The New Central Europe

The vantage point from which the preceding chapter, Epilogue One, was written was the late 1950's. Two decades later, Europe is still divided and the basic conflict between the democratic West and the Soviet dominated East remains unresolved. But the temper and tone of the conflict, if not its substance, has changed perceptibly.

In the late fifties, the Soviet offensive against Western rights in a divided Berlin kept the tensions of the cold war at a high pitch. In the early sixties, the unpredictable Khrushchevsprang two surprises on the West, in the summer of 1961 with the building of the Berlin Wall, then in Cuba with the rocket bases which were discovered in the fall of 1962. The Russian wall in Berlin stopped the flight of East Germans from communism: a total of about three and a half million of them in fifteen years. The wall was a shame, but it saved the life of Soviet Russia's German creation, the German Democratic Republic. Furthermore, the wall helped to stabilize the status quo in Europe and, as a living testimony to the kind of world we live in, the wall became an instrument of world peace. Meanwhile, the Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of war more closely than any other crisis of the Atomic-Nuclear Age. Yet it was the Cuban crisis (resolved peacefully with the withdrawal of the Soviet nuclear warheads) that ushered in the improvement in East- West relations. The cold war changed into detente.

Some positive Soviet changes, labelled "liberalization", by the detentist vocabulary of the West, did play a role in improving East- West relations, but only marginally. The real base for detente was the balance of terror. Fear of a nuclear catastrophe prompted the American and Soviet superpowers to conclude the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in July 1963, and negotiations for limiting the nuclear arms race have continued ever since. So overwhelming was the fear of nuclear war and the desire for peaceful coexistence that even major acts of violence on both sides, the American war in Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, barely made a dent on East- West detente. During the cold war, the conviction was widespread in the West that Soviet domination over Eastern Europe had to be resisted because it threatened the West. As the popularity of detente rose, this idea that the Russians might use Eastern Europe as a springboard for aggression started to sound like cold war propaganda. The revisionist interpretation of cold war origins also helped to minimize Soviet Russia's threatening image in Western minds. The revisionists blamed both sides, but particularly the United States, for the collapse of wartime Soviet- American cooperation. Packaged into a progressive ideology, the revisionist view of recent history appealed especially to the young, alienated from contemporary Western civilization.

Unlike in the West, people in Eastern Europe found it harder to accept the European status quo as final. They never believed that Soviet conquest was bad because it threatened the West. To them, Soviet domination was bad because it deprived them of their freedoms. Nevertheless, they too approved of detente as a way out of the cold war deadlock, hoping that lessened tensions between the Soviet and American superpowers might increase Eastern Europe's chances of shaking off Russian controls. The failure of the Czech bid for freedom in 1968 dashed many such hopes. Yet it did not obliterate the conviction that detente was preferable to cold war. On the other hand, the revisionist interpretation of cold war history, blaming the United States for its origins, found few followers among East Europeans. The idea that unfriendly Western acts toward the Soviet Union could have made the Russians behave the way they did sounded just too absurd to those who knew Soviet tyranny first hand.

At the time East- West talks on peace in Europe resumed following Stalin's death in 1953, it was widely believed that a detente depended on solving two paramount issues: ( 1 ) German reunification and (2) the right to national self- determination of the Soviet satellites. Both problems, however, were bypassed during the course of events that marked the transition from cold war to detente.

The question of German reunification did come up for discussion in a series of East- West conferences, the last time in Geneva in 1959 at a meeting of foreign ministers of the Big Four. The Soviet satellites, right to self- determination, on the other hand, never made it even to the agenda of an East- West conference. The Russians categorically refused to talk about it. Thus, the demand of the satellites' right to freedom from Soviet domination has been from the outset a matter of unilateral Western rhetoric. In the United States it has been something of a football in domestic politics, too, "kicked most vigorously at four- year intervals when presidential elections occur."2 Both Republicans and Democrats have discovered that by standing up for the satellites' right to national self- determination they could gain votes from millions of Americans with roots in Eastern Europe.

On the international scene, the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 kept interest in the Soviet satellites alive for a while. The United Nations passed a dozen or so resolutions condemning the Soviet Union for the Hungarian atrocities. In the fall of 1958, the UN General Assembly appointed Sir Leslie Munro of New Zealand to be special representative on the "Question of Hungary" American, European, and United Nations protests, however, were all exercises in futility. They ceased even to be spontaneous outbursts of indignation against Soviet brutalities after a while and became mostly self- serving political theatrics. Nobody surpassed the United States in these sorts of protests; in 1959, a Congressional resolution called upon the President of the United States to proclaim a "Captive Nations Week" during which free people everywhere were invited to pray for the enslaved peoples. Since then, no session of Congress has ever shown the interest to stop these empty gestures.[3]

Desire for detente has muffled or stopped altogether any serious Western protests against Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe. In December 1962, the UN General Assembly approved for the last time the annual American resolution demanding Russian troop withdrawal from Hungary The post of the UN Special Representative for the Question of Hungarywas also abolished at the same time on American initiative. Western moral indignation lost to Russian military might and political intransigence. The Soviet status quo in Europe rapidly ceased to be an issue of East- West controversy. Accepted tacitly by the West even during the cold war, the status quo has been routinely recognized as a pragmatic prerequisite of detente.

Western recognition of the European status quo, a cherished target of Soviet diplomacy, was achieved with relative ease. The United States, as leader of the West, has often been criticized for conceding too much while receiving no comparable Soviet concessions in return. No public controversies, however, on the scale of the great Yalta debates of the forties and fifties have been stirred up by disagreement over detente in the sixties and seventies.

American detente policy toward Eastern Europe was formulated during the Kennedyand Johnson administrations. The ideological inspiration came from the academic community, its recognized source of wisdom being a Foreign Affairs article on East- West relations published in 1961. The authors were Zbigniew Brzezinski of Columbia University, a future presidential adviser on national security, and William E. Griffith of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a former political adviser for Radio Free Europe. More widely noticed than their academic article on detente was a follow- up on the political level: President Lyndon B. Johnson's "bridge building" speech, delivered on May 23, 1964, at the dedication ceremonies of the George C. Marshall Research Library at the Virginia Military Institute.[4]

In the cold war past, American presidents had rejected the European status quo because in the East it did not conform to the principle of national self- determination. In his Virginia speech, President Johnson struck a new tone of detente specifically with reference to this controversial East European situation. Although he mentioned the hope for German unification, he otherwise accepted the status quo as a starting point for East- West cooperation within the framework of peaceful coexistence. He proposed to build "bridges of increased trade, of ideas, of visitors, and of humanitarian aid" to Eastern Europe. He expressed the United States' readiness to engage peacefully with the Soviet satellites in economic and cultural cooperation, which, incidentally, was the sort of relationship the Western European countries had already been engaged in for some time. A few months later, on October 7, President Johnson delivered another speech on "peaceful engagement" at the National Conference of Editorial Writers in New York City. Again he mentioned German reunification, but tied it emphatically to East- West reconciliation. And, in order to reassure the Russians that there were no ulterior motives behind "bridge- building" to Eastern Europe, he spoke of healing Europe's division "with the consent of Eastern European countries and consent of the Soviet Union." The American program of detente was spelled out. But bridge- building with Eastern Europe was slow. Always under domestic pressures serving narrow special interests, Congress was sluggish in responding to the subtleties of a detente relationship. It was obvious as ever that Eastern European issues were nowhere near to the priorities of American foreign policy. Only the security of Western Europe was of real interest to the United States. Tragedies in the Soviet satellites have always opened the hearts of Americans and evoked genuine sympathies to its victims. But as far as American foreign policy objectives went, Eastern Europe was cast either into a cold war role or into no role at all. And Eastern Europe's cold war role in its crudest form amounted only to that of cannon fodder: causing trouble for the Russians and easing Soviet pressure on the West.

