This volume looks into the ways in which film has contaminated and re-shaped culture(s) and the collective unconscious, at both local and global levels, arguing that our lives have been impacted by the ‘then’ that we keep revisiting, lest we forget. It takes the reader from the Berlin Wall to China, and from the terror of communist political prisons and labour camps to the rosy image promoted by propaganda. A key point throughout the text is its interdisciplinary nature, as it brings together literature and film scholars, directors, sociologists and philosophers, whose overall conclusion is that communism, lingering in mentalities, still needs interrogation. Structured along four parts which trace a Homeric (or rather Joycean) journey to a home metonymysed by the long-awaited freedom, this book sets out from the gloomiest aspects of totalitarianism in the Romanian, Serbian and Soviet ‘Hades(es)’ of traumatic psychological and physical experiences and of imposed silencing. The second part gathers together case studies of films illustrating more optimistic views of communism as ‘spring’ (in the USSR) or as a ‘golden age’ (in Romania), thus narcotising the communist ‘subjects’ and preventing them from seeing the actual inferno. The third section offers filmic accounts of the aftermaths of communism, engaging the readers in a nostalgic process that revisits, questions, reflects on and remembers communism on a larger, world stage. The coda rounds up the volume (and the journey therein) by crossing genre frontiers to written narratives with a cinematic component.

A group of Central European communists, most of them Hungarians, in the interwar period served the world communist movement as international cadres of the Comintern, the Moscow-based Communist International. As an important member of this cohort, József Pogány played a major role in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, the "March Action" in Germany in 1921, and, under the name of John Pepper, in the development of the American Communist Party of the 1920s. During the 1920s he was an important official in the Comintern apparatus and undertook missions on three continents. A prolific writer and effective organizer, he was one of the most flamboyant and controversial communists of his era. Some of his comrades praised him as "the Hungarian Christopher Columbus." Others, like Trotsky, called him a "political parasite."This study is based on newly available primary sources from Hungary, Russia, and the United States; it is the first ever written about this colorful and well-travelled Hungarian communist. Examines Pogány's development as a socialist and communist, the influence of his Jewish origins on his career, the reasons for his remarkable success in the United States, and the circumstances that led to his arrest and execution in the Stalinist terror.

This volume looks into the ways in which film has contaminated and re-shaped culture(s) and the collective unconscious, at both local and global levels, arguing that our lives have been impacted by the 'then' that we keep revisiting, lest we forget. It takes the reader from the Berlin Wall to China, and from the terror of communist political prisons and labour camps to the rosy image promoted by propaganda. A key point throughout the text is its interdisciplinary nature, as it brings together literature and film scholars, directors, sociologists and philosophers, whose overall conclusion is that communism, lingering in mentalities, still needs interrogation. Structured along four parts which trace a Homeric (or rather Joycean) journey to a home metonymysed by the long-awaited freedom, this book sets out from the gloomiest aspects of totalitarianism in the Romanian, Serbian and Soviet 'Hades(es)' of traumatic psychological and physical experiences and of imposed silencing. The second part gathers together case studies of films illustrating more optimistic views of communism as 'spring' (in the USSR) or as a 'golden age' (in Romania), thus narcotising the communist 'subjects' and preventing them from seeing the actual inferno. The third section offers filmic accounts of the aftermaths of communism, engaging the readers in a nostalgic process that revisits, questions, reflects on and remembers communism on a larger, world stage. The coda rounds up the volume (and the journey therein) by crossing genre frontiers to written narratives with a cinematic component.

This volume, chiefly Wolfe's letters from 1939 with unpublished speeches and writings from the Hoover Archives, illuminates his struggle to uncover the truth about the history of Soviet Russia and his anguish over his earlier allegiances not only to Lenin but to Karl Marx as well. When intellectuals in Eastern Europe and China are going through the same soul-searching process, this book is especially timely.

This history of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) traces its origins as a tiny, clandestine revolutionary organization in the 1920s, to its years in national power from 1944 to 1989, and to the post-1989 metamorphoses.

Zhid A Russian Odyssey by Marvin A. Goldberg (Copyright 2006) Zhid A Russian Odyssey first explores Jewish family life in pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia. It then goes on to illustrate how one family's personal political values changed or intensified affecting their lives once they immigrated to the United States. In the United States each branch of the Zhidovetsky/Goldberg family reacted differently to their newly found freedoms. One embraced socialist and later communist values while others followed the democratic and capitalistic viewpoints of their new country. The most famous of these first generation Americans was Ella Goldberg Wolfe, wife of Bertram David Wolfe, the noted Russian historian and author. Bert and Ella's lives were closely knit with that of the New York socialist intelligentsia in the early 1900s. Their changing views on peace, socialism, communism and later anti-communism were part of their process of awakening to their "Americanism." Both were members of New York's Greenwich Village "Lyric Left" that included John (Jack) Reed, Jay Lovestone, Max Eastman, Emma Goldmann, and Eugene O'Neill, among others. Ella was interviewed for Warren Beatty's biopic about Jack Reed and Louise Bryant - "Reds" - and provided basic "first hand" information for the film. Active Peaceniks during World War I, the Wolfes were hounded by the seditionist police in the post-world-war era because of their pro-peace and socialist values. We follow their swing to communism, and then travel with them around the U.S. while they seek to avoid capture. Eventually they immigrate to Mexico where they become an important part of the Mexican communist movement that included artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, both of whom became their confidantes. In 1929, as delegates to the Comintern Congress in Moscow, Bert's views about the American Communist movement causes both to become targets of Joseph Stalin, and they are held under house arrest until Julius Hammer arranges for their release. Upon return to the U.S. both Bert and Ella become part of the Lovestone anti-Stalinist faction and later become virulent anti-communists. Bert Wolfe, his brother-in-law Harry Goldberg and Jay Lovestone were considered to be among the most valuable secret political assets of the U.S. during the cold war. Bert passed away in 1977 after have written numerous books about Russian Communism including the epic Three Who Made a Revolution. Ella outlived most of her generation and passed on at the age of one hundred and three in January of 2000. Their love story, matched against the background of the politics and upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries, is both meaningful and poignant. We follow, in like fashion, other members of the family Zhidovetsky/Goldberg and their new lives, successes and failures in their adopted country. Finally, the moral issues confronting the United States today are explored and some interesting similarities vis-à-vis the past and present are discussed with regard to the views of the author and other members of this extraordinary family.