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Europe-Asia Studies

ISSN: 0966-8136 (Print) 1465-3427 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceas20

The High Title of a Communist. Postwar Party


Discipline and the Values of the Soviet Regime

Nikos Christofis

To cite this article: Nikos Christofis (2017) The High Title of a Communist. Postwar Party
Discipline and the Values of the Soviet Regime, Europe-Asia Studies, 69:7, 1135-1136, DOI:
10.1080/09668136.2017.1371498

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2017.1371498

Published online: 05 Oct 2017.

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constantly evaluate and negotiate the main threads of their social life and Malyutina’s book captures
the intricacies of these processes. The reader may feel that there is still room for methodological
clarifications; perhaps a sub-section focused on these aspects could be useful. The author succeeds in
carrying out the overall purpose of the book and her appealing study adds valuable knowledge about a
highly heterogeneous social life in a super-diverse context.

ALIN CROITORU, Department of Journalism, Public Relations, Sociology, and Psychology, Lucian
Blaga University of Sibiu, Str. Lucian Blaga. Nr. 2-4, Corp A, Et. 3, Sala SA3-10, 550169 Sibiu, Jud.
Sibiu, Romania. Email: alin.croitoru@ulbsibiu.ro.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2017.1371497ALIN CROITORU © 2017

Edward Cohn, The High Title of a Communist. Postwar Party Discipline and the Values of the Soviet
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Regime. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2015, xvii + 268pp., $49.00 h/b.

EDWARD COHN’S BOOK IS A SOLIDLY RESEARCHED AND WELL-WRITTEN study reflecting the shift in
the literature on postwar Soviet history that began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, on the mechanisms,
discourses and practices employed by the Soviet leadership inside the Soviet Union. The book adds
to this burgeoning literature, providing a masterful account of the Soviet code of behaviour inside and
outside the Communist Party in postwar Russia and Ukraine, as well as analysing the party’s system
of expulsion and censure in the 19 years between the end of World War II and the overthrow of Nikita
Khrushchev in 1964.
In six chapters, an introduction and a conclusion, Edward Cohn provides an in-depth account of
‘what it meant to be a good Communist and, more broadly, a good Soviet citizen’ (p. 4). Starting with
an overview of the role of the Communist Party and its disciplinary system within Soviet society and
politics, Cohn sets the framework of his narrative to follow. The first chapter examines the long-term
effects of the 1939 18th Party Congress on the inner workings of the party, specifically, the two changes in
the party charter aimed at transforming both the party’s demographics and its disciplinary system. These
changes ended the practice of the mass purge and broadened the base of the party to include white-collar
workers. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the changing attitude towards the political loyalty of communists
and the hunt for internal enemies. For example, Cohn makes his case by noting a series of expulsions
of members for destroying their party membership cards as the Germans approached Moscow in 1941,
as they ‘placed their own life above the party’ (p. 54). Cohn demonstrates eloquently how the political
rhetoric of the 1940s sometimes mirrored the language of the 1930s, occasionally justifying the purges
by glorifying the party’s ‘purity’ (p. 57). In the complicated politics of the postwar Stalin years, many
party members were accused of political disloyalty and possible hostility to the regime. Cohn, through
his example of Comrade N, makes two interesting observations: first, ‘postwar leaders were extremely
worried about the threat to their policies posed by undisciplined, corrupt, and self-interested Communists
who put their own interests ahead of the regime’s’, and second, Comrade N’s case highlights ‘the fact
that the leaders of the postwar Communist Party were surprisingly unconcerned with the political
loyalty and ideological orthodoxy of the rank-and-file’ (p. 81). In other words, it becomes convincingly
clear in Cohn’s account that a communist’s political beliefs played a surprisingly small role in postwar
discussions, even before the death of Stalin, answering to the claim that during the Khrushchev era,
Stalinist persecutions for ‘political reasons’ were eliminated. This persecution had largely ended before
Stalin’s death in 1953. However, what perhaps should be elaborated is the argument, stated implicitly
or explicitly, that Stalin’s death was not that much of a turning point.
Chapter 4 focuses on the party’s dealing with corruption and administrative misconduct. More
expulsions from the party took place on the grounds of abuse of position for personal gain than any
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other infraction. For example, more than 300,000 communists lost their party membership in the period
1945–1964 (p. 116). The chapter examines the party’s struggle to deal with these issues, in the context
of, as Cohn notes, two larger phenomena: the regime’s desire to increase its control over officialdom,
and the growing identification of communists with the state administration.
The last two chapters of the book, Chapters 5 and 6, turn their attention to the daily life of the
communist. Cohn argues that during the Khrushchev era, the Communist Party became much more
intrusive with regard to the private lives of its members. In particular, according to the author, one
of the notable changes in the Khrushchev period was the emphasis on education by means of public
pressure. While Chapter 5 focuses on cases involving adultery and child abandonment, Chapter 6 focuses
on drunkenness among party members. ‘Unworthy conduct in everyday life’ and the ways to fight it
are at the centre of the last two chapters. What becomes obvious from Cohn’s account, and presents a
remarkably interesting observation, is the fact that although it started within the party, the struggle with
disorder shifted soon after to the population at large.
Overall, Cohn’s book is a welcome addition to a rather neglected topic in the history of the Communist
Party in the post-WWII period. Its importance lies in the continuities and ruptures between the Stalin
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and Khrushchev eras and how both leaders tried to ‘rehabilitate’ the Soviet communist citizen, while
through the inner workings and disciplinary practices of the Communist Party Cohn offers an inside
view of the shaping of social and political norms. This book is highly recommended for historians of
the USSR, and also of Europe, who deal with social and political history.

NIKOS CHRISTOFIS, Teaching Fellow, Department of History and Archeology, University of Crete,
Greece. Email: n.christofis@gmail.com.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2017.1371498NIKOS CHRISTOFIS © 2017

Christine M. Hassenstab & Sabrina P. Ramet (eds), Gender (In)equality and Gender Politics in
Southeastern Europe. A Question of Justice. Basingstoke & New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan,
2015, xiv + 380pp., £73.00 h/b.

ALMOST THREE DECADES AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF SOCIALISM IN CENTRAL and Southeastern
Europe, despite the opening of political and economic systems, the social landscape regarding gender
relations remains problematic. As Christine Hassenstab and Sabrina Ramet point out in their ‘Preface
and Acknowledgments’ section, whereas new freedoms opened up in other spheres, gender equality
has to a large extent slid backwards: women have higher rates of unemployment and poverty, receive
lower pay, are subject to increased domestic violence, and are under-represented in government, leading
observers to conclude that these new systems ‘are democracies for (heterosexual) men, but not for
women’ (p. xi). The volume provides an overview of the situation of women in Southeastern Europe
since 1990, focusing on inequality through an examination of legislation, women’s representation in
government and administration, and discrimination against sexual minorities. It also touches upon the
socialist legacy where gender equality is concerned—the effect of socialism on gender equality and
the role of feminist organisations since 1990—as well as the influence of religious institutions (the
Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and the Islamic community) on these values. The individual
case studies are focused around three central questions: first, changes in the situation of women and
sexual minorities since 1990; second, the success of religious organisations in promoting traditionalist
values, the impact of these traditionalist narratives on women and sexual minorities, and the resistance
of local feminists to these narratives; and third, changes in the values and attitudes of people towards
gender- and sex-related matters.
The volume is organised geographically and thematically in five parts. Part I is introductory, including
Katalin Fábián’s overview of the various standards for measurement of inequality, such as those of
the United Nations Development Programme and the World Economic Forum, providing a detailed

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