A detente policy toward Eastern Europe required a sophistication which the United States was ill- prepared to apply. Die- hard cold war anti- Communists branded detente a betrayal. At the other end of the political spectrum, anti- communism came to be equated with "McCarthyism." Anti- communism was believed to be the cause of blunders that carried the country down the road to the catastrophe of Vietnam, the shame of Watergate and the disgrace of the Nixonresignation.5 As a backlash to Vietnam, the suspicion was rising that perhaps Eastern Europe, too, was one of those places where no American interests were at stake, where cold- war involvement was just another offshoot of anti-Communist hysteria.

The new view of Eastern Europe's place (or rather, its lack of place) in American foreign policy thinking was well summed up by Kisinger1">Henry A. Kisinger in an essay he wrote before he gained world fame as Washington's top diplomat: "During periods of detente, each ally makes its own approach to Eastern Europe or the U.S.S. R. . . . The major initiatives to improve relations between Western and Eastern Europe should originate in Europe with the United States in a reserve position."[6]

The United States was conducting the policy of detente from a position of reduced strength. The Vietnam War had sapped American energies and had spread isolationist sentiments. To compound the Western calamities, the sixties had also witnessed a weakening of unity among democracies as a whole. This was mainly caused by the fatal American involvement in Southeast Asia, but also by de Gaulle's ambition to restore France to her glory as a great power among nations.

Exaggerated as de Gaulle's fulminations against American influence in Europe had been, even more inflated was his romantic vision of "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.," As a monument to his lack of realism stands his long visit to Moscow from June 20 to July 1, 1966. A joint declaration issued in Moscow asserted that "the problems of Europe should be first of all discussed within European limits," and that cooperation between France and the Soviet Union would strengthen the role of Europe as "a seat of a civilization" in the interest of "progress and peace throughout the world." 7 For years, the Western democracies were told to rely on Atlantic partnership between Europe and America against Soviet imperialism. Now, all of a sudden de Gaulle appointed Soviet Russia as a fellow guardian of European civilization. The anti-

American edge of the Moscow declaration was unmistakable, but de Gaulle's affair with Moscow was embarrassing "within European limits" as well. It came on the heels of the Franco- German friendship treaty of January 1963, hailed at the time of its signing being the cornerstone of a new Europe.

De Gaulle himself must have felt embarrassed when two years after his Moscow visit the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. The destruction of the Czech experiment in Europeanizing Marxism-

Leninism reinforced Soviet Russia's image in European eyes as the seat of a new barbarism rather than that of a guardian of their civilization. The Soviet Russians of course never sought to play the august role bestowed on them by de Gaulle's fantasies. They went along because de Gaulle was working on their behalf by weakening Western unity and the Atlantic alliance while blocking British membership in the Common Marketand loosening France's ties with NATO.

It was left to Poland's Gomulka to remind de Gaulle of his lack of realism. On the occasion of his Polish visit in 1967, de Gaulle hailed Polish independence and proposed to his hosts an alliance. Gomulka squarely rejected the offer, recalling the melancholy end to Poland's pre-war alliance with France. However, unrealistic as de Gaulle's Eastern policy had been, it was beneficial in one respect: a self- confident French voice calling on the Europeans to be Europeans did strengthen the self-

confidence of the Eastern Europeans; it emboldened their traditional desire to belong to the West.

The sense of European self- confidence was strengthened further by the unexpected role a modernized Roman Catholic Church began to play in detente diplomacy. The emergence of the papacy with a modern face was the work of Pope.John XXIIIand of his successor, Pope Paul Vl. A realistic acceptance of communism superseded the superstitious fear of communism, and papal diplomacy mobilized its considerable international influence in support of detente. The excommunication of Marxists ended and Roman Catholics of Eastern Europe entered into pragmatic compromises with the Communist regimes. In due course, Communist officials from Eastern Europe were received in papal audiences on their visits to Rome Among them were, in 1917, János Kádárof Hungaryand Edward Gierek of Poland.

Even before the new papal trend, the solidly Catholic Poles had been engaged in formulating a policy of coexistence with communism. The chief strategist in maintaining a pragmatic compromise was the Primate of Poland, the politically astute Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski; one of his aides at one time was the Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II in October 1978. No less than the election itself of a "Polish Pope," John Paul lI's visit to his homeland in June 1979 made history. His ten days in Poland, the first papal journey to a Communist land, was a triumph watched with awe and exhilaration throughout the world. The papal visit also called global attention to the unusually strong position of the Church in a Communist country. This has been the achievement of a singularly capable Polish Catholic national leadership, knowing how to be both tough and conciliatory. But it has something to do with pragmatic Polish Marxist wisdom as well. The Polish Communists, eager to soothe social discontent and political frustration, have allowed the Polish masses to indulge in the opiate of religion.

In contrast to Poland, external guidance of a new pragmatic kind was much needed in two- thirds Catholic Hungary There, coexistence with communism had raised thorny problems as nowhere else in the Soviet orbit, involving both the Roman center of the Catholic Church and the United States. Papal diplomacy aided normalization of state- church relations in Hungarymainly by negotiating the move into exile in 1971 of the militant anti- Communist churchman, Cardinal Mindszenty, sheltered by the American Embassy in Budapest ever since the Soviet suppression of the revolution in 1956. Another sensitive Hungarian issue was the fate of Hungarys Holy Crown, symbol of a millennium of Hungarian nationhood and of independence. Surrendered by Hungarys quislings to the Allied armies of the West in 1945, the crown was kept in American custody at Fort Knox. In the spirit of East- West detente, the U.S. government returned the crown to the People's Republic of Hungaryin January 1978, with papal approval and in the face of conservative anti- Communist opposition.

It was not the Church which raised its voice against East-

West detente, as might have been expected. It was the People's Republic of China. Peking openly broke with Moscow over the American- Soviet Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. But even before East- West detente began to produce results in making the world safer from nuclear catastrophe, the Chinese had been accusing the Russians of betraying Marx and the world revolution. Deep historic conflicts had long undermined the initial friendship that existed between Mao Zedong's Communist China and Stalin's Soviet Russia. By the time the Western democracies had firmly assumed a detentist attitude toward the whole Communist world, Chinese communism had become a bitter enemy of Russian communism.

