Communist Party

In the second edition of this groundbreaking work, Derek R. Ford contends that radical politics needs educational theory, posing a series of educational questions pertinent to revolutionary movements: How can pedagogy bridge the gap between what is and what can be, while respecting the gap and its uncertainty and contingency? How can pedagogy accommodate ambiguity while remaining faithful to the communist project? In answering these questions, Ford develops a dynamic pedagogical constellation that radically opens up what education is and what it can mean for revolutionary struggle. In charting this constellation, Ford takes the reader on a journey that traverses disciplinary boundaries, innovatively reading theorists as diverse as Lenin, Agamben, Marx, Lyotard, Althusser, and Butler. Demonstrating how learning underpins capitalism and democracy, Ford articulates a theory of communist study as an alternative and oppositional logic that, perhaps paradoxically, demands the revolutionary reclamation of testing. Poetic, performative, and provocative, Communist Study is oriented toward what Ford calls “the sublime feeling of being-in-common,” which, as he insists, is always a commonness against.

The first edition of Communist Study immediately established Ford as one of the boldest and most insightful political and educational theorists. It broke new ground in the field of education, and this edition advances Ford's original conceptual and practical work to meet our current conjuncture. Ford moves deftly and daringly between disparate thinkers and concepts, weaving together philosophy, history, and educational theory in creative, profound, and lucid ways. He identifies and answers the most pressing political question of our moment: What does it mean to study like a communist? In doing so, he develops a subversive educational praxis, one that is as provocative as it is practical.
-- Peter McLaren, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Chapman University

Communist Study should be required of all theorists and activists concerned with radical political transformation. With brilliance and courage, Derek R. Ford dismantles dogma old and new, pressing us to forge the commonness that can make us a political force.
-- Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Кніга з’яўляецца першым абагульняльным даследаваннем нацыянальнай палітыкі беларусізацыі (1924–1929) і звязаных з ёю працэсаў фармавання сучаснай беларускай нацыі. Аўтар аналізуе прычыны поспехаў і няўдач беларусізацыйных мерапрыемстваў, узаемаадносіны ўлады і нацыянальнай эліты, разглядае беларусізацыю дзяржаўнага апарату і сістэмы адукацыі. Значная ўвага аддаецца стаўленню насельніцтва да правядзення нацыянальнай палітыкі і пытанню беларускай нацыянальнай ідэнтычнасці.

How do national political and economic policies impact the ability of cities to accomplish urban growth and economic goals? This study examines the state policies Shanghai operates under to assess the potential for software reform in China. Specifically, this study examines software by drawing on the corruption and rule of law theories of Larry Diamond and Randall Perrenboom. This study also uses Richard Florida’s creative class theory to examine tolerance of lesbians and gay men in Shanghai and its impact on the city’s priority industries. Additionally, this study examines Shanghai’s placement on the 2008, 2010, and 2012 Global Cities Index and the political influence of the Shanghai Clique to assess the likely future of Shanghai from a comparative international perspective. This study concludes with a discussion of the potential for reform and implications of China’s success or failure internationally through the scope of Andrew Nathan’s theory of authoritarian resilience.

"This article examines the re-evaluation and release/re-release during the 1980s of those Czechoslovak films of the 1960s that had, for political and ideological reasons, been banned during the period of so-called normalization – “vault films” as they are often called. It outlines the ways in which the banned films tended to be re-evaluated with the view to release/re-release them, placing particular focus on the period 1988-1989, on the initiatives of the Syndicate of the Czech Drama Artists (Svaz českých dramatických umělců, SČDU), and on the role of the special reviewing committee, that, during the spring of 1989, examined twenty-one banned films, including the highly “controversial” productions LARKS ON THE STRING (1969), ALL MY GOOD COUNTRYMEN (1968), and THE EAR (1969). The outcome of the committee was a report that recommended that all of the films be released either theatrically or through other distribution channels. This decision had been preceded by several attempts to reconsider the status of the banned films. The release of banned films had first been proposed in 1981 by the Central Film Rental Agency (Ústřední půjčovna filmů, ÚPF), as a way of alleviating, for the exhibition sector, a shortage of films. However, this attempt, was by no means a part of the Communist government’s broader cultural policy, and therefore ended abruptly. A more systematic attempt came two years later. After having screened almost fifty films over a two-year period, one of the SČDU’s committees upheld the verdict that had previously condemned the films as anti-socialist. Instead of re-evaluating the films in any meaningful way, the committee had dismissed the cinematic output of the 1960s as a relic of the past that was of little interest and little relevance to the committee or to Czechoslovak society. The article shows that this negative stance towards the banned films continued to characterize the position of the SČDU and the Czechoslovak Communist Party even after the appointment in 1985 of Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, an event that initiated political and cultural reforms in the Soviet Union. The Czechoslovak Communist Party was highly reticent to embrace changes that were taking place in the USSR and began to adjust its position only after the accelerated transformation of the Soviet Union and other satellite countries had exposed the extreme and unsustainable conservativism of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. The January 1989 demonstrations in Czechoslovakia, which ushered in a year of social and cultural unrest and change, marked a watershed moment with respect to the re-evaluation of the vault films by accelerating plans to reassess this “controversial” body of work and by re-positioning questions about the film heritage of the 1960s to the centre of debates about the transformation of Czechoslovak society.
The re-evaluation of the vault films from the 1960s was, as the article reveals, a high-profile cultural cause celebre during the transformation of Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1980s. Political and cultural tensions as well as tensions within the individual organizations that participated in the process of re-evaluating the banned films – the SČDU, the Czechoslovak State Film, ÚPF, and the Cultural Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party – converged around the issue of banned films as the diverse cultural, ideological, political, and economical agenda of those organizations clashed and competed with one another. The conflict between pro-reform and anti-reform forces, at a point in time at which the consequences of ongoing political, social, and cultural shifts still remained unclear, erupted visibly with respect to the vault films’ status as prominent cultural products. Moreover, for the SČDU, the issue of the banned films also provided a platform upon which the organization could re-define its stance, articulate its progressive politics, and showcase its internal transformation.
The re-evaluation of the vault films is thus not only an important part of the history of Czechoslovak cinema and of the institutional history of Czechoslovak cultural organizations, but is a key component of the cultural and political history of Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, and both a symptom, and a reflection, of the socio-political changes that were sweeping the country."

The recent history of the northern Spanish province of Asturias provides a particularly interesting case study of relationship between regionalist ideologies and the ongoing identity crisis of the working-class left.  From the late 1980s, the Communist-led coalition United Left (IU), led by Gaspar Llamazares, increasingly co-opted the rhetoric and program of Asturian regionalism, embracing its demands of official bilingualism and greater self-government.  Accordingly, the visibility of regionalism and nationalism in Asturias has recently been strongly linked to the tension between openness and orthodoxy within Spanish communism, an early battleground in the re-definition of the left in Spain.

There is just one case I know of where two brilliant young writers published dueling short stories about each other, in which each is the protagonist and his best friend the antagonist. Who were the writers who would do such a thing? One was the young Lionel Trilling, who was to become a professor of English, a leading critic, public intellectual and opinion-shaper in the culture of twentieth-century America and beyond. The other was my father, Henry M. Rosenthal, in his youth a rabbi, later a philosophy professor, of whom Trilling said, "He was the only man I ever knew whom I would call a genius." Trilling described my father as "my closest friend at college." Yet they did not remain friends.

This article combines political analysis with ethnographic fieldwork to theorise Communist party's construction of political allegiance and their persistence of power in the democratic context at a local village level in the state of Kerala in India. We provide an inaugural scholarly conceptualisation of an empirical phenomenon, known in Kerala popular parlance as 'party gramam' or the 'party village', as the focus of analysis. As we explain, a 'party village' is an administrative unit where a particular political party dominates not simply electorally but in all lived experience. We posit that the concept of 'party village' is of specific value in our understanding of various forms of current (Communist) politics. The original ascendancy of communism in the village (as in many regions of Kerala) during the twentieth century was due to its progressive ideological challenge to feudal structures of class and caste oppression. However, in democratic post-independence India, the overwhelming dominance of Communist Party in the 'party village' presents the paradox of a party with an egalitarian ideology having adapted to a persistent Hindu caste hierarchy. After situating our work within the conceptual problematisations of political party competition, and in conversation with wider communist studies literature, we provide a background to the politics of Kerala and explain the unique phenomenon of 'party villages' in Kerala. We then provide an insight into the social and economic structures of one such village, explaining the salience of these structures in relation to political allegiances. Next, we illustrate the paradox of continued caste hierarchies in a Communist Party village, and the multiple ways in which Hindu religion and caste structures are important to performing individual identity in social settings. We dissect the various means through which the grassroots Communist Party apparatus in the village maintains its dominance by adapting itself to regressive caste hierarchies for political profit at the same time as laying claim to having challenged them. In our concluding section, we place our village observations in the longer frame of historical north Kerala village politics, noting the changes over time and offering theoretical perspectives upon them. In this sense, through a mix of empirical observation with historical context and theorisation, we highlight the importance and the implications of unconventional democratic dynamics more generally.

