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Stalinism the Polish Way This is the first part of the introduction to issue 8/19 of Studia Litteraria et Historica. The issue focuses on an anthropological and sociological analysis of the years 19451956 in Poland and, to some degree, on a deconstruction of contemporary Polish narratives on Stalinism. The author discusses the reasons for reexamining the subject, along with the methodological basis of such reexamination. The article also offers a polemical discussion of Andrzej Leder’s interpretation of Poland’s Stalinist period. Stalinizm po polsku Tekst stanowi pierwszą część wstępu do numeru 8 za 2019 rok czasopisma „Studia Litteraria et Historica”, poświęconego antropologicznej i socjologicznej analizie lat 19451956 w Polsce, a także częściowo dekonstrukcji współczesnych polskich narracji o stalinizmie. Autorka referuje przyczyny, dla których temat ten należy podjąć na nowo, oraz założenia metodologiczne takiego przedsięwzięcia. Podejmuje także polemikę z interpretacją okresu stalinizmu w Polsce zaproponowaną przez Andrzeja Ledera.

The article is dedicated to the peculiarities of the architecture of “Stalinist Empire style” by the example of Stalingrad architecture. This city was restored again after Stalingrad battle which took place in the period of 1942-1943, in accordance with the principals of socialist urban construction. Reconstruction of Stalingrad is considered by the authors of the article as the creation of a new type of a Soviet city – a Hero City. The authors reveal the artistic features of architectural ensembles and buildings designed according to the principles of “Stalinist Empire style”.

The article focuses on what can be called \"state laughter.\" It analyzes theoretical aspects of laughter appropriated by the state and discusses its origin, nature, and functions, including the political, national, and religious dimensions. It argues that Stalinism not only instrumentalized and incorporated low culture, not only oriented itself at the horizon of expectations of yesterday's peasants. It also raised the culture and aesthetics of a patriarchal society to the level of state policy, attributed to them ideological weight, aesthetic materiality and social acoustics-it medialized, institutionalized, utilized, historicized, and endlessly reproduced the features traditionally associated with low culture. In other words, Socialist Realism created the legitimizing political subject itself: \"the popular masses.\" In its radical character such a practice simply cannot be compared to medieval carnival. The article counters Bakhtin's claims that laughter was a tool for liberation by arguing that laughter in Stalinism was a channel and a legitimizing mechanism of violence, prohibitions, and limitations. It was a tool of intimidation. Power, repression, and authority, which gave voice to, and was sanctified by, 'the carnival world view of the \"popular\" (that is, patriarchal) culture, the culture of yesterday's semi-urbanized peasants, spoke to them, and for them, in the language of laughter. A regime that does not set itself off from \"popular culture\" but rather incorporates it and adapts itself to it becomes radically popular. Stalinism and Socialist Realist art were examples of such a model.

This study examines the GreatSoviet Encyclopedia (GSE) as a vehicle of MarxistLeninist doctrine, analysing its quantitative (entry length, references, authors) and qualitative aspects (ideological language, thematic framing). By studying entries like \"Encyclopedists\" and \"Encyclopedia,\" it finds that while the first two editions blend ideology with historical depth, the third edition adopts formal neutrality but with reduced informational richness. This challenges the prevailing scholarly view that the third edition is Superior as a reference work due to its avoidance of ideological influence.

This book demonstrates how the personal became political in post-war Britain, and argues that attention to gay activism can help us to rethink fundamentally the nature of post-war politics. While the Left were fighting among themselves and the reformists were struggling with the limits of law reform, gay men started organising for themselves, first individually within existing organisations and later rejecting formal political structures altogether. Gay activists intersected with Trotskyism, Stalinism, the New Left, feminism and youth movements. As the slogan of the Gay Liberation Front proclaimed, ‘Come out, come together and change the world’. Culture, performance and identity took over from economics and class struggle, as gay men worked to change the world through the politics of sexuality. Throughout the post-war years, the new cult of the teenager in the 1950s, CND and the counter-culture of the 1960s, gay liberation, feminism, the Punk movement and the miners' strike of 1984 all helped to build a politics of identity. When AIDS and Thatcherism impacted on gay men's lives in the 1980s, gay politics came into its own. There is an assumption among many of today's politicians that young people are apathetic and disengaged. This book argues that these politicians are looking in the wrong place. People now feel that they can impact the world through the way in which they live, shop, have sex and organise their private lives. The book shows that gay men and their politics have been central to this change in the post-war world.