The erstwhile Bolshevik belief that national rivalry among Communist states was "by definition an impossibility"8 was thus once again proven wrong. And the Sino- Soviet "new cold war"9 in Asia only complicated Moscow's already tangled relationship with her European Communist neighbors. The Chinese accused Russia of "hegemonism" in Eastern Europe, whereas the Russians branded China's aim as "divisive" and unbecoming to Communists. The East Europeans, eager to shake off the fetters of Soviet captivity, stood only to gain from this Sino- Soviet conflict of views.

The 1960's added Maoism to the already existing Trotskyite and Titoist deviations from Soviet teachings on communism. The seventies have continued the multiplication of heresies with the articulation of a democratic form of communism in Western Europe, labelled felicitously Eurocommunism to distinguish it from totalitarian Russocommunism. The strongest single force, however, to split the Soviet- Russian model of monolithic communism has been nationalism.

Thus, while East- West detente has stabilized the territorial status quo in Europe, the status quo of communism has been constantly challenged within the so- called "Socialist" world. The national differentiation among the Communist states of Eastern Europe has become ever more conspicuous. And, with national differentiation, national differences, too, have become virulent. "Proletarian internationalism" was supposed to do away with national hostility. It did not. The confusion of loyalties in the Balkans, where Titoism started the nationalist disintegration of the Soviet bloc as far back as 1948, is a case in point of the Communist disarray.

Yugoslavia, internally plagued primarily by chronic ethnic tensions, has successfully maintained a non- aligned status in the danger zone between the two rival blocs of the superpowers. But Titoism as a form of national communism has been tied entirely to Tito's personal leadership. It offers no assurance for Yugoslavia's own continuing national independence nor does it serve as a universal model for other national Communist states. Thus, Albania, one of Yugoslavia's jealous neighbors, taking advantage of the Sino-

Soviet cold war, found her ideological ally in far- away Asia. At odds with Moscow ever since Khrushchevs de- Stalinization speech in 1956, and never at ease with Titoist Yugoslavia for fear of being dominated by her, Albania declared herself a follower of Chinese Maoism in the sixties. This Chinese orientation was of short duration. After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, the Albanian Communists, Stalinist as they still were, found the liberalizing tendencies of Mao's successors as distasteful as they did Khrushchevs similar preferences after Stalin's death. By 1978, national Communist Albania became an ideological loner, isolated from the outside world, Communist and non- Communist alike.

Albania's defection from the Chinese camp is no gain for the Soviets. Quite the contrary. Mao's successors have stepped up Communist China's interest in the non- aligned Communist countries of the Balkans, as demonstrated by Prime Minister Hua Guofeng's visits to Yugoslavia and Romania in August 1978. The Russians, on the other hand, retained one trusted friend in the national-

Communist Balkans: Bulgaria. Their only European satellite which has caused them no serious trouble so far, Bulgaria has been loyally following the Soviet line ever since 1948, both in domestic and international affairs.

Several factors accounted for Bulgaria's loyalty to Soviet Russia For one thing, geographic good fortune spared Bulgaria the traumatic experience of a prolonged Soviet occupation at the war's end. (Russia needed no westward- pointing "lines of communication" there.) Also, in the peace settlement, the Soviet Union helped Bulgaria win her territorial claim against Romania. Ancient territorial feuds with her other neighbors, in particular with Yugoslavia over Macedonia, further strengthened Bulgaria's reliance on the Soviet Union. The conservative spirit of the Bulgarian Communist leadership too made the Sophia regime largely immune to the temptation of so- called "separate roads to socialism." Indeed, unless Balkan rivalries miraculously disappear, whatever the coloration of future Bulgarian regimes, calculations of national interests may keep the country in Russia's camp for a long time to come.

The country in the Balkans that Russia trusted to the extent of The New Central Europe 232

withdrawing her troops from there, but then got disappointed with, was Romania. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania in June 1 958, as a sign of trust as well as a reward for Romanian services rendered against the Hungarian revolution in 1956. The once- subservient Romanian Communists, however, soon turned into rebels. They rose against Khrushchevs plan in 1962 to invest the COMECON (the Soviet experiment in a common market) with a supranational authority. Led by Gheorghe Gheorghiu- Dej, the Romanians refused to accept a place in the "socialist division of labor" because it was designed to keep them an agricultural country. In a careful but uncompromisingly phrased statement of principles, Romania proclaimed her independence from Moscow in August 1964. To justify their rebellious step, the Romanian Communists invoked the sanctity of national sovereignty, the very principle Moscow herself had professed to respect unceasingly.

Romania thus went her own separate way as a Communist country. Under Nicolae Ceausescu, the maverick Balkan politician who succeeded Gheorghiu- Dej in 1965, the country became for all practical purposes as independent of the Soviet Union as Tito's Yugoslavia has been since 1948. And Ceausescu's success in entrenching his country's independence was the more remarkable since Romania, unlike Yugoslavia, bordered on the Soviet Union. If Romania's defection in the sixties seemed less dramatic than Yugoslavia's in the forties, it was due mainly to the different international climates: Tito broke away amid threats of the cold war; Ceausescu did it in calmer times of detente.deg.

The international status of Ceausescu's Romania resembled that of Tito's non- aligned Yugoslavia. In the winter of 1978- 79, Ceausescu underscored his independence from Moscow by boldly rejecting a Warsaw Pact bid for increased military expenditures and for much greater centralization under Soviet command. In domestic affairs, however, independent Romania did not emulate Tito's desovietized, less autocratic form of communism. Liberated from Moscow, Tito himself was in no hurry to embrace parliamentary democracy. But his domestic liberalization has shown at least some resemblance to Eurocommunism.

Ceausescu on the other hand has done nothing of that sort. Independent Romania has remained a purely repressive society of the Soviet Communist kind. No liberalization (the primary concern that preoccupied Communist Russia regarding her European neighbors) threatened to spill over into the Soviet Union from Ceausescu's Romania. And this comforting consideration may be one of the principal reasons that the Russians have put up with Romanian rebelliousness.

The Ceausescu regime has drawn its inspiration mainly from two articles of faith: nationalism and industrialization. Austerity was the price the Romanians had to pay for the regime's ambition to raise the country's rank to that of a developed nation. In compensation for the pains of forced industrialization Ceausescu allowed his compatriots the joys of unbridled nationalism. The Romanians, to be sure, did not cease to grumble over economic privation, but the opiate of nationalism, dispensed so spiritedly by Ceausescu, distracted their consumer discontent. The frenzy of nationalist agitation for a so- called "Romanian national unitary state"" was reminiscent of Romanian fascism. No Eastern European country has integrated the radicalism of nationalism with the ideology (or rather, phraseology) of communism as totally as Ceausescu's Romania. And as always, the principal victims of Romanian nationalist intolerance have been the Transylvanian Hungarians. They have lost what they had gained in the Stalinist fifties, including regional autonomy patterned on the model of the Soviet federal union of nationalities. Familiar indignities of discrimination against ethnic minorities have multiplied; some new ones borrowed from Soviet practices have also been added, such as confinement of the regime's critics to psychiatric hospitals. 2 Khrushchev who with his unsuccessful Comecon reforms precipitated Romania's rebellion, was on the losing side, too. Romania's defection from Soviet control further undermined Khrushchevs already weakened position in the Kremlin oligarchy; he was replaced in the fall of 1964 by Leonid I. Brezhnev.

While Romania recovered her national independence, Romania's rival neighbor, Hungary recovered her national prosperity after the ruins of her defeated 1956 revolution. The leader of this fortunate turn was the traitor of the 1956 revolution: János Kádár

At first despised and hated, Kádárturned out to be one of the most curious successes in Hungarian political history. But neither the Russians nor Kádárcould have succeeded so remarkably in pacifying Hungaryhad the Hungarians themselves not revealed a talent which they had seldom shown in the past, a sense of political realism. The slogan under which Kádárpacified and revitalized the society was a novelty in The New Central Europe 234

Communist history as well. It said: "He who is not against us is with us!" Within its own pragmatic limits (determined by Russian tolerance, that is), the Kádársystem has worked surprisingly well. Mixing socialist planning with a modified market economy, a system called "new economic mechanism" has raised the country's standard of living and has introduced a new model of socialist society within the Soviet orbit of power. Hungarystarted enjoying a measure of domestic freedom which was quite unusual under communism. This was "socialism with a bourgeois face," as one Western observer called it. Without class overtones and less provocatively, lest the Russians take umbrage, the Hungarians themselves simply called it "pragmatic socialism."13 It was no fulfillment of the aims of the 1956 revolution (an independent Hungary democratic and neutral), but it was a better compromise with the Russians than anybody could have hoped for in the desperate moment of defeat in 1956.

Along with the Hungarians, the Poles were fellow rebels against the Russians in 1956. However, neither Poland's revolt nor her post- revolt reforms went as far as Hungarys. Wladyslaw Gomulka was popular after 1956, mainly because he saved Poland from the ruins of an all- out revolution of the Hungarian type. He failed, however, to live up to Polish expectations as a reformist. Maneuvering at first somewhere between reforming and conserving, he stopped trying after a while to change things altogether. The gist of the popular dissatisfaction was economic in nature. But disillusionment was also widespread due to Gomulka's general unresponsiveness to demands for liberalization. In the late sixties, riots broke out similar to those that ushered in the 1956 revolt. In the midst of anti- regime demonstrations at Christmas time in 1970, Gomulka fell and was replaced by Edward Gierek as party leader. In his formative years as a Communist, Gierek had lived in France and Belgium. Yet he seemed better attuned to Polish realities than the homegrown Gomulka. Gierek was the kind of European Communist the Poles could feel at ease with, even though his reforms so far have fallen short of ending popular dissatisfaction. The "Polish road to communism" in general may look promising to those who dislike the Soviet model, but Gierek has still to prove that there is a way to satisfy the Poles without upsetting the Russians.14 Poland has been less satisfied with either Gomulka or Gierek than Hungaryhas become with Kádár The Polish achievements, however, are by no means inferior to those of Hungarys in finding so- called "separate roads", to communism, or, rather, away from it. The Poles in fact are ahead of everyone else in Eastern Europe in maintaining a national life of their own behind the Communist facade. A private national life, different from the official one, has evolved in Poland on a scale which has no parallel elsewhere. It owes its success to an informal alliance of patriotic workers and peasants, progressive intellectuals and the ubiquitous Church. This "Other Poland" is highly visible, and the Communists evidently have no choice but to tolerate it. Another private success, but devoid of the Polish example's patriotism, is Hungarys "second economy," a capitalist triumph for all practical purposes. The Communist party is trying to curb it, but would not destroy it, recognizing its advantages for both the economy and the peace of the society in general.

The Poles have shown greater boldness than the Hungarians in probing the limits of the delicate domestic compromises. Poland's size alone must account for that. The largest country in the Soviet satellite orbit, with a rapidly growing population, Poland today looms almost like an eastern counterpart of France on the map of Europe. It is no easy task for either the Polish Communists or the Soviet Union to keep her under tight control. The Hungarians are the third largest ethnic group of the region (only the Poles and Romanians surpass them in numbers). As a country, however, Hungaryis small, close to the bottom among the Soviet bloc states (only Bulgaria is smaller). Political boundaries forcibly imposed by jealous neighbors keep Hungarian ethnic territory mutilated, reducing well over one- quarter of Hungarians in the Danube region to a repressed minority status under the supremacy of rival rulers. A sense of smallness and fresh memories of national catastrophes counsel caution; bitter experiences have taught the Hungarians to be realistic about their attainable goals.

Whatever the differences between Polish and Hungarian attitudes today, both these nations of rebellion- prone reputation have been equally successful since 1956 in keeping their relations with the Soviet Union reasonably free of trouble. Unexpectedly, the number one troublemaker among the Soviet satellites since the late 1960's has been Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia's awakening from Stalinism was slow, but when it happened it made history. After several years of fermentation, the historic "Prague Spring" occurred in 1968. It began in January, when AlexanderDub_ek succeeded the Stalinist Antonin Novotny as party leader. It was a rebirth of democracy in a country which had known democracy before. The new democratic era lasted less than eight months and took its name from Dub_ek, the Slovak- born, Soviet trained Communist. But the true force of Czechoslovakia's democratic resurrection was the Czech spirit of democracy. Deeply embedded in European civilization, shining brightest earlier in the century, Czech democracy was sorely tried under the twin nightmares of Nazi and Soviet tyranny. During the Prague Spring its former glory was temporarily restored.

The Dub_ek era started as a reform movement within the Communist party. Dub_ek readily allied himself with the rising democratic reformist forces both within and outside the party, but he himself was not a convinced democrat. As a devout Communist, all he wished for was that the popular reforms he presided over as party secretary should make the party and the Soviet Union loved and respected. With the removal of the Stalinist controls, however, the long repressed democratic spirit of the society burst into the open, turning the reform movement into a revolution.[15]

It was a time of great ideas and confused action, as revolutions more often than not are. Unbridled freedom of speech was its most attractive and most memorable expression. It produced a deluge of inspired words, including the famous "socialism with a human face," proudly disassociating itself from the inhumanities of the Stalinist past. The plan was to achieve a "Czechoslovak road to socialism," to create a "new model of socialist democracy." The new model was described at great length in the Action Program of April 5, 1968, a document of several thousand words, propagating a mixture of ideas, old and new, but not easy to follow as a guideline for action.[16]

The triumph of liberty after years of tyranny was an exhilarating experience. It was like Hungaryin 1956. In both instances, Communists started to talk and behave like Western democrats. They were truly "Eurocommunists," as they would be called in the seventies.[17] But, apart from that, there was no similarity between 1956 in Budapest and 1968 in Prague. There was no Russian occupation in Czechoslovakia, and the Communist party never lost control of events, as was the case in Hungary The unique aim of the Czech revolution was the reform of the Communist party and, furthermore, of communism itself into a democratic institution. This the Russians would not tolerate. They declared themselves against democratic communism in the Eurocommunist sense, and they did it with the full force of their military might.

The Russians were not alone in taking a dim view of the Czechoslovak experiment in democratic communism. The East German and Polish leaders, Czechoslovakia's two northern neighbors, voiced their alarm even before the Russians did. The decision to intervene against Prague of course was Moscow's. The Czechs themselves were well aware of the mounting perils threatening their revolution. The most moving proclamation of the revolution, oscillating between hope and fear, was the "2,000 Words to Workers, Scientists, Artists, and Everyone," written in late June. Its ominous last words were: "The spring has now ended and will never return. By winter we will know everything."[18] The Russians did not wait until winter. They invaded Czechoslovakia on August 21, putting an end to the revolution.

The Russians took no great risks by resorting to force. The precedent of Hungaryin 1956, the United States' involvement in Vietnam, and the pacifist mood of detente were assurances enough that they had nothing to fear from the West. Czechoslovakia herself was not prepared to fight. Even while provoking Moscow's ire, the Czechoslovak Communists kept reassuring Moscow of their loyalty. The Russians, however, trusted their tanks more than their Czech friends. Militarily, the invasion posed no problems. The surprise that did paralyze the Russians was political. They found no Kádárof 1956 among the Czech Communists. There was no repetition of President Hachas 1939 surrender to the Nazis either. After the Soviet invasion, President Ludvik Svoboda humiliated the victorious Russians by refusing to appoint a government of traitors. The revolutionary leadership, having been arrested and deported to Moscow, had to be released and restored in Prague. It took the Russians eight months to ease out Dub_ek as party leader and replace him with another Slovak, Gustav Husak.

A Slovak at the helm during the revolution seemed to cement the not so solid brotherhood of Czechs and Slovaks. A Slovak as a henchman of the Russians after the defeat of the revolution did no good to Czecho- Slovak relations. Proclamation of Slovak national equality with the Czechs took place as scheduled on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Republic. But the Slovaks alone had cause for celebration. The new federal constitution that went into effect in October 1968 fulfilled a national dream; it was cheered by Slovaks both at home and abroad. The dream of reviving democracy, however, lay in ruins. The Slovaks could console themselves with their newly won status of national equality. The Czechs had only their defeat to mourn.[19]

The Hungarian citizens of the Slovak Socialist Republic of freshly federated Czechoslovakia were in an unmitigatedly mournful mood too. During the revolution, the Hungarians felt free to say what was on their minds. They openly demanded autonomy in accordance with the principle of national equality espoused by the revolution. Now, they were face to face with a triumphant Slovak nationalism un-tempered by democratic tolerance. And, once the Slovaks had brought Slovakiaunder their exclusive control, the Czechs, themselves battered under Russian occupation, began to feel sympathetic toward the Hungarians suffering under Slovak repression. Such was the melancholy ending of Czech- Hungarian hostility, for so long a leading force in fanning the flame of nationalist rivalry in the Danube Valley.[20]

To cushion the world's anticipated critical reaction to their invasion, the Russians dragged their remaining four satellites with them on their punitive expedition against Czechoslovakia, with the intention of making it look like a collective enterprise of the Warsaw Treaty nations. The unreformed East German leadership, still Stalinist in spirit, was in fact a most eager accomplice of the Russians against the Czechs. The frightened conservative leaders of Poland and Bulgaria, too, were in accord with the Soviet decision to stop the Dub_ek liberals. Even liberalized Hungarywent along, but out of fear rather than conviction. The Hungarians were at the time busily implementing their "new economic mechanism," which in many ways was similar to the economic plans of the reformist Czech Communists. Hungarian reformists wanted no conflict with Moscow.

To add insult to injury, the Russians called their armed intervention in Czechoslovakia an act of duty of one socialist country saving another. The democratic West ridiculed this Soviet hypocrisy, calling it derisively the Brezhnev doctrine. The label stuck, and this annoyed the Russians no less than did the continuing Czech passive resistance. Meanwhile, among Communists and fellow- travelers the world over, the Brezhnev doctrine triggered a new wave of defection from Moscow; and Communists who were already at odds with Moscow felt their negative view of Soviet communism once again confirmed.

There was a bitter irony, too, in Czechoslovakia's tragedy. Although born under Western and democratic auspices in 1918, the modern Czech nation had always been an enthusiastic supporter of both pro- Russian and pro- Soviet political orientations. The shock of the Soviet Russia invasion in 1968 and the pain of its aftermath changed all that. Once a Russophile Slav nation in the heart of Europe, the Czechs since 1968 have swelled the ranks of Russia's opponents. Jiri Pelikan, a bitterly disillusioned Czech Communist exile, described this post- revolutionary attitude as "socialist opposition." He appealed for an alliance with democratic Eurocommunism and hoped for a united front of all socialist opposition in Eastern Europe.[21]

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia did not interrupt the process of East- West detente as the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolution had in 1956. The storm of Western indignation blew over very quickly. Detente in fact picked up momentum toward the end of the 1960's by West Germany's entry into the arena of Eastern European diplomacy.

Before Adenauer's retirement in 1963, it was an axiom of German diplomacy that detente with the Russians could come only after German reunification. Adenauer's successors, on the other hand, endorsed the new Western thesis, first formulated by de Gaulle, that if reunification were to be at all possible it had to follow detente rather than precede it. Chancellors Erhardand Kiesinger had already deviated from Adenauer's rigidity, especially by lifting the so- called Hallstein doctrine which forbade dealings with countries who recognized Eastern Germany (the Soviet Union excepted). But the dramatic change came with Chancellor Willy Brandts Ostpolitik, which opened a new chapter in detente history.

A series of West German diplomatic moves changed both Germany's and the Western world's relations to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It started in 1970 with the affirmation of existing Eastern boundaries: with the Soviet Union in the Moscow Treaty, and with Poland in the Warsaw Treaty. (Both treaties were ratified in 1972.) Stabilization of the status of West Berlin followed in 1971 with agreements among the four occupying powers as well as East and West Germany. Then came the so- called Traffic Treaty in 1972 between the two Germanies and, to complete the series, the Prague Treaty in 1973 with Czechoslovakia (ratified in 1974) which declared Munich null and void. In October 1973, both West and East Germany were admitted to the United Nations. A

sort of general German settlement had thus been effected. The former allies who defeated Hitler were still unable to agree among themselves on a formal peace treaty with Germany. Even so, formal recognition of German territorial losses in the Second World War normalized Germany's relations with her Slavic neighbors. Mutual diplomatic recogni- The New Central Europe 240

tion between the two Germanies further normalized German relations with all Soviet bloc nations. And agreement on the status of Berlin brought one of the most explosive issues in the East- West global conflict under control, even though it did not bring down the Berlin Wall between the two Germanies. Relations between the two Germanies in fact were still far from normal.

