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This thesis examines the role played by intellectual dissidents in the French Communist Party from 1972 to 1981, focusing primarily on the philosopher Louis Althusser and the historian Jean Elleinstein, whose ideas in relation to the FCP were closer than previously thought. The introduction sets the background out in which the FCP evolved after the Second World War and brings us to the 1970s, the decade during which the FCP lost its steam against most expectations - as the thesis demonstrates it. The first chapter deals with the perception communist intellectual dissidents had of their Party’s internal organisation – an organisation which was deemed too rigid and too inflexible to encompass the plurality of opinion of its members. This rigidity was demonstrated by the Leadership’s refusal to recognise the right to create tendencies within the Party, as the second chapter of this thesis shows. In this context, the third chapter argues that communist intellectual dissidents felt suffocated by a Party which did not give them enough leeway, even more so since it claimed to be the Party of the working class – a position which threatened the Party’s adaptation to social change and which is developed in chapter four. However, this thesis also puts the criticisms expressed by Althusser and Elleinstein into perspective. Indeed, if these intellectual dissidents were free to express des idées libérales et avancées, this was not the case for the FCP leadership. The Soviet Union and its KGB had too strong a grip over the Party and its General Secretary, Georges Marchais, for the FCP leadership to be able to act freely. In that sense, if the FCP gave up the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat in 1976, as the fifth chapter shows, it could not criticise the Soviet Union too much, as chapter six demonstrates, nor get too close to the French Socialist Party as chapter seven shows, nor let its dissident intellectuals go on expressing des vues trop dérangeantes, as chapter eight concludes. Each chapter is set against the Party’s historical background and brings us to the modern times, which have seen the French Communist Party transform itself – a transformation which would have been welcomed by Althusser and Elleinstein back in the 1970s.

This thesis deals with how population dynamics in a post-socialist Russian village intertwine with the use of local resources. Specifically, it explores two interrelated issues: first, it looks at how attitudes to local resources vary, depending on people’s ways of engaging with place; second, it focuses on the contexts in which people reify and manipulate their identification with place by ascribing place-related identities to themselves and others as they deal with local resources. The research is based on fieldwork carried out in the village of Kuzomen’ on the White Sea Coast, in north-west Russia. Traditionally, research in Russia has focused on regions in which farming or herding is the main source of livelihood. This thesis explores the peculiarity of post-Soviet conditions in a part of Russia where fishing is the prevailing economic activity. The following questions were addressed: 1) what factors affect people’s relations with and attitudes towards resources in Kuzomen’? 2) how does the postsocialist condition affect resource use in the area? 3) what is the connection between people’s identification with place and their attitudes to its resources? The main findings are that the specificity of postsocialist conditions in Russia and population migration in Kuzomen’ have contributed to the differentiation of people’s attitudes to local resources. In particular, there is a difference between local people and incomers on the one hand, and between permanent dwellers and summer visitors on the other. The deterioration of established systems of state management and control, and the inefficient implementation of newly emerged legislation regarding resource use in post-Soviet Russia, have led to a situation in which access to resources is often regulated through informal arrangements. In these arrangements, identification with place becomes important as people use place-related identities such as local or incomer in their negotiations over access and rights to local resources.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis analyzes three case studies that chronologically review the main factors that influence the creation of the system of civil control over the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The first case analyzes the period of time before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second case examines the creation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from 1991 until 2000. The third case reviews the present system of civil-military relations in Ukraine. The conclusion summarize all findings of the three case studies and states that neglect of the defense issues today will lead to the risk of losing statehood tomorrow or shifting responsibility and financial burden to the future generations. Only a well funded and well-defined program of reform can help to build modern, highly capable, professional western type Armed Forces with good quality civil control over the military. Ukraine has great experience of building and reforming its military structure and system of civil control. The best proof of this is that Ukraine prevented involvement of the army in politics. / Captain, Ukrainian Army

This thesis applies Multiah Alagappa's framework for analyzing civil-military relations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the post-Deng era, when several key developments have fundamentally altered the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA). These developments include the absence of a powerful paramount leader, the generational shifts in the civilian and military leaderships, the increasing professionalization of the PLA, the decline of communism as a legitimating ideology, the sustained progress of economic development, the emergence of a robust civil society, and the increasing legitimacy of China's political system. Moreover, this thesis undertakes an extensive review of the various explanations and theories advanced in the literature of civil-military relations, asserting that Alagappa's analytical framework offers the most comprehensive tool for analyzing civil-military relations to date. Using Alagappa's analytical framework, this thesis argues that the current trend in civil-military relations in China has brought increasing civilian supremacy, as the political power and influence of the PLA have diminished over time due to the decreasing significance of coercion in governance, the strengthening of non-coercive state institutions, China's sustained high level of economic development, and the increasing legitimacy of China's political system.

George Orwell wrote Animal Farm to warn of the dangers of a totalitarian regime in the practical application of communist ideology. His novella reflects his experience of, and response to, momentous events occurring in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. It is a acknowledgement of the extent to which totalitarian leaders rely on the manipulation of thoughts and actions in order to maintain power across the class boundaries. In this essay, Orwell’s political and personal standpoints are examined and the book is analysed from a Marxist and socialist perspective. Whereas Animal Farm was written to reflect the terrible experience of Orwell and many of his contemporaries, its message is in many ways limited by his efforts to adhere to a parody of the events in Soviet Russia. Attention is given to the role of propaganda and Squealer, the chief propagandist in Animal Farm. Although Squealer does not wield power overtly in the way that Napoleon does, he is pivotal in the maintenance of a cowed population. Further, and more importantly from the point of view of the Marxist criticism of Orwell's novella, the Author is found wanting in his depiction of the working classes and his ability to champion those upon whom he in actual fact looked down.

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Nos primeiros anos após a Segunda Guerra a sociedade estadunidense mergulhou em uma campanha de combate ao comunismo. Diversas manifestações políticas e culturais responderam aos anseios trazidos pela Guerra Fria. O cinema de Hollywood, tendo sua importância como meio de propaganda reconhecida, participou ativamente dessa campanha. Assim, analisamos cinco obras do cinema hollywoodiano produzidas nesses primeiros anos da Guerra Fria, que operaram como propagandas anticomunista, Big Jim McLain, I Was a Communist for The FBI, The Woman on Pier 13, My Son John e Red Planet Mars. Buscou-se, a partir das análises, discutir as mensagens expressas por essas obras, levantando suas influências e construções. As diferentes representações do enfrentamento contra o comunismo nas obras, nos apontaram como conveniente uma divisão das discussões em três eixos temáticos: a representação das ações do Estado, da família e da religião, na luta anticomunista. A partir dessas discussões percebemos a pluralidade de inquietações sociais da época, que acabaram por ser mobilizadas e, possivelmente, reforçadas a partir da propaganda produzida pelo cinema. Para tanto, examinamos de que maneira as obras lidaram com as inquietações sociais e escolhas ideológicas em sua criação estética, na representação do inimigo comunista. Nesse intento percebemos que olhares simplificadores e limitados não poderiam explicar as motivações e os resultados dessa campanha anticomunista empreendida pelo cinema de Hollywood. As relações entre suas construções e as discussões de diversos setores sociais no período, nos revelam a complexidade do processo que levou os Estados Unidos ao cenário de repressão e supressão de direitos nos primeiros anos da Guerra Fria, o macarthismo. / In the early years after World War II the United States society plunged into an anti-communist campaign. Several political and cultural manifestations responded to the concerns brought about by the Cold War. The Hollywood cinema had its importance as a means of propaganda recognized and actively participated in this campaign. So, we analyzed five movies of Hollywood cinema, produced in the early years of the Cold War, which operated as anti-communist propaganda, Big Jim McLain, I Was a Communist for The FBI, The Woman on Pier 13, My Son John e Red Planet Mars. We made a discussion about the messages expressed by these works, exposing his influences and constructions. The different representations of confrontation against communism in the movies indicated us an appropriate division of the discussions on three thematic axes: the representation of state, family and religion actions in the anti-communist fight. From these discussions we perceived the plurality of social anxieties of this era, which were eventually mobilized and, possibly, reinforced from the propaganda produced by the cinema. For this end, we examine how the movies worked with the social anxieties and ideological choices in their aesthetic creation, in the representation of the communist enemy. In this intent we perceived that simplistic and limited views could not explain the reasons and the results of anti-communist campaign waged by the Hollywood cinema. The relations between its constructions and the discussions of various social sectors in the period reveal the complexity of the process that led the United States to the scene of repression and suppression of rights in the early years of the Cold War, the McCarthyism.

This thesis examines a little studied aspect of the Soviet Union’s history, namely the activities of the mass membership of the Communist Party during the interwar period, specifically 1926-1941. Based on extensive research in central and regional party archives, it revisits a number of specialised scholarly debates by offering an account of key processes and events of the period, including rapid industrialisation and mass repression, from the viewpoint of rank-and-file communists, the group of people who had chosen to profess active support for the regime without however acquiring positions of political power. The account provided is in the form of an in-depth case study of the party organisation of the Red Putilov – later Kirov – machine-building plant in the city of Leningrad, followed by a shorter study of communist activism in another major Leningrad institution, the Red-Banner Baltic Fleet. It is shown that all major political initiatives of the leadership generated intense political activity at the bottom levels of the party hierarchy, as the thousands of rank-and-file members interpreted and acted on central directives in ways that were consistently in line with their and their colleagues’ interests. As these interests were hardly ever in harmony with those of the corresponding level of the administrative state apparatus, the result was a nearly permanent state of tension between the executive and political branches of the Soviet party-state at the grassroots level. The main argument offered is that ultimately, the rank-and-file organisations of the communist party were an extremely important but contradictory element of the Soviet Union’s political system, being a reliable constituency of grassroots support for the regime while at the same time placing significant limits on the ability of state organs to actually implement policy. This thesis therefore challenges interpretations of Soviet state-society relations based on binary narratives of repression from above and resistance from below. It identifies instead an element of the Soviet system where the line between society and the state became blurred, and grassroots agency became possible on the basis of a minimum level of active support for the regime. It is further argued that the ability of the mass membership to influence the outcome of leadership initiatives was predicated on the Marxist-Leninist ideological underpinnings of most major policies. In this way, this thesis also contributes to the recent literature on the role of ideology in the Soviet system. The concluding chapter considers the value of the overall findings of this thesis for the comparative study of 20th century socialist states.