Twentieth Century Communism

Editors Richard Cross, Norry LaPorte, Kevin Morgan, Matthew Worley

Issue 1 - May 2009

COMMUNISM AND THE LEADER CULT

From Franz Borkenau’s commentaries of the 1930s, through Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956, the cult of the leading individual provided one of the distinguishing features of the Stalinist party and an epitome of centralisation. The proliferation of such cults, however, also posed potential dilemmas: for if there was to be a cult of leadership, Stalin’s ideal of a single monolithic will implied that this too should be centred in Moscow, and on the person of Stalin himself. Ranging across several countries and different levels of communist leadership, the first issue of Twentieth Century Communism provides new insight into how and when these cults were constructed, and with what political consequences.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Stalinism and the barber's chair
Kevin Morgan

Stalinism: workers' cult and cult of leaders
Claude Pennetier and Bernard Pudal

Dead martyrs and living leaders: the cult of the individual within Finnish communism
Tauno Saarela

National traditions and the leader cult in communist Hungary in the early cold war years
Balázs Apor

Ho Chi Minh: creator or victim of Vietnamese communism?
Sophie Quinn Judge

'Our only ornament': Tom Mann and British communist 'hagiography' Antony Howe

Re-imagining the cavalier of hope: the Brazilian communist party and the images of Luiz Carlos Prestes
Marco Aurélio Santana

Construction and deconstruction of a cult: Edgar Lalmand and the Communist Party of Belgium
José Gotovitch

REVIEWS AND REFLECTIONS

Writing the history of twentieth century communism
Bernhard H. Bayerlein, Peter Beilharz, Kevin McDermott

A man between two worlds? Palmiro Togliatti and the Italian communist party Roundtable discussion with Aldo Agosti, Toby Abse, Geoff Andrews, Maud Bracke, Carl Levy, Linda Risso

'Life According to the principles of the left': an interview with Hermann Weber
Norman LaPorte

'Should we all be on Marx's side?': contributions of post-marxist discourse theory to the historiography of communism
Antonio Lopes

Book reviews

Le Parti communiste français et l'année 1956
Aldo Agosti
Tareq Y. Ismael, The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Iraq
Ben Fowkes
Agnes Khoo, Life as the River Flows: Women in the Malayan Anti-Colonial Struggle
Linda Etchart
Gavin Bowd, Le Dernier communard: Adrien Lejeune
Stephen Hopkins
Xavier Vigna, Jean Vigreux and Serge Wolikow, eds, Le Pain, La Paix, La Liberté: Expériences et Territoires du Front Populaire ; Gilles Morin and Gilles Richard, eds, Les Deux France du Front Populaire: Choc et Contre-Chocs
John Bulaitis
William Kenefick, Red Scotland! The Rise and Fall of the Radical Left, c. 1872 to 1932
Willie Thompson
Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen and Andrew Flinn, Communists and British Society: 1920-1991
Edward Johanningsmeier
Ralph Darlington, Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: An International Comparative Analysis
Thomas Mackaman
James McNeish, The Sixth Man: The Extraordinary Life of Paddy Costello
Richard Thurlow

256 pp; May 2009

Price: £20