East Germany regarded the division of Germany into two states and two nations to be final. To emphasize this fact, the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic was amended in 1974, canceling the "responsibility of showing the entire German nation the road to a future of peace and socialism" through "unification on the basis of democracy and socialism.," At the same time, an addition to the Constitution declared that the right of the German Democratic Republic to "social, economic, state and national self- determination" had been accomplished, and thus the victory of the socialist order became "irrevocable and final," and East Germany henceforth was "irrevocably and forever" linked with the Soviet Union. In contrast to this East German position, West Germany saw no cause for changing its Constitution. The Basic Law of 1 949, the "Bonn Constitution," continued to call upon the entire German people "to accomplish, by free self- determination, the unity and freedom of Germany." And Chancellor Brandtdefined the status of the two Germanies as "one nation, two states," while the West German press, commenting on the revision of the East German Constitution, noted with sarcasm that East Germany was the first Soviet bloc country to support "complete integration in the Soviet system."[22]

Thus, Bonn's Ostpolitik brought greater improvement to the relations between Germans and non- Germans than to those between the two Germanies. The Slavs' fear of Germans in Eastern Europe had practically disappeared, despite Russian propaganda efforts to keep alive the image of a West German "Fascist" threat to peace and security. It looked as though the German Communists would be among the last Europeans to be afraid of the German danger and the Drang nach Osten.

The crowning success of East- West detente diplomacy was the "Conference on Security and Co- operation in Europe,"concluded in Helsinki on August 1, 1975, with thirty- five states participating, including the Vatican, the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada. But whose success was really crowned at Helsinki? The idea itself of a European conference had been formulated by Khrushchevalmost twenty years before its triumph in Helsinki. The Soviet idea was to bring the West around to ratifying the territorial and political status quo of post- war Europe. The Western democracies went along with the Soviet initiative as part of a global design of American foreign policy, described by Secretary of State Kisinger as a "new structure of world peace.," The Helsinki Declaration (also known as the "Final Act" or "Accord") was the fruit of a series of conferences that spread over a period of two years. On the Western side, Americans and Europeans made equally significant contributions, with the Europeans taking the lead in the area which came to be known as the "third basket," or human rights.

There was nothing specifically new in the Helsinki Declaration that was not already spelled out in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, or in the domestic constitutions and laws of both East and West. The participating states reaffirmed respect for each other's sovereign equality and individuality, "including in particular the right of every state to juridical equality, to territorial integrity and to freedom and political independence," as well as respect for "each other's right to freely choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems as well as its right to determine its laws and regulations," and also "the right to belong to or not to belong to international organizations," including "the right to neutrality." They agreed that frontiers in Europe were "inviolable" and could be changed only "in accordance with international law, by peaceful means and by agreement." In general, they committed themselves to settling their disputes only by "peaceful means." They ruled out the "military occupation" of each other and pledged the principle of "equal rights and self- determination of peoples," adding for good measure that "all peoples always have the right, in full freedom, to determine, when and as they wish, their internal and external political status, without external interference, and to pursue as they wish their political, economic, social and cultural developments." The Helsinki Declaration recognized the "universal significance of human rights and fundamental freedoms" as an "essential factor for the peace," listing the "freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion." The right of "national minorities" to equality was spelled out separately, eliciting lively praise at the conference from Hungary the only nation left in Europe whose members in great numbers were exposed to forcible assimilation as minorities. And, finally, there were sections on "confidence building measures," such as notifying each other of major military maneuvers, on "cooperation in the field of economics, of science and technology, and of the environment," and also "in humanitarian and other fields," including "freer movement and contacts." But all this plethora of pledges for peace in Europe was to be implemented with "due regard to security requirements," which, if security were interpreted the customary Soviet way, could have invalidated all the Helsinki promises from "A" to "Z." Abounding in the phraseology of liberal political philosophy, the text of the Helsinki Declaration, if taken at face value, was a Western success. On the other hand, by going to Helsinki, the Western democracies had also lent their support to the Russian pretense that the Soviets were practicing believers in all the lofty principles endorsed by the conference. Soviet delegate Leonid Brezhnev in fact addressed the assembled European nations as a judge scolding their miserable historical record: "It was here in Europe that aggressors time and again adorned themselves with notorious laurels, later only to be cursed by the peoples. It was here in Europe that claims to world domination raised to the level of political doctrine ended in the collapse of states whose resources had been made to serve criminal and misanthropic purposes." And Brezhnev further made it clear that Russia was guided by nobody's standards but her own: "No one should try to dictate to other peoples . . . the manner in which they ought to manage their internal affairs."24

Whether Helsinki benefitted tyranny or freedom depended in the long run neither on the high- sounding words of the Declaration nor on Brezhnev's hectoring comments. Helsinki had created another Yalta situation. What mattered was the follow- up: whether the lofty phrases would be interpreted according to Western or Soviet standards. For, like Yalta, Helsinki meant two different things to the two sides. To the Soviets Helsinki meant the final sanctioning of the status quo. To the victims of Soviet tyranny, it meant a new beginning to correct the status quo .

Secretary of State Kisinger took an optimistic Western view of the follow- up. Speaking in defense of the Helsinki accord, he said before the Southern Commodity Producers Conference in Birmingham, Alabama: "It is not we who were on the defensive at Helsinki; it is not we who were being challenged by all the delegations to live up to the principles being signed. At Helsinki, for the first time in the post- war period, human rights and fundamental freedoms became recognized subjects of East- West discourse and negotiation. The conference put forward our standards of humane conduct, which have been, and still are, a beacon of hope to millions. The winds of change are blowing from the West; the ideals of liberty and the challenges of technical innovation come from the West." He also assured his Alabama audience: "This Administration shall never forget the moral difference between freedom and tyranny."25 This particular assurance was contradicted a year later by President Gerald R. Ford in his election debate with Jimmy Carter when he said that the Eastern European states were not dominated by the Soviet Union. Some people believed moreover that President Ford's "gaff" was not "a trivial mistake," but rather "the authentic voice of the unconscious Western desire to believe that the satellite states of the Soviet Union were free, and that therefore there is no need to feel either responsibility or anxiety."[26]

During Secretary of State Kisinger's tenure, the United States certainly did not distinguish itself by holding high the ideals of liberty and human rights. It was in fact a close Kisinger aide who caused the greatest uproar with a remark on Eastern Europe; Helmut Sonnenfeldt, an Eastern European expert in the State Department, deplored that "no development of a more viable, organized structure" had taken place between the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries, and he advised "to strive for an evolution that makes the relationship between the Eastern Europeans and the Soviet Union an organic one."27 One should not, however, single out Nixon Ford, Kisinger, or Sonnenfeldt for showing a lack of interest in Eastern Europe under Soviet domination. The democratic world at large had long before lost the interest of an earlier generation, once animated by Wilsonian idealism, toward the oppressed peoples of Europe. Western curiosity had been switched to the new nations of the Third World and, in the particular case of the United States (home of the largest Jewish population in the world), to the new state of Israel. Only in times of great tragedies has sympathy been collectively aroused for the "East" European members of Western civilization. And East- West detente in particular dimmed the Western awareness of Eastern Europe's humiliation under Soviet domination, while the focus of American interest in the Communist world came to be centered mainly on the emigration of Jews from Soviet Russiato Israel.

