The spectre is back : new perspectives on the rise and decline of European communism

Abstract

This review article examines five recent studies on the communist movement, both analytical monographs and attempts at a general interpretation. It leaves aside the enormous scholarship specialized in ‘actually existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe, focusing instead on writings that deal with communism as a European phenomenon, including also Western Europe. This article revolves around two encompassing questions. First, it asks to what extent and in what manner new writings on the history of communism in Europe refer to the transnational, in particular European, dimension of communist movement and ideology. Second, it is concerned with the question of how both the integrative capacity and the erosion of communist systems and movements have been interpreted. In other words, what is in the foreground here are various explanations of the rise, reproduction and decline of European communism in the course of the twentieth century.