Beyond the Divide: Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe 9781782388678

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Beyond the Divide

Beyond the Divide Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe

Edited by

SIMO MIKKONEN AND PIA KOIVUNEN

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2015 Simo Mikkonen & Pia Koivunen All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beyond the divide : entangled histories of Cold War Europe / edited by Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78238-866-1 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-1-78238-867-8 (ebook) 1. Europe, Western—Relations—Europe, Eastern. 2. Europe, Eastern—Relations— Europe, Western. 3. Transnationalism—Social aspects—Europe, Western. 4. Transnationalism—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern. 5. Europe—History—1945–— Historiography. 6. Cold War—Historiography. 7. Europe, Western—Historiography. 8. Europe, Eastern—Historiography. 9. Historiography—Political aspects—Europe, Western. 10. Historiography—Political aspects—Europe, Eastern. I. Mikkonen, Simo. II. Koivunen, Pia. D1065.E852B49 2015 940.55—dc23 2015003000

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed on acid-free paper ISBN 978-1-78238-866-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78238-867-8 (ebook)

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgments

viii

Introduction Beyond the Divide Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen

PART I.

POLITICAL PROCESSES AND TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS

Chapter 1

Opening Up Political Space: Informal Diplomacy, East-West Exchanges, and the Helsinki Process Giles Scott-Smith

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Challenging Old Cold War Stereotypes: The Case of Danish-Polish Youth Exchange and the European Détente, 1965–75 Marianne Rostgaard

1

23

44

Transmitting the “Freedom Virus”: France, the USSR, and Cultural Aspects of European Security Cooperation Nicolas Badalassi

63

Cultural Diplomacy of Switzerland and the Challenge of Peaceful Coexistence, 1956–75 Matthieu Gillabert

82

PART II.

INTERPLAY IN THE ACADEMIC CONTEXTS

Chapter 5

Expert Groups Closing the Divide: Estonian-Finnish Computing Cooperation since the 1960s Sampsa Kaataja

101

Contents

Chapter 6

French-Romanian Academic Exchanges in the 1960s Beatrice Scutaru

121

Chapter 7

Hungary Opens toward the West: Political Preconditions for Finnish-Hungarian Cooperation in Research and Development in the 1960s and 1970s 138 Anssi Halmesvirta

Chapter 8

“Discrete” Intermediaries: Transnational Activities of the Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne, 1966–91 151 Ioana Popa

PART III. LIMITATIONS FOR TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS Chapter 9

The Image of “Real France”: Instrumentalization of French Culture in the Early Communist Czechoslovakia Václav Šmidrkal

Chapter 10 Dealing with “Friends”: Soviet Friendship Societies in Western Europe as a Challenge for Western Diplomacy Sonja Großmann

177

196

Chapter 11 The Soviet Union Encounters Anglia: Britain’s Russian Magazine as a Medium for Cross-Border Communication 218 Sarah Davies

PART IV. ALONG THE BORDERLINES Chapter 12 Transnational Television in Europe: Cold War Competition and Cooperation Lars Lundgren Chapter 13 Transnational Spaces between Poland and Finland: Grassroots Efforts to Dismantle the Iron Curtain and Their Political Entanglements Anna Matyska

237

257

Chapter 14 A Filter for Western Cultural Products: The Influence of Italian Popular Culture on Yugoslavia, 1955–65 Francesca Rolandi

277

Bibliography

295

Index

319 – vi –

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

Figures for the yearly number of cultural and scientific visas delivered to foreign nationals from the Communist bloc. Figure 8.1 The number of printed materials sent to each Eastern European country, 1968–90. Source: FEIE’s archives. Figure 8.2. The number of fellowships for each Eastern European country, 1966–91. Source: FEIE’s archives. Figure 9.1 Dve kultúry [Two cultures]. Figure 9.2 Translations of French literature into Czech. Figure 9.3 Feature films in Czech cinemas according to country of origin (selection). Figure 9.4 Screenings of feature films in Czech cinemas by percentage according to their origin.

188

The Evolution of Franco-Romanian Cultural, Scientific, and Technical Exchanges

129

Figure 4.1

Table 6.1

– vii –

93 162 165 184 187 187

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

W

e have both been fascinated about the Cold War, and especially its cultural side for many years. At the same time, however, we have felt that the history of the Cold War concentrates too much on superpower relations. Even if Europe formed the primary battlefield of the Cold War, it seems to us that the role of European states and people has been overlooked. Particularly in regards to culture, and cultural relations between European countries, European viewpoint offers very different perspective for the Cold War. This initial idea led Simo to start arrangements for an international conference. He managed to get two great co-organizers for the conference, Pia, the coeditor of this book, and Pekka Suutari (U. of Eastern Finland). Conference, entitled “East-West cultural exchanges and the Cold War”, took place at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, during four exceptionally beautiful days in June 2012. After rigorous selection process, with submissions from 26 different countries, we ended up having 84 participants. Conference used pre-circulated research papers in order to pave way for a possible post-conference publication. In addition to the conference organizing troika, we received valuable help from Riikka-Mari Muhonen, a graduate student, who led a team of voluntary history students, successfully taking care of practical issues. The conference, the quality of papers, and the enthusiastic reception encouraged us to go forward with the planning of a volume after the conference. After going through different possible combinations of papers, we decided that we should compile two, instead of just one volume. One discussed cultural Cold War within the Eastern bloc, especially in regards to the Soviet Union. The other is the one you are currently holding, discussing connections between Western and Eastern Europe outside the superpower setting. Edited volumes are often considered to be great burden for editors and publishers are often skeptical whether edited volumes are worthwhile. – viii –

Acknowledgments

With this particular volume, even if there is a great number of contributors, things have proceeded quite smoothly. Contributors have all been committed to the process, paying attention to deadlines and responding on time. Therefore, as the editors, we are grateful for all the contributors. It has truly been a pleasure to work with such wonderful and innovative group of scholars. Your willingness to share your ideas and knowledge with others made this volume possible. We have felt privileged to work with you. In the path leading to this volume, we received help from several people that deserve our gratitude. Ilona Riikonen and Kirsi-Maria Hytönen from the University of Jyväskylä had a very important role in editing and processing individual chapters and helping the manuscript to take shape. With their effort, commitment and very professional touch, the process took quantum leaps forward. Also, we wish to thank Berghahn Books and its magnificent staff who did great job with finalizing this volume. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers who gave valuable feedback and constructive criticism. Finally, we wish to thank our spouses and children, for whom we wish to dedicate this volume. Simo Mikkonen, Muurame Pia Koivunen, Tampere 15 July 2015

– ix –

Introduction

BEYOND THE DIVIDE Simo Mikkonen Pia Koivunen

The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting. —Richard M. Nixon If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. —Moshe Dayan The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible. —Lech Walesa Cold War is over but Cold War thinking survives.

T

—Joseph Rotblat

he Cold War is already history. Still, it has maintained a surprisingly strong role in defining European historiography to this day. For example, widely used concepts such as “post-Socialism” or “countries of the former Soviet bloc” presuppose that the countries located east of “the Iron Curtain” were detached from their western neighbors and have only recently started to become like them. In this book, we argue that the Cold War era saw not only the division of Europe into two warring camps, but that there were also a plenty of connections over the East-West divide. Instead of two separate histories of Europe, these connections speak for entangled histories, urging us to go beyond the binational orientation –1–

Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen

and examine simultaneous interaction of several countries, people, and organizations. The research on the Cold War and related issues has expanded during the past twenty years, and today it is completely legitimate to study topics that were still unthinkable quite recently, like interaction and cooperation between Capitalist and Socialist worlds, or the cultural and social implications of the conflict. Furthermore, there have also been an increasing number of studies investigating how the Cold War affected the everyday life of ordinary citizens or whether the Cold War even mattered to them at all. Despite the emergence and current presentability of culturally and socially flavored Cold War research, much still remains unknown. This volume seeks to alter the way in which intra-European Cold War– era connections are perceived. Previous focus on superpower relations in Cold War research has resulted in the emphasis of East-West division. It is true that, for much of the twentieth century, both the Soviet Union and the United States had a major impact on Europe in intellectual, political, and cultural terms; their mere existence troubled, excited, outraged, and inspired people all over Europe. Often one superpower was seen as completely alien, while the other was considered as the savior of Europe. However, instead of being merely allies to superpowers, European countries were independent actors that harbored intentions and objectives beyond the superpower axis. These connections deserve more attention. For many of these countries, the relationships to countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain were often not so much about the Cold War as they were about normal dealings between two countries, and a number of these contacts were not new but originated from the prewar period. This kind of interaction escapes the traditional conception of the Cold War, and this has likely been the reason why they have not been examined extensively outside national scholarship.1 The European perspective is particularly important in the area of transnational networks and their implications on the Cold War–era relations. While the Soviet Union and the United States were far from each other and, in many respects, far from Europe, the countries in Europe were close to each other geographically, culturally, and even linguistically. The research task of this volume is to study an area that has been given too little attention: we aim to explore various manifestations of transnational connections between European countries on the opposite sides of the East-West division. While countries in the West were theoretically free with regard to their foreign policy and international issues, many of them had committed themselves to NATO or U.S. policies, and there were limitations on travel and the movement of goods and ideas to the East, but also from the East. For example, it was the Western countries in 1951 that –2–

Introduction

most vigorously tried to prevent young people from traveling to the third World Festival of Youth and Students held in Eastern Berlin.2 In the East, the Soviet Union had set strict limitations on the amount of foreign connections Socialist countries could have, preferring connections within the Socialist camp over external ones. Yet, these limitations were far from all-encompassing. As some recent studies have shown, the barrier dividing the Socialist and Capitalist worlds was not fully impervious. Beneath the seemingly bipolar structure, there were corporations, organizations, unofficial networks, and individuals interacting, connecting, and communicating. This makes the division rather elastic or semipermeable.3 The emergence of transnational networks that eventually made the East-West division softer and penetrable, as opposed to being an “Iron Curtain,” can be traced back to the post-Stalinist era.4 A transnational history of European Cold War relations enables us to explore questions that are fundamentally important for our understanding not only of the demise of one-party Socialism, but also of its persistence, heritage, and influence, which can still be felt today. Socialist leaders believed they could modernize their countries and compete with Western democracies by openly challenging them and learning from them. This seems to have been the logic behind the opening of official connections after Stalin’s death. Cultural exchanges resulted in growing interaction on lower levels. The process, however, took several decades and is still poorly understood. While several scholars have referred to the role of Western cultural influence in the Socialist sphere, few have examined interactions or the role of Socialist countries and societies in this process. This book departs from this platform and takes the analysis of interactions during the Cold War era to the next level by arguing that despite the rhetoric of two separate worlds, Eastern and Western European societies and people were entangled in a number of ways. This volume, then, is not so much about the Cold War per se, but rather about the attempts to overcome it, the Cold War mainly providing the chronological context for the study. Transnationalism, forming the focal point of this volume, encompasses the flow of ideas, people, and processes between a number of countries in the opposite camps. Apart from Socialist and Capitalist countries, there are examples of countries located between the blocs, such as Switzerland, Finland, and Yugoslavia, which further complicate the picture of Europe under the supposed aegis of competing superpowers. Through this volume, we hope to produce new knowledge about the prerequisites and opportunities of different countries for transnational connections as well as about the role of different layers of people in transnational networks. We do not question the existence of travel limitations or political suppression in –3–

Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen

most European countries of the time—the division was quite real for many people. However, we do argue that the East-West division was far from comprehensive and has been exaggerated. Without this perspective, the post–Cold War integration of Europe becomes difficult to understand. Societies in the East and the West during the Cold War were not fundamentally different; neither were they fully separated during the Cold War. The process of European integration has pointed out that some countries belonging to the Cold War East have had difficulties with integration, while others have had very few problems.5 Comprehensive research on European mobility and interaction helps us to understand some of the causes that supported, and in some cases prevented, the emergence of East-West connections, and it also leads to an understanding of their implications.

Beyond Cold War Studies? In order to position ourselves within the extensive field of international studies addressing the post−World War II Europe, we feel it is necessary to take a brief look at the more than two decades that have passed since the end of the Cold War. The fall of the Iron Curtain made it possible to rewrite the history of the Cold War era as previously closed archives of Socialist countries were opened. This marked the beginning of a new era that has been particularly beneficial for Russian and East European, or Eurasian, studies. Yet, the main focus has been on the developments within national borders; interest in the developments transcending national borders has been much more modest. Some general developments, particularly in the English-language literature, are evident, pointing to paths that many of our chapters have also followed. One of the significant shifts has been the cultural turn in the study of international relations and diplomatic history of the Cold War era. The cultural turn has expanded the focus from diplomats, nation states, and blocs to non-state actors. Until quite recently, the cultural aspects of the superpower rivalry, often known as the cultural Cold War, have mainly been studied from the U.S. perspective.6 The cultural Cold War as an approach has its roots in diplomatic and international history. It is primarily focused on activities that are closely related to states’ pursuits but are not equal to foreign policy or foreign relations. According to Gordon Johnston, the cultural Cold War can be divided into three areas: (1) the relations between the bloc leaders (the United States and the USSR); (2) the spheres of influence of the USSR and the United States (Western and Eastern Europe); and (3) “individual nation-states.”7 –4–

Introduction

Scholarship on the Cold War widened and became more multifaceted after the interest in the impacts and different features of the conflict began to attract attention beyond the confines of traditional political history and international relations. The arrival of cultural and social historians, media and film researchers, anthropologists, and many others has brought about new approaches, new methodological openings, and new sets of questions. With studies on arts, media, consumer culture, and grassroots activities, the understanding of the Cold War as a conflict, and especially its impact on ordinary people, has become more fragmented and multifaceted, but also less politically motivated. There have been a few comparative projects analyzing cultures and the Cold War in Europe. Patrick Major and Rana Mitter’s volume, Across the Blocs: Cultural and Social History of the Cold War sought to transcend the cultural Cold War into the realm of the cultural and social history of the Cold War.8 Two recent volumes more or less follow this agenda. Divided Dreamworlds: The Cultural Cold War in Western and Eastern Europe, edited by Peter Romijn, Giles Scott-Smith, and Joes Segal, focuses primarily on cultural diplomacy by analyzing the differences and similarities between the two visions of the future world, Capitalism and Socialism. A great difference from most studies on the cultural Cold War is that Divided Dreamworlds does not treat the East only as an object of the cultural Cold War; it also grants the visionaries of the Socialist utopia, an alternative form of modern life, the right to their views.9 Cold War Cultures, another recent volume edited by Annette Vowinckel, Marcus Payk, and Thomas Lindenberger, focuses on comparing European cultures during the Cold War and evaluating whether a particular European Cold War culture or cultures existed. The most valuable contribution of the volume is the notion that national, regional, and local trends, politics, and cultures played their own roles in shaping the realities in different parts of Europe during the Cold War. As was concluded by the editors of Cold War Cultures, Europe “was more than just a buffer area between the superpowers.”10 Dialogue, thus, is needed between the research areas of international relations and national histories. Another field that needs to be discussed in relation to transnationalism is Russian and Eastern European studies. The transnational approach has reached Eastern European studies, most richly seen in studies of everyday life, consumer culture, and fashion in Eastern Europe during Socialism and the Cold War period.11 More recently, studies on mobility, educational exchanges, and economic integration within the Socialist world, or “the second world,” have shed new light on the picture of the Socialist countries so long dominated by the sketches of the scholars of the totalitarian school.12 –5–

Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen

Toward Transnational History of Postwar Europe We aim at furthering many of the aforementioned developments by tackling Cold War–era cultural connections within Europe. We also address a few source-related problems. Many of our chapters use either previously little-exploited source types, such as oral history, or exploit unofficial archival materials—that is, documents produced by institutes and individuals unofficially involved in foreign connections. Spanning the wide gap between Eastern and Western Europe is a notable challenge for research related to Cold War–era Europe. Many countries, even of the former Soviet Union, have now become integral parts of the European Union and NATO. Yet, European historiographies still remain separate, with Eastern Europe seen as a lost area during the Cold War, with only the fall of the Iron Curtain giving them a chance to catch up with the West. Such an approach greatly distorts the big picture. The Soviet impact on Europe should not be underestimated, but viewing Eastern and Western Europe as completely detached societies, or East European societies as passive when compared to Western ones, blurs the picture. It is precisely European transnational networks during the Cold War, their dynamics, and their impact that might help us obtain a better understanding of the significance and heritage of the Cold War in the European context. We underline the importance of transnational networks and their meaning to average people. On a broad scale, increasing foreign connections offered Europeans a glimpse of the world on the other side of the Iron Curtain in the form of films and exhibitions, books and arts, foreign visitors, and even tourism. Reciprocal flow of influences had an energizing impact on average citizens, and that enabled functioning connections abroad. While there was certainly a political dimension to the East-West cultural exchanges at the governmental level, their significance for individuals was often very different. This volume, thus, shifts the focus from the area of international relations toward transnational ones, from a state-to-state level toward a people-to-people level. Not forgetting traditional diplomacy, the focus is nevertheless on the unofficial actions of diplomats and cultural diplomacy, by which we understand a way of interacting with the outside world by means of various forms of culture, such as educational and scientific exchanges, artistic tours, and exhibitions. In other words, our book concentrates on the thin line between the efforts of official and nongovernmental organizations. When considering the East-West division, a transnational approach seems to offer tools for understanding the viewpoints of both sides. The last few years have produced a couple of groundbreaking works that underline the promise of the transnational approach, even if these works deal –6–

Introduction

mostly with interwar Europe.13 Already in the 1930s, the supposedly introverted and xenophobic Soviet society was harboring several ties to Europe, and Soviet experts closely followed European ideas on state practices and modernization, as well as in arts, sciences, and culture.14 While the end of World War II changed things notably and interaction between the eastern and western parts of Europe became more difficult, the Soviet example, after which Socialist Eastern Europe was modeled, proves that interaction was not impossible. According to Michael David-Fox, transnational studies seem to offer an unusual opportunity to theorize geographical and ideological border crossings that would have significant repercussions on our understanding of international developments.15 The transnational approach is apparent in several works that do not explicitly name themselves transnational. In her work about Soviet tourism, Anne Gorsuch pointed out that Soviet tourism to the West was originally politically motivated, but its realizations showed that the persons involved had little interest in the political aims of the Soviet Communist Party. Gorsuch is at the core of transnational connections when regarding tourism as one of the most important aspects of the transformation of the image of the West in the minds of Soviet people, as it gave them a first-hand chance to evaluate the images provided for them by the Soviet government. It provides insight about the dynamics related to foreign connections in different layers, ranging from the government perspective to that of a Soviet individual.16 The opening of the Soviet Union to the world during the Khrushchev era allowed for increased connections between European countries in the East and the West. Socialist participation in World’s Fairs (particularly the Brussels Expo 58), Soviet-sponsored World Festivals of Youth and Students (especially the one held in Moscow in 1957), bilateral agreements on cultural exchanges between governments, and tourism beyond the Iron Curtain all contributed to the change. While the implications of this change have never been extensively studied and no theoretical background has so far been created, there are some works that promise groundbreaking results for a transnational approach.17 This new research on Socialist countries and their changing place in the world underlines the need for further studies with a cultural and transnational perspective on Cold War–era relations. Extensive East-West transnational networks had little to do with open dissent even if they were separate from government aims. When foreign traveling became possible and East-West cultural exchanges got under way, people involved were carefully selected. The first groups were often members of the scientific and cultural elite, a group that was believed to convey the ideological message of peaceful coexistence better than politicians. –7–

Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen

However, particularly in the field of arts, instead of merely choosing talented individuals, whole performing troupes, often consisting of hundreds of members, traveled abroad on tours of several weeks.18 At the same time, cultural exchanges quickly expanded to include broader segments of these societies. In a few years, it became very hard to control people’s interactions abroad. Several chapters in the book illustrate that few cared about the political aims set by the Communist parties, youth leagues, or other Socialist organizations. Travelers from Socialist countries in some cases might have reiterated the official propaganda in official meetings and interviews, but, for most of them, even this was something they cared little for. What really mattered was that foreign contacts allowed them to travel or to get access to goods, as well as foreign intellectual products and currents. Eventually, cultural exchanges developed into very lively interaction. Even if the Socialist authorities did not like the fact that its citizens had close dealings with the West, they considered the benefits to outweigh the drawbacks. The actual creation and major expansion of Socialist cultural diplomacy were based on the assumed appeal of Socialism. The price, an influx of Western influences into the Socialist sphere, was at first considered manageable. However, through exchange programs, scientists, scholars, athletes, and artists, even ordinary people, were able to establish foreign ties to an unparalleled extent. This resulted in interaction that had been unimaginable during the Stalin era. Despite crackdowns in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968) and increased limitations of the Brezhnev era, it was too late to shut the channels with the rest of Europe. What was considered a battle for hearts and minds by the superpower leaders was for many Soviet individuals primarily just a chance to go abroad and pursue their personal goals.

