revolutionary elite that valued "revolutionary violence" as the preferred means to an end, based upon Marx's vision of apocalyptic revolution and Lenin's conception of party organization. As Breslauer shows, all these regimes went on to "build socialism" according to a Stalinist template and were initially dedicated to "anti-imperialist struggle" as members of a world communist movement. But their common features gave way to diversity, difference, and defiance after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. For many reasons, and in many ways, those differences soon blew apart the world communist movement and eventually led to the collapse of European communism. Even though a few communist regimes still remain in power, the dream of world communism is dead. But the future of the remaining communist regimes is uncertain. An accessible history of one of the most important political phenomena of the past 150 years, The Rise and Demise of World Communism provides readers with a crisp account of the entire movement--from the theories of Marx and Lenin to the on-the-ground policies of Stalin, Mao, Gorbachev, Deng, and other communist leaders-that culminates in our own era.

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674025301
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 622

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Book Description
Service offers a history of communism, drawing the uncomfortable conclusion that the poverty and injustice that enabled its rise are still dangerously alive. Unsettling and compelling, this is a comprehensive study of one of the most important movements of the modern world.

Author: Jacob Zumoff
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004268898
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
This book examines the development of the Communist Party in the United States in its first decade, from 1919 to 1929. It argues that the Communist International played an important role in the early part of this decade in forcing the party to "Americanise". By the late 1920s, however, the Comintern, reflecting the Stalinistation of the Soviet Union, intervened into the American party to ensure the Stalinisation of American Communism.

Author: Silvio Pons
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191054100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The Global Revolution. A History of International Communism 1917-1991 establishes a relationship between the history of communism and the main processes of globalization in the past century. Drawing on a wealth of archival sources, Silvio Pons analyses the multifaceted and contradictory relationship between the Soviet Union and the international communist movement, to show how communism played a major part in the formation of our modern world. The volume presents the argument that during the age of wars from 1914 to 1945, the establishment of the Soviet state in Russia and the birth of the communist movement had an enormous impact because of their promise of world revolution and international civil war. Such perspective appeared even more plausible in the aftermath of the Second World War and of revolution in China, which paved the way for the expansion of communism in the post-colonial world. Communism challenged the West in the Cold War - by means of anti-capitalist modernization and anti-imperialist mobilization - showing itself to be a powerful factor in the politicization of global trends. However, the international legitimacy of communism declined rapidly in the post-war era. Soviet power exposed its inability to exercise hegemony, as distinct from domination. The consequences of Sovietization in Europe and the break between the Soviet Union and China were the primary reasons for the decline of communist influence and appeal. Since communism lost its political credibility and cultural cohesion, its global project had failed. The ground was prepared for the devastating impact of Western globalization on communist regimes in Europe and the Soviet Union.

Author: Tom Lansford
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
ISBN: 9780761426288
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Communism has had a dramatic rise and fall as a political system in the last century. Communism by Tom Lansford looks at the historic foots of this form of government, its political and economic components, how it compares with other types of government systems, and the likely reasons for its almost complete demise as a twenty-first century political system. Book jacket.

Author: Stéphane Courtois
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674076082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 920

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Book Description
This international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the accomplishments of communism around the world. The book is the first attempt to catalogue and analyse the crimes of communism over 70 years.

Author: A. James McAdams
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
The first comprehensive political history of the communist party Vanguard of the Revolution is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. A. James McAdams argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. He shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. Vanguard of the Revolution is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

Author: Jonathan Haslam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691233764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War II The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Haslam transforms our understanding of the deep-seated origins of World War II, its conflicts, and its legacy. Haslam offers a panoramic view of Europe and northeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, connecting fascism’s emergence with the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. World War I had economically destabilized many nations, and the threat of Communist revolt loomed large in the ensuing social unrest. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire, and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order. The appeasement and political misreading of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy that followed held back the spectre of rebellion—only to usher in the later advent of war. Illuminating ideological differences in the decades before World War II, and the continuous role of pre- and postwar Communism, The Spectre of War provides unprecedented context for one of the most momentous calamities of the twentieth century.

Author: Frederick William Deakin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description