Communism

Did the system spawn a monster - or a monster the system? Norman Pereira re-evaluates the road to totalitarianism in the Soviet Union after the Revolution, and Stalin's part in it. 

Dipesh Chakrabarty looks at the dialogue between nationalism and the inspiration of Marx in the formation of the world's largest democracy.

Robert Service looks at how Gorbachev's revolution has left an open agenda for Soviet historians.

Alfred Stepan argues that the romantic acclaim of Fidel Castro as a revolutionary guerrilla leader disregards the practical achievements and structural changes he has brought to Cuba and distorts his world-view of revolution.

That Mao Zedong has changed the course of modern history is beyond dispute. the extent of his influence, both in China and abroad, has however been a matter of fierce debate since his death in 1976.

Dixon Hoste attempts to locate a common element between Marxism and traditional Chinese ideas.

'Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh' was the chant of radicals in the 1960s and 1970s, idolising the Communist leader who led Vietnam's Revolutionary struggle first against French colonialism and then against the United States' involvement in Vietnam. 

'The cult of personality' means that for the West Stalin personified the arbitrary terror of the Soviet regime: yet he must also stand for the USSR's greatest achievements of modernisation and industrialisation, argues Paul Dukes. 

A study of Lenin by D.A. Longley which questions the usual criteria by which the great Soviet leader's influence and legacy are judged.