Transnational History and Cold War–era Europe This volume raises some methodological and conceptual challenges that need to be addressed in order to explain how individual chapters contribute to the whole. First, transnational history itself is not an established concept. Rather, it is differently understood among scholarly fields, as several of the chapters point out. Second, in the study of Cold War–era European history, the transnational approach is something that has received attention but is still very rarely adopted in practice. We provide several examples of the transnational approach by understanding it as the movement of people, ideas, goods, and practices and the impacts and implications of these movements. The implications of the transfer of knowledge, ideas, and practices lie at the heart of the transnational approach, which –8–

Introduction

seems to promise a better understanding of the mechanism of exchange as well as a more balanced approach to the nature of European connections in the Cold War era than has been typical of other superpower-centered Cold War studies. One of the key problems related to transnational history is that its definition is largely derived from the U.S. context.19 This is problematic because of the divergence of European counties, many of them with checkered national backgrounds. However, if “transnational” is used to refer to the cross-border movement of ideas, people, and goods, and transnational history promises to bring together scholars who formerly concentrated on their respective national areas, then this constraint appears to be an irrelevant terminological quibble. The crucial boundary here is the political and ideological borderline between the East and the West that has been supposed to divide Europe. It has also been called a transsystemic boundary, marking the point of interaction between two different systems.20 Yet, we emphasize not interaction between two homogenous systems but interaction between sometimes very different representatives of these systems as well as attempts to escape the confines of their respective systems. For us, transnationalism is not only about the movement of people or ideas but also about the impacts and implications of imported models and practices, foreign images, and culture, since it is precisely these that make the existence of transnational networks so important.21 Interest beyond national history has been a general trend among historians and other scholars used to conducting their studies in the framework of national units. This change is methodologically very important. In European historiography, the change has been a visible one, and the expansion of the European Union in particular has contributed to the growth of a transnational consciousness. Yet, even in Europe, the terms seem to have been dictated by Western Europe. Former Socialist countries from Eastern Europe have been seen to return to Europe, rather than Europe coming together and forming something new. In the case of Cold War Europe, superpowers spread their own versions of internationalism, which were essentially geopolitical, encouraging interaction within the respective camp rather than outside of it. Consequently, transnational processes within these camps, rather than between them, have been researched.22 Furthermore, while the transnational approach has been discussed in relation to Cold War–era Western Europe, especially in the case of the European Union, this approach has been less typical in relation to East-West interaction during the same era. The transnational approach, then, is not a monolithic structure but rather a heterogeneous approach that determines methodological choices. In many ways, it attaches to the endeavor to denationalize history that has –9–

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resulted from the decline of the traditional political emphasis during the 1970s and 1980s in favor of social and cultural history mentioned before. This has also led to an emphasis on the individual and the local, sometimes resulting in the loss of the big picture. The last two decades have seen the revival of international history, but with a greater emphasis on cooperation and shared goals than before, when interstate tensions were more commonly in focus. We seek to answer to this endeavor. Non-state actors, individuals, grassroots movements, the complex relationship between non-state actors, and state involvement in their activities are all features that have greatly enriched our understanding of these transnational phenomena.23 The transnational approach would seem to help to solve not only problems of fragmentation but also source-related methodological problems. For example, actions in the international scene during the Cold War have quite often been seen as government-motivated and controlled, which is partly a result of an overreliance on state-produced materials. Certainly, the governments on both sides were at the helm, but they were hardly controlling everything. Many of our chapters either primarily use or supplement their source base with oral history, reminiscences, unofficial archival sources, and other materials to provide the extragovernmental perspective on foreign connections. Previous examples of such an approach have brought about groundbreaking results.24 It has been pointed out that instead of so-called Cold War internationalism, which was typically geopolitical nationalism, there were genuine attempts to implement the real idea of internationalism. Often these endeavors involved non-state actors, both individuals and NGOs. This volume underlines that the line between state actors and NGOs was sometimes fuzzy. In an attempt to define internationalism, Akira Iriye discusses in Cultural Internationalism and World Order the ways in which globalization has shaped nations’ behavior. Iriye uses the term “internationalism” when he refers to attempts to transcend national rivalries that were so characteristic of twentieth-century Europe. According to Iriye, the important factor in overcoming parochialism and hatred of “the other” was the development of an alternative definition of world affairs.25 Such striving has been highly visible in the European project, but simultaneously, and perhaps even more importantly, it was a feature of transnational networks that stretched across the East-West division. Iriye’s approach emphasizes “cultural internationalism” (as distinguished from the economic internationalism currently associated with globalism) that consists of cross-national cultural communication, understanding, and cooperation. This leads to states having a more mature understanding of one another and a nurturing of shared concerns and interests.26 – 10 –

Introduction

On the Socialist side, the formation of international organizations seemed to have similar goals, connecting people beyond national, ethnic, and political boundaries. The Soviet Union established networks of international organizations dedicated to peace, including the World Peace Council, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, the World Federation of Trade Union, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the International Union of Students. However, quite quickly they came to be associated with Soviet propaganda efforts rather than genuine attempts to facilitate transnational mobility. Even if accusations were made by western politicians and mainstream media that these organizations were nothing more than subversion and propaganda, not everyone agreed. As recent studies on the Soviet-dominated World Festivals of Youth and Students, for example, have shown, instead of the organization and orchestration from above, these multinational festivals also generated uncontrollable forms of transnational exchange and interaction at the grassroots level.27 Several of our chapters address the relationship of such international organizations with western NGOs and governments, shedding light on the birth of transnational networks. Especially during the Brezhnev era, some of these networks manifested themselves in dissident-related activities and grassroots activism, as recent literature suggests.28 The interplay of personal and public as well as official and unofficial activities is an important feature of a transnational approach and also reflected by our chapters. With regard to personal motivation and people’s experiences of foreign activities, Ulf Hannerz has investigated conditions in which national identities can weaken, making smaller units in foreign connections stand out. Hannerz has pointed out that “a great many real relationships to people and places may cross boundaries. Intimate circles and small networks can be involved here; the transnational is not always immense in scale.”29 Furthermore, Eric Hobsbawm, in his Nations and Nationalism since 1780, has been skeptical about the strength of nations in the era of globalization. He has suggested that the passiveness of nation states has led to the strengthening of transnational structures.30 We argue that Cold War Europe manifests these features, with transnational networks embracing broader segments of society, often people outside the immediate power structures. In the European context, the transnational approach has most often been discussed in connection with comparative history. Indeed, especially in Germany the last two decades have seen a strong transnational orientation in the form of comparative history. Classical comparative history was characterized by a systematic search for differences and similarities, often lacking interaction, and therefore new approaches have been developed. Especially the concept of “transfer” has indicated a shift toward more dy– 11 –

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namic comparative history. In Michel Espagne’s definition, transfer is the process through which the norms and representations of one culture appear in another. Transfer studies follow the transmission of one culture into another, analyzing the process of change.31 The theoretical problem in this approach vis-à-vis this volume is that “transfer” allocates a passive role to the recipient. Indeed, Peter Burke has stated that the process is rarely a one-way street and that ideas and practices are more typically adapted to their new cultural environment—that is, “translated.”32 To take the transfer approach further, Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann have introduced the idea of histoire croisée, entangled history, which acknowledges that societies are different and that a successful comparison requires multiple perspectives. Furthermore, entangled history urges us to go beyond the binational orientation that has typically prevailed in transnational research.33 We do not aim at comparing different societies, but rather set our sights on a more concise picture of interaction within Cold War Europe. Processes and interactions between Eastern and Western Europe during the Cold War should not be perceived as binational phenomena, which they never were, but as processes that entailed several countries and different layers of society, from the grass roots to national governments and supranational organizations. With this volume, we offer an empirical example of entangled history in the context of Cold War Europe. Furthermore, we show that the definition of Europe, or the West (not speaking of the East), depends heavily on the observer. We hope to feed further discussion about the benefits of the transnational approach for recent European history, nurture discussion about possible differences and similarities between transnational approaches in Western and Eastern European contexts, and finally bring them closer to each other.

Eluding Concepts Cold War The Cold War has typically been understood as foreign operations in Europe within the framework of emphasizing antagonism and juxtaposition of rival ideological and economic systems. A transnational setting reveals attempts to overcome Cold War boundaries: a striving for détente and peaceful solutions. These currents were strong among average people as well as the cultural intelligentsia on both sides, but they tend to be overlooked in the traditional Cold War narrative. The study of how certain images and cultural icons contributed to the efforts to transcend Cold War boundaries is also one of the promising fields of Soviet transnational – 12 –

Introduction

history. Even when it comes to U.S.-Soviet relations, some points of departure have been discovered in the Cold War narrative, such as space collaboration in the 1970s and early 1980s, which was significant not only for science but also for East-West transnational relations in Cold War–era Europe. According to Andrew Jenks, space exploration represented, for many, a way “to transcend Cold War hostilities and to forge a new kind of global community.”34 Scientific and scholarly cooperation was truly an important part of the development of transnational relations, as Sampsa Kaataja’s chapter on cooperation in the realm of cybernetics points out. More recent Cold War studies have been essentially multidisciplinary, which is an important aspect of this volume as well. In many ways, transnationalism provides for this multidisciplinarity but without the constraints of the Cold War. Fruitful cooperation is taking place between history, art history, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies in an area where research used to be conducted solely by political scientists. This promises to enhance the big picture of European interaction in the shadow of the superpower conflict, possibly helping to explain the current outlook of Europe. We should be, however, careful when applying “the Cold War” to a new type of research. David Caute wisely warned us in 2003 about not attaching the “fashionable” label “Cold War” to topics that have no real connection to the actual conflict.35 Caute’s warning is still relevant today. When studying exchanges, mobility, and transfers, it is easy to talk about “Cold War interactions” and “Cold War exchanges.” The superpower conflict limited contacts between people in the East and the West, but quite often attempts at East-West dialogue aimed at overcoming Cold War limitations. The further we go from the competition and battle between the superpowers, the less significant the conflict, and thus the concept itself, seems to become. Moreover, when looking at the postwar period from the perspective of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Cold War appears as a Western concept, not much used in the national contexts of Eastern Europe. The Cold War is viable as a context, particularly in the chronological sense, but as a paradigm it becomes a limiting factor, making it difficult to investigate exchanges, interactions, and culture in the postwar period. Europe As we focus on Europe, it is necessary to discuss what we understand as Europe in the postwar period. In the traditional view, postwar Europe is seen as Communist Eastern Europe and Capitalist Western Europe. Furthermore, when European integration is discussed, primacy is usually given to the West over the East. The picture is, nonetheless, more nuanced, and we – 13 –

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may find various groupings among the European countries depending on the defining factors. In terms of military alliances, there were the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, but also the so-called neutrals or the countries that were not allied with either of the blocs, such as Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, and Yugoslavia. Moreover, some of the Capitalist countries on the Western side of the divide, such as France, Italy, and Finland, all had strong Communist parties and popular friendship societies with the Soviet Union, as Sonja Großman points out in her chapter.36 It is also important to note that the new Socialist countries within the Soviet sphere of influence and defined by one ideology were far from being a culturally, politically, economically, or religiously coherent area in the pre–World War II era.37 Examples in this volume of Czechoslovakia (Václav Šmidrkal), Hungary (Anssi Halmesvirta), and Romania (Beatrice Scutaru) make a strong case that several of these countries had more natural ties to their Western neighbors than to Russia. French demographer Alfred Sauvy famously captured the division of Europe—and the whole world—by coining the term “third world.” It implied the first world (Capitalist countries), the second world (Socialist countries), and the third world (colonies and ex-colonies under the rule of first-world states). This categorization has proved its persistence as recent studies on transnational relations and interaction between the Socialist bloc and the rest of the world have made use of the term “second world.”38 Because we confine our focus on Europe and European interaction and because our focus is not only on states, we prefer to talk about Western and Eastern Europe. Transnational Networks Finally, we need to address the sometimes thin line between diplomatic action and transnational networks and define what kinds of actions fall to the latter category. Communication, interaction, and cooperation can mean different things in different circumstances. The term “diplomacy” in its different functions seems to be a key element when studying Cold War interactions. It is typical for culturally oriented Cold War studies that the focus is on less formal and less official levels of state activities instead of traditional diplomacy. Nevertheless, the state seems to be involved in these activities one way or another, and therefore the concept of diplomacy is in place. There are more or less state-controlled cultural programs that can be defined as cultural diplomacy or public diplomacy—a state’s communication with foreign publics. Thus, it is a branch of diplomacy that is concerned with developing and sustaining relations with foreign states and their people through arts, popular culture, and education. However, – 14 –

Introduction

cultural diplomacy sometimes comes close to propaganda, especially in connection with the Cold War, and it is not always clear were the line goes.39 At the other end of the spectrum, we may find informal diplomacy, citizen diplomacy, or private diplomacy, which go yet further from the endeavors of a state but are, nonetheless, linked to state aims. In this volume, Giles Scott-Smith introduces the term “parallel diplomacy,” by which he refers to individual enterprises that fostered official state aims without being commanded by a state. Besides cultural or public diplomacy, a typical form of transnational activity during the Cold War was grassroots networking that contradicted or even consciously battled the official aims of a state. This kind of activity includes dissident networks, the human rights movement, and also private people-to-people communication. A common element in grassroots activism is that it is born “from below,” from the needs of individuals, and it is characterized by loose institutional structures.40 All the chapters of this volume address the sort of issues mentioned above, actions that are partly diplomacy but partly manifestations of individual aims running contrary to government aims. Marianne Rostgaard, Nicolas Badalassi, and Matthieu Gillabert, together with Scott-Smith, all point toward the interplay between official, semi-official, and unofficial motives in East-West connections in this volume. However, as Anna Matyska, Sonja Großman, and Sampsa Kaataja point out, the same interplay can be found from the Soviet side. Even in Socialist systems, there were contrary aims that complicated the diplomacy of Socialist countries and suggest that a transnational approach to foreign connections provides important perspectives that would otherwise be lost or would emerge as incomprehensible.

The Structure of This Volume This volume is divided into four parts, each of which analyses transnational processes in Cold War Europe from different angles. The first part deals with the interplay of official and unofficial diplomacy. The second part focuses on academic networks and mobility within the world of science. The third section analyses interaction between nongovernmental and semi-governmental institutions, such as friendship societies of the Soviet style. The fourth and last part of the volume considers the ways in which professional and family networks undermined the East-West division and encouraged border crossings. Chronologically, the chapters move from the immediate post−World War II years to the early 1980s, emphasizing particularly the 1950s and 1960s, when new policies and approaches toward the other part of Europe – 15 –

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seem to have developed on both sides. As Šmidrkal’s chapter suggests, the Socialist interpretation of the West, combined with strict limitations on foreign connections, gradually cut the former connections of East Central Europe with the post−World War II West. Several chapters suggest that the death of Stalin in 1953 was not only a point of change vis-à-vis international relations and diplomacy, but also on the lower levels concerning the movement of people, ideas, processes, and goods. The suppression and limitations of foreign connections in the Stalin era were partly reversed, opening up new possibilities for transnational networks. While it was the area of cultural diplomacy that seemed to reserve the central stage, many individuals and both professional and personal networks played an important role very early on, as Francesca Rolandi suggests in her chapter about Italian-Yugoslav networks. By choosing a number of European countries, we have aimed at showing that despite the processes being different in distinct regions and systems, transnational networks can be found throughout the Cold War–era Europe. Despite the existence of several case studies on such connections, what has been lacking is a more complete picture of what happened in Europe during the Cold War years in this respect. If we are to understand the rapid changes in Europe since the 1980s, we must examine Cold War Europe and transnational networks that were built during these decades. Otherwise we turn a blind-eye to the fact that Europe was seeking common nominators, mutual language, and lively connections beyond national and systemic borders even during an era that has been considered to be one of hostility and strict East-West division. Simo Mikkonen is an Academy Research Fellow in the Department of History and Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He is the author of State Composers and the Red Courtiers: Music, Ideology, and Politics in the Soviet 1930s (2009). Pia Koivunen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Advanced Social Research at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her Ph.D. dissertation Performing Peace and Friendship: The World Youth Festival as a Tool of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, 1947–1957 (2013) studied the Soviet role in the Cultural Cold War. Koivunen has published widely on the World Youth Festivals and is preparing a monograph on Soviet cultural diplomacy.

Notes 1. For an exception among studies of Cold War Europe, see S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy, Reassessing Cold War Europe (London: Routledge, 2011). – 16 –

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2. N. Rutter, “The Western Wall: The Iron Curtain Recast in Midsummer 1951,” in Cold War Crossings: International Travel and Exchange across the Soviet Bloc, ed. P. Babiracki and K. Zimmer (College Station, TX: A&M UP, 2014), 78–106. 3. G. Péteri, “Nylon Curtain: Transnational and Transsystemic Tendencies in the Cultural Life of State-Socialist Russia and East-Central Europe,” Slavonica 10, no. 2 (2004): 113–23; S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy, “Introduction,” in Reassessing Cold War Europe, ed. S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy (London: Routledge, 2011), 6; M. David-Fox, “The Iron Curtain as Semi-Permeable Membrane: Origins and Demise of the Stalinist Superiority Complex,” in Cold War Crossings, ed. Babiracki and Zimmer, 14–39. 4. While transnational connections between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world existed even under Stalin, these were much more limited in scope than after 1953. On Stalin era transnational connections, see, e.g., M. David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to Soviet Russia, 1921–1941 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); K. Clark, Moscow, The Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931–1941 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). 5. See, e.g., M. Conway and K. K. Patel, eds., Europeanization in the Twentieth Century: Historical Approaches (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010). 6. W. L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997); Y. Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2003); L. Belmonte, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). 7. G. Johnston, “Revisiting the Cultural Cold War,” Social History 35, no. 3 (2010): 295. 8. P. Major and R. Mitter, “East is East and West is West? Towards a Comparative SocioCultural History of the Cold War,” in Across the Blocs: Cold War Cultural and Social History, ed. R. Mitter and P. Major (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 3. 9. G. Scott-Smith, and J. Segal, “Introduction: Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West,” in Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West, ed. P. Romijn, G. Scott-Smith, and J. Segal (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2012), 1–9. 10. A. Vowinckel, M. Payk, and T. Lindenberger, “European Cold War Culture(s)? An Introduction,” in Cold War Cultures: Perspectives on Eastern and Western European Societies, ed. A. Vowinckel, M. Payk, and T. Lindenberger (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 6, 9, 17. 11. S. E. Reid and D. Crowley, eds., Style and Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture in Postwar Eastern Europe (Oxford: Berg, 2000); D. Crowley and S. E. Reid, eds., Pleasures in Socialism. Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010); D. Koleva, ed., Negotiating Normality: Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2012); M. Fulbrook, The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005); P. Bren and M. Neuberger, eds., Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 12. For a thorough overview of the studies on Soviet bloc interactions during the Cold War and of a paradigm shift in Russian and East European Studies, see P. Babiracki, “Interfacing the Soviet Bloc: Recent Literature and New Paradigms,” Ab Imperio 12, no. 4 (2011), 376–407. See also S. Kansikas, Socialist Countries Face the European Community: Soviet Bloc Controversies over East-West Trade (Bern: Peter Lang, 2014); A. E. Gorsuch and D. P. Koenker, eds., Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013); Babiracki and Zimmer eds., Cold War Crossings. 13. David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment; M. David-Fox, P. Holquist, and A. Martin, eds., Fascination and Enmity: Russia and Germany as Entangled Histories, 1914–1945 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012). – 17 –

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14. D. L. Hoffman, Cultivating the Masses: Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1917–1939 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011); Clark, Moscow, The Fourth Rome; DavidFox, Showcasing the Great Experiment. 15. M. David-Fox, “The Implications of Transnationalism,” Kritika 12, no. 4 (Fall 2011): 885–904. 16. A. E. Gorsuch, All This is Your World. Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad after Stalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 17. D. Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); S. E. Reid, “Who Will Beat Whom? Soviet Popular Reception of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959,” Kritika 9, no. 4 (Fall 2008), 855–904; P. Koivunen, “Performing Peace and Friendship: The World Youth Festival as a Tool of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, 1947–1957,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Tampere, 2013); J. Krekola and S. Mikkonen, “Backlash of the Free World: US presence at the World Youth Festival in Helsinki, 1962,” Scandinavian Journal of History 36, no. 2 (2011), 230–55. 18. See, e.g., S. Mikkonen, “Winning Hearts and Minds? The Soviet Musical Intelligentsia in the Struggle against the United States during the Early Cold War,” in Twentieth-Century Music and Politics, ed. P. Fairclough (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013); P. Koivunen, “Overcoming Cold War Boundaries at the World Youth Festivals,”, in Reassessing Cold War Europe, ed. Autio-Sarasmo and Miklóssy, 175–192. 19. See, e.g., C. A. Bayly et al., “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History,” American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (2006), 1140–65. The transnational approach is seen as reaching beyond a focus that was typically fixed within the confines of a nation-state. 20. Péteri, “Nylon Curtain,” 113–23. 21. David-Fox, “The Implications of Transnationalism,” 885–904. 22. See, e.g., R. Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Mitter and Major eds., Across the Blocs. 23. Various roles and positions of non-state actors in cultural diplomacy are well discussed in J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht and M. Donfried eds., Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010). 24. M. Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); S. B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 25. A. Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 15–16. 26. Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order, 17–20. 27. See, e.g., Koivunen, “Performing Peace and Friendship”. 28. F. Kind-Kovacs and J. Labov, eds., Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013). 29. U. Hannerz, “The Withering Away of the Nation?” Ethnos 58, no. 3–4 (1993), 377–91. 30. E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 31. M. Espagne, “Sur les limites du comparatisme en histoire culturelle,” Genèses no. 17 (1994), 112–21. 32. P. Burke, “Translating Knowledge, Translating Cultures,” in Kultureller Austausch in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Michael North (Köln: Böhlau, 2009), 69–77. 33. M. Werner and B. Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: “Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity,” History and Theory 45 (February 2006), 30–50; H. Kaelble, “Between Comparison and Transfers—and What Now?” in Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New Perspectives, ed. H.-G. Haupt and J. Kocka (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009). – 18 –

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34. A. Jenks, “Transnational History and Space Flight,” Russian History Blog, 5 October 2011. http://russianhistoryblog.org/2011/10/transnational-history-and-space-flight/. 35. D. Caute, “Foreword,” in The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960, ed. G. Scott-Smith and H. Krabbendam (London: Routledge, 2003), vii. 36. P. Lange and M. Vannicelli, eds., The Communist Parties of Italy, France and Spain: Postwar Change and Continuity (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981); A. F. Upton, The Communist Parties of Scandinavia and Finland (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973). 37. A. Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–56 (London: Allen Lane, 2012), xxvi–xxvii. 38. Gorsuch and Koenker, eds., Socialist Sixties; Babiracki and Zimmermann, eds., Cold War Crossings. 39. J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht, “What Are We Searching for? Culture, Diplomacy, Agent, and the State,” in Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy, ed. J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht and M. C. Donfried (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 3–11; C. Luke and M. Kersel, U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage (New York: Routledge, 2013), 2–5. 40. Kind-Kovács and Labov, eds., Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond.

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P A RT I

POLITICAL PROCESSES AND TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS

Chapter 1

OPENING UP POLITICAL SPACE Informal Diplomacy, East-West Exchanges, and the Helsinki Process Giles Scott-Smith

Introduction

T

his chapter concerns the phenomenon that is variously described as “informal diplomacy,” “unofficial diplomacy,” “private diplomacy,” or “citizen diplomacy,” and its importance as a central element of transnational relations during the Cold War. The particular examples used cover the activities of four Dutch citizens who sought to develop forums for EastWest exchange during the 1970s and 1980s: Kees van den Heuvel (EastWest Institute), Frans Alting von Geusau (JFK Institute), Rudolf Jurrjens (Foundation for East-West Contacts), and banker/entrepreneur Ernst H. van Eeghen. Significantly, they were active in this field at a time when the Dutch government itself neither pursued such contacts nor coordinated with the private sector to attain such contacts at a distance. The 1970s witnessed a major increase in significance for non-state actors, giving rise to the concept of the transnational as a diverse realm of cross-border interaction not necessarily determined by nation-states. To describe the Dutch situation, this chapter introduces the concept of “parallel diplomacy.” This provokes several key questions: What did these individuals think they were doing? What were their motivations, and what did they hope to achieve? Finally, how should we interpret them in the context of East-West relations during this period? Based on their own personal papers and several interviews, this chapter aims to position these “informal diplomats” within the context of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands – 23 –

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and the Soviet bloc. In doing so, it contrasts the approach of traditional diplomacy with these four freelancers, and the tensions and suspicions that this activity caused.

The Concept of Informal Diplomacy Diplomacy is traditionally regarded as an interstate activity. To make use of a classic definition, it involves “the application of intelligence and tact to the conduct of official relations between the governments of independent states.”1 The emphasis lies on “official” and “governments,” and the activity is highly restricted or professionalized. While this definition still largely holds, approaches to so-called new diplomatic history have expanded its parameters in significant ways.2 First, the interpretation of diplomatic practice itself has expanded with the recognition that official diplomats engage in political communication outside of official relations, and that this deserves attention as a legitimate aspect of the diplomatic process. We are familiar enough now with the use of back channels to ensure a controlled flow of information during times of tension, most notably during the Cuban missile crisis and the negotiations involved in “Ostpolitik”.3 There are also plenty of examples where diplomats and government officials circulate ideas independently from their official position, drawing attention to private “elite networks,” such as the Bilderberg meetings, or to prime think tanks and foreign affairs institutes as sites for informal diplomatic discussion.4 The second involves an expansion of the term “diplomat” to include unofficial, private actors who contribute to the overall process of diplomacy. This is the basis for so-called two-track or multitrack diplomacy that uses a combination of formal and informal dimensions to achieve particular goals, particularly peace-making. Informal diplomacy, which relies on the specific (local) knowledge of the private interlocutor, is useful for “making changes in relationships so that they may be brought to a point where development can occur.”5 The problem with these expanded parameters is that they still set the context for understanding informal diplomacy within a clearly defined official diplomatic setting with clearly defined goals. Informal diplomacy is no more than an extra set of tools with which to achieve the same results. The controlling element of official diplomacy is always in play because the suspicion remains that the unprofessional diplomatic actor will either unnecessarily complicate matters or, worse, become an unsuspecting asset for the opponent. The approach adopted here is precisely to dislocate the informal from the formal, to make the claim that a transnational perspective shifts the emphasis toward different actors, motives, and goals that can– 24 –

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not be collapsed into the standard intergovernmental diplomatic scenario. In the words of transnational history pioneer Akira Iriye, “Transnational history … focuses on cross-national connections, whether through individuals, non-national identities, and non-state actors, or in terms of objectives shared by people and communities regardless of their nationality. … International and transnational phenomena may sometimes overlap, but often they come into conflict.”6 The 1970s was the era when the transnational came of age as an object of serious political consideration, marked clearly by Keohane and Nye’s Transnational Relations and World Politics in 1971 and its focus on “contacts, coalitions, and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of governments.”7 Advances in communication and transportation opened up new possibilities for the citizen diplomat to engage in international affairs, epitomized by the flight of West German teenager Matthias Rust to Red Square in May 1987. The momentum of the decade was summed up well by the 1977 publication Unofficial Diplomats: “Beginning after World War II and burgeoning in the international system of the 1970s, an increasing proportion of international interactions bypasses, complements, or supplements traditional bilateral procedures.” The emphasis still lay on the provision of “auxiliary channels of communication,” “intermediaries,” and “facilitating the conduct of interstate relations,” but there was clearly more going on.8 The seminal Helsinki Final Act led to a merging of human rights NGOs within Western (particularly U.S.) foreign policy that pointed toward the end of the Cold War. The focus on “détente from below” has broken free of the Western-centric approach to social movements, instead linking developments in the East and the West on equal terms and not as part of some liberalism-driven grand narrative.9 As a transnational phenomenon, the cause of human rights not only transcends official diplomacy but also escapes the Cold War straitjacket of much historiography on the second half of the twentieth century.10 The examples given here would seem to occupy an undefined space in international politics. A negative view would regard them as renegade diplomats of dubious merit, while a more positive approach would note their contribution to the ever-denser network of East-West contacts that ultimately normalized relations—part of the complex and far-from-organized multilevel interaction involving interchange on the international, national, and institutional/individual levels, but not necessarily interchange between the levels.11 They did not feed into any particular “policy networks [that] comprise[d] policy fields,” although Alting von Geusau came closest through his position on the foreign ministry’s advisory committee for arms control from 1968 onward, becoming its chairman in 1976.12 They could perhaps be regarded as “cultural brokers,” a term originating from anthro– 25 –

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pology referring to a form of mediation whereby the broker “provides the individual link between sociocultural units” for the sake of developing successful communication. Yet, to fulfill this role, the broker remains outside of the communities concerned, and treats the parties as equals (“parity of cultures”) to encourage “responsiveness, respect, and support.”13 Next to all of these interpretations remains the relationship with official state-to-state contacts. The usefulness for transmitting information, clarifying perspectives, and altering perceptions is once again determined by proximity to government and access to policymakers. According to James Voorhees, a “multi-level peace process” can only exist if one of the levels involved, be it leading from the front or being pushed from behind, is the state.14 Instead of searching for a way to bend the informal diplomacy covered here into a given formal diplomatic structure, it is better to see these individuals as policy entrepreneurs seeking to overcome prejudices and build their own coalitions in order to ultimately transform the terrain within which official diplomacy was being conducted. In their own ways, they were seeking to overcome the Cold War and chart possible paths toward post–Cold War futures. They did not act coherently enough to be termed an epistemic community, and the abilities of these “transnational promoters of foreign policy change” to link with “domestic coalitions” elsewhere were limited, if not symbolic. What is more at issue here is the contrast between the hard-line approach of Dutch diplomacy and the search for contacts by Dutch informal diplomats.15 The government made no effort to coordinate activities or make use of these unofficial channels; on the contrary, they were regarded with varying degrees of suspicion, if they were taken account of at all. This is the background to the term “parallel diplomacy”: the existence of informal diplomatic networks that may ultimately have had no official connection with their formal counterpart, but which nevertheless contributed to the overall terrain of East-West contacts as a whole, and thus merit historical attention in their own right.

The Dutch Diplomatic Position From the late 1960s onward, the Dutch government had sought to position itself as a bridge builder between the East and the West, claiming a role of negotiator/communicator in order to reduce the chance of conflict. The reality was somewhat different. Fueled by committed anti-Communism and (significantly) a lack of any real interest in expanding East-West trade, the official Dutch line was that the Conference on Security and Cooperation (CSCE) negotiations must not legitimize the Soviet system – 26 –

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in Eastern Europe. In contrast to most other Western European nations, particularly its neighbor Belgium, the Netherlands was late in developing bilateral relations and signing technical or cultural agreements with Eastern-bloc nations. From the beginning, the Dutch had treated the Soviet proposal for a European peace conference with suspicion. There was no wish to trust the USSR as a partner in international diplomacy or to create a reason why the U.S. military would leave the continent. Above all, there was no desire to grant Moscow a propaganda victory. The aim was thus not East-West convergence but that the East had to change along the lines of self-determination before real stability could be achieved. The risks of encouraging such tendencies were, of course, high, which led to The Hague pushing a line that was both radical (rejecting the existing Communist regimes as illegitimate) and conservative (avoiding contact with dissident movements).16 The relationship between formal and informal Dutch diplomacy in this scenario was obviously problematic. The wish to link peoples from the East and the West along the lines of the Ostpolitik model was not officially encouraged. There was also a wariness of the NGO sector from the foreign ministry due to the suspicion that particular groups functioned as fronts for Moscow, such as the Nederlandse Comité voor Europese Veiligheid en Samenwerking (Netherlands Committee for European Security and Cooperation), established in 1973 to promote East-West dialogue.17 The Left of the Labor Party (Partij van de Arbeid) and the Interkerkelijk Vredesberaad (IKV, Inter-Church Peace Committee) both developed contacts in East Germany that were regarded as threatening to Dutch interests, particularly as these merged into the transnational antinuclear movement of the late 1970s. According to Peter Kooijmans, state secretary in 1973–77 and himself active in the NGO world (IKV, World Council of Churches), there was no coordination or even discussion between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the private sector during the 1970s. Herman Burgers, head of the Politics and International Security Issues section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1972 to 1977, also “could not recall any single instance of NGO influence on government policy with regard to East-West relations.”18 Foreign minister Max van der Stoel held the view that “we determine what goes on with Helsinki, not they,” rejecting any notion of the democratization of foreign affairs. By the 1980s, however, this traditional view of diplomatic practice had softened somewhat due to the realization that NGOs could play a useful role in an East-West international environment that was opening up following the Helsinki Accords. Whereas before the private sector was viewed as a potentially “dangerous fifth column,” after 1979 a close alliance with groups such as Amnesty International led to “nearly an osmosis” between the two sectors.19 – 27 –

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Kooijmans’s viewpoint is interesting because it gives insight into how the official diplomatic sector interpreted the activities of these policy entrepreneurs. Because he operated in both the formal and informal worlds, it is not surprising that his post facto reflections appear more sympathetic than the official policy of the time. Yet, even then, two factors come out that remain important for the following case studies. The first concerns an appreciation of the activities of the private sector for opening the eyes of people on East-West relations and facilitating a greater understanding across the blocs that could feed into a more malleable diplomatic environment. This especially applied to the think tank seminars run by Alting von Geusau, covered below. Having said this, in the 1970s, there was no appreciation for how this could connect with policy making itself; it was an ad hoc arrangement where any useful outcomes were seen as side benefits. There was certainly no desire to incorporate these activities into any strategy. This points to assessing these particular phenomena in a framework outside of orthodox Cold War state-driven agendas and claiming merit for them from another source. The second issue concerns the motivations driving these policy entrepreneurs. Whereas Alting von Geusau was regarded as a member of the establishment whose more academic-activist approach was seen as the way to go, van den Heuvel was viewed by some as an untrustworthy agent of the CIA.20 The more the individual in question diverged from the given norms of rational diplomatic practice (based on national interest) and diplomatic identity (based on class/social networks), the more circumspect the view would be from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Parallel Diplomacy in the 1970s and 1980s: The Oost-West Instituut Kees van den Heuvel initially seems to fit the classic Cold Warrior identity. A member of the Dutch resistance Albrecht Group from 1942 to 1945, he became part of the nascent security service after the war. Immersing himself in the intricacies of Marxist-Leninist ideology, by 1950 he was head of training for the newly formed Binnenlands Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) and through the next decade took on the role of the service’s psychological warfare expert. This task led him to question the methods by which a security service could influence the wider society, and the level of (or, better, the lack of) coordination among the Western allies in the field of anti-Communist activism. In 1962, under the tutelage of retired BVD chief Louis Einthoven, van den Heuvel left the service and took on the task of Western liaison via the International Documentation and Information Center (Interdoc) and its Dutch counterpart, the Oost-West Instituut – 28 –

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(OWI), both of them based at the same address in The Hague. Funding for these enterprises came from Dutch multinationals (Shell in particular) and the West German Bundesnachrichtendienst, the Netherlands being a useful location through which the Germans could pursue a deniable psychological warfare campaign. For the next two decades, this was the base for a continuous search for Western cooperation in psychological warfare, from the “peaceful coexistence” of the Khrushchev era to the détente of Brezhnev.21 In the early 1970s, van den Heuvel saw that détente could “create a new battlefield” for the kind of “intelligent anti-Communism” that Interdoc had been pursuing for the previous decade.22 The intention had always been to enter into dialogue with the Soviet bloc to open it up to “Western values,” these being generally interpreted from the perspective of a liberal open-mindedness that had at its foundation the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The OWI’s journal, Oost-West, had taken inspiration from the UDHR since the publication’s inception in 1962. In the words of an Interdoc publication, the signing of the Helsinki Accords on 1 August 1975 meant that “for the first time a document, signed by the representatives of the East and the West, lays down principles and intentions to promote peace, security, cooperation and human rights. This offers a unique opportunity.”23 Van den Heuvel set out to realize those goals as a “policy entrepreneur” in his own right by establishing contacts and exchanging opinions with those from the Central and Eastern European foreign policy community. That this approach stemmed from his understanding of East-West dialogue as a form of ideological contest is undeniable. On a small scale, his initiatives fit with the later proposals of the high-profile Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security (Palme Commission), which aimed to break down East-West antagonism on the basis of a common security framework for Europe as a whole. In September 1973, van den Heuvel set up an international conference entitled “Development of East-West Relations through Freer Movement of People, Ideas and Information,” with businessman Ernst van Eeghen being one of the financial supporters.24 The speaker lineup included none other than the First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in The Hague, Vladimir Kuznetsov. The Russian’s involvement is interesting considering the conference focused on the central issue in the Helsinki negotiations that caused a problem for the Soviet Union. While supportive of increased contacts, Kuznetsov criticized Western proposals for an unrestricted flow of people and information between the East and the West that would be “openly and crudely extended to include overt interference in domestic affairs” and “subversive activities against the system which exists in these countries.” Nevertheless, Kuznetsov’s view was that “détente in Europe is – 29 –

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a common problem of all Europeans.” The Russian’s hard-line contribution in the subsequent publication was bracketed by those of Cornelis Berkhouwer of the European parliament (“the efforts for détente, security and cooperation in Europe will have no lasting success … if we do not succeed in creating an increasing measure of freedom of movement”) and Boris Meissner (“To characterize long-term coexistence as ‘peaceful’ is to imply that the extension of Communism in the world should take place without international wars and, if possible, through peaceful means, in order to bring about a painless transition from capitalism to socialism”). And while the official diplomacy continued, “the object of unofficial activity is to use ingenuity to satisfy the desire for information existing in the East and to keep alive hopes that the system will change.”25 Kuznetsov then primed the way for van den Heuvel to visit Moscow, although the Dutchman emphasized to his foreign ministry that it was his initiative that was facilitated by the Soviet Embassy. Hosted by the Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation (SCESC), the mix of academics and foreign policy experts founded to represent Moscow’s views during the Helsinki process, van den Heuvel’s “leap into the dark” had the benefit of Kuznetsov as interpreter, guide, and entertainment manager while in the Soviet Union. The tour took in the Moscow Institute of International Relations, Gyorgy Arbatov’s Institute of the United States of America, the Institute of World Economy, and a meeting with the foreign editor of Pravda.26 For someone who had studied Soviet perceptions of the West for more than twenty years, these one-on-one discussions in Moscow itself were unique in value: “To hold a conversation with others, who regard East-West relations as relations between two opposite systems, is also a psychological problem. This is the more so if this view includes the ideological irreconcilability of the two systems and the continuation of the class struggle at an international level. This shapes a certain attitude to the West and this attitude is often reinforced by reading the studies of Western Sovietologists. I have been holding this sort of talks [sic] for a long time already and I know the limitations all too well. However, I still believe in the use of these talks.”27 What did he discover? The predictable mistrust of Western motives, particularly on human rights and the free movement of people and ideas, but this was accompanied by open admittance that adopting these measures “would undermine their system considerably.” NATO was an “obsolete institution” blocking any breakthrough for peace. Western policy was dominated by a military-industrial complex (referred to as “certain circles”), which was the main threat for an outbreak of war. Despite these traditional ripostes, van den Heuvel saw “signs of improvement.” The very fact that he was in Moscow able to conduct these talks and provide a counterpoint – 30 –

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to the “often distorted views of the West” was in itself progress. Increasing dialogue and contact, with an awareness of what it was for, should be the next goal.28 In the early 1970s, van den Heuvel could have become chair of the newly established Dutch committee of Amnesty International, but instead he chose his own path.29 Contacts via the World War II veteran networks were crucial for this. In the context of détente, the common bond of the anti-Nazi effort was a perfect calling card for van den Heuvel to exploit.30 At the end of the 1960s, particularly via his position as vice president of the International Union of Resistance and Deportee Movements (UIRD), these links now came into their own.31 At the World Veterans Federation (WVF) conference in Belgrade in October 1970, Western and Eastern veterans and resistance fighters met to discuss European security, and it was there that van den Heuvel, making his first trip to the Eastern bloc, established links with SUBNOR (Savez udruzenja boraca Narodno-oslobodilackog rata), the Yugoslav Federation of Associations of Veterans of the National Liberation War, many of whose 1.2 million members held influential positions in that country. Following Moscow, in September 1975 he made a trip to Belgrade to visit the Institute for International Politics and Economics.32 In 1977, he made three more brief visits: to ADIRI, the international law and international relations research center in Bucharest (February), the foreign ministry and the Institute for International Relations and Foreign Policy in Sofia (May), and the foreign ministry and the Polish Institute of International Relations in Warsaw and a brief trip to the G.D.R. (September). In the autumn of 1978, it was Czechoslovakia and Hungary, again taking in the foreign ministries, main foreign policy think tanks, and Helsinki-related committees for European security and cooperation. If the OWI could position itself as the principal East-West meeting point, making use of the Netherlands as a go-between location, ministerial support could be assured. The WVF opened the door to stronger ties with the Yugoslav and Polish groups (the six hundred thousand– member ZBOWID [Association of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy]) in a joint CSCE implementation session at the conference in Maastricht in October 1976, and van den Heuvel became an advisor to the WVF on disarmament.33 Van den Heuvel’s activities contrast strongly with the negative image the Netherlands had with Soviet-bloc regimes through the hard-line attitude of its government, particularly the foreign minister Max van der Stoel, on the human rights issue. By the late 1970s the OWI had become a recognized discussion partner for Soviet delegations, which were in general keen to exploit any openings in Western civil society. The first meeting between the institute and the Soviet Committee for European Security and – 31 –

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Cooperation took place in November 1974 following van den Heuvel’s Moscow trip, and the role of the OWI was appreciated by the Soviets due to the “stubborn policy” of the Dutch government on the human rights issue and the lack of any meaningful Dutch CSCE committee as a counterpart.34 Ensuing exchanges led to the Soviet side providing information for the OWI’s Helsinki Monitor Project, a collaborative venture between the Dutch and their associates in the U.S., Britain, and West Germany to track the implementation of the Helsinki Accords.35 By 1978, the Soviet delegates admitted freely that the OWI “tries hard to improve détente” and that its step-by-step approach was effective. At the time, the debate over the deployment of the neutron bomb for U.S. forces in Europe was raging, and the Soviet participants insisted on linking progress on human rights with moves toward disarmament.36 Yet the OWI’s role in performing surrogate diplomacy for the Dutch government also drew criticism within the Netherlands itself, being described by some as “the mouthpiece of the Kremlin.”37 Dialogue also had its limits, as demonstrated in a meeting with the Polish Institute’s deputy director, Janusz Symonides, and scientific secretary, Wojcieck Multar. Noting the “liberal views” of his hosts, van den Heuvel pointed out that they still used the entire Communist lexicon on international affairs (peaceful coexistence, class struggle, proletarian internationalism, etc.). They explained that even though their institute avoided ideological issues, “after all their basic philosophy is Marxism.”38 Van den Heuvel had encountered the limits of Eastern European liberalization.

Parallel Diplomacy in the 1970s and 1980s: The JFK Institute The OWI was not alone in the Netherlands with its cross-bloc activities. In 1967, the John F. Kennedy Institute (JFK) was established at the University of Tilburg. With a stronger leaning toward policy-relevant research, the JFK was the brainchild of Frans A. M. Alting von Geusau, a Leiden graduate who was made professor of international law at the Catholic University Brabant (later the University of Tilburg) in 1965. Having studied under Henri Brugmans at the Europa College in Bruges, during 1959–60 he worked closely with Ernst B. Haass at the University of California in Berkeley. His Ph.D. in 1962, entitled “European Organizations and the Foreign Relations of States,” criticized how the study of international relations in Europe was largely focused on problems related to European integration. Brugmans’s influence is clear, but it was Haass who provided the blueprint for the contribution that international organizations could make to end the “absurd artificial” division of Europe and create a viable post–World War II peace system.39 It was time to realize that “the obso– 32 –

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lescence of the sovereign nation state, especially in Europe, is such that its continued existence increasingly endangers international peace.”40 The JFK Institute would contribute toward overcoming this situation. Alting von Geusau possessed excellent relations with the foreign ministry in The Hague, something that had been denied to van den Heuvel and his team, and the JFK pursued an issue-based, policy-relevant approach (monetarism, energy, nuclear nonproliferation) within a solidly Atlanticist framework that appealed to government circles. Alting von Geusau was also “proud of his true academic credentials” and looked down somewhat on van den Heuvel’s presumptions.41 Van den Heuvel in turn tried to secure a leading role through a partnership, but was not able to produce the necessary funds. Nevertheless, the opportunities for cooperation were more than evident. In September 1970, Alting von Geusau proposed joining forces with other Dutch institutes active in the field of East-West relations to stimulate a national debate. He was effectively doing what the OWI had aspired to but had been unable to realize.42 Grants from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1965 and Jean Monnet’s Institut de la Communauté Européenne pour les E˙ tudes Universitaires in 1966 enabled the institute to hold its first symposium, entitled “Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Sharing in NATO as a Problem for Dutch Foreign Policy.”43 Similar events would follow: “Atlantic Relations after the Kennedy Round” (December 1967), “The Future of the Atlantic Alliance” (following a request from NATO; July 1968), “The Future of the International Monetary System” (January 1969) and “NATO and Security in the 1970s” (October 1969). The aim was always to provide a space for the mixing of theoretical and practical approaches and academic and policy-making circles, thereby building “a more policy-attuned environment.”44 The JFK began to establish forums for Dutch-Soviet bloc contacts in 1970 after Alting von Geusau was approached by the Polish embassy in The Hague to set up a liaison with the Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw. The first round table conference took place in Warsaw in January 1971. The Dutch delegation included Labor Party MP and future foreign minister Max van der Stoel. A similar event took place in Budapest in June 1971 under the auspices of the Hungarian Scientific Council for World Economy. Contact with the Yugoslav Institute for International Relations followed a year later. Between 1971 and 1985, a total of seventeen bilateral East-West round tables were held with Polish, Hungarian, and Yugoslav delegations representing both government and academic institutions. Alting von Geusau aimed to establish a ground for dialogue to discuss a wide range of economic, political, and security issues, but this did not mean appearing neutral; the goal was to foster, little by little, political pluralism – 33 –

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and an edge toward overcoming the “absurd artificial division” of Europe in the cause of peace.45

Parallel Diplomacy in the 1970s and 1980s: The Foundation for East-West Contacts Van den Heuvel and Alting von Geusau were soon joined by a new player in this field, Rudolf Jurrjens, creator of the Foundation for the Promotion of East-West Contacts at the Free University in Amsterdam. The JFK, the OWI, and Jurrjens’s foundation would function as a triumvirate throughout the 1970s, a kind of private conglomerate making use of détente to further the cause of peace in Europe through East-West contacts, and both competing and cooperating as they saw fit. While Alting von Geusau and Jurrjens both served on the advisory board of OWI’s journal, Oost-West, the closest all three came to a common approach was at the major conference “East-West Perspectives: Theories and Policies,” set up by Jurrjens in Amsterdam in September 1975. With the main speakers being Zbigniew Brzezinski and Gyorgy Arbatov from the Institute for United States Studies in Moscow, Alting von Geusau and van den Heuvel participated alongside thirty-six guests from twelve countries (including the G.D.R., Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia) to discuss the European security situation in the immediate wake of the Helsinki Accords.46 Despite plans to do so, the conference proceedings were never published, although Jurrjens’s contribution has survived. Opening the conference, he described an East-West predicament that required new scholarly institutions to bridge the divide in order to develop common responses to common problems. The emphasis was on a post-ideological, “transnational conceptualization” of problem solving, involving the expansion of membership and venues, such as the International Political Science Association and the European Consortium for Political Research. While this meant incorporating Eastern Europeans into Western networks, Jurrjens was at least searching for “what direct role can the international academic community play in the cooperation among states.”47 Jurrjens initially seems to have been motivated by a Calvinist faith that viewed Communist ideology as a competitive worldview equally believing in the superiority of a select community. There is no doubt that his perspective rested on convinced anti-Communism. Having studied political science at the Free University in Amsterdam, Jurrjens spent 1965–67 doing his military service, which included training as an interrogator with army intelligence from March to December 1967. Having learned Russian, Jurrjens then added Serbo-Croat by attending a University of Zagreb – 34 –

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summer school in 1969. Rejoining the Free University that year, Jurrjens set about pursuing his goals through his newly formed Foundation for the Promotion of East-West Contacts, which he used to coordinate student exchanges. According to Peter Volten, one of Jurrjens’s students in the 1970s, it was his experience learning Russian that led to his pursuit of EastWest contacts, raising the question of whether his relationship with military intelligence actually ended in 1969.48 As an academic in Amsterdam, Jurrjens was able to cultivate a good working relationship with Brzezinski, as demonstrated by his presence at the Amsterdam conference in 1975 and the fact that Jurrjens went on to spend the academic year of 1975–76 with Brzezinski’s Research Institute on International Change at Columbia University in New York.49 Jurrjens’s Ph.D. in 1978 was a dense analysis of the foundations of Soviet ideology and the official response (or, better, resistance) that this generated toward free flow, was ostensibly motivated by the declaration that “it is only in a world which generally accepts a free flow of people, ideas, and information as an unchallenged and natural phenomenon that a stable, firm and lasting relationship of détente can flourish.” This would correspond wholly with van den Heuvel’s outlook mentioned above, and it also promoted the cause that human rights were a cause too valuable to leave to the national interests of nation-states. Jurrjens, in other words, was making the case for the citizen-diplomat as a vital aspect of East-West relations.50 While Jurrjens himself may not have been so successful in pursuing these goals, he did provide support to others who established close links with the Soviet dissident community through the 1980s.51

