Georgia And Russia: A Tenuous Relationship, Ani Rostomyan

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

In 1801, the Tsar of Russia signed a decree in order to incorporate Georgia into the Russian empire. The decree was very unpopular among the Georgians and caused much unrest. After 1905, Joseph Stalin, a Georgian, became a revolutionary in the country and eventually lead the Soviet Union. In 1922, the Soviet Union forced Georgia to be a part of a Socialist Republic with its surrounding countries, upending the local population and disrupting historic boundary lines. Despite many religious and cultural similarities, Russia’s rule was deemed erratic and domineering. Unfortunately, being ruled under Communism caused the country to become extremely …

Contextualizing George Orwell: How Orwell's Life Experiences Influenced His Most Famous Novels, Jonah Ridgley

History and Political Science | Senior Theses

George Orwell is one of the most celebrated authors of the 20th century. His most famous novels, Animal Farm and 1984, serve as insightful commentaries on the horrors of totalitarianism. These two books have been studied extensively and incorporated into public and political discourse since his death in 1950. Contemporary right-wing and left-wing leaders and pundits both continue to reference the concepts and language in Orwell’s books to support their respective stances on various issues. Additionally, they have been presented to high schoolers and college students as simplified anti-communist novels or pro-capitalist propaganda during the Cold War. However, Orwell’s work …

Attempted Book Bans: The Censorship Of Queer Themes In The 1950s, María J. Quintana-Rodriguez

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article aims to explore queer book banning during the 1950s in response to Cold War national defense tactics. The decade witnessed the formation of the first public LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the United States as well as a rise in queer literature and publications. This publicization of queerness in society was seen as a rejection of traditional societal norms and threatened the Cold War-imposed gender ideology. In addition, the fear of Communist expansion led to the conflation of homosexuals and Communists, categorizing queerness and queer-related themes as immoral and as an interference in the United States' fight for democracy. …

From “This Revolution Is Neither Communist Nor Capitalist!” To “Long Live The Socialist Revolution:” The Deterioration Of U.S.-Cuban Relations From 1958-1961, Julia Lyne

Honors Projects

This thesis studies the deterioration of U.S.-Cuban relations from 1958-1961. Mainly drawing from primary sources from the National Archives, it seeks to answer and understand how and why relations deteriorated so rapidly. It pushes against the common belief that U.S.-Cuban relations were doomed from the start, instead highlighting in Chapter One Fidel Castro’s rise to power (and Fulgencio Batista’s fall from power) and revealing that the U.S. government was not entirely against Castro’s seizure of power. Chapter Two explores Castro’s first year in power and the (futile) attempts made by both governments to keep relations alive. Finally, it closes with …

International Connection, Domestic Radicalization: The Connection Between East Asia And Black Radicals, Randy O. Felder

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Utilizing newspapers, journals and pamphlets, this thesis examines the ways that the Black Power movement, primarily in the 1960’s connected with East Asian countries.

Differentiating between the Black Power and the Civil Rights groups, this thesis will show why and how the Black Power movement needed international allies such as China and Vietnam.

Showing that the connection between the East Asia and Black Power groups was due to racism, imperialism, and Maoism, I argue that Black Power individuals/groups were influenced by East Asia and saw these countries as a blueprint for revolution in America. This thesis also analyzes the significance …

Copland And Communism: Mystery And Mayhem, Emilie Schulze

Musical Offerings

In the midst of the second Red Scare, Aaron Copland, an American composer, came under fire for his communist tendencies. Between the 1930s and 1950s, he joined the left-leaning populist Popular Front, composed a protest song, wrote Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man, traveled to South America, spoke at the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, and donated to communist leaning organizations such as the American-Soviet Musical Society. Due to Copland’s personal communist leanings, Eisenhower’s Inaugural Concert Committee censored a performance of Copland’s Lincoln Portrait in 1953. HUAC (The House Committee on Un-American Activities) brought Copland to …

David Alfaro Siqueiros And “Los Vehículos De La Pintura Dialéctico-Subversiva:” Four Principles To Create Revolutionary Artwork, Joy Zanghi

Student Publications

As one of the most distinguished Mexican muralists, David Alfaro Siqueiros played an important role in Mexican political and artistic history in the twentieth century. Despite the violence that took place in the first half of 1900s in Mexico, art flourished during this period. Inspired by the democratization that characterized the revolution, political art became common during the early twentieth century, and as Mexicans grappled with post-revolutionary identities, many artists, including Siqueiros, turned to communism as the way forward. In his speech “Los vehículos de la pintura dialéctico-subversiva,” delivered in 1932, Siqueiros delineated how to meld revolutionary ideology with the …

"Unite The Left": Contextualizing Bukharin's Abc Of Communism And Berkman's Abc Of Anarchism, David Hayter

