Leninist legacies, pluralist dilemmas

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 34-39

  Tismaneanu, Vladimir ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 36849043497     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (16)

1. One of the most important contributions to understanding communism and postcommunism is Ken Jowitt's New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992);
2. for further interpretations of the implications of Jowitt's pioneering approach, see Vladimir Tismaneanu, Marc Howard, and Rudra Sil, eds., World Order after Leninism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006).
3. For a thorough analysis of the uses of the past in postcommunist Europe, see Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), especially part four, "After the Fall: 1989-2005," 637-776.
4. See Vladimir Tismaneanu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998);
5. and Ernest Gellner, Encounters with Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
6. Václav Havel, Summer Meditations (New York: Vintage, 1993);
7. George Konrad, The Melancholy of Rebirth (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995);
8. and Adam Michnik, Letters from Freedom (Berkeley: University of California, 1998).
9. See also Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismaneanu, eds., Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000).
10. See John Rawls's discussion of criteria for asserting civic freedom and the idea of a well-ordered society in Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 30-40.
11. For seminal contributions to this discussion, see Jerzy Szacki, Liberalism after Communism (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1995),
12. and Ronald Dworkin et al., From Liberal Values to Democratic Transition: Essays in Honor of János Kis (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004).
13. See the commentary by Vladimir Tismaneanu and Paul-Dragos Aligica, "Romania's Parliamentary Putsch," Wall Street Journal (Europe), 20 April 2007. On May 19, Bǎsescu overwhelmingly won a national referendum, with 74.5 percent of the electorate voting against his impeachment.
14. This may explain the otherwise bizarre celebration in many media and academic circles of Slavoj Zižek's calls for a "re-enactment" of the Leninist moment in the history of anticapitalist praxis. See Slavoj Zižek, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Nation (London: Verso, 2001);
15. and V. I. Lenin, Revolution at the Gates: a Selection of Writings from February to October 1917, edited and with an Introduction and Afterword by Slavoj Zižek (London: Verso, 2002).
16. The full English version of the speech by Romania's president Traian Bǎsescu before the joint session of the Romanian parliament on 18 December 2006 can be found at www.presidency.ro/pdf/date/8288_en.pdf. The most vocal critics of this condemnation have been Vadim Tudor's Greater Romania Party (and its viciously anti-Semitic and anti-Western namesake weekly) and the Social Democratic Party chaired by Mircea Geoanǎ, former ambassador to Washington and foreign minister (2001-2004). Former president Ion Iliescu is the honorary chairman of this party.