Parallel Diplomacy in the 1970s and 1980s: Ernst van Eeghen From the early 1970s onward, Ernst van Eeghen had been supportive of van den Heuvel’s activities, but he soon branched out on his own—on a higher level. Van Eeghen was heir to one of the oldest trading families in the Netherlands, the Van Eeghen Investment and Trade Company, a diverse banking, trading, and shipping concern with major interests in the United States and Africa. Van Eeghen’s move into East-West affairs did have a business dimension (he was attempting to set up a trade in chemicals at the time), but it was his Mennonite (Anabaptist) belief that proved crucial, with his attachment to the Anabaptist sect’s belief in conflict resolution: his personal motto was “A Christian must work towards peace.” In the early 1980s he attempted to put his beliefs into practice. The immediate cause was the targeting of the Netherlands by Soviet SS20s. Van Eeghen supported the strengthening of conventional forces, but – 35 –

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his deep concern was that the rising Soviet-American tensions at the end of the 1970s could escalate out of control. In particular, the NATO decision to modernize its intermediate nuclear forces (INF) in 1979 was for van Eeghen a potentially catastrophic move. The Dutch should not sit back and wait but get directly involved.52 Making use of contacts via the Conference of European Churches (he sat on the finance committee), van Eeghen was able to invite members of the Soviet security establishment to his Berkenrode estate outside Haarlem for what was effectively a Dutch equivalent to the informal Soviet-American nuclear disarmament conferences at Dartmouth. Published sources on van Eeghen’s “half-diplomacy” (his own words) at the Berkenrode meetings are scarce.53 He gave some insight in an interview in 1999 when he explained that his ability to secure the release of the Russian Baptist dissident Vladimir Khailo from incarceration in a Soviet mental asylum in March 1987 had given him considerable credit in American circles. This success led to the establishment of the Burcht Foundation and a series of conferences in Haarlem that searched for solutions to other long-standing conflicts, including the ones in the Middle East.54 The fullest account comes from (not entirely reliable) journalist Willem Oltmans, which provides a taste of the negotiations that took place at that time.55 According to Oltmans, in 1981, largely through his contact with Gyorgy Arbatov, van Eeghen pursued a bilateral deal that would require the Dutch government to reject the deployment of INF missiles on its territory, in return for which the Soviet Union would not target the Netherlands. While the Kremlin had never dealt with a single NATO member state in this way and Dutch foreign minister Max van der Stoel regarded these maneuvers with great suspicion, van Eeghen did lead a delegation of politicians to Moscow in October 1981 to establish a dialogue. The mission inevitably became caught up in political intrigue in The Hague, making it difficult for van Eeghen to make headway. Positive signals from Senators Sam Nunn and Mark Hatfield indicating that they would attend a Berkenrode têteà-tête with a Soviet delegation were torpedoed in mid-1982 by the new secretary of state, George Schultz, who, like Van der Stoel, regarded such informal diplomacy as highly suspect. Both the U.S. and Soviet embassies in The Hague also worked against these plans. Van Eeghen persevered, participating in a peace conference in Vienna in February 1983, where he developed a close relation with Arbatov’s number two, KGB general Radomir Bogdanov, who would participate in the first Berkenrode conference held in November 1984. Van Eeghen’s personal papers give some insight into his motivation. In a letter to Senator Sam Nunn, he recounted being asked by Bogdanov why he was trying to bring Russian and American delegates together. The Dutch– 36 –

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man replied, “I felt it my duty in these apocalyptic days to do whatever possible to get the two parties together. … I had clearly felt that through the Conference of European Churches and my intimate contacts with the Soviet War Veterans Committee God had led me to some top people in the Soviet administration.” Since there is little record of van Eeghen searching for personal gain (business interests were present, but were overshadowed by security concerns), one can take these religious impulses at face value. His Soviet counterparts undoubtedly played on this: both Arbatov and Bogdanov expressed sympathy for Christianity in private moments with van Eeghen, a gesture that looks like a ploy to curry his favor. From the Soviet side, van Eeghen, whose contacts stretched from the U.S. Senate to the White House, potentially seemed an ideal middleman to reach the Americans.56 Such activities obviously attracted the attention of the Dutch media and Dutch diplomacy. Accusations of his use as a tool of Soviet intrigue were to be expected in a nation deeply divided by the cruise missile issue, but what is more interesting is the attention given to his role as an unofficial peacemaker. An article in the Nederlands Dagblad from April 1985 focused explicitly on how van Eeghen’s “New Diplomacy” was crisscrossing over the official diplomatic stance of the Dutch government, drawing severe criticism from NATO Secretary General Joseph Luns in the process.57 Van Eeghen’s most notorious (and, to date, least explored) moment came in late October 1985. With Minister-President Ruud Lubbers due to decide on 1 November whether or not to accept the deployment of forty-eight Gryphon cruise missiles, van Eeghen was the middleman for a last-minute invitation from Nikolai Ryzhkov, then chairman of the Council of Ministers, for Lubbers to visit Moscow to discuss a way out. Lubbers was tempted, and the offer received substantial support from the opposition Labor Party, but with serious opposition from within both the parliament and cabinet, it was ultimately rejected, and the deployment decision was taken.58 Obstructed by official diplomacy, van Eeghen shifted his attention via the Burcht Foundation first to the post-Soviet states and then IsraeliPalestinian relations.

Conclusion: A Lost Cause or a Surrogate Victory? All four of these figures approached East-West contacts from a different perspective. Van den Heuvel was motivated by Cold War psychological warfare approaches that required understanding the position of one’s opponents and then engaging them through dialogue, avoiding any sense of superiority in the process. Alting von Geusau was more the academic prac– 37 –

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titioner, imbued with the thinking of Ernst Haass, the transformative role of institutions, and the pursuit of interdependence among nations, but he never really articulated this fully in his writings.59 Jurrjens and van Eeghen were both motivated by Christian faith, albeit from different corners, the Calvinism of Jurrjens being more combative than the more conciliatory Anabaptism of van Eeghen. Of the four, it was Jurrjens who worked out his vision of East-West contacts most deeply in his study of “psychological operations,” methods of political control, and the attitude of the Soviet Union toward the free flow of people and ideas. Both van den Heuvel and van Eeghen came under intense suspicion from both the media and the government for their activities, one report on the OWI asking: “Are they so dumb at that institute or do they receive convertible rubles in exchange?”60 Alting von Geusau’s reputation as a hard-liner meant that he escaped this criticism; instead, he was seen, especially after his notorious accusation in a 1981 speech that the antinuclear movement was funded by Moscow, as an agent provocateur of the government.61 Yet even Alting von Geusau did not escape the suspicions of the Dutch security service (the BVD). Relations with the security world add another layer to interpreting the activities of these four independent operators. Van den Heuvel may have been ex-BVD himself, but strict lines were drawn between his “policy entrepreneurship” and the service to avoid any unnecessary entanglements. Van Eeghen’s activities were clearly monitored, as were those of Alting von Geusau, requiring both of them to act cautiously in both the East and the West. Jurrjens is the most fascinating figure in this regard because his rapid move from language training in Russian for military intelligence to a position running East-West student exchanges in 1967–69 does leave open for speculation whether his ties with Dutch military intelligence were actually broken when he entered academia. All four were also separated from—in fact, directly opposed to—the broader peace and antinuclear social movements that gained support through the 1970s and 1980s. They were elitist in outlook, either by social standing or intellect, confident in their ability to engage the other side, and suspicious of the value systems of younger generations and their disruptive, unguided involvement in international affairs.62 Ultimately, however, all four were motivated by the wish to escape the bipolar Cold War system by initiating forms of dialogue that could overcome interstate (and interideological) rivalry. In the words of Alting von Geusau, they “had in common that contacts were right and necessary, but don’t give up your principles in the process.”63 For Alting von Geusau, the aim was to reduce policy-related tensions, whereas, for Jurrjens, the accent lay on the human rights component within the Helsinki process. Judging to what extent they actually contributed to the reduction of tensions between the East and the – 38 –

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West is a bit like following a drop of water into a full bucket: you know it went in, but you cannot track where it goes. What is of equal interest, however, is the consistent manner in which these forms of parallel diplomacy were kept parallel by a diplomatic establishment that did not appreciate being potentially sidelined. Claims by van den Heuvel that he was doing what the government should be doing (the surrogate diplomacy argument) were not welcome either. Suspicion was rife as to the actual motivations of these entrepreneurs, both from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the Dutch press. This reflects not only the ingrained anti-Communism of Dutch society, but also the conservatism of its diplomatic elites accustomed to rejecting Soviet-bloc regimes as legitimate partners. Both van den Heuvel and van Eeghen were regarded as probable associates of the KGB.64 Of course, so far the assessment has been wholly on the Dutch side, and to really address what was going on will require being able to piece together the view from the East. Even then, the danger is that each policy entrepreneur will lose their specific identities and become lost in the bipolar interstate struggle termed the Cold War. The final word, in this respect, goes to van Eeghen. When asked by a journalist in early 1985 whether he was being used by Moscow, he replied, “Maybe it’s me who is using the Russians.”65 Giles Scott-Smith holds the Ernst van der Beugel Chair in the Diplomatic History of Transatlantic Relations since WWII at Leiden University, the Netherlands. In 2012, he was appointed Chair of the Transatlantic Studies Association, and he is currently one of the editors of Bloomsbury Press’s Key Studies in Diplomacy series. His publications include The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-War American Hegemony (2002), Networks of Empire: The U.S. State Department’s Foreign Leader Program in the Netherlands, France, and Britain 1950– 1970 (2008), and Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network: Cold War Internationale (2012).

Notes 1. E. Satow, Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice, ed. P. B. Gore-Booth (London: Longman, 1979), 3. 2. For further discussion on this see G. Scott-Smith, “Private Diplomacy: Making the Citizen Visible,” New Global Studies 8/1 (March 2014): 1–7, and the other articles in this special issue. 3. See, for instance, G. Niedhart, “The Kissinger-Bahr Back-Channel within US-West German Relations 1969–74,” in Atlantic, Euratlantic, or Europe-America?, ed. V. Aubourg and G. Scott-Smith (Paris: Soleb, 2010), 284–305. – 39 –

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4. See I. Richardson, A. Kakabadse, and N. Kakabadse, Bilderberg People: Elite Power and Consensus in World Affairs (London: Routledge, 2011). 5. M. Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); A. Curle, Making Peace (London: Tavistock Publications, 1971), 16, 231. 6. A. Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 15. 7. R. Keohane and J. Nye, Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), xi. 8. M. R. Berman and J. E. Johnson, eds., Unofficial Diplomats (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 4, 6, 7. 9. For the Western-centric view see F. Müller-Rommel and T. Poguntke, eds., New Politics (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1995); see also G. Wylie, “Social Movements and International Change: The Case of ‘Détente from Below,’” International Journal of Peace Studies 4 (July 1999); S. B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 10. M. Cotey Morgan, “The Seventies and the Rebirth of Human Rights,” in The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective, ed. N. Ferguson, C. Maier, E. Manela, and D. Sargent (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2010), 237–50; A. Iriye, P. Goedde, and W. Hitchcock, eds. The Human Rights Revolution: An International History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); P. Stearns, Human Rights in World History (London: Routledge, 2012). 11. See S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy, eds. Reassessing Cold War Europe (London: Routledge, 2011). 12. W. Kaiser, B. Leucht, and M. Gehler, “Transnational Networks in European Integration Governance: Historical Perspectives on an Elusive Phenomenon,” in Transnational Networks in Regional Integration: Governing Europe 1945–83, ed. W. Kaiser, B. Leucht, and M. Gehler (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 2. 13. J. van Willigen, Applied Anthropology: An Introduction (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2002), 130–31. The term originated with E. Wolf, J. Steward, and R. Manners in The People of Puerto Rico: A Study in Social Anthropology (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956) and was further developed by H. Weidman in “Implications of the Culture-Broker Concept for Health Care” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society, Wrightsville Beach, 1973). 14. J. Voorhees, Dialogue Sustained: The Multilevel Peace Process and the Dartmouth Conference (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2002), 16. 15. T. Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” International Organization 48, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 186. 16. H. W. Bomert, Nederland en Oost-Europa: meer worden dan daden (Nijmegen: Studiecentrum voor Vredesvraagstukken, 1990); F. Baudet, Het heeft onze aandacht: Nederland en de rechten van de mens in Oost-Europa en Joegoslavie, 1972–1989 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Haasbeek, 2001), 253–72. 17. Baudet, Het heeft onze aandacht, 94. 18. H. Burgers, email correspondence with the author, 21 June 2012. 19. P. Kooijmans, interview with the author, Wassenaar, 3 May 2012. In 1979, the government issued a policy statement, “De rechten van de mens in het buitenlands beleid,” which recognized that “if one wants to reduce the confrontational atmosphere between East and West, it needs not only an improvement in relations at the governmental level, but also an increase in trust and contacts between individuals and peoples.” Nevertheless, this had to occur in a way that did not disrupt domestic political stability. 20. Ibid.

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21. On van den Heuvel and Interdoc, see G. Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network: Cold War Internationale (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012). 22. U. Holl, interview with the author, Cologne, 18 December 2005. 23. C. C. van den Heuvel, R. D. Praaning, and F. Z. R. Wijchers, Implementation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Part I (The Hague: East-West Institute, 1976), 3–4. 24. “Overzicht van binnengekomen bedragen voor Interdoc conferentie Noordwijk, 21/22 september 1973,” File: Nederland—Geldschieters conferentie Noordwijk 1973, archive of C. C. van den Heuvel, National Archives, The Hague (hereafter CC NAH). 25. Van den Heuvel to Ellis, 30 October 1973, File: UK 5, C. H. Ellis 1969, CC NAH; C. C. van den Heuvel, ed., Development of East-West Relations through Freer Movement of People, Ideas and Information (The Hague: Interdoc, 1973), 7, 11, 14, 18, 31, 54. 26. Van den Heuvel to Ambassador A. I. Romanov, 6 May 1974, Van den Heuvel to G. J. van Hattum (Bureau Oost-Europa), 4 October 1974, and Van den Heuvel to Ambassador A. I. Romanov, 5 November 1974, File: Reis naar Moskau 1974, CC NAH; Van den Heuvel to Bell, 14 October 1974, File: UK 4b, Walter Bell 1973–74, CC NAH. 27. “Soviet Perceptions of the West and NATO,” 10 November 1974, File: Reis naar Moskau 1974, CC NAH. 28. Ibid.; Van den Heuvel to Bell, 31 October 1974, File: UK 4b, Walter Bell 1973–74, CC NAH. 29. Van den Heuvel to Harm van Riel, 4 July 1974, Amnesty International: NL Section, File: AK-NL 12, CC NAH. 30. R. Praaning, interview with the author, Brussels, 7 November 2005. 31. For instance, the Polish ambassador to the Netherlands in the early 1970s was Wlodzimierz Lechowicz, a former resistance fighter. 32. In May 1975, van den Heuvel would also link up with a Soviet veterans’ delegation that visited the Netherlands for the thirtieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Van den Heuvel to Tarik Ajanovic (Ambassador to the Netherlands), 8 August 1975, File: AK Oost-Europa 9–10, Yugoslavia 1975–79, CC NAH. 33. Van den Heuvel to Prof. M. Dobrosielski, 30 August 1976, File: AK Oost-Europa 15– 16, Polen 1975–85, CC NAH; Van den Heuvel to Dr. M. Sahovic, 31 August 1976, File: AK Oost-Europa 9–10, Yugoslavia 1975–79, CC NAH. 34. “Meeting Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation with East-West Institute on 21 November 1974,” File: Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation, CC NAH; Questionnaire for SCESC visit, November 1974, File: Reis naar Moskau 1974, CC NAH. 35. “Détente, het Oost-West Instituut en enkele Projecten,” n. d. [1975], in the author’s possession; Van den Heuvel to N. Pankov (Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation), 2 May 1977, File: Soviet Comité voor Europese Veiligheid en Samenwerking, CC NAH; C. C. van den Heuvel, R. D. Praaning, and F. Z. R. Wijchers, Implementation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Part I (The Hague: OWI, 1976); C. C. van den Heuvel, R. D. Praaning, P. Vaillant, and F. Z. R. Wijchers, Part II (1977); F. Z. R. Wijchers, Part III (1977). In 1978 the volume The Belgrade Conference: Progress or Regression?, edited by van den Heuvel and Rio Praaning, was published with contributions from Gerhard Wettig, the U.S. Congress’s American Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Soviet researcher Dr. V. Lomeiko, and Dr. L. Acimovic of the Yugoslav Institute for International Relations. 36. “Meeting with Delegation of Soviet Committee for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Tuesday June 6 1978,” File: AK NL 28, Bijeenkomsten en Lezingen, CC NAH. 37. J. W. van der Meulen, “Commentaar: Het Oost-West Instituut als spreekbuis van het Kremlin,” Internationale Spectator 30 (December 1976): 748–50. See the subsequent sharp

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exchange between van den Heuvel and van der Meulen in “Commentaar: Een merkwaardige insinuatie,” Internationale Spectator 31 (February 1977): 122–25. 38. “Visit at Polski Instytut Spraw Miedzynarodowyck (Polish Institute of International Relations),” September 1977, File: AK Oost-Europa 15–16, Polen 1975–85, CC NAH. 39. F. Alting von Geusau, interview with the author, Leiden, 11 March 2009. 40. “Second Report,” 2, File: JFK Circulaires 1966 to 1-9-1967, archive of the JFK Institute, Tilburg University (hereafter JFK). 41. W. Couwenberg, interview with the author, Rotterdam, 21 October 2004; R. Praaning, interview with the author, Brussels, 7 November 2005. 42. “Mededelingen,” 10 November 1970, File: Oost-West 1961–71; Oost-West Instituut: Jaarverslag 1970, 22–23. 43. F. Alting von Geusau, “First Report on Activities,” August 1966, File: Correspondentie 1-4-1967 to 1-7-1967, JFK. 44. F. Alting von Geusau, March 1968, File: JFK Circulaires 1-9-1967 to 1-9-1968, JFK. 45. F. Alting von Geusau, interview with the author, Leiden, 11 March 2009. 46. Jurrjens to R. Aron, 28 January 1975, Box 113: Hollande—Amsterdam, Section: Conferences/colloques (invitations refusées), Aron. 47. R. Jurrjens, “Science and the CSCE,” opening address delivered at the international interdisciplinary conference entitled “East-West Perspectives: Theories and Policies,” 1 September 1975. 48. P. Volten, telephone interview, 21 January 2013. Volten himself does not believe that Jurrjens continued as a member of military intelligence. Yet Jurrjens’s academic assistant in the mid-1970s, J. H. M. de Winter, was also trained in Russian by the military intelligence school (File 61: Russisch sprekenden in Nederland, CC NAH). He was later head of general policy planning at the Ministry of Defense from 1994 to 2001. 49. R. Th. Jurrjens, Personeelsdossier 1995–651, archive of the Free University, Amsterdam. 50. R. Th. Jurrjens, “The Free Flow: People, Ideas and Information in Soviet Ideology and Politics,” (Ph.D. diss., Free University of Amsterdam, 1978), 14. 51. See, for instance, R. van Voren, On Dissidents and Madness: From the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev to the ‘Soviet Union’ of Vladimir Putin (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009), which refers to Jurrjens’s support for van Voren’s Second World Center. 52. C. Veltman, “Bankier Ernst van Eeghen: Nederland moet zelf met de Russen gaan praten over kernwapens,” Hervormd Nederland, 18 October 1980. 53. See M. Spencer, The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy (Lanham: Lexington, 2010), 95–102; G. Scott-Smith, “A Dutch Dartmouth,” New Global Studies, 8/1 (March 2014). 54. R. Dulmers, “Als u begrijpt wat ik bedoel,” De Groene Amsterdammer, 11 August 1999; W. van Eeghen, interview with the author, Amsterdam, 11 June 2012. See also E. H. van Eeghen, “De familie Khailo,” Een Bizar Experiment: De lange schaduw van de Sovjet-Unie (1917– 1991), ed. A. Gerrits (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2001). 55. W. Oltmans, Zaken Doen (Baarn: In den Toren, 1986). 56. Van Eeghen to S. Nunn, 10 February and 20 June 1983, private papers of E. H. van Eeghen, Van Eeghen family estate. 57. J. A. E. Vermaat, “Prive-diplomaten lopen regering voor de voeten,” Nederlands Dagblad, 2 April 1985. 58. W. Oltmans, Zaken Doen, 13–52; R. van Diepen, Hollanditis: Nederland en het kernwapendebat 1977–1987 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2004), 328. 59. The closest he came to doing so is in the recent publication Cultural Diplomacy: Waging War by other Means? (Nijmegen: Wolf, 2009), which sets out with hindsight a very combative interpretation of cultural diplomacy as a form of ideological warfare. 60. J. Heldring, quoted in M. van Weezel, “ALCM, ICBM, MBFR, Ach, ik heb er zelf ook altijd een zakboekje bij,” Vrij Nederland, 8 December 1979.

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61. F. Alting von Geusau, “Kernwapendebat Nederland: Het woord is aan de regering,” Atlantisch Nieuws 8–9 (1981). 62. R. van Voren, interview with the author, Amsterdam, 21 March 2013. 63. F. Alting von Geusau, interview with the author, Oisterwijk, 16 February 2011. 64. For a critique of van den Heuvel’s activities, see Max van Weezel, “ALCM, ICBM, MBFR, Ach, ik heb er zelf ook altijd een zakboekje bij,” Vrij Nederland, 8 December 1979. 65. Henk de Mari, ‘Hoe van Eeghen Kremlintop overtuigde,’ De Telegraaf, 30 March 1985.

