Twentieth Century Communism

03/09/2024

Today is the anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War.

In 2014, Alix Heiniger published this article with Twentieth Century Communism journal on German communists in exile during WWII.

It is now free to download from Lawrence & Wishart.

During the Second World War, German communists exiled in Belgium, France and Switzerland kept being active on behalf of their pa

27/08/2024

Hard copy of issue 26 has now arrived!

Get your copy here: https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2024-issue-26/

20/07/2024

This week is the anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Twentieth Century Communism journal has published several articles on the conflict including this free to download article by David Featherstone on African American volunteers and Black internationalism.

This paper considers some of the political trajectories of the ninety or so African Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil Wa

01/07/2024

On this day (1 July) in 1960, Kwame Nkrumah became the first President of Ghana. Nkrumah appeared on the front cover of issue 15 of Twentieth Century Communism journal on communism and post-war Africa, published in 2018.

Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2018 Issue 15 (2018)

03/06/2024

This event is happening on Thursday, June 27th at 5 pm in Amsterdam (recording will be available at a later date):

On the occasion of the Dutch translation in 2023 of the novel Niki (2014) by the Greek writer Christos Chomenidis – longlisted for the (Dutch) European Literature Prize – the author will have a conversation with Michel Krielaars and Elke Weesjes about the myths and realities around ideological and dogmatic forms of education in Greece, the Netherlands, and former communist states, and the multiple afterlives of history in the present.

On the occasion of the Dutch translation in 2023 of the novel Niki (2014) by the Greek writer Christos Chomenidis – longlisted for the (Dutch) European Literature Prize – the author will have a conversation with Michel Krielaars and Elke Weesjes about the myths and realities around ideological a...

01/05/2024

Happy May Day comrades!

14/03/2024

Just a reminder to historians and scholars in adjacent disciplines that Twentieth Century Communism journal is always looking for original research articles on any aspect of the history of communism, radicalism, labour and left-wing activism. Please get in touch!

Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history

09/11/2023

The Global 1956: Call for papers for Twentieth Century Communism special issue and workshop 23 April 2024

School of Politics and International Relations, QMUL, and Twentieth Century Communism

Eric Hobsbawm described 1956 as communism’s second ten days that shook the world. Encompassing the Khrushchev secret speech and Soviet repression in Hungary, as well as the Suez crisis, this was stalinism’s crisis year and one with which only 1917 as the year of revolution can be compared. Hobsbawm referred to the irrevocable sense of before and after, of a world communist movement now in tatters. This is one of the hinges on which the history of twentieth-century communism turned.

There is however a paradox that this workshop and subsequent special issue will seek to address: first, that 1956 sits uneasily in the new global histories of communism; and second, that this global reach is largely absent from the huge literature that the events of 1956 have generated. This is encapsulated by the Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism, which features 1956 among its five ‘global moments’, but in a treatment that is conspicuously less global than all the others. Scholarship on 1956 is still today predominantly focused on the USSR, on the ruling and non-ruling communist parties of Europe and North America and on the relationships between them. If there was a global 1956, its history is still to be written.

What new questions and connections might such a project open up? There are many useful pointers in debates around the ‘global sixties’ and latterly a global 1848. Was 1956 such a crisis year for every communist party or is that itself a partly Eurocentric assumption? Does the prevalent ten-days-that-shook approach need balancing with a more expansive time-frame analogous to the ‘long 1968’? How did the crisis of stalinism interact with that of the old colonial empires in undermining eurocentric conceptions of political leadership that had survived within the communist movement? As the grip of both marxism-leninism and socialist realism were loosened, what were the cultural and ideological reactions against stalinism that could differ so markedly from country to country?

We invite paper proposals for a one-day workshop to be held at Queen Mary University of London on Tuesday 23 April 2024. This will be a hybrid event allowing for papers to be delivered remotely by those for whom travel to London is not feasible.

