Communist Parties Revisited - Socio-Cultural Approaches to Party Rule in the Soviet Bloc, 1956-1991

The communist ruling parties (CPs) of Eastern and East Central Europe after 1945 can be considered to be the most effective political organizations of the 20th century. They claimed to put utopian societal models into practice, determined their million members’ biographies and efficiently bound them to their basic organizations – even through their demise and erosion in the late 1980s. Yet, although there is no question about their societal and cultural shaping power, recent historiography is still dominated by classic narratives of political history. CPs are mainly interpreted as isolated, monolithic power machines.

In contrast, it is this conference’s aim to re-interpret the highly normative party life and the CPs’ power-securing practice at all levels. Analyses of the party organizations’ inner workings will shed light onto the ‘closed society’ of the CP as well as gain insights into the logic of the party leaderships and their apparatuses’ actions; the social composition of the membership; and their value systems respectively. In addition, there is the question of the mid-level party functionaries’ room for maneuver which should open up new perspectives on Soviet-style political systems. Further questions to be discussed include the parties’ local social practice and the efficacy of the CPs’ ability to endow meaning on party membership through rituals and ideology.

The main aim of this conference is to develop a comparative perspective that can be implemented across the broad spectrum of Eastern Bloc CPs. The conference will focus predominantly on the East German SED, the CPSU and the Polish United Workers' Party.
 

Program (pdf)

Tagungsbericht bei H-Soz-u-Kult vom 20. Mai 2014 (Autorin: Lena Kuhl, IRS)