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Chapter 2

Challenging Old Cold War Stereotypes The Case of Danish-Polish Youth Exchange and the European Détente, 1965–75 Marianne Rostgaard

I

n the late 1950s, Danish foreign office diplomats were faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, the only way to sustain contacts with people from the Eastern bloc was through state-regulated exchange arrangements that did not allow for normal and free people-to-people contacts. On the other hand, the diplomats wanted to break the virtual monopoly the Communist parties and friendship societies had on cultural exchange with the Eastern bloc countries. The Danish diplomats were initially skeptical about the usefulness of the official East-West cultural exchange agreements. This skepticism was partly due to the fact that it was the Soviet Union that originally suggested bilateral agreements on cultural exchange in the late 1950s. Gradually, however, a much more positive view among Danish diplomats developed about the potential of such agreements. The Danish-Polish cultural exchange between 1965 and 1975 is of broader interest not only because it is yet another example of East-West cultural exchange, but because Denmark seems to have pioneered a new kind of cultural exchange program with Poland in the late 1960s with the institutionalization of the Danish-Polish youth leader seminars. These seminars were initiated by the Danish Youth Council (Dansk Ungdoms Fællesråd, DUF), which was a nongovernmental organization. The actual Danish-Polish youth exchange organized by the DUF took place within the framework of the official Danish-Polish cultural exchange program. Denmark developed thus very early on a model in which NGOs became an integral part of the official exchange program that sought to further – 44 –

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people-to-people contact and free exchange of ideas across the blocs. The experience from the Danish-Polish cultural exchange in the late 1960s came to determine the Danish policy regarding East-West cultural exchange and later also came to influence the ideas of the Helsinki Final Act.1 This chapter presents a hitherto unresearched part of the history of EastWest cultural exchange during the Cold War. It is based on records retained in the Danish State Archives, supplemented with printed sources, and thus it primarily reflects Danish viewpoints, although letters and other sources from Polish counterparts, translated or written in English (or German), are also retained in the Danish State Archives.2 The records retained in the Danish State Archives have been supplemented with records from AAN (the archives for Polish parties, organizations, and the central administration) pertaining to the Polish youth organization OKWOM and records from AMSZ (the archives of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs).3

The Danish Policy regarding East-West Cultural Exchange The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark started to engage itself in cultural exchange with the Eastern bloc around 1965. Danish-Polish youth exchanges had taken place on an occasional basis, organized by either the Danish Young Communists (DKU, the youth organization of the Danish Communist party) or DUF before 1965,4 but without the ministry taking much interest in the matter. An official exchange agreement with Poland had been signed in 1960,5 and in 1962 an agreement on cultural exchanges between Denmark and the Soviet Union was signed. More countries were knocking on the door, and this compelled the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark to formulate its first policy paper on East-West cultural exchange in 1965. The policy paper argued that because means for cultural exchange in general were scarce, and cultural exchange with countries in Western Europe did not depend on formal agreements, the ministry should target funds for state-sponsored cultural exchanges at the countries in the Eastern bloc. The aims were modest in 1965: it was stated that exchange was to be used for reopening contacts and creating links in order to further interhuman understanding and tolerance and “strengthen the cultural unity between East and West.”6 The policy formulations in 1965 generally reflected a position where the only possible kind of support or help rendered by Denmark (and Western Europe in general) to people in the Eastern bloc who did not support the Communist regimes was activities that could help them weather the storm. There was no idea about cultural exchanges challenging the Communist regimes. Rather, the links with people in the Communist bloc were considered important mainly because they reminded – 45 –

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people that all countries in Europe had a common past and perhaps also one day again a common future. Independent of the actions of and the policy formulations made in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Danish Youth Council started to organize joint seminars for youth leaders, and the DUF gradually also developed other types of youth exchange. The DUF was a nongovernmental umbrella organization comprising different kinds of youth organizations, from political to sports organizations, scouting groups, student organizations, and others. The youth organizations affiliated with Danish political parties that were members of DUF spanned the ideological spectrum, from the Danish Young Communists (DKU) to the Young Conservatives (KU), with the Social Democratic Youth of Denmark (DSU) as one of the more prominent member organizations. Organizing exchanges with youth organizations in Eastern bloc countries thus was also part of the Cold War within the labor movement between Communists and Social Democrats, which was very prominent in Denmark until the 1960s. Although the idea for the seminars did not originate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these seminars were funded by, and in this sense part of, the formal cultural exchange agreement between Denmark and Poland, also because formal state-to-state agreements were the only possible way to make people-to-people exchanges with an Eastern bloc country at the time. Richard Wagner Hansen, head of the Office of Press and Cultural Information in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, initiated in 1969–70 a new Danish policy regarding cultural exchanges with the Eastern bloc. Wagner Hansen argued that cultural exchange should aim at creating changes in the European front system. He urged people in charge of EastWest relations in the Danish ministry, as well as his colleagues in Western Europe, to ask themselves which circles in Eastern Europe “they want to reach and create contact with through East-West cultural exchange programs, in order to further détente and changes in the European ‘front system.’” At the same time, he pointed at the Danish-Polish seminar for youth leaders as an example of an alternative and fruitful way to create the kind of contact he was advocating.7 These statements, formulated in 1970, were the first cases, at least in a Danish context, where cultural exchange was assigned a role as an agent of change in East-West relations. Wagner Hansen argued that, in the future, cultural exchanges with the Eastern bloc ought to be based on a broad concept of culture favoring everyday culture. It was also to be governed by the institutions and organizations directly involved in the actual exchange activities, with the state as a facilitator, not as a controlling or governing body. This would, according to the Danish diplomats, widen the official cultural exchange programs and – 46 –

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create possibilities for the desired freer movement of information, people, and ideas. The formulations in 1970 differ significantly from the ministry’s earlier policy formulations exactly because cultural exchange was assigned a role as an agent of change. Wagner Hansen’s core idea of expanding the existing cultural exchange programs in order to create change in the European bloc system was adopted in December 1971 by NATO’s Council of Ministers as the common NATO position on issues related to the so-called human dimension, or Basket III of the Helsinki Final Act, that encompassed the issue of free or freer movement of information and people as well as other cultural exchange issues. The basic idea of the potential of cultural exchanges to lead to freer exchange of information and ideas, advanced by the Danish diplomats around 1970–71, built on the experience gained particularly through the Danish-Polish cultural exchange in the late 1960s and the DanishPolish seminars for youth leaders. The official framework of the exchange agreement included scholarly exchange, exchange of exhibitions, and the like. However, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered the Danish-Polish youth leader seminars to be the most successful part of the cultural exchange program. In the early 1970s, the goals of the Danish-Polish program were extended to concern Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (G.D.R.), Hungary, and Romania. With Poland, exchange activities reached a peak around 1973–76, where the DUF also engaged itself in activities related to the ongoing Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE).8 In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the activities organized by the DUF stalled or decreased along with other types of Danish-Polish exchanges. They were resumed from 1983 onward, with a very diverse array of cultural exchange activities, including exchange of (young) people belonging to several different NGOs, lasting until the beginning of the 1990s. This chronological sketch of the history of Danish youth exchange with the Eastern bloc countries points at the period ca. 1965–75 as a period where new ideas were sounded out and put into practice. Because the Danish-Polish youth leader seminars seem to have played a seminal role in Danish cultural and youth exchange with the Eastern bloc, it is worth probing a little deeper into the workings of these youth leader seminars.

Ideas and Motives behind the Danish-Polish Seminars for Youth Leaders In the early 1960s, the DUF wanted to contribute to what they themselves termed “a break-down of old Cold War stereotypes.” The DUF deliberately – 47 –

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aimed to create “a type of meeting totally different from the Youth festivals that had hitherto constituted the only framework for East-West youth contacts.”9 The DUF stated as its aim the creation of a real East-West dialogue. They aimed at circumventing propaganda or tedious repetition of official standpoints, thus contributing to the breakdown of “artificial barriers between East and West created by the Cold War.”10 With the consent of Danish authorities, the DUF contacted the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen, presented their ideas, and got a green light to arrange the first Danish-Polish Youth Leader Seminar, which took place at Magleås Højskole in Denmark in 1965. Poland originally became DUF’s “favorite partner country” for relatively pragmatic reasons. In the early 1960s, the DUF took an interest in cultural exchange with Eastern Europe in general. Poland was within reasonable proximity, keeping travel expenses low. Furthermore, the language barrier was manageable, partly due to the Polish Associations (De Polske Foreninger), a Danish umbrella association for a number of local Polish associations of former labor migrants to Denmark who served as interpreters and in the 1960s hosted visitors to Poland in their homes during their stays. It definitely also made a difference that the DUF’s Polish counterparts were eager to have contacts with the DUF, or westerners in general. According to Per Himmelstrup, who organized the first Danish-Polish seminar for youth leaders in 1965, it all started in the summer of 1962, when he, completely on his own, decided to spend his summer holiday driving around in Poland and the G.D.R. During his trip, he got in contact with Polish youth leaders, and this interaction formed the basis for invitations to participate in the seminar in 1965. According to Himmelstrup, it was easy as a westerner to get in contact with the Poles. In 1962, Himmelstrup was a teacher at the Krogerup Folk High School and annoyed with the ongoing discussions at Krogerup about the Communist system and what was happening in the Eastern bloc. None of his colleagues had actually ever been to one of the Eastern European people’s democracies and based their opinions about the Socialist experiments in Eastern Europe on general ideological orientations instead of actual experience. Himmelstrup wanted to see for himself and invite others to do likewise in order to encourage a debate based on informed opinions.11 Although contact with the G.D.R. would have been even easier to realize (the language barrier would have been lower), political conditions did not allow for this, as an official agreement on cultural exchanges would have meant the G.D.R.’s formal recognition, which, in the mid-1960s, from the viewpoint of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, was out of the question. A formal cultural exchange agreement with the G.D.R. had to abide with the German-German agreements signed in 1972. – 48 –

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The DUF’s communication with the Polish Embassy and Polish organizations in the mid-1960s naturally had to use different wordings and rhetoric than at home, but part of the phrasing used in communication with the Polish authorities and youth organizations was close to the formulations used at home. The DUF generally talked about creating a dialogue among the youth in the East and the West, about furthering European détente and overcoming Cold War stereotypes, and creating friendship bonds across the Iron Curtain—such formulations of aims also met the approval of the Polish authorities. The Polish-Danish seminars for youth leaders may be characterized as a kind of elite exchange program. Every year, around thirty to forty young politicians (half from each country) met for a two-week seminar or summer course. The conference venue alternated between Denmark and Poland. The Danish speakers at these seminars typically consisted of ministers, mayors, academics, and intellectuals of relatively high standing. Some of the young Danish participants in the youth leader seminars later rose to prominent positions themselves.12 The DUF’s Polish counterpart was the OKWOM (the Polish National Council for the Cooperation of Youth Organizations). As the exchange program was part of an official cultural exchange program, the participating Poles represented organizations that were part of the existing party/state apparatus. The Danish official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who summarized the experience gained from the first youth leader seminar stated in the ministry’s yearly evaluation report to its NATO counterparts that there was no doubt that the participating Poles were all “orthodox communists.” Even so, he concluded that the seminar had proved useful as an opportunity to create a dialogue.13 The records document that the Polish side was eager to continue these annual seminars.14 Polish authorities saw this as a chance to promote Polish foreign policy objectives, particularly concerning Germany and the question of recognition of the Oder-Neisse borderline. Reports from the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen repeatedly concluded that DUF was the best partner to cooperate with regarding Danish-Polish youth exchange and argued, among other things, that DUF had good contacts with prominent members of the Danish parliament (the Communist Party of Denmark had no members of parliament from 1961 to 1973).15 The DUF members, in turn, wanted to educate their Polish counterparts about the viewpoints of Western Germany, trying to convince them that their conception of German revanchism was utterly wrong. This part of the DUF’s objective of creating a dialogue between politically interested young people from Eastern and Western Europe was based on a mutual interest among the participants in the youth leader seminars in the future of Europe.16 – 49 –

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The visits of Poles to Denmark also included showing the Poles elements of the modern Danish welfare state, such as new housing areas around Copenhagen, the modern art museum Louisiana, and the like. The young Poles seem to have appreciated these glimpses of modern Denmark, and they also appreciated the weekends spent in private homes.17

The Danish-Polish Exchange Program as Face-to-Face Cultural Exchange The visits of young Danes to Poland were similarly eye-opening for them. As it was articulated by one of the Danish participants who visited Poland in 1966, “Poland is different.” Various Danish delegates in these exchanges came to understand that the countries of Eastern Europe were as different from each other as Western European countries.18 The reciprocal visits seem to have confirmed, for both parties, the differences among Capitalist countries as well as Communist countries. In this sense, the visits contributed, in a very basic manner, to the breakdown of Cold War stereotypes. The youth leader seminars were deliberately organized as an exchange of views regarding topical issues of common interest. The topics debated were typically related to socioeconomic issues, such as modern town planning, but often also to political issues, such as the German question.19 The representatives would present how the topic was generally perceived in their society, followed by a debate. The summer courses were organized as an exchange of views on an equal basis, not necessarily aiming at convincing each other, but merely learning each other’s point of view. In this sense, according to the DUF, the dialogue served to create interhuman understanding and help overcome stereotypes. The DUF’s original idea about creating a dialogue and forum of debate seems to have materialized at least partly. One event mentioned both by the Danish and the Polish side as an example of an open and frank debate was a discussion that followed a lecture by Robert Pedersen (Social Democrat; in 1967, principal of Herning Folk High School; former vice-chairman of DSU’s Copenhagen branch; from 1971, member of the Danish parliament) on “the contribution of European youth to further peace and security in Europe.” What is interesting about this debate is that although the heading of the lecture may also have appeared in the program of a congress organized by Communist parties, the content certainly differed. Robert Pedersen challenged Polish opinions and stereotypes about West Germany, quoting a poll showing that 74 percent of the Western German population was ready to recognize the Oder-Neisse borderline, and stating that the role of (young) politicians in both Denmark and Poland was to – 50 –

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support forces in German society that wanted to turn the opinion of the majority into government policy. On the other hand, the Danes seem to have learned from the discussion that the border issue was a vital, national priority to the Poles and not a repetition of standard Soviet viewpoints.20 A Danish diplomat had remarked in his report to NATO’s working committee on cultural exchange that all young Poles participating in the Danish-Polish youth exchange were members of the Polish Communist Party or a state-approved youth organization. However, that did not, as the diplomat seems to have thought, automatically make the young Poles “orthodox communists.”21 Evaluation reports also mention that it was possible to have informal talks in the evenings and during breaks. The seminars were partly organized to include group work (although the Polish delegation had opposed the idea during the first year) in order to avoid what the Danish organizers called the tendency to have a spokesperson that spoke on behalf of the whole group. Whether group work was desirable or not seems to have been an ongoing discussion among the organizers. The Danish evaluation report from 1968 mentioned that the Poles had again argued against it. However, on the third day of the 1968 seminar, something unexpected happened: Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia, and the seminar program was suspended. Instead, informal group discussions took place, providing yet another example of how the seminars succeeded in creating real dialogue and providing a forum where it was possible to discuss even controversial issues.22 The youth exchange organized by the DUF was, as already mentioned, deliberately designed as an alternative to the mass festivals (the World Festival of Youth and Students) and other types of youth exchange that took place within the World Communist Movement. I will argue that the different framework for exchange organized by the DUF was of importance because what people experience depends on what they are invited to experience. The Danish Young Communists (DKU), who of course invited members of their sister organization to festivals and organized reciprocal visits of delegations, was very active in youth exchange. Although evaluation reports from these exchanges exist only from the late 1970s and early 1980s, it is illuminating to compare the exchanges organized by the DUF and the DKU. The members of the DKU invited their comrades from the Eastern bloc to look at Danish workplaces, educational institutions, and the like, where they would be shown around and talk primarily with Danish Communists who were activists in trade unions and other movements. The Danish Communist Party was among the most orthodox Communist parties in the West, and it never questioned the basic ideological assumptions of the Communist movement. Based on the supposition of a common – 51 –

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ideology of the Communist movement, the members of the DKU invited their peers in Communist countries to look at Denmark as an example of an exploitative Capitalist system. According to research in the field, the young Communists, especially from the Soviet Union, experienced a kind of “cultural shock” when confronted with “the real existing capitalism of Denmark.” Thus, both they and their Danish comrades spent considerable time in evaluations rationalizing and explaining that, in the end, the Socialist system will prevail, although the Capitalist system (Denmark) on the surface seems to be able to provide a comfortable living for Danish workers, free education for the Danish youth, free health care, and so on. Although they might have had a hard time doing so, the delegates from the Eastern bloc and their Danish comrades would end up explaining why, in the end, the Socialist system was “the better system.”23 According to the records retained in the Danish archives, the young Poles valued the exchanges with the DUF for their open atmosphere and, according to official Polish statements, considered the two-week courses to be most welcome, useful, and a good basis for “an open and frank exchange of ideas and opinions about common interests and problems.”24 The exchange activities organized by DUF were not designed as symbolic manifestations to strengthen the beliefs of party members and convince others that the Communists were fighting a just cause with a bright future for humankind—as the World Festivals of Youth and Students, organized by the Communist youth organizations, were. “Systemic identities”25 were deliberately downplayed at the youth leader seminars. Instead, references to identities such as “Europeans” and “the young generation” were the common denominator. A common identity as “Europeans” and “the young generation” enabled the young Poles, as well as the young Danes, to create a common platform and define themselves as the young generation in opposition to older national generations. Evaluations and post-seminar reports describe Denmark and Poland as neighboring countries with a common European identity, and deliberately seem to omit mentioning “Capitalist” and “Communist” as struggling Cold War identities. Participants at youth leader seminars were invited to a common ground formed by the overcoming of old Cold War stereotypes and a definition of themselves as the young generation.

The Development of the Danish-Polish Exchanges in the 1970s The format of the exchange altered in the early 1970s, partly due to one of the immediate goals of the youth leader seminars being reached. The youth leader seminars seem to have ceased around 1970, to be succeeded – 52 –

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by reciprocal visits of the presidents of the organizations and meetings at a number of European or international youth conferences. Both the DUF and the OKWOM engaged themselves in the Helsinki European Youth Conference in August 1972, held by European youth organizations parallel to the diplomats’ and ministries of foreign affairs’ preparatory meetings for the Helsinki conference, also held in Helsinki in 1972. New formal exchange agreements between the DUF and the OKWOM were signed in 1971 and 1975.26 The new agreements stressed the continuation of contacts between the two organizations, but, as a new feature, they would support decentralized exchange between their member organizations. Furthermore, they would support sister-city activities that would expand contacts between ordinary Polish and Danish youth and children. The activities in the 1970s seem to have followed this dual track: on the one hand, political activism related to the CSCE process, and on the other hand, a broad array of cultural exchange activities ranging from visits by Polish avant-garde artists to alternative milieus in Copenhagen, to scouting groups participating in each other’s summer camps, and to joint meetings of environmental activists. The exchanges between Danish and Polish scouting organizations may be a good example of the importance of the more relaxed and informal atmosphere created by the European détente and the CSCE process (including the preparatory talks). The Danish partner was KFUK (Y.W.C.A.), the Polish partner, ZHP. Records document that ZHP preferred KFUK as a partner instead of DKU (with their branch for children, the young pioneers) for organizing summer camps. The Polish authorities were worried because KFUK was a Christian organization, but in the mid-1970s, ZHP was given a green light to formalize exchanges with KFUK. The cause for worry in the ZHP and among the Polish authorities seems to have been whether the Soviet Communist Party would approve of exchange activities with KFUK and whether DKU, if offended, might cause trouble. Letters from Polish participants in KFUK’s summer camps reflect genuinely warm feelings and appreciation of the more relaxed atmosphere compared with traditional Polish scouting, which followed strict military traditions.27 A number of the original ideas from the Danish-Polish youth leader seminars were transplanted into these other Danish-Polish cultural exchange activities in the 1970s. When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark in 1970–71 pinned down their new strategy regarding cultural exchange with the Eastern bloc, they argued that exchange in areas such as the environment, agriculture, and social work were more likely to lead to the desired dialogue than traditional arts diplomacy. Danish ministry officials engaged in cultural exchange had noted that engineers and other professionals in general were more outspoken than “the cultural people,” and that mutual – 53 –

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contacts between professionals more easily led to fruitful dialogues, whereas artists and cultural people from Communist countries were relatively orthodox in their views. The logical conclusion was to support exchange activities in areas where discussions about topics of common interest would naturally lead to comparisons of the different societal systems.28 Most seminars and exchange activities within the Danish-Polish cultural exchange program in the 1970s were accordingly organized as meetings of professionals. Participants consisted of what may be termed people with a mutual interest in a single subject, for instance, Polish and Danish architects studying the new high-rise suburbs visited the suburbs of Warsaw and Copenhagen and arranged seminars. Other examples include members of rural youth organizations visiting each other and local environmental organizations visiting and exchanging views on environmental issues. Delegations of Danish and Polish journalists also visited each other.29 According to the Danish ministerial officials, this approach allowed for circumvention of political barriers by introducing exchange as reciprocal visits of equal partners who aimed to learn from each other. The search for possible solutions to common societal problems, such as the movement of people from rural areas to the cities, was not considered dangerous political activity to be strictly controlled. The flowering of activities in the mid-1970s was, among the Danish activists, carried by the conviction that the Iron Curtain was wearing thin. The DUF enthusiastically supported the CSCE process, and different kinds of written materials from the mid-1970s show that the DUF was convinced that contacts and cooperation would expand constantly until the point was reached where East-West contacts were as normal as between Western European countries. The mood was particularly optimistic around 1975–78. In the mid-1970s, the DUF engaged itself deeply in disarmament and in peace and security issues, but also environmental issues. These engagements were reflected at the level of activities as well. At the level of official politics, when leaders from the Danish and Polish organizations met annually or biannually to agree on exchange programs and activities, the common outspoken aim was still to further interhuman understanding and in this way secure peace. Official agreements between the DUF and the OKWOM (supplanted after 1975 by FSZLP) describe the active role played by Danish and Polish youth organizations “in international campaigns for consolidation of activities of various youth groups in Europe, for security and détente in Europe, for effective and continuous progress of the European Conference on Security and Cooperation.”30 In 1977, it was stated in the renewed agreement on youth exchange that “[b]oth parties are of the opinion that the conditions are very much in favor of increasing the circles of young people involved; we think that – 54 –

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the cooperation should include young people belonging to various political groupings, secondary school students, children’s organizations, theatre, gymnastics and sports clubs, youth clubs, international assistance organizations or any other association of young people with special interests. DUF and FSZLP will support tourism exchange between Polish and Danish youth.”31 This outcome was exactly what Danish officials had envisioned in 1970–71 when they argued that enhancement of cultural exchange programs might lead to freer movement of information, people, and ideas. As long as the DUF and the OKWOM, later the FSZLP, could claim that they worked to further security and détente in Europe, they sustained a mutual identity of progressives advocating peace, security, and social progress. As long as the blocs were in relative agreement about the Helsinki process, the Polish and Danish youth organizations could claim to be forerunners of a broad movement of European youth organizations. Peace and security presented a common meeting ground between the East and the West during the 1970s. The CSCE process enabled a broadening of contacts among ordinary people across the Iron Curtain and enabled expansion of East-West exchange activities that had not been possible ten years earlier.

Danish Diplomacy and the CSCE Process The DUF was not the only organization to work hard in the early 1970s to realize the new policy formulated by the office of press and cultural information in the Ministry of Foreign affairs of Denmark. Following the meeting of NATO’s Council of Ministers in December 1971, the issue of cultural exchange agreements was discussed at meetings first between the Danish and Polish ministers of foreign affairs and shortly thereafter at a meeting with the Romanian minister of foreign affairs. The Danish minister of foreign affairs and Danish diplomats held these meetings to explore possibilities of furthering their own ideas, to strike a compromise regarding the freer movement of information, people, and ideas at the upcoming conference on security and peace in Helsinki, and to sound out the room for maneuvering among the Warsaw Pact countries, where the regimes in Poland and Romania were regarded as the most independent-minded ones in the Eastern bloc. This is not the place to probe deeper into the role played by Danish diplomats in the run-up to and during the negotiations in Helsinki in 1975.32 What I want to highlight in this chapter is the interplay between the formal and informal diplomacy. At the meeting of the Danish and Polish ministers of foreign affairs in April 1972 to discuss the upcoming CSCE – 55 –

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conference, both ministers referred to the DUF-OKWOM youth leader seminars as a positive experience with cultural exchange. Both ministers also suggested that the cultural exchange program between Poland and Denmark had proved useful and ought to be extended, which, in fact, as already mentioned, happened after 1972. The Polish minister of foreign affairs reported that the Polish government was definitely interested in discussing freer movement of information, people, and ideas. The Polish government suggested an exchange of residential news correspondents and also widening the exchange of radio and TV programs. The Polish minister also consented to the widening of the range of cultural exchanges and to conducting exchanges in the future on an institution-to-institution basis.33 Judging from documents in the Danish State Archives, it was not only the DUF and Denmark that chose Poland as a favorite partner, but Poland also chose Denmark. The Polish interest in cultural exchange and extension of contacts with Denmark in the late 1960s and early 1970s was clearly related to the upcoming CSCE conference. The question of recognition of the Oder-Neisse borderline was, of course, considered vital for Poland’s future, together with the recognition of the G.D.R. (which, seen from a Polish point of view, hopefully would ascertain a permanent German division). In order to influence the agenda for the upcoming conference on peace and security, Poland started diplomatic overtures inside the Warsaw Pact as well as the broadening of contacts with neutral Finland and NATO countries. The extended contacts with Denmark were part of this diplomatic effort.34 The reason why the two ministries of foreign affairs declared the Danish-Polish youth exchange program a success seems to be quite similar on both sides. It was a convenient icebreaker, having paved the way for political deliberations about European peace and security through informal diplomacy. This intertwinement of informal and formal diplomacy—NGOs and foreign office diplomats sustaining each other in their aspirations—came to be a distinctive feature of Danish East-West cultural exchange programs during the remainder of the Cold War. Two examples may serve as documentation. The all-European conferences between youth organizations of Western and Eastern Europe that had started in the late 1970s, paralleling the diplomats’ meetings at Helsinki follow-up conferences, were abandoned in 1982 due to the Polish crisis and the imposition of martial law in 1981–82, not to be resumed before 1986–87. However, bilateral contacts between Danish and Polish youth organizations continued, albeit on a very low level. The DUF argued in the early 1980s, as they had done before, that superpower politics, and political con– 56 –

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siderations in general, should not be allowed to dismantle people-to-people contacts. In 1984, contacts with Polish youth organizations were resumed, this time through the Commission for Joint International Contacts of the Polish Youth and Students Unions (CIC).35 The DUF also engaged itself in the Baltic Sea conferences, which were the only surviving forum for youth organizations from the East and the West to meet in the early 1980s.36 The DUF’s activities, as in the late 1960s, once again spearheaded the official Danish-Polish cultural exchange program.37 Thematic areas were basically the same in the mid-1980s as they had been in the 1970s. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark still considered that human contacts ought to be expanded whenever possible, regardless of the more specific content. The Danish ambassador to Poland remarked in 1983 that the Polish system in general considered contacts with the peaceful Scandinavian countries as less controversial and less threatening than contacts with people from other parts of the world. This opportunity to expand people-to-people contacts between Denmark and Poland thus ought to be utilized. He also remarked that Polish people from all walks of life were eager to have contacts with people from the West, irrespective of the country.38 Principles of exchange even in the mid-1980s followed the principles laid down in the late 1960s. It was still of importance to the DUF to stress that it was possible to disagree on political issues and still work together. It was also noted that even if official representatives from Polish youth organizations were very dogmatic, it was still possible to discuss even thorny issues and engage in dialogues with them.39 In the mid-1980s, the Danish government as well as the DUF were on the lookout for possible levers regarding the CSCE’s thorny Basket III issues, particularly human rights and human contacts, for which there had been many follow-up meetings in the mid-1980s. In 1985, the Danish government decided to create a forum for the diplomats that partook in the CSCE process to meet with representatives from Danish NGOs involved in people-to-people contacts with Communist countries, including the DUF. The aim was to coordinate NGO activities and the Danish position at the different rounds of CSCE follow-up meetings.40 This forum existed from 1985 until 1988. One of the ideas developed in this forum was (again) to strengthen the role of the NGOs in cultural and youth exchange and especially people-to-people contacts as a measure well suited to re-create confidence across the blocs and overcome Cold War mistrust. A line can thus be drawn from 1965 until 1989 illustrating fruitful cooperation between the Danish government and Danish NGOs, including the DUF, in their attempt to combine informal and official diplomacy in order to enhance East-West exchanges and overcome Cold War mistrust and stereotyping. – 57 –

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Final Remarks The Danish-Polish cultural exchange program differentiated itself from the typical official cultural exchange program that aims at promoting the culture of the sending country. The most important aim during the 1960s was not nation branding, but to create dialogue and room for people-to-people contacts in order to contribute to the breakdown of Cold War stereotypes. This was of real importance especially in the 1960s and the early 1970s, when East-West contacts and even knowledge about the other were still very scarce. Nicholas J. Cull has emphasized that the Helsinki Accord presents a watershed because it enhanced and, to a degree hitherto unseen, enabled direct as well as mediated contacts across the Iron Curtain. The increase in contacts across the blocs in the fields of informational, educational, and cultural exchange opened the way for a greater flow of ideas, and “[in] the long term, the Helsinki Accords transformed the Soviet state and its satellites.”41 Danish cultural exchange with the Eastern bloc in the 1970s focused on facilitating experiences with a different lived culture, based preferably on people-to-people contacts. The ultimate aim with this policy was, much in line with Willy Brandt’s Wandel durch Annäherung, to create changes in the bloc system and a regime change in Eastern Europe. To achieve this, an intermediary aim was to open up the possibility for freer exchange of people, information, and ideas. At the state level, it was possible to reach an agreement with the governments of countries in Eastern Europe that, like Poland, looked for ways to implement more nationally independent policies. The official framework of the people-to-people contacts, however, did not hamper contacts of Danish NGOs, even with dissidents in Eastern Europe. One of the strengths of the Danish cultural exchange with the Eastern bloc was that the formal and informal diplomacy to a large degree went hand in hand, and that an organization like the DUF was, on the one hand, able to coordinate their policies with the diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and, on the other hand, was capable of facilitating seemingly nonpolitical people-to-people contacts through its membership organizations. The Danish East-West exchange program included popular as well as elitist elements; it aimed at creating maneuvering space for governments as well as people from Communist countries by facilitating contacts and supporting networks. The open dialogue that the Danish-Polish youth leader seminars aimed at was not primarily designed to win people over, but to give practical lessons in democracy and empower people by creating room for agency. The pioneering efforts of the DUF in combination with the actions of Danish diplomacy played an important role in the process – 58 –

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that led up to and during the negotiations of the Helsinki Accords in striking a compromise between the East and the West. By creating room for agency and the empowerment of people, the Danish cultural exchange program with the Eastern bloc, although only one small pawn in the game, contributed, however small that contribution may have been, to the transformation process in Eastern Europe. It ended in 1989, but had a long history leading up to that decisive moment. Marianne Rostgaard is associate professor in the Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark. Her research has focused on different aspects of the cultural Cold War, especially American, but also Soviet, cultural diplomacy towards Denmark in the early Cold War period. She is currently researching how Danish cultural diplomacy toward the Eastern Bloc from the 1960s onward may have contributed to the European détente.

Notes 1. The chapter presents results of ongoing research on Danish cultural exchange with the Eastern bloc during the Cold War. It was started as part of the collective research project “An Epoch-Making Decade: ‘The Long 1970s’ and European-Transatlantic Transformation Processes in Political Culture, Discourse and Power” (University of Copenhagen, with funding from the Danish Research Council, 2010–13). 2. The chapter is primarily based on the archival records from “NATO’s working committee on cultural relations with the Eastern bloc,” Udenrigsministeriet (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark), gruppeordnede sager 1945–72 (referred to as DSA, UM); records from Dansk Ungdoms Fællesråd (the Danish Youth Council, referred to as DSA, DUF); and records from Danish-Polish cultural exchanges, the Ministry of Culture (referred to as DSA, KultM). The mentioned archives are all retained in Rigsarkivet (the Danish State Archives, DSA) in Copenhagen. 3. The records consulted in AMSZ include documents, mainly reports from the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen, that relate to DUF and youth exchange between Poland and Denmark from 1969 to 1976. The records consulted at AAN pertaining to OKWOM and Danish-Polish youth exchange span the years 1956–72 (the period where OKWOM headed the Polish international youth exchange). 4. OKWOM file B/III/58 in the AAN (Warsaw) retains reports, minutes from meetings, newspaper clippings etc. that relates to Polish youth visiting Denmark in 1956 (organized by DKU), 1960 (organized by DUF), in 1962 (DKU), and the Danish-Polish youth leader seminars organized by DUF (1965–69). 5. The Polish government was eager to enhance and deepen relations with Denmark and Norway in the late 1950s and early 1960s. H. Andreasen, “Polske arkiver og Danmark,” Arbejderhistorie 1, 2006. 6. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, “Orientering fra Politisk Juridisk Afdeling” (Circular from the Office of Political and Judicial Affairs), 3 August 1965, UM 41.c.143, DSA. 7. Richard Wagner Hansen’s concluding remarks in his report from the annual meeting in NATO’s working committee on cultural relations with the Eastern bloc 1970, UM.41.C.143, DSA. For more information on NATO’s working committee on cultural relations with the – 59 –

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Eastern bloc see M. Rostgaard, “NATO’s Working Committee on Cultural Relations with the Eastern Bloc: Experience Gained That Came into Use in the Helsinki Process?” Working paper, presented at workshop at Copenhagen University, September 2011. http://epokeskiftet .saxo.ku.dk/publikationer/Working_paper_MarianneRostgaard_2.pdf/. 8. All-European youth conferences that paralleled the CSCE conferences were held in Helsinki in 1972, followed by consultative meetings in Hungary in June 1973 and September 1974, and a conference in June 1976 in Warsaw. DUF printed annual reports 1972/73– 1974/75, and DU-bladet. 9. The 8th World Youth Festival in Helsinki in 1962 had caused several rounds of discussions in the DUF about whether the Danish Youth Council should participate or not. The result of the debate was a clear no. One argument was that the DUF’s Finnish counterparts did not recommend participation in this altogether Communist festival that had less to do with real youth exchange than with Communist propaganda. The main argument, however, was a principled critique and general mistrust of mass meetings (with their reminiscences of Nazi mass meetings). Instead, the DUF advocated smaller seminars that allowed for a real exchange of opinions, which they saw as a democratic alternative to the Communist rallies. Dansk Ungdoms Fællesråd, “Rapport fra Rådsmødet 30. Maj 1965 i Fællessalen på Christiansborg,” Formandens beretning, (Minutes from meeting May 30, 1965, item: Report from the chairman of DUF) 6–7, DUF, box 130, folder: Helsingfors 1962, DSA. See also J. Krekola and S. Mikkonen, “Backlash of the Free World,” Scandinavian Journal of History 36, 2 (2011): 230–55. 10. “Rapport om de dansk-polske ungdomslederseminar afholdt på Magleås Højskole 15– 29 august 1965” (Post-seminar report from the Danish-Polish youth leader seminar, 15–29 August 1965, Magleås Højskole), DUF, box 148, DSA. 11. Conversation with Per Himmelstrup, 3 August 2012. 12. Social Democrat K. B. Andersen, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark in 1971–73, was one of the founding fathers of the DUF. Obituary, DU-bladet, no. 3, 1983. Another prominent Social Democrat, who as a young politician engaged herself in the Danish-Polish youth exchange in the early 1970s, was Dorte Bennedsen, later Minister of Education in 1979–82. 13. “The Joint Council of the Danish Youth arranged a meeting of Danish and Polish youth leaders at a Danish folk high school in August 1965. The meeting was, in the main, a success, but there can be no doubt that the Polish delegation was hand-picked orthodox communists.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, “Annual report on East-West cultural exchanges to NATO’s working committee on cultural relations with the Eastern bloc, 1966.” UM, 41.C.143, box 6307, DSA. 14. Letter from Józef Altman, Secretary General of the Polish Youth Council, 16 March 1966: “We are glad that, like ourselves, you think the seminar was valuable. Our organizations are also of the opinion that it was interesting and useful, and that it is worth repeating … In our view, the principles of our joint seminar held last year could be observed this year too.” See also the written statement (by Carl Nissen) on behalf of the Danish organizers in1967 reporting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark on an oral evaluation of the 1967 seminar: “The Polish participants expressed their interest in continuing the yearly, bilateral seminars. They had noticed substantial progress in this year’s deliberations about controversial issues and stressed the value of scale of the seminar together with continuity in relations.” DUF, box 148, DSA. 15. OKWOM file B/III/58, AAN (Warsaw). Lengthy reports from the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen about DUF in 1962, 1965 and 1969 all end with the conclusion that youth exchanges should be arranged through DUF. It seems that, more than once, DKU tried to pull strings in order to become gatekeeper of Danish-Polish youth exchange. The records document that the Polish authorities preferred to keep DUF as their gateway to Denmark. 16. What was termed the German question was on the agenda at every annual PolishDanish youth leader seminar. In 1969, the Polish ambassador to Denmark gave a speech at – 60 –

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the youth leader seminar (held in Denmark) titled “Selected Problems of Security and Cooperation in Europe.” The issue raised by the ambassador was the possibility of calling a conference on peace and security in Europe and the reason such a conference was of the utmost importance seen from a Polish point of view. DUF, box 148, folder: The 1969 youth leader seminar, DSA. 17. Evaluation report from the Danish-Polish youth leader seminar [in Danish]. DUF, box 148, folder: The 1965 youth leader seminar, DSA. 18. See, among other examples, the interview with Elisabeth Fabricius from the Danish Girl Scout Union who partook in the youth leader seminar in Poland in 1966 in Førerbladet (the Girl Scouts’ magazine). One example among a number of newspaper and magazine clippings, DUF, box 148, DSA. 19. The Danish youth leaders tried to convince the Polish youth leaders in 1966 and 1967 that the new democratic Western Germany was different and that the FRG had no revanchist intentions. They did not, perhaps, succeed in winning over the young Poles, but at least they managed to create a Danish-Polish dialogue regarding this thorny issue, according to the DUF’s own evaluations. DUF, Box 148, folders with evaluations of the seminars in 1967 and 1969, DSA. 20. DKU’s Arkiv (Archive of the Communist Youth of Denmark), box 135 ABA (The Danish labor movements’ archive and library): handwritten notes from participants in the Danish-Polish youth leader seminar August 1967 at Herning Folk High School. The handwritten notes seem to be shorthand minutes of the debates that took place at the youth leader seminar. 21. K. H. Nielsen, “Go West—Ungkommunister fra Sovjetunionen og Østeuropa på besøg i Danmark” [Go West—Young communists from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on a visit to Denmark], Arbejderhistorie 1, 2011. 22. Sadly enough, the evaluation reports do not contain any information about what was actually discussed regarding the Warsaw Pact invasion in Czechoslovakia. 23. K. H. Nielsen, “Go West”. In his article, Knud Holt Nielsen presents findings from his research on political traveling, namely on young Communists from the Eastern bloc visiting Denmark in the 1970s and 1980s. According to KHN, young Communists, especially from the Soviet Union, experienced a kind of cultural shock when visiting a Capitalist country, some perhaps for the first time. 24. Quote from the official evaluation of the fifth Danish-Polish youth leader seminar in Holte (Denmark), 1969, which includes a letter with thanks from the Polish minister of foreign affairs, Stefan Jedrychowski. One of the lecturers at the 1969 seminar was Henry Sokalski, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Polish People’s Republic. Sokalski opened his lecture by saying, “You are a special kind of audience, possessing the five-year-long tradition of the most constructive and lasting elements of relations between our two countries in recent years. … As a close follower of all your seminars so far, I can only congratulate DUF and OKWOM for what they have done—and I am sure will go on doing—to successfully prove that a sincere will to carry through bilateral contacts, if truly honest, can resist all evils.” DUF, box 148, folder: The Youth Leader seminar 1969, DSA. 25. The term “systemic identity” has been coined in G. Péteri, ed., Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010). 26. DUF, box 269 (covering the years 1971–73) and box 268 (covering the years 1974–79), DSA. 27. Archive of the Polish Scouting Association (ZHP), Warsaw. 28. “Rapport Øst-Vest møde i Canada, maj 1970” (report from the annual meeting in NATO’s working committee on cultural relations with the Eastern bloc, 1970, held in Ottawa, Canada), UM, 41.C.143, DSA. 29. KultM, Journalsager: Kulturaftaler/samarbejde med Polen 1973– (Danish Ministry of Culture, Cultural relations with Poland 1973–1988), boxes 15–17, DSA and UM, Journal– 61 –

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sager 1973–1988, 42 Dan–Polen, boxes 284–86, (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Cultural relations with Poland 1973–1988), DSA. 30. “Agreement on Cooperation between FSZLP and DUF for the years 1975/76,” DUF, box 268, DSA. 31. “Agreement on Cooperation between FSZLP and DUF 1978/79/80,” signed 23 December 1977, DUF, box 268, DSA. 32. P. Villaume, “Pathfinders and perpetuators of Détente. Small States of NATO and the Long Détente: The Case of Denmark 1965–1989,” paper for the closing conference of “An Epoch-Making Decade,” Copenhagen, 29–30 November 2012. 33. Minutes from the meeting between Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Stefan Olszowski and Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs K. B. Andersen, Warsaw, 11 April 1972. Stefan Olszowski states that Poland wishes to stay in contact with Denmark during the coming preparations for an All-European Conference on Peace and Security both bilaterally and during the preconference in Helsinki. The Polish side stresses that questions about economic issues as well as cultural issues are of importance at the upcoming conference, and Olszowski states that Poland wants to enhance bilateral youth exchange through seminars, widened contacts between civic organizations, etc. Minutes [in Danish]. UM 43.C.143, box 6309, folder: bilagspakke, DSA. 34. See W. Jarzabek, “Hope and reality: Poland and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1964–1989,” Cold War International History Project Working Paper no. 56 (May 2008). Jarzabek mentions that around 1969–70, Poland initiated diplomatic actions visá-vis Belgium, France, Great Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands “in order to gain support for the idea of gathering a pan-European conference with a broad agenda” (65). Denmark was of interest and came to play a role in the negotiations at the Helsinki conference as intermediary and possible interlocutor because Denmark was the only country that at the same time was a member of NATO, “Europe Nine” (the EU), and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Apart from that, Denmark was genuinely interested in a European détente and the furthering of cross-bloc trading, and thus to some degree shared interests with Poland. This does not mean that the Polish and Danish governments were necessarily in agreement when it came to the actual policies, but it provided a solid basis for talks and discussions. 35. Letter on 15 February to CIC and letter to the Polish Embassy in Denmark on 16 February thanking the Polish Ambassador to Denmark for the constructive meeting yesterday (not clear whether this meeting was held on Danish or Polish initiative) and DU-Bladet, 1986, no. 6 (the Polish chairman for CIC was Marian Gromadsky). 36. DU-Bladet, 1981, no. 6, report from the Baltic Sea conference in Rønne (Bornholm), April 1981. 37. The Danish Embassy in Warsaw advised the government to resume the official Danish-Polish cultural exchange program in 1983–84. Report from the Danish Embassy in Warsaw, 7 April 1983. UM, Journalsager 1973–88. 41.Dan-Pol.2 (pakke 4), DSA. 38. Report from the Danish Embassy in Warsaw, 19 February 1985. UM, Journalsager 1973–88. 41. Dan-Pol.2 (pakke 4), DSA. 39. Evaluation of DUF/CIC seminar held in Gdansk in 1986. DU-bladet, 1986, no. 6. 40. Notes from the meeting, 8 February 1985, UM, 5.B.55/43, DSA. Besides the DUF, the diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark had included the Danish church organizations (including Mosaisk Troessamfund, the Jewish community in Denmark), Danish PEN, Amnesty International, and others in what they termed “a working group in preparation of the CSCE-meeting of experts on respect for human rights.” 41. N. J. Cull, “Reading, Viewing and Tuning into the Cold War,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. 2, Crises and Détente, ed. M. Leffler and O. A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 456.

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Chapter 3

TRANSMITTING THE “FREEDOM VIRUS” France, the USSR, and Cultural Aspects of European Security Cooperation Nicolas Badalassi

T

o explain why the Cold War ended, historians of the 1990s and the early 2000s always underlined the Eastern bloc’s disastrous economic situation, Ronald Reagan’s offensive armament policy, Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, or Eastern European peoples’ attraction to Western culture. However, several years ago, historiography added to this nonexhaustive list an element that had been underestimated: the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE).1 The CSCE, whose Final Act was signed on 1 August 1975 in Helsinki, was the result of many years of negotiations between all the European countries (with the exception of Albania, which refused to join it), the United States, and Canada. Held from 1972 to 1975 in Helsinki and Geneva, the conference sought to make détente’s effects concrete by allowing East-West negotiations on various issues, such as statute of frontiers, circulation of people and ideas, and economic, scientific, and technical cooperation. Because the conference was so lengthy and was aiming to secure long-term provisions, it was named the “Helsinki process.”2 Yet, when in 1954 the Soviet minister of foreign affairs, Viatcheslav Molotov, suggested organizing a meeting between all the European states, his purpose was not to create an instrument allowing the coming together of people and ideas. On the contrary, his goal was to make the presence of U.S. forces on the continent illegitimate: the Soviets planned the withdrawal of foreign troops from both Germanies and the creation of Pan– 63 –

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European permanent organisms that would put paid to the Atlantic Alliance and any Western European attempts to form a common army.3 During the following years, Poland became the main promoter of the project, desiring the denuclearization of F.R.G. and G.D.R. in order to neutralize the territories of the former Reich once and for all. Nikita Khrushchev’s USSR saw the idea of conference as a way to freeze the division of Europe and its stranglehold on the Eastern part of the continent. By 1965, Leonid Brezhnev, battling with China, made both objectives a real leitmotif: a Pan-European conference had to bring the Westerners to acknowledge the political and territorial status quo in Europe.4 This would mean ensuring the continued existence of both the German division and the Soviet influence over Eastern European countries. He thus campaigned to make the Western leaders accept the idea of the conference, presenting it as a way of cementing détente and preventing them from categorically refusing it at the risk of being accused of rejecting dialogue with the East and trying to revive the Cold War. This is exactly what France wanted to avoid.5 Headed by General Charles de Gaulle from 1958 to 1969, France had been attempting to portray itself as an intermediary between the East and the West since 1963. Considering the division of Europe in blocs abnormal, de Gaulle considered it his country’s duty to do everything it could to facilitate reunification of the continent.6 That is why he distanced himself from the United States—while staying in the Atlantic Alliance, which was seen as essential for France’s security—and came closer to the USSR. Brezhnev tried to take advantage of French willingness to dialogue in order to promote the project of the conference.7 Whereas de Gaulle was reluctant to accept any initiative aiming to freeze the status quo, everything changed after the repression of the Prague Spring in August 1968. His successor, Georges Pompidou (1969–74), actually understood the opportunity that a Pan-European conference could represent: by broadening its agenda with issues reflecting values of freedom and democracy, the Soviet project could be turned against its instigators and would become the instrument of the blocs’ suppression. For him, the most important thing was to use the conference to develop cultural cooperation between the East and the West, the best way to transmit the “freedom virus” to Socialist countries.8 Thus, if we look at the Helsinki Final Act, signed in 1975 by the thirtyfive heads of state or governments who took part in the CSCE, Moscow’s initial objectives seem to be secondary. Although principles of inviolability of borders, refraining from the threat or use of force, and non-intervention in internal affairs were proclaimed,9 there were also principles of peaceful change of frontiers,10 respect for human rights, self-determination of peo– 64 –

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ples, and some measures regarding economic cooperation. Moreover, an important part of the Final Act was dedicated to cultural cooperation, human contacts, and the circulation of information.11 In this way, the CSCE provided the peoples of the Eastern bloc with a document to lean on when pursuing freedom. Drawing on the archives of the French Republic presidency (Paris), the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs (La Courneuve), the CSCE/OSCE (Prague), and the Gerald Ford Library (Ann Arbor, Michigan), this chapter examines the role played by France during the negotiations of the cultural part of the Final Act. How did the French manage to persuade the Eastern leaders to include in the Helsinki document some provisions that were totally opposed to the standards in effect in Eastern Europe? Which cultural themes did France favor? In what ways did it see in the CSCE a means to continue the policy of détente initiated by de Gaulle? We will first study how the French gradually started to regard the CSCE as a way to drive a wedge into the bipolar system. Then we will move on to analyze the strategy they adopted during the conference itself in order to impose on the Soviets some provisions intended for improving cultural cooperation between the East and the West.

