HISTORY FINAL PT 2

Internationale

The communist concept that true revolution must be an international workers' phenomenon transcending ethnicity and nationalism

Olympe de Gouges / Marquis de Condorcet

Early political feminists marginalized by radical Jacobins during the French Revolution

Mary Wollstonecraft

English feminist marginalized for her association with French radicalism

First Stirrings of European Integration

 As far back as Charlamagne imagined unity under Holy Roman Empire. From medieval Christendom to Enlightened cosmopolitanism; visions of European unity across 19^th century political/ideological spectrum, Saint-Pierre and Kant. Across nationalism, Napolean (economic union), Hugo, Mazzini, Mill, Bakunin all thought bring posterity and peace, Divide in economic or ideological integration.

                        

Post WWI European Integration

Franco-German aggression over steel/coal regions in early 1920s gives way to tentative cooperation for steel production in Western Europe.  This paradoxically continues with Nazi-Vichy collaboration in the 1940s.

Post 1945 European Integration

                                                  i.     Recognition that Franco-German rapprochement needed to secure continent against war, destruction.  Churchill: “the first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany” (Resist Soviet Expansion) a strong Europe to combat American growth

                                                ii.     Establishment of Congress of Europe, European Council for dialogue no legal of Europe intellectual space (1948) and NATO (1949) represented an allied military command obligating cooperation in defense and security strategies, Europe in American Half of the World (intellectual + political) Germany banned until 1950s

Early European economic unions

Benelux, Schuman Plan, European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

Benelux

Customs union of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg, later joined by France and Italy (1948)

Schuman Plan

A plan by Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman to establish a supra-national authority to regulate Franco-German steel and coal production; designed to reintegrate Western Germany at U.S. urging.

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

The first European international institution (1951), providing a framework for economic integration between France and Germany

French and German aims with integration

France hoping to regain lost prestige; De Gaulle’s vision of Europe with France in a singular leadership role that would replace power of its lost empire. Venue for France’s greatness in era of decolonization. Expansion from within.

Germany hoping for postwar rehabilitation, replacing nationalism with internationalism. Collaboration with Europe only manner to be reintegrated and granted sovereignty. Only through supranational cosmopolitan spirit could rehabilitation be made possible.

European Economic Community

Established in 1957; also called the Common Market, comprising France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg.   Working towards abolition of trade barriers between member states.  Through the establishment of tariffs and free barriers within, free movement of labor. Establishes commission HQ in Brussels, Belgium. Highly successful in competing in world economy

Common Agricultural Policy

A program of vast agricultural subsidies within the EEC to protect agricultural territories

Barriers to Immigration and the EEC

Amid “thirty glorious”/ “economic miracle,” need for immigrant labor in France/German

“guest worker” programs bring millions to France, Germany from southern and eastern Europe, and North Africa.

  Incentivize poor workers to rehabilitate and reconstruct Europe.

1973 1.3 mil workers from west German.

Principles of free border emerged from economic integration. In economic crisis attitudes to borders fluctuated.

Schengen Area

Established in 1985; an agreement eliminating border controls among member states

End of Cold War and EU

Fall of Iron Curtain gives idea of European unity strong moral purpose: breaking down barriers, insistence on democratic principles; (legitimize and accelerate)

Post-communist states desperately want to join, hoping for subsidies, economic opportunities, protection against aggression “Return to Europe” political ideology and economic support. Membership as access to western markets and obtaining subsidies to rebuild after soviet project.

Prospect of European unity alleviates Franco-German tensions arising out of German reunification; New German Question

European Union / Maastricht Treaty / Euro

The EU was formally established by the Maastricht Treaty (1992), which created a plan for economic integration through a single currency (the Euro)  Marriage of French politics and German economic policies

Control of monetary policy

entrusted largely to Germany, because of stability of Deutschmark regulated by fiscal principal, low deficit low inflection and tight budgets

Expansion between 2004-2013

     capping out at its peak at a total of 28 member states

1.     Greatly successful, antithesis to old tragedies

2.     Membership in block insurance policy against conflict.

3.     Institutional signal of post-Cold War Europe and peace

What is Europe? (Discontents)

What authority does the EU actually have/should have?  Europe’s “founding fathers” thinking in terms of platitudes rather than concrete questions of national sovereignty vs. internationalism

1.     Mirage, institutional did not work

Not especially democratic as an institution; most Brussels “Eurocrats” appointed, not elected.  Critique of its bloated bureaucracy. Ethos of democracy with a democratic deficit.

