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?

Week 6 & 7 Fascist Revolution?

Although described as "revolution against revolution," Fascism certainly did not pose itself in purely negative terms - i.e. as an abnegation of Bolshevism. Right from the outset of his political career, Benito Mussolini proclaimed Fascism to be the doctrine of the forthcoming age, just as liberalism, democracy, faith in progress, etc. had been the guiding ideas of the preceding century. Having come to power in 1933 (we are going to take a closer look at this during our next lecture), Hitler announced the beginning of the "National-Socialist Revolution" with its own program and a streamline plan to redemption.

Now, could one describe fascism in revolutionary terms? If not fully, what was so radically novel about it? In what manner was fascism distinct from the traditional Right? Are there any aspects which bring fascism in affinity with its alleged mortal opponent - Marxism? In other words, what was 'modern' about the movement?

(To give a good answer to this question, I suggest you to take a look at the 25 Points of the NSDAP (1920) and an essay "Doctrine of Fascism" of Benito Mussolini. Both files are attached to this post and are uploaded on the intranet)

"Doctrine of Fascism" Benito Mussolini

25 Point Program

Week 5 - Eurasian Revolutions

Lenin, having arrived from Switzerland in a sealed wagon to engineer revolution in Russia, acted upon a presumption that the European war would soon be transformed into a world-wide revolution and a civil war. Time would soon prove him partially right, for the official cessation of hostilities on November 11, 1918, meant, more often than not, a kind of quaint projection of the external fronts into the sphere of domestic struggle. As it unilaterally withdrew from the conflict, Russia led the way, with war petering out and then flaring up again in the form of an all-out battle for the future of the fallen empire. Germany then, the provisional victor, soon followed the suit, becoming a scene of its own civil war. Out of the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire emerged new states, among which Hungary stood somewhat apart with its pro-Bolshevik, Soviet government. At one time or another, as Paxton writes, "the red flag flew from the Clydeside of western Scotland to Siberia" - a nigh-universal phenomenon giving rise to a plethora of dramatic epithets, all pertaining to capture the essence of those years: "European Civil War," "Eurasian Times of Trouble", etc.

Yet, contrary to Lenin's forecast, forces claiming to embody the most radical aspect of the Revolution, succeeded only in Russia. What Bolsheviks achieved remained an unfulfilled dream for their Hungarian counterparts (Bela Kun and Company), the Spartacists, workers in Milan and Turin, various forms of red regimes in Hamburg, Munich or Vienna. The question then is simply why the Bolsheviks succeeded where others had failed? Were Russian conditions in 1917 so distinct from the European situation one year later that the Revolution had to halt within the bounds where it began?

Week 4 - On the Eve

My apologies, first of all, for posting this week's assignment so late.

Given how little we have covered this week, I do not believe we are fully equipped to tackle the Revolution itself.

Hence, I propose that you image yourself to be a very well informed resident of the Russian empire in the year of 1900. You are wary, of course, of all the internal rumbling and discontent in the country, of the revolutionary underground organizations both within and without, of the accompanying and seemingly chronic incompetence of the government and of all the problems unleashed by the recent state-buttressed industrialization drive. At the same time you recognize readily all the advantages associated with the relative youth of the Russian society; you discern rapid changes within the social structure and are mildly hopeful that the economic transformations may ultimately enable the country to discard the burden of its own - real and perceived - backwardness.

Experiencing this mixture of hope and chagrin, you are asked to outline for a less informed observer than yourself two or three alternative paths that Russia may possible traverse in the near future. What lies in store for the country? your interlocutor asks you. Give him your prognosis for the next twenty years (forgetting, of course, the fact that you - real you in 2014 - have all seen it and knows everything in advance). Substantiate your forecast with arguments and examples.

Week 3 - Meaning of the World War

The war which broke out in August 1914 was not the first global conflict that mankind had ever waged. Suffice it to recall the Seven-year War in the XVIII century or the Napoleonic Wars in the XIX, raging in different continents and implicating hundreds of thousands of human beings, to make the above point clear.
Yet, there was something quite distinct in the nature of First World War, something going beyond the mere scale (staggering as it was), something which earned the war from its very outset the cognomen "the Great War."

I would like to ask you then what it was that distinguished this conflict from all other preceding conflicts. Why, after all, was it dubbed "the First World War" and what was so "universal" about it if not a mere scale of it?

Last-Minute Announcement

Today's class is rescheduled to take place at 4 pm in room 372. At 3 pm (i.e. at the time when our class is normally taking place) you are invited to come to the BG-Hall to listen to our professors reflect over presidential address. 

Week 2 - World War: Avoidable or Ineluctable

Europe, which seemed to have become the most sophisticated civilization, which had prided itself on being "civilized" in contrast to the rest of the world (found largely under its tutelage), had plunged itself into the abyss of barbarity from which it were never to recover. Some had considered this to be the inevitable result of social, political, economical and cultural anxieties, the kind of corollary of the very complexity and self-confidence in which Europe wallowed. Other observers, however, were quick to note that all previous crises - in Morocco, Bosnia (1908), Balkans (1912-1913), etc - were resolved without the use of arms (albeit, as Paxton puts its, after some ritual saber-rattling). They say too that in the long-run, Great Powers might have developed an algorithm, had come up with a rule whereby all conflicts involving issues of hegemony and pride might have been settled peacefully.

What is your stance on that issue? Could the war be avoided - or was it, on the contrary, unavoidable.

Week 1 - Europe in 1900: Traditional or Modern?

As it crossed the threshold of the XIX century, Europe offered a sight of conflicting scenes. Imperialist expansion transformed it into the Global Metropole, yet, most of the population kept on dwelling in profound province, buried in their parochial affairs. The poor, the middle class and the new wealth 'wrestled' with each other, giving a living testimony to the growing fluidity of the social life; at the same time, old aristocracy and withal the hierarchical structure which brooked no intervention, persisted as if it were immune to the challenges of the New Times. The old creeds - liberalism and conservatism - were permeated with the new ones, producing strange hybrids akin to Action Francaise of Charles Maurras.

This week you are asked to reflect over those contrasting visions and answer a somewhat schematic question: based on your reading and our lectures, do you consider Europe in 1900 as modern, traditional, or somehow a combination of both? You need to answer this by supporting your point with specific examples.

Good luck!

Introduction

This blog is designed as an integral part of your course. As I have mentioned in your syllabus, you are expected to contribute regularly by either answering to the major questions raised during the lectures or recording your reactions to the reading assignments scheduled for a given week. It goes without saying that your final grade depends to a large extent on the frequency of your contributions as well as the depth and relevance of your comments.

That said, you should view the blog not as an unavoidable onus constantly hovering over your harassed conscience, but as a chance to express your opinion in a relatively unconstrained and undogmatic environment. With the course offering your an opportunity to explore your temporal whereabouts, the blog should evolve into a forum wherein you could share your discoveries and revel in the discoveries of your colleagues. Hopefully this exchange of opinions will initiate you into the intra-subjective nature of history as a process, the mysterious entwining of individual experiences into a complex unity of shared fate.