Hungary: Between Democracy and Authoritarianism by Paul Lendvai, trans. Keith Chester. Columbia University Press, 2012, 236 pp. In March 1990, I served as a member of an international team of observers to the first postcommunist elections in Hungary. It was …
Two Decades After the Fall: Shlomo Avineri
Determining when one period gave way to another or, in fact, naming a period is always a tricky matter. This is especially so when it comes to contemporary events. Processes are still going on and it is not yet evident …
For a quarter of a century, Iran has been ruled by a militant theocracy. After the shah’s regime–authoritarian, brutal, and backed by the United States–was overthrown, the new regime quickly proved itself to be authoritarian, cruel, and self-warranted by Islamic …
Reflections on Kurds and Palestinians
Because al-Qaeda’s ideology is rooted in an extreme version of Islam, post-September 11 discourse has focused mostly on ways that Islam may, in certain circumstances, give rise to bin Laden-like phenomena. This sort of approach is both facile and wrong, …
The fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet bloc initiated a sweeping transformation of world politics. How should we think about these momentous events and their implicatons a decade later? Dissent asked a group of European and American …
One hundred fifty years after its publication, and almost a decade after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, can something still be learned from The Communist Manifesto? The Manifesto is perhaps the most unabashedly rhetorical and flamboyant of Marx …
A specter is haunting Europe—and the world in general: the specter of Islamic fundamentalism. All the world powers have entered unto a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: the pope and the president of Russia, Helmut Kohl and Françors Mitterand, …
The fall of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union raise the question of whether conclusions may now be drawn in the historic argument over the nature of the capitalist system. Has the …
In the Gulf War that Saddam Hussein forced on the whole world it was only natural that the Iraqi president should be portrayed as if he were the essential problem. If Iraq were routed, Saddam destroyed, and the Iraqi military …
Of all the historical phenomena discussed by Karl Marx, his treatment of nationalism, nationalist movements, and the emergence of the nation-state is the least satisfactory. It also left a problematic heritage to the socialist movement, with a veritable “black hole” …
The debacle of the 1848 revolution was a severe shock to most European radicals of that period. The resilience of the anciens regimes proved that, contrary to revolutionary prophecies, the millennium was not around the corner. If the powers-that-be withstood …
Israel’s political and social life is still reeling from the impact of two seemingly contradictory developments unforeseen by even the most knowledgeable pundits: first, the end of 30 years of Labor’s hegemony in the 1977 elections, and second, Sadat’s visit …
Israel’s political and social life is still reeling from the impact of two seemingly contradictory developments unforeseen by even the most knowledgeable pundits: first, the end of 30 years of Labor’s hegemony in the 1977 elections, and second, Sadat’s visit …