  Few member states held referenda on joining; issues plagued adoption of ‘European constitution’ in 2004-2009; sense it had no real aims

Economic Inequality between Member States

Preexisting tensions between wealthier urban and poorer rural areas

  1980s accession of Greece, Spain, Portugal makes economic heterogeneity of Europe clear: in 1990, ½ of EEC’s poorest regions were Greek.  EEC subsidizes qualifying areas with “structural funds”

Coming of the Euro: German bankers wary of fiscal profligacy in states like Greece, Italy, Spain. Euro member states required to commit to surveillance to keep the euro “inflation-proof.”

This inequality exacerbated by admission of former Soviet bloc countries; late 90s and early 2000s, admit in a row versus in succession fear that Western states will have to subsidize all of them at once. Adoption of Deference policy

  The Eurozone Crisis

1999: European Central Bank (ECB) promulgates makes everyone sign on to “stability and growth pact,” binds states to public debt of less than 60% of GDP, 2003-2004 falls apart. 

No one adheres to this, not even Germany or France. Resentment between poorer countries, saw double standard.

Countries like Greece face severe debt crisis after Great Recession (2008).  ECB prescribes austerity: cutting of budgets, restriction of welfare spending, prompts mass unrest in Athens and elsewhere

European Central Bank (ECB)

Established in 1999; promulgated the "stability and growth pact," binding states to public debt of less than 60% of GDP

Great Recession / austerity

The 2008 financial crisis caused severe debt crises in countries like Greece; the ECB's response of austerity (budget cuts, restricted welfare spending) prompted mass unrest

Britain’s Limits

Emergence from WWII: confirmation of sense of political superiority over continental turmoil akin to Napoleonic War

Offered leadership role in ECSC (1951), declines for fear of jeopardizing own declining coal industries, privileges as head of postcolonial Commonwealth (imperial integrated commonmarket) Joined EEC in 1973 (after death of Charles de Gaulle); results in domestic turmoil as Labour/Conservative fight over implications.  Labour holds ex post facto first referendum on membership in 1975, Conservatives were pro-Europe at the time. De Gaulle did not believe Britain was certain about integration; Fear of instability

Commonwealth

Britain's postcolonial integrated common market; led Britain to decline membership in the ECSC (1951) to protect its own declining coal industries

British Euroskepticism since the 1980s

Thatcher, Currency control: Conservative party successors refuse to join Euro out of concern for surrendering sovereign economic control and losing the pound sterling

Margaret Thatcher

Leader of Britain's Conservative party who rose to prominence promoting neoliberal economic policies

Thatcherism

Neoliberal economic program based on reduced taxes, free markets, privatization of industries, and individual rights; Application of this critique to Europe: Brussels as bloated, bureaucratic state.  Thatcher negotiates “refunds” for Britain for “overpayments” to Common Budget

1.     Over reach to British Market

Second Referendum + Brexit

2013-onwards: Conservative party promises eventual referendum on EU membership to pander, Brexit: The 2016 referendum in which Britain voted to leave the EU, leading to years of political turmoil, Formally left in January 2020

Turkey

Republic of Turkey holds major Cold War role in NATO, otherwise not directly involved in European politics.

Applied to join EEC in April 1987, application is still pending

Security concerns about Europe having Middle Eastern borders

Idea of Europe as “Christendom”? Identity politics rooting in medieval Christianity; one constitution integrated rationalized religious identity.

Questions about Turkish commitment to democratic principles, issue of human rights violations: Since 2016 candidacy stalled

Ukraine

1.     Most recent EU candidate state; candidacy ratified June 2022, amid war with Russia, in part due to pressure from other former-Soviet bloc EU states

2.     If ratified, would be only member of the EU that was a founding member of the Soviet Union itself

3.     (Prospective) postwar reconstruction and the issue of intra-European aid

European Defense Community

A 1952 project to create a joint European defense force; stalled by France and Italy in 1954. May be revived.

Common Security and Defense Policy

The EU's weak defense framework, with limited joint exercises and unclear mutual obligations

1989

familiar story to 1848 and 1968, empires stuffed by revolution, destabilizing hierarchy. States fell in “domino”. Revolutions of 1989 were success with apparent smoothness, transformed map of Europe, and new, old, revisitation. Like 1919.

Aftermath of 1968

  Total discredit of communism on intellectual/political left in Western Europe. Stalinism was recognized as a condition of communism; inescapable. Reforming communism seemed incompatible. Center left: western vision of democracy better than east, crimes by other communist regimes, condemned

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Soviet dissident author (Gulag Archipelago) who documented Soviet terror and won the Nobel Prize; argued that once the lie is dispersed, the nakedness of violence is revealed

François Furet

French intellectual who argued in The Passing of an Illusion that communism had a totalitarian impulse irreconcilable with democratic intentions

Intellectual paradox of helsinki accords

Reflected new discourse, (referenced human rights) Yet pledged all signatories to “commitment to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms,” including Eastern bloc states and USSR

Created intellectual rubric for new human rights-based resistance in Eastern bloc states. Signed up for treaty acknowledgement of western vision of human rights.

First incidence: Václav Havel (playwright and artist) and the Charter 77 (document which condemned the Czech government for failed to implement the human rights provisions) movement in Czechoslovakia.  Not based on direct critique of party/ political authority but rather dissent through individuals seeking own truths and living their own truth and person. (transcended politics—turn inward).

Helsinki Accords (1975)

An agreement that paradoxically strengthened intellectual dissent in Eastern Europe by codifying human rights provisions that Soviet bloc states then failed to uphold

Václav Havel / Charter 77

Czech playwright Havel who led Charter 77, a document condemning the Czech government for failing to implement human rights provisions; dissent through individual conscience rather than direct political critique

Economic Stagnation of 1970-80s

growth rates stagnate everywhere, but especially Eastern bloc

Continued state emphasis on Stalinist heavy industry, rather than technology/service

Resource dependent states, Czech without metal exporting iron

Consumer Discontent

1.     Proliferation of drab, uncomfortable, shoddy state-planned housing

2.     Food and consumer goods highly priced or in short supply, high cost of living for poor standard of living

3.     Thriving black market in desirable western goods & apparel; western capitalist brands (i.e. McDonalds) arrive legally in Eastern bloc in 80s

Corruption

discontent with Soviet clientelist party network that controlled entire economy, access to university appointments, scientific research, medicinal expertise. Implications problematic.

State started to lose legitimacy, reality of debt

Vision communism sustainable only because western capitalist backbone

Financial Relations with West

1.     Eastern bloc owed $6.1 billion USD in debt in 1971, $95.6 billion by 1988

a.      loans used to subsidize food costs, but also pay costs of keeping up in US-USSR arms race (plunged dependency of the east)

b.     USSR going into debt (to Western banks) to fund armament programs of the “Second Cold War” (1980s)

Ostpolitik

West Germany's program under Chancellor Willy Brandt (Left Social Democratic Party) to improve relations with Eastern bloc states Open trade between the sides Aimed at increasing markets for W. German exports Legalizes “refugee trading”: W. Germany “buys” emigrants seeking escape from their home states in the east.  By 1989, E. Germany has been paid 3 billion marks in this way (big source of revenue and capital flow). Pay concessions in exchange for migration Represented official recognition from eastern bloc, no internal reform.

"Second Cold War"

The period of renewed arms race tension in the 1980s that drove the USSR deeply into debt to Western banks

War in Afghanistan (1979–1989)

A disastrous Soviet military intervention met with fierce local resistance by mujahideen fighters, further inflaming Muslim separatism in Soviet Central Asia

Mujahideen

Local Afghan resistance fighters who successfully repelled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

Stirrings of Change

Poland and Russia

Poland

i. International stature transformed by election of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła): brings international recognition to Polish Catholicism as site of resistance to communism, uses authority to insist Catholics have right of non-adherence to communism

