Stalinism for All Seasons by Vladimir Tismăneanu

Embracing a long and complex period, this book will interest readers of twentieth-century history and anyone curious about communism and postcommunism.

Finally, Tismaneanu identifies the RCP’s descendants among Romania’s current political parties and personalities. He examines important events in international affairs during Nicolae Ceau_escu’s rule (1965-1989)-particularly Romania’s role in the Sino-Soviet conflict, the Middle East, European communism, and European security. Tismaneanu discusses significant moments in the final six decades of world communism, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Comintern, Stalin and the Bolshevization of the Eastern European communist parties, and de-Stalinization. Situating the rise and fall of Romanian communism within the world revolutionary movement, Stalinism for All Seasons shows that the history of communism in one country can illuminate the development of communism in the twentieth century. O istorie politic a comunismului romnesc, Editura Polirom, Iai, 2005. Tismaneanu analyzes both the main events in Romanian communism and the role of significant personalities in the party’s history. 1 Vladimir TISMNEANU, Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism, University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles & London, 2003, translated into Romanian by C. Vladimir Tismaneanu uses documents that he discovered while working in the RCP archives in Bucharest in the mid-1990s and interviews with many of the party members from the Ceau_escu and Gheorghiu-Dej eras to tell the absorbing story of how RCP members came to power as exponents of Moscow and succeeded in turning themselves into champions of autonomy. It traces the origins of the once-tiny, clandestine revolutionary organization in the 1920s through the years of national power from 1944 to 1989 to the post-1989 metamorphoses of its members. Istoria politicd a comunismului rom2nesc Reflecgii ale autorului pe marginea cirlii Stalinism for All Seasons:,4 Political History of Romanian Communism - Stalinisrn pentru eternitate. Western radio stations broadcast it back to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.Stalinism for All Seasons is the first comprehensive history of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP). Several months later, the speech was leaked to the West through Poland, appearing in the New York Times when its authenticity was confirmed. The Polish leader and Stalinist Boleslaw Bierut, in Moscow for the Congress, fell ill with pneumonia before Khrushchev spoke and, upon reading the Secret Speech in the Kremlin hospital, had a heart attack and died on March 12.

Yet it was very real and had immediate consequence. For decades, the Soviets refused to acknowledge its existence. It was secret because no foreign guests or journalists were allowed to attend, and the text was not published in the U.S.S.R. At the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, a shocked audience of 1,436 delegates took in what came to be known as the 'Secret Speech,' one of the most important political documents of the last century. 25, Nikita Khrushchev launched his full-bore attack on the Stalin myth.

Stalinism for All Seasons by Vladimir Tismăneanu