History of Communism

Does any other non Soviet Eastern Bloc country have a nostalgia culture with so much international appeal as the GDR? I get the impression that socialist era Poland and Romania really doesn’t have much traction if any in this regard.

This week, we’re delighted to welcome Mark Reeder to the show. The Berlin-based producer talks us through his journey from Manchester to Berlin, putting on illegal gigs in the GDR, smuggling East German uniforms back to the West, and encountering The Fall along the way. (1/2)

The Secrets of China’s Cold War Spy Centre

Bern after reading: Switzerland was a hub for communist China’s spy networks in the Cold War.

🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...

East Berlin, Stalinallee, 8 September 1959. I post photographs taken on my many Berlin visits in the 1950s and 1960s. 180 historic street images of East and West Berlin are in my book "Berlin in the Cold War" (Amberley Publishing). #Berlin #DDR #GDR

Einer der wichtigsten Verträge in der deutschen und europäischen Geschichte: Der 2+4-Vertrag - auch den bezeichnet die Kremlpropaganda mittlerweile als Okkupationsvertrag, so jedenfalls bekommen es die russischen Schüler*innen seit einiger Zeit im Geschichtsunterricht vermittelt.

1963: A Cold War Stand-Down: Top Secret Documents on Kremlin Response to JFK Assassination On November 22, 1963, US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The event shocked the entire world and elicited waves of sympathy on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The genera…

An opportunity lost: Good will between the US and USSR following the assassination of JFK can be felt in this collection of Top Secret reports and correspondence. Hopes ran high for common ground, and then came LBJ and intensified operations in Vietnam. Cancel the Christmas cards.

Where Berlin Wall sections are found around the world – DW – 11/08/2025 The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. But that's not where its story ended: Today, you can find pieces of the wall around the globe, even in strange places. Each one tells its own tale.

Where sections of the Berlin Wall pieces can be found around the world
www.dw.com/en/where-sec...

Colourised lantern slide showing soldiers dressed in grey uniforms, rifles raised.

#OTD 1917 the 'October' Revolution took place in Russia

Our archives include significant primary sources on the relationship between Britain and Russia in the decade following the 1917 revolutions

650+ documents have been digitised and are freely available online at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...

Leute, die Plakate für den 27.11. sind da 😍

Den Termin habt ihr euch schon geblockt, ne?

Sibylle Bergemann, Das Denkmal (Kerber Verlag, 2025; DE/EN/FR, #skystorians, #photography): kerberverlag.com/de/buecher/s...

GDR assets: The mystery of the missing billions — Part 1 – DW – 11/01/2025 The hunt for the assets of the former East Germany’s ruling party has the hallmarks of a thriller. There are dubious characters, bags of cash, and key witnesses who suddenly die. At its heart is the q...

GDR assets: The mystery of the missing billions — Part 1

Something interesting for @historyned.bsky.social 😁

#BOOKGIVEAWAY Follow @coldwarpod.bsky.social
then reshare & reply to this post to enter a chance to win a copy of this book.

T&C's & other ways to enter here coldwarconversations.com/giveaway/

#eastgermany #GDR #DDR #Berlinwall @DDROnline.bsky.social @GermanAtPompey.bsky.social

VEB Schwarze Pumpe, DDR 1986 – Detlef Surrey Skizzenblog In einem alten Skizzenbuch entdeckt: 1986. Informationsreise mit der SEW Spandau zum DDR Kombinat VEB Schwarze Pumpe. Die westberliner Genossen...

East Germany 1986. In an old sketchbook, I discovered sketches from 1986 of a guided tour to VEB Schwarze Pumpe, GDR, organized by SEW Westberlin. It was quite a peculiar experience at the time. #urbansketching #ddr #schwarzepumpe
You can view it on my sketch blog: sketches.surrey.de/1986/11/17/v...

