C: Campaigns for Rights and Democracy in Communist Regimes

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People Power and Protest since 1945: a bibliography of nonviolent action
compiled by April Carter, Howard Clark and Michael Randle

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Section C: Campaigns for Rights and Democracy in Communist Regimes

Section Contents



C. Campaigns for Rights and Democracy in Communist Regimes

The case for examining resistance to Communism separately from other campaigns against dictatorship or repression is that Communist Party regimes, following the pattern developed by Lenin and Stalin in the USSR, have practised very specific methods of political, economic and social control, designed to embed Party ideology and incorporate the whole population in the policies and organizations directed by the Party. At times (as under Stalinism) these controls have meant creating an atmosphere of denunciation and terror and sending huge numbers of people to execution, prison, labour camps or exile. In reaction against such terror, Communist regimes often encouraged partial liberalization. But as genuine freedom of debate and association threatened Party control, from the 1960s most Communist regimes in Europe resorted to a form of ‘post-totalitarian’ control, avoiding the excesses of Stalinism but maintaining Party dominance, censorship and limits on travel, and quelling signs of dissidence by expulsion from jobs, public denunciation and sometimes by arrest and imprisonment. A seminal analysis of ‘post-totalitarianism’ and the significance of individual dissent is Vaclav Havel’s essay ‘The power of the powerless’ (see A.1.).  

Because of the distinctive influence of Mao, China did not move towards this pattern of stable Party rule until the 1980s, and since the 1990s has developed an unusual mix of Party dominance and an increasingly privatized economy. Since 1989-1990 official Communist Party rule has crumbled throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Although in many countries the legacy of Party rule has significantly influenced political methods and attitudes, and many former Party leaders continued in power or rose to prominence, it is more appropriate to class these under ‘authoritarian’ rule.  

In a Communist Party state even a critical speech or document could be a significant act of dissent, and promoting independent ideas or forms of culture a major challenge to the regime – though in periods of liberalization the range of the permissible has been blurred. Intellectual or cultural dissent could therefore be one end of a continuum leading to petitions, posters, public meetings and marches, hunger strikes, students boycotting classes or industrial workers going on strike. Whilst intellectual protest has often been quite distinct from worker or peasant unrest, in periods of major popular pressure for change, as in 1956 and 1989, they have merged.  

This section covers the countries where there has been sustained organized dissent and mass popular nonviolent resistance at some stage – these are also the countries where there is a fairly substantial literature in English. It does not include Bulgaria, although there was some intellectual dissent, public protest on ecological issues, and large demonstrations in 1989. But see:  

114. Ward, Philip, Bulgarian Voices: Letting the People Speak, Cambridge, The Oleander Press, 1992, pp. 330.  

See also: Crampton, Richard, ‘The intelligentsia, the ecology and the opposition in Bulgaria’, World Today, vol. 46, no. 2 (1990), pp. 23-26. On growing intellectual dissent in later 1980s, focused on the environment. 

This section also excludes Albania, where a semi-Stalinist regime (which from the later 1950s sided with China against the USSR in the Sino-Soviet dispute) insulated itself against Gorbachev’s perestroika and avoided popular revolt in 1989, although there was a credible report of protest in one city in January 1990.  

Significant, but little known, popular resistance occurred in 1989-1990 in Mongolia, but there is not enough literature to justify a separate section. See:  

115. Becker, Jasper, The Lost Country: Mongolia Revealed, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1992, pp. 325. See also: Ackerman and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, pp. 439-54 (A.1.).  

Because of similarities and links between the Communist countries there are several comparative surveys of dissent and opposition in Communist states. The dramatic events surrounding the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe also resulted in a number of books on 1989. 

I. USSR and Central and Eastern Europe to 1991

1.a. Comparative Studies of Dissent

116. Bugajski, Janusz and Maxine Pollack, East European Fault Lines: Dissent, Opposition and Social Activism, Boulder Col, Westview, 1989, pp. 333.

Comparative analysis of different causes of dissent, for example religion or human rights, the tactics used and methods of repression.  

117. Curry, Jane Leftwich (ed.), Dissent in Eastern Europe, New York, Praeger, 1983, pp. 277. Essays on individual countries.  

118. From Below: Independent Peace and Environment Movements in Eastern Europe and the USSR, New York, Helsinki Watch Report, 1987.  

119. Jacobson, Julius (ed.), Soviet Communism and the Socialist Vision, New Brunswick NJ, Transaction Books, 1972, pp. 363.  

A compilation of essays, most originally published in New Politics magazine, covering the USSR, Poland and Czechoslovakia.  

120. Klippenstein, Lawrence, ‘Conscientious Objectors in Eastern Europe: The quest for free choice and Alternative Service’, in Sabrina Petra Ramet (ed.), Protestantism and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia: The Communist and Postcommunist Eras, Durham, Duke University press, 1992, pp. 276-309 and 393-404.  

Useful overview of pacifism and conscientious objection.  

121.Schapiro, Leonard (ed.), Political Opposition in One-Party States, London, Macmillan, 1972, pp. 289.  

Collection of essays originally published in the academic journal Government and Opposition discussing the concept of totalitarianism, Soviet policies, and developments in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Albania.  

122. Skilling, H.Gordon, Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1989, pp. 293.  

123. Tokes, Rudolf L. (ed.), Opposition in Eastern Europe, London, Macmillan, 1979, pp. 306.  

Includes surveys of human rights and political change, worker and peasant opposition, and essays on Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Hungary from 1968-78.  

See also: Schell, The Unconquerable World, chapter 7 ‘Living in truth’, pp. 186-215 (A.1.).  

1.b. Literature on the Revolutions of 1989-90

124. Ash, Timothy Garton, We The People: The Revolution of ‘89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague, Cambridge, Granta Books in association with Penguin, 1990, pp. 156. (Published in New York by Random House as The Magic Lantern)

125. Burke, Patrick, Revolution in Europe, 1989, Hove, Wayland, 1995, pp. 48.  

Well illustrated account for a popular audience, factually reliable and good summary analysis.  

126. Jones, Lynne, States of Change: A Central European Diary: Autumn 1989, London, Merlin Press, 1990, pp. 139.  

Account by prominent peace activist.  

127. Habermas, Jurgen, ‘What does Socialism mean today? The rectifying revolution and the need for new thinking on the Left’, New Left Review, no. 183, 1990, pp. 3-62.  

Habermas reconsiders the meaning of socialism in the light of the 1989 revolutions in East Central Europe. Critically reviews six types of ideological explanation for the events: Stalinist, Leninist, reform communist, post modernist, anti-communist and liberal.  

128. Hawkes, Nigel (ed.), Tearing Down the Curtain: The People’s Revolution in Eastern Europe by a team from the Observer, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, pp. 160.  

129. Randle, Michael, People Power: The Building of a New European Home, Stroud, Glos, Hawthorn Press, 1991, pp. 224.  

Chapter 1 discusses the context of the revolutions, chapter 2 the build up of protests (including in Bulgaria) and the role of international and transnational pressures, chapter 3 reflects on possible implications of people power for the future of Europe. Part II of the book is a series of interviews with key participants in the events of 1989 both about the revolutions and future possibilities.  

130. Roberts, Adam, Civil Resistance in the East European and Soviet Revolutions, Cambridge Mass, Albert Einstein Institution (Monograph No 4), 1991, pp. 43.  

131. Simpson, John, Dispatches from the Barricades: An Eye-Witness Account of the Revolutions that Shook the World, 1989-90, London, Hutchinson, 1990, pp. 320.  

132. Stokes, Gale, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 319.  

An analytical account sketching in the historical background and tracing the growing opposition during the 1980s.  

See also Ackerman and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, chapter 12, pp. 421-54 (A.1.).  

Periodical sources: a number of academic journals and movement periodicals specialized in analysis of the Soviet bloc.  

Problems of Communism, published every two months, an official US publication, nevertheless ran informative and analytical articles by academic specialists; Index on Censorship covered dissent from a human rights perspective. During the late 1970s and 1980s valuable sources for oppositional thought and activities were Labour Focus on Eastern Europe and East European Reporter (founded in 1985). 

2. Baltic States, 1944-91

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, despite distinct languages and cultural and religious differences, are closely linked not only by geography but by common interests and historical experience. All three were incorporated into the Tsarist Empire, all three enjoyed a period of independence which they won after the First World War, and all three were annexed by the Soviet Union under the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, then occupied by the Germans and returned again to Stalinist domination from 1944. Russian immigration and policies of Russification began after 1945, and substantial Russian minorities complicated later moves towards independence. Because the Baltic states had been incorporated so recently into the Soviet Union, there was a degree of continuing resistance to Moscow rule from 1945 to the 1980s, at first primarily through guerrilla warfare, and from the 1960s taking the form of nonviolent dissent. When Gorbachev’s political reforms opened the way to mobilization and electoral choice, all three countries moved towards renewed independence in the period 1987-91, turning to people power in Latvia and Lithuania when threatened with military repression.

133. Clemens, Walter C, Jr., Baltic Independence and Russian Empire, New York, St Martins Press, 1991, pp. 346.  

Covers the period from 1945, including detailed discussion of moves towards independence from 1988-90 (chapters 8-12), giving weight to role of nonviolent resistance.  

134. Eglitis, Olgerts, Nonviolent Action in the Liberation of Latvia, Cambridge MA, Albert Einstein Institution (Monograph No 5) 1993, pp. 72.  