1. Catholic church moral authority for polish resistance.

2. Destabilized relationship polish Catholicism and communism

ii. At same time, low wages and high cost of living produces new forms of worker resistance through independent (i.e. non-party) trade unions. Form of lobbying for workers.

iii. Most significant of these movements called Solidarity, led by electrician Lech Wałęsa, launched national strike movement in August 1980

iv. Polish communist party declares martial law, imprisons Solidarity leaders out of fear of USSR invasion

Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła)

Polish-born pope who brought international recognition to Polish Catholicism as a site of resistance to communism

Solidarity / Lech Wałęsa

Polish labor movement led by electrician Lech Wałęsa that launched a national strike in August 1980, becoming a major force against communist rule

Mikhail Gorbachev

Elected General Secretary in 1985; represented a new generation of Soviet leaders and enacted reforms of glasnost and perestroika

Glasnost / Perestroika

Gorbachev's twin policies of intellectual openness (glasnost) and economic restructuring (perestroika) Relaxation of censorship: dissent and debate are needed to keep the party honest; dismantle long-standing patronage networks controlling command economy. State acknowledges Stalinist crimes and the Gulag openly for first time. Spoke of need of reform in light of corruption.

Chernobyl Nuclear Incident (1986)

A catastrophic nuclear accident in Ukraine that exposed the human cost of Soviet administrative corruption and lack of expertise. Over 30,000 dead in Ukraine. Confront that traditional Soviet approach to crisis was not going to work because of Global nature of conflict. Forced to acknowledge structural legacies that allowed disaster— global accountability.

Gorbachev’s Russian foreign policy towards the West

1.     Signing of nuclear non-proliferation treaties with USA, avoid increased investments at home.

2.     Gradual withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan

3.     Disavows Brezhnev Doctrine; loosens control over Eastern bloc, disavow right to interference.

Satellite States: (1989)

Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia

Polish liberation

Communist attempt to crack down on Solidarity, assassination of their chaplain leads to further protests and international condemnation

Facing continued economic turmoil, communist party is forced to negotiate with Solidarity. They agree to public elections in early 1989.

Despite communist attempts to rig the election, Solidarity wins 99% of the open offices. De facto end of communist rule in Poland. Gorbachev recognized the legitimacy of the regime and elections.

Erich Honecker

East German leader deeply committed to Stalinist coercive protocols, who governed through the Stasi

Hungary

In the summer of 1989, Hungary opened its borders, allowing unhappy East Germans to flee westward. Hungary wanted to revitalized revolution of 1959

Pan-European Picnic

east German refuges left in mass over 72 hours.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Regime had started to fall apart East Germans began to resign, forced to concede multiple “travel ban relaxations” with West to prevent chaosOn November 9, 1989, the Berlin border was spontaneously opened, symbolized by the crowd's chant "We are one people

German Unification

  West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl sees this as necessary to staunch tide of emigration from the east Western powers, esp. Britain (Margaret Thatcher) and France (Francois Mitterand), deeply fearful of reassertion of German power (necessary check). Germany reunified on October 3, 1990.

Helmut Kohl

West German Chancellor who pushed for rapid reunification to stem the tide of emigration from the East

Czechoslovakia

  Police attacks on college students for resisting the regime in 1989 recall events of 1968, Civic Forum. Facing threats of general strike, communist government falls and Havel becomes president in Velvet Revolution (peaceful + little bloodshed)

Civic Forum

Opposition coalition formed by Havel that demanded free elections and the resignation of communist leadership in Czechoslovakia

Velvet Revolution

The peaceful collapse of communist government in Czechoslovakia, resulting in Havel becoming president

The Fall of the Soviet Union

a.      Phenomenon of decolonization, Gorbachev oversaw most peaceful decolonization, made noninterference clear.

b.     Independence of satellite states leads to demands for independence among Soviet federated states as well, resentful of Russian supremacy in the union

c.      Resistance rises among Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), which had been independent 1919-1939 until the Nazi-Soviet Pact.  KGB leads repression of resistance in Baltics, several die in skirmishes, resistance spreads to other Soviet republics (Belarus, Tajisktan, Ukraine).

d.     Division in Moscow between KGB and pro-independence movement led by Boris Yeltsin, president of Russian Soviet council

e.      KGB attempts a coup against Gorbachev in August 1991; Yeltsin declares coup illegal, directs opposition, mobilizes crowds to demand democracy.

f.      Virtually all Soviet Republics declare independence in August-September

g.     December 1991: Belarus, Russia and Ukraine met, Union Treaty of 1922 revoked, Gorbachev resigns and Yeltsin becomes president of Russia, USSR ceases to exist.