We welcome both papers of a comparative or conceptual nature and research-based case studies that will themselves contribute to the broader comparative scope of the planned special issue. Indicative themes might include but are not restricted to the following:

• the “long ‘56”: forewarnings and after-effects of stalinism's year of crisis.
• the impact of 1956 in any part of the communist movement but particularly those that have featured less in the literature.
• the impact of the ‘twin crisis’ of Suez and Soviet intervention in Hungary on the emergence/development of non-aligned and new left activist networks, especially those so far less studied
• changing relations between different sections of the world communist movement, including relations with the CPSU and ruling communist parties but also relations between the parties and movements of the old colonial powers and the colonies, dependencies and newly independent nations.
• the role played by the Suez crisis in shifting attention towards anti-imperialist aims and encouraging left-wing support for (not necessarily communist) nation-building projects in the global south.
• the impact of destalinisation in ideology and culture.
• the ideological and factional forms through which the reaction against stalinism can be traced both within and beyond the communist movement e.g. maoism, trotskyism, tiers-mondisme and new lefts.
• Studies of key individuals who broke with stalinism/communism in this period but rarely feature in broader discussions of the impact of 1956 (for example Aimé Césaire, Sékou Touré or Georges Haupt).

Abstracts of up to 300 words are invited for contributions of 5-6,000 words which will be published in a themed issue of Twentieth Century Communism subject to the journal’s normal refereeing processes. The schedule for the workshop and themed issue is:

15 Dec 2023 submission of abstracts
18 March 2024 submission of draft papers
23 April 2024 workshop at QMUL, London
14 June 2024 submission of revised papers
Nov 2024 publication of themed issue of Twentieth Century Communism

Organising committee:
Madeleine Davis [email protected]
Kevin Morgan [email protected]
George Odysseos [email protected]
Evan Smith [email protected]

Abstracts and correspondence should be addressed in the first instance to [email protected]

15/08/2023

Historians!

Our journal, Twentieth Century Communism, is always looking for articles to publish on communist history, labour history, the history of radical politics and social movements. If this seems like your area, please get in touch!

Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history

13/07/2023

Just a reminder that Twentieth Century Communism is seeking abstracts for special issue on a 'global 1956'. Deadline is 31 July.

Please share widely

31/05/2023

CFP for the global 1956 special issue:

One cannot imagine a history of twentieth-century communism without 1956 as one of the hinges on which it turned. According to Eric Hobsbawm, only 1917 as the year of revolution could be compared with it, as this second ‘ten days that shook the world’ produced an irrevocable sense of before and after leaving the world communist movement in tatters. Despite this assumed global frame of reference, scholarship on the crisis year of 1956 has focused predominantly on both ruling and non-ruling communist parties of Europe and North America and on the USSR itself.

This issue of Twentieth Century Communism is envisaged as broadening that frame of reference. In the spirit of recent work on the ‘global sixties’, it will offer new perspectives on a ‘global 1956’ and ask how far these also imply a more expansive conception of a ‘long 1956’ analogous to that of the ‘long 1968’. The aim isn’t to bring into question the enormity of the political crisis for those sections of the communist movement on which there exists an outstanding historiography. Its aim is to explore the connections between this crisis and that of the old colonial empires and new movements of cultural and political resistance sometimes drawing on the communist traditions and sometimes openly challenging it.

Papers are invited on the impact of stalinism’s political crisis of the 1950s on any key party or actor. Particularly welcome will be submissions interested in political or cultural movements challenging communism’s eurocentrism; in conflicts which these communist parties struggled to manage politically; in new transnational networks and forms of organisation; and in key groups or individuals.

2-300 word abstract are due by end of July with submissions for end of December.

12/05/2023

Call for papers

‘Travels: A transnational communist practice’, a special issue of Twentieth Century Communism: A Journal of International History

Well before the Comintern’s founding in 1919, travel had become an essential practice of Marxist revolutionaries who imagined a new egalitarian society that extended beyond national boundaries. Lenin’s train journey from Zurich to Petrograd in 1917 would become a monumental moment in the collective communist memory, inseparable from the successful outcome of the October Revolution.

The founding of the Comintern marked a new era in the internationalization of the Bolsheviks’ political views and practices, with its activists embarking on a nomadic existence as they travelled across the globe. At the same time, the new Soviet state urged communists and fellow travelers from all over the world to visit its territory, often within the framework of Soviet cultural diplomacy. During the interwar period, communist travels could also be imposed, as in the case of political exile. Travels also expressed revolutionary and/or anti-fascist solidarity as in the case of the Spanish Civil War.