Examines the moves towards independence 1987-90 and resistance to Soviet attempts in 1991 to re-impose control, plus appendices detailing guidelines prepared in 1991 for a nonviolent defence.

135. Lieven, Anatol, The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1993 (revised edition), pp. 454. 

136. Miniotaite, Grazina, Nonviolent Resistance in Lithuania, Cambridge MA, Albert Einstein Institution (Monograph No 8), 2002, pp. 98. 

Includes overview of resistance to Tsarism and Soviet rule before discussing struggle for independence 1988-91, and with final chapter on prospects for civilian-based defence.

137. Senn, Alfred Erich, Lithuania Awakening, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1990, pp. 294.

Covers developing opposition 1987-1990

138. Trapans, Jan Arveds (ed.), Towards Independence: The Baltic Popular Movements, Boulder CO, Westview Press, 1991, pp. 166. Published in cooperation with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Growing resistance in the Baltic states is also noted briefly in most studies of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. See some of the entries under the USSR below (C.I.8).


3. Czechoslovakia, 1948-89

After the Communist seizure of power in February 1948 Czechoslovakia suffered extreme Stalinist repression. Destalinization occurred much later than in neighbouring Poland and Hungary. The revolutionary events of 1956 encouraged some pressure for change within the Party, and sparked brief dissent by intellectuals and students, which was rapidly contained. Moves towards destalinization began effectively in 1963, and gathered momentum as writers, intellectuals and students began to express dissent, culminating in the Prague Spring and widespread popular mobilization. The Soviet occupation of August 1968 prompted mass nonviolent resistance, and popular activism was not crushed until Gustav Husak took over from Alexander Dubcek as Party Secretary in 1969 and a process of ‘normalization’ began. From 1970, despite the efforts of a committed minority and the rise of Charter 77, opposition was strictly limited and the majority of people responded with apathy and cynicism to the new regime. Widespread popular involvement in protest did not occur again until November 1989, when (following the gradual negotiated transfer of power in both Poland and Hungary and the dramatic collapse of the Berlin Wall) the Velvet Revolution swept away Communist Party rule.

  

a. The Prague Spring and Resistance to Occupation, 1968-69

Studies of the Czechoslovak reform movement and resistance to Soviet occupation tend to focus on intellectuals and students. Workers only got involved late in the Prague Spring (partly because they had reason to worry about the impact of economic reforms). But the workers’ council movement, which developed from December 1968 to June 1969, was a significant assertion of autonomous worker power. There was also cooperation between workers and students, for example in a strike in November 1968 against the removal of Josef Smrkovsky as President of the National Assembly.

139. Fisera, Vladimir (ed.), Workers’Councils in Czechslovakia: Documents and Essays 1968-69, London, Alison and Busby, 1978, pp. 200.  

140. Golan, Galia, The Czechoslovak Reform Movement, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. 349.  

Starts with brief summary of period 1956-1962 and then analyses in detail developments both within the Party and in other social spheres up to 1968, including the role of dissent and public protest.  

141. Golan, Galia, Reform Rule in Czechoslovakia: The Dubcek Era 1968-1969, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973, pp. 327.  

142. Mlynar, Zdenek, Night Frost in Prague: The End of Humane Socialism, London, Hurst, 1980, pp. 300.  

Account by Party leader close to Dubcek of internal Party politics leading up to the Soviet invasion, personal account of the Kremlin ‘negotiations’ after the abduction of top leaders, and his resignation from the Party in November 1968.  

143. Skilling, H. Gordon, Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 924.  

Extensively researched and very detailed account of the evolution of reform in the period 1963-1968.  

144. Windsor, Philip and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia 1968, London, Chatto and Windus (for the Institute of Strategic Studies), 1969, pp. 200.  

The first half by Windsor explores the broad context and reasons for the Soviet invasion; Roberts (pp. 97-143) assesses the resistance drawing on the BBC monitoring service reports and interviews. Key documents relating to the invasion are included in appendices. 

b. ‘Normalization’ to the Velvet Revolution, 1970-89

After initial resistance to the Husak regime, opposition focused primarily, especially after the launching of Charter 77, on human rights. But Charter 77 did engage in a dialogue with the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign: see Kavan, Jan and Zdena Tomin, Voices from Prague: Documents on Czechoslovakia and the Peace Movement, London, Palach Press, 1983, pp. 75. A small Independent Peace Association was founded in 1988, see: Sormova, Ruth, Michaela Neubarova and Jan Kavan, ‘Czechoslovakia’s nonviolent revolution’, in Martin et al, Nonviolent Struggle and Social Defence, pp. 36-42 (see A.1.). There was also cultural dissent among some young people, symbolized by the rock band The Plastic People of the Universe, and commemoration of John Lennon was linked to peace protest.

145. Committee to Defend Czechoslovak Socialists, Voices of Czechoslovak Socialists, London, Merlin Press, 1977, pp. 134.  

Selection of accounts of opposition, trials and Open Letters, including coverage of the rock musicians The Plastic People and the text of Charter 77.

146. Havel, Vaclav, Open Letters: Selected Prose 1965-1990, edited by Paul Wilson, London, Faber and Faber, 1991, pp. 415.

Collection of Havel’s political (as opposed to dramatic) writings from his 1965 speech to the Writers Union ‘On evasive thinking’ to his ‘New Year’s Address as President of Czechoslovakia January 1990. In between there are Havel’s open letters from the late 1960s to the 1980s which reflect his increasing importance as an active opponent of the regime and theorist of ‘the power of the powerless’. This is one of several collections of Havel’s works. Living in Truth, edited by Jan Vladislav (see A.1.) includes a chronology of Havel’s life, writings and political activity.  

147. Kusin, Vladimir V, From Dubcek to Charter 77: A Study of ‘Normalization’ in Czechoslvakia, 1968-1978, Edinburgh, Q Press, 1978, pp. 353.  

148. Pelikan, Jiri, Socialist Opposition in Eastern Europe: The Czechoslovak Example, London, Allison Busby, 1976, pp. 220.  

Focuses on the Party purges and the emergence of a ‘socialist opposition’ in the early 1970s and political trials in 1972.  

149. Riese, Hans-Peter (ed.), Since the Prague Spring: The Continuing Struggle for Human Rights in Czechoslovakia, London, Allen and Unwin, 1981, pp. 208.  

A collection of relevant political documents, including Charter 77, open letters to political leaders and organizations and to prominent individuals in the West.  

150. Skilling, H. Gordon, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia, London, Allen and Unwin, 1981, pp. 363.  

Well researched analysis and extensive collection of documents.  

151. Urban, Jan, ‘Czechoslovakia: The power and politics of humiliation’ in Gwyn Prins (ed.), Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990, pp. 99-136.  

Examines November 1989 in wider context of Czechoslovak experience and problems facing new regime.  

152. Wheaton, Bernard and Zdenek Kavan, The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia 1989-1991, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1992, pp. 255.  

See also: Ash, We the People, pp. 78-130, and other titles on 1989 Revolutions (C.I.1.b.).  

4. East Germany (GDR), 1945-89

The German Democratic Republic was the first European Communist state to respond to the death of Stalin. A general strike, called in June 1953, was crushed by tanks. The intellectuals remained silent in June 1953, but during 1956 some responded to the ferment of ideas and activities in Poland and Hungary, though this ‘revisionism’ was subsequently crushed. See:

153. Croan, Melvin, ‘East German Revisionism: The Spectre and the Reality’ in Leopold Labedz (ed.), Revisionism: Essays on the History of Marxist Ideas, London, Allen and Unwin, 1962, pp. 239-56.  

Until the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, many of those opposed to the regime crossed to the West (and significant numbers attempted to escape over the Wall subsequently). Limited dissent developed gradually in the 1960s and 1970s, often fostered by the Protestant Church, and there were a few prominent Marxist dissidents. By the 1980s significant autonomous groups were campaigning for cultural freedom and peace. Responding to Gorbachev’s perestroika in the Soviet Union, and to the opening of the Hungarian border in September 1989, a mass exodus of East Germans, combined with growing protests inside the country, led to the collapse of the regime. This collapse was heralded by the breaching of the Berlin Wall.  

a. The 1953 Uprising

154. Brant, Stefan, The East German Rising, 17th June 1953, London, Thames and Hudson, 1955, pp. 202.

155. Ebert, Theodore, ‘Non-violent resistance against communist regimes’ in Roberts (ed.), Civilian Resistance as National Defence, pp. 204-27 (A.3.).  

156. Hildebrandt, Rainer, The Explosion: The Uprising Behind the Iron Curtain, Boston, Little Brown, 1955, pp. 198.  

b. The Rise of Dissent to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1960s to 1989

157. Allen, Bruce, Germany East: Dissent and Opposition, Montreal, Black Rose, 1991, pp. 171.

158. Bahro, Rudolf, The Alternative in Eastern Europe, London, NLB Books, 1978, pp. 463.

Bahro was a prominent Party member, who responded with shock to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and this book proposes a Marxist-based reform programme. He was imprisoned for eight years after this book was published in West Germany in 1977.

159. Bleiker, Roland, Nonviolent Struggle and the Revolution in East Germany, Cambridge, Mass., Albert Einstein Institution (Monograph No. 6), 1993, pp. 53.  

160. Fullbrook, Mary, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949-1989, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 307.  

161. Grix, Jonathan, The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of the GDR, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000, pp. 213.  

162. Hirschmann, Albert O., ‘Exit, voice and the fate of the German Democratic Republic’, World Politics, vol. 45 (January 1993), pp. 173-202.  

