From Yugoslavia’s distinct socialist experiments, Eastern European reformist agitations in the wake of de-Stalinization, to the Sino-Soviet split, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the various economic reforms in the 1970s and 1980s, the socialist world saw many heated debates and contestations over what “socialism” should be and how to organize political, economic and cultural lives according to socialist principles. These debates, arising from situated experiences of historical actors, and responding to entrenched and emergent contradictions in the society, were important sites of knowledge formation. Even though they were often seen by ruling parties as destabilizing and hence repressed, ideas and inquiries from these debates circulated amongst and beyond socialist states, and exerted lasting influence in the Third World as well as in Western social democracies and Eurocommunism.
There has been substantial scholarship aimed at understanding socialist legacies of the twentieth century. Some have sought to diversify genealogies of global capitalism by examining state socialist contributions to trends later identified as neoliberalism and globalization. Others have sought to salvage progressive political visions of existing socialist tenets and document their lasting influences globally. Learning from both directions of scholarship, but moving beyond their respective limitations, this workshop foregrounds difference, debate, and dissent in twentieth century socialist cultures, investigating how differently situated historical actors in socialist states had experienced, evaluated, and contested the directions of evolving socialist projects, and how such contestations figured into political cultures globally.
The workshop brings together scholars in cultural studies, history and political science to consider debates and critique in socialist cultures as they were carried out in varying forms and through different media, from theoretical treatises published in party circulars, to self-published literary works circulated underground, to various cultural productions such as cinema, theater, music and graphic arts. Examples include literature and art inspired by discussions on Socialist Humanism; debates on economic and political reforms and explorations of key concepts and instruments from “markets” to “incentives”; and changing positions of critique and learning between socialist states, and between the socialist and the capitalist worlds.
PROGRAM
10:00 - 10:10 AM Welcome and Opening remarks
Ying Qian (IAS CEU / Columbia University)
10:10 - 11:50 AM Panel 1
Chair:
Péter Csunderlik (IAS CEU / Eötvös Loránd University / Institute of Political History)
Speakers:
Jan Mervart (Czech Academy of Sciences), "Between the local and the global: "Czechoslovak path" to reform socialism"
Felix Wemheuer (University of Cologne), “Origins of “Market Socialism” in Eastern Europe and China: Cycles of Economic Reforms of the 1960s and 1980s”
Péter Vámos (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church / HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities), “The Influence of Hungarian Economic Reform Theories and Practices on China's Market Reforms in the 1980s”
Federico Pachetti (Corvinus University / Future Potentials Observatory, MOME), “Spreading Knowledge: American NGOs and Chinese Economic Reforms in the 1980s”
11:50 AM - 12:10 PM Coffee break
12:10 - 1:25 PM Panel 2
Chair:
Nataliya Zlydneva (IAS CEU / Russian Academy of Sciences)
Speakers:
Marsha Siefert (CEU), “The White-Haired Girl Comes to Moscow: The 1952 Russian-Language Performance of the Chinese Play as a Dramatization of Global Socialism”
Mariia Guleva (Charles University), “Let us learn from these works: encounters and discussions among cartoonists from China, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union in the 1950s" (online)
Chris Berry (King's College London), “Beyond the Sino-Soviet Split: Year of the Dragon (1981) as an Anti-Eastern Film”
1:25 - 2:30 PM Lunch break
2:30 – 3:45 PM Panel 3
Chair:
Nikolai Vukov (IAS CEU / Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Speakers:
Letian Lei (CEU), “Marxist humanism in the 'Soviet-type' contexts"
Andrea Virginás (IAS CEU / Babes-Bolyai University), "Lightweight Equipment in Post-Stalinist Romania: Filmmakers' Views, and Meta-Representations" (online)
Sabrina Qiong Yu (Newcastle University), "Chinese Independent Film Archive: Preserving Memories of Socialist China and Beyond"
3:45 - 4:00 PM Coffee break
4:00 - 5:30 PM Roundtable Discussion "Thinking about Global Socialisms Today "
Chair:
Ying Qian (IAS CEU / Columbia University)
Speakers:
Jessie Labov (Corvinus University)
Oksana Sarkisova (CEU / OSA Archivum)
Felix Wemheuer (University of Cologne)
Jan Mervart (Czech Academy of Sciences)
Chris Berry (King's College London)
Workshop convenor:
Ying Qian
Senior Core Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, CEU
Associate Professor, Columbia University
Image source:
Photo of the "Democracy Wall" in Beijing (1978-1979), available at China During The Early Days Of The Reform (chinadaily.com.cn) (visited on 11 March 2024)