CSCE and Culture: “Détente à la Française” For Charles de Gaulle, the division of Europe during the Cold War was a “historic anomaly” created in 1945 by Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin in Yalta.12 He thought that the European continent was above all a mosaic of nation-states with centuries-old cultural links: I myself had always felt, and now more than ever, how much the nations which peopled [Europe] had in common. Being all of the same white race, with the same Christian origins and the same way of life, linked to one another since time immemorial by countless ties of thought, art, science, politics and trade, it was natural that they should come to form a whole, with its own character and organization in relation to the rest of the world. It was in pursuance of this destiny that the Roman emperors reigned over it, that Charlemagne, Charles V and Napoleon attempted to unite it, that Hitler sought to impose upon it his crushing domination. But it is a fact of some significance that not one of these federators succeeded in inducing the subject countries to surrender their individuality. On the contrary, arbitrary centralization always provoked an upsurge of violent nationalism.13

Thus, de Gaulle did not see the USSR as an ideological regime—he saw Communism as bound to disappear—but he preferred considering it a successor of Tsarist Russia, which had harbored close ties to France.14 In – 65 –

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addition, he often evoked historical ties linking France to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Consequently, he considered it the mission of France to knock down the Iron Curtain in order to regain the political and cultural unity of Europe. Therefore, as de Gaulle inferred after the crisis of Cuba in 1962 that the United States was the only superpower and the USSR would never be able to wage a war against the West, he decided to launch a policy of “détente, entente, cooperation” toward Eastern Europe. His objective was to strengthen the ties to France’s former Eastern European allies.15 Culture was to play a crucial role in achieving this goal. Since France’s prestige and cultural influence had weakened following the rise of the English-language culture after World War II, de Gaulle encouraged a cultural policy that aimed at supporting his conception of nation. Henceforth, culture had to serve France’s greatness. This led to the creation of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959 with André Malraux nominated as its head.16 This same desire for cultural influencing persisted under Pompidou from 1969 to 1974. Cultural cooperation with the USSR and its allies began in earnest in 1965.17 However, in the early 1970s, French leaders still considered Franco-Soviet cultural exchanges weak.18 Even though both countries favored language and literature as cultural vectors,19 cooperation was bureaucratic by nature. The reasons for this were the savage censorship pursued by Soviet authorities over each cultural activity in the USSR and the difficulty of circulation behind the Iron Curtain.20 And yet, circulation of ideas during the 1960s and the 1970s depended on the mobility of people. Representatives of official culture were preferred in cultural exchanges and more easily allowed to travel to Eastern Europe. “In the USSR, monopoly of official culture was so important that intellectual creations were property of the State, not of their authors.”21 This situation explains Eastern authors’ inability to contact Western editors in order to translate their work. Another reason was the lethargic state of culture in the Soviet bloc. In July 1975, a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow gave an account of this situation: The cultural scene shows few signs of life. Other than in the performance of music, there is little of real merit either being produced or published here. Local dissident painters have arranged some exhibitions which do not meet the official canon of acceptability. However, the artistic merits of such exhibitions are questionable and they remain more political than genuine artistic events. … No new poets of real merit are on the horizon. … Many of the best Soviet novelists, even aside from Solzhenitsyn, have emigrated. … Although there have been some exceptions, Soviet films are generally of dismal quality. … The mood among the really creative element in this society is bleak.22 – 66 –

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According to the Western diplomats in Moscow, only the fields of classical ballet and music, dominated by the great operas of the Russian repertoire, and some scarce cultural places such as the Pushkin Museum, the Tretyakov gallery, and the Kremlin itself managed to surmount the Soviet artistic lethargy.23 In other words, the French thought that only imperial Russia’s legacy could allow the USSR to have a cultural life; for them, a better dissemination of Western European culture in the Eastern bloc could facilitate the artistic blossoming of the Socialist regimes. In August 1968, forceful suppression of the Prague Spring by the Warsaw Pact troops seemed to put an end to détente. And yet, most leaders in the West considered this dramatic event as a simple demonstration of the Soviet will to confirm the political European status quo.24 Admittedly, the relations between the USSR and the West stagnated for several months, but were restored by the beginning of 1969. However, the French realized that the special relationship between Moscow and Paris instituted by General de Gaulle had been rendered null and void by the Kremlin’s desire to favor dialogue with Washington and Bonn. Georges Pompidou, who succeeded de Gaulle in the spring of 1969, decided to seize the Soviet proposal for a security conference firstly to reopen talks with the USSR and secondly to ease the pressure on Moscow’s Eastern European satellites and ensure that the events of Prague would not recur.25 Pompidou also hoped the CSCE could put into practice the theory of the systems’ convergence that had been particularly developed by the lawyer Samuel Pisar at that time.26 According to this theory, differences between Socialist and Capitalist main models were condemned to disappear.27 Pompidou thus wondered which one of the two sides “se laissera corrompre par l’autre,”28 but remained convinced that freedom would win over totalitarianism.29 He imagined a “decline” of the blocs “by slow and continuous action,” embodied by the process of détente. His successor Valéry Giscard d’Estaing also thought along the same lines: in Helsinki during the summer 1975 and then in Moscow in the following October, he openly expressed his support for a political, military, economic, and ideological détente, making the most dogmatic officials of the Kremlin angry. For them, ideological détente meant the end of the principle of class struggle.30 Consequently, by 1969, the USSR and France each attributed opposite objectives for the conference: Moscow aiming at cementing the European division, Paris wanting to overcome the bipolar system. Pompidou urged his partners in the European Community (EC) to accept the conference only if the Soviets would agree to add cultural issues to the agenda.31 The conference that originally was to center on European security instead gradually became a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Moscow was also forced to accept American and Canadian presence at the conference. – 67 –

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Persuaded of their ability to weaken the cultural aspect of the CSCE, the Soviets accepted the French proposal. Nevertheless, they quickly became worried about EC Nine’s tendency to constantly extend the CSCE agenda to cultural cooperation and to the circulation of people, ideas, and information through the Iron Curtain.32 While the USSR considered culture a field easily controlled by the state, it was opposed to a negotiation that would include improvement of people-to-people contacts and information, seeing both subjects as opportunity for interference in internal affairs and breaching state sovereignty.33 Contrary to most of its EC partners, France well understood that getting the USSR to talk about these matters would not be achieved by provocation. That is why, during the first gatherings in 1971–72, Paris only favored the question of cultural exchanges. The French leaders believed in the ability of cultural cooperation to bring about great changes, as it would expose Eastern Europe to influences beyond the Marxist ideology.34 French diplomacy wanted to improve university exchanges, artistic cooperation, tourism, youth meetings, diploma equivalency, press dissemination, work of journalists, visa issues, purchase of foreign books, and circulation of movies. The French believed that while seemingly harmless, such exchanges could soften Soviet authoritarianism.35 Political aims were veiled behind cultural exchange in order to avoid confrontation with Moscow. Georges Pompidou prevented the conference from being compromised before it even started because the CSCE was to provide a real opportunity for direct talks with Eastern European satellite states without permission from the Kremlin as the conference allowed all participants an equal footing.36 However, the main Soviet goals of cementing the European division and the removal of military alliances in Europe were considered threatening. Therefore, NATO countries took precautions. One was to make preparatory multilateral talks (PMT) depend on the ratification of a quadripartite agreement over Berlin: with the G.D.R. being on the verge of being acknowledged by the Westerners and, consequently, invited to sit at the CSCE, Paris, London, and Washington wanted to prevent its acknowledgment from weakening quadripartite rights and withdrawing their right of inspection over the future of Germany.37 Furthermore, the Nixon administration was aiming at strategic arms limitation talks. Thus, from September 1971 to November 1972, the start of the PMT depended on the Soviet decision regarding disarmament and limitation as well as on the conclusion of the quadripartite protocol over Berlin. When these conditions were fulfilled, every European country (except Albania), the United States, and Canada met in Helsinki from November 1972 to June 1973 to officially draw up the CSCE agenda, which was – 68 –

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divided into three “baskets.” While the first one dealt with security issues and the second one with economic and scientific matters, cultural issues were inserted into the third one, which also included “human contacts”38 and information. On the eve of the CSCE, the Soviets were still hoping to move these latter issues to the second basket. Only Pompidou’s art of persuasion saved the situation: in January 1973 Leonid Brezhnev was persuaded to allow the division of cultural and economic issues.39 In return and in order to minimize damage, Brezhnev demanded the insertion of a paragraph guaranteeing principles of respect of sovereign laws, customs, and non-interference in internal affairs into the preamble of the third basket’s mandate. This would allow him to avoid implementing the provisions of this Final Act’s part. Yet, these three ideas already appeared in the list of ten principles that was at the heart of the first basket and was named the “Decalogue.” The decalogue’s rules aimed to govern relations between the states of the CSCE. The Soviets had managed to include the idea of inviolability of frontiers—intended to confirm the European status quo—while the Westerners had obtained the insertion of respect for human rights and self-determination of peoples as compensation. Thus, in order to prevent the principles dear to the Soviets from being favored and not to restrain the impact of the third basket, the Western countries—including the United States—considered that the preamble of this latter one had to refer to all principles, and not only to two of them.40 After several months of negotiation, the Soviets finally accepted this proposal. The CSCE itself opened in July 1973 with a meeting of the thirty-five foreign ministers. The negotiations of the Final Act started in Geneva in September. They lasted nearly two years. Three committees in charge of discussing the three great issues of the agenda (security, economic cooperation, circulation of peoples, ideas, and information) made up the conference. Each committee was divided into various subcommittees. Thus, the third basket was separated into four subcommittees: human contacts, information, culture, and education. In the first phase, the delegations from each country suggested draft texts that were classified by theme, and then came the moment to discuss all these texts. Given the large number of subcommittees, several countries did not have enough staff to be represented everywhere. The nine EC members—just like the Warsaw pact countries—got round this difficulty by sharing tasks, the French acting as spokesmen for the West on cultural issues, particularly in the field of literature and editing.41 Within the French delegation—which was headed by Jacques Andréani, an expert in East-West issues and a former member of the French embassy with NATO—the negotiations of the third basket were led by Jacques Chazelle. Formed at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, one of the most prestigious establishments of higher education in France – 69 –

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and where President Georges Pompidou had also been schooled, Chazelle was regarded as a real intellectual. As for the Soviet delegation, it was led by Anatolii Kovalev. He was a member of the M.I.D College (an advisory council that united the main officials of the Soviet Ministry for Foreign Affairs) and knew the West very well, especially France. Having a less ideological vision of international relations than most of the members of the Politburo had and being in favor of a real détente, Kovalev had been an unswerving support to the CSCE since the mid-1960s.42 Concerning the third basket, he was helped by Yuri Dubinin, who was also a clever negotiator and defender of détente.

The Negotiations of the Final Act’s Cultural Part: France in the Firing Line Considered a world center for culture, art, and thought, France decided to use the Helsinki process to increase its cultural influence on the East and proposed more than forty drafts of texts to cover all fields of culture and art. Declaring to their Western European partners their long-term aim to secure the opening up of Communist regimes, the leaders of the French delegation did not want to limit themselves to restrictive phrases before checking where further demands could lead them.43 By submitting very detailed texts, France tried to make sure the CSCE would provide solutions “to several questions which still remained and for which Eastern European states did not show any will to resolve.”44 However, as soon as the discussions started in Geneva, the French realized the job would be difficult: the Socialist delegations were very hostile to most of the texts that had been drawn up by the Western states. Thus, by November 1973, the USSR and its allies rejected France’s main goal for the third basket, proclaimed by the Foreign Minister Michel Jobert, which was to create a “European cultural entity.”45 The Polish newspaper Ideologia i Polityka explained in January 1974 that Western insistence on the free circulation of people and ideas was a consequence of a “pitiful failure” of Western policies since the beginning of the Cold War. According to the Polish official organ, Capitalist ideologists had developed the concepts of ideological détente and convergence of the systems to pervert the Socialist world and put an end to the class struggle.46 The newspaper claimed that the countries of the Warsaw Pact would not fall into such a crude trap. The main concern of the Soviet bloc was to protect the principles of sovereignty and non-interference. However, France insisted on the necessity of discussing its principal proposals, which were summarized in two documents submitted to CSCE participants. The first document was about – 70 –

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“cooperation in the field of cultural dissemination” and included proposals such as trade and noncommercial exchanges of books, circulation of films, and exchanges of radio and television programs.47 The second document concerned “cooperation in the field of artistic exchanges” and planned the free circulation of artists and works, the organization of architecture competitions, and a European legislation for the protection of works and intellectual property.48 Simultaneously, France opposed proposals that Moscow could perceive as provocative, such as the Dutch proposal regarding direct relations between publishers and authors from different countries. For the French, this proposal clearly alluded to the “Solzhenitsyn affair”—Alexander Solzhenitsyn was banished from the USSR in February 1974 after the publication of The Gulag Archipelago—and it was clear that Moscow would vehemently emphasize sovereignty and non-interference.49 Soviets made this even more topical by accusing the West of Cold War nostalgia since they published The Gulag Archipelago while the CSCE was taking place.50 Repeatedly, the Eastern European states insisted that cultural cooperation would go through government agreements and denounced the principle of a “cultural supermarket” dominated by the law of supply and demand.51 They also wanted to institute the principle balances and checks as well as reciprocity in cultural exchanges.52 For example, since the French were not attracted to Soviet literature, the Soviets did not see why they should encourage the importation of French literature into the USSR. One concrete French proposal, linked to Paris’s willingness to see to it that the participants of the conference could commit to “facilitating access to works produced by their respective countries,”53 crystallized the East-West tension: the French proposed in the fall of 1973 that every CSCE country would authorize the opening of reading rooms or libraries where foreign literature would be freely accessible to everybody.54 This heralded the French idea that cultural dissemination was essential for improving East-West relations. The Soviets imported very few works of literature or books on art they considered promoting anti-Communist ideas, preferring scientific, technical, and professional books instead.55 The French were also aware of problems related to foreign book translations in the USSR: Moscow accepted the diffusion of translated books but only if translations were done by Soviet firms. Of course, this seriously limited imports, allowing Moscow to adapt texts as it pleased. All Western countries supported and promoted the French project for reading rooms. According to Gabriel Robin, an advisor to Georges Pompidou and his successor, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, “because of its specific and concrete nature, which makes it acceptable by the general public, [this proposal] is one of those by which public opinion will judge the CSCE. – 71 –

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More generally it may appear as one of the touchstones of the usefulness of good Franco-Soviet relations.”56 However, it was out of the question for the Soviet bloc to accept a proposal that would undermine state sovereignty and, above all, facilitate distribution of Western culture within the bloc. Brezhnev made a personal complaint about this to Pompidou in March 1974.57 The issue of reading rooms poisoned both the Franco-Soviet relations and discussions in the CSCE cultural committee until the spring of 1975, despite the French attempts to make the Russians understand that the text in question would not force the countries to accept, on request, the opening of reading rooms on their territory: “it would only state that the creation of such an institution is possible by mutual agreement whenever it is deemed useful to the development of intercultural knowledge.”58 It came as a surprise for France’s allies to hear in April 1975 that the French had suddenly given up their proposal of reading rooms, following Prime Minister Jacques Chirac’s trip to Moscow in March. We can see in this abandonment an expression of the French desire to be attractive to the Soviets and Chirac’s willingness to distance himself from President Giscard d’Estaing, who came to power after Pompidou’s death in spring 1974. Chirac—a Gaullist, unlike Giscard—was clearly aware that Soviets insisted on eliminating the French proposal. By promising that France would abandon the reading rooms, the prime minister consolidated his international stature and appeared to the Soviets as a trustworthy spokesperson. Thus, his gesture was not insignificant, particularly since his relationship with Giscard was deteriorating, following Chirac’s opposition to Giscard’s economic policy.59 Consequently, Chirac tried to appear as the defender of Gaullist orthodoxy, playing up to the political struggles of the future. From this perspective, it was in his best interest to show his attachment to the Gaullist policy of “détente, entente, coopération” toward the East. Yet, in return for the abandonment of the reading room proposal, Soviets made many significant concessions on various cultural issues.60 For example, Chirac managed to make the USSR accept, after several amendments, the declaration about general objectives for cultural cooperation proposed by Michel Jobert in July 1973 and put forth by the French delegation in May 1974.61 This declaration was another crucial point of East-West disagreement. For the French, it was of great significance as it affected all areas of culture and fixed general and permanent goals.62 It addressed planning information on certain works, improving material conditions in circulating cultural objects and messages, ensuring free access to circulated works of culture, increasing contacts and encouraging cooperation between artists and cultural leaders, and seeking new areas and new forms of cultural co– 72 –

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operation. Unsurprisingly, Dubinin sought to criticize the text sentence by sentence, claiming it was too “down to earth,”63 that is to say, too precise for a Soviet diplomacy attached to abstract and thundering declarations. Objectives related to “free access to cultural works for all” and contacts “between artists and cultural leaders” caused very negative reaction from the Soviets, who were allergic to any idea of contact outside the usual government institutions. For Eastern European countries, “access to cultural works” of other countries was to be replaced by “knowledge” of these works: it would allow authorities to select the works in question, “according to their quality.”64 Chirac’s trip to Moscow in March 1975 played a central role in opening the deadlock. Supported by the president of the Council of Ministers, Alexei Kosygin, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told the French premier that the document that planned free movement of artists and their works amounted to “burying all laws, all regulations.” The USSR did not want to “open the door to information directed against [its] regime, to pornography and to military-fascist writings.” Chirac, always keen on strengthening his Gaullist basis by relying on the legacy of de Gaulle and Pompidou regarding relations with the East, decided to play the card of understanding: “France is all the more sensitive to your arguments since it has recently closed its borders to Scandinavian pornography and since it is currently experiencing a horrible attempt of subversion within its armed forces. On this point too, we will certainly find a compromise. In any case, cultural exchanges will have to be promoted within the framework of existing laws.”65 Chirac and Kosygin agreed to instruct their delegations to compromise. Thus, after several months of discussions, the two delegations attained a secret agreement on 5 June 1975 with the formulation “free access for all to cultural works” becoming “universal access to cultural works.” The USSR failed to replace the term “access” with the term “knowledge” but managed to change the first goal of cultural exchanges into “develop mutual information for a better knowledge of respective cultural works.” Finally, the original “multiply contacts and encourage cooperation between artists and cultural leaders” was replaced by “develop contacts and cooperation between people involved in cultural activities.”66 These were submitted to CSCE participants and accepted by everyone in less than two hours. However, one sentence was problematic: other Western participants refused to link improvement of cultural relations to improvement of political relations. The deterioration of the détente in 1974–75 explained the reaction of the Atlantic allies: subordinating cultural relations to political relations would mean the cessation of any cooperation in times of tension and provide the USSR with a good reason not to implement the decisions of the third basket. Facing such a general outcry, – 73 –

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France agreed to renegotiate the formula in question,67 which was replaced by a less dangerous paraphrase: “[The participating States intend] with the development of mutual trust and the gradual improvement of relations between the participating States, to continue and increase their efforts to progress in this field.”68 France also turned its attention to television, radio, and cinema. In November 1973, it proposed opening of cinemas showing western movies in Eastern Europe, and vice versa. This aimed at remedying the “continuing mediocrity” of movie distribution on both sides of the Iron Curtain.69 According to Marie-Pierre Rey,70 France sold only ten movies to the USSR in 1972, seven both in 1973 and 1974, and there were only three movies coproduced by France and the USSR, despite signing an agreement to exchange and coproduce movies in 1967. The director of the National Center for Cinematography, Pierre Viot, explained this failure by pointing to the fact that it was very difficult to choose a scenario to satisfy Moscow. The Soviets did not tolerate any movie in which “violence, racism, and sexual pathology were the driving force behind the action.” There were also considerable differences in budgets granted to French and Soviet film directors, with Soviet ones relatively better off. Furthermore, Soviet authorities favored the importation of light comedies. Yet there were “French cinema weeks in the USSR” and “Soviet cinema weeks in France” that gently compensated for this situation and allowed the most important movies of the period to be shown. For example, Army of Shadows by Jean-Pierre Melville premiered in Moscow in 1972. If French movies were a success in the USSR—between 4 and 10 percent of the global takings of French movies—this was not reciprocal: most famous Soviet movies such as Once Upon a Time There was a Singing Blackbird by Otar Iosseliani or Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky, attracted less than 0.2 percent of the French audience.71 However that may be, the Soviets did not appreciate the idea of aiming to open foreign theaters; Brezhnev made another complaint about this to Pompidou in March 1974 when he received him in Pitsunda in Georgia. To reassure Brezhnev, Pompidou claimed he would ask the French delegation in Geneva to lighten its proposal.72 In reality, the president let the diplomats at the CSCE do what they wanted. He died three weeks after Pitsunda. Perhaps he had not had enough time, force, or willpower to block the text and so accused the Soviets of fraternizing with the Americans to the detriment of France. Therefore, despite the pressure from Brezhnev, the CSCE approved a text acknowledging a common desire to “encourage competent bodies and enterprises to make a wider selection and aim at wider distribution of full-length and documentary films from the other participating states, and to promote more frequent non-commercial showings, – 74 –

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such as premières, film weeks and festivals, giving due consideration to films from countries whose cinematographic works are less well-known.”73 The French were also considering a European competition for television producers and a European center for television programs to which national television stations would give a copy of their best programs so that they could be freely viewed and other countries could receive them.74 However, French commitment to cinema and television remained limited, and Paris was willing to sacrifice them if necessary. Thus, Jacques Chazelle, the head of the French delegation for the third basket, told one of his Russian counterparts in September 1974 that France was ready to give up its proposals on foreign cinemas in exchange for Soviet agreement on reading rooms.75 Even though the Soviets rejected this offer, France did not really insist. Television was not as widespread as it is today. In addition, the French government practiced its own internal censorship, as in the case of Marcel Ophuls’s movie about Vichy France, Le chagrin et la pitié, from its inception in 1969, premiering on TV only in 1981. One final yet crucial issue was present throughout the negotiations of the Final Act’s cultural part, affecting further developments. Socialist countries were sympathetic toward the creation of a Pan-European cultural institution that would have been managed by the participating states and would have allowed Moscow and its allies to keep an eye on the volume and content of the cultural exchanges between the East and the West. Believing that such an organization would narrow Western room for maneuver, the French rejected the idea. Instead, they considered the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the best guarantee against the creation of bureaucratic organizations of control and insisted on it being in charge of the execution of multilateral programs.76 This support for UNESCO resulted from the French desire to use the CSCE as a way to fight against American cultural hegemony in the West: Paris was aware of the deplorable relations between Washington and this institution.77 In 1974–75, many U.S. politicians and intellectuals criticized UNESCO for being too much influenced by Arab and Communist countries. With the oil crisis at its height, some of these states contested Israel’s right to take part in UNESCO conferences about the Mediterranean and Europe. In consequence, in the spring of 1975, the U.S. government required that a resolution be passed reaffirming the right of every member of UNESCO to take part in the activities it thought useful. The United States threatened to leave the institution if nothing was done to weaken its pro-Arab nature. The CSCE’s debate regarding UNESCO shows French insistence on making sure that the Helsinki process would favor dissemination of European culture. France told its EC partners that, after all, they were taking – 75 –

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part in a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and that the Community had to support this concept.78 U.S and Canadian delegations bemoaned that French drafts limited cooperation with Europe,79 and negotiated directly with France in order to have the qualifier “in Europe” deleted from cultural texts. Finally, the term was kept only in the three paragraphs concerning the creation of a cultural data bank, the creation of a documentary film repertoire, and organization of book exhibitions.80 This position once more demonstrated the French willingness to shake off the cultural influence of the United States and to use European culture to overcome the Cold War division. In this way, French foreign policy demonstrated continuity with the Gaullist scheme aiming at maintaining France “in the middle of the world.” In the end, the CSCE assigned UNESCO the task of looking after the implementation of many cultural provisions of the Final Act.