163. Joppke, Christian, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989: Social Movement in a Leninist Regime, New York, New York University Press, 1995, pp. 277.  

164. Keithly, David M., The Collapse of East German Communism: The Year the Wall Came Down, 1989, Westport CT, Praeger, 1992, pp. 241.  

165. Kopstein, Jeffrey, ‘Chipping away at the state: Workers’ resistance and the demise of East Germany’ in World Politics, vol. 48 (April 1996), pp. 391-423.  

Overview of reasons for collapse of GDR, critical of emphasis on intellectuals and ‘civil society’, and stressing role of workers and ‘everyday resistance’ over four decades.  

166. Opp, Karl-Dieter, Peter Voss and Christiane Gern, Origins of a Spontaenous Revolution: East Germany 1989, Ann Arbor MI, University of Michigan Press, 1995, pp. 280.  

Study based on fieldwork interviewing various actors.  

167. Philipsen, Dirk, We Were the People: Voices from East German’s Revolutionary Autumn of 1989, Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1993, pp. 417.  

168. Ramet, Pedro, ‘Church and peace in the GDR’, Problems of Communism, vol. 35 (July-August 1984), pp. 44-57.  

Focuses on role of Protestant Church in dissent and autonomous peace activity.  

169. Sandford, John, The Sword and the Ploughshare: Autonomous Peace Initiatives in East Germany, London, Merlin Press/European Nuclear Disarmament, 1983, pp. 111.  

170. Thompson, Mark R, ‘Why and how East Germans rebelled’, Theory and Society, vol. 25 no. 2 (April 1996), pp. 263-99.  

171. Volkmer, Werner, ‘East Germany: Dissenting views during the last decade’ in Tokes (ed.), Opposition in Eastern Europe, pp. 113-41 (C.I.1.a.).  

172. Woods, Roger, Opposition in the GDR under Honecker, 1971-1985: An Introduction and Documentation, London, Macmillan, 1986, pp. 257.  

See also: From Below, Helsinki Watch Report (C.I.1.a.), Ash, We the People, pp. 61-77, and other titles (C.I.1.b.).  

5. Hungary, 1947-89

Hungary suffered under the brutal Stalinist regime of Rakosi until 1953, and after the death of Stalin sections of the Party leadership (with support from Moscow) moved towards reform. The central figure in this change of policy was Imre Nagy, who became Prime Minister in 1953 and allowed political debate to re-emerge. However, the hardliners made a comeback in 1955 and ousted Nagy, leading to a bitter struggle in 1956 between different factions of the Party. Following Khrushchev’s February 1956 attack on Stalin’s crimes, many Communists demanded the rehabilitation of Laszlo Rajk, executed in a Stalinist show trial as a ‘Titoist’ in 1949. Writers and students engaged in campaigns for change, culminating in mass demonstrations demanding greater democracy, a new government under Nagy and withdrawal of Soviet troops. Protests erupted into fighting outside the radio building after security policy fired on the crowd, and crowds also attacked the secret police stations.  

The government declared martial law and called in Soviet troops (October 23-24), triggering armed defiance by many Hungarians. After heavy fighting, Soviet troops withdrew from Budapest on October 29, but after Nagy declared Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact new troops moved into Hungary and attacked Budapest; bitter fighting continued from November 4-11 and Nagy and colleagues were arrested by Soviet troops when leaving the Yugoslav embassy on November 22 (contrary to explicit promises), and later executed. But during the period November 12 – December 13 the industrial workers, who had been at the forefront of the fighting, began to organize independent workers’ councils and to call brief general strikes. (Hannah Arendt has celebrated this expression of popular nonviolent resistance and participatory democracy in the Epilogue to the second edition of her Origins of Totalitarianism, London, Allen and Unwin, 1958, pp. 492-502.)  

After the suppression of the 1956 resistance there were no major protests for two decades, but from the 1960s an intellectual opposition gradually emerged, growing in strength in the late 1970s with declarations of support for Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and a flourishing samizdat. The Hungarian regime from the 1960s-80s experimented with economic reforms and limited pluralism, and although it imprisoned a few dissidents, avoided extreme use of repression. By the 1980s Hungarians, supported by reformers within the Party, began to enjoy a greater degree of pluralism and cultural freedom, indicated by the emergence of a semi-autonomous peace organization, student activism and then in 1988 the evolution of opposition parties. The Communist regime, spurred on by mass attendance at a ceremonial reburial and rehabilitation of Imre Nagy in June that year, agreed in October 1989, to constitutional amendments and free parliamentary elections.  

a. Destalinization and Revolution, 1953-56

173. Aczel, Tamas, and Tibor Meray, The Revolt of the Mind: A Case History of Intellectual Resistance behind the Iron Curtain, New York, Praeger, 1959, pp. 449.

Focuses on the Hungarian Writers’ Union from 1953-59.  

174. Harman, Chris, Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe, London, Pluto Press, 1974, pp. 296.  

Examines the 1956 Revolution primarily from standpoint of role of the workers, with emphasis on the workers’ councils, pp. 124-87.  

175. Kecskemeti, Paul, The Unexpected Revolution: Social Forces in the Hungarian Uprising, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1961, pp. 178.  

176. Kopacsi, Sandor, In the Name of the Working Class, London, Fontana/Collins, 1989, pp. 348.  

Eyewitness account by the police chief of Budapest in 1956, who refused to obey Soviet orders to quell the uprising and was later sentenced to life imprisonment, but released in 1963 in an amnesty granted by Khrushchev.  

177. Lomax, Bill, ‘The Workers’ Councils of Greater Budapest’, in Ralph Miliband and John Saville (eds.), Socialist Register 1976, London, Merlin Press, 1976, pp. 89-110. Excerpt from his book Hungary 1956, London, Alison and Busby, 1976, pp. 222, which provides a chronology, background to the 1956 uprising and an account of the events of October/November.  

178. Meray, Tibor, Thirteen Days that Shook the Kremlin: Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution, London, Thames and Hudson, 1959, pp. 290.  

179. Vali, Ferenc, Rift and Revolt in Hungary, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 590.  

Detailed scholarly study of Hungary from the Communist takeover to 1956, and with a final section on the period of 1957-61 when the Kadar regime established control.  

180. Zinner, Paul E., Revolution in Hungary, New York, Columbia University Press, 1962, pp. 380.  

b. Gradual Growth of Dissent, 1960-89

181. Hankiss, Elemer, ‘What the Hungarians saw first’ in Gwyn Prins (ed.), Spring in Winter: The 1989 Revolutions, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990, pp. 13-36.  

182. Haraszti, Miklos, A Worker in a Worker’s State, Harmondsworth, Penguin (in association with New Left Review), 1977, pp. 175.  

An inside account of conditions at the Red Star Tractor Factory by a young Marxist, who was arrested, tried and given a suspended sentence for ‘grave incitement’. The trial hearings are an appendix, pp. 159-74. Haraszti had also got into trouble with the authorities for his satirical poetry and for suspected membership of a Maoist group, see pp. 11-17.  

183. Kenedi, Janos, Do It Yourself: Hungary’s Hidden Economy, London, Pluto Press, 1981, pp. 128.  

Hilarious account by a leftist dissident, published in samizdat, of the corruption involved in getting materials to build a house. A brief introduction by Bill Lomax summarizes developments in the Hungarian opposition.  

184. Konrad, George, Anti-Politics, London, Quartet, 1984, pp. 243.  

Konrad was a central theorist of building civil society from below.  

185. Konrad, George and Ivan Szelenyi, The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, Brighton, Harvester Press, 1979, pp. 252.  

The authors were arrested in 1974 for ‘subversion’ for writing this samizdat work, their friends were interrogated and in one case arrested. The resulting protests in Hungary and abroad led to their release. They were allowed to emigrate, but Konrad chose to stay and became an important figure in the internal dissent of the 1980s (pp.xiii-xix). The text is an analysis of the ‘socialist society’ emerging in the Soviet bloc in the 1970s, arguing that former conflicts between intellectuals and the Party bureaucracy were being superseded by the increasing integration of technocratic intellectuals with the ruling bureaucracy. The main conflict was between an oppressed working class and the bureaucrats and technocrats. The role of the ‘marginal’ intelligentsia was to ‘articulate workers interests and promote ‘a critical social consciousness’ (see pp. 234-52).  

186. Koszegi, Ferenc and E.P. Thompson, The New Hungarian Peace Movement, London, Merlin Press/European Nuclear Disarmament, c.1983, pp. 53.  

187. Schopflin, George, ‘Hungary: An uneasy stability’, in Archie Brown and Jack Gray (eds.), Political Culture and Political Change in Communist States, London, Macmillan, 1977, pp. 131-58.  

Brief analysis of the Kadar regime.  

188. Schopflin, ‘Opposition and Para-Opposition: Critical currents in Hungary, 1968-78, in Tokes (ed.), Opposition in Eastern Europe, pp. 142-86 (C.I.1.a.).  

189. Tokes, Rudolf L., Hungary’s Negotiated Revolution: Economic Reform, Social Change and Political Succession, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 544.  

Chapter 4, pp. 167-209, covers opposition and dissent from 1962 into the 1980s, and Chapter 7, pp. 305-56, ‘Negotiated revolution: from the Opposition Roundtable to the National Roundtable’.  

See also: Ash, We The People, pp. 47-60 and other titles (C.I.1.b.).  

