Twentieth Century Communism journal
@20thccommunism.bsky.social
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Twentieth Century Communism is a journal of communist history and theory from across the globe. Posts about radical history, and its writing and research. Published by Lawrence & Wishart.
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20thccommunism.bsky.social
The latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal has been published by @lawrencewishart.bsky.social

Issue 29 is the second issue dedicated to looking at histories of 1956 globally, edited by Madeleine Davis and George Odysseos.

A 🧵 of the articles...

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
Twentieth Century Communism: Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025) - Lawrence Wishart
Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025)
journals.lwbooks.co.uk
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
CFP for special issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal - History, Memory and the Past in Twentieth Century Communism
 Call for Papers

History, Memory and the Past in Twentieth Century Communism

While the revolution and the future of mankind were their main concerns, Communist Parties and movements, nevertheless, also developed an interest in the past. Communist engagement with the past has often been considered in contradictory terms.  On the one hand, it has been interpreted as an engagement that had manipulatory purposes. On the other, even if less frequently, some communist intellectuals became professional historians who have been widely acclaimed as major contributors to the development and renewal of the discipline - Eric J. Hobsbawn among the most famous examples.
Some questions of interest include:   
1. How have the political strategies and theories developed by communist parties and movements influenced the discipline of history and vice-versa? 
 2. How did the development of Marxist historical analysis influence professional historians and historical schools, as well as the emergence of new areas of historical research? 
3. What kinds of memory policies and practices were promoted by communist movements, parties and militants outside academia? 

Timetable

We invite you to submit an abstract of approximately 500 words by December 31, 2025 to: giuliastrippoli@fcsh.unl.pt
Authors will be notified about the acceptance of their proposal by March 1, 2026. Manuscripts should be submitted by December 1, 2026.  The issue will be published in 2028. 
For more information about Twentieth Century Communism and for general author guidelines, see: https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/

Editors
Giulia Strippoli  Institute of Contemporary History (FCSH/Nova University of Lisbon), IN2PAST
José Neves   Institute of Contemporary History (FCSH/Nova University of Lisbon), IN2PAST
20thccommunism.bsky.social
CFP for special issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal - History, Memory and the Past in Twentieth Century Communism
 Call for Papers

History, Memory and the Past in Twentieth Century Communism

While the revolution and the future of mankind were their main concerns, Communist Parties and movements, nevertheless, also developed an interest in the past. Communist engagement with the past has often been considered in contradictory terms.  On the one hand, it has been interpreted as an engagement that had manipulatory purposes. On the other, even if less frequently, some communist intellectuals became professional historians who have been widely acclaimed as major contributors to the development and renewal of the discipline - Eric J. Hobsbawn among the most famous examples.
Some questions of interest include:   
1. How have the political strategies and theories developed by communist parties and movements influenced the discipline of history and vice-versa? 
 2. How did the development of Marxist historical analysis influence professional historians and historical schools, as well as the emergence of new areas of historical research? 
3. What kinds of memory policies and practices were promoted by communist movements, parties and militants outside academia? 

Timetable

We invite you to submit an abstract of approximately 500 words by December 31, 2025 to: giuliastrippoli@fcsh.unl.pt
Authors will be notified about the acceptance of their proposal by March 1, 2026. Manuscripts should be submitted by December 1, 2026.  The issue will be published in 2028. 
For more information about Twentieth Century Communism and for general author guidelines, see: https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/

Editors
Giulia Strippoli  Institute of Contemporary History (FCSH/Nova University of Lisbon), IN2PAST
José Neves   Institute of Contemporary History (FCSH/Nova University of Lisbon), IN2PAST
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
evansmithhist.bsky.social
With the publication of our book 'In Solidarity, Under Suspicion: The British Far Left from 1956' next month, @manchesterup.bsky.social are offering a 30% discount using the discount code below!

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179593/
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
In case you missed it, here's a short 🧵 on the latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
The latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal has been published by @lawrencewishart.bsky.social

Issue 29 is the second issue dedicated to looking at histories of 1956 globally, edited by Madeleine Davis and George Odysseos.

A 🧵 of the articles...

