Which East is Red? The Maoist Presence in the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc Europe 1956-1980

Abstract

“Which East is Red?” is a study of the little-known “anti-revisionist” currents within the Soviet Bloc in the wake of the Sino-Soviet Split, particularly those which described themselves as Maoists. This study primarily concentrates on the Maoist wind that blew through the USSR and Eastern Europe during the 1960s, when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China generated anti-revisionist storms around the globe. It also discusses the effects of the Cultural Revolution on diplomacy in the socialist Second World. Finally, this thesis challenges mainstream academic studies of Marxism and dissent in the Soviet Bloc, which presents a false dichotomy of dissidence within the region: a false dichotomy, that is, between those who embraced liberal democracy of the West versus the Kremlin’s official version of Marxism-Leninism. In short, a new historiography of dissident movements in the USSR and Eastern Europe during the Cold War must include the Maoist, communist opposition