Nationalism and Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union : A Basic Contradiction?

by Kemp, Walter A.

• ISBN13: 9780312217990
• ISBN10: 0312217994
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Palgrave-Macmillan

Summary

This book analyzes and explains how Communist theorists and practitioners tried to cope with nationalism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Walter Kemp looks at the writings of Marx and Engels in the 1840s to the collapse of the Communist bloc and the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991. He identifies a cyclical pattern of behavior that characterized Communism's attempts to come to terms with nationalism: a pattern which recurred until the 1980s at which time the ideological and political discrepancies created by the incongruence of nationalism and communism had become so antagonistic as to act as a major catalyst in the collapse of the Communist system.

Author Biography

Walter A. Kemp is Public Information Officer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Dr Kemp has a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi	(4)
Introduction	xv
1 Defining the Terms	1	(21)
Introduction	1	(1)
The Terms	2	(1)
Communism	2	(4)
Nation, State and Patriotism	6	(1)
Nationalism	7	(2)
National Consciousness	9	(7)
Political Culture	16	(1)
The Political Element	17	(1)
Rival Salvation Movements	18	(2)
The Uniqueness of Enigmatic Nationalism	20	(2)
2 Reconciling the Basic Contradiction	22	(35)
Marx and Engels	22	(10)
The Nationalization of Socialism	32	(2)
Bauer and Renner	34	(6)
The Czech Social Democrats and the Collapse of the Gesamtpartei	40	(3)
Luxemburg and Kautsky	43	(2)
Lenin	45	(9)
Stalin	54	(3)
3 From Socialist Theory to Communist Realpolitik	57	(37)
Short-Term Concessions with Long-Term Repercussions	58	(3)
The Federalist Concession	61	(2)
The Right to Self-Determination	63	(2)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice Dilemma	65	(1)
Consolidating the Revolutionary Gains	66	(3)
Federalist in Form, Centrist in Content	69	(2)
Sham Federalism	71	(3)
A Superstructure with Weak Foundations	74	(4)
Korenizatsiia	78	(2)
National in Form, Socialist in Content	80	(3)
A Cyclical Undoing	83	(3)
Socialist Patriotism and the Historyless Soviets	86	(1)
Socialism in One Country	87	(1)
The Growth of the State	88	(2)
The 1936 Constitution	90	(1)
The Great Patriotic War	91	(1)
The Paradox of Coercion and the Example of National Communism	92	(2)
4 Heirs to the Great Traditions of the Nation	94	(33)
The Ideological Dilemma	95	(2)
The Post-War Mood	97	(5)
The Problem with Slovakia	102	(2)
Spin-doctor Nejedly	104	(3)
Jan Hus-A Good Communist	107	(1)
Other Selective Memories	108	(2)
Tightening the Screws	110	(2)
More Nationalism, Not Less	112	(1)
Sokol -- Clipping the Falcon's Wings	113	(3)
Masaryk	116	(1)
Keeping the National Forms	117	(2)
Postage Stamps	119	(1)
Somewhere Between Cosmopolitanism and `Bourgeois-Nationalism'	119	(2)
Antithesis of the Political Culture	121	(2)
The Dilemma of Socialist Patriotism	123	(4)
5 Socialist Patriotism or National Communism?	127	(46)
The Theoretical Problem	128	(2)
Revisionism	130	(4)
A New Course?	134	(5)
Djilas and Nagy on Nationalism	139	(3)
Poland: Elites and Legitimacy	142	(1)
Legitimacy	143	(1)
The Polish Example	144	(2)
Hungary: The Importance of Symbols	146	(1)
Khruschev: Another Sorcerer's Apprentice	147	(2)
Romania and Economic Nationalism	149	(5)
Czechoslovakia: The Limits of Nationalism and Internationalism	154	(4)
Lithuania and the Inappropriateness of the Soviet Model	158	(1)
Anatanas Snieckus and the Lithuanian Communist Party	159	(3)
Native Communists: The Role of the New Elite	162	(2)
Decentralization and Protectionism	164	(2)
Snieckus as a National Communist?	166	(5)
Conclusion	171	(2)
6 The Contradiction Apparent	173	(35)
Captive Minds	174	(1)
Poland: National Symbolism in a Workers' Revolution	175	(4)
Attempts at Strengthening Nationalist Credentials	179	(3)
Yugoslavia	182	(5)
Brezhnev	187	(3)
Andropov	190	(2)
Gorbachev and the Winds of Change	192	(3)
The Buckets Overflow	195	(2)
Explosion of the Dialectic	197	(4)
Yeltsin and Expressions of `Sovereignty'	201	(1)
Collapse of the Union	202	(4)
Conclusion	206	(2)
7 Nationalism, Communism and the Politics of Identity	208	(13)
Short-Sighted Post-Communist Hubris	208	(1)
An Explosion of Nationalism	208	(3)
Capitalism, Globalism and the Persistence of Nationalism	211	(2)
A Crisis of Identity	213	(1)
Living with Nationalism	214	(3)
Implications for the Study of International Relations	217	(2)
Conclusion	219	(2)
Notes	221	(39)
Bibliography	260	(19)
Index	279