Contemporary witnesses of change
Contemporary witnesses of change
Author(s): Iris KempeSubject(s): Political history, Government/Political systems, Politics and society, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism, Politics of History/Memory
Published by: Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego we Wrocławiu
Keywords: 1968 Prague Spring; Michal Reiman; Alexander Dubček; Democracy; Soviet regime;
Summary/Abstract: With the coup of the Bolsheviks in October 1917, the communist party seized power in the Russian Empire for the first time. The revolutionary spark of the party in power in the Soviet Union did not, as Lenin and later Stalin intended, spread across Europe to shape societies. Instead, contacts to Moscow via Berlin to Vladivostok were continued as an instrument ranging from equality to state terror. The so-called great terror in 1937/38 was marked by excesses of socialist violence. Key actors became victims of terror, whose fate was concealed and whose existence spread throughout the Soviet Union and through the member states of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe after the Second World War.
Journal: New Eastern Europe
- Issue Year: 2021
- Issue No: 05 (48)
- Page Range: 111-113
- Page Count: 3
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF