An investigation was carried out of the thermal and anionic polymerization of substituted phenyl- acetylenes (a-nitro, p-nitro andp-dimethylamino). Thermal polymerization gives rise to conjugated oligomers. Under the conditions of anionic polymerization only dimer is formed from p-dimethyl- aminophenylacetylene. The radical polymerization of the charge-transfer complex of p-dimethyl- arninophenylacetylene with maleic anhydride (molar ratio 2: 3) yielded an ...