6. Poland, 1945-89

Polish history is associated with heroic armed uprisings, culminating in the Warsaw rising against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. But there was also a tradition of passive or nonviolent resistance to keep alive Polish culture under Russian and German occupation in the 19th century. Between 1945 and 1989 there were more examples of mass nonviolent action in Poland than in any other country of Eastern Europe and, although intellectuals and students played a crucial role, as did the Catholic Church, in Poland working class activism was decisive.

The movement demanding total destalinization in 1956 managed to avoid Soviet armed intervention and serious bloodshed. Major strikes in 1970-71 and 1976 were a prelude to the remarkable Solidarity movement in 1980-81. Declaration of martial law in December 1981 drove resistance underground for several years, but later in the 1980s Solidarity re-emerged, and was able (in the context of rapid change inside the USSR) to negotiate with the Communist Party a peaceful transfer of power. Solidarity won a landslide victory in the elections of June 1989. For a concise overview of Polish developments from 1945-80 by a distinguished Polish writer, see:  

190. Szczypiorski, Andrzej The Polish Ordeal: The View from Within, London, Croom Helm, 1982, pp. 153.  

a. Destalinization and Mass Resistance, 1953-56

Poland had suffered severely in the Stalinist period 1948-53. After 1953 there were moves within the Party for change, but Party reformers did not link up with developing pressure from below until 1956; after the June rebellion in Poznan, students, intellectuals, workers and devout Catholics joined in the ferment. Gomulka (who became Party Secretary in early October 1956) managed to negotiate with Khrushchev to prevent Soviet troops suppressing the popular movement.  

191. Fejto, Francois, A History of the People’s Democracies, Harmondsworth, Penguin, [1969] 1974, 2nd edition, pp. 565.  

Examines destalinization in Poland and why the Polish 1956 uprising avoided bloodshed, making comparisons with Hungary and its 1956 Revolution, see pp. 79-80 and 87-123. These events are set in the wider context of Soviet and bloc politics.  

192. Karol, K.S., Visa for Poland, London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1959, pp. 259.  

Account by a Polish journalist (who left in 1949) of the evolution of destalinization from above and demands for democratization from below in 1955-56, and the October 1956 revolution. Karol explains the background context of Poland’s wartime experiences and the Communist seizure of power and in Part Two assesses Poland a year after October 1956.  

193. Hiscocks, Richard, Poland: Bridge for the Abyss?, London, Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 359.  

194. Lewis, Flora, A Case History of Hope: The Story of Poland’s Peaceful Revolutions, G Garden City NY, Doubleday, 1958, pp. 281.  

Covers developments in 1956, especially the June and October public protests.  

195. Syrop, Konrad, Spring in October: The Story of the Polish Revolution 1956, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1957, pp. 219.  

b. Reaction and Developing Dissent, 1960s and 1970s

Gomulka presided over an increasingly reactionary regime, and in his last years, when he was losing his control over events, advocated the invasion of Czechoslovakia and condoned a virulent anti-semitic campaign launched by a group within the Party. There was very limited dissent in the early 1960s, but in March 1968 there were mass student demonstrations, sparked by banning of a play, in which students called for a Polish Dubcek. Gomulka was ousted in December 1970, the excuse being created by the major shipyard strikes of that year, and was replaced by Edvard Gierek.  

196. Bernhard, Michael H., The Origins of Democratization in Poland: Workers, Intellectuals and Opposition Politics, 1976-1980, New York, Columbia University Press, 1994, pp. 298.  

Covers the 1976 strikes, the founding of KOR (the Workers’ Defence Committee) by intellectuals to support workers and the subsequent development of opposition.  

197. Bethell, Nicholas, Gomulka, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1972, pp. 307.  

Gomulka, who was labelled a ‘nationalist’ Communist and imprisoned during the Stalinist period in Poland, played a key role in October 1956 and became the new Party Secretary. But hopes for radical reform were soon dashed. See chapters 13-15 (pp. 194-252). His loss of power is charted in chapters 16-17 (pp. 225-84).  

198. Bromke, Adam, Poland: The Last Decade, Ontario, Mosaic Press, 1981, pp. 189.  

This book, which reprints the author’s articles in a variety of academic journals, includes some material on 1980, but is mostly valuable for its coverage of the preceding decade. See especially pp. 56-62 ‘Gomulka’s legacy: Two vantage points’, extracts from tape of meeting between striking workers at Szczecin and Gierek Jan 1971. and statements made at Polish Party’s Central Committee meeting in Feb 1971; and pp. 94-111 ‘The opposition in Poland’ (both also available in Problems of Communism, Sept-Oct 1978).  

199. Brumberg, Abraham (ed.), Poland, Genesis of a Revolution, New York, Vintage Books, 1983, pp. 336.  

Gives background on strikes.  

200. Dissent in Poland: December 1975-July 1977, London, Association of Polish Students in Exile, 1977, pp. 200.  

Collection of documents relating to demands for human rights, worker rights and political change, including accounts of trials and an eyewitness account of the 1976 strike.  

201. Green, Peter, ‘Third round in Poland’, New Left Review, no. 101-102, Feb-April 1977, pp. 69-108.  

Analysis of the successful June 1976 strikes against price rises.  

202. Lipski, Jan Jozef, KOR: A History of the Workers’ Defense Committee in Poland, 1976-1981, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1985, pp. 561.  

203. Michnik, Adam, Letters from Prison and Other Essays, Berkeley CA, University of California

Press, 1985, pp. 354.  

Michnik was a leading intellectual and activist in the opposition that developed after 1968.  

204. Raina, Peter, Political Opposition in Poland 1954-1977, London, Poets and Painters Press, 1978, pp. 551.  

History of intellectual dissent including documents.  

205. Rupnik, Jacques, ‘Dissent in Poland, 1968-78: The end of revisionism and the rebirth of civil society’, in Tokes (ed.), Opposition in Eastern Europe, pp. 60-112 (C.I.1.a.).  

See also: Harman, Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe, pp. 242-53 for account of the 1970 strikes in Gdansk and Szczecin shipyards (see C.5.a.).  

c. Solidarity: from Opposition to Government, 1980-89

The sit-in strike in the Gdansk shipyard in August 1980 launched Solidarity: a mass movement and alternative trade union, which soon had branches in almost all sectors of society. The dramatic role of Solidarity up to the end of 1981, followed by its brutal suppression when General Jaruzelski declared martial law, attracted widespread attention in the west. So did its re-emergence in the late 1980s. Solidarity – as a predominantly worker movement, demonstration of nonviolent people power and a challenge to the Soviet bloc – stimulated a large literature from different ideological perspectives.  

206. Ash, Timothy Garton, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity 1980-82, London, Jonathan Cape, 1983, pp. 386.  

Account by academic expert on Eastern Europe who witnessed many of the events  

207. Ascherson, Neal, The Polish August: The Self-Limiting Revolution, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981, pp. 320.  

Account of Solidarity to mid-1981 by British journalist familiar with Eastern Europe, with text of Gdansk and Szczecin Agreements and postscript on December 1981.  

208. Kemp-Welch, A. The Birth of Solidarity: The Gdansk Negotiations, 1980, London, Macmillan, 1983, pp. 213.  

Translation of the Gdansk negotiations between the strikers and the Party.  

209. MacShane, Denis, Solidarity: Poland’s Independent Trade Union, Nottingham, Spokesman Books, 1981, pp. 172.  

Stresses working class and trade union nature of Solidarity in contrast to nationalist and religious aspects – based on interviews with Solidarity leaders and advisers and rank and file members.  

210. Myant, Martin, Poland: A Crisis for Socialism, London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1982, pp. 254.  

Examines Solidarity and the imposition of martial law against background of Polish post-war history and the Gomulka and Gierek regimes.  

211. Polet, Robert, Polish Summer, London, War Resisters’International, 1981, pp. 43.  

212. Potel, Jean-Yves, The Summer Before the Frost: Solidarity in Poland, London, Pluto Press, 1982, pp. 229.  

Eye-witness account of early stages of revolution combined with broader analysis. Includes notes on key individuals and organizations and an overall chronology.  

213. Rosenberg, Tina, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism, New York and London, Random House/Vintage, 1995.  

Part 2 is on Poland and chapter 6, pp. 223-58, ‘The prisoner’ includes material on resistance to the imposition of martial law, political developments after martial law was lifted in July 1983, and negotiations between Solidarity and the Party, as well as 1993 trial of Jaruzelski for crimes he had committed.  

214. Singer, Daniel, The Road to Gdansk: Poland and the USSR, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1981, pp. 290.  

The first half of the book examines changes in the USSR, pp. 157-285 cover Polish developments from 1970.  

215. Touraine, Alain and others, Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement: Poland 1980-1981, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 203.  

Analysis by leading theorist of social movements with emphasis on research into opinion of ordinary members of Solidarity, and examination of strategic decisions.  

216. Zielonka, Jan, ‘Strengths and weaknesses of nonviolent action: The Polish case’, Orbis, vol. 30 (Spring 1986), pp. 91-110.  

217. Walesa, Lech, A Way of Hope, New York, Henry Holt, 1987, pp. 325; London, Pan Books, 1988.  

Memoir by central (but increasingly controversial) figure in Solidarity giving his perspective on his role and developments.  

See also: From Below, Helsinki Watch Report, on Polish Freedom and Peace group (C.I.1.a.); Ash, We the People, pp. 25-46; and other titles (C.I.1.b.).  

