Twentieth Century Communism – Communism and Political Violence

The second issue of Twentieth Century Communism journal, which has as its theme ‘Communism and Political Violence’, has now been published and is available in print and online.

Communist attitudes to violence have varied according to whether a given party was in power or opposition, and on the wider context in which its adherents found themselves. For communists of the Comintern generation, it was forever framed within a Bolshevik-derived paradigm centred on the experience of 1917; for the resistance movements of the second world war it was understood as part of the struggle against fascism; for those battling to liberate themselves from colonialism it was understood as part of the liberation struggle.

Two sample articles from the issue can be read in-full online:

• Communism and political violence – Matthew Worley
• The communist movement and violence in France: from the First World War to the Cold War – Sylvain Boulouque

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