{"id":133,"date":"2011-01-12T21:41:13","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T21:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?p=133"},"modified":"2011-12-17T17:19:08","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T17:19:08","slug":"new-post-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/?p=133","title":{"rendered":"ABOUT THIS COURSE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to my class!<\/p>\n<p>This is your homesite and syllabus for &#8220;The Rise and Fall of World Communism.&#8221;\u00a0 There is no paper syllabus.\u00a0 As we move through the course, I will make regular modifications to the material on this site, depending on my whim and fancy.\u00a0 Therefore, you should read this site on a regular basis to determine whether I have changed any readings, assignments, or schedules.\u00a0 I will\u00a0invariably forget to mention these during class!<\/p>\n<p>Here is the simple story:\u00a0 There\u00a0were two great challenges\u00a0to liberal democracy in the twentieth century\u2014 national fascism and world communism.\u00a0 The first was defeated in World War II.\u00a0\u00a0In contrast, when Soviet\u00a0tanks moved into Berlin on May 2, 1945,\u00a0\u00a0the second had only begun to take hold.\u00a0 As a result, by the 1980s, there were as many countries in the world that looked like the Soviet Union\u00a0and the People\u2019s Republic of China as those that looked like the United States\u00a0and Great Britain.\u00a0 Yet paradoxically, at the point of its greatest impact, communism ceased to be a viable political movement.\u00a0\u00a0In the period between 1989 and 1991, almost all\u00a0the communist-led governments in the world collapsed.<\/p>\n<p>Many observers, including yours truly, were completely surprised by these developments.\u00a0 Should we have known better?\u00a0 Today, it is tempting for those experts\u00a0who are <em>wiser<\/em> than this writer to say that, all along, we should have known what was going to happen.\u00a0 Was\u00a0not world communism destined to fail?\u00a0 Should\u00a0we not have recognized the rot, corruption, and lies\u00a0that underlay these regimes\u2019 facade of stability?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">The problem with approaches like the one above is that\u00a0many of the great moments in history seem\u00a0self-evident in retrospect.\u00a0 For this reason, I take a different approach in this course.\u00a0 I begin with the\u00a0 roots of world communism and ask how\u00a0the phenomenon\u00a0looked as\u00a0the march of events\u00a0moved forward.\u00a0 This approach allows me to pose four questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\">Why did so many intelligent, well-educated people support the communist movement, from its inception in the 1840s until its demise?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\">With the rise of tyrants like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, why\u00a0did the practice of communism\u00a0dramatically diverge from its\u00a0founders&#8217; \u00a0utopian goals?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\">Why did world communism last as long as it did?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: left\">Why did the vast majority of commmunist regimes\u00a0disappear overnight?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">It would be impossible to cover <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/files\/2011\/01\/smallNK16.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-336\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/files\/2011\/01\/smallNK16-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>the entire communist world in a single semester.\u00a0 Thus, I draw upon the experiences of a few select communist states to provide you with a perspective for understanding all of them.\u00a0 My primary cases will be the Soviet Union, China, and Germany.\u00a0 In addition, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, North Korea, and Poland, among many others, will make cameo appearances.\u00a0 You may also\u00a0ask me to talk about a case of your own choosing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">\nThe &#8220;Communist International&#8221;\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=suVB3YGIUk0\">LISTEN AND WATCH<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The use of electronic devices of any kind, including laptops, cell phones, video cameras, Kindles, and personal digital devices, is prohibited in my classroom!<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?p=133\"><strong>Top of Page<\/strong><\/a><strong> \u00b7 <\/strong><a title=\"Founders\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?page_id=131\"><strong>Founders<\/strong><\/a><strong> \u00b7 <\/strong><a title=\"Competitors\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?page_id=139\"><strong>Competitors<\/strong><\/a><strong> \u00b7 <\/strong><a title=\"Defenders\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?page_id=141\"><strong>Defenders<\/strong><\/a><strong> \u00b7 <\/strong><a title=\"Reformers\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?page_id=143\"><strong>Reformers<\/strong><\/a><strong> \u00b7 <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/communism\/?page_id=145\"><strong>Losers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to my class! This is your homesite and syllabus for &#8220;The Rise and Fall of World Communism.&#8221;\u00a0 There is no paper syllabus.\u00a0 As we move through the course, I will make regular modifications to the material on this site, depending on my whim and fancy.\u00a0 Therefore, you should read this site on a regular [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11838],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":74,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/communism\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}