The American preoccupation with emigration became truly extra- The New Central Europe 244

vagant. The Trade Act of 1974, Section 402, tied the most- favored- nation treatment to free emigration as an assurance of"continued dedication of the United States to fundamental human rights." Communist governments of Eastern Europe, too, eager to qualify for most- favored- nation status, had to prove their respect for free emigration, although their citizens were more eager to exercise their human rights at home. Only under President Carter did the United States return to a more comprehensive interpretation of fundamental human rights.

Ever since Helsinki, the human rights issue has stirred up resistance movements both in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, modest in scope but quite remarkable as a phenomenon of opposition considering the risks involved under the police- state conditions of these societies. The defenders of Helsinki seemed to be right; detente was good for freedom.

The most significant human- rights event in Eastern Europe was the "Charter 77" movement in Czechoslovakia, so called after a manifesto issued in late 1976. It was signed by hundreds of Czechs and Slovaks from all walks of life, but mostly by Czech intellectuals who initiated it. The Czech Chartists invoked not only Czechoslovak laws but international agreements as well, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights and, of course, the Helsinki Declaration. They charged that most of the fundamental human rights existed "only on paper" in Czechoslovakia.

The Chartists were promptly branded as traitors by the Prague government. A new wave of terror hit the Czech intellectual community, core of the "socialist opposition," particularly hard. The Czech Chartist movement rapidly assumed international dimensions. Declarations of sympathy were heard from all over Eastern Europe, and Prague's repressive policies were censured by the West, including the Eurocommunists of Italy, Spain and France.

By a happy coincidence, President Carter (tutored in foreign affairs by his Polish- born national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski) embraced the human rights issue as a central theme of his policy. Dissidents everywhere who lived under tyrannical regimes hailed Carter's Washington Spring of 1977. The President's human rights campaign, however, was received with less enthusiasm in the free world. A human rights scare, so to speak, gripped supporters of detente, afraid lest the Carter policy might antagonize the Russians, ruin improved East- West relations, and thus damage the very cause it was intended to serve. Western detentists were worried about the upcoming Belgrade follow- up conference to Helsinki when angry voices against Carter were raised in Moscow as well as in the satellite capitals. Negative reactions started pouring in from other parts of the world, too. Injecting the issue of human rights into international relations was criticized as an interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. Even believers in human rights began to doubt the effectiveness of the Carter campaign.

Under pressure from friend and foe, both at home and abroad, President Carter toned down his human rights propaganda. To reassure the Russians, as well as the rest of the world scared by human rights, he delivered two foreign policy speeches in the spring and early summer of 1977. In his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, President Carter listed human rights at the top of his "cardinal policy premises," but he also stressed his desire to improve relations with both Soviet Russiaand Communist China, declaring: "Being confident of our future we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in our fear." For good measure, in a speech before the Southern Legislative Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, he addressed himself specifically to American- Soviet relations. Eager to dispel Soviet suspicion that his campaign was aimed against Russia, the President denied any "hidden meanings" and emphasized that his universal concern for human rights was "not designed to heat up the arms race or bring back the cold war." Carter's critics seemed to be satisfied. The human rights scare quieted down, the Belgrade review conference of the Helsinki accords ran its course in the fall and winter of 1977- 78 without any major crisis despite East- West deadlock over the human rights issue. A minor crisis flared up again in early summer of 1978 over the trials of Soviet dissidents. But the most important item on the detente agenda, the Soviet- American talks for another strategic arms agreement (SALT11), went on and the world learned to live with periodic American reminders to respect human rights. Meanwhile the upsurge of dissident hopes throughout Eastern Europe in the wake of Washington's spring call for human rights had ended in 1977 in a "silent fall."[29] The Soviet dissidents were decimated by stepped- up police measures which included a new method of getting rid of political opponents by deportation and emigration. Western detentists termed this "liberalization." In any manner of speak- The New Central Europe 246

ing, it certainly was an improvement over the old Soviet method of murder, or the slow death by torture in forced labor camps.

Detente confronted the democracies with the dilemma of how to advocate freedom and coexist peacefully with tyranny at the same time. Believers in the primacy of Realpolitik thought that the best way to avoid such dilemmas was to avoid situations that raised such dilemmas. The pessimists on the other hand felt that tyranny had won another battle. Only the optimists continued to hope against hope that the raising of the human rights issue in itself had brought freedom one step closer to triumph over tyranny.

The 1980's began inauspiciously for detente. In the wake of the Soviet New Year's aggression against Afghanistan in 1980, detente was in danger of slipping back into cold war or worse, or into something in between that was neither detente nor cold war and for which no name has yet been invented. However, one conclusion could already be safely drawn from the new East- West crisis: Western democracy and Soviet communism were as far from reconciling their fundamental differences as they have ever been since their Grand Alliance of the war against Hitler collapsed and Moscow has spread its tyrannical power over the eastern half of the divided European continent.

The end of tyranny was not in sight in Central Europe, or Eastern Europe, as Central Europe has come to be known in the West since the Second World War. Referring to this unlucky half of Europe, Hugh Seton- Watson wrote: ". . . about eighty million Europeans are subjected to national humiliation, and this makes Europe one of the most explosive parts of the world."[30] But there was also some cause for optimism in this sick situation.

Over thirty years ago, in 1948, when the Communist coup in Czecho- slovakia made the Soviet conquest in Europe complete, the Czechs were the Russians' best friends. The Russians did not need even the backing of the Red Army to bring Czechoslovakia under their control.3 Today, Czechoslovakia is the heart of socialist resistance against Eastern Europe's Soviet domination. And the Czech situation is symbolic of the bankruptcy of Soviet Russias policy in general toward her European neighbors.

Thirty years ago it looked as if the people's democracies set up by Soviet conquest in Europe would go the Mongolian way. The Mongolian precedent in fact had most likely served as a model for Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe. Outer Mongolia, Soviet Russias Asian satellite, was the first of the so- called people's republics; and the Mongols were said to be "extremely proud" of it.32 Eastern Europe, however, did not go the Mongolian way. Unlike what was said about the Mongolians of Asia, few people in the Communist people's republics of Europe were proud of becoming Russian satellites. As allies of the West, the Soviet Russias were welcome in Europe as liberators from Nazi tyranny. As political teachers, they were rejected. Socialism had become a way of life with Eastern Europeans. But the Soviet form of socialism, and the Russian ways in general, were found to be repugnant. Some Easternization through forcible association with Soviet Russiadid take place in the region formerly known as Central Europe. But it was mostly limited to Communist party trappings aping Soviet totalitarianism. Beyond that, the Russians in Europe were singularly unsuccessful in reaching the people over whom they had wielded so much power for so many years.

