Peasants and Communism: Communist Policies Toward Peasants in the Soviet Union and North Korea

Peasants often have been the last class in society to be included within a new political, economic, or social system. Such a concept is especially true regarding communism. When faced with the peasantry, Marxist ideology does not specifically describe them; therefore, it leaves practitioners of the ideology to deal with them as they see fit. Two communist regimes that have shown significant differences in the relationship with their peasant populations are those of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea). Peasants in the Soviet Union rejected the Bolshevik’s harsh implementation of Marxist communism and protested (often times violently) against the change. When compared to the Soviet Union peasantry, the DPRK peasants were in favor of implementing communism in their state. However, their support does not mean that the DPRK peasants fared well in this system. This paper will discuss the peasants’ reactions in the Soviet Union and the DPRK, as well as the two regimes’ approaches to the application of communism. Although peasants in the DPRK, like those in the Soviet Union, also ultimately suffered great hardships under the communist regime, they gained significantly greater amounts of support from the regime than did those in the Soviet Union during Lenin’s Bolshevik control thanks to Confucian traditions, anticolonial nationalism, and the DPRK’s founder Kim Il Sung

The national security debate and the Truman administration\u27s policy toward China, 1947-1950

After World War II, the United States faced a new enemy: the Soviet Union. However, U. S. armed forces were rapidly demobilized after the war, which hindered the U. S. military’s capability to thwart the Soviet threat. Even though, Communism never had been an extreme threat to U. S. national security. World War II had leveled and destroyed much of the European and Asian economic infrastructure, which contributed to the appeal of this ideology. Therefore, many observers felt that international communism was now a threat to U. S. national security. Significantly, only the United States possessed the power to confront the challenge of communism. However, officials inside and outside the administration of Harry S. Truman were divided on how to respond to the menace of communism. One school of thought believed the Soviet Union was an economic and political threat. Therefore, it promoted the rehabilitation of economic infrastructures and political institutions as a deterrent to communism. Economic aid and trade, such thinkers believed, could diminish the political temptations of communism. This school of thought insisted that the communist threat was not a far-reaching international problem, but an internal economic and political problem for individual countries devastated by war. Another school of thought believed the Soviet Union’s military structure threatened U. S. national security. It advocated building up not only the economic and political structures of countries threatened by communism, but also these countries’ military and defensive capabilities. It insisted that communism was part of a far-reaching global scheme led by the Soviet Union determined to dominate the world. It believed both economic aid as well as military aid would eliminate communism in other countries

Western Aid Conditionality and the Post-Communist Transition

The political and economic collapse of communism in the Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has created enormous challenge for Western democracies. The challenge has been not that of providing financial developmental aid although it is very important for countries facing the double challenge of transition and development. Its most important dimension has been to provide active policy support to implement reforms dismantling central planning. This in turn includes designing and providing a stimulus to implement a viable transition strategies and establishing market friendly institutions. Thus, the question is the extent to which Western assistance has made a difference in the course of transition from economic systems based on central planning to those based on competitive markets. This paper examines links between the economic transition in the former Soviet bloc countries (including states that emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union) and Western assistance. Its main focus is on addressing two specific questions: (i) have the Western governments and international institutions supported the most effective strategy of transition in Eastern Europe and FSU?; and (ii) what kind of aid policy can give the best results in terms of recipient countries commitment to effective transition strategy?Post-Communism, transition, Western aid

Twenty Years of Political Transition

What explains the divergent political paths that the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have followed since the fall of the Berlin Wall? While some appear today to be consolidated democracies, others have all the features of consolidated autocracy. This study reviews the patterns of change and examines correlates of progress towards democracy. Variation across post-communist countries in the degree of democracy twenty years after the start of transition can be parsimoniously explained by two variables: the length of time the country spent under a communist regime and—within the former Soviet Union, but not Eastern Europe—the proportion of Muslim adherents in the population.democracy, transition, post-communism, Islam

Before The World Was Quiet: Ronald Reagan, Cold War Foreign Policy, And The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Summer Games

Upon becoming President of the United States in 1981, Ronald Reagan faced a rapidly deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union in the midst of the ongoing Cold War, exacerbated by the events of the 1980s, including the 1980 Olympic boycott and President Jimmy Carter’s administration. President Reagan’s bellicose statements and staunch anti-communism stance further aggravated the situation, reasserting and deepening Cold War anxieties in the Soviet Union. Compared to his predecessors, Reagan was a war hawk determined to bring an absolute end to the Soviet Union and the socialist world. This was no more apparent than in his foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during his first four years in office when he initiated his desire for the strategic defense initiative, his massive American military buildup, and his decision to invade the Caribbean island of Grenada to stave off Soviet influence in the Third World. Each and every action taken by President Reagan was constructed in order to bring the Soviet Union to its knees via political and economic pressure. However, Reagan seemingly had a sudden change of stance when Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Olympic Summer Games. The Kremlin, in turn for Soviet Bloc attendance at the Olympics, requested several demands that had to be met – for example, the right for Soviet Aeroflot flights to land at Los Angeles International Airport and an unprecedented amount of security to protect Soviet athletes and interest. Reagan’s decisions concerning the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Summer Games were a glaring anomaly when compared to the previous three years of Reagan’s harsh anti-communism and “hawkish” actions and opinion regarding the Soviet Union. Drawing from declassified documents from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, this research examines how and why the Olympic Movement was able to transcend Cold War politics in regards to President Reagan meeting each and every one of the Soviet demands despite numerous outside pressures and occurrences making it increasingly difficult for him to do so

Pig Heads and Petty Hooliganism National Identity and Religious Freedom in the Republic of Georgia

After the fall of the Soviet Union, many scholars observed and recorded a religious revival taking place in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This religious revival happened at a time when nations were re-identifying themselves from “Soviet” people to a redefined national identity. Post-Soviet nations wanted to define what it meant to be a person from that country; this included being from a certain ethnic group, speaking a certain language, identifying with a certain religion, and opposing an ‘Other’. Specifically, Georgians defined themselves as being ethnically Georgian, speakers of the Georgian language, Orthodox Christian, and defined the ‘Other’ as both Islam and Communism

The global revolution. A history of International Communism 1917-1991

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, the author 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

Law Reform in Estonia: The Role of Georgetown University Law Center

On June 19, 1992, we and seven other members of the Georgetown University Law Center community landed in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, to help the Estonian government draft laws to support a market economy. Our group consisted of six students, two professors, and an alumnus. The country to which we had come had declared its independence from the Soviet Union less than one year before. After fifty years of imposed communism, the Estonian leaders wanted to understand and adopt the basic foundations for a Western legal system that would support democratic and market institutions

Roundtable: The United States Constitution and the Adoption of International Human Rights Instruments: Freeing the Political Logjam: Keynote Address: Proposals for the Future

As it has already been mentioned today, we are living in a rather exciting time as far as human rights are concerned. Since 1917, we have lived under both the shadow of the Soviet Revolution and the threat of Communism becoming the great idea of the future. We know now that this did not come to pass, and that communism has proved to be unable to assert is superiority over other existing political systems. A chance and opportunity now exists for the United States to show that it can do better, that its goal is not to take over the world, and that its system is working better than that of the Soviet Union