Theses and Dissertations

In 1919, Nikolai Bukharin, the leading theoretician of the Bolshevik Party, published a manual entitled The ABC of Communism meant to put the governing ideology of the newly formed Soviet State into eminently readable terms. Alexander Berkman, a Russian Anarchist who strongly supported the October Revolution, became disillusioned with the new regime in 1921 and left the country. He later published his own tract entitled The ABC of Anarchism. This thesis pits these two theoretical works against each other as historical documents embodying the nature of leftist polemics that has characterized the movement since the dissolution of the First …

The Bohemian Bolsheviks, Dale Cook

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This project used two socialist magazines to analyze the relationship between radical politics and the historical moment. Political radicals worked outside of the mainstream and aimed to influence the creation of a dramatically different future. The question then was how did a group of radicals like those that worked on The Masses and the Liberator deal with the open contingency of history, that their imagined future may never come or could appear in a different form than they imagined, and how did they communicate that vision of the future in an intelligible way. Based on the magazines, I argued that …

Explaining America's Proxy War In Afghanistan: U.S. Relations With Pakistan And Saudi Arabia 1979–1989, Adelaide Petrov-Yoo

History

From 1979 to 1989, an international coalition led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan sent aid to Afghan guerillas known as the mujahideen. This thesis investigates the interests served by this aid by identifying key decision makers and identifying what they hoped to achieve by participating in the aid pipeline. In the United States, President Carter escalated the aid program in response to waxing Soviet influence and waning US influence in the region. President Reagan’s foreign policy approach, fighting the Cold War in other countries through proxies labeled “freedom fighters”, encouraged members of Congress and the Executive branch …

Us And The Cold War In Latin America, Thomas Field

Publications

The Cold War in Latin America had marked consequences for the region’s political and economic evolution. From the origins of US fears of Latin American Communism in the early 20th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, regional actors played central roles in the drama. Seeking to maximize economic benefit while maintaining independence with regard to foreign policy, Latin Americans employed an eclectic combination of liberal and anti-imperialist discourses, balancing frequent calls for anti-Communist hemispheric unity with periodic diplomatic entreaties to the Soviet bloc and the nonaligned Third World. Meanwhile, US Cold War policies toward …

Liberation By Emigration: Italian Communists, The Cold War, And West-East Migration From Venezia Giulia, 1945-1949, Luke Gramith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

In the years after World War II, several thousand Italians from the Italo-Yugoslav borderlands emigrated eastward across the emerging Iron Curtain, hoping to start new and better lives in Communist Yugoslavia. This dissertation explores what these migrants hoped Communism would be and how the experiences of everyday life under the preceding Fascist dictatorship shaped these hopes. It suggests that these Italians envisioned Communist society as one purged of certain social categories—shopkeepers, foremen, and piecework clerks—who had become known as quintessential Fascists due to the way Fascism interwove itself with local power. Marxist doctrine played a relatively minor role in shaping …

A History And Analysis Relevant To The Us Border: A.K.A. "Fuck The Border”, Cole Rainey-Slavick

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Borders are proliferating throughout the world today; dividing the core from the periphery, racially excluding vulnerable peoples, and facilitating the exploitation of labor. But, it has not always been like this. Borders were once limited only to a small scattering of city states, and even these borders looked little like those of today in terms of their enforcement or function. Where do borders come from? What do they do? What social forces produce and alter them? What is the history of the US border? What is the border …

The Far Left In Australia, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Betraying Revolution: The Foundations Of The Japanese Communist Party, Matthew J. Crooke

Master's Projects and Capstones

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and China’s restoration of capitalism, it is easy to dismiss the relevancy of socialism today. Yet, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) has enjoyed success at the polls and recognition as a serious opponent of the government of Abe Shinzō. The JCP however is not making a push for power. Instead, it supports liberal opposition parties, most recently throwing its weight behind the new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) in the October 2017 general election. A future CDP government in Japan could include the JCP as a coalition partner. Does …

Vintage Red.Docx, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Bethlehem Chapel: How A Place Can Be Reinterpreted By Government, Maya Lemaster

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

An important source of legitimacy for all types of government is the creation of or building up of a sense of nationhood for the citizens of the state. This can be achieved in many ways, including through the use of physical nationalist symbols. In my paper, I address this topic by exploring how the Communist government of Czechoslovakia reinterpreted and changed the traditional meaning of the historical Bethlehem Chapel in Prague in order to fit their own ideology. I found that the Communist government emphasized the communal aspects of the Hussite movement and ignored religious associations. My research is primarily …

Review: Sylvia Martin, 'Ink In Her Veins: The Troubled Life Of Aileen Palmer', (Crawley: Uwa Publishing, 2016)., Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Review: Sylvia Martin, 'Ink In Her Veins: The Troubled Life Of Aileen Palmer', (Crawley: Uwa Publishing, 2016)., Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Soviet Kitsch During Stalin's Purges, Jenna Marco

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

This article explores the applications of Modris Eksteins' concept of kitsch to Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union, particularly the period of the Party purges in the 1930s. It traces the construction and development of Soviet kitsch under Stalin in the political, social, cultural, and artistic spheres. Overall, the article argues that the presence of kitsch was ultimately harmful to Soviet politics and culture. In conclusion, the article briefly poses the question of whether or not kitsch fully died out in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, and if kitsch is still present in current Russian politics and …

Heroes Of Berlin Wall Struggle, William D. Bowman

History Faculty Publications

When the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, on Nov. 9, 1989, symbolically signaling the end of the Cold War, it was no surprise that many credited President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for bringing it down.