7. Romania, 1945-89

The role of nonviolent resistance in Romania (Rumania in earlier spelling) has been fairly limited. The Stalinist Romanian leadership engaged in largely token revisionism after 1953. But the Hungarian revolt of 1956 did have popular repercussions, especially among the significant Hungarian minority inside Romania, and some intellectuals formulated demands for reform. These intellectuals were purged in 1958 (after the execution of Imre Nagy in Hungary). An authoritative source for this period is:

218. Ionescu, Ghita, Communism in Rumania: 1944-1962, London, Oxford University Press, 1964, pp. 378.  

Under the new leadership of Ceausescu in the 1960s Romania asserted a degree of independence in its relations with the USSR and in its foreign policy. It blocked closer East European economic integration under the USSR and became an uncooperative member of the Warsaw Pact, refusing to take part in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Romanian government’s ‘neutralist’ foreign policy was welcomed in the West, but this communist nationalism did not result in significant reforms inside Romania. Indeed, it led to greater suppression of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. From the 1970s Ceausescu and his wife fostered Maoist-style adulation, in the context of an omnipresent security police and increasing poverty and misery among the population as a whole. These conditions minimized intellectual dissent until the late 1980s – though a small group of writers led by Paul Goma published an ‘open letter’ against the cult of personality in 1977. There were a number of protests by miners and other workers, some brutally suppressed. When popular revolution broke out in Romania in December 1989, starting among the Hungarian minority, it did not maintain the disciplined nonviolence of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, but rapidly evolved into violent fighting. This violence was encouraged both by security police firing on the crowds and by the murky role of sections of the security services in the overthrow of Ceausescu.  

Thus studying developments in Romania is partly of interest in suggesting both the limits of dissent and the limits of nonviolence. Nevertheless, the worker strikes and elements in the 1989 popular uprising are examples of nonviolent action in very adverse conditions.  

219. Antal, Dan, Out of Romania, London, Faber and Faber, 1994, pp. 226.  

Personal account of life as a conscript and rebellious student throws light on Romanian conditions and the first chapter discusses the 1989 protests and toppling of the Ceausescus.  

220. McPherson, William, ‘In Romania’, in The Best of Granta Reportage, London, Granta Books, 1993, pp. 291-326.  

The author was in Romania from January-June 1990, and provides insights on the earlier uprising and the confused nature of politics in the immediate aftermath.  

221. Rady, Martyn, Romania in Turmoil: A Contemporary History, London, I.B. Tauris, 1992, pp. 216.  

Analyses Ceausescu’s regime and outlines the emerging resistance in the later 1980s, including the mass worker demonstrations in Brasov in November 1987, the uprisings in Timisoara and Bucharest, the execution of the Ceausescus and subsequent confused politics and violence. Includes a survey of sources.  

222. Ratesh, Nestor, Romania: The Entangled Revolution, New York, Praeger, 1991, pp. 179. Introduction by Edward Luttwack.  

223. Tokes, Laszlo, With God for the People as told to David Porter, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, pp. 226.  

Account by Reformed Church minister who resisted oppression of the Hungarian minority, and whose defiance sparked the December 1989 revolt in Timisoara, which spread to Bucharest.  

See also: Fraudendorfer in Randle, People Power, pp. 108-22, (C.I.1.b); Skilling, Samizdat and an Independent Society in Eastern Europe, pp. 191-95 for intellectual dissent (C.I.1.a.); Simpson, Dispatches from the Barricades, which has a chapter on the Romanian uprising (C.I.1.b.). 

8. Soviet Union, 1945-91

The revolutionary tradition in Russia included both violent peasant revolts and the growth of organized strikes with the spread of industrialization. The revolutions of 1905 and February 1917, despite some acts of violence, were both notable examples of people power. After the Bolsheviks seized control in late 1917, however, the Communist Party (after fighting a prolonged civil war) increasingly repressed all political opposition. There was some spontaneous resistance to the brutalities of collectivization, but during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s dissent was almost totally quashed.  

After 1945 Soviet politics falls into four main periods: repression and renewed terror from 1945-March 1953, when Stalin died; uneven destalinization from 1953 to the ousting of Khruschev in 1964; rejection of liberalization and a long period of inertia under Brezhnev and his immediate successors from 1964-1984; and the rapid moves towards glasnost and perestroika launched after 1985 by Gorbachev, which created the possibility for popular activism and led to the dissolution first of Soviet control over Eastern Europe and then of the Soviet Union itself.  

During 1945-1953 there was guerrilla resistance in some areas newly annexed by the Soviet Union, such as the western Ukraine, but no other significant signs of opposition. After the death of Stalin, conflict at the top of the Party, release of many labour camp inmates, and the (officially secret) denunciation of Stalinist crimes by Khrushchev in 1956, and again in 1961, allowed for a degree of liberalization. This ‘thaw’ was promoted in literature and the arts, and initially in the churches, but was limited by fears of mass unrest (especially in the non-Russian republics) and by pressure from hardline Party members. Khrushchev’s own agenda was to promote socialism, so his policies on national cultural autonomy and religious practice tended to be repressive: for example, thousands of religious institutions were closed between 1959 and 1964.  

In 1953 the death of Stalin prompted uprisings in several camps, the best known in Vorkuta, see:  

224. Scholmer, Joseph, Vorkuta, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1954, pp. 204 (chapter 11).  

There were later open protests by national minorities such as the Crimean Tatars and Meskhetians, who had been forcibly transported to distant areas of the USSR during the war and were demanding return to their homelands, and by the Baptists who were subject to particular persecution. But in general between 1953 and 1964 those seeking greater freedom tried to manoeuvre within the boundaries of uncertain official tolerance. There were signs of worker dissent in go-slows and occasional strikes, but the regime managed for a long time to prevent news of any major strikes and worker demonstrations from leaking out. For example, the strike in June 1962 in Novocherkassk against wage cuts and prices rises, crushed when the army turned machine guns on demonstrators (described by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in volume 3 of The Gulag Archipelago – pp. 506-14 of London Fontana edition 1978 – and later documented from KGB archives) was hidden from both the Soviet public and western academics for many years.  

So it is the two later periods which are covered in this bibliography, although the discussion of dissent from 1965 often includes some material on earlier periods, particularly the Khrushchev era.  

a. Growing Dissent, 1965-84

Ironically, it was the attempted repression under Brezhnev of all signs of opposition to the official party line that sparked the widespread emergence of organized dissent in the USSR. Dissent occurred among national minorities, religious groups, intellectuals, scientists and writers; and repression of diverse groups encouraged the emergence of a small human rights movement. Samizdat (the clandestine circulation of information, essays and banned novels) flourished and much of it was published in the West. The impact of repression was partially counteracted by the emergence of an official policy of detente in the 1970s, which eased communications between East and West, especially for privileged groups like scientists, and enabled western organizations to campaign more effectively on human rights issues inside the Soviet bloc. By the early 1980s there were even signs of opposition based on environmental and peace issues. The small Moscow Trust Group, which was wholly independent of the Party-sponsored official Peace Committee, was founded in 1982 and replicated in other major cities.  

During the Cold War there was widespread approval in the West of dissenters inside the Soviet Union and often official support for them, for example for Jews trying to emigrate to Israel. There is therefore an extensive literature in English, both translations of samizdat and of works by prominent dissidents, and western academic surveys. A highly selective list of sources, covering the range of dissent and ideological differences among dissenters, is given below.  

225. Bourdeaux, Michael, ‘Religion’ in Archie Brown and Michael Kaser (eds.), The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, 2nd edition, London, Macmillan, 1978, pp. 157-80.  

Useful brief survey of Soviet policy towards and reactions by all religious groups in the USSR: the Orthodox Church, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists. The responses range from conformity and cooperation through passive resistance to open opposition. For more detail on latter see: Bourdeaux, Michael, Religious Ferment in Russia: Protestant Opposition to Soviet Religious Policy, London, Macmillan, 1968, pp. 266.  

226. Browne, Michael (ed.), Ferment in the Ukraine: Documents by V. Chornovil, I. Kandybam L. Lukyanendo, V. Moroz, and Others, London, Macmillan, 1971, pp. 285.  

227. Bukovksy, Vladimir, To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter, New York, Viking Press, 1979, pp. 438.  

Memoir covering public protests in 1965 and 1967, trials, experiences of prison including noncooperation and hunger strikes and use of psychiatric treatment.  

228. A Chronicle of Current Events, London, Amnesty International, 1971 to 1983.

Published sporadically due to the problems of compiling and distributing it within the Soviet Union; The Chronicle was closed down altogether for a while after 19. An invaluable primary source of documents collected by the internal human rights movement and translated from the Russian. Includes protest statements, accounts of demonstrations and hunger strikes, trials of dissidents and their condemnation to exile, psychiatric hospitals or prison, and the conditions they suffered.  

229. Cohen, Stephen F. (ed.), An End to Silence: Uncensored Opinion in the Soviet Union from Roy Medvedev’s Underground Magazine Political Diary, New York, W.W. Norton, pp. 375.  

Roy Medvedev was the most prominent dissident intellectual committed to Marxism (most were anti-Communist) and condemned Stalinism and ‘neo-Stalinism’ from that perspective. See also his critical history of Stalinism, Let History Judge, London, Macmillan, 1972; and On Socialist Democracy, London, Macmillan, 1975; and Samizdat Register 1 and 2, edited by Roy Medvedev, London Merlin Press, 1977 and 1981, featuring ‘Voices of the Socialist Opposition in the Soviet Union’.  

230. Gorbanevskaya, Natalia, Red Square at Noon, London, Andre Deutsch, 1972, pp. 285.  

On the demonstration in Red Square against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and subsequent trial and sentences.  

