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In an investigation involving Vatican sources that have recently been opened for research, the paper reassesses the story of the actual or alleged Vatican-Soviet attempts at rapprochement initiated during and after World War ii with the aim to explore the considerations that shaped Vatican eastern policy at the end of the war. Ont the basis of a closer examination of the Orlemanski mission in the spring of 1944, the Flynn mission in March 1945, and the negotiations initiated in 1946 through Hungarian Jesuits it argues that despite Moscow's brief apparent display of willingness to cooperate at the end of the war, the failure of actual attempts at rapprochement was primarily due to the Kremlin's lack of interest. By contrast, the Vatican was truly open to dialogue, given the right conditions. Consequently, Pius xii's Eastern policy is to be interpreted through the paradigm not of intransigence but traditional Vatican concordat policy. The term Ostpolitik, however, unless used with some distinguishing qualification, seems inappropriate to Pius xii's stance on Eastern policy. Despite the similarities with the Vatican Ostpolitik of the 1960s, a close comparison shows up several basic differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication examines the foreign policy assessments and approach of the Soviet Bloc as regards political actors, domestic political struggle and related economic and social changes in Syria in the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. The study brings to the fore critical questions such as to what extent, in which cases and why that approach was adaptive or active. Visions, methods and means of assisting the communist regimes’ favorites to rule Syria are an essential part of the research. Aiming to construct a balanced picture, documents from the archival funds of the most faithful satellite of the Kremlin – the Bulgarian Communist Party, as well as information from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Cold War period are analyzed in a comparative study with advanced publications on Syriarelated topics in the fields of survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on recent scholarly interest in Latin America's Cold War, this paper breaks new ground in using a broad range of original documents from previously largely overlooked voices – the foreign ministries, parties, and security services agencies of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Romania – in discussing Cuba's Cold War involvement in Central America and the Caribbean from the First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party until the U.S. Grenada invasion. The candid reports provided by contemporary East European observers help us attain a more nuanced picture of Havana's complex policy dilemmas as it sought to negotiate and navigate between its vast ambitions, limited abilities, Soviet bloc restraint, and the ever-present threat of a U.S. invasion. Finally, further in line with the latest advancements in the globalized Cold War historiography, in hearing the voices of Moscow's junior partners, this article casts the events surrounding the tumultuous period in a broader Transatlantic setting beyond the shadows of the superpowers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of a 1962 incident involving Hungarian railway experts in China, this article examines the relationship between political disputes and economic cooperation. It seeks to answer the questions of why, how and for how long could economic, and scientific and technological cooperation be maintained between Hungary, a country belonging to the Soviet sphere of interest, and China, which increasingly regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy, in a period of political disputes and deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. Relying mainly on Hungarian archival documents, including minutes of HSWP Central Committee and Politburo meetings, Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports and analyses, and Ganz-MÁVAG files, the article argues that while the deterioration of Sino-Hungarian political relations went hand in hand with the worsening of Sino-Soviet relations, the break in trade, and scientific and technological cooperation, happened slower. Although, as political disputes escalated, the Chinese made interstate relations with the Soviet bloc countries increasingly difficult, the Beijing leadership sought to maintain partnerships in areas that it found beneficial for China's economy. As the Sino-Hungarian economic and technological disputes fit into a larger Sino-Soviet political conflict, the article puts the case of Ganz-MÁVAG Locomotive and Railway Carriage Manufacturers and Mechanical Engineers Hungary in context by reviewing the process of deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations and its influence on Sino-Hungarian relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation was re-established in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1953, with the aim of demonstrating that Germany continued to be a great cultural power and of marking its place on the international arena. It awarded very prestigious fellowships to researchers from abroad, based on the criteria of academic excellence and lack of quotas. Even if sporadically at the beginning, the Foundation’s relationship with the countries of Eastern Europe started to develop in the late 1960s, despite the opposite political systems of the two blocs. This happened in the context of the FRG’s East-centered foreign policy (Ostpolitik), and was also due to the opening of socialist countries to the West. The relationship, however, was marked in many cases by tensions, as political interests, as opposed to the cultural or academic dimension, prevailed. The article tackles the situation of the Humboldt fellows from Eastern Europe during the Cold War, focusing, from a comparative perspective, on the quantitative aspect, as well as on the political dynamics which determined their presence in West Germany.

As early as in the 1950s, especially in connection with the events of the fall of 1956 in Hungary, the need appeared for the formation of the Soviet doctrine of intra-bloc policy aimed at keeping under the military-political control of the USSR (if it was necessary - by force) the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, which fell under its influence as the result of the Second World War. However, this policy demanded its detailed ideological foundation as late as in 1968, when a large-scale military action was undertaken by five member countries of the Warsaw Pact to suppress the "Prague Spring". The concept of the Soviet foreign policy towards the bloc allies, which was reflected in some program manifestations of 1968, was defined in the West as the doctrine of limited sovereignty or the "Brezhnev doctrine". Polish crisis of 1980-1981 demonstrated the objective limits that stood in the way of the practical application of this doctrine. With the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev and his team in 1985 the Soviet leadership launched a revision of the principles of its policy towards the allied countries but it was not inclined to exert pressure on the communist leaders of Eastern Europe to reassess the specific facts of the Allies' military intervention in the internal affairs of these countries. The official revision of the Soviet concept, which affirmed the principle of collective responsibility for what is happening in one of the bloc's allied countries, was announced in December 1989, after the "velvet revolution" in Czechoslovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue focuses on the developments in ethical standards in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) including the former Soviet Union. Over thirty years have elapsed since the demise of the Soviet Bloc and, despite some common institutional features, the societies have had very different experiences with uneven developments across the region since the collapse of communism. In this special issue, the authors explore business and management ethics situated within the context of the challenges that face these still transforming post-communist societies. The papers cover a range of issues and countries including Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia. Potential further avenues for research are identified in the field of business ethics in post-communist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the development of Soviet and Hungarian science fiction (SF) in connection with the scientific and technical achievements as well as ideological changes in the USSR and Hungary. SF is considered as a literary genre with utopian and dystopian elements and as a form of sociophilosophical reflection in the context of social imagination. The research is focused on identifying both general aspects of the development of SF literature and related institutions (magazines, amateur associations) in the USSR and Hungary, and the specifics of their existence in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]