Communism: Collapse in Europe & Persistence in Asia (Lecture Notes)

Collapse of Communism in Europe (Andrew Bitti)

Iconic Opening Image: 9 Nov 1989

• Fall of the Berlin Wall pictured as the lecture’s entry point.

• Wall had “literally cemented” the Cold-War division of Berlin, Germany, Europe.

• Sudden breach revealed brittleness of communist rule; heralded end of Cold War.

• Nick-named in Germany the “Peaceful Revolution” – deliberate oxymoron (revolution w/o violence).

Cold-War Geographies & Vocabulary

• Tripartite world during 1945-89:

  • 1st World = capitalist West.

  • 2nd World = communist bloc (term has vanished from speech; contrast w/ enduring “1st-world problem” & “3rd-world conditions”).

  • 3rd World = de-colonising / developing countries.

• Collapse dissolved binary East–West map and revived the idea of “Central Europe.”

From One Communist State to Many (post-1945)

• Pre-1945: only USSR ruled by communists.

• WWII victory let USSR “export the revolution” and create eight satellite regimes 1945-49.

• Historian Stephen A. Smith: task is to grasp communism’s “diversity alongside uniformity,” its “repressive & criminal” nature and “economic, social, military, cultural achievements.”

Inner vs Outer Empire

• Inner empire = multinational USSR (15 republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Baltics, Caucasus, Central Asia).

• Outer empire = satellite states (Poland, GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania).

• Map shown with hammer-and-sickle flags (inner) vs national flags (outer).

Installation of Satellite Regimes

• Stalin’s tactics 1945-48: multiparty façades, “salami tactics,” coalition governments, gradual purge of rivals.

• Quote Walter Ulbricht (1945): “Things have to look democratic, but we must have everything in hand.”

• Exceptions to ‘Soviet-tanks-only’ myth:

  • Yugoslavia – Tito seized power independently; later broke with Stalin; stayed communist yet non-aligned.

  • Czechoslovakia – 1948 coup without Soviet troops present.

• By late 1940s every satellite had communist-dominated constitution.

• Diversity persists:

  • Some (GDR, Poland, CSSR) allowed minor bloc parties.

  • Varied amount of private enterprise.

Post-Stalin Mutability

• Stalin dies $1953$ → succession struggle → Nikita Khrushchev wins.

• Partial de-Stalinisation: close Gulag (≈$1960$), denounce cult, but keep party monopoly.

• Khrushchev signals “different roads to socialism” → raises hopes in satellites.

• Under Leonid Brezhnev (1964-82):

  • USSR attains nuclear parity, engages in détente.

  • Helsinki Final Act (1975): West recognises post-1945 borders; East signs human-rights “Basket III” → new legal language for dissidents.

Challenging Moscow: Uprisings & Invasions

• $16–17$ Jun 1953 East Germany: worker strikes, $\sim13\,000$ arrests; crushed by Soviet tanks already on site.

• Oct 1956 Poland: Polish communists oust Soviet Marshal; Moscow tolerates.

• 23 Oct – 4 Nov 1956 Hungary: Imre Nagy’s government declares neutrality; Soviet army returns; $\sim200\,000$ refugees.

• Jan–Aug 1968 Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring): “socialism with a human face,” no neutrality demand, still invaded 20 Aug 1968 by Warsaw-Pact forces; birth of Brezhnev Doctrine.

Stagnation of 1970s–80s

• Regimes become gerontocracies:

  • Brezhnev dies $1982$ aged $76$; Andropov $69$ (dies 1984); Chernenko $73$ (dies 1985).

  • Satellites: Kádár (Hungary) 1956-88, Zhivkov (Bulgaria) 1954-89, Ceausescu (Romania) 1965-89.

• Economic malaise & consumer gap:

  • $1977$ cars per $1000$ residents – USSR $20$; GDR $206$; FRG $500$.

  • Housing chronic shortage; life-expectancy growth stalls late 1970s.