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
Twentieth Century Communism: Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025) - Lawrence Wishart
Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025)
journals.lwbooks.co.uk
20thccommunism.bsky.social
In case you missed it, here's a short 🧵 on the latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
The latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal has been published by @lawrencewishart.bsky.social

Issue 29 is the second issue dedicated to looking at histories of 1956 globally, edited by Madeleine Davis and George Odysseos.

A 🧵 of the articles...

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
Twentieth Century Communism: Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025) - Lawrence Wishart
Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025)
journals.lwbooks.co.uk
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
On October 4, 1936, over 100,000 people flocked to London's East End to prevent Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists from marching. Known as the 'Battle of Cable Street', this blockade is recognised as an important event in the history of British anti-fascism.
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
On 1 October, 1949, Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China.

This issue of @20thccommunism.bsky.social looks at the influence of Communist China and Maoism across the globe between the 1950s and 1980s, with 2 open access articles.

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2022...
Twentieth Century Communism: Volume 2022 Issue 22 (2022) - Lawrence Wishart
Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2022 Issue 22 (2022)
journals.lwbooks.co.uk
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
pablogv17.bsky.social
🌍 Le 2e número spécial "Global 1956" vient de paraître chez @20thccommunism.bsky.social !

J'ai eu le plaisir d'y participer avec un article qui veut contribuer à l'histoire globale de l'Espagne pendant la guerre froide, ici dans une approche transnationale et microhistorique.
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
5. 'The international Trotskyist movement and the Soviet Bloc in 1956: growing divergences' by Marcio Lauria Monteiro

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
The international Trotskyist movement and the Soviet Bloc in
1956: growing divergences

Marcio Lauria Monteiro

Abstract:  Events in the Soviet Union and its ‘satellite states’ in East
Europe were significant for all those affiliated with the communist tradition, including Trotskyists, in whose theoretical-programmatic framework the characterisation of the Soviet Union always played a central role. This paper discusses how the 1956 events in the Soviet Bloc impacted the then-divided Trotskyist forces. It first presents an overview of the international Trotskyist movement, to contextualise its reactions to the 1956 events. It then goes on to demonstrate how reactions and interpretations of those events help us to better understand divisions within international Trotskyism and the divergent paths taken by its different sections.

Keywords: Trotskyism, Soviet bloc, Fourth International (FI),
International Committee of the Fourth International (IC), United States
Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Internationalist Communist Party (PCI),
Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN)
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
4. 'A portrait of the activist in 1956: Jordi Solé Tura and a new generation of communists' by Pablo Gil Valero

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
A Portrait of the activist in 1956: Jordi Solé Tura and a new generation of communists

Pablo Gil Valero

Abstract: This article examines the formation of a new generation
of communist militants, members of the Partit Socialista Unificat de
Catalunya (PSUC), beginning in 1956, through one of its most unique
figures: Jordi Solé Tura (1930 –2009). It explores the multi-scalar transformations – ranging from the international to the local – experienced by Spanish and Catalan communists, leading to a ‘tactical shift’ in the second half of the 1950s. In this new context, a group of young people – a generation that did not fight in the Spanish Civil War –took a stand against the Francoist dictatorship. From student activism in Barcelona to exile in Paris and Bucharest, Jordi Solé Tura rose through the ranks of the Communist Party and emerged as one of its future leaders, until his expulsion in 1964. This article seeks to situate Solé Tura’s experience within the transnational framework of Spanish and Catalan communism, to develop an actor-centred understanding in the evolution of
the Partido Comunista de España (PCE) and the PSUC as the leading
anti-francoist parties from the 1960s onward. By focusing on Solé
Tura’s individual trajectory, this article offers a new perspective on the generational renewal of the Spanish and Catalan communist movements during the Cold War.

Keywords: Francoism, Communist Party of Spain, Unified Socialist
Party of Catalonia, clandestinity, Jordi Solé Tura, transnational communism
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
2. "‘That crucial summer of 1956’? Stalinism, anti-imperialist strategies and the fragmentation of the international communist movement – a view from Cyprus, c. 1949-1960" by George Odysseos

This article is open access

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
‘That crucial summer of 1956’? Stalinism, Anti-imperialist Strategies
and the Fragmentation of the International Communist Movement
– a view from Cyprus, c. 1949-1960.

