Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam 05.12.2013-07.12.2013, Potsdam, Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte, Lecture Hall, Am Neuen Markt 9, 14467 Potsdam
The communist ruling parties (CPs) of Eastern and East Central Europe after 1945 can be considered to be the most effective political organizations of the 20th century. They claimed to put utopian societal models into practice, determined their million members' biographies and efficiently bound them to their basic organizations - even through their demise and erosion in the late 1980s. Yet, although there is no question about their societal and cultural shaping power, recent historiography is still dominated by classic narratives of political history. CPs are mainly interpreted as isolated, monolithic power machines.
In contrast, it is this conference's aim to re-interpret the highly normative party life and the CPs' power-securing practice at all levels.
Analyses of the party organizations' inner workings will shed light onto the 'closed society' of the CP as well as gain insights into the logic of the party leaderships and their apparatuses' actions; the social composition of the membership; and their value systems respectively. In addition, there is the question of the mid-level party functionaries'
room for maneuver which should open up new perspectives on Soviet-style political systems. Further questions to be discussed include the parties' local social practice and the efficacy of the CPs' ability to endow meaning on party membership through rituals and ideology.
The main aim of this conference is to develop a comparative perspective that can be implemented across the broad spectrum of Eastern Bloc CPs.
The conference will focus predominantly on the East German SED, the CPSU and the Polish United Workers' Party.
Please register before November 21, 2013, by sending an email to:
karmann@zzf-pdm.de
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5
14.30: Registration
15.15-15.30: Welcome
15.30-17.15: Panel 1 - Governing State and Society
Rüdiger Bergien, Potsdam: From Stalinist Bulwark to Mediation Agency?
The SED Central Party's Bureaucracy after 1956
Christoph Boyer, Salzburg: Communist Party Apparatuses as Steering Organizations. Paths of Development in East Central Europe
Discussant
Dariusz Stola, Warsaw
19.00-21.00: Public Evening Lecture (in German)
Jens Gieseke, Potsdam: Die SED - Staatspartei in der ostdeutschen Gesellschaft. Fragen und Befunde eines soziokulturellen Zugriffs
Discussion
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6
9.00-10.45: Panel 2 - Mechanisms of Power and 'Informal Rule'
Andrea Bahr, Potsdam: Paternalism in Local Practice: Logics of Repression, Ideological Hegemony and Everyday Management of Society in a SED district secretariat
Krzysztof Dabek, Warsaw: PZPR - Polish United Workers' Party in Retrospective. Mechanisms of a Totalitarian Regime
Discussant
Jay Rowell, Strasbourg
11.15-13.00: Panel 3 - Grassroots Party Life - Practices of the Everyday
Sabine Pannen, Potsdam: Behind Closed Doors. Erosion of SED Party-Life in the Last Decade
Edward Cohn, Grinnell: The Paradox of Khrushchev-Era Party Discipline in the Soviet Communist Party
Discussant
NN
14.30-16.15: Panel 4 - Self-perceptions and Challenges of Social Composition
Jens Gieseke, Potsdam: What Did the Comrades Think? SED Membership in Secret Opinion Polls and Police Reports
Michel Christian, Geneva: "It Is not Possible to Allow Past Mistakes to Come again", Recruting Policy in the CPS between 1968 and 1989."
Discussant
Thomas Lindenberger, Potsdam
16.45-18.30: Panel 5: Party Leaders and Leadership Styles
Martin Sabrow, Potsdam: Erich Honecker - the 'Leading Representative" in Generational Perspective
Mark Kramer, Cambridge: Communication and Decision Processes in and amongst the Eastern Bloc's Communist Party Leaderships
Discussant
Jürgen Danyel, Potsdam
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7
9.00-10.45: Panel 6: Decline, Downfall, Transformation
Frédéric Zalewski, Paris: On the Way of Party Pluralism? The PZPR and the Reform of the Socialist Party System in 1988-1989
Jan. C. Behrends, Potsdam: What Is to Be Done? Gorbachev's Komanda and the End of Communism in the USSR
Discussant
NN
11.15-12.30: Conference Resume: Old Parties, New Perspectives?
Panellists
Mark Kramer, Cambridge
Padraic Kenney, Bloomington
Concluding Discussion
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Stephanie Karmann
Am Neuen Markt 1, 14467 Potsdam
karmann@zzf-pdm.de
[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult]