Communism played a very important role on the 20^th century European political and cultural stage, both as ideology and as an authoritarian/totalitarian state system. Communist parties all over Europe were called to lead the way in the fight for a revolutionary, equalitarian, utopic society, under the guidance of the III Communist International (founded in Moscow in 1919) and the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Although the Communist Parties in Europe were established and developed on a similar pattern until the breakout of World War II, during the Cold War important dissimilarities could be observed between Western and Eastern Europe. This issue of History of Communism in Europe aims to follow the development of Communist Parties on the both sides of the Iron Curtain and their impact, considering that they were interconnected both ideologically and institutionally, but also separated by the extremely different contexts in which they had to (re)act.

Argument

The topic of the forthcoming issue of the scientific journal History of Communism in Europe is The (R) evolutionary Maze. Communist Parties in Europe.

Communism played a very important role on the 20^th century European political and cultural stage, both as ideology and as an authoritarian/totalitarian state system. Communist parties all over Europe were called to lead the way in the fight for a revolutionary, equalitarian, utopic society, under the guidance of the III Communist International (founded in Moscow in 1919) and the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Although the Communist Parties in Europe were established and developed on a similar pattern until the breakout of World War II, during the Cold War important dissimilarities could be observed between Western and Eastern Europe. Communist Parties in Western Europe experienced different destinies than Communist Parties in the Soviet Bloc. The former were obliged to play the more or less democratic game, while the latter took power and started a profound process of transformation that shattered the traditional structures and cultures of the countries behind the Iron Curtain. This issue of History of Communism in Europe aims to follow the development of Communist Parties on the both sides of the Iron Curtain and their impact, considering that they were interconnected both ideologically and institutionally, but also separated by the extremely different contexts in which they had to (re)act.

Nonetheless, after the fall of Communism in Europe in 1989, these parties had to face new challenges: some of them dissolved in the avatars of transition, others had to face an identity crisis. How did the network of Communist Parties across Europe function? What transformations did these parties suffer after 1989? What narratives of legitimation did they use, especially during the crises in the Soviet Bloc? Who were their most interesting leaders and Party members, what was their motivation to support the Communist cause and to what costs?  

Main topics

We welcome contributions from different fields of research: history, political science, philosophy, sociology, gender studies or any other related areas of interest, written from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Topics may address (but are not limited to) the following aspects:

• relations between the Western Communist parties and the Eastern Communist parties;
• political strategies, transformations in doctrine and adaptation to the context of the Communist Parties;
• relevant biographies;
• the relationship between the intellectuals and workers in the Parties;
• Party recruitment in the West vs. the East;
• governing programs in the West vs. the East;
• Communist Parties in the public perception after 1989;
• Attitudes of the Western Communist Parties triggered by crises in the Soviet Bloc (1956, 1968);
• Communist Propaganda in the East and West;
• the role of the Communist Parties in promoting gender equality.
• Communist international umbrella organizations.
• socialists and communists: collaboration, cohabitation, confrontation.
• Friends or Foes? Relation between the Communist parties and religion. Cults, churches, organizations, underground resistance, conflicts. 

Submission guidelines

Contributors are kindly asked to write abstracts (English or French) that do not exceed 500 words. 

Deadline: 1^st of March 2016.

You may submit your proposals at: hce7@iiccmer.ro, dalia.bathory@gmail.com.

Selected authors will be notified by the 15th of March 2015. 

The deadline for the final draft of the paper is the 15^th of July 2015.

Scientific Board

• Lukasz Kaminski – President, Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Warsaw, Poland;
• Maria Schmidt – Director General, House of Terror, Budapest, Hungary;
• Hubertus Knabe – Scientific director Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, Berlin, Germany;
• Nicolae Manolescu –Professor, University of Bucharest, Romania;
• Daniel-Constantin Barbu – Professor, Bucharest, Romania;
• Matei Cazacu – Historian, Centre d’Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques (CETOBaC, UMR 8032), Paris, France;
• Stéphane Courtois – Director of research, CNRS, Paris, France. 

The academic journal History of Communism in Europe is edited by The Institute for the Investigation of the Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile. It is a journal open to all inquiries that have the objectivity, complexity and sophistication required by any research on the issue of communism, as well as on the different aspects of totalitarianisms of the 20th Century Europe. These scholarly investigations must remain an interdisciplinary enterprise, in which raw data and refined concepts help us understand the subtle dynamics of any given phenomenon.