George Odysseos

Abstract: This article explores the complicated impact of Stalinism’s
political crisis and anti-imperialist politics on Cypriot communism
in the 1950s. While the year 1956 has featured prominently in
the historiography of western communist parties, the date hardly
features in studies of Cypriot communism, nor in the history of the
communist AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People). These latter
studies have instead focused on AKEL’s stance towards the rightwing EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) campaign
against British colonialism (1955-1959). Nevertheless, many of the
issues that lent their weight to the significance of 1956 – such as the
process of de-Stalinisation and question of party discipline, as well
as the dilemmas opened up by the development of ‘national roads’ to
socialism – played an important role in Cypriot communism during
the period. AKEL, then, offers a case of a party connected to the
‘global 1956’ that did not centre on that particular calendar date. The
article focuses on two prominent figures who were expelled from the
party as a result of AKEL’s intra-party crisis of 1952; the young lawyer George Cacogiannis, and Evdoros Joannides, perhaps the party’s foremost propagandist resident in London. In discussing their writings and activities, the article reveals the global arena Cypriot communists
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
1. '1956 as dual conjuncture: Aimé Césaire between Paris and Fort-de-France' by Kevin Morgan

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
1956 as dual conjuncture: Aimé Césaire between Paris and Fort-deFrance

Kevin Morgan

Abstract: In October 1956 the Martinican communist and parliamentary deputy Aimé Césaire announced his resignation from the French communist party in an open letter to Maurice Thorez. Widely cited in contexts of black Marxism and anti-colonialism, the letter is a famous testimony to 1956 as a year of disillusionment with Stalinism. This paper shows that it has tended to be abstracted from its immediate political context and Césaire’s relationship with communism underplayed or misrepresented in a good deal of commentary on his career as a public intellectual. Focusing on Césaire’s relationship with both French and Martinican communism, we explore the interplay of anti-Stalinism and anti-colonialism, both in Césaire’s very public defection and in the reactions it provoked among other Martinican communists usually overlooked, most notably René Ménil.

Keywords: Aimé Césaire, Martinican communism, French communism, Stalinism, anti-colonialism
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal
20thccommunism.bsky.social
The latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal has been published by @lawrencewishart.bsky.social

Issue 29 is the second issue dedicated to looking at histories of 1956 globally, edited by Madeleine Davis and George Odysseos.

A 🧵 of the articles...

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
Twentieth Century Communism: Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025) - Lawrence Wishart
Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025)
journals.lwbooks.co.uk
20thccommunism.bsky.social
5. 'The international Trotskyist movement and the Soviet Bloc in 1956: growing divergences' by Marcio Lauria Monteiro

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
The international Trotskyist movement and the Soviet Bloc in
1956: growing divergences

Marcio Lauria Monteiro

Abstract:  Events in the Soviet Union and its ‘satellite states’ in East
Europe were significant for all those affiliated with the communist tradition, including Trotskyists, in whose theoretical-programmatic framework the characterisation of the Soviet Union always played a central role. This paper discusses how the 1956 events in the Soviet Bloc impacted the then-divided Trotskyist forces. It first presents an overview of the international Trotskyist movement, to contextualise its reactions to the 1956 events. It then goes on to demonstrate how reactions and interpretations of those events help us to better understand divisions within international Trotskyism and the divergent paths taken by its different sections.

Keywords: Trotskyism, Soviet bloc, Fourth International (FI),
International Committee of the Fourth International (IC), United States
Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Internationalist Communist Party (PCI),
Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN)
20thccommunism.bsky.social
4. 'A portrait of the activist in 1956: Jordi Solé Tura and a new generation of communists' by Pablo Gil Valero

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
A Portrait of the activist in 1956: Jordi Solé Tura and a new generation of communists

