This book, first published in 1980, provides both a broad review and detailed analysis of the major issues that had been affecting the changing relations between Moscow and the other European Communist parties. In discussing the Spanish, Italian, French and Scandinavian communist parties the individual contributors expose the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the parties, and analyse the ideological and sociological roots. This title will be of interest to students of politics.

This book analyses the impact of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on the Communist Parties of Western Europe. Seven case-studies, covering the Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, British and German parties, provide a tightly-argued comparative perspective. The conclusion assesses the range of responses to the dramatic events of 1989-91 and likely future direction of the west European communist movement. It is argued that, whilst it is no longer possible to talk of a coherent 'family' of communist parties, various individual parties - some of them in revised form - may continue to prosper.

The two volumes of The Social Dimension present a comprehensive survey of the major developments in social psychology which took place in Europe during the very active 1970s and 1980s. They aim to capture the diversity and vitality of the discipline, stress the growing emphasis on fully social analyses of social psychological phenomena - hence 'the social dimension' - and to provide a valuable resource for researchers in the future. Although comprehensive in scope, the volumes are not written in the formal style of a reference handbook. Instead, the authors of the thirty-three chapters, drawn from more than a dozen mainly European countries and all experts in their own fields, were invited to present their own personal overviews of the issues in social psychology on which they were actively working. Both volumes are organized into three main Parts. Volume 1 is concerned with the social development of the child, interpersonal communication and relationships, and the social reality, group processes, and intergroup relations. This ambitious enterprise has produced a distinctive yet authoritative summary and evaluation of the growth points of social psychology in Europe which will interest and influence not only social psychologists but many readers from related disciplines.

European Integration and the Communist Dilemma assesses the response of communist parties to European integration using three contrasting and comparatively significant case studies from Greece, Cyprus and Italy. These parties, in common with other radical parties in Europe, face a continuing strategic dilemma with regard to Europe through which larger questions about communist ideology and identity can be illuminated. Exploring the tendency of communist parties to face a trade-off between domestic legitimacy and electoral concerns, and their nature as parties professing opposition to the systemic currents of capitalism and European integration, the author provides a fascinating study of the nuances in deciding whether to adopt ideological consistency or undergo moderation. Blending advances in party politics, communist history and Europeanization research, the book devises a framework that overcomes the deficiencies of uni-dimensional approaches to the study of parties and Europe. In this manner, wider insights on the national party politics of European integration are drawn.

The collapse of communism was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction examines the history behind the political, economic, and social structures of communism as an ideology.

Between 1945 and 1991, tension between the USA, its allies, and a group of nations led by the USSR, dominated world politics. This period was called the Cold War – a conflict that stopped short to a full-blown war. Benefiting from the recent research of newly open archives, the Encyclopedia of the Cold War discusses how this state of perpetual tensions arose, developed, and was resolved. This work examines the military, economic, diplomatic, and political evolution of the conflict as well as its impact on the different regions and cultures of the world. Using a unique geopolitical approach that will present Russian perspectives and others, the work covers all aspects of the Cold War, from communism to nuclear escalation and from UFOs to red diaper babies, highlighting its vast-ranging and lasting impact on international relations as well as on daily life. Although the work will focus on the 1945–1991 period, it will explore the roots of the conflict, starting with the formation of the Soviet state, and its legacy to the present day.

International Communism today is split on a number of ideological and political issues and is incapable of the kind of unified action implied by the term “movement.†So argues Heinz Timmermann in this assessment of the current state of world Communism. Dr. Timmermann discusses the historical concept of a world Communist movement in connection with the USSR and China. Focusing on Communism in the West, he examines such diverse groups as the Communist parties in Italy, France, Portugal, Cyprus, Chile, and Japan. Communist parties in the West are increasingly adjusting their policies to better fit their own cultures, and the author links this independence to the emphasis the Soviet Union’s Communist Party has been placing on the specifically Russian character of the October Revolution and Soviet state interests. Apparently, Moscow is now showing some flexibility in its response to tendencies toward differentiation and pluralism within the system of Communist parties. Gorbachev is less concerned with ideological orthodoxy than with Communists effectively supporting Soviet foreign policy. The author argues that by acceding to the concept of “unity in diversity,†Gorbachev is signaling that the Soviet leadership is willing to look beyond the myth of a world Communist movement.

From one of our greatest historians, a magnificent reckoning with the modern world's most fateful idea. With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has fused a lifetime's scholarship into a single focused history of Communism, from its hopeful birth as a theory to its miserable death as a practice. At its heart, the book is a history of the Soviet Union, the most comprehensive reorganization of human society ever attempted by a nation-state. Drawing on much new information, Richard Pipes explains the countryís evolution from the 1917 revolution to the Great Terror and World War II, global expansion and the Cold War chess match with the United States, and the regime's decline and ultimate collapse. There is no more dramatic story in modern history, nor one more crucial to master, than that of how the writing and agitation of two mid-nineteenth-century European thinkers named Marx and Engels led to a great and terrible world religion that brought down a mighty empire, consumed the world in conflict, and left in its wake a devastation whose full costs can only now be tabulated.

The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.