But the true heroes behind the fall of the Berlin Wall are those Eastern Europeans whose protests and political pressure started chipping away at the wall years before. East German citizens from a variety of political backgrounds and occupations risked their freedom in protests against communist policies and one-party rule in what they called the "peaceful revolution." [excerpt]

Yugoslav-Soviet Split, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Describes the political and military split between the Communist countries of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the years after World War II until Yugoslavia's disintegration in the early 1990s.

So We Ran..., Sara R. Bias

Student Publications

This paper tells the true story of a Hungarian refugee who's family fled the communist regime there in 1971. Gabriella Bercze's story reflects on what it was like to live in Hungary under communist rule, and her family's experience in escaping the country, and fleeing to Italy, where they lived in a refugee camp for months before immigrating to the United States in the early 70s.

Red Scare, Red Stars - Blacklisted Ccny, Helena Marvin, William Gibbons

Helena Marvin

A Calculated Risk: The Effects Of Nicolae Ceauşescu’S Denunciation Of The 1968 Warsaw Pact Invasion Of Czechoslovakia On Us-Romanian Relations, Paul R. Hebert

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

For most of the Cold War, the United States attempted to maintain friendly relations with the Communist nations comprising the Eastern Bloc, but with no other Soviet satellite was the relationship as close as it was with Romania. No other member nation of the Warsaw Pact took to the United States’ overtures so eagerly. Diplomatic relations between the United States and the Romanian Communist government were established relatively early, almost immediately following the end of the Second World War. However, it was not until 1968, when Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu denounced the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, that the …

Black Radicals And Marxist Internationalism: From The Iwma To The Fourth International, 1864-1948, Charles R. Holm

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project investigates historical relationships between Black Radicalism and Marxist internationalism from the mid-nineteenth through the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that contrary to scholarly accounts that emphasize Marxist Euro-centrism, or that theorize the incompatibility of “Black” and “Western” radical projects, Black Radicals helped shape and produce Marxist theory and political movements, developing theoretical and organizational innovations that drew on both Black Radical and Marxist traditions of internationalism. These innovations were produced through experiences of struggle within international political movements ranging from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century to the early Pan-African movements and struggles …

The Russian Gulag: Understanding The Dangers Of Marxism Combined With Totalitarianism, Mark C. Riley

Senior Honors Theses

This study examines the Soviet Gulag, the main prison camp administration implemented in the Soviet Union. The GULAG represents an institution that is not well known, and this paper will explain why it existed and why it remains in the shadows of history. Terror, propaganda, and belief in progress represent the three ideas that directed the Soviet totalitarian system. This thesis will accordingly explore the ideology behind totalitarian government and Marxist practice in order to understand why the Gulag was allowed to exist. Finally, it investigates the reasons why the Gulag has not taken a priority position in human knowledge …

The Historical Background Of The Communist Manifesto, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] The Manifesto of the Communist Party, published 150 years ago in London in February 1848, is one of the most influential and widely-read documents of the past two centuries. The historian A. J. P. Taylor (1967, p. 7) has called it a "holy book," and contends that because of it, "everyone thinks differently about politics and society." And yet, despite its enormous influence in the 20th century, the Manifesto is very much a period piece, a document of what was called the "hungry" 1840s. It is hard to imagine it being written in any other decade of the 19th …

Walking The Tightrope: The United States’ Policy In Vietnam, 1952-1954, Erin Flynn

Annual Celebration of Student Scholarship and Creativity

This thesis demonstrates how the Truman and Eisenhower administrations sought to avoid direct intervention in Indochina and halt the spread of communism at the same time. This purpose is achieved through careful analysis of primary and secondary sources, with a particular focus on the primary documentation found in Foreign Relations of the United States: 1952-1954. Through examination of these day-by-day recordings and memos, the futility of pursuing the two conflicting aims becomes clear.

Had Your Imperial Army Not Invaded: Japan's Role In The Making Of Modern China, Joshua Hubbard

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

By 1936, the Guomindang had seemingly managed to secure its political dominance by nearly annihilating its main adversary, the Chinese Communist Party. In 1937, the Japanese army began a full-scale invasion of China that would forever change its political landscape. During the subsequent eight-year war, the Guomindang government collapsed, plagued by economic difficulties and internal corruption. Simultaneously, the small group of communists in Yan’an grew into a virulent force of opposition, with vast amounts of territory and the support of the masses. Nearly all components of this drastic turn of events can be linked to the imperialist expansion of Japan. …