Soon after World War II the Soviet Union had created a red iron curtain around Eastern Europe, communist regimes could be seen throughout with countries like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. These regimes where severely oppressive and violated basic human rights, hence a growing opposition was beginning to form. From the mid-1970’s Vaclav Havel, a former playwright would become the most prominent Czechoslovakian “dissident” and campaigner against the abuses of the Communist Regime by actively defending the rock group Plastic People of the Universe, being one of the three public spokespeople for Charter 77 and by writing various essays critiquing the communist regime. No essay has had more influence and been instrumental in “dissident” movements in Eastern Europe than the essay “The Power of the Powerless”. Within this essay and others that Havel wrote throughout the 1970s and 80s Havel describes the Communist system, critiques it and explains his strategy for overcoming the regime.
One of the first things Havel tries to accomplish in the essay “ The Power of the Powerless” is to distinguish the communist regime from a classical dictatorship. Unlike classical dictatorships, which are local and lack historical roots the communist system is spread over a whole bloc under the rule of the Soviet Union and has lots of historical roots specifically the proletarian and socialist movements of the 19th century. Another main difference is that the communist system commands a flexible ideology, in essence the regime behaved like a “secularized religion”. “Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of ones own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the...
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...ween workers and intellectuals but between Czechs and Slovaks in opposition to Husak.” The citizens united against the regime for a better life and where victorious all with out bloodshed.
In the 1970’s and 80’s Vaclav Havel was one of the most influential thinkers in Eastern Europe and one of the most prominent campaigner against the communist regime. His major critique of the regime was that it was oppressive, denying basic human freedoms such as speech. He also critiqued the people within the system, those who “lived within the lie” who conformed to the system implemented by the regime. His strategy was to “live within the truth” acknowledge that your freedoms have been taken and that basic human life is not being allowed to exist within this regime. As we saw the people eventually got tired of being tired and unified in order to overcome the regime by 1989.
" The Son of Revolution" indicates the bounds and paradox of the communist government, which quarantined many individuals, regardless of the fact that its main focus was on equality and the betterment of the community. Works Cited: Liang, Heng, and Judith Shapiro. 1984. Son of the revolution. New York: Vintage Books.
During the 20th century, the rise of communism sparked rage in people throughout the world. More towards the end of the 1900's the fall of communism and dictatorships was just the beginning of what would eventually be a large democratic change for several countries. 1989: Democratic Revolutions at the Cold War's End, speaks about the change brought to several different countries from the 1980's-1990's and plans to show "the global transformations that marked the end of the cold war and shaped the era in which we live"(Pg V). During the cold war, communist had power and control over a large area and spread communism throughout several continents. This book specifically hits on six different studies of where communism and dictatorship affected these areas and what they did to stop it. Poland, Philippines, Chile, South Africa, Ukraine, and China throughout the end of the 20th century created revolutionary movements which brought them all one step closer to freeing themselves and creating democratic change.
This essay will concentrate on the comparison and analysis of two communist figures: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Party in China, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. The main focus of this paper will be to explore each figure’s world view in depth and then compare and contrast by showing their differences and similarities. Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of the Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold, 1999).
In his novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury entices and allows readers to interpret the deeper meaning of the text, which lies far beyond the characters and the setting of the dystopia. Throughout the 50’s and 60’s, many people were deprived of religious freedom due to the extremity of communism. USSR, during the Cold War, required countries to be communists limiting them from their necessary freedoms. Within each of the multiple tragedies in which the story explores, there is a link to the peril and warfare that occurred while this book was written. Bradbury binds the issues with communist countries in the story, and relates it to his fictional text highlighting communism as ineffective system of government and an excessively controlling atmosphere. For example, in 1968, Czechoslovakia attempted to release from the strict Soviet control. A new Czechoslovakian leader, Alexander Dubcek, tried to restore a shattered freedom that has been taken away since the end of WW2. Czechoslovakian People freely expressed themselves and read banned literature, which resulted in the Soviet Union sending Warsaw troops, tanks, and with little retaliation from the Czechoslovakian citizens, transformed them into an uncompromising communist nation. Although this even happened after Fahrenheit 451 was created, it was foreshadowed by Bradbury due to the nature and mindset various countries withheld in the 1950’s. Hence, Bradbury conceals various components of the world’s flaws by means of allusions and metaphors, ultimately paralleling the world to a dystopian society. Bradbury highlights that the world’s major flaw is limiting and restricting people from their necessary basic freedoms.
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Although How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulic and Memoirs of an Italian Terrorist by Giorgio are so structurally different, they both express a sense of anger and frustration through vivid imagery. The two novels reveal the pain of their narrators, who wish to live in a better world, democratic and free, nevertheless, a society where men and women enjoy the basics of freedom, equality, and free of a heavy political apparatus exploiting all to serve few. Even though Drakulic and Giorgio came from a different perspective and ideology about whether living under a communist - Marxist- Leninist political system, they share the key distinction of recognizing that 1970s Europe was about to see real changes. However, the word “communism” in the two texts is used to represent two very different ideas; dissatisfaction for Drakulic and idealism for Giorgio. In HWSCEL, author Slavanka Drakulic uses the word “communism” in its most general sense, describing the emotions of oppression, scarcity, neglect and subjugation (Drakulic, p.24 and p.51)…. In the MOAIT, the
... sponsor” (Ross 263). In fact, by the late 1950’s, sixty-eight-percent of American’s wanted to make communism illegal, in a blatant disregard for the First Amendment of the Constitution (Zeinert 67). Books such as George Orwell’s 1984 portrayed a world in which the Party ruled supreme, and Big Brother was always watching in a totalitarian-communist government reminiscent of the Soviet Union. Similar to Anthem in its dystopian abuse of basic human rights, 1984 differs in that the Party is not an unintelligent force, ruling through numbers alone. The Party is a cunning, powerful and ruthless enemy, skilled in the art of psychological warfare and the breaking of souls. This version of communism, efficient, intelligent, and manipulative, reflects the changing perception of communism within the public; as the fear of the threat grew, that which was feared gained power.
