The New Central Europe

SINCE 1989, following the collapse of Communism, Central Europe, as restored after World War II, began to disintegrate. No map of THE NEW CENTRAL EUROPE can be drawn up yet. For now, only a blank page can take its place.

THE IRON CURTAIN AND THE COLD WAR

With the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, in February 1948, the westward expansion of Soviet power reached its full scope. The power-vacuum left in Central Europe by Germany's defeat in the Second World War had been filled. It was replaced by Soviet power. Pre- war independent Central Europe became Communist Eastern Europe with Soviet Russia as the overlord.

The East- West alliance which had defeated Hitler lay in ruins; likewise ruined were the Yalta agreements, with their expectation that the governments of the Middle Zone nations would be independent of, while friendly toward, the Soviet Union. In a series of cleverly manipulated moves, through deceit as well as force, the Soviets helped to hoist Communist dictatorships to power in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary Poland, and finally Czechoslovakia. Thus, while independent in name, these countries with a total population of about 70 million people became colonies, or so- called satellites, of the Soviet- Russian empire.

The architect of this policy, Marshal Stalin, could take no little pride in his achievement. He had led Russia to victory in the greatest struggle of her history; he had moved Russia's frontiers westward into East Prussia and across the Carpathians into former Czechoslovak Ruthenia; he had extended Russian power, and with it the Communist revolution, across the satellites and the occupation zone of Germany, deep into the heart of the European continent.

But 1948 was not exclusively a year of triumph for Stalin's imperial communism. In June of that year, the Communist world was shaken by Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform. Although called "expulsion," Yugoslavia's case was actually one of preventive "self- liberation" to forestall Russian domination. Tito's position was strong enough; he needed no Soviet support to maintain himself in power; he could afford to resist Soviet infiltration. And, although the overwhelming majority of Yugoslavia's 16 million people were not Communist, the country stood behind Tito in his bid for freedom from Soviet interference. The Tito affair struck a heavy blow at Soviet Russia's post- war policy of expansion. In a most drastic manner, it gave the lie to the Russians' contention that the so- called people's democracies were one happy family of Communist nations. Now even Tito, most prominent among Eastern Europe's Communist leaders, was to testify to Soviet Russia's oppression and exploitation of these nations. The Stalin- Tito break revealed the grave conflict which existed even on the Communist level between the people's democracies and Soviet Russia. It foreshadowed the struggles for independence to come against Soviet imperialism in the Communist- dominated nations.

And then too, 1948 witnessed the closing of ranks among the Western nations to forestall further Soviet expansion. The Marshall Plan that great economic recovery program, was followed up now by a series of political and military moves. The Western nations were forging ahead, more resolutely than ever before, toward unity. They formed unprecedented alliances, like NATO, the first military alliance in peacetime between the United States and Europe. They also revived old ideas of federal union among the strife- torn European nations. Rather as in the Second World War, it was Churchill again who raised the banner of a United States of Europe. In the so- called cold war against the threat of Communist world domination, the terms "Western Union" and "Atlantic Community" became the popular watchwords of the free world. In actually repelling Communist militarism, too, the strength of Western unity made itself felt, in both Europe and Asia. The Soviet attempt to force the Western Powers from occupied Berlin by blockading the city (June 1948- May 1949) ended in failure. The Communist aggression in Korea (June 1950) met with collective resistance organized under the aegis of the United Nations. Thus Stalin's aggressive post- war policy produced something he was least eager to promote: a search for new forms of cooperation and unity among the nations of the West.

Mainly the Soviet aggression in Eastern Europe prompted the Western nations to unite. But the Russians, European satellites were not the main issue within the great East- West struggle led by the two super-powers of the post- war world, Russia and the United States. True, the West denounced the Russians for depriving these nations of their in- dependence and for subjecting them to a rule of ruthless terror. Also, a heavy propaganda barrage was directed toward the satellites from the West, especially from the United States, on the principle of keeping the hope of freedom alive in the captive lands. But it was primarily a protective barrage in the interest of Western security. For the more the Russians were hampered in consolidating their puppet regimes, the less Eastern Europe could serve them as a base for aggression against the West. In addition, generous American military and economic aid was given to Tito: it was intended partly to back him up in his feud with the Russians, a feud which prompted him to adopt a somewhat less authoritarian form of Communist dictatorship; partly the aid was given in the hope of causing more trouble to the Soviet Union by encouraging, through Tito's example and his reward, the latent forces of "Titoism" in the satellites. Following the American election campaign of 1952, which was waged at the height of an anti- Communist propaganda crusade, the slogan for liberation of the satellites was frequently heard. But all the multiple expressions of Western sympathy for the satellites could hardly conceal the fact that both the chief concern of the West's policy and also the chief points of the East- West conflict lay elsewhere. They lay in the former colonial areas of Asia and Africa, where, as many distinguished Western experts believed, the global struggle between communism and democracy was bound to be decided. And as far as Europe was concerned, it was clear beyond doubt that there the cold war was being fought essentially for the control of Germany.

With the collapse of East- West cooperation the conditions envisaged for a German peace settlement had been invalidated. Consequently the original joint punitive policy toward Germany, which rested on the assumption of East- West cooperation, was abandoned. It gave way to rival policies, each aiming to enlist Germany in the power bloc of either the East or the West. The Western zones of occupation were formed into the Federal Republic of Germany, and integrated gradually into the West's economic, political and military organizations. Simultaneously the Soviet zone of occupation was accorded Soviet- style sovereignty, and membership in the Soviet satellite empire, under the name of the German Democratic Republic. Thus Germany remained divided, with over 50 million of Europe's 70 million Germans living in the western Federal Republic. Both East and West advocated reunification of divided Germany, but under mutually unacceptable conditions. The Western program of free elections was unacceptable to the Russians because it spelled certain defeat for the Communists. The Soviet program of an East- West German coalition government was unacceptable to the West because it smacked of the Soviet tactics of seizing power.

The East- West deadlock over Germany was of course no obstacle to the Russians in carrying out communization of the eastern half of Europe. On the contrary this deadlock suited Stalin's intention well: for only in a Europe partitioned, with the eastern half hermetically sealed off by the Iron Curtain from the western half, could Stalin's rule of terror operate in high gear. But no sooner had the Iron Curtain sealed off the satellites from the West than Tito's defection made Stalin aware of a danger threatening him from within the Communist orbit. Thus during the Stalinist rule of terror the heresy of Titoism, or national communism, was persecuted in the satellites with no less brutality than all other crimes purportedly of Western origin. From 1948 to 1952, many Communists suspected of Titoist sympathies found that their way led to the gallows, prisons and concentration camps, in company with other victims of the Stalinist terror. Whether less brutality would not better have served the Communist cause was something for Stalin's successors to ponder. At any rate, the rule of terror achieved at least one object of the Communist revolution: it completed the destruction of the old social and economic order in the satellites.

The new society, on the other hand, was a far cry from what the happy slogans of Communist propaganda pretended. The Communists spoke of a "free and classless" society. But in reality the new society was the victim of "the most refined tyranny and the most brutal exploitation," as described by Milovan Djilas, a disenchanted Yugoslav Communist. And the power of the "new ruling and exploiting class" was, to quote Djilas again, "more complete than the power of any other class in history. . . ." Political power was monopolized by the Communist party, property was concentrated in the hands of the new regime, the regimented society was under the surveillance of the ubiquitous secret police. Moreover, in the Soviet satellites, unlike in Tito's Yugoslavia, the tyranny of the "new class" was doubled by the tyranny of the Soviet Union. For the rule of terror in the satellites was not solely of their own making. It was engineered and directed from Moscow, where Stalin, aging tyrant of the Kremlin, presided over this hierarchy of violence.

But great as was the corruption of the revolutionary cause, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe under Communist tyranny were nevertheless undergoing truly revolutionary changes. The new society consisted of more than merely the "new class" of opportunists and exploiters, stooges of the Kremlin and brutal thugs of the secret police. Behind the facade of the corrupted revolution, and beneath the apathy and cynicism of the terrorized and demoralized masses, the vision of a new freedom was kept alive. It was alive among the peasants and the workers as well as among the new intelligentsia of proletarian origin. Communist tyranny deprived the people of the fruits of the hard work spent in rebuilding their war- ravaged countries, it preached social justice on the one hand and made mockery of it on the other; nevertheless it was instrumental in generating a new social consciousness.

The peasants resisted Communist collectivization as firmly as they hated the memory of the defunct latifundia. The workers (their number swollen under forced industrialization) despised Communist work norms as deeply as they scorned the old capitalist owners' class. And the new intelligentsia of proletarian origin, in spite of totalitarian indoctrination and isolation, nurtured instinctive sympathies for the democratic traditions of political radicalism. Moreover, the oppressed masses of the new society shared with the scattered members of the disintegrated old society their general suffering and humiliation. Hurt national feelings and persecuted religious beliefs increased the spirit of social solidarity. This suspicion- ridden, corrupt and exploited new society was living in a state of fear and frustration. Nevertheless it was carrying in itself the promise of a new social order as different from the Communist present (with regard to civil rights) as from the capitalist past (with regard to property rights).

Stalin's death, in March 1953, marked the opening of a new era in the history of the Soviet satellites. The new Soviet "collective" leadership (headed first by Premier Georgi M. Malenkov and later by Marshal Nikolai A. Bulganin, but concentrated increasingly in the hands of the Communist party's first secretary, Nikita S. Khrushchev was indeed no less determined than Stalin to keep the Soviet satellite empire intact. Russia's security together with the service of the Communist cause committed the new Soviet leaders to a policy of sustaining Stalin's conquests. But they were also aware of the critical state of their legacy. They seemed to realize that the terror and violence by which Stalin had The New Central Europe 204

built the Soviet satellite empire were no suitable instruments for maintaining it.

Two new instruments were devised by Stalin's successors to maintain the status quo. One was liberalization in the satellites, the other peaceful coexistence with the West. The object was clear enough. The new policy sought broader popular support for the satellite regimes in order to assuage widespread discontent. The Russians were out to prove that the satellites were independent, sovereign nations who of their own free will followed a policy of close cooperation with Soviet Russia; logically therefore it should appear that communism in the satellites presented no obstacle to peaceful coexistence between East and West. The "thaw," "new look," or "new course," as this new Communist policy was called, affected the satellite dictatorships in different ways. They began to display more distinctly than before characteristics of their own. Inasmuch as this was in line with the Leninist principle of "different roads to socialism," the Soviet leaders began to cite it in support of their new policy.

The "different roads," to be sure, were still to lead to the Kremlin. Nevertheless an important concession was made by the new leaders of Soviet Russia in their lifting of the anathema issued by Stalin against Tito. This reconciliation between the Kremlin and Tito, in June 1955, was supplemented in the satellites by the release of the imprisoned, and the rehabilitation of the executed so- called "Titoists." The concessions made to Titoism were calculated also to impress Western public opinion. And the Kremlin could take no little pleasure in observing a marked tendency in the West to accept some form of national communism as the best attainable solution of the satellites' problem. This optimistic appraisal of the new Soviet regime's conduct was strengthened by Russia's surprising decision to withdraw her occupation forces from Austria. When with the signing of a peace treaty in May 1955 Austria emerged as a neutral free nation, hopes began to rise that the long East- West deadlock on the German peace treaty might also be broken. In addition, Russia's success in catching up with the West in the thermonuclear arms race contributed a sense of urgency about ending the cold war. The hopeful mood of the peaceful coexistence era culminated in the Big Four meeting at Geneva of July 1955, only to be followed by disappointment when the subsequent meeting of the foreign ministers again reached a deadlock on the German question. Nor was this disappointment eased by Russia's magnanimity in evacuating the Finnish naval base of Pork- kala, thereby restoring full sovereignty to her western neighbor in the north.

The German question kept the cold war in Europe alive. The satellites' situation, on the other hand, disturbed East- West relations relatively little. Naturally, pronouncements were heard from time to time expressing hope in the captive peoples' liberation, and a private American organization, the National Committee for Free Europe, gave support to the liberation propaganda of the exiles from Communist lands; but President Eisenhowerand Secretary of State John Foster Dulles began to speak more guardedly on the theme of "peaceful liberation," than they had during the election campaign of 1952. Official American pronouncements came to favor "self- liberation" rather than "liberation." Such an ambiguous expression could of course have several meanings. For one it could seem to mean that the captive nations would soon regain freedom, with or without Western help, because the Communist system in the satellites was heading toward collapse. For another, it could seem to mean, especially to listeners behind the Iron Curtain, that America was encouraging the captive peoples to strike for freedom. All that a realistic appraisal of Western policy could fairly conclude, however, was that the West took the position of an interested observer of the satellites' struggles and wished them well. And as far as the fermentation of the post- Stalin era in the satellites was concerned, the utmost one could realistically hope for was that the captive nations might succeed in regaining some measure of independence from Moscow, somewhere between the satellite status and Titoist independence.

The Soviets labelled the "satellites problem" an invention of Western propaganda. A Soviet press communique of June 14, 1955, for instance, sharply attacked Secretary of State Dulles's intention of bringing up "the problem of the countries of Eastern Europe" at the forthcoming Geneva conference. "It should be clear to all," said the Soviet communique, "that no 'problem of the countries of Eastern Europe' exists." The peoples of these countries, having overthrown the rule of the exploiters, have established in their countries a people's democratic government and will not allow anyone to interfere with their domestic affairs." Previously, the Soviets had branded even such serious outbreaks of discontent as the East Berlin workers' riots and the Pilsen strike of Czech workers, in June 1953, as the work of Western provocation. Yet obviously the very policy by which Stalin's heirs sought to improve the critical conditions within the satellites belied the Soviet contention that no problem of the satellite states existed. And for that matter, no Western provocation could have stirred up greater confusion in the satellites than did Khrushchevhimself with the de- Stalinization campaign that he launched at the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist party in February 1956.

The events of 1956 proved, if proof were needed, that the satellites problem did indeed exist. Moreover these events proved that that problem, far from being invented by Western propaganda, was capable of an explosion that could take both the Russians and the West completely by surprise. The confusion reigning in the ranks of the Western allies, who had let their cold war unity melt away in the relaxed mood of the era of peaceful coexistence, was of great help to the Russians in surviving the 1956 crisis. But the Russians' other good luck was that the confusion stirred up by Khrushchevs de- Stalinization campaign did not engulf the entire satellite empire. The Balkan satellites, Romania and Bulgaria, not to speak of Albania, were barely awakening from the apathy of the Stalinist rule of terror. East Germany was under massive Soviet military occupation and was given very little chance to participate in the benefits of the liberalization policy. Czechoslovakia, though not under Soviet occupation, was held in bondage by her efficient domestic Communists. Post- Stalin fermentation of the Czech Communists was cautious, while the people were disenchanted with Pan- Slav friendship for Russia and thoroughly frightened over the German revival in the West. Czechoslovakia's passivity under Communist tyranny was a fact which embarrassed anti- Communist exiles as well as puzzled Western liberals who remained remarkably faithful to the memory of democratic Czechoslovakia but seemed to know little about the Czechs, talent for passive resistance as a means to national survival.2 National characteristics were not necessarily the decisive factor in determining the satellites' behavior under communism. But independence-mindedness and traditional anti- Russian feelings could at least partly explain why the Soviet liberalization policy got out of hand in Poland and Hungary Both the Polish and Hungarian Communists, who took their cue from Khrushchevin criticizing the Stalinist past, went much further than the Soviet liberalization policy intended them to go. They did not stop at uncovering the crimes committed against their fellow Communists. They did not simply restore "socialist legality," to strength- en the Soviet loyalty of the satellite regimes, as Khrushchevexpected them to do. They criticized ever more boldly the corruptness and bankruptcy of the entire Soviet system which had betrayed the promise of a socialist society and had deprived the nations of their independence. The attacks against the existing regime were led by writers and students, in fact, by the elite of the new society. And the liberty which the Communists themselves took in criticizing their own system awakened the masses of people from the apathy into which they had sunk under the rule of terror.

In Poland the people manifested their regained vigor in the uprising of the Poznan workers in July 1956. The Soviet leaders tried to blame the Poznan revolt on "imperialist agents" and warned the Polish Communist party against the dangers of "democratization." But the party group which advocated democratization (and which fortunately included Party Secretary Edward Ochab) forged ahead. It won a victory on October 21 when Wladyslaw Gomulka, imprisoned under the Stalinist rule of terror as a national Communist, was elected the new First Secretary. The top Russian Communist leadership hastily arrived in Warsaw, but could not stop the rebellion. Khrushchevs threat to use Soviet troops was countered by Gomulka's threat to appeal to the nation.

Following Gomulka's victory the Soviet troops remained stationed in Poland and the country also kept her membership in the Soviet military alliance system set up by the Warsaw Treaty of 1955; but the military rights of the Russians were now regulated by new accords. Agreement on Polish- Soviet military cooperation, in defense of Poland's territorial integrity, against Germany, was favored by the Poles themselves. This was no surprise, since Poland's western frontiers, along the Oder- Neisse line, were recognized as final only by the Soviet bloc nations. Politically, on the other hand, the new Polish Communist regime won freedom from Soviet interference. The Polish coup thus achieved, if not the Tito- type, but a kind of Communist self- liberation from Russian domination.

Events in Hungaryhad a different ending. There the Communist advocates of democratization regarded Imre Nagy, the new- course Premier from July 1953 to March 1955, as their leader. But Nagy was not given a chance to play the Gomulka role in Hungary When the Russians removed the country's hated Stalinist, Mátyás Rákosi as Party Secre- The New Central Europe 208

tary in July 1956, it was only to replace him with his hated alter ego, Ern_ Ger_. And when Imre Nagy was finally recalled to power, it was too late.

In Budapest on October 23 a peaceful demonstration was staged in sympathy for Gomulka's victory in Poland. This demonstration was rapidly transformed into a nationwide insurrection when the secret police fired at the demonstrators and when (in the early morning of October 24) Soviet troops intervened. At this juncture Imre Nagy was made Premier, in the thick of a revolution he neither wished for nor knew how to stop. He could scarcely be blamed for not being able to work out a compromise with Russia on the Polish model, for from the very beginning the course of the revolution was different from the Polish. And then too the status of Hungaryas a Soviet satellite was unique. None of the other satellites experienced such deep humiliation, under leaders so "foreign" and "alien" to the people (as Imre Nagy himself accurately characterized them) as did Hungaryunder the tyranny of the Muscovites.3 Furthermore, following the Second World War, Soviet Russiasupported all the Middle Zone nations' claims for territorial compensation except those of Hungary4 Poland and Czecho- slovakia in particular depended upon Russia for the security of their territorial status quo against Germany. And even the rebel Tito was prone to fall in line with Moscow's policy toward Germany, irrespective of fluctuations in Yugoslav- Soviet relations. The Hungarians on the other hand were not afraid of Germany, and therefore sought no protection against her from Russia; moreover they regarded themselves as victims both of Communist tyranny and of Pan- Slav imperialism. In addition to everything else, these were factors in the revolution. The fighting spirit of the Hungarian insurgents could hardly be explained without taking these special circumstances into consideration.

Nagy knew that socialism could never be a success in Hungaryby way of "denationalization" and "national nihilism" under leaders who opposed "the ideal of national independence, sovereignty, and equality, as well as Hungarian national feeling and progressive traditions." He wished for the leadership of those "who spring from the people and are of the people, and fight for them."5 And he wished for a peaceful evolution toward this end. But once the revolution broke loose, Nagy had no choice save to identify himself with it. Nor was there essentially anything in this spectacular, spontaneous insurrection of which he, as an honest patriot and Communist, could not approve. What the revolution in essence demanded was the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the establishment of a truly free socialist society to replace the corrupt Communist society which overnight had collapsed like a pack of cards.

The principal forces of the revolution were the industrial workers and the new intelligentsia of proletarian origin. The revolution was the work of the new, not of the old, Hungarian society, a fact which some Western liberals, with leftist suspicion of all things Hungarian on account of the country's past reactionary record, were slow in recognizing. A mistaken view was also taken by those who were misled by conservative and Catholic propaganda and saw the imprisoned Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty's spiritual inspiration as the principal force behind the revolution. The cardinal, as a matter of fact, was freed only on the eighth day of the revolution. He returned to Budapest in triumph, and no doubt rightist elements, both at home and in exile, would gladly have exploited the popularity of the martyred cardinal for their special political purposes. But it is unlikely that any survivors of Hungarys checkered past could have changed the course of the workers' victorious democratic revolution had the Russians allowed that revolution to stabilize itself.6 The revolution seemed to be victorious on the fifth day, at which time the Russians decided to withdraw from Budapest. The Communist Premier, Imre Nagy, formed a coalition government with those democratic parties which had been suppressed under the Stalinist rule of terror, the Social Democrats the Smallholders and the Peasants. But the consolidation of the new regime, and of the revolution which produced it, proved a tragic failure.

A Soviet statement, on October 30, acknowledged that "the further presence of Soviet Army units in Hungarycan serve as a cause for an even greater deterioration of the situation," and it also expressed the Soviet government's willingness to enter into negotiations "on the question of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of Hungary" Meanwhile, however, Soviet reinforcements poured into the country. Thereupon Premier Nagy, yielding to the pressure of revolutionary groups and in a desperate effort to save the revolution, repudiated Hungarys membership in the Warsaw Treaty, proclaimed the country's neutrality, and appealed to the United Nations for help. The chronological sequence of these moves was significant. For it showed that, contrary to widely held opinion, Nagy's renunciation of the Warsaw Treaty was not the cause of Soviet aggression but rather the result of it. The Russians responded with a sinister game of duplicity; while negotiating with the Hungarian government for the withdrawal of troops, they were preparing for a second armed intervention. On November 4 they launched a general offensive and suppressed the Hungarian revolution in a merciless bloodbath.

Upon reconquering Hungary the Soviets installed a puppet government under János Kádár a renegade national Communist, and re-instituted a rule of terror reminiscent of the Stalinist era. To justify their bloody deed, the Soviet leaders branded the Hungarian revolution as a "counterrevolution" launched by "Western imperialist circles" and led by "Horthyite Fascists and aristocrats." But great as was the Soviet effort to keep alive the unsavory memory of the Horthy era, Hungarys revolution and martyrdom actually cleansed her, in the eyes of the world, of the Fascist stigma of her past.

The United Nations, verbose but impotent, was capable of nothing more than condemnation of the Russian aggression.7 Furthermore, its attention was diverted just then by the Suez crisis which broke loose when Israeli forces invaded Egypt on October 29 and when an Anglo- French attack followed two days later. The Suez crisiswas accompanied by a deep crisis in the Western alliance, since the United States condemned its allies, Britain and France, and Israel, for their aggression.

It was for the historian to ponder the connection between the aggression of the Suez crisisand the Soviet aggression in Hungary The European historian with a broader sense of history was bound to notice the coincidence that the two simultaneous crises exploded in the areas of two defunct empires (the Habsburg in Central Europe and the Ottoman in the Middle East) where disintegration of the old order was followed by nationalist revolutions. But most Western historians, upset by Allied disunity, were in no mood to draw parallels of any sort. They preferred to ignore in fact any connection between the two crises. However, even the historian who was as "absolutely convinced" as Max Beloff that the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolution was "the result of calculations about the future of the Soviet empire in Europe and had little to do with the affairs of the Middle East," had to admit that the outcry against the Anglo- French action in the Middle East "showed that the West was too deeply divided to react" against the Russian action in Hungary8

Indignation over the brutal Russian suppression of the Hungarian revolution was very great, even among Communists. It also affected Afro- Asian nationalists, who were primarily upset over the Western invasion of Egypt, and who were prone to regard Soviet Russiaas their potential ally against "Western imperialism." But the worldwide indignation was not the equal of that great stir of human mind which was the Hungarian revolution. The challenge to the world of that revolution evoked no correspondingly heroic response. Naturally the failure of the free world to back up Hungarys bid for freedom troubled the West's conscience, but her worst pangs were soon over: they penetrated less deeply than did her shame during the Second World War over the Munich betrayal, and there was no great public controversy such as in the Yalta debates of the post- war era.

Western self- criticism was cut short by self- placating arguments which maintained that any attempt to save Hungarywould have led to a third world war. There was no need to deny that action involved the risk of war. However, it was far from certain that Russia would have run the risk of a third world war if the Western Powers had shown a firm resolve to defend Hungarys independence as guaranteed in the Charter of the United Nations. Furthermore, there was much reason to doubt whether the Western Powers had exhausted all means of help short of war. It should be noted that the Hungarian situation was brought before the United Nations Security Council on October 28, that is to say, four days before Premier Nagy's first call for help, and one week before the final Soviet assault, but no action of any sort was even proposed. Meanwhile, on October 27, Secretary of State Dulles in a speech made with White House approval said that the United States had "no ulterior purpose" in desiring the independence of the satellite countries. "We do not look upon these nations as potential military allies," he said. "We are confident that their independence, if promptly accorded, will contribute immensely to stabilize peace throughout all of Europe, West and East." Thus, while the United States reassured the Russians of non- intervention, Western help to Hungarywas limited a priori to an appeal to Russia's good will and to an assurance that there was no peril to her security in making concessions.

Indeed, the Western statesmen who claimed to have saved the world from war by not intervening in Hungaryhad no claim to greatness or gratitude. The less so, because, while their caution allegedly kept mankind from the risk of war in Hungary their prudence failed to forestall the international anarchy that produced war in the Middle East; and that war in the Middle East unquestionably had fatal consequences for the situation in Hungary In the autumn of 1956 the Russians were more sensitive than ever to world opinion. They had already proved in Poland how eager they were to avoid violence. True, Russian troops intervened in Budapest on October 24. Furthermore, the massing of fresh Soviet troops in Hungarybegan before the Middle East crisis erupted. But if the Russians had used their military might immediately after October 24 as unscrupulously as they eventually did on November 4, they could have crushed the revolution at the time of their first intervention. The crucial fact seems to be that just on the eve of the Middle East explosion, on October 27, the Russians had ordered their troops out of Budapest. Had the Western Powers by their Suez action not produced a precedent for making war, and had the war in the Middle East not diverted the world's and the United Nations' attention from Hungary the Russians might have shied away from resorting to war in Central Europe. They might have used their military presence as a pressure, but they might well have chosen to settle the Hungarian situation by essentially political rather than purely military means.

At any rate, the Hungarian tragedy gave fresh evidence of Western "disengagement" from Eastern Europe.9 This was especially painful in view of the Anglo- French action in the Middle East; for the British and French governments took their action without any apparent concern over the effects the invasion of Egypt might have on the Hungarian situation. There was painful irony in the fact that the British action in Suez took place under the premiership of Anthony Eden, who had once endeared himself to democrats in Central Europe through his opposition to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy; and the American disengagement was no less painful, in view of the long years of liberation propaganda. The American disengagement attitude was carefully phrased by Secretary of State Dulles at his news conference on December 18, 1956. The American government, he said, would be satisfied if the Soviet Union itself negotiated a settlement with the nations of Eastern Europe, a settlement based on the principle of national freedom, as in Austria, Finland, or Poland, and on some form of neutralization.

Western disengagement from the Middle Zone was of course nothing new. Ever since the Munich surrender in 1938, or, more exactly, since the collapse of Poland in September 1939, the Western Powers had eschewed commitments and involvements in the far- away Middle Zone. Yet it was a tragedy that events like those in Hungarywere needed to reveal anew the true state of Western policy toward Eastern Europe. The attitude of the Western governments during the crisis of 1956 was essentially the same as at the time of the Yalta episode. First, there was hope that Russia if assured of non- intervention in Eastern Europe might follow a liberal course in her sphere of influence. Then came the furious but helpless outburst of indignation over Soviet treachery and brutality. Western policy, it appeared, was invariably based on the assumption that nothing tangible could be done on behalf of freedom within the Soviet sphere of influence.

Cold war propaganda was instrumental in concealing the true state of Western policy. The American election campaign of 1952 in particular gave false impressions by popularizing the slogan of"liberation." Even during the election campaign of 1956, Vice- President Nixon on October 29, spoke of what then appeared to be a Soviet defeat in both Poland and Hungaryas a triumph of the American "liberation position." But even if President Eisenhower or Secretary of State Dulles, or Radio Free Europe, had never said a word about liberation of the Soviet satellites, the free world's prestige would have suffered a humiliating defeat in 1956. Indeed, it boded ill for the cause of liberty that the Western democracies were incapable of drawing any benefit from the crisis of Soviet tyranny which began with Stalin's death in 1953 and culminated in the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

The tragic autumn of 1956 had at least one favorable consequence for the cause of freedom. Suez and Hungaryreminded the Western nations of the sorry state of their unity. With a new sense of urgency they resumed work on European federalization. And they also started to mend NATO's fences.

In the autumn of 1956, Soviet power had seemed to be crumbling under the impact of revolutionary upheavals in satellite Poland and Hungary In the autumn of 1957, the Russians successfully launched the first earth satellite and their power seemed to stand firmer than ever. In reality, however, the crisis which culminated in the Hungarian revolution was not so grave (even if Hungaryhad succeeded in liberating herself) as to threaten the Soviet satellite empire with total disintegration. Hungary surrounded by rival nations, was not the country to lead a general Danubian uprising. Rather, a Communist Little Entente against Hungarymade its appearance when all three neighbors, satellite Czecho- slovakia and Romania as well as Titoist Yugoslavia, alarmed as they were by the collapse of the Communist regime in Hungary closed ranks with the Russians. Nor, on the other hand, was the consolidation of Soviet power which followed the crisis so stable as to make Russian domination permanently safe against the oppressed peoples, craving for liberty. National independence was a specter haunting Khrushchevas he charted the course of Soviet policy in Eastern Europe between the Scylla of re- Stalinization and the Charybdis of de- Stalinization. Tito's independent Yugoslavia, unwilling to yield to Soviet dictates, became again the chief target of Moscow's ire against national communism (now preferably labelled, in concert with Peking, as one of the crimes of "revisionism"). Gomulka's semi- independent Poland, a moderate example of Communist self- liberation, was living in a state of uneasy truce within the Soviet satellite empire. And from Hungary defeated in her struggle for independence, came, with the execution of Premier Imre\s+Nagy and General Pal Maleter in June 1958, a new brutal warning to all Eastern Europe that Khrushchevs Russia was determined to keep what Stalin's Russia had conquered.

The Nagy executions shocked the world as no other Soviet crime since November 4, 1956. But once again, as in 1956, the world's attention was diverted by crisis in the Middle East, with American troop landings in Lebanon and British in Jordan. The subsequent debate in the United Nations offered a truly grotesque spectacle as both the Soviet Union, defiant of the 1956 UN order to withdraw the Russian troops from Hungary and the United States, silent about its failure to help Hungary outdid each other in championing the small nations' rights to freedom and independence.

Those who gave serious thought to the problem of the Russians' European satellites came to realize more strongly than ever that any progress toward freeing the eastern half of Europe from Soviet domination hinged on the solution of the German question. George F. Kennan, in his Reith Lectures in the autumn of 1957, suggested that the deadlock over Germany could be resolved if the whole area of Central and Eastern Europe could be isolated from East- West rivalry. In order to get the Soviet army out of Central Europe, he argued, the Western Powers should withdraw from Germany. But even the sympathetic Western critics of Kennan's ideas were skeptical about the success of this particular brand of "disengagement." For, as one critic reasoned: "As things stand, the Russians cannot withdraw their troops from eastern Europe unless they are prepared to accept the disintegration, either gradually or explosively, of their satellite empire. Since they now clearly believe that the cards are stacked more heavily in their favor than ever before, there is no reason to suppose that they would be willing to consider a retreat."10

How and when the Russians would be willing to consider a retreat, no one could foretell. One thing, however, seemed almost certain, namely that if anything could induce the Russians to seek peace and security through cooperation, it would be a united West, moving firmly toward the creation of a United States of Europe, and closely associated with the United States of America. The chief present aim of Soviet policy in Europe was to destroy the unity of the West, though this policy was cloaked in high- sounding slogans of peace and security. The Soviets had a justifiable security claim to protect themselves against Western aggression, in particular against the revival of German militarism; but the Soviet effort to force the United States out of Europe, and to neutralize Germany, was aggressive rather than defensive in character. Its aim was to create chaos rather than order in Europe, to keep the German problem unsolved rather than to solve it. It is most unlikely that German reunification, if achieved at the price of neutrality, could relegate the German problem to the dustbin of history. Nor is it likely that the Russians, following such a "solution," of the German problem, would declare themselves as feeling sufficiently secure to retreat from Europe.

The real solution of the German problem, serving the cause of peace as well as the security of both East and West, lies in integrating the Germans into a federated Europe. The emergency presented by the cold war had taught the West the wisdom of treating Germany in the spirit of European partnership. The rise of European unity, and within it the emergence of a democratic German state under the guidance of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, were the fruits of this wisdom. Indeed, the cold war may prove to have been a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as it compelled the West to abandon the bankrupt methods of power politics and balance of power in trying to solve the German problem. The program of Second World War diplomacy to attempt by "East- West cooperation" to keep the world safe against the revival of German danger, a program which the Russians wrecked with their cold war against the West, could never really have solved the German problem. Nor would "East- West cooperation" for the neutralization of Germany achieve peace in Europe today. More likely, it would only stir up old rivalries and jealousies and throw Europe back into the anarchy of the nationalist past from which the current unity efforts are trying to extricate her.

However, if the federalization of Europe progresses to the point where the Russians can no longer hope to wreck it, and if that federalization clearly has peaceful intentions, the Russians may then come to realize that the solution of the German problem through European integration also serves their security interests; and in that case, the Russians may well come to regard this European solution of the German problem as a more attractive alternative than the costly military occupation of East Germany to which the German Communist puppet government owes its existence.

In the winter of 1958- 59, the Russians launched a new offensive to force the Western Powers out of Berlin. The Soviet scheme to make West Berlin into a so- called "free city", was, to all appearances, part of a major Soviet strategy to undermine the Western position in Germany. The perilous crisis thus created in Central Europe was temporarily eased by a new attempt to discuss the East- West conflict at the conference table.

The negotiations began on the foreign minister level in the spring of 1959. The second Geneva summit meeting, predicted for the summer, was delayed. However, a more spectacular event, the first of its kind, took place in the early autumn, with Premier Khrushchevs visit to the United States in a renewed mood of peaceful coexistence.

Whether this new round of East- West negotiations will ultimately lead to a European solution of the German problem will largely depend on the West's success in perfecting the ties of unity among the free nations both in Europe and within the Atlantic Community. The future of freedom is very much at stake in the East- West struggle over the control of Central Europe. Without a European solution of the German question the future of the newborn German democracy may be gravely imperilled. And, of course, on German reunification hinges also the future of European reunification. For the time being, it may well be true (as is often said) that the reunification of Germany in freedom is impossible, moreover, that powerful interests call for the continuance of Germany's division. But in the long run an unimaginative status quo policy may well spell ruin for Europe and the free world, no less than it did in the era between the two world wars. A European policy which relinquishes the objective of reunification may doom freedom to stagnation and ultimate failure. My Epilogue to the 1950's ended this way:

Today it is Soviet Russiathat obstructs the peace in Central Europe. But it was Hitler's war against the West, and against Russia, that brought the Russians into Central Europe. In fact, the Middle Zone problem of today is the outcome of two German wars and of two failures to make peace in that area.

The solution of the German question is the prerequisite in solving the problem of the Middle Zone. Moreover, an East- West agreement to settle the German question within the framework of European federation could also serve as a basis for an agreement to create a neutral regional federation of the Middle Zone nations. Such a federation may today seem remote and unattainable. Yet nothing less can lastingly remove these nations from the rivalry of the Great Powers and deliver them from the nationalist rivalries of their fratricidal past.

During the Second World War, Russia had condemned federal plans for Central and Eastern Europe by branding them as anti- Soviet schemes; but after the war, she opposed the federal plans even of Communists who were eager to be loyal to her. Yugoslavia's Tito and his fellow- dictator of Bulgaria, Georgi Dimitrov, hatched such plans in the Middle Zone for a separate federation of Communist nations allied to Russia.

Soviet opposition was of course not the sole stumbling block to the success of these plans. Bulgaria and Yugoslavia could not agree on the form of a Balkan union; and elsewhere in the Middle Zone the chances for federal cooperation on a regional scale were no brighter.

Nevertheless, on a more limited scale, in an attempt to solve the nationality problems within the individual countries under Communist rule, the federalist principle was applied. Tito's Yugoslavia became a federal state founded on the so- called Marxist- Leninist principle of national equality. The Soviet Union too began to practice Marxist- Leninist nationality policy in the satellites after Communist domination had been firmly entrenched and ethnic rivalries could no longer serve the interests of the Soviet divide- and- rule policy. Thus in Czechoslovakia, following the Communist seizure of power, minority rights of the Hungarians were gradually restored. Quarrels also subsided between Czechs and Slovaks over the Slovak autonomy, guaranteed in the post- war The New Central Europe 218

Czechoslovak federal constitution. The other satellites ensured the language rights of their national minorities in special articles of their new constitutions, all modelled after the Soviet federal constitution of 1936. A new mode of settling the Hungaro- Romanian controversy was introduced by the 1952 constitution of Romania, which established a so- called Hungarian Autonomous Region in Transylvania.

Simultaneously, treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance were signed among the satellites to complete this Soviet- sponsored drive for national reconciliation. The Soviet- controlled German Democratic Republic also was invited to take part in this satellite fraternization. The East Germans accepted the Oder- Neisse frontier vis- a- vis Poland, as well as the expulsion of the Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia, as the final verdict of history. Similarly, the Hungarian Communist government assured its neighbors that the revisionist policy of the past was buried for ever and the territorial status quo accepted as final.

After the Second World War, the number of minority populations which needed protection against ethnic oppression was considerably smaller than before. Wartime migration and post- war persecution, expulsion and transfers, increased the ethnic homogeneity of the nation- states. Most radical was the change in the ethnic composition of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Before the war, the actual Polish and Czecho- slovak majorities in the two countries were only about 69 percent. Poland now became 98 percent Polish, and Czechoslovakia 91 percent Czech and Slovak. The corresponding changes in the other states of the Middle Zone, although less revolutionary, were also significant. Romania increased her ethnic homogeneity from 72 to 85 percent. In Yugoslavia the Slav majority rose from 83 to 88 percent, while Hungaryincreased her ethnic homogeneity from 90 to 98 percent, and Bulgaria from 83 to 91 percent. However, even after this general increase of homogeneity, the ethnic minorities were not negligible. They represented about 8 percent of the area's total population. The largest portion are the Hungarians, now nearly 4 millions, who also are the largest ethnic minority in Europe as a whole. In the plain language of statistics, the Hungarians are only about 3 percent of Europe's total population but close to 18 percent of Europe's minority population.11 The price in human suffering paid for the ethnic homogeneity of the nation- states in the Middle Zone was enormous. Moreover, the intricate nationality problems of the Middle Zone, which before the Communists nobody had succeeded in solving, were far from being solved under the Communists. Neither the historical struggle between Slav and German, nor the conflicts among the Slavic nations of Yugoslavia (Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) and of Czechoslovakia (Czechs and Slovaks), nor the problem of the dismembered Hungarian nation which had been the focus of Danubian instability in the past, could be solved by Communist fiat. Whether or not friendship among the rival nations of yore was actually growing under Communist tyranny was debatable. At any rate, two views, both maintaining that reconciliation was making headway, gave opposing interpretations of the causes of growing friendship: the Communists attributed it to the Marxist- Leninist nationality policy, the anti- Communists ascribed it to the bitter experience of common servitude. Finally, my Epilogue offered this broad view:

The national conflicts affecting the Middle Zone always were and still are of two kinds: one category consisting of the antagonism between Middle Zone nations and their two powerful neighbors, Russia and Germany; the other consisting of the disputes among the Middle Zone nations themselves.

Russia's relationship to the Middle Zone is of course the paramount issue today. Without the withdrawal of Russian military power from Europe no real peace is conceivable either in the Middle Zone or in the global conflict between East and West. Unfortunately, even if Russia withdrew within her present national frontiers, not all the conflicts between Russia and her western neighbors would be solved. Russia's immense territorial gains in the Second World War from the Baltic to the Carpathians would remain intact. But disputes over Russia's frontiers or over the status of entire nations annexed by Russia (as in the case of the three Baltic states) are of such a nature that no peaceful agreement, however desirable, could conceivably solve them; for only the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. itself (a very unlikely event), or a miracle of unheard- of wisdom and magnanimity, could change the boundary line between Russia and Europe.

Russia's relationship to her western neighbors is not, as the Russians claim, a matter of partnership among "Communist" or "Socialist" nations. The so- called East European problem of today is a matter of Soviet colonialism, Russian imperialism, Moscow's interference in the internal affairs of those nations which as a result of the Second World War came within the sphere of influence of Soviet military power. No nation in the Middle Zone, if free to choose, would ask the Russians for help to protect its so- called "socialist achievements." These achievements, as far as they served the cause of social justice, have been endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the people; to uphold them against domestic foes, the people need no outside help.

On the other hand, quite a number of nations in the Middle Zone would turn to Russia for protection if they felt Germany endangered their national security. To allay these fears, and to avoid a situation in which Russia could pose as the defender of nations threatened by German revenge, is certainly one of the great tests of statesmanship. If and when the time is ripe for East- West agreement on German reunification within the framework of a European federation, two issues in particular will call for simultaneous consideration: the Polish- German conflict over frontiers, and the Czech- German conflict over the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. Unless both issues can be permanently settled, even fully independent Poland and Czechoslovakia may clamor for Russian protection.

There is a no less delicate situation regarding the conflicts among the Middle Zone nations themselves, conflicts which would most certainly come to the fore if Russia's military power were withdrawn from Europe. Here again only the West's supreme statesmanship could prevent Russia (or, for that matter Germany) from fishing in the muddy waters of national jealousies. If the Middle Zone nations were freed of Russia's domination, the intra- zone rivalries would be centered, as in the past, primarily in the Danube Valley. The conditions of peace among these nations (rather than the future of their social and economic institutions) should be very much a matter of international concern. These peoples, or at any rate their leaders, cannot compose their differences in a spirit of objectivity and fairness. They need the mediation of an impartial tribunal.

The Great Powers, who took a decisive part in the political settlement of this area, after both world wars supported exaggerated local nationalist aspirations, in accordance with their own power interests. If the Middle Zone could be removed from power rivalry by means of a European solution of the German problem, then the Great Powers might abandon power politics in the Danube Valley as well, and promote the cause of true peace among the nations there. In particular, the punitive peace which twice partitioned Hungary in flagrant violation of the principle of ethnic equality, ought to be superseded by a peace of reconciliation to make the Danube Valley safe against cut- throat nationalist competition. And no other device but a Danubian federation could end these rivalries which, though petty in themselves, have aggravated for so long the insecurity of the European continent as a whole, through being intertwined with the rivalry of the Great Powers.

Essentially, the solution of the problem of Danubian Europe is no different in the twentieth century from what it was throughout the nineteenth century when, following the French Revolution, modern ideas of nationalism and democracy began in great force to penetrate the antiquated structure of the multinational Habsburg Empire The great Czech historian Frantisek Palacky urged the Habsburgs in 1848 to federalize the Austrian Empire so as to forestall the great catastrophes (German and Russian domination of Central Europe included) which since then have all come true. He saw federalized Austria's mission as being to serve as "the bulwark and guardian of Europe against Asiatic elements of every kind." Of course, if a peaceful federalist solution of the present East- West conflict in Central Europe ever proved possible, no Danubian federation, or any kind of federation in the Middle Zone, could be anti- Russian in the sense of Palacky's "bulwark." Apart from the obsoleteness of a "bulwark" in the Atomic Age, Benes's favorite idea of the role of a "bridge" between East and West would be a much more desirable one for the Middle Zone nations to play. But how can they ever play such an imposing role for the benefit of their own as well as the world's peace, if they fail, as they have failed in the past, in building the small bridges of peace among themselves? Indeed, "close and firm ties" among these nations are always needed, much as in Palacky's time, so that strife- torn Central Europe may enjoy freedom and welfare in "complete equality of rights."12 Since Palacky's time, the catalogue of failures to reconcile national rivalries has grown alarmingly. Meanwhile, they key to ending these rivalries has remained the same. As Oscar Jászi wrote, after his last visit to the Danubian countries in 1948: "Neither the hereditary conception of the Habsburg Empire, nor the principle of self- determination after the First World War, nor the homogeneous nation- states idea after the Second World War [can be the solution]. . . . Federalism is the only possible means of reconciling states and nations."[13] Or, as a writer in The Times Literary Supplement observed, in discussing one of the many books on the Habsburgs' failure, a topic still of lively interest on account of the failures of the Habsburgs' successors to remain free: "In 1918, after the First World War, the national states seemed to be the pattern for the future. Now we are not so sure. Even the old- established national states of western Europe are drawing together in terms of incipient federalism; how much less likely is it that the national states of eastern Europe will survive in undiminished sovereignty."[14]

The survival of these states in "undiminished sovereignty" is certainly most unlikely. The question is whether sovereignty is to be diminished by consent, so that freedom may be safeguarded through union; or whether it will be diminished by conquest, in which case freedom will be lost to the domination of alien powers. The peoples of the Middle Zone have no free choice between the two alternatives; nevertheless the part they may be called upon to play in the showdown between the Western and the Soviet types of federalism in Central Europe will not be negligible.

The two basic problems of the Middle Zone, the attainment of national freedom and of social justice, remain unsolved. If and when they are solved, the danger zone of Central Europe, which has triggered off two world wars in the twentieth century, may become a zone of peace and stability. For the time being, however, Central Europe continues to be a cockpit of conflict, a threat to the world's peace. The revolution of Central Europe which began with a vision of freedom over a hundred years ago is still unfinished. The struggle for a new order still goes on.

Certainly the triumph of tyranny is not the last word of history.

The New Central Europe