Week 14: People's Democracies

Collapse of the Soviet-sponsored regimes in Eastern Europe, effectuated within the span of two years, left the bewildered observer with an impression that "People's republics" were doomed to failure from the start. The liberal discourse unfolding around the notion of individual freedom appeared to have offered an easy - and reassuring - explanation which presented these regimes as illegitimate, the force of terror and soviet arms being their only viable buttress.

Still, to people living in the 60's and 70's things may have looked different. Externally, the opponents in the Cold War seemed to have accepted the status quo, bereaving the conflict of its dreadful poignancy. Internally, Eastern European governments were not particularly unstable, no more so than their western counterparts. Then the real question is whether these regimes, execrated after their demise by revisionist historians, did manage to find a formula whereby they became acceptable to the governed populace. In other words, did the states of the Eastern Bloc succeed in acquiring legitimacy which went beyond mere fear of internal reprisals or the prospects of Soviet interference? If so, what were the sources of social support which the Eastern European regimes could turn to their account? Could they have lasted longer without abandoning their aims and sacrificing their essential features?

Week 13: Prosperity and Protest

In defiance of all pessimistic forecasts, Western Europe quickly recovered from the damages of the war and entered onto the path of uninterrupted economic growth. The prosperity ushered by a combination of vigorous public spending and confident private enterprise made one quickly forget the beatific days of the Belle Epoque displaced, as it were, by new realities and new expectations. At the center of the post-war Europe stood then the benevolent welfare state charged to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable members lest they succumb to the penury devoid of honor and dignity (at least in theory). A counterpart of the welfare state, new consumer societies appeared to have at last exiled ideology from the political discourse to make the day-to-day living into the crucible of public attention.

This, however, did not salvage Europe from the brewing discontent, which saw itself fledged out in the students' and workers' protests in 1967-1968. The protesters widely differed in their demands, exhibiting nonetheless the unabashed contempt for the society of which they had been a part. Although reaching no profound changes - at least in the short run - the events 1967-68 aroused heated debates regarding the nature of turmoil. Are we dealing with genuine revolution in making, which, given a chance, might have altered the landscape of social life? Was it perhaps but a quasi-theatrical outburst on the otherwise calm surface of ubiquitous smugness - the outburst venting off residual violence accumulated in the years of growth? Do we witness instead a semi-conscious foreboding of hard times ahead, a growing realization of the unsustainability of the current lifestyle and the last-minute effort at finding a suitable alternative?

What do you think? 

Week 12: Meaning of Decolonization

Decolonization, or the dismantlement of the colonial empires, allegedly represented an effort at ending European/Western global hegemony with the subsequent transfer of power to the former colonial peoples. In the fact of autonomy or independence many a leader of anti-colonial movements recognized the restoration of historical justice, a kind of mental return to the path traversed before the colonial times with an aim of resuming this interrupted movement.

Yet, in more than one respect, the newly founded states remained profoundly bound to their former masters; economically dependent, they relied on foreign industries and exports. Politically weak, they were often indefensible in the face of intrusions or interventions carried out by the Europeans and Americans putatively to bring stability into the region. Most importantly, however, was a type of mental dependence which doomed the recent members of the international community to to the stock ideas concocted by the West; suffice it to say that the very idea of national self-determination (to say nothing of the nation-state) appeared and was first applied in the West, seeping then out through the narrow European confines when the Old World was no longer capable of keeping this "privileged right" to itself.

So then, what was decolonization - the restoration of historical 'truth', of history itself to the dispoiled colonial peoples, or the extension of the European principles to the rest of the world - principles, which ultimately underlie the system of dominance of which Imperialism was but one expression?

Week 11: Origins of the Cold War

In 1945 the United States and the Soviet Union had demonstrated the efficacy of the coordinated allied effort by defeating the Nazi Germany. The two had reemerged from the most exacting war exhausted to be sure (the Soviet Union especially), but surrounded by the aura of international respectability never to be enjoyed again. The allied powers had spoken at length about the global future and it seemed as if the partnership forged during the years of struggle, might extend into the peace time as a guarantee of the world-wide security.

Or did it? In less than three years from the end of the war, having forgotten about common sacrifices, the Americans and the Soviets were eyeing each other with unconcealed animosity informing the opposite party with designs of the most malicious intent. Then, of course, the question emerges: was the rapidly coming Cold War result of geopolitical misunderstanding between the superpowers poised to protect their spheres of influence? Were the emerging disagreements of the short-term nature, or, on the contrary, did they stem from something deeply-entrenched in the histories of two nations, something which only needed the war to come to surface? In other words, were the United States and the USSR (or Russia, if you will) destined to vie for the fate of the world as was forecast by Alexis de Tocqueville more then a century before it actually "came to blows"? 

Today's announcement

Tuesday practice (which did not take place due to the Nauryz celebrations) is scheduled to take place today in room 444 at 6 pm. Please try to attend for we are going to cover the material which might prove essential for your paper. 

Week 10: War and Radicalization of the Nazi Regime

From the vantage point of the post-WWII years, it seems easy to discern the annihilating tendencies inherent in the Nazism right from the moment of its advent to power, if not from its very origin. Yet, all through the 30's the Nazis and Hitler in particular were working hard to reassure the public of their peaceful intentions, demanding justice for Germany at best , rather than expansion. Although created in the early years of the Nazi regime, by 1936 the concentration camps (Dachau and Buchenwald) contained but few thousands inmates, most of whom were primed for release. Even with respect to the "Jewish question," the Nazis overtly preferred emigration encouraged by bans, discriminatory legislations and anti-Semitic campaigns.

With war, the regime was quickly tranformed into the murderous machine, tresspassing limits of concievable inhumanity, making virtue of beastiality and integrating death into the programmatic part of its policies. The racial utopia it had endeavored to build turned into the funeral pyre of old morality, Europe and Germany itself. "To write poetry after Auschwitz (became) barabaric," Theodor Adorno famously wrote, encapsulating - schematically to be sure - the end of the civilization with all its naive pretensions to selflessness and idealism.

The question that I would like to pose concerns the causes rather than the aftermaths. Seeing the progression of events, is it fair to say that it was the war itself launched in 1939, which, by removing all inhibitions to actions, precipitated rapid radicalization of the Nazi Germany from an incredibly intolerant regime to an instrument of mass murder? Or, shall the chain of cause and effect be reversed, with the war being seen only as a translation of internal developments in pre-1939 Germany, cast, as it were, onto the surface of the outer world?

Week 8: Appeasement and the Nazi-Soviet Non-Agression Treaty

This time around I am giving you an option of two questions to choose from (i.e. you'd need to write an entry only with regard to one question). To address issues raised below, you would need to finish reading Paxton, chapter 13, as we hadn't had time to discuss them in the course of the previous lecture.

My first question touches upon the policy of appeasement. As we have pointed out, the large segments of the European society had emerged from the First World War not only war-weary, but war-averse, determined to preempt the repetition of the comparable apocalyptic show-down. The appeasement pursued by leading politicians of Britain and France took into account the anti-war sentiments in hope of fulfilling Hitler's demands without resorting to violence. Yet, as Churchill asserted after the Munich settlement, rather than bringing peace, the apologists of the appeasement only facilitated war.

My question then is: why did appeasement fail? Or, put it in somewhat different terms, could it have ever succeeded in its aims - which, as we know, did not consist in maintaining status quo or European balance of powers, but in preserving peace at all cost.

My second question raised the degree of responsibility of the Soviet Union in bringing about the war. Hitler, having decided to escalate its conflict with Poland over Danzig, would have probably not dared to attack that country (and risk getting into war with the Western Powers) had he not first secured Germany's eastern borders by striking a deal with Stalin. Now, given the role that the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty played in unfettering Hitler's hands - and more importantly, given the subsequent invasion of the Soviet armies into Poland on Sept 17, 1939 - could the Soviet Union be classified as an aggressor, or, as a nation placed alongside Germany as responsible for unleashing the war?