THE SPITE HOUSE, OR, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT is the beginning of a novel in verse about Rick, an angry millennial who works odd jobs, joins a commune, and explores the subtle art of being a class traitor.

This thesis explores the effect that nationalism had on the spread of communism to Vietnam and Cuba during the first half of the twentieth century. Using a case studies approach to analyze the revolution of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Fidel Castro in Cuba, the thesis seeks to determine the extent to which nationalism directed these revolutions and their turn to communism once assuming power. The study examines the conditions that existed in each country that allowed for a nationalist revolution to be successful, and the beliefs and rhetoric of Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, the primary figures of each revolution. The thesis seeks to add to the research conducted on the power that nationalism had in the Third World from the early 1900s to 1960, and it wishes to contribute to the factors that must be considered by foreign policy makers when pursuing military action or nation-building abroad. The research shows that nationalism played a significant role in bringing communism to Vietnam and Cuba, yet due to the difficulty in measuring a core human feeling like nationalism, other factors cannot be discounted. / Master of Arts

Thesis advisor: Timothy W. Crawford / Why do communist party-states decide to enter or to exit a military alliance? What explains the existences of the Cold War-era China-North Korea and Vietnam-Laos alliances in a post-Cold War world? I argue that a communist party-state only enters an alliance if it shares security interests and ideological values with its military partner. In other words, the two variables are individually necessary, jointly sufficient. This is due to the party-state having to defend both the survival of the state and of the ruling communist party. Allying with a security compatible but ideologically hostile state poses threats to the communist party, while allying with an ideologically friendly but security incompatible state can endanger the interests of the state. A communist party-state exits an alliance if it no longer shares either security interests or ideological values with its ally. I evaluate the theory against three other alternative theories of alliance formation and deformation: balancing, bargaining, and bonding. I use the qualitative methods of structured-focused comparison and within-case process-tracing across seven cases of alliances involving a communist party-state. Those cases are Vietnam-Soviet Union, Vietnam-Laos, Vietnam-China, Vietnam-North Korea, North Korea-Soviet Union, North Korea-China, China-Soviet Union. I also test the theory against two cases of non-alliances involving military cooperation between a communist party-state and a non-communist state. They are China-United States and Vietnam-United States. I show that in all the cases, the communist party-state under investigation only joined or exited an alliance as the theory expects. My dissertation contributes to the contemporary scholarly and policy debates in the United States on the nature of contemporary military cooperation between China and Russia, Russia and North Korea, as well as Vietnam and the United States. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

A study of industrial workers in Russia under the systems of Communism and under Capitalism.

The purpose of this study is to examine one specific phase of Soviet life--the agricultural system. Whether the Russian peasants are better off under the Communists than they were under the Czar is a question of most importance and interest.

Young people gravitated in large numbers to the Communist movement in Canada and around the world in the 1920s and 1930s. Much like the youth of today, they did so with many specific issues in mind – education, health and recreation, trade unionism, peace, gender equality, cultural autonomy – that distinguished their Communism from left movements of the past. To an extent that the existing historiography is only beginning to register, they were not passive recipients of a party line designed in Moscow and implemented in Toronto, but active shapers of their own versions of leftism, one that at times brought them into direct conflict with their party elders. To a surprising extent, because they could counterbalance the demands of the leaders of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) with the sometimes-conflicting perspectives of the Comintern and the Young Communist International (YCI), they enjoyed substantial room to manoeuvre within a movement falsely reputed to be an authoritarian monolith. “To be educated and educators in turn” – Lenin’s dialectical description of the position of young people in the party – captured much about what some young people found empowering about their experience with the Young Communist League (YCL). Although rarely recognized as such, their activism made the 1920s and early 1930s a rival of the more renowned 1960s and 1970s as years of a dynamic, paradigm-challenging youth movement. By examining the work of the Young Communist League of Canada, working above all with the new sources made available with the opening of the Comintern’s archive, new insights can be attained on how the Canadian left was both supported by, and challenged by, Communist youth. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation presents a history of the first decade of the Young Communist League of Canada (YCL), from the organization’s inception in 1922 to the close of 1934 – the beginnings of the period of the Popular Front. Contrary to the well-established school of interpretation that emphasizes Moscow’s direct rule over Communists outside Moscow, it maintains that the YCL illustrated the transnational complexity of interwar Communism, both in the early to mid 1920s – when the call was for a ‘United Front’ – and following 1927, when the movement was called upon to join struggle of “class against class” in what became known as the Third Period. In neither period could the leadership of a supposedly strongly centralized party automatically prevail over local Communists, even on questions central to the Leninist worldview. Young people were drawn in considerable numbers to the YCL, and enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy within it, and pursued several experiments – in anti-war activism, journalism, sport, theatre, creative writing – that distinguished them from their elders, sometimes to the point of constituting an additional source of authority within an already highly fragmented party. Generations mattered, and the impatient young Canadian men and women who gravitated to Communism through the YCL left a distinct, lasting impression on the movement.

