Mid-Century Communisms: A Schematic Approach?

Abstract

In this project presentation I will set out the fundamental discussion points raised in my paper “The Mexican Communist Party in Comparative Perspective: Towards a Schema for the Postwar Conjuncture”, delivered at the European Social Science History Conference in Glasgow in April 2012. I do so in order to invite comments and interventions relating to my central contention: that we cannot speak meaningfully of one ‘mid-century communism’, only of several (or perhaps even many) ‘mid-century communisms’. To challenge the partial revival of the monolithic conception of communism, I offer a tentative and non-exhaustive schematic of varying (and in some cases, contradictory) ‘types’ of mid-century communism.

Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London