A Rhetorical Crime: Genocide in the Geopolitical Discourse of the Cold War

Anton Weiss-Wendt

Published by Rutgers University Press 2018

A Rhetorical Crime

Genocide in the Geopolitical Discourse of the Cold War

Anton Weiss-Wendt
Preface by: Douglas Irvin-Erickson

In the series Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813594699

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Genocide Convention was drafted by the United Nations in the late 1940s, as a response to the horrors of the Second World War. But was the Genocide Convention truly effective at achieving its humanitarian aims, or did it merely exacerbate the divisive rhetoric of Cold War geopolitics?

A Rhetorical Crime shows how genocide morphed from a legal concept into a political discourse used in propaganda battles between the United States and the Soviet Union. Over the course of the Cold War era, nearly eighty countries were accused of genocide, and yet there were few real-time interventions to stop the atrocities committed by genocidal regimes like the Cambodian Khmer Rouge.

Renowned genocide scholar Anton Weiss-Wendt employs a unique comparative approach, analyzing the statements of Soviet and American politicians, historians, and legal scholars in order to deduce why their moral posturing far exceeded their humanitarian action.

Author / Editor information

ANTON WEISS-WENDT is a research professor at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Oslo, Norway. He is the author of many books, including The Soviet Union and the Genocide Convention, 1945–1954.

Reviews

"New Scholarly Books: Weekly Book List, June 8," by Nina C. Ayoub

— Chronicle of Higher Education

"Anton Weiss-Wendt has presented clear and innovative arguments on a crucial topic and scrupulously supported them with relevant documents and other evidence. In so doing, he has written a salutary alternative narrative of human rights in the Cold War, one that has the potential to improve our understanding of Cold War dynamics as a whole."

— Michigan War Studies

"No one to date has documented the history of the concept of genocide with the same level of sophistication as Weiss-Wendt. A Rhetorical Crime stands as the definitive study of this period in the evolution of international criminal law."

— David Crowe, author of War Crimes, Genocide, and Justice: A Global History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword Douglas Irvin-Erickson Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Soviet Scholars of International Law as Foot Soldiers in the Cold War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2. Trial by Word: The Gulag Condemned Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
3. Soviet Satellites Shift Allegiances: Hungary, Yugoslavia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
4. The Struggle for Influence in Postcolonial Africa and the Middle East: Algeria, Congo, Nigeria, Iraq Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
5. Southeast Asia and the Rise of Communist China: Tibet, Bangladesh, Cambodia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
6. (Soviet) Piggy in the Middle: American Liberal Left versus Radical Right on US Ratification of the Genocide Convention Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
7. Moscow Taps the New Left: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement, Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
8. Soviet-Turkish Relations and Socialist Armenia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
9. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
10. An Uncertain End to the Cold War and the Reactivation of the Genocide Treaty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Afterword: Genocide Rhetoric and a New Cold War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Appendix A: Articles in Pravda with Reference to Genocide, 1948–1988 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Appendix B: Articles in the New York Times with Reference to Genocide, 1948–1988 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Keywords: genocide; Cold War; human rights; Genocide Convention; US; USSR; Soviet Union; Soviet genocide; Communist; Raphael Lemkin; Soviet-American; international; politics

eBook

Published: May 10, 2018
ISBN: 9780813594699