Three decades after the Renovation Period in 1986 (Doi Moi in Vietnamese), although Vietnam is a fully
integrated member of the globalized capitalist economy, they are still facing several difficulties to anti-corruption as one
of the most challenging concerns to communist party and government. Amongst of several types of corruption, our paper
using corruption frequency in public investment in the Period 2009–2014 is to examine and evaluate effectiveness and
accountabilities of anti-corruption in public investment in Vietnam. They include three main bodies, namely the
Government Inspectorate of Vietnam, the People’s Procuracy of Vietnam and the People’s Public Security Forces of
Vietnam. Using a survey questionnaire with 150 participants from three those agencies, this paper examines corruption
and criminal behaviour in public investment in Vietnam as well as evaluates the effectiveness and accountabilities of
anti-corruption in public investment in Vietnam. Current findings show the limited qualifications of anti-corruption officers
affected the investigation of cases meanwhile offenders are often high-level and powerful officers that have greatly
hindered the investigation of corruption cases in the field of public investment. Yet, lacking transparency in management
little information on public investment projects available and its related monitors led to ideal conditions for corruption.
Besides that, the provisions on the handling of responsibilities of heads of agencies, organisations or units when corrupt
acts occur in their agencies, organisations or units are not yet specific and clear.

The study is directed towards the regional party purges within the CC CPS Bratislava in the period 1949-1951, and their connection with the campaign known as "searching for the internal traitors", then occurring within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. They included the dismissal of the two leading secretaries of the CC CPS in Bratislava: Andrej Kaboš and Ervín Polák. The study is not devoted only to the circumstances of their dismissal, but also to their previous lives and professional careers, which had a lot of influence on the accusations against them. Space is also given to the period after their arrest, conviction and later rehabilitation. The study also provides comparison with the Czech environment.

Personnel policies were one of the main instruments of power employed by the communist authorities. One of its most prominent elements was the nomenclature established exactly as in the Soviet model. Formally, it was an index of managerial positions in the state decided by appropriate levels of the communist party. In practice, the result was a  communist elite  – a  closed, self-reproducing caste which established a  monopoly of social, political and economic power. They would not be subject to scrutiny from any lower body and would enjoy multiple benefits as a  result of their place in the hierarchy. The nomenclature was combined with a highly-regulated process of information circulation. Therefore, the communist party produced multitudes of documents related to the nomenclature system. After 1990, they were stored in the state
archives and became a  great source for studies of the communist’s personnel policies, especially those of the communist nomenclature. The article is an attempt at a synthetic study of the documentation and information included there that are direct results of the nomenclature’s existence in the context of both the ideological as well as the realistic
implications for the communist system in Poland.
Polityka kadrowa była jednym z głównych instrumentów sprawowania władzy przez rządy komunistyczne. Najbardziej wyrazistym jej elementem była nomenklatura zbudowana ściśle według sowieckiego wzorca. Formalnie stanowiła wykaz stanowisk kierowniczych w państwie, pozostających w kompetencji decyzyjnej poszczególnych szczebli partii komunistycznej. W rzeczywistości efektem istnienia nomenklatury było stworzenie komunistycznej elity – zamkniętej, reprodukującej się kasty, która monopolizowała władzę społeczno-polityczno-ekonomiczną, nie podlegała oddolnej kontroli i posiadała
liczne przywileje, które wynikały z jej pozycji w strukturze systemu. Jej funkcjonowaniu towarzyszył ściśle unormowany przepisami kancelaryjnymi proces zapisu obiegu informacji. Dzięki temu partia komunistyczna wyprodukowała bardzo duże ilości dokumentów dotyczących funkcjonowania systemu nomenklaturowego. Po 1990  r. znalazły się one w archiwach państwowych stanowiąc dziś doskonałe źródło do badań nad polityką kadrową komunistów, a w szczególności komunistyczną nomenklaturą. Artykuł jest próbą syntetycznego opisania dokumentacji i informacji, które ona zawiera, powstałej w trakcie funkcjonowania nomenklatury na tle ideologicznych i praktycznych wyznaczników ustroju komunistycznego w Polsce.

I give here some hitches about China's new political leadership after the Bo Xilai' scandal. The CCP appeared in public eyes to loose some of its appeal by insisting in some traces of cronyism, favoritism and individual gain that put him apart of the common people of China. The new "Glorious Seven", the inner-circle of the Chinese Communist Party (Standing Committee of the Politburo) are well-prepared politicians, stiff, self-disciplined and very focused on the survival of the CCP and the monolitist regime. They are children of the Cultural Revolution, former "red" guards or sibilings of former Communist apparatchiks. The author argues that the distinction between maoists and pragmatists which was used to characterize Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao' leadership is of no use anymore. Most of these people are graduate and their university degrees were acquired in China but except in one case (Xi Jinping) they still lack international experience and fluency in English. the author antecipates that their 10 year mandate in the leadership of China will be more tough, ideological, centralized and inner-oriented then what come from the Hu Jintao era. It will be a two-head leadership divided by Xi Jiping (the President) and Li Keqiang (the Prime-Minister).