After the end of the Second World War, communist travels took different forms and meanings in the context of a new world divided between the communist East and the capitalist West. In the second half of the twentieth century, the territories of the so-called Third World also attracted communists and leftists from different parts of the world.

The study of travels can be especially fruitful as it shines a light on both the circulation of individuals and ideas, as well as the development of political cultures. While there is a rich literature on many transnational aspects of 20th-century communism, there is a dearth of research that focuses on how travels became, at the same time, an experience, a political practice, and a tool of propaganda. This special issue aims at bringing together papers that are specifically engaged with the theme of communist travels undertaken by individuals and/or groups.
Questions of interest include:
What structural features of travels and traveling played a role in the evolution of Communist activists, groups, and parties? To what extent did travels contribute to the shaping of communist identities?
How did travels challenge official party policies and destabilize ideological certainties? To what extent did travels contribute to scissions and splits?
How did Communist leaders and parties use travels as a political means and propaganda tool in different contexts?

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to:
[email protected] by 30 June 2023.

24/12/2022

Seasons greetings from the Twentieth Century Communism team

13/11/2022

Hot on the heels of our special issue on Global Maoism,
Twentieth Century Communism journal has a new special issue now out on miners and communism. Find the new issue here:

Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2022 Issue 23 (2022)

30/09/2022

CFA: Imagining the 20th Century Resistance Fighter: Intersectional perspectives on anti-fascist movements and commemorations

This is a call for articles for a special issue on biographies of resistance fighters in global anti-fascist movements and the resistance during the Second World War. Articles should explore both the life and legacy/commemoration of the subject, the movement they belonged to, and intersectionality. Authors are encouraged to discuss the hierarchy of identity markers and whether this hierarchy changed over time, contrast the private and the public, explore whether the subject became a hero/martyr outside or within their movement, and examine if their subjects’ stories were exploited/used by a movement/nation, and investigate whether the Cold War/changing national circumstances impacted the subject’s legacy/commemoration.

We invite you to submit an article abstract of approximately 500 words by October 31, 2022. The abstract should include the title of the paper, state the problem or research question, outline the theoretical framework, state the main point or argument, and provide a rough indication of the methods and sources you intend to use. Please include a short academic biography.
Submit your abstracts to Kasper Braskén ([email protected]) or Elke Weesjes ([email protected]).

22/09/2022

The new special issue of Twentieth Century Communism on Global Maoism is now online!

Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2022 Issue 22 (2022)

07/09/2022

Sneak preview of the next issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal, which is a special issue on Global Maoisms. The issue will available next week!

03/08/2022

Two of the TCC editorial board, Matthew Worley and Evan Smith, have put out a new call for papers for potential chapters for a follow up volume to their two books on the history of the British far left. Please see the CFP at the link below.

CALL FOR PAPERS: THE BRITISH FAR LEFT FROM 1956 (NEW VOLUME) It has been five years since we published Waiting for the Revolution: The British Far Left from 1956 and the scholarship on the history …

21/07/2022

This volume will be off the presses on Friday in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its title, in translation, is Judeo-Progressive Culture in the Americas, and is a collection of essays on the Jewish left in the 20th century from Tierra del Fuego to Canada. A special shoutout to editor Nerina Visacovsky.

16/07/2022

We are ever so pleased to introduce our new editorial board member. Dr Margarite Poulos has been teaching modern European history and politics at Western Sydney University, Australia, since 2012. Her broad research area is modern Greek history, with a particular interest in Greek communism, histories of feminism, and articulations of the gender-nation nexus in the context of key nation-building conflicts. Her forthcoming book on the paradoxes of Bolshevisation (Vanderbilt University Press) examines the development of interwar radical politics ‘from below’ with a focus on the communists who trained in Moscow to become ‘professional revolutionaries’ for the Greek Communist Party. Margarite recently embarked on a new project that explores links between state anti-communism and public sexual health regimes in post-Civil War Greece.

01/07/2022

For those of you who missed the book launch, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain. Watch it now on Vimeo, posted by the Marx Memorial Library:

This is "Book launch: Growing up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain with Elke Weesjes" by Marx Memorial Library on Vimeo, the home for high quality…

17/06/2022

This is happening on Tuesday, June 21, 14:00-15:30. Please join us via zoom (link is included) or in person.