Soviet-era Communism was a project of emergence that failed to realise its Utopian ambition. Nevertheless, it created an unprecedented simulacrum whose visual language was appropriated by a number of artists as a readymade. This artistic response to everyday reality shaped an unofficial narrative of the Communist epoch. Operating beyond the official realm these artists were subject to varying degrees of censorship, and their activities led to what became known as ‘non-official’ art. Non-official artists suffered from inferior materials, lack of exposure, and were forced to radicalize their methods of production. Without official support the everyday domestic realm and a diverse range of outdoor sites became sites of production. The primary arena, however, and the one that would become the most politicized, was the artist's body that often acted as one or both material and surface. On the one hand the thesis takes the Communist context as a common platform from which to discuss time-based art practices in Eastern Europe while, on the other, it proposes that such a general view is worthless since it does not pay sufficient attention to the particular conditions within each bloc country. While the former serves as a reference for artistic response in a wide view, the latter provokes a deeper, more contextualised, understanding of the social, political, and cultural conditions that ultimately shaped non-official art. To understand fully the effect of the Communist past also involves analysing it through the lens of the present day. A number of works produced pre- and post-1989 are analysed that offer insights into the past, its disintegration, and the transition period. The theoretical and critical thrust is shaped from primary research material gathered from artists, intellectuals, and critics throughout the region, so as to most clearly reflect its own contemporaneous and unfolding discourse. It builds on these key sources and underscores the difficulties faced when trying to locate the works within existing art history canons. Together with this written element, a further two curatorial strands complete the form of the thesis. A website has been created that reflects the thesis enquiry, three re-enactments of historical works are undertaken as a strategy that allows for a more experiential understanding of context, and three new performances devised by the author in response to the contexts researched complete the work. The thesis was written throughout Eastern Europe, and primarily in Poland where the author lives and works.

This thesis provides a critical cultural analysis of the discursive myths of salvation and conspiracy, using as a case study the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the transition period in Romania, from 1989 to 2007. The study offers an answer to the questions: how do NATO myths change? Why and with what discursive implications for the Romanian audience? The thesis uses a combination of methodological tools from three different disciplines - history, mythology, and rhetoric - with the intent of showing how the Romanians' public attitudes toward NATO change in four different political contexts: during the integration period until Romania's admission into the alliance, during the Kosovo war, after 9/11 events and during the installation of NATO troops on Romanian territory. This study demonstrates that NATO myths are effective operational strategies that offer Romanians a sense of identity in the critical period of transition. The thesis also explains how NATO, as a carrier of Western values, helps the democratization of the Romanian public sphere and the reconstruction of a national identity based on democratic principles. / by Daniela Popescu. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

