It spanned the globe - from Greece to China, Hungary to Cuba - and lasted for almost half a century. It has shaped political relations to this day, drawing new physical and ideological boundaries between East and West.In this meticulously researched account, Bridget Kendall explores the Cold War through the eyes of those who experienced it first-hand. Alongside in-depth analysis that explains the historical and political context, the book draws on exclusive interviews with individuals who lived through the conflict's key events, offering a variety of perspectives that reveal how the Cold War was experienced by ordinary people. From pilots making food drops during the Berlin Blockade and Japanese fishermen affected by H-bomb testing to families fleeing the Korean War and children whose parents were victims of McCarthy's Red Scare, The Cold War covers the full geographical and historical reach of the conflict.Accompanying a landmark BBC Radio 4 series, A New Oral History of Life Between East and West is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how the tensions of the last century have shaped the modern world, and what it was like to live through them.

    Ghodsee's essays and short stories reflect on the lived experience of postsocialism and how many ordinary men and women across Eastern Europe suffered from the massive social and economic upheavals in their lives after 1989. Ghodsee shows how recent major crises—from the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Syrian Civil War to the rise of Islamic State and the influx of migrants in Europe—are linked to mistakes made after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc when fantasies about the triumph of free markets and liberal democracy blinded Western leaders to the human costs of "regime change." Just as the communist ideal has become permanently tainted by its association with the worst excesses of twentieth-century Eastern European regimes, today the democratic ideal is increasingly sullied by its links to the ravages of neoliberalism. An accessible introduction to the history of European state socialism and postcommunism, Red Hangover reveals how the events of 1989 continue to shape the world today.

    It was the first time a socialist revolution had taken hold, putting the workers in power, seizing private property and society’s productive capacity. This was the basis for a rational, cooperative society. That revolution became the nemesis of the United States and other imperialist countries, which would not rest until its gains were undone. The Bolshevik Revolution inspired anti-colonial revolutions and national liberation movements around the world, lending solidarity and material assistance to them. As it emerged to be the second-largest economy in the world, the first to put a satellite and human into space, it became a valid counterweight to claims of capitalism’s superiority. Storming the Gates looks inside the revolution, from the early years to the last — not as a neutral observer, but a partisan for revolutionary change. Recounting the vast accomplishments, global impact, loyal followers, challenges and shortcomings, this book remembers ‘the Soviet Union not as the end of communism but as its first grand, real-life experiment.’ Looking to the future, Storming the Gates examines what role a Bolshevik-type party can have in the 21st Century, and how it can once again shape history. “The single biggest event that shaped global politics in the 20th century was the Russian Revolution of 1917, which gave birth to the Soviet Union. The first socialist government’s existence was the pivot for world events in history’s most turbulent and dynamic century. The destruction of the Soviet Union 74 years later in 1991 has been the dominant factor shaping global politics ever since.” —from Storming the Gates

    The first experiment, based on the equal distributionof poverty, suggests the “universal asceticism” and “roughegalitarianism” criticised by the Communist Manifesto. We can nowunderstand the decision to move to Lenin’s New Economic Policy,which was often interpreted as a return to capitalism. Theincreasing threat of war pushed Stalin into sweeping economiccollectivisation. The third experiment produced a very advancedwelfare state but ended in failure: in the last years of the SovietUnion, it was characterised by mass absenteeism anddisengagement in the workplace; this stalled productivity, and itbecame hard to find any application of the principle that Marxsaid should preside over socialism—remuneration according tothe quantity and quality of work delivered. The history of China isdifferent: Mao believed that, unlike “political capital,” theeconomic capital of the bourgeoisie should not be subject to totalexpropriation, at least until it can serve the development of thenational economy. After the tragedy of the Great Leap Forwardand the Cultural Revolution, it took Deng Xiaoping to emphasisethat socialism implies the development of the productive forces.Chinese market socialism has achieved extraordinary success.

    Meant to clear the way for reform from above, Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” of February 25, 1956, shattered the myth of Stalin’s infallibility. In a bid to rejuvenate the Party, Khrushchev had his report read out loud to members across the Soviet Union that spring. However, its message sparked popular demands for more information and greater freedom to debate.Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring brings this first brief season of thaw into fresh focus. Drawing on newly declassified Russian archives, Kathleen Smith offers a month-by-month reconstruction of events as the official process of de-Stalinization unfolded and political and cultural experimentation flourished. Smith looks at writers, students, scientists, former gulag prisoners, and free-thinkers who took Khrushchev’s promise of liberalization seriously, testing the limits of a more open Soviet system.But when anti-Stalin sentiment morphed into calls for democratic reform and eventually erupted in dissent within the Soviet bloc―notably in the Hungarian uprising―the Party balked and attacked critics. Yet Khrushchev had irreversibly opened his compatriots’ eyes to the flaws of monopolistic rule. Citizens took the Secret Speech as inspiration and permission to opine on how to restore justice and build a better society, and the new crackdown only reinforced their discontent. The events of 1956 set in motion a cycle of reform and retrenchment that would recur until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

    It argues that Stalin often thought at the intersections between theology and Marxist political philosophy – especially regarding key issues of socialism in power. Careful and sustained attention to Stalin’s written texts is the primary approach used. The result is a series of arresting efforts to develop the Marxist tradition in unexpected ways. Starting from a sympathetic attitude toward socialism in power, this book provides us with an extremely insightful interpretation of Stalin’s philosophy of socialism. It is not only a successful academic effort to re-articulate Stalin’s philosophy, but also a creative effort to understand socialism in power in the context of both the former Soviet Union and contemporary China. ------- Zhang Shuangli, Professor of Marxist philosophy, Fudan University    Boer's book, far from both "veneration" and "demonization" of Stalin, throws new light on the classic themes of Marxism and the Communist Movement: language, nation, state, and the stages of constructing post-capitalist society. It is an original book that also pays great attention to the People's Republic of China, arising from the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, and which is valuable to those who, beyond the twentieth century, want to understand the time and the world in which we live. -------Domenico Losurdo, University of Urbino, Italy, author of Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend.

    Since Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" of 1956 attacking Stalin, these charges have been routinely dismissed as false by Soviet, Russian, and Western historians. But we know now that Khrushchev was lying. Grover Furr asks the question: What is the evidence that Trotsky conspired with the Germans and Japanese? How should this evidence be analyzed and interpreted? In this book, Furr conducts an expert, objective study of the evidence. He concludes that Trotsky did indeed collaborate with the Germans and Japanese. The proof that Trotsky was guilty of collaboration with the Nazis and Japanese dramatically changes our understanding of Soviet history of the 1930s and of Joseph Stalin's role.