Author Dr Elke Weesjes presents this comparative analysis of the Dutch and British Communist movements in the 20th Century

08/03/2022

CFP for conference on international communism at Liverpool John Moore University

Find out more about the Rethinking International Communism: AHRC-Funded Research Network conference taking place at LJMU 2-3 September 2022.

07/03/2022

https://theconversation.com/stuart-macintyres-rich-history-of-the-communist-party-of-australia-recaptures-a-lost-political-world-176684?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter =1646609966-1

The final work of a gifted historian charts the rise and fall of the Communist Party of Australia.

24/01/2022

Issue 21 of Twentieth Century Communism journal is now out!

This issue features articles on foreign anti-communist volunteers in the Soviet-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40, Irish responses to Australian anti-communism in the 1950s, the splits in the Canadian Communist Party in 1956-57 and anti-communism in Turkey.

The reviews section also features a discussion between scholars Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos and Angus McNelly about Barbosa dos Santos’ new book, "Power and Impotence: A History of South America under Progressivism (1998–2016)".

Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2021 Issue 21 (2021)

08/01/2022

Sheila Rowbotham's talk for the Socialist History Society today (2pm UK time) will be live-streamed on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRHEl1Gq_j0

2pm, Saturday, 8th January 2022The SHS is pleased to announce that our first talk of 2022 will be with historian Sheila Rowbotham who will discuss her involv...

15/12/2021

Daring to Hope: A personal history of the politics of the 1970s

A meeting of the Socialist History Society with historian Shelia Rowbotham

2pm, Saturday, 8th January 2022

To be held on Zoom
Free to all, but you must register in advance: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rc-ygqTojHtVxT7Qn7DG9pBW_rPeDFqFq

The SHS is pleased to announce that our first talk of 2022 will be with historian Sheila Rowbotham who will discuss her involvement in the women’s liberation movement, left-wing politics and the “alternative” culture of the 1970s.

Her talk will cover episodes examined in her recently published memoir, Daring to Hope, such as the first Women’s Liberation Conference at Ruskin College, in 1970, which she helped to initiate, her campaigning to help unionise night cleaners, for childcare and abortion rights.

During this decade, Sheila Rowbotham was influential in the development of socialist feminist ideas producing a series of landmark socialist-feminist books, such as Women, Resistance and Revolution, Woman's Consciousness, Man's World and Hidden from History: 300 years of Women's Oppression and the Fight Against It. Sheila also co-authored Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism, with Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright.

In Daring to Hope Rowbotham demonstrates her profound awareness that the “personal is political” as she reflects on grassroots activism, communal living, collective organisation and the interconnections between personal liberation and wider political struggles.

The talk will be followed by a discussion.

A personal history of the politics of the 1970s A meeting of the Socialist History Society with historian Shelia Rowbotham 2pm, Saturday, 8th January 2022 To be held on Zoom The SHS is pleased to announce that our first talk of 2022 will be with historian Sheila Rowbotham who will discuss her involv...

23/11/2021

Twentieth Century Communism journal is sad to hear of the passing of Professor Stuart Macintyre who had been an editorial adviser to the journal since its beginnings in 2009. His work on the history of Australian and British communism was remarkable and highly influential. Vale.

11/11/2021

One more time: Growing Up Communist is now available worldwide at a 40% discount via https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463726634/growing-up-communist-in-the-netherlands-and-britain. Use WEESJES_40 to get your discounted copy (note: the code only works when ordering from a laptop/pc).

Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation documents communists’ attempts, successful and otherwise, to overcome their isolation and to connect with the major social and political movements of the twentieth century. Communist parties ...

09/11/2021

One of Twentieth Century Communism’s editorial board members, Elke Weesjes, has published a new book “Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation” (Amsterdam University Press, 2021) which is now available in the United States. You can order it via: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463726634/growing-up-communist-in-the-netherlands-and-britain and use the code Weesjes_40 for a 40% discount in the United States (the code works on PC/laptops - it does not work when using a smart phone, but if you don't have a laptop, you can place the order via phone and use the code that way). The European distributor is still experiencing delays due to paper shortage and transportation congestion, but it should be available in the rest of world very soon (and with a 40% discount).