What Was Communism And What Did It Mean To Different People?
Sener Akturk, Political Science Department, U.C. Berkeley (Summary notes by Katie Galloway.) Overview: In this presentation Sener Akturk asks how we find reliable sources in a totalitarian society. He explains how to use bits and pieces (from propaganda posters to cartoons to personal accounts) to approximate a picture of the former Soviet Union – a society steeped in propaganda. Understanding Communism Requires geographical, temporal, and social lenses. The meaning of Communism for the people who lived under it is a vast and difficult topic to navigate because, first, there were many very different communist regimes around the world, from Cuba to Vietnam, from Yugoslavia to China, and of course the Soviet Union. Communist regimes also spanned long periods of time, in the case of the first socialist state, Soviet Union, 75 years or about three generations. Finally, the experience of communism, as is the case with all social experiences, is a relative one depending on the position that