231. Haynes, Viktor and Olga Semyonova, Workers Against the Gulag, London, Pluto Press, 1979, pp. 129.  

Covers worker protest (omitted from much of the literature on dissent), including the founding of an independent trade union in the Donbass coal mining area, most of whose members were jailed and its leader sent to a psychiatric hospital.  

232. Kontinent 1: The Alternative Voice of Russia and Eastern Europe. and Kontinent 2, London, Andre Deutsch, 1976 and 1977, pp. 180 and 246.  

Translated selections from new Russian opposition journal based abroad, committed to ‘absolute religious idealism’, ‘absolute anti-totalitarianism’, ‘absolute democratism’ and ‘absolute non-partisanship’. Kontinent 1 includes the dialogue between Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn, arising out of the latter’s ‘Letter to the Soviet leaders’ attacking the ruling ideology.  

233. Mamonova, Tatyana, Women and Russia: Feminist Writings from the Soviet Union, Boston, Beacon Press, 1984, pp. 273.  

Mamonova was forced into exile by the KGB.  

234. Medvedev, Zhores, Soviet Science, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 262.  

Medvedev, himself a distinguished geneticist, charts the history of Soviet science at different stages, the beginnings of dissent under Khrushchev (pp. 88-102) including Sakharov’s opposition to a renewal of nuclear testing, and measures to discipline dissident scientists after 1971 (pp. 180-96). Medvedev wrote a samizdat attack in 1962 on the theories of T.D. Lysenko (Stalin’s protege) in an attempt to rescue Soviet biology from the influence of Lysenko, then still dominant. This attack was later published in the West, and for this and other dissident activities Zhores was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital until released through the intervention of his brother Roy, Tvardovsky and others (see Roy and Zhores Medvedev, A Question of Madness, London, Macmillan, 1970).  

235. Medvedev, Zhores, 10 Years After Ivan Denisovitch, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1973, pp. 202.  

Inside account of the role of the literary magazine Novy Mir under its editor Tvardovsky, which published Solzhenitsyn’s novel on the labour camps. It also details the moves to ban Solzhenitsyn’s later novels and expel him from the Soviet Writers’ Union, and Solzhenitsyn’s protests, as well as the closure of Novy Mir, and Tvardovsky’s funeral in late 1971.  

236. Reddaway, Peter, ‘The development of dissent and opposition’, in Brown and Kaiser (eds.) The Soviet Union Since the Fall of Khrushchev, pp. 121-56.  

Concise informative overall survey of emerging dissent since 1965.  

237. Rubenstein, Joshua, Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle for Human Rights, Boston, Beacon Press, 1980, pp. 304.  

Covers dissent from the ‘Thaw’ of the 1950s to the Helsinki Watch Groups, but focusing mainly on period since 1965.  

238. Sakharov, Andrei, Memoirs, London, Hutchinson, 1990, pp. 773.  

Sakharov, who worked on development of the Soviet H Bomb, gradually became the most distinguished Soviet dissident, who supported detente and disarmament and human rights inside the USSR. His political ideas, which evolved towards liberalism, were elaborated in Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969, and Sakharov Speaks, London, Collins, 1974, pp. 251 (which includes the earlier essay). Partly protected by his eminence as a scientist, and the award of the Nobel Peace prize in 1975, he was eventually exiled to Gorky in 1980, and released by Gorbachev in 1986.  

239. Stead, Jean and Danielle Grunberg (eds.), Moscow Independent Peace Group, London, Merlin Press/European Nuclear Disarmament, 1982, pp. 44.  

Selected documents and press reports, plus reports on 1982 peace march by Stead and Grunberg.  

240. Tokes, Rudolf L. (ed.), Dissent in the USSR: Politics, Ideology and People, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1975, pp. 453.  

Includes analysis of the nature, strategy and tactics of dissent, as well as the role of samizdat, dissenting songs and a discussion of why many alienated intellectuals do not protest. The main focus is on political dissent, and it includes a chapter on Sakharov, but religious dissent is examined in chapter 6.  

See also: From Below, Helsinki Watch Report, pp. 107-35 for detailed history of Moscow Trust Group (C.I.1.a.). 

b. The Gorbachev Years and Popular Protest, 1985-90; and Resisting the 1991 Coup

Moves to sanction greater freedom of speech and association and promote choice in the elections of 1989 encouraged popular participation, which began to manifest itself in public demonstrations about specific grievances and (especially in some non-Russian republics) political initiatives hostile to Communist Party dominance. Fearing an end to Party control, and especially the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Party hardliners combined with members of the security forces and military to stage a coup against Gorbachev in August 1991. This coup was defeated by inefficiency, by a display of people power encouraged by Boris Yeltsin, the elected President of Russia, and by divisions in the security and military forces. It also ironically hastened the end of the USSR.  

241. Brown, Archie, The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 406.  

Analysis of perestroika primarily in terms of change and political manoeuvring at the top, including the conflict with Yeltsin. Chapter 8 (pp. 252-305) covers Gorbachev’s mixed responses to demands for national autonomy, the abortive coup attempt and its aftermath.  

242. Gorbachev, Mikhail, The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons, London and New York, Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 127.  

Gorbachev’s own brief account with some appended documents.  

243. Hosking, Geoffrey, The Awakening of the Soviet Union, London, Heinemann, 1990; revised 2nd edition, Mandarin Paperbacks 1991. pp. 246.  

A study of the Gorbachev period with a particular emphasis on pressure from below. Chapter 3 ‘the return of the repressed’ summarizes the earlier dissent which laid the basis for activism from 1985. Chapter 4, ‘A civil society in embryo’ discusses early environmental campaigns, the rising protests against nuclear power after Chernobyl, the unofficial peace movement and the rapid increase in informal groups including the Leningrad ‘Cultural Democratic Movement’ and the Moscow ‘Club for Social Initiatives’. Chapter 5, ‘The flawed melting pot’, covers the evolution of national movements in Armenia, Georgia, the Ukraine and Baltic republics.  

244. Khasbulatov, Ruslan, The Struggle for Russia: Power and Change in the Democratic Revolution, London, Routledge, 1993, pp. 270.  

Khasbulatov was Yeltsin’s ally in the Russian Soviet (parliament) in pressing for more radical change in the late 1980s and was also prominent in resisting the attempted coup. Later he became the defender of the Russian parliament against Yeltsin’s autocratic policies. On the coup attempt see pp. 139-69.  

245. Remnick, David, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1994, pp. 586.  

Lively and comprehensive account by a Washington Post reporter, who was in the USSR from 1988 to 1991. Chapter 27, ‘Citizens’, discusses the coal miners’ strikes of 1989 and 1991 in Siberia and a demonstration by Democratic Russia in Moscow in March 1991. Part 4, ‘First as tragedy, then as farce’, pp. 433-90, covers the August coup, emphasizing popular support for the resistance to the coup as well as the mistakes of the plotters.  

246. Steele, Jonathan, Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy, London, Faber and Faber, 1994, pp. 429.  

Chapter 1 summarizes the beginnings of civil society under Gorbachev and Chapter 4 (pp. 59-79) gives an eyewitness account of the coup, stressing the inefficiency of the coup plotters and the limited popular response to Yeltsin’s call for popular defiance and a general strike.  

247. White, Stephen, Alex Pravda and Zvi Gitelman (eds.) Developments in Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics, revised 2nd edition, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1992, pp. 347.  

This book is primarily a survey of the Gorbachev era focusing on the changes in the Party and the state, economic policy and foreign policy. But several chapters cover the 1991 coup with differing emphases: pp. 3-7, 147-49, 294-95. Chapters by Thomas F. Remington, ‘Towards a participatory politics?’ (pp. 147-73) and David Mandel, ‘Post-Perestroika: Revolution from above v. revolution from below’ (pp. 278-99) raise questions about popular activism and protest.  

9. Yugoslavia, 1945-1990

The Yugoslav government, as a result of its break with Moscow in 1948, became the first East European country to embark on a serious attempt at destalinization and political reform, focusing especially on worker ‘self management’, and became a model for many reform Communists during the 1950s. The popular upsurge experienced across much of Eastern Europe in 1956 did not therefore occur in Yugoslavia. There were, however, strict limits to liberalization – Milovan Djilas became the most prominent Yugoslav dissident after 1954 for challenging Party control and was jailed for his book The New Class – and the security police exercised considerable power until 1966.  

In the early 1960s reformers within the Party pressed for further liberalization and democratization, launching the ‘second reform movement’, and in the second half of the decade there was increasing political debate and popular activism testing the limits of the new relaxation of controls. Worker strikes became common and student protests culminated in the mass demonstrations of 1968. Nationalist movements were, however, potentially a greater threat to the federation. Major constitutional reforms increased the autonomy of the individual republics and provinces, and Belgrade tried to meet what were seen as legitimate grievances (for example of Albanians in Kosovo up to 1966). But the revived nationalist movement in Croatia in 1970-71 (with echoes of Croatian nationalism during the War years) was seen by Tito as unacceptable and crushed. The purge of the Croatian Party brought an end to the democratization encouraged since the mid-1960s. There was, however, some scope for autonomous action and dissent in the 1970s, the final phase of Titoism.  

After Tito’s death in 1980 there was a fragile compromise between the constituent republics, undermined in the late 1980s by Serbia’s growing intransigence. There was a rise of environmental and peace activism and student protest, especially in Slovenia. The success of the growing popular movement in Slovenia (resisting Serbian military dominance) eventually, however, precipitated the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation.  

a. Two Stages of Reform: 1950-54 and 1960s; and Dissent 1960s-70s

248. Carter, April, Democratic Reform in Yugoslavia: The Changing Role of the Party, London, Frances Pinter, 1982, pp. 285.  

