One Hundred Years of Communist Experiments

Vladimir Tismaneanu is Professor of politics and Director of the Center for the Study of Post-communist Societies at University of Maryland (College Park). Jordan Luber is a 2023 JD candidate at American University Washington College of Law, and a staff writer for the Human Rights Brief.

Introduction: Why a 20th Century Exercise in the 21st Century

Vladimir Tismaneanu and Jordan Luber


PART I. Fantasies of Salvation

German Communism, the Jews and Israel: From the Antifascism of World War II to the Undeclared Wars of the Cold War

Jeffrey Herf


Euphoria to Decay: Post-Marxist Revision’s Mortal Threat to Communism

Vladimir Tismaneanu


Getting off the Red Tram of Socialism

Mykola Riabchuk


The Rise, Demise, and Pernicious Long-Term Impact of Soviet Communist Ideology in Russia

Mark Kramer


PART II. Economics

The Comparative Assessment of Communist and Post-Communist System Performance and Human Wellbeing: Challenges and Insights from In-depth Case Study Approaches

Paul Dragos Aligica and Vlad Tarko


Communist Economy: The Verdict of History

Steven Rosefielde


Looking Back at the Soviet Economic Experience

Peter Rutland


Incentives, Coercion, and Redistribution: Why Industrial Central Plan Economies Performed Worse Than Western Market Economies and Better Than Less Developed Economies

Michael S. Bernstam


The Rise and Fall of the Planned Economy and Its Long-Lasting Effects on Transition

Serguey Braguinsky


PART III. Politics

Romancing a Millenarian State: From Petrograd to Raqqa

Leon Aron


Stalin, Tito, Djilas, and the Dialectical Quarrels of Post-war Europe

Marius Stan


China’s Enduring Leninist Toolkit: Perspectives on CCP Organization and Ideology

Margaret M. Pearson


Reductio ad Reganum: Reflections on Communism’s Enduring Ideological Invulnerability

Venelin I. Ganev


Ideology and Violence in Communist Venezuela

Jordan Luber


PART IV. Society and Culture

Communist Rhetoric as Official Practices of Discourse: Making Epideictic Arguments on Authority and National Identity

Noemi Marin


Selective Repression and Democratic Opposition in Post-Totalitarian Hungary

András Bozóki


Lost in Protochronia: Ideological Dada in Ceaușescu’s Romania

Mircea Mihăieș


The Road to Liberation Theology: Experiments at the Intersection of Confessional & Secular Religion

Piotr H. Kosicki


Philosophical Lessons from the Bolshevik Experiment

Marci Shore



List of Contributors

Index