All they wanted was to avoid trouble. They tried not to be seen anywhere, not talk to anyone, not to attract attention. Their greatest satisfaction would be that nothing happened…” (p. 126) Heda and her inmates in Auschwitz escaped and Heda fled back to Prague. She was embarrassed that no one would take her in because of what happened to her. How sad. Friends would not take her in because she was humiliated and worn out. “The Nazis had always portrayed the Soviet Union as their most dangerous enemy. Eventually we came to believe that communism was the very opposite of Nazism, a movement that would restore all the values that Nazism had destroyed, most of all the dignity of man and the solidarity of all human beings. It came to seem that only another revolution could undo what the first had done.” (p. 65) Communism helped people get through their life on the daily. It was a way of having everything together in one place even if it was an attraction for those who were not communist. Heda later on when she escaped the concentration camp, she went door to door to her friend’s house but no one recognized her. She was not the same Heda that she used to be. Communism affected every individual. “It’s all because people have given up expecting anything good from this government.” Said Mrs. Machova. “Our government has no intention of taking care of us. It only harasses us.” (p. 106) The government did care. Why would the
Dr. Dana Bates’s explanation of communism and the impact of its tyrannical hold over Romania was like nothing I had heard before. I had heard explanations of communism, Marxism, and propaganda, but it was never accompanied by an explanation of the social effects. Dr. Bates’s explanation of the brutalized societal structures and psychology of the Romanian citizens provided a whole new depth to the topic. As he continued to explain the affects of the system, I felt a growing pit in my stomach: the capacity for humanity to inflict brutality upon others can sometimes appear boundless. This evil had trickled down and settled like cement into the broken Romanian society. Families were so desperate to survive that if they did not steal from their
For a historian, the 20th century and all the historic events that it encompasses represents a utopia with endless sources of inspiration for the analysis of political figures, events and their consequences. Political figures such as Benito Mussolini of Italy, Adolf Hitler of Germany, Mao Zedong of China and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union are all names we are familiar with due to the time period that they influenced; this time period after the trauma and atrocities of World War I and the Great Depression led to completely new forms of government in Europe and beyond. These “manifestations of political evil”, commonly known as totalitarian states, should not be considered as mere extensions of already existing political systems, but rather as completely new forms of government built upon terror and ideological fiction. Therefore, this was also a time in which political philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, the author of the standard work on totalitarianism, “Origins of Totalitarianism”, could thrive. When looking at totalitarianism as a political philosophy, two initial questions have to be dealt with: what is totalitarianism and what kind of effect it had on countries ruled by totalitarian regimes. The reasons for its occurrence have briefly been mentioned above, although there are much deeper ideological, social and economic reasons including imperialism and anti-Semitism. In order to fully understand it, we must also contrast it to other political systems like authoritarianism and dictatorship, which are similar to a certain extent, but lack crucial elements that are in the core of totalitarian ideology. Out of the many examples of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, Communist China and the Soviet Union stan...
In "Heaven on Earth, The Rise and Fall of Socialism," Muravchik spike his terrible exposed logically by deliver a train of inadequate biographies of some of the most controlling leadership of socialist, communist and effort movements. The say follow in stipulate a fit everywhere sight of appropriate historical and ideological developments, even if unavoidably sickly on dope along of the immeasurable region hooded. Almost all the socialist and communist leadership were centric high-class and vamp place intellectuals rather than workers or the emaciated. Communism was always the dictatorship over the workers, not of the workers. Despite proximate and continuing failures to effectuate its covenant, no amount of fail depresses communalism's recourse. The list cloaks their public running at some distance.
According to most historians, “history is told by the victors”, which would explain why most people equate communism with Vladimir Lenin. He was the backbone of Russia’s communist revolution, and the first leader of history’s largest communist government. It is not known, or discussed by most, that Lenin made many reforms to the original ideals possessed by many communists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He revised Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles’ theories to fit the so-called ‘backwardness’ of the Russian Empire. Lenin’s reforms were necessary to carry out a socialist revolution in Russia, and the contributions he made drastically changed the course of history. It can be assumed that, the Soviet Union would not have been as powerful if it was not for Lenin’s initial advocacy of violence and tight organization.
Many historians consider the dominating force behind the collectivisation in Russia during Stalin’s period of power to be a “revolution from above.” This would indicate that it was led by an elite class of the society, and the majority of people did not agree with it. In contrast, some think of it as being dictated by “actions from below.” This would indicate that actions taken by the peasant masses actually controlled the change. Both viewpoints will be evaluated in this essay. To start the first viewpoint will be discussed.
Janos, Andrew C. “What was Communism: A Retrospective in Comparative Analysis.” Communist and Post- Communist Studies Volume 29 (1996): 1-24. Print.
"The Velvet Revolution: A Peaceful End to Communism in Czechoslovakia." Tavaana. E-Collaborative for Civic Education, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.