Focuses on period 1964-72. See especially discussion of the trade unions (and worker dissent), pp. 159-68; students, pp. 172-76; dissenting periodicals, pp. 193-98 and chapter 12 ‘The party and political dissent’, pp. 202-25.  

249. Djilas, Milovan, Rise and Fall, New York,, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovic, 1985, pp. 424.  

Memoirs covering his role at top of the Party and government until 1954 and his dissident role up to 1962.  

250. Doder, Dusko, The Yugoslavs, London, Allen and Unwin, 1979, pp. 256.  

Account by Washington Post correspondent in Belgrade 1973-76, including material on dissent and conversations with Djilas.  

251. Markovic, Mihailo and Cohen. R.S., The Rise and Fall of Socialist Humanism, Nottingham, Spokesman Books, 1975, pp. 93.  

Markovic was a key member of the Praxis group, espousing Marxist humanism and a critical stance, and discusses its role. (But by the 1990s he had become a leading Serb nationalist ideologist.)  

252. Mihajlov, Mihajlo, ‘Yugoslavia – The Approaching Storm’, Dissent, 21, Summer 1974, pp. 370-72.  

Mihajlov became Yugoslavia’s second best known dissident for attacking the Soviet Union and calling for a multi-party system.  

253. Pervan, Ralph, Tito and the Students, Nedlands WA, University of West Australia Press, 1978, pp. 239.  

Analysis of 1968 student protests and Tito’s role in defusing them.  

254. Plamenic, D. ‘The Belgrade Student Insurrection’, New Left Review, no. 54, 1969, pp. 61-78.  

Description and analysis of the June 1968 student unrest, culminating in march to demand reforms and occupation of the Sociology and Philosophy Faculties. Author argues that the expectations created by the democratization, which arose out economic reforms, came into conflict with the continuing reality of strict Party control.  

255. Rusinow, Dennison, The Yugoslav Experiment 1948-1974, London, Hurst, 1977, pp. 410.  

Highly regarded scholarly analysis of changing political developments. Rusinow discusses the student protests of 1968 (which he analysed in greater depth in ‘Anatomy of a Revolt’, American University Field Staff Reports, 1968), and provides illuminating analysis of the Croatian nationalist movement of 1970-71.  

256. Sher, Gerson S, Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia, Bloomington, IN., Indiana University Press, 1977, pp. 360.  

Mostly discussion of radical reinterpretation of Marxist theory. But chapter 5 ‘The praxis of Praxis’ (pp. 194-241) covers student protest in 1968 and the 1970s as well intellectual opposition.  

257. Stojanovic, Svetozar, ‘The June student movement and social revolution in Yugoslavia’, Praxis International Edition, no. 3-4, 1970, pp. 394-402.  

258. Wilson, Duncan, Tito’s Yugoslavia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 269.

Clear summary by former British Ambassador of both foreign policy and internal politics of Yugoslavia up to 1978, with brief mention of forms of dissent.  

b. Post-Tito Politics in the 1980s

259. Mastnak, Tomaz, ‘Civil society in Slovenia: From opposition to power’, in Paul G.Lewis (ed.), Democracy and Civil Society in Eastern Europe, Basingstoke, Macmillan, and New York, St Martin’s Press, 1992, pp. 134-51.  

See also interview with Marko Hren from Slovenia in Randle, People Power, pp. 13148 (C.I.1.b), and From Below, Helsinki Watch Report, pp. 181-203 on Ljubljana Peace Group (C.I.1.a.); Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, pp. 41-45 on the demonstrations of 1981 and subsequent repression in Kosovo, and chapter 3, pp. 46-69, ‘The turn to nonviolence’, starts with the miners’ protests of 1988 to defend Kosovan autonomy and the developing popular resistance (D.III.1.b.). 

II. China and Tibet, from 1947

1. China

Although the Communists came to power in 1949 after decades of guerrilla warfare in rural areas, there is also a significant tradition of nonviolent resistance in China. Merchants shutting down their businesses as a political protest dates back at least to the 18th century (see Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action, vol. 2, p. 236 (A.1.)), and national consumer boycotts against Japanese oppression took place in 1908, 1915 and 1919. Students and workers demonstrated and went on strike to demand national independence from foreign colonial intervention in 1919 (during the May the Fourth Movement) and again in 1925 (see Jean Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement 1919-1927, Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1968, and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth Century China, Stanford University Press, 1991). The period of Civil War from 1945-1949 also saw protests by intellectuals, students and workers against the increasingly corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek.  

Since the Communist takeover of 1949 there have been three periods of significant dissent and protest followed by a Party crackdown on all opposition: 1956-57; 1976-79; and May-June 1989. A fourth period began in the 1990s, when the increasing emphasis on the market combined with cautious steps towards political liberalization have allowed wider dissent, which is still continuing.  

Although the mass demonstrations and unrest of the Cultural Revolution, at its height from 1966-69, did involve widespread popular agitation, and provided a grounding for some later dissidents, this period does not qualify for inclusion in this bibliography for two reasons. Firstly, the ‘Revolution’ was deliberately fostered by Mao and a clique close to him and promoted uncritical adulation of Mao; and, secondly, the demonstrators frequently engaged in physical violence and terrorized individuals and groups seen as opponents of Maoism.  

a. The Hundred Flowers Movement, 1956-57

During 1956, when mass unrest swept through parts of Eastern Europe, there were some reverberations in China, such as strikes and withdrawals from agricultural cooperatives. Perhaps to defuse unrest, or to engage intellectuals in the next stages of socialist development, the Party leadership, in particular Mao, encouraged intellectuals to speak out in this period, and many cautiously began to do so. This apparent sanctioning of dissent encouraged students also to protest and many workers to start asserting their demands through petitions, marches, hunger strikes, sit-ins and strikes. Mao and the Party responded in mid-1957 by suppressing all dissent and hundreds of thousands of intellectuals were blacklisted, students expelled, and many sentenced to manual labour or exile.  

260. Doolin, Dennis, Communist China: The Politics of Student Opposition, Stanford CA, Hoover Institute, Stanford University, 1964, pp. 70.  

This is Doolin’s translation of a Beijing Student Union pamphlet, together with his own introduction.  

261. MacFarquahar, Roderick, Contradictions Among the People 1956-1957 (vol. 1 of The Origins of the Cultural Revolution), New York, Columbia University Press, 1974, pp. 438.  

Highly respected scholarly analysis.  

262. Perry, Elizabeth J. ‘Shanghai’s strike wave of 1957’, China Quarterly, 157, March 1994, pp. 1-27.  

Looks at little known worker unrest accompanying intellectual dissent.  

263. Wu Ningkun, A Single Tear, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1993, pp. 367.  

Wu, a university teacher of English educated in the US, returned to China in 1951. This is a personal account of his experiences. The Hundred Flowers campaign is covered pp. 47-72.  

b. The Democracy Movement, 1976-79

After Mao died in September 1976 there was a struggle at the top of the Party between ardent Maoists who had instigated the Cultural Revolution and officials anxious to promote stability. The emerging new leader Deng Xiaoping also sponsored economic (market) reforms. In this context there was a groundswell of political activity from below, first manifested in April 1976 in a popular ceremony of traditional mass mourning in Tiananmen Square for Prime Minister Zhou Enlai (viewed as a moderate), which was seen as a pro-Deng demonstration. This was the first expression of the Democracy Movement that blossomed in late 1978. Although students and intellectuals were predominant there were also peasant protests. The authorities started to arrest individual dissidents early in 1979 and closed down the Democracy Wall in December that year, but underground publishing continued.  

264. Goodman, David S.G. (ed.), Beijing Street Voices: The Poetry and Politics of China’s Democracy Movement, London and Boston, Marion Boyars, 1981, pp. 208.  

265. Index on Censorship, vol. 9, no. 1, Feburary 1980. This issue is largely dedicated to dissent in China.  

266. Schell, Orville, Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform, New York, Pantheon Books, 1988, pp. 384. Includes material on 1976-79 and 1986-87.  

267. Seymour, James D. (ed.), The Fifth Modernization: China’s Human Rights Movement, 1978-1979, Stanfordville NY, Human Rights Publishing Group, 1980, pp. 301.  

268. Wei Jingsheng, The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings, New York and London, Penguin, 1998, pp. 283.  

Wei, a prominent advocate of ‘the fifth modernization’ – democracy, was arrested and jailed in 1979.  

c. Tiananmen, The Mass Protests of 1989

There were signs of unrest before 1989: students in Heifei demonstrated in December 1986 against the Party’s role in elections to the Peoples Congress, and student protests spread to Shanghai and other cities. Simmering unrest continued, encouraged by conflict at the top of the Party between hardliners and those more sympathetic to intellectuals. But the spark for the mass protests of April to June 1989 was the death of the former General Secretary Hu Yaobang, forced out of office by hardliners for alleged responsibility for the protests of December 1986. Students massed in Tiananmen Square in April to lay wreaths to Hu, and the protest rapidly developed through marches, occupation of the Square, boycott of classes and formation of autonomous student unions. The demonstrations won support from workers and other Beijing residents and spread to other parts of the country. Some Party leaders tried to conciliate the students, but in May the rise of a more radical student leadership and the launching of a hunger strike, coinciding with the visit of President Gorbachev, led most of the Politburo to endorse the imposition of martial law. This met widespread popular resistance. Numerous collections of documents and accounts of both protest and repression were compiled at the time. The sources selected here seek to give an overall perspective on events.  