Pablo Gil Valero

Abstract: This article examines the formation of a new generation
of communist militants, members of the Partit Socialista Unificat de
Catalunya (PSUC), beginning in 1956, through one of its most unique
figures: Jordi Solé Tura (1930 –2009). It explores the multi-scalar transformations – ranging from the international to the local – experienced by Spanish and Catalan communists, leading to a ‘tactical shift’ in the second half of the 1950s. In this new context, a group of young people – a generation that did not fight in the Spanish Civil War –took a stand against the Francoist dictatorship. From student activism in Barcelona to exile in Paris and Bucharest, Jordi Solé Tura rose through the ranks of the Communist Party and emerged as one of its future leaders, until his expulsion in 1964. This article seeks to situate Solé Tura’s experience within the transnational framework of Spanish and Catalan communism, to develop an actor-centred understanding in the evolution of
the Partido Comunista de España (PCE) and the PSUC as the leading
anti-francoist parties from the 1960s onward. By focusing on Solé
Tura’s individual trajectory, this article offers a new perspective on the generational renewal of the Spanish and Catalan communist movements during the Cold War.

Keywords: Francoism, Communist Party of Spain, Unified Socialist
Party of Catalonia, clandestinity, Jordi Solé Tura, transnational communism
20thccommunism.bsky.social
2. "‘That crucial summer of 1956’? Stalinism, anti-imperialist strategies and the fragmentation of the international communist movement – a view from Cyprus, c. 1949-1960" by George Odysseos

This article is open access

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
‘That crucial summer of 1956’? Stalinism, Anti-imperialist Strategies
and the Fragmentation of the International Communist Movement
– a view from Cyprus, c. 1949-1960.

George Odysseos

Abstract: This article explores the complicated impact of Stalinism’s
political crisis and anti-imperialist politics on Cypriot communism
in the 1950s. While the year 1956 has featured prominently in
the historiography of western communist parties, the date hardly
features in studies of Cypriot communism, nor in the history of the
communist AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People). These latter
studies have instead focused on AKEL’s stance towards the rightwing EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) campaign
against British colonialism (1955-1959). Nevertheless, many of the
issues that lent their weight to the significance of 1956 – such as the
process of de-Stalinisation and question of party discipline, as well
as the dilemmas opened up by the development of ‘national roads’ to
socialism – played an important role in Cypriot communism during
the period. AKEL, then, offers a case of a party connected to the
‘global 1956’ that did not centre on that particular calendar date. The
article focuses on two prominent figures who were expelled from the
party as a result of AKEL’s intra-party crisis of 1952; the young lawyer George Cacogiannis, and Evdoros Joannides, perhaps the party’s foremost propagandist resident in London. In discussing their writings and activities, the article reveals the global arena Cypriot communists
20thccommunism.bsky.social
1. '1956 as dual conjuncture: Aimé Césaire between Paris and Fort-de-France' by Kevin Morgan

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
1956 as dual conjuncture: Aimé Césaire between Paris and Fort-deFrance

Kevin Morgan

Abstract: In October 1956 the Martinican communist and parliamentary deputy Aimé Césaire announced his resignation from the French communist party in an open letter to Maurice Thorez. Widely cited in contexts of black Marxism and anti-colonialism, the letter is a famous testimony to 1956 as a year of disillusionment with Stalinism. This paper shows that it has tended to be abstracted from its immediate political context and Césaire’s relationship with communism underplayed or misrepresented in a good deal of commentary on his career as a public intellectual. Focusing on Césaire’s relationship with both French and Martinican communism, we explore the interplay of anti-Stalinism and anti-colonialism, both in Césaire’s very public defection and in the reactions it provoked among other Martinican communists usually overlooked, most notably René Ménil.

Keywords: Aimé Césaire, Martinican communism, French communism, Stalinism, anti-colonialism
20thccommunism.bsky.social
The latest issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal has been published by @lawrencewishart.bsky.social

Issue 29 is the second issue dedicated to looking at histories of 1956 globally, edited by Madeleine Davis and George Odysseos.

A 🧵 of the articles...

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/vol-2025...
Twentieth Century Communism: Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025) - Lawrence Wishart
Twentieth Century Communism: a journal of international history - Issue contents for Volume 2025 Issue 29 (2025)
journals.lwbooks.co.uk
Reposted by Twentieth Century Communism journal