Call for Papers: History, Memory and the Past in Twentieth Century Communism

Posted on 15/10/2025

While the revolution and the future of mankind were their main concerns, communist parties and movements, nevertheless, also developed an interest in the past. Taking the importance that communist parties and the communist movement assigned to history, as a starting point, this TCC issue aims to analyse different ways of communist engagement with the past.

This engagement has often been considered in contradictory terms.  On one hand, it has been interpreted as an engagement that had manipulatory purposes. As the old Soviet joke went, in the USSR one never knew how the day before was going to be. On the other, even if less frequently, some communist intellectuals became professional historians  and have been widely acclaimed as major contributors to the development and renewal of the discipline, Eric J. Hobsbawn among the most famous examples.

The proposed issue welcomes proposals on manipulatory practices developed by socialist states and communist parties, as well as original research on important communist historians like Hobsbawm. Our broader aim is to stimulate research proposals focusing on many other dimensions of the relationship between communism, history and the past.

Some questions of interest include:

1. How have the political strategies and theories developed by communist parties and movements influenced the discipline of history and vice-versa?

We welcome questions that consider the debates on transition, the national question, imperialism, hegemony, antifascism, among many others. How have historical debates on the transition from feudalism to capitalism influenced political debates on the transition from capitalism to socialism and vice-versa? To what extent did anti-fascism and anti-imperialism shape communist perspectives of history? How has the theory of uneven and combined development resonated in historiographical debates on the scales and stages of history? How have debates on the idea of culture and cultural autonomy challenged communists’ political and historiographical practices?

2. How did the development of Marxist historical analysis influence professional historians and historical schools, as well as the emergence of new areas of historical research?

We welcome proposals considering the relevance of communism for the development of historiographical traditions as diverse as “history from below”, subaltern studies or, more recently, global labour history. Proposals on the relationship between communism and the development of Economic History and by now canonical projects such as the Annales School are also welcome. Proposals may also contribute to the history of collective projects within institutes, journals, associations or groups (e.g. the Marx-Engels Institute, the journal Past and Present, the Marxist Internet Archive) as well as explore the trajectories of individual historians (e.g. Jean Bruhat, Eduard Burdzhalov, Rodney Hilton, Caio Prado Júnior, Michel Volvelle, Sumit Sarkar, Roy Medvedev, Luciano Canfora, Natalie Zemon Davis, Silvia Federici). Authors who have contributed to theoretical debates on history, from Plekhanov to Jerzy Topolski, are also welcome.

3. What kinds of memory policies and practices were promoted by communist movements, parties and militants outside academia?

Socialist states and communist parties played an important role in the design and implementation of several memory, heritage and legacy policies. The past of the workers’ movement, the communist parties, and the revolutions have become subjects of several communist uses. The existence of labour archives and of traditions such as the 1^st of May parades is a testimony to such uses, but further study is required. For instance, how does the autobiographical writing associated with communist traditions compare to that of other political cultures?   It is well known that socialist states invested significantly in constructing the memory of their nation’s history, including but not only through education curricula. How did these differ (if so) from memory policies developed by non-socialist states?

“Educate yourself because we need all your intelligence. Rouse yourself because we need all your enthusiasm. Organize yourself because we need all your strength”.[1] This slogan coined by Antonio Gramsci appeared on the front page of the newspaper l’Ordine Nuovo in the first issue on 1 May 1919 and exemplifies the role Gramsci attributed to understanding, knowledge, learning and sharing. How did this influence communist policies and practices when it came to history, memory and the past?

Timetable

We invite you to submit an abstract of approximately 500 words together with a short biography by December 31, 2025. Submit your abstracts to: giuliastrippoli@fcsh.unl.pt

Authors will be notified about the acceptance of their proposal by March 1, 2026. Manuscripts should be submitted for peer review by December 1, 2026.  The issue will be published in 2028.

For more information about Twentieth Century Communism and for general author guidelines, see: https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/tcc/

Editors

Giulia Strippoli ¾ Institute of Contemporary History (FCSH/Nova University of Lisbon), IN2PAST

José Neves ¾  Institute of Contemporary History (FCSH/Nova University of Lisbon), IN2PAST

[1] L’Ordine Nuovo, May 1, 1919. English translation from: Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg, Peter Mayo, Gramsci and Education, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002, p. 83.