Conclusion The cultural part was finally one of the longest sections of the CSCE’s Final Act and planned improvement of cooperation in most cultural and artistic fields. It also encouraged research of “new fields and forms of cultural cooperation.” Cooperation needed to include “the implementation of joint projects” such as “international events in the fields of art, cinema, theatre, ballet, music, folklore, etc.”; “book fairs and exhibitions, joint performances of operatic and dramatic works”; “the preparation, translation and publication of articles, studies and monographs”; “the coproduction and the exchange of films, of radio and television programs,” and so on. It is important to question how the Soviets could accept such issues, which were very far from their practices and their ideology. In fact, particularly at the end of the conference, the Kremlin was in such a hurry to put an end to the conference that it multiplied concessions. The main thing was to obtain Western acknowledgment of the European status quo— which Brezhnev did not get insofar as the Final Act proclaimed the idea of peaceful change of frontiers as well as their inviolability. Thus, according to the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, it was necessary to make concessions on paper, not in fact.81 In a speech in June 1975, he said that he would do everything in his power to limit the consequences of the third basket on the Socialist system and society.82 However, although Brezhnev seemed satisfied with the results of the CSCE, several Soviet officials were worried about the effects the cultural provisions could produce. At the end of the conference, Dubinin confided to one of his French counterparts, Alain Pierret, “You do not realize what – 76 –

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you have won!”83 Valerian Zorin, a former Soviet ambassador in France who took part in the Helsinki talks in 1972–73, told his colleagues that “the evil would come from there.”84 Even Anatolii Kovalev was aware of the unexpected consequences the CSCE could have on the Eastern bloc.85 Beyond the declared cohesion and propaganda that glorified the Helsinki summit, the Soviet leaders were divided about the Final Act’s content. This situation shows that, during the discussions in Geneva, the Politburo’s members, with the exception of Gromyko, did not pay attention to a phraseology they judged complex and typically diplomatic. But, when the negotiations stopped and the result was revealed, they were so amazed that they wondered if the USSR should sign the documents. Gromyko finally managed to persuade his comrades that the Soviet government was the master in its country and, consequently, the only one to decide on internal affairs.86 Such reactions prove that the provisions of the third basket were not only words, but could really threaten the Eastern bloc’s cohesion. The French were fully aware of that. France actually played an important role in drafting the Final Act’s cultural part. Early on, it had appeared as the main interlocutor for the Soviet Union in the discussion on cultural exchanges. In Geneva, the French managed to impose their ideas about cultural cooperation and exchanges. Given that Communist regimes tried to stay impervious to Western influence and culture, an agreement can be considered a great accomplishment, partly due to the ten years of Franco-Soviet rapprochement. Without de Gaulle’s effort during the 1960s to create a real entente between Paris and Moscow, such stretching of Marxist-Leninist limitations would hardly have been possible. From the moment the Final Act was signed, dissidents in Eastern Europe appropriated the third basket’s content and used it to their own ends. In this sense, the CSCE appeared to be a multilateral extension of the Gaullist policy of détente. The negotiations of the cultural part of the Final Act showed that, despite de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969, France maintained his lead in terms of East-West relations: without rejecting the role of the Atlantic Alliance as the main guarantee of Western European security, Paris sought to struggle against the U.S.-Soviet hegemony in Europe and to restitute the European capacity to be heard. Because the CSCE put together all the countries of the continent around the same table and because cultural exchanges were seen by the French leaders as the best way to bring people together, Paris considered the Helsinki third basket an indispensable instrument in overcoming the Cold War. Once the Final Act was adopted, the convergence of Socialist and Capitalist systems that Pompidou had dreamed of was made possible. Nevertheless, the result was disappointing in the short term: the return of tension in the second half – 77 –

Nicolas Badalassi

of the 1970s and Moscow’s lack of enthusiasm for the application of the Helsinki provisions seemed to put an end to the hopes raised in preceding years. It was not until Gorbachev’s arrival at the Kremlin that the CSCE regained its credibility and became fruitful. Convergence was, however, not achieved, and the Soviet system was swept aside to make room for the return of the nations that had been so dear to de Gaulle. Nicolas Badalassi is associate professor of contemporary history at the University of South Brittany, France. He is the author of En finir avec la guerre froide: La France, l’Europe et le processus d’Helsinki, 1965–1975 (2014). He has published various articles concerning French foreign policy in the Cold War era. He has also co-edited the publication Les pays d’Europe orientale et la Méditerranée, 1967–1989 (2013) with H. Ben Hamouda.

Notes 1. A. Roberts, “An ‘Incredibly Swift Transition’: Reflections on the End of the Cold War,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 3, Endings, ed. M. P. Leffler and O. A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 513–34. 2. The CSCE negotiations and the positions adopted by the participating states had been well studied. See for example V.-Y. Ghebali, La diplomatie de la détente: La CSCE (Brussels: Brulant, 1989); D. C. Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights and the Demise of Communism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); P. Hakkarainen, A State of Peace in Europe: West Germany and the CSCE, 1966–1975 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011); L. Ratti, Britain, Ost- and Deutschlandpolitik, and the CSCE, 1955–1975 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008); O. Bange and G. Niedhart, eds. Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); A. Romano, From Détente in Europe to European Détente. How the West Shaped the Helsinki CSCE (Brussels: PIE-Peter Lang, 2009). 3. That was planned by the project of the European Defense Community (EDC), which failed in 1954 because of Communist and Gaullist opposition in France. 4. M.-P. Rey, “The USSR and the Helsinki process, 1969–1975: Optimism, Doubt, or Defiance?” in Origins of the European Security System: The Helsinki Process Revisited. 1965–1975, ed. A. Wenger, V. Mastny, and C. Nuenlist (London: Routledge, 2008), 65–81. 5. That is why, during his trip to Moscow in June 1966, de Gaulle did not flatly refuse the Soviet idea. “Conversation between Leonid Brezhnev and Charles de Gaulle, 21 June 1966, Moscow”, Box 5 AG 1187. URSS. 1966, French National Archives—Paris (FNA). 6. For Charles de Gaulle’s foreign policy, see M. Vaïsse, La Grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle 1958–1969 (Paris: Fayard, 1998); M.-P. Rey, La Tentation du rapprochement: France et URSS à l’heure de la détente (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne, 1991); T. Gomart, Double détente: Les relations franco-soviétiques de 1958 à 1964 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003); F. Bozo, Deux stratégies pour l’Europe: De Gaulle, les Etats-Unis et l’Alliance atlantique (1958–1969) (Paris: Plon, 1996). 7. I. Dubinin, Moscou-Paris dans un tourbillon diplomatique: Témoignage d’ambassadeur (Paris: Imaginaria, 2001), 214–16. 8. “Conversation between Georges Pompidou and Edward Heath, 19 March 1972, Chequers Court”, Box 5 AG 2 108. Grande-Bretagne. 1969–73, FNA. 9. The Kremlin considered that these principles confirmed the European status quo. – 78 –

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10. This principle meant that borders could be changed without using force and contradicted the idea of status quo because it implied that German reunification would be possible. 11. “Helsinki Final Act”, Box 21, CSCE, Archives of the French Foreign Ministry—La Courneuve (AFFM). 12. “Conversation between Charles de Gaulle and Władysław Gomułka, 11 September 1967, Warsaw”, Box 5 AG 1 182. Pologne. 1958–69, FNA. 13. C. de Gaulle, Mémoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavor (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 171. 14. “Conversation between Charles de Gaulle and Alain Peyrefitte, 4 January 1965”, in A. Peyrefitte, ed., C’était de Gaulle, vol. 2, La France reprend sa place dans le monde (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 910. 15. One of de Gaulle’s goals was to contrive to make France the major Western contact of the Soviets. In his mind, the Franco-Soviet entente was to replace the Franco-German partnership, which had been damaged by the partial failure of the “traité de l’Elysée” in 1963 and by the Atlantist policy of Chancellor Erhard. De Gaulle actually considered there to be two ways to guarantee France’s security toward Germany: either Germany had to be firmly tied to France, or Pan-European cooperation had to be created. Because the U.S.-German rapprochement had compromised the first solution, Paris chose the second option and turned toward the USSR. “Council of ministers, 7 July 1964,” in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 857–58. 16. Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle en son siècle, vol. 7, De Gaulle et la culture (Paris: La Documentation française-Plon, 1992); Institut Charles de Gaulle, De Gaulle et Malraux (Paris: Plon, 1987); C.-L. Foulon, ed., André Malraux et le rayonnement culturel de la France (Paris: Complexe, 2004). 17. Rey, La Tentation du rapprochement, 181. 18. “Note from Gabriel Robin (French President’s adviser), 24 October 1974”, Box 5 AG 3 1089. URSS. 1974, FNA. 19. Rey, La Tentation du rapprochement, 184–90. 20. Ghebali, La diplomatie de la détente, 347. 21. Ibid., 345–46. 22. “Cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, 23 July 1975”, folder “USSR. State Department Telegrams. To SECSTATE EXDIS (7),” Box 20, National Security Advisor. Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, Gerald Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 23. A. Pierret, De la case africaine à la villa romaine. Un demi-siècle au service de l’Etat (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010), 123. 24. J. Andréani, Le Piège: Helsinki et la chute du communisme (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005), 38. 25. “Conversation between Georges Pompidou and Jean de Lipkowski, 6 January 1970”, Box 5 AG 2 1041. OTAN, relations Est-Ouest. 1969–74, FNA. 26. S. Pisar, Les armes de la paix (Paris: Denoël, 1970); Transaction entre l’Est et l’Ouest (Paris: Dunod, 1972). 27. “Speech made at the dinner offered by Brezhnev in the Kremlin during the presidential trip in the USSR, 6 October 1970”, G. Pompidou, Entretiens et Discours, vol. 2, 1968–1974 (Paris: Plon, 1975), 175–76. 28. Pompidou wondered which one of the two sides “would be corrupted by the other.” 29. “Conversation between Georges Pompidou and Willy Brandt, 10 February 1972, Paris”, Box 5 AG 2 1011. RFA. 1972, FNA. 30. Andréani, Le Piège, 137. 31. “Conversation between Georges Pompidou and Willy Brandt, 30 January 1970”, Box 5 AG 2 104. RFA. 1969–70, FNA. 32. Joined by Great Britain, Denmark, and Ireland on 1 January 1973, the six EC founder countries (France, Italy, the F.R.G., Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) created in 1969 the European Political Cooperation (EPC), a mechanism intended to coordinate foreign policies of the EC members, which allowed them to be heard on the international scene. This – 79 –

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cohesion was remarkably expressed during the CSCE: the EC Nine managed to be seen as the main interlocutors of the Soviets. See D. Möckli, European Foreign Policy during the Cold War: Heath, Brandt, Pompidou and the Dream of Political Unity, 1969–1974 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008). 33. “Cable no. 79/EU from the French embassy in Moscow, 15 July 1970”, Box 2694, URSS, Europe 1966–70, AFFM. 34. “Cable from Maurice Schumann to François de Rose, 10 April 1972”, Box 2923, Organismes internationaux et grandes questions internationales, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. 35. “Telegram from Maurice Schumann to François de Rose, 10 April 1972”, Box 2923, Organismes internationaux et grandes questions internationales, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. 36. “Conversation between Georges Pompidou and Willy Brandt, 25 January 1971, Paris”, Box 5 AG 2 105. RFA. 1971, FNA. 37. “Conversation between Maurice and Schumann and Klaus Schuetz (Mayor of West Berlin), 10 December 1969”, Box 5 AG 2 103. RFA. 1969–74, FNA. 38. “Human contacts” was the term used during the CSCE. 39. “Conversation between Georges Pompidou and Leonid Brezhnev, 12 January 1973, Zaslavl”, Box 5 AG 2 1019. URSS. 1973–74, FNA. 40. “Proceedings of the 23rd session of the Political Committee of the EC Nine, 14 May 1973”, Box 27, CSCE, AFFM. 41. “Note from the French delegation at the CSCE (CSCE note), 22 June 1973”, Box 18, CSCE, AFFM. 42. Rey, “The USSR and the Helsinki process,” 71. 43. “CSCE note no. 379, 30 October 1973”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 44. “CSCE note no. 379, 30 October 1973”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 45. “Telegram no. 2102/22, from Fernand-Laurent (French Ambassador in Bucharest), 30 November 1973”, Box 3537, Roumanie, Europe 1971–76AFFM. 46. “Telegram no.108, from the French Embassy in Poland, 31 January 1974”, Box 3476, Pologne, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. 47. “Document CSCE/I/24, France, 5 July 1973”, Book 2, Helsinki 1972–75, Archives of the CSCE—Prague. 48. “Document CSCE/I/25, France, 5 July 1973”, Book 2, Helsinki 1972–75, Archives of the CSCE—Prague. 49. “Telegram no. 556, 26 September 1973”, Box 18, CSCE, AFFM. 50. “Telegram no. 108, from the French Embassy in Poland, 31 January 1974”, Box 3476, Pologne, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. According to the Polish newspaper Zycie Literackie, the propagandists in the pay of the “capitalist, revisionist, Trotskist, and zionist” groups understood that the third basket could become “the reef where the CSCE would run aground.” Thus, said the newspaper, they decided to require the right, for the Capitalist countries, to intervene into the USSR and the Socialist democracies’ internal affairs. 51. “Note no. 801/DP, 18 October 1973”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 52. “Telegram no. 160, from Jacques Vimont (French Ambassador in Moscow), 6 September 1973”, Box 26, CSCE, AFFM. 53. “Document CSCE/II/K/9, France, 21 January 1974”, Book 20, Helsinki 1972–75, Archives of the CSCE—Prague. 54. The French proposed that the participating states at the CSCE would declare themselves resolute to “favor the opening on their territory, by other interested States, individually or collectively, of libraries and reading rooms or specialized sections in the existing institutions, freely accessible to the public and supervised in conditions negotiated between the parties involved.” 55. Rey, La Tentation du rapprochement, 189–90. 56. “Note from Gabriel Robin, 19 March 1975”, Box 5 AG 3 885. CSCE, FNA.

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57. “Conversation between Pompidou and Brezhnev, 13 March 1974, Pitsunda”, Box 5 AG 2 113. URSS. 1972–74, FNA. 58. “Note from Gabriel Robin, 4 December 1974”, Box 5 AG 3 885. CSCE, FNA. 59. S. Berstein and P. Milza, Histoire de la France au XXe siècle, vol. 5, De 1974 à nos jours (Paris: Complexe, 1994), 66. 60. “Telegram no. 1572/75, from Fernand-Laurent, 26 April 1975”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 61. “Telegram no. 2210/14, from Fernand-Laurent, 6 June 1975”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 62. “Note CSCE, 31 December 1974”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 63. “Meeting of the French and Soviet delegations, 26 September 1974, Soviet Embassy in Geneva”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 64. L.-V. Ferraris, Report on a Negotiation: Helsinki-Geneva-Helsinki 1972–1975 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff and Noordhoff, 1979), 333. 65. “Conversation between Jacques Chirac and Alexei Kosygin, 20 March 1975, Moscow”, Box 3727, URSS, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. 66. “Telegram no. 2210/14, from Fernand-Laurent, 6 June 1975”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 67. “Note, early June 1975”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 68. “Helsinki Final Act”, Box 21, CSCE, AFFM. 69. “Note from the French foreign ministry’s Office for Cultural, Scientific and Technical Relations, 7 October 1975”, Box 3728, URSS, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. 70. M.-P. Rey, “Le cinéma dans les relations franco-soviétiques. Enjeux et problèmes à l’heure de la détente, 1964–1974,” in Culture et Guerre froide, ed. J.-F. Sirinelli and G.-H. Soutou (Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008), 163–67. 71. Ibid., 164. 72. “Conversation between Pompidou and Brezhnev, 13 March 1974, Pitsunda”, Box 5 AG 2 113. URSS. 1972–74, FNA. 73. “Helsinki Final Act”, Box 21, CSCE, AFFM. 74. “Note no. 3894 from the Quai d’Orsay’s office for cultural dissemination, 13 November 1973”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 75. “Conversation between Chazelle and Supagin, 25 September 1974, Geneva”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 76. “Note from the French foreign ministry’s Office of Cultural, Scientific, and Technical Relations, without date”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 77. “Telegrams from Rush, 7 May 1975”, folder “France—State Department Telegrams: To SECSTATE—EXDIS (2),” Box 4, National Security Adviser. Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, Gerald Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 78. “Note CSCE, to François Puaux, 11 March 1974”, Box 3819, CPE, Europe 1971–76, AFFM. 79. “Telegram no. 1382/91, from Carraud, 28 June 1973”, Box 32, CSCE, AFFM. 80. “Meeting of the French, U.S., and Canadian delegations at the CSCE, 18 March 1975”, Box 15, CSCE, AFFM. 81. Rey, “The USSR and the Helsinki Process, 1969–75,” 78. 82. “Telegram from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, 24 July 1975”, folder “USSR. State Department Telegrams. To SECSTATE EXDIS (7),” Box 20, NSA. Presidential Country Files for Europe and Canada, Gerald Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 83. Pierret, De la case africaine à la villa romaine, 254. 84. Conversation with Ambassador Paul Poudade, 16 December 2008. 85. S. Savranskaya, “Unintended Consequences. Soviet Interests, Expectations and Reactions to the Helsinki Final Act,” in O. Bange and G. Niedhart, eds., Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe, 179. 86. A. Dobrynine, In Confidence (New York: Time Books, 1995), 345–46.

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Chapter 4

CULTURAL DIPLOMACY OF SWITZERLAND AND THE CHALLENGE OF PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE, 1956–75 Matthieu Gillabert

T

he history of Swiss cultural diplomacy toward Communist countries during the Cold War is a story that, at first glance, seemed to have a dynamic beginning. Soon after the end of World War II, the Swiss Confederation reinforced and institutionalized its cultural policy abroad, and some of the first actions were directed in what became the Communist bloc. The Switzerland: Planning and Building Exhibition was a notable architectural occasion that was first displayed in London in 1946, and brought to Warsaw the following year. On a purely diplomatic level, the resumption of official relations with the USSR gave hope of new possibilities for cultural exchanges with this superpower.1 It was finally possible to consider the doctrine of “neutrality and solidarity” espoused by the Swiss Federal Department for Foreign Affairs and its chief since 1944, Max Petitpierre, as an invitation for interbloc dialogue. During the course of the war, Switzerland had already played a go-between role by accepting 270 mandates for the diplomatic representations of forty-three different countries during the course of the war.2 The leitmotif of a land considered a synthesis of the German and Latin cultures, the Helvetia Mediatrix, was often used in the foreign national advertising of the time, and this role of a mediator should have served as an invitation for promoting cultural relations between the future blocs. A careful observer, however, might have noticed a fly in the ointment. For example, the cultural and humanitarian program for sending Swiss books to Germany after the war—the Buchhilfe—was an initiative that – 82 –

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was successful elsewhere but not within the Soviet sector.3 Furthermore, in Switzerland, the young Association Switzerland-USSR, established in 1944 under the name Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege normaler Beziehungen zwischen der Schweiz und der Sowjetunion (Association for the promotion and maintenance of normal relations between Switzerland and the Soviet Union) and part of the left-wing movements, was quickly marginalized by the Foreign Office.4 Instead, the first post–World War II projects of Swiss cultural diplomacy were almost completely directed at culturally and politically similar countries, such as France and the United States. These projects manifested a trend and followed the general attitude in Switzerland for the next ten years. After the Czechoslovakian coup d’état in 1948, official actions toward the East were abandoned completely. Previous connections were de facto forgotten, as if suggesting that cultural relations with the Eastern bloc were never even attempted. Although Swiss neutrality was recognized by both superpowers, Switzerland was able to cultivate goodwill with the United States, which it considered a more interesting partner economically than the USSR. In spite of this disinterest toward the East, the question of cultural exchanges with Eastern countries reappeared after the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and the subsequent flow of Hungarian refugees.5 This event played a key role in the polarization of how cultural relations with Socialist countries were represented. On the one hand, certain patriotic groups took this opportunity to appeal for a boycott of these relations that did not even exist. On the other hand, however, this episode pointed out that connections between the two ideological blocs seemed set to remain in place for a long time and that some form of organization of these connections would be needed. Both of these attitudes evolved in the late 1950s, resulting in a confrontation. This chapter aims at explaining and understanding this confrontation—first, by examining reasons for omitting cultural exchanges with the Communist bloc. Second, the chapter investigates the conditions for a change in the attitude of policy makers, as well as the public opinion. The final part consists of an evaluation of the reinforcement of Swiss cultural policies behind the Iron Curtain.

The Structure and Ideology of Swiss Cultural Diplomacy in 1956 A short passage through the structure of Swiss cultural diplomacy helps us to understand the course it took during the 1950s in terms of ideology and geopolitics. Simply put, there were two levels constituting this diplomacy and each developed a particular attitude. – 83 –

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The first level was that of the public and semipublic institutions: these might also be referred to as the institutions of official cultural diplomacy because their main goal was to export official representations. The most notable were the Federal Department for Foreign Affairs, the Swiss-minded foundation Pro Helvetia, and also to some extent the Swiss foreign trade promotion agency, which openly used culture in pursuit of economic goals. All of these bodies began to shape cultural policy abroad from the late 1930s and continued their work after World War II. Two factors were considered important by the Swiss for self-representation in international relations. The first was the increase of Fascist and Communist propaganda in the 1930s. Particularly Nazi propaganda led to a reaction to round off propaganda altogether. However, it also led to a kind of imitation with the establishment of a cultural policy based on traditional, particular, and what was considered to be exclusive Swiss values: the rallying cry was that the old democracy in the middle of the Alps had to remain intact and that the national cultural production had to be protected. In 1944, for example, The Federal Council took measures against “the domination by foreign influences” (Überfremdung), such as forbidding new establishment of foreign publishers in Switzerland.6 This conception was backed by a large consensus throughout the war. This cultural as well as patriotic policy and rhetoric was named the “Spiritual National Defense” and led to the creation of Pro Helvetia.7 From 1938 until 1949, Pro Helvetia was a working group of officials, scholars, and representatives who worked closely with the national artists’ and writers’ associations. By federal decree, Pro Helvetia was converted into a foundation under public law in 1949, with the goal, among others, of “making the works and activities of Switzerland in the field of thought and culture known abroad.” The foundation was thus officially independent from the federal government, but it was allowed to accept only governmental subsidies.8 After the war, the government used this foundation not only to shield itself from foreign propaganda, but also to regain its position with the Western Allies, particularly the United States, which was particularly critical of the Swiss proximity to Nazi Germany during World War II. The second factor behind the development of cultural diplomacy is linked to the return to full neutrality in 1938 and a position of isolation in the period leading up to 1945 and beyond. The Swiss government needed new instruments to foster understanding for a country that had not directly experienced the war. The Department of Foreign Affairs guided Pro Helvetia toward this goal with some success. By the end of the war, the department also established a section for cultural relations, sending the first cultural attachés to embassies in Paris, London, and Washington. At least until the end of the 