Boris Yeltsin

President of the Russian Soviet council who led the pro-independence movement against the KGB hardliners

1968 and cynicism

Cynicism for revolutionary movements and change

Springtime of people post war economic development, Western economic growth

After Stalinism became seen as a feature of communism itsle western leftists lacked clear political ideology and deorganization,

Western Europe

                                                  i.     Massive economic renewal in Western European countries: influx of US capital investment, reconstruction, reindustrialization, mix of capitalist ownership/state planning.  Low unemployment, high consumer spending. Western European countries have GDP growth rates up to 7% annually. West Germany reintegrating into NATO, EU, allowed to maintain armed forces again. Advocate for European integration

Economic Miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) / Trente Glorieuses

West Germany's postwar economic miracle and France's "30 glorious years" of economic prosperity (1945–1975)

Eastern Europe

Imposition of Stalinist political/economic policies in Soviet bloc states on mass. Replicate the state and political structures across political satellites.

Reinvigoration of show trials, purges, deportations to Gulag, mystification of Stalinist leader cult after WWII win

  Implementation of agricultural collectivization, industrial Five-Year Plans, Czechoslovakia. Repeated Soviet retaliation againt Bourgeois capital turned to food shortages.

   Leads to food shortages (“food lines”) and high prices and low worker wages

  Red Army, paradoxically, engaging in strike breaking among workers, left understanding Soviet governs by coercion an bureaucratic means

"Food lines"

A symbol of Eastern bloc economic failure; food shortages resulting in queues for basic goods

Thaw

Khrushchev's period of political relaxation beginning in 1956, marked by de-Stalinization

Nikita Khrushchev

Soviet leader (1953–1964) who succeeded Stalin and pursued a policy of de-Stalinization.   Aimed at “thawing” Cold War with US by improving diplomatic relations. Attempt to negotiate with the West

De-Stalinization

Khrushchev's policy of undoing Stalin's tyranny: dismantling the gulags, releasing prisoners, and relaxing censorship. 1956 “Secret Speech” only to inner member of bureau against Stalin,

Polish October (1956)

Traditional anti-Russian sentiment (dating from times of the tsars), combined with economic resentment fostered by Polish economic ties to Western states.  Prompts worker strikes. Also resentment of Soviet interference with Catholic Church, traditional bastion of Polish authority.An episode in which the Soviets allowed Polish Communists under Gomułka limited autonomy within the Warsaw Pact. Freedom of speech accorded to Catholic Church, but no one else  Did not have to be subject to aggressive stalinization

Władysław Gomułka / Warsaw Pact

Polish Communist leader granted partial autonomy; the Warsaw Pact was the mutual defense framework keeping Eastern Europe aligned with Moscow

Hungarian Revolution (1956)

A popular uprising in Hungary against Soviet-backed communist rule, violently crushed by Soviet forces. 1.     Hungarian nationalist leaders (Imre Nagy) attempt to secede from Warsaw Pact  Soviet troops invade Budapest, arrest/execute nationalist leaders.Hungarians plea with US/NATO for help, which is denied.Survivors flee to west. Deep disillusionment with so-called Soviet “thaw”

Iron Curtain

The ideological and physical boundary dividing Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe from Western Europe

Emigration

Repression send millions westward, Especially in East Germany, suffering from economic downturn and heavy Soviet war reparations.  1949-1961: 2.7 million East Germans flee to west through west Berlin, culminates with Khrushchev demands cession of West Berlin to East Germany; when western powers refuse, construction begins on Berlin Wall, designed to prevent eastern refugees from escaping.

West Berlin

An island of Western power within communist East Germany and a key transit point for refugees fleeing the East. Weak and easily passable borders.