Russian influence in Eastern Europe rested exclusively on military might. Even Communist loyalty to Moscow was safe, as a rule, only where Soviet troops were present. There were no Soviet troops in the Balkans; the four Communist states there, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, were independent and all of them, with the exception of Bulgaria, steered away from Soviet Russia And even the loyalty of the Bulgarian Communists was motivated primarily by Bulgaria's territorial feud with neighboring Yugoslavia. Bulgarian reliance on Russian help in fact has dated back to Tsarist times and it has paid repeatedly handsome territorial dividends, compensating for less pleasant Russian historical memories.

There were Soviet troops in the four Communist states of Central Europe, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and Hungary The Soviet troops were ostensibly there as allies, but in fact as props of the Communist regimes and guarantees against defection from the Soviet bloc. These four states of Central Europe were not independent. Yet some of them enjoyed greater internal freedom than some of the independent Communist states in the Balkans, a paradox and a reminder that Eastern Europe's "liberation" was not a matter of Russian withdrawal alone. Hungarywas the Central European country with the greatest internal freedom of any Communist state in the Soviet sphere (as of 1980 in any case) . Poland, with a peasantry barely touched by forcible collectivization and with religious freedom almost on a The New Central Europe 248

Western scale, was a unique case too. The country worst off was Czechoslovakia. She was under virtual Russian occupation, while the German Democratic Republic as a separate German nation was a Soviet invention, most likely to last as long as the Russian rule in Central Europe. This Epilogue to the 1970's offered hope to the oppressed:

Soviet military mastery over the entire Communist orbit of Europe is indisputable. The limits of Soviet tolerance for independence in Eastern Europe, as well as Soviet freedom of action to enforce their will there, have been tested. Precedents, however, are not necessarily a clue to predicting the future. The East- West balance of power may change to Russia's advantage or to Europe's advantage, depending on internal as well as on external developments. American- Soviet, American- European, American-

Chinese, and Sino- Soviet relations may greatly affect Europe's destiny. But the evolution inside Europe, both East and West, is the most decisive factor in shaping Europe's future.

Since the mid- 1970's, Western democratic self- confidence has been on the rise in Europe. Democracywas restored in Greece, Portugal and Spain. Eurocommunism has made its appearance, professing its loyalty to Western democratic principles. With prospects of Communist participation in Western governments also rising, Eurocommunism's democratic trustworthiness soon turned into a hotly debated issue. But democratic behavior in government is not the sole question mark about Eurocommunism. Another uncertainty is Eurocommunist loyalty to the idea of a new Europe as articulated by postwar federalist believers in democratic internationalism. French Eurocommunists in particular made no bones about their opposition to surrendering any bit of national sovereignty to a European Union.33 Defense of national sovereignty of course is no Communist specialty, but certainly it is one of several suspicious paradoxes in Communist history. Theoretically, communism is an international movement uniting the proletariat of the world. However: "Communism in practice has turned out to be a form of idolatry of the National State," in the words of Richard Löwenthal, one of Europe's most astute experts on Communist affairs.34 And the reasons are obvious. The Communists favor internationalism on their own terms only, while national sovereignty serves to protect their monopoly of power in countries they rule. Not a long time ago, absolute national sovereignty was seen by Oscar Jászi as a "vicious feudal dogma."35 Today, national sovereignty is a shield protecting totalitarian ruling minorities of all sorts, including those of the Communist variety. Distrust of Eurocommunism is widespread, among capitalists as well as socialists, among conservatives as well as progressives. Many agree with Jean- Francois Revel that nothing in the Communist record has made it possible to believe that they do not have as their goal the monopoly of power.36 On the other hand, a progressive political coalition with the Eurocommunists, working according to the Western rules of parliamentarianism, would be democracy's greatest triumph over Soviet tyrannical communism since the Bolshevik victory in 1917. A democratic Eurocommunist success in the West could also precipitate a democratic upheaval in Communist Eastern Europe that would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Russians to suppress by Hungarian or Czechoslovakian- style invasions.[37]

It is impossible to predict the prospects of new stages in the age- old conflict between Russia and Europe. It is difficult to unravel even a relatively minor enigma, such as the future of Yugoslavia after Tito, judged to be the next most critical Eastern European issue, involving both Russia and the West. In the spring of 1980, the Yugoslav dictatorship appeared confident to be able to keep the lid over internal forces of discord in the wake of Tito's death. But the question is whether the Soviet Union would resist the temptation to exploit the predictable post- Tito difficulties. The 1971 "Zagreb Spring" of liberal-

minded Croat Communists, ruthlessly repressed by Belgrade's "centralist coup" of December 1971, revealed anew the gravity of the simmering Serb- Croat antagonism.38 There are other unsettled nationality problems, too. The Soviet Union may be tempted to take advantage of ethnic rivalries in and around Yugoslavia, with the strong hand and unique authority of Tito gone.

For that matter, national rivalries everywhere in the Middle Zone have changed little, if at all, in spite of the many common tragedies that could have been averted by united effort. We know how much harm the smaller nations, squeezed into a narrow and dangerous zone between the powers of the East and the West, have done to themselves by their regional discords. We can only guess how much good they would do if they could unite. A neutral, democratic, socialist, independent Central Europe between East and West is a dream living in many hearts and minds. Even under the present mixed and uncertain state of freedom and independence, the nations in the Communist eastern half of Europe would do a lot better if they would accept each other as equals and learn the art of cooperation.

It would be a mistake to belittle the threat of an aggressive Soviet The New Central Europe 250

Russian power hovering over Europe. But to underestimate the potential strength of the Europeans would be no less a mistake. The strength of the Europeans to meet the Soviet Russia challenge depends primarily on how united they can become. Progress in Western Europe toward an international democratic community, however disappointingly slow, has been far more successful since the Second World War than the advance toward unity in the Communist eastern half of Europe. It would be easy to blame the Russians for that. Unfortunately, beyond the empty slogans of "proletarian internationalism," the Eastern Europeans have shown no real change of heart from the narrow- minded nationalism of the past to a truly effective democratic internationalism which would end their petty rivalries. It is hard to contradict the wide- spread fatalistic Western judgment (rooted evidently in memories of the late thirties) relegating the Middle Europeans to a perpetual oppression of one sort or another. This line of Western thinking sees no chance for the peoples of the Middle Zone to overcome their dismal fate. For, as Max Beloff once expressed it: "Either Germany and Russia will join hands to partition them or they must rely on one or the other. Their only real hope is that Russia will evolve in such a way as to make the tutelage less oppressive."[39]

We should hope of course that the Soviet Union becomes less oppressive. Yet our real hope is that the Europeans themselves will come to their senses and unite their forces against foreign tutelage of whichever sort. It is within their collective power whether they will stagnate in a sense of crisis and live in fear of foreign domination or whether they will live as free people, self- confident and unafraid, having placed their trust in the collective strength of a democratic European Union.

The New Central Europe