The Soviet Union: Gorbachev, perestroika and socialism
The Russian revolution of 1917 was originally conceived as part of a transition to socialism on a global scale. The failure of that strategy led to a far‐reaching debate about the means by which a relatively backward Soviet Russia could advance by itself to a communist future. The Gorbachev years saw the issue addressed in terms of the construction of a ‘humane, democratic socialism’, seen as part of a global process; individual scholars and publicists advanced still further towards a socialism that would embody a multi‐party system and a variety of forms of ownership. Increasingly, however, still more radical commentators identified the origin of Soviet difficulties as Leninism itself. There was, in fact, little popular support for a return to capitalism; but the experience of Soviet rule showed that the authorities in that country needed the political experience of the West as much as they needed its capital investment.
Ideology and Soviet Politics
There has been general agreement that the official ideology of Marxism-Leninism plays a central role in Soviet politics. To at least some Western scholars, the importance of the official ideology is such that we are justified in regarding the Soviet political system as an ‘ideology’ or even ‘utopia in power’, with the official ideology functioning as a kind of blueprint which determines, or at least prescribes, the course of that society’s development.1 To the Soviet authorities themselves, there is equally no doubt that (in the words of the current Constitution) the October Revolution has given rise to a ‘new type of state’, a ‘basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building socialism and communism’, which in turn is part of a world-wide transition from capitalism to socialism.2 Yet, at least in Western scholarly circles, the nature of the ideology itself has tended to be taken as a ‘given’ in discussions of this kind.
Urban Identities and Catastrophe: Izmir and Salonica at the End of the Ottoman Empire*
Two huge fires dramatically influenced the urban development of Salonica and Izmir, in 1917 and in 1922, respectively. These catastrophes occurred after the Ottoman Empire fell, and Salonica and Izmir had shifted into new national contexts. The fires mainly destroyed the districts that were transformed during the late‐Ottoman period. These districts became the cosmopolitan façades of modern Izmir and Salonica. The post‐fires' tabula rasa provided an opportunity for Greek and Turkish politicians and European planners to change the urban identity of both cities. Moreover, the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 transformed their multicultural societies also. Reconstruction plans had been thought to de‐Ottomanize and remove the previous idea of the towns and their multiplicity, interpreting new cultural and nationalist feeling. Here, I emphasize how modernity was interpreted before and after the fires, and point out contradictions between ideological aspects of planning and how the first urban districts were built during the 1920s.