Communisms Public Sphere

Communism's Public Sphere explores the political role of cultural spaces in the Eastern Bloc. Under communist regimes that banned free speech, political discussions shifted to spaces of art: theaters, galleries, concert halls, and youth clubs. Kyrill Kunakhovich shows how these venues turned into sites of dialogue and contestation. While officials used them to spread the communist message, artists and audiences often flouted state policy and championed alternative visions. Cultural spaces therefore came to function as a public sphere, or a rare outlet for discussing public affairs. Focusing on Kraków in Poland and Leipzig in East Germany, Communism's Public Sphere sheds new light on state-society interactions in the Eastern Bloc. In place of the familiar trope of domination and resistance, it highlights unexpected symbioses like state-sponsored rock and roll, socialist consumerism, and sanctioned dissent. By examining nearly five decades of communist rule, from the Red Army's arrival in Poland in 1944 to German reunification in 1990, Kunakhovich argues that cultural spaces played a pivotal mediating role. They helped reform and stabilize East European communism but also gave cover to the protest movements that ultimately brought it down.

Der Band versammelt Beiträge zu vielfältigen Erscheinungsformen von Öffentlichkeit in Gesellschaften sowjetischen Typs. Die Tragfähigkeit eines flexiblen Öffentlichkeitsbegriffs wird anhand von Einzelstudien zur Sowjetunion, zu den ostmitteleuropäischen Staaten und zu China erprobt. Es ergibt sich ein heterogenes und vielschichtiges Bild der Ausprägungen und Entwicklungen verschiedener Sphären von Öffentlichkeit. Deutlich wird, daß eine lediglich Defizite aufzeigende Kontrastierung zum bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeitsmodell zur Analyse staatssozialistischer Herrschaft nicht geeignet ist. Die Beiträge des Bandes erschließen zunächst die gesellschaftliche Relevanz von Öffentlichkeiten in Sowjetstaaten aus der Binnenperspektive der vorgestellten Einzelfälle. In einem zweiten Schritt werden in der komparativen Zusammenschau allgemeinere Strukturen von Öffentlichkeit in sowjetischen Systemen in den Blick genommen. The volume tests a flexible terminology that may serve to describe and analyze the notion of public sphere in state socialist dictatorships. A heterogeneous picture emerges from case studies on Soviet, East European and Chinese issues. A closer look makes clear that the public sphere in Soviet-type regimes cannot be understood as merely lacking most of the features associated with the Habermasian model. It is necessary to explore the meaning of public space in different social, political and national contexts to work out a comparative perspective. This perspective may constitute a framework for general conclusions about spheres of public action in Soviet-type societies.

Unbounded Publics presents a theory of transgressive public spheres that aims to expand dangerously narrow political discourses. In this volume, social and political theorists, political scientists, philosophers, and activists alike will find important contributions to ongoing debates concerning social movements, identity politics, the works of JYrgen Habermas, globalization, socialist philosophy, the media, and the Mexican Zapatistas.

Bowling for Communism illuminates how civic life functioned in Leipzig, East Germany's second-largest city, on the eve of the 1989 revolution by exploring acts of "urban ingenuity" amid catastrophic urban decay. Andrew Demshuk profiles the creative activism of local communist officials who, with the help of scores of volunteers, constructed a palatial bowling alley without Berlin's knowledge or approval. In a city mired in disrepair, civic pride overcame resentment against a regime loathed for corruption, Stasi spies, and the Berlin Wall. Reconstructing such episodes through interviews and obscure archival materials, Demshuk shows how the public sphere functioned in Leipzig before the fall of communism. Hardly detached or inept, local officials worked around centralized failings to build a more humane city. And hardly disengaged, residents turned to black-market construction to patch up their surroundings. Because such "urban ingenuity" was premised on weakness in the centralized regime, the dystopian cityscape evolved from being merely a quotidian grievance to the backdrop for revolution. If, by their actions, officials were demonstrating that the regime was irrelevant, and if, in their own experiences, locals only attained basic repairs outside official channels, why should anyone have mourned the system when it was overthrown?

This book analyzes, in the relation with the Romanian modernity, the transformations of the Romanian public sphere, political system and journalism from the beginning of the 19th Century up to 2005. The argumentation starts from the idea that the Romanian Enlightenment never had the chance to reach its purpose, the creation of the individual as a human category. As a consequence of this historical fact, the Romanian modernity was not explored in all its dimensions and was not congruent with its western model of development. Only after late 90's, signs for a surpassing historical backwardness were seen in Romania, and only after the integration into EU become sure. From this perspective this book looks onto the change in the modernization engine of Romania, in late 90's. This change is happening as a transgression from a three steps modernization model, in which the role of the elite is central, to a two steps modernization model, in which the role of the elite is minimal. Because the three steps modernization model fits the idea of an acclamatory public sphere, while the two steps modernization engine fits the concept of civil public sphere, this book proves that the Romanian democracy is evolving from its totalitarian background to become a participative democracy. The only question unanswered yet, is if the elite and the mass media are willing to let Romania and its citizens to breakup the ties with the totalitarian past.

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.

In the wake of communism’s decline, women’s concerns had become increasingly important in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Yet most discussions of post-communism changes had neglected women’s experiences. Originally published in 1993, this title was the first collection of its kind, presenting original essays by women scholars, politicians, activists, and former dissidents from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, along with essays by Western feminists and scholars. They discuss gender politics during the often turbulent transition and crises of post-communism, offering vivid accounts and analyses of the conditions facing women in each country.