• Repression still present but far milder than Stalinism → space for dissident culture, samizdat, Helsinki monitoring groups.

Mikhail Gorbachev & the Reform Spiral

• Elected General Secretary Mar 1985, aged 54.

• Twin policies:

  • Perestroika – staged economic reforms: anti-alcohol; enterprise autonomy; joint ventures; eventual (1990) partial market w/ key sectors state-run.

  • Glasnost – unprecedented openness; media expose disasters, Stalinist crimes; delegitimises party instead of renewing it.

• Political overhaul: Congress of People’s Deputies (first partially free vote Mar 1989), multi-candidate elections, presidency of USSR (1990).

• Party loses monopoly Feb 1990 (Art. 6 removed from constitution).

Nationality Question & Disintegration of USSR

• Non-Russian republics demand sovereignty: Baltic “Human Chain” Aug 1989 $\left(\approx600\,\text{km}\right)$; Lithuania declares independence 11 Mar 1990.

• Russia itself, led by Boris Yeltsin (Pres. June 1991), asserts republican law over union law.

• Aug 1991 hard-line coup vs Gorbachev fails; Yeltsin rallies crowd on tank.

• $8$ Dec 1991: leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus sign Belavezha Accords → USSR dissolved 26 Dec 1991.

Collapse of the Outer Empire (1989)

• Gorbachev renounces force (Sinatra Doctrine).

• Poland: Round-Table Talks Feb-Apr 1989; semi-free elections 4 Jun 1989 – Solidarity wins $\approx100\%$ open seats; non-communist PM Mazowiecki by Sept.

• Hungary: border opens to Austria May 1989; republic declared 23 Oct 1989.

• GDR: mass exodus via Hungary; Monday demonstrations Leipzig (>$100\,000$); Wall falls 9 Nov 1989; reunification $3$ Oct 1990.

• Czechoslovakia: Velvet Revolution Nov-Dec 1989.

• Romania: only violent case; Ceausescu executed 25 Dec 1989.

Why So Peaceful?

• Regimes lacked democratic legitimacy & popular support.

• Nationalism eroded Soviet glue.

• Gorbachev refused to order a “Beijing solution.”

• Masses mobilised; security forces largely withheld fire.

Aftermath & Putin’s View

• Post-1991 period now equals length of communist era in satellites.

• Vladimir Putin (KGB Dresden 1989) later calls USSR collapse “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the $20^{\text{th}}$ century.”

Communism & Its Persistence in Asia (Jan Hladík)

Pre-Communist China (1911–49)

• 1911 fall of Qing → First Chinese Republic (Sun Yat-sen).

• 1910s-20s warlord chaos; May 4 1919 protests against Versailles concessions to Japan.

• Soviet Comintern aid: builds Marxist cells; Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded Shanghai July 1921 (Mao a junior delegate, ex-assistant librarian at Beijing Univ.).

• Rival nationalist force: Kuomintang (KMT) under Chiang Kai-shek; initial United Front, then 1927 White Terror purges communists.

Early Rural Strategy

• CCP retreats to countryside; sets up Jiangxi Soviets: land redistribution, literacy drives.

• Mao develops Sinification of Marxism (“Mao Zedong Thought”):

  • Peasantry as revolutionary vanguard (not industrial proletariat).

  • Skip capitalist stage; leap from feudalism → socialism.

  • Guerrilla “prolonged people’s war.”

Long March (Oct 1934 – Oct 1936)

• Strategic retreat $\approx12\,000\,\text{km}$; $\sim90\%$ of $\approx300\,000$ cadres perish.

• Re-fashions CCP’s founding myth; survivors (Mao, Zhou Enlai) become core leadership.

Second United Front & WWII (1937-45)

• Japan invades 7 Jul 1937 (Marco-Polo Bridge); brutal occupation:

  • Civilian deaths >20\,\text{million}.

  • Rape of Nanjing >100\,000 killed.

• CCP expands influence; USSR enters Manchuria Aug 1945 aiding CCP.

