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LOSERS

In this concluding section of the course, we return to the debate between Cohen (individual volition) and ‘Z’ (structure).  Should the Hungarian (1956) and Czechoslovak (1968) experiments with socialist reform have prepared us for the fact that Gorbachev’s efforts to reform Soviet-style communism from above would fail?  In contrast, how might the Chinese Communist Party have been trying (perversely) to learn from these lessons in 1989-91?  One possibility is that the different outcomes suggest that serious reform was merely impossible in one country (the Soviet Union) but possible in another (China)?  Another possibility is that China’s carefully circumscribed reforms will are destined to fail as well.

34.  LECTURE:   Wednesday, April 13

Gorbachev’s Revolution of Reform.  Mikhail Gorbachev’s made a grand attemp to reform Soviet communism.   For several years, his calls for “perestroika” (economic transformation) and “glasnost” (transparency) were a cause for unparalleled excitement, both within the socialist bloc and in the liberal west. Check out the two videos here.  Yet despite the fact that this period looked like it might lead to a revolutionary stage of communnist development, it ultimately resulted in revolution against the system and the death of Marxism-Leninism.  Some observers have argued that his reforms were destined to fail due to the manifest shortcomings of the socialist system.  The events in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl in 1985 provided ample cause for reflection.  Yet other, like Malia, contend that the game was up anway, regardless of  happened in the Soviet bloc.

  •  Mikhail Gorbachev, Report to the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the CPSU, January 28, 1987:  HERE.  (Print)
  •  Trabant Crash Test: HERE
  • “Z” (Martin Malia), “To the Stalin Museum,” Daedalus, 119, 1 (1990):  section IX.
  • “Stories and Totalitarianism,” in Vaclav Havel, Open Letters, pp. 328-50.

35.  DISCUSSION SECTION:  Friday, April 15

Because you have been working on your papers, there will be no paragraph assignment.  Instead, all of the discussion sections will watch the excellent documentary, “Journey to Russia.”  I will need to make special room arrangements to facilitate these showings.

ALSO:  Please hand in your second essay to your TAs.  Because of the special room arrangements, they will advise you about how to do this.

36.  LECTURE:  Monday, April 18

Violence Amidst Reform in China.   Since the late 1970s, scholars have debated whether China is following a special path in the late stages of constructing socialism.  Was the army’s deployment against student protestors on Tian Anmen square, as well as around Beijing and in other major  cities, déjà vu all over again?  Or have China’s reforms over the past 3 decades signified something very new about world communism?

  • Deng Xiaoping’s educational policy:  HERE
  • Editorial:  “It is necessary to take a clear stand against disturbances,” People’s Daily, April 26, 1989:  HERE (Print)
  • Deng Xiaoping, “Address to officers of the troops enforcing martial law in Beijing,” June 9, 1989:  HERE.  (Print)
  • Previously secret: CIA analysis of the speech (declassified, but it’s amusing to see what’s left):  HERE
  • Tiananmen Square:  HERE

37.   LECTURE:  Wednesday, April 20

Gorbachev was not alone.  Gorbachev wasn’t the only reformer in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s.  In fact, his policies helped to accelerate significant shifts in domestic policies that were already underway in countries like Hungary and Poland.  Yet when Gorbachev’s policies proved to be unworkable, these countries’ governments had to decide whether they would continue with reform or simply move on to something entirely new.  Indeed, it’s possible that they had no choice in accomodating themselves to a totally new political system.

  • “Z” (Martin Malia), “To the Stalin Museum,” Daedalus, 119, 1 (1990):  section X.  Course Reader
  • “Meeting Gorbachev,” in Vaclav Havel, Open Letters, 351-354.
  • Hungarian Border:  HERE


Thursday, April 21 – Monday, April 25:  EASTER BREAK


38.  LECTURE:  Wednesday, April 27

Those who refuse to learn . . . . are punished by history.   In this lecture, I will address the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing collapse of communism in East Europe by describing my own experiences in East Germany in the late 1980s.

  • “Testing Ground,” in Vaclav Havel, Open Letters, pp. 373-376.
  • Previously secret:  Record of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and the politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany, October 7, 1989:  HERE
  • Previously secret:  Conversation between Vadim Medvedev and Kurt Hager in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet union, October 13, 1989:  HERE
  • A. James McAdams, Germany Divided:  From the Wall to Reunification (Princeton University Press, 1983), ch.   6.  Course Reader.

39.  DISCUSSION SECTION:  Friday, April 29

Paragraph Assignment:  Why didn’t McAdams predict the fall of communism?  How can he have been so daft?  Please identify those features of late 20th-century communism that would have enabled McAdams to predict the events of 1989.  What lessons should he learn from being so shortsided?

40.  LECTURE:  Monday, May 2

Yet others learn what we don’t want them to learn . . . . and somehow survive.  Ironically, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba learned that the best response to popular demands for revolution was retrenchment.  Still, ‘retrenchment’ meant different things to each of them.

  • An interview with Fidel Castro, “Blaming Stalin for everything would be historical simplism,” June 3, 1992:  HERE

Your final essay assignment is HERE 

 41.  LECTURE:  Wednesday, May 4

Concluding Reflections. We go back to the beginning.  I seek to make sense of the “long, strange trip” that was world communism.  Some experts say that Lenin is dead. But maybe not.


The use of electronic devices of any kind, including laptops, cell phones, video cameras, and personal digital devices, as well as those I don’t even know about, is prohibited in my classroom!

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