269. Cherrington, Ruth, China’s Students: The Struggles for Democracy, London, Routledge, 1991, pp. 239.  

270. Duke, Michael S., The Iron House: AMemoir of the Chinese Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Massacre, Layton, Utah, Gibbs Smith, 1990, pp. 180.  

Eyewitness account from May 19 by Chinese-speaking American professor.  

271. Fang Lizhi, Bringing Down the Great Wall: Writings on Science, Culture and Democracy, translated and edited J.H. Williams, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1990, pp. 336.  

Fang Lizhi, a prominent astrophysicist, became an increasingly vocal critic of the regime in the 1980s and was linked to the 1986 student protests. Introduction by Orville Schell.  

272. Han, Minzhu (ed.), Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches from the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 401.  

Collection of materials from the protest movement.  

273. Mok, Chiu Yu and J. Frank Harrison (eds.), Voices from Tiananmen Square: Beijing Spring and the Democracy Movement, Montreal, Black Rose Books, 1990, pp. 203.  

Collection of documents from participants in demonstrations.  

274. A Moment of Truth: Workers Participation in China’s 1989 Democracy Movement and the Emergence of Independent Unions, Hong Kong, Asia Monitor Resource Center, 1991, pp. 254.  

275. Oksenberg, Michael, Lawrence R. Sullivan and Marc Lamberts (eds.), Beijing Spring 1989: Confrontation and Conflict, The Basic Documents, Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1990, pp. 403.  

Collection of documents from official perspective.  

276. Saich, Tony (ed.), The Chinese People’s Movement: Perspectives on Spring 1989, Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1991, pp. 207.  

Includes both an account of the protests and the authorities’ response, and scholarly essays interpreting the context. Has extensive bibliography.  

277. The Tiananmen Papers, compiled by Zhang Liang and edited by Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, London, Little Brown, 2001, Abacus. 2002, pp. 679.  

Secret Party papers leaked to the west provide details of the meetings, negotiations and communications between the top leaders about how to deal with the protests, and the triumph of the hardliners over Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Party, who wished to be conciliatory. Western scholars generally accepted the papers as authentic.  

278. True, Michael, ‘The 1989 democratic uprising in China from a nonviolent perspective’ in M. Kumar and P. Low (eds.), Legacy and Future of Nonviolence, New Delhi, Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1996, pp. 141-57.  

279. Unger, Jonathan (ed.), The Pro-Democracy Protests in China: Reports from the Provinces, Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1991, pp. 239.  

See also: Schock, Unarmed Insurrections, pp. 98-119 on reasons for failure, and Thompson, Democratic Revolutions, pp. 65-83 for comparison with government responses in Eastern Europe (A.1.); and Simpson, Dispatches from the Barricades, which has two chapters on Tiananmen, Chapter 4 ‘The river of protest’, pp. 64-88 and Chapter 5 ‘Death in the Square’, pp. 89-113 (C.1.1.b.).  

d. China Since 1990

There has been a gradual but unpredictable relaxation of controls over freedom of speech and publication and some evidence of a developing civil society. The abandonment of former socialist policies has increased the wealth of some but encouraged corruption, and left many workers, peasants and those dependent on state benefits economically insecure. As a result there has been a dramatic increase in worker unrest, public protests by pensioners, and some criticism of economic globalization. There has also been resistance to the Three Gorges Dam, which has thrown many peasants off their land. (Jaspar Becker, ‘World’s third largest river starts to rise by 400 ft to create the great wall of water’, Independent on Sunday, l June 2003, pp. 12-13) There is in addition evidence of rising rural unrest over sale of land to developers, local corruption and destruction of the environment. Campaigners are both putting up candidates in local elections and demonstrating. The government admitted that there had been 74,000 ‘mass incidents’ in 2004.  

The incorporation of Hong Kong into China in 1995 created a zone with a special status and a lively democracy movement that had sprung up in the period leading to Britain’s transfer of control to Beijing. Nationalist dissent has not prompted the kind of problems experienced in the USSR because, in the China created in 1949, over 90 per cent of the population were ethnic Chinese. But reports have emerged of significant dissent among the Muslim population of Xinjiang. (Tibet is treated in this bibliography as a separate country.)  

280. ‘China: “Let us speak!”’, New Internationalist, no. 371 (September 2004), pp. 9-28.  

Overview of Chinese society today, role of the media, the conditions in the workplace, and the scope for and limits to debate and dissent. Yu Jianrong charts the growth of direct action among farmers resisting heavy taxes, protesting against irregularities in village elections or challenging corruption among local cadres (pp. 16-17).  

281. Han Dongfang, ‘Chinese labour struggles’, New Left Review, no. 34 (July/August 2005), pp. 65-85.  

Interview with a former railway worker involved in trade union activity at time of Tiananmen, who now directs the China Labour Bulletin and broadcasts from Hong Kong to promote independent union activity in China.  

282. He Qinglian, ‘China’s listing social structure’, New Left Review, no. 5 (Sep/Oct 2000), pp. 69-100.  

A critical assessment of Chinese society by a Chinese social scientist, widely discussed within China, indicating the context for unrest. Inset is an article describing a pensioner campaign led by a former Party official (pp. 82-83).  

283. Jiang Xueqin ‘Fighting to organize’, Far Eastern Economic Review, (6 September 2001), pp. 72-75.  

Gives examples of strikes and sit-ins and role of unofficial trade unions.  

284. Perry, Elizabeth J. and Mark Selden (eds.), Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, London, Routledge, 2000, pp. 249.  

Analysis of reactions to government reforms, including both covert and open resistance, distinguishing between intellectual dissidents and popular rebellion. See especially ‘Rights and resistance: The changing context of the dissident movement’ (pp. 20-38); ‘Pathways of labour insurgency’ (pp. 41-61); and ‘Environmental protest in rural China’ (pp. 143-59) which includes reference to direct action against a factory polluting water.  

285. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N., ‘Student protests in fin-de-siecle China’, New Left Review, no. 237 (September/October 1999), pp. 52-76.  

Discusses 1999 student demonstrations against the NATO bombing of Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, comparing them with earlier May 4th 1919 and June 1989 protests. Argues that, despite official support and encouragement, the 1999 protests did reflect significant degree of student autonomy and included allusion to 1989.  

2. Tibet

Tibet has a long history as an effectively independent Buddhist state, but was claimed as part of China by the Chinese Communists, who occupied Tibet in 1950. Under the 1951 Agreement, signed by the Dalai Lama, the Chinese promised to respect the role of Buddhism and the authority of the Dalai Lama. Since then Chinese policy has reflected its internal politics. For example during the Cultural Revolution monasteries were destroyed and practice of Buddhism forbidden, but under Deng Xiaoping religious toleration was restored. In general, however, China has sought to modernize Tibet, promoted Chinese immigration and suppressed dissent.  

Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled to India, he has been the key figure in exile and engaged in negotiations with the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama himself is strongly committed to nonviolence, but some of the exile organizations advocate violent revolt. Resistance inside Tibet has at times been violent, as in the 1959 uprising, but has also included nonviolent protests by monks and nuns.  

286. Barnett, Robert and Shirin Akiner (eds.), Resistance and Reform in Tibet, Bloomington IN, Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 314. Barnett also contributes an essay to Lehman, Steve, Robbie Barnett and Robert Coles, The Tibetans: AStruggle to Survive, New York, Powerhouse Cultural Entertainment Books, 2004, pp. 125, a primarily photographic record.  

287. Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, pp. 308.  

288. Dalai Lama, My Land and My People, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1962, pp. 253.  

Autobiography of his earlier years.  

289. Donnet, Pierre-Antoine, Tibet: Survival in Question, Delhi, Oxford University Press, and London, Zed Books, 1994, pp. 267.  

Examines Tibet from 1950 to early 1990s, and includes account of the 1959 uprising, the role of the Dalai Lama and protests in the 1980s (see chapter 4, ‘The revival of nationalism’, pp. 93-107).  

290. Grunfeld, A. Tom, The Making of Modern Tibet, revised edition, Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 1996, pp. 352.

Discusses the role of the Tibetan diaspora, and intrigues by the Indian government, the Chiang Kai-shek government of Taiwan and the CIA, as well as internal developments from the 1950s to 1995.

291. Kelly, Petra K, Gert Bastian and Pat Aiello (eds.), The Anguish of Tibet, Berkeley CA, Parallax Press, 1991, pp. 382.  

Selection of documents and personal accounts, including eyewitness reports on demonstrations in Lhasa in 1988 and 1989.  

292. Schwarz, Ronald D., Circle of Protest: Political Ritual in the Tibetan Uprising, London, Hurst, 1994, pp. 263.  

293. Smith, Warren W. Jr., Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations, Boulder CO, Westview Press, 1996, pp. 732.  

The Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950 and subsequent changing Chinese policies and Tibetan responses are covered chapters 9-15. Various protests in 1980s are noted in chapter 15.  

See also web source: Kramer and Moser Puangsuwan, (eds), Truth is our Only Weapon: The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle, SE Asia, Nonviolence International, 2000, and Ram, Senthil, ‘The Tibetian Nonviolent Resistance: Empowerment in an Extraordinary Situation’ in Ney, Chris (ed) Nonviolence and Social Empowerment, War Resisters’ International web (H.b.). 



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