Civil War & Founding of PRC

• 1946-49 KMT vs CCP resumes; KMT weakened / corrupt; peasants favour CCP land policy.

• 1 Oct 1949 Mao proclaims People’s Republic of China (PRC); Chiang retreats to Taiwan.

Early Transformations (1949-56)

• Land Reform: public “speak-bitterness” sessions; landlords humiliated, executed.

• State socialism: nationalisation, central planning, agricultural collectivisation.

• Marriage Law 1950: bans forced marriage, legalises divorce, asserts gender equality.

Mao-Era Campaigns

Hundred Flowers & Anti-Rightist (1956-57)

• “Let $100$ flowers bloom” invite criticism → deluge → crackdown & purges.

Great Leap Forward (1958-61)

• Goal: out-produce Britain in steel.

• Communes, backyard furnaces, mass mobilisation.

• Catastrophic famine: est. $\sim30\,000,000$ deaths – “one of history’s worst social experiments.”

Cultural Revolution (1966-76)

• Fear of being sidelined, Mao mobilises Red Guards (students) to attack “Four Olds.”

• Little Red Book: $4.4\,\text{billion}$ copies/pamphlets.

• Teachers, officials humiliated, imprisoned, killed; heritage sites vandalised.

• By 1968 Mao sends $\approx12\,000,000$ youths “down to the countryside.”

Mao’s Death & Verdict

• Dies 9 Sep 1976 (age $82$).

• 1981 Deng Xiaoping formulates balance sheet: $70\%$ right / $30\%$ wrong.

Communism Elsewhere in Asia & Africa (Snapshots)

• Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh; reunified 1975; later market socialism.

• Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-78 genocide; overthrown by Vietnam 1979.

• Laos: Pathet Lao 1975-present.

• China–Vietnam War $1979$; Vietnam–Cambodia War 1978-89.

• Indonesia: 1965 anti-communist purge, $\sim500\,000$ killed.

• Mongolia: 2nd communist state (1921); communism ends 1990.

• Africa: Marxist regimes briefly in Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique (1970s-80s); Algerian & South-African parties key in anti-colonial / anti-apartheid struggles.

Post-Mao Reform & 1989

Deng Xiaoping’s Pragmatism

• “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white…” – priority is economic growth.

• Dismantles people’s communes; allows household farming, township-village enterprises, Special Economic Zones (e.g. Shenzhen), foreign investment.

• Continues one-party rule; no political liberalisation.

Tiananmen Square Protests

• Spring 1989: students + workers demand anticorruption, limited reforms (not outright end of communism).

• Demonstrations in >400 cities.

• 4 Jun 1989 PLA clears square; death toll hundreds – possibly thousands; message: economic reform yes, political dissent no.

New Legitimacy Formula

• Party pivots from Marxist ideology to economic performance + nationalism.

• Patriotic education emphasises Japanese wartime atrocities & resistance to Western imperialism.

• GDP per capita soars after $1990$; simultaneously, inequality widens:

  • Bottom $50\%$ own $15\%$ of wealth; top $10\%$ own $45\%$.

Post-1989 Global Communist Landscape

• Loss of Soviet subsidies hastens collapse in Mongolia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola.

• Cuba survives via Latin-American alliances, tourism.

• Vietnam & Laos replicate China’s “market socialism.”

• Quote (Bélogurova): Southeast Asia “contained communism – by collapse of faith rather than US intervention.”

Key Take-Away Themes

• Communism exhibits mutability: able to survive leaders’ deaths, adapt, yet eventually undone by legitimacy crises.

• Nationalism double-edged: facilitated anti-fascist & anti-colonial legitimacy, but later fractured multi-ethnic empires (USSR, Yugoslavia) and now props up one-party China.

• Peaceful vs violent transitions hinged on leaders’ readiness to use force (Gorbachev vs Deng, Ceausescu).

• Economic performance proved decisive: consumer-goods deficit eroded Eastern Europe; market reforms rescued Asian communist states at the cost of ideological purity.