The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) released the latest issue of the IICCMER academic journal History of Communism in Europe, vol. 7/ 2016, at Zeta Books Publishing House, on the topic The (R)evolutionary Maze. Communist Parties in Europe.

Communism played a very important role on the 20th century European political and cultural stage, both as ideology and as an authoritarian/totalitarian state system. Communist parties all over Europe were called to lead the way in the fight for a revolutionary, equalitarian, utopic society, under the guidance of the III Communist International (founded in Moscow in 1919) and the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Although the Communist Parties in Europe were established and developed on a similar pattern until the breakout of World War II, during the Cold War important dissimilarities could be observed between Western and Eastern Europe. Communist Parties in Western Europe experienced different destinies than Communist Parties in the Soviet Bloc. The former were obliged to play the more or less democratic game, while the latter took power and started a profound process of transformation that shattered the traditional structures and cultures of the countries behind the Iron Curtain.

Nonetheless, after the fall of Communism in Europe in 1989, these parties had to face new challenges: some of them dissolved in the avatars of transition, others had to face an identity crisis.

This issue of History of Communism in Europe aims to follow the development and impact of Communist Parties on both sides of the Iron Curtain, considering that they were interconnected ideologically and institutionally, but also separated by the extremely different contexts in which they had to (re)act.

How did the network of Communist Parties across Europe function? What transformations did these parties suffer after 1989? What narratives of legitimization did they use, especially during the crises in the Soviet Bloc? Who were their most interesting leaders and Party members, what was their motivation to support the Communist cause and to what costs? These are a few of the questions the present volume addresses.

History of Communism in Europe no. 7/2016 can be purchased online here.