The study examines the parameters of anti-American sentiment in Slovak socialist realist poetry. The research is based on the assumption that period thinking about ideological antagonism was Manichaean in character, which is connected with the frequent use of extreme, demonizing mechanisms in the structure of descriptions of enemy subjects. The poetry of this period is subordinated to its “combat mission,” and as a result its expressive means are closely linked to the political propaganda language of the time. In the context of Stalinist ideology, poetic representations of the American enemy range from personification through typification to stereotyping, while the characteristics of the representations examined are determined by the need to communicate a polarized image of the world in a situation in which literary production cannot rely on direct knowledge of reality. Such writing therefore rests on a limited number of reference points, such as the name of an exposed representative of the enemy camp, ideological stereotypes, and similar elements. This helps complete the image of socialist realism as a phenomenon based on a radical reduction of reality.

Mátyás Rákosi, first secretary of the Hungarian Workers' Party, was forced to resign on 18th July 1956. He was followed by Ernő Gerő who was also considered to be a stalinist leader. However, after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union he gradually changed his mind and became reform-orientated. He announced his political reforms known as the policy of „clear sheet\". These reforms are mosdy forgotten, contrary to the fact that they were not only announced but executed as well. One of the main aims of these reforms was to increase the role of the Hungarian National Assembly, which was neglected during the Rákosi leadership. The Parliament assembled twice a year, negotiating only for 8-10 days per annum. The number of laws was reduced by issuing so-called „law decrees\". There were no interpellations for years, from 1949 to 1956. This study analyzes the five-day session of the National Assembly in the summer of 1956, where many significant changes took place. First of all, two resolutions were passed in order to secure the greater role of the parliament and the MPs in public life. The second important issue was the „socialist lawfulness\", e.g. the rehabilitation process of the victims of the show trials; other measures were to be taken to penalize those officials (mostly in the political police) who broke the laws in the first half of the 1950s. The Prime Minister and the Attorney General also had long speeches which dealt with socialist lawfulness. The third important event was the interpellation day, where the first interpellations could be heard for seven years. Although these changes were excessive, it is necessary to underline the limits of this democratization. Old habits were hard to break. Parliamentary reforms were prepared even before the fall of Rákosi. What is more, its recommendations were more radical than the resolutions which were adopted later. There were no real debates either: speakers were carefully selected previously. Lawfulness had its own limits; it was only a socialist lawfulness. However, these were only the first steps to the right direction. The next session was to be held in October with important subjects on its agenda. However, due to the revolution of 1956, the session was cancelled. The National Assembly was convened only in May 1957, when Kádár restored the stalinist type of legislation

The recent emergence of global anti-capitalist and anti-war movements have created a space within which Marxism can flourish in a way as it has not been able to for a generation. This book shows that by disassociating Marxism from the legacy of Stalinism, Marxist historiography need not retreat before the criticisms from theorists and historians. It also shows that, once rid of this incubus, Marx's theory of history can be shown to be sophisticated, powerful and vibrant. The book argues that Marxism offers a unique basis to carry out a historical research, one that differentiates it from the twin failures of the traditional empiricist and the post-modernist approaches to historiography. It outlines Marx and Engels' theory of history and some of their attempts to actualise that approach in their historical studies. The book also offers a critical survey of debates on the application of Marx's concepts of 'mode of production' and 'relations of production' in an attempt to periodise history. Marxist debates on the perennial issue of structure and agency are considered in the book. Finally, the book discusses competing Marxist attempts to periodise the contemporary post-modern conjuncture, paying attention to the suggestion that the post-modern world is one that is characterised by the defeat of the socialist alternative to capitalism.