Category: Communist regimes

The other ‘God That Failed’? The triumph and tragedy of 1989

     

“Always prepared!” For decades, it was a catchphrase of the Pioneers, an outdoorsy youth group that was a hallmark of communist indoctrination efforts targeting schoolchildren throughout the U.S.S.R. and its… Read more »

How to re-ignite democracy: Recovering the promise of 1989

     

  After communism fell, the promises of western liberalism to transform central and eastern Europe were never fully realized – and now we are seeing the backlash, argue Ivan Krastev and Stephen… Read more »

Demolishing Faith: China sharpens hacking to hound minorities, home and abroad

     

China’s hackers have since built up a new arsenal of techniques, such as elaborate hacks of iPhone and Android software, pushing them beyond email attacks and the other, more basic… Read more »

First post-Castro crisis: A path toward change in Cuba?

     

For all the talk of restructuring (aka re-branding) in the face of an acute economic crisis, Cuba’s Communist regime is sticking with the same apparatchiks. “#Cuba maintains current leaders in… Read more »

Fulfilling the promise of 1989: Time for a second liberation of ‘profound renewal’

     

On the tenth anniversary of 1989, at the brink of the millennium, we could celebrate both the original triumph of the velvet revolutions and great subsequent progress. By the twentieth… Read more »

Cuba’s rebranded dictatorship ‘heading firmly in a more authoritarian direction’

     

  The European Union and Cuba yesterday held their second formal Human Rights Dialogue, under the EU-Cuba Agreement on Political Dialogue and Cooperation. The dialogue is supposed to enhance bilateral engagement… Read more »

China’s authoritarian model poses long-term threat to democracies

     

China poses a long-term threat to the United States, to liberal democracy and to the international order,  John C. Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, told a policy forum in… Read more »

A ‘confrontation of monumental proportions is coming’ in Hong Kong

     

The Sharp Sword stealth drones and the intercontinental ballistic missiles and the truck-borne monuments to the Communist struggle are ready. Flowers have been planted and red lanterns hung along all… Read more »

“Iron curtain of information” descending on Cuba

     

Some 14 Cuban non-governmental organizations* have declared that a new “iron curtain of information” is descending that further censors access to the internet, and restricts the flow of information. The… Read more »

Cuba: battling economic crisis, escalating attacks on civil society

     

Communist-run Cuba has imposed sweeping price controls on all state and private businesses as it battles a deepening economic crisis and mounting U.S. sanctions, Reuters reports: Resolutions published in the… Read more »