by Lai Yuet Sim, Phoebe. / Thesis (M.Div.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 173-183). / ABSTRACT --- p.iii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.v / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.vii / Chapter CHAPTER ONE: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Literature --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- Those Related to Wu's Biography and Work --- p.2 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- Those Related to Wu's Theology and Ideology --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.3 --- "Those Related to Wu, the TSM and Chinese Protestant Christianity" --- p.6 / Chapter 1.2 --- Objectives and Significance of the Study --- p.8 / Chapter 1.3 --- Scope of Study --- p.9 / Chapter 1.4 --- Method of Study --- p.10 / Chapter 1.4.1 --- Fundamental Considerations --- p.10 / Chapter 1.4.2 --- Analytical Framework --- p.13 / Chapter 1.5 --- Limitations --- p.16 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO: --- THE CHINESE CONTEXT AND WU'S SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- Pre´ؤPRC Era: 1893-1949 --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- The Late Qing Years 1893-1911 --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- The Dictatorship of Yuan Shikai 1911-1916 --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- "Warlordism, the Enlightenment and Civil War 1916-1931" --- p.21 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- Japanese Aggression and War of Resistance 1931-1945 --- p.27 / Chapter 2.1.5 --- Civil War between CNP and CCP 1945-1949 --- p.37 / Chapter 2.2 --- The PRC Era 1949-1979 --- p.42 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Socialist Construction 1949-1956 --- p.42 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- "Ultraleftism, the Cultural Revolution and Modernization1957-1979" --- p.62 / Chapter 2.3 --- Comments --- p.66 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE: --- THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT: WU'S IDEAS --- p.74 / Chapter 3.1 --- Jesus Christ and Love --- p.74 / Chapter 3.2 --- Jesus' Gospel --- p.81 / Chapter 3.3 --- God --- p.84 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- God as Love and as Father --- p.86 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- "Contents of the Term ""God""" --- p.87 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Works of God --- p.91 / Chapter 3.4 --- Truth --- p.93 / Chapter 3.5 --- Kingdom of God --- p.95 / Chapter 3.6 --- Mission of Chinese Christianity --- p.98 / Chapter 3.7 --- Communism and Christianity --- p.109 / Chapter 3.8 --- A Synthesis --- p.112 / Chapter 3.8.1 --- 1918-1931: Love --- p.113 / Chapter 3.8.2 --- 1931-1939: Jesus' Gospel --- p.113 / Chapter 3.8.3 --- 1940-1949: God --- p.117 / Chapter 3.8.4 --- After 1949: Mission of Christianity --- p.121 / Chapter 3.9 --- Comments --- p.123 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR: --- AN EVALUATION --- p.135 / Chapter 4.1 --- Consistency? --- p.135 / Chapter 4.2 --- Relevancy? --- p.141 / Chapter 4.3 --- Renovational? --- p.147 / Chapter 4.4 --- Continuity? --- p.148 / NOTES --- p.163 / BIBLIOGEAPHY --- p.173

Anti-communism in America reached its apex in the 1950s. One element of this crusade focused on preventing suspected communists from working in their chosen profession, a practice called blacklisting. In attempting to assert their legal rights, the blacklisted found an imperfect justice system, cloaked in equality, yet hampered by the existing cultural setting that treated as immoral anything communist. This dissertation deconstructs the interplay between culture and law, between the desire to root out communists and the attempt to maintain a fair legal system. With an emphasis on the entertainment industry, broadly defined, I will trace blacklisting from anti-labor tool to for-profit instrument focusing on how the blacklisted employed the lawsuit to fight for their jobs. I argue that from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, blacklisted plaintiffs continuously found themselves handicapped by their association -- either current or past, real or perceived -- with the Communist Party, and not until a plaintiff with no demonstrable ties to communism came along did the legal system prove a comprehensively effective tool in ending the practice. I show that various members of the blacklisted community, with the aid of a small number of lawyers, tried an assortment of legal theories in their attempt to remedy their pariah status with the results often promising -- the first three jury trials ended in victories for the plaintiffs -- but ultimately hollow as a recalcitrant appellate judiciary dashed these early hopes. Moreover, I show how plaintiff's lawyers, sensitive to a legal system that demanded a successful plaintiff be free of communist ties, adjusted their strategy to accommodate the relationship between cultural setting and legal success. / text