Fascinated by #eastgermany #ddr #gdr ? go.bsky.app/drcrDK

Coming soon!📚🗃🗃
I contributed with a chapter:
Writing Contemporary History in Late Socialist Hungary: Dissecting Institutional Legacies.

Picture of two copies of the book "Danish Marxism: Past, Present, Future" published by Problema

Mikkel Flohr standing on a chair introducing the book "Danish Marxism: Past, Present, Future" next to Magnus Møller Ziegler displaying a copy of the book at the tenth annual conference of the Danish Society for Marxist Studies at Aarhus University

Mikkel Flohr and Magnus Møller Ziegler standing on chairs in front of multiple participants at the tenth annual conference of the Danish Society for Marxist Studies at Aarhus University, about to present the book "Danish Marxism: Past, Present, Future"

I edited a book "Danish Marxism: Past, Present, Future" that was released at the tenth annual conference of @dkmarxsoc.bsky.social a few weeks ago. It celebrates 10 years of critical research presented at the conferences and can be downloaded for free here marxistiskestudier.com/wp-content/u...

Today in the Italian Communist Party archives I found a spreadsheet sent by the party in Rome to all of its local federations where party secretaries were asked to report all acts of political violence, and there was a specific line asking them to count all acts of "proletarian shopping"

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/happy-children-at-a-comic-book-reading-stall-chengdu-1959/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/reclining-man-reading-book-lanzhou-1959/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/four-men-reading-notices-about-death-sentences-and-public-executions-prior-to-posting-them-to-the-wall-luoyang-1984/

https://chinareading.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/readers-engaged-in-reading-of-books-comics-and-magazines-at-a-street-book-stall-wanxian-1986/

Just added 50 new photos to my visual repository of reading acts in China, chinareading.wordpress.com -- too many great images to repost here, but these are the four that stood out for me. Go visit the website and browse the 300+ historical photographs of people reading in China!

#digital #archive
Nice online collection of Spanish Civil War communist ephemera:
library.ucsd.edu/dc/search?f%...

The Herbert G. Gutman Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in U.S. Labor and Working-Class History is now open for submissions!

Full details here: go.illinois.edu/UIPGutmanPrize

cc: @laborlawchajournal.bsky.social

Who has written analytically about the concept of 'Marxolgy'? Has someone tried to define what Marxology is? What is its aims and practices? Its methods?

Recently learned that the more well-known illustration of the French edition of Capital (first image) was not the only one, and that there were at least two others that were full of republican iconography (second and third image)

Renata Keller and Dustin Walcher - A Cuban Story (Episode 1) In this episode, Dustin and Renata explain their goal for the audiodocumentary: to teach listeners about the Cuban context of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They speak with Lars Schoultz, Lillian Guerra, W

Dear friends: I am SO EXCITED to announce the release of the first episode of the SECOLAS audio documentary mini-series on the Cuban Missile Crisis that I co-produced with Dustin Walcher! (thread 1/7) #History 🗃️
soundcloud.com/historiaspod...

Episode 59: The Soviet Red Cross, Socialist Humanitarianism and India with Severyan Dyakonov Podcast Episode · Reimagining Soviet Georgia · 10/17/2025 · 1h 1m

For those who study Societ history - Reimagining Soviet Gerogia is a podcast with the participation of scholars talking about their research. Thank you Bryan and Sopiko for inviting me! Look up for the long list of previous series!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Episode with @historyned.bsky.social coming soon to @coldwarpod.bsky.social

Talking with @renatakeller.bsky.social about the Cuban Missile Crisis in Latin America. Check out our latest podcast and her new book from @uncpress.bsky.social in the thread below

Fellowships for doctoral candidates or postdoctoral researchers from Poland or Ukraine for a stay of up to six months in Halle. 👇

www.aleksander-brueckner-zentrum.org/forschung/au...

List of researchers focusing on the German Democratic Republic
go.bsky.app/drcrDK
#DDR #GDR #RDA #EastGermany