Berlin Wall

Built to prevent East Germans from escaping to the West; became the defining symbol of the Cold War

United States in 1968

protests focus on clear messages regarding Vietnam War, Civil Rights

Western Europe Protests

 The Phenomenon of Student-led Protest

1.     Economic expansion and productivity=massive influx of students into university, institutions struggle to adapt.

2.     Insufficient and/or shoddy infrastructure, poorly staffed bureaucracies leads to student frustration, resentment.

3.     Students using own educational tools to question economic growth, neo-colonial ventures, traditional sources of authority

4.     Occurs in France, West Germany, Italy, U.K.

France in 1968

1.     Epicenter of discontent at U. of Paris-Nanterre, expansion campus west of Paris

2.     Academic confrontations between students (like Daniel Cohn-Bendit) and visiting officials lead to threats of expulsions, sit-ins, and protests.  Expands to central Paris, University system shuts down.

3.     Students take to streets, where police attack them.

4.     Rallies workers to their side: 10 million workers walk-off job sites by May 1968.  Charles de Gaulle appears unsympathetic to protesters, unable to respond effectively, threatens Fifth Republic

5.     Protesters unable to rally behind clear political messages; workers cease striking when granted higher wages.

Fifth Republic

France's governmental system threatened by the May 1968 crisis, during which 10 million workers went on strike

West Germany

Rallying around similar messages of anti-authority, anti-war

Demanding answers from older generations about “what they did in the war.”  German students taught little about 1933-1945; resent political/parental authority that sought to pretend 1945 was a Stunde Null (zero hour)

Particularly important because then West German Chancellor (Kiesinger) was a Nazi Party member for 12 years; limits of post-war denazification become obvious

  The Prague Spring

1. Czechoslovakia as invented state from 1919, coalition between rival ethnic groups, Czechs and Slovaks

2. Reformist coalition government emerges under Slovak Alexander Dubček: principle of “socialism with a human face” based on dissent, intellectual/artistic freedom, free speech

3. Soviets fear prospect of too many non-aligned, pseudo-communist states (like Yugoslavia, Romania, which had rogue leaders of own)

Alexander Dubček / "Socialism with a Human Face"

Slovak reformist leader of Czechoslovakia whose platform emphasized dissent, intellectual freedom, and free speech

Resistence in Polish Universities

1. Resentment that 1956 reforms only really gave freedom of speech to Catholic Church

2. University of Warsaw students and faculty members speak out against party overreach, repression (including Leszek Kolakowski), all imprisoned or expelled from party

3. Protests erupt in Jan 1968 when government shuts down production of an 1824, romantic nationalist play on the grounds of it being anti-Soviet. University/intellectual coalition against “the dictatorship of the dumb”

Brezhnev Doctrine

The Soviet policy justifying military intervention in any socialist country that threatened the broader Soviet bloc

Leonid Brezhnev

Soviet leader (from 1964) who replaced Khrushchev and was more authoritarian/conservative

Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia

The August 1968 Soviet-led military invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reform movement. 500,000 troops in Prague Non-violent or self-sacrificial resistance by activists, students Dubček and allies dismissed, party purged of reformers

Polish Repression from Within (1968)

Polish communist party launches purge of university system, expelling students/firing faculty. Specifically playing on anti-Semitic tropes, disproportionately targeting Jewish intellectuals, calling them a “fifth column” of resistance, forcing them to emigrate through discrimination

The End of the Imperial World Order

Pre-WWII, Britain and France as imperial superpowers, dividing the world between them, fashioning peace of 1919 in their image. World War II destroys moral, political, economic justifications and frameworks supporting these empires

War and Genocide Legacies of the Holocaust

 Allies cannot condemn Nazi atrocities like massacres, surveillance, concentration camps while continuing to use them as technologies of imperial control in own colonies.

1.     Arguments brought by Goering at Nuremberg Trials

2.     Moralizing/civilizing language cannot excuse

Rise of USA/USSR as superpowers

colonial empire as (seemingly) antithetical to both Cold War ideologies

USSR: encouraging anti-colonial nationalisms and communist revolutions (Leon Trotsky’s Soviet Internationalism)

USA: support for anti-colonial, self-determination discourses of UN, Atlantic Charter (Unwilling to accept British and French Colonialism)