The New Central Europe

PREFACE

This book has been in the making for almost half a century. Its idea occurred to me in 1947 when, at age 36, I became a political exile and started a new life in the United States. The book I intended to write was to be free of any nationalist bias, a European federalist testimony on behalf of a generation born into the world revolution of the twentieth century. Born just before World War I and before Hungary's partition, I grew up in Czechoslovakia as a minority Hungarian in a cross-fire of rival nationalisms. As a Hungarian I did not feel free. As a Czechoslovak I felt as an undesirable alien. I studied and worked in Prague in the 1930's. In 1938, after the Munich surrender to Hitler, I moved to Budapest. It was there during World War II that I became a European federalist. It became my unshakable conviction ever since that only a democratic federalist reconstruction of Europe may end the painful ups and downs of contemporary European history of nation- states, with periodic triumphs for some, tragedies for others, but in the final analysis, tragedy for everybody. While making my living as an American professor of European his- tory, intellectually I was engaged in rethinking from a federalist point of view the history of twentieth century Europe in general, and of Central Europe in particular. This book became the result of my groping for truth. My federalist interpretations were mostly out of step with current views. Recently, however, history has caught up with me. In view of the hard- fought but steady progress of the European Community, a federalist review of the tragedy of Central Europe seems more timely than ever.

Unfortunately, it was not possible in this edition to adjust the bulk of the text composed at different stages of my work. This, however, should pose no serious problem. In most cases only changing "is" to "was" is necessary. Moreover, if some passages may occasionally seem outdated they are actually not obsolete. They are exposing Central Europe's volatile problems in a broader perspective, which is one of the principal aims of the book.

The book was written from three different vantage points in the second half of the twentieth century. The book's first version was finished in the 1950's. Published in London in 1960, its title "The Triumph of Tyranny" related the fate of Central Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Its better known title, "The Tragedy of Central Europe" was chosen for later American editions. The next version was written in the brighter times of the 1970's when the postwar cold war became East- West detente. Hopefully, this new version, a product of the 1990's, will be born into a world which will be triumphant over the tragedies of the past. For my generation of Central Europeans, Oscar Jászi was the Danubian federalist. In exile, after World War I, he was known as a professor at Oberlin College. I have dedicated my book to his memory in token of my gratitude, as I wrote in the Preface to the first edition, "for the inspiration and encouragement he gave me during the last decade of his life," when we became close friends.

Also, from the Preface of the original 1960 edition, the following sections are still relevant: . . . To view Communist tyranny exclusively as a revolt against aristocratic privilege and capitalist exploitation would be to miss the most important clue to Central Europe's tragedy. Nationalist conflicts played a far greater role in carrying Central Europe down the road to modem tyranny, first under the Nazis, then under the Communists, than economic oppression or social revolt.

The First World War awakened Western interest in the problems of smaller nations in Central Europe. But the understanding of these problems, almost a terra incognita until then, has ever since been hindered by prejudice and propaganda. It was erroneously presumed, above all, that the Western pattern of nation- state was a suitable form of political organization to replace the Habsburg Empire in the Danube region....

Without, I hope, becoming doctrinaire, I have stressed the disastrous effects of nationalism on the course of Central European history from the Habsburgs to the Soviet Russians. . . .

Without extolling federalism as a panacea for all the ills of modern mankind, I believe it is the only conceivable foundation upon which peace can be built in regions, such as Central Europe, where the peoples have paid so dearly for the reckless nationalist policies of their governments. . . .

In my analysis I have paid particular attention to Czechoslovakia and Hungary. I have done so because the Czechs and Hungarians played a leading part on opposing sides both at the dissolution of the Austrian Empire and in the era of nation- states following the First World War. As for terminology, I ought to state that I am using "Middle Zone" as a collective term which refers to the smaller nations of Central and Eastern Europe that are exposed to the pressure of Germany and Russia, the two Great Powers flanking them.... I am making use of the phrase to stress this critical position and nothing else. Nor do I wish to exclude other terms, such as the now familiar "Eastern Europe," referring to the countries which came under Communist domination after the Second World War, or the time- honored "Central Europe," "Danube Valley," "Southeastern Europe," and "Balkans," which are still meaningful expressions, in both the geographical and the political sense.

On the other hand, I have not availed myself of the term "East- Central Europe," now widely used by scholars with reference to all the Communist lands in Europe minus Russia, mainly because the two countries upon which this book is focused, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, do not come readily under that description. They belonged, according to the phraseology used before the Second World War, to "Central Europe," and I prefer to keep them there. . . . From the Preface of the 1980 edition, I would like to add these excerpts which still may have some relevance today: . . . Condemning the follies of anti- communism of the cold war era should not soften criticism of Soviet policies. I do condemn the irrational anti-communism of the cold war, yet my interpretation of what happened before, during, and after the Second World War differs radically from that of the revisionists. The main barrier that separates my thinking from that of the revisionists is not their pro- Soviet or my anti- Soviet stance. What separates us is my concern with the freedom of the smaller nations living in the Middle Zone between Germany and Russia. Such concerns are conspicuously absent from the works of the revisionists. Their primary interest is the rivalry among the Great Powers, above all the Soviet- American conflict. This is why, it seems to me, they can so lightly gloss over the subjugation of tens of millions of Europeans and say, as one of the American founders of the revisionist school, D. F. Fleming, did: "Soviet control of East Europe is the price we paid for the years of appeasement of Hitler, and it was not a high price." To Europeans who are actually paying "the price," this sounds exactly like the Western indifference of the 1930's, when Neville Chamberlain, to justify his appeasement policy of Hitler, spoke of "far- away" countries and peoples in Central Europe "of whom we know nothing." I feel fortunate to have lived long enough to see the collapse of Soviet tyranny and the rise of a European Union as the great promise of federalist democracy.

Many people mentioned in earlier editions have helped me in my work in one way or another. My gratitude for their help is undiminished. This time, however, I wish to mention only one of them: my wife, Zsoka, to whom I owe so much as my lifelong companion.

Boston, Massachusetts S. B.

May 1, 1993

The New Central Europe