ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the main cycles of repression and resistance that have enveloped Eastern Europe since the post-World War II Communist takeovers. It explores categories of dissent and opposition, placing them in historical context, defining them and assesses their objectives and focuses on various forms of extra-systemic social activism. The book presents a country-by-country analysis of political movements and human rights campaigns and provides an analytic overview of independent and institutional religious activities throughout the bloc. It also explores economic initiatives outside or on the periphery of the Party-state system and independent social campaigns and cultural trends and the few organized human rights initiatives of several national and ethnic minorities. The book concludes with emerging prospects for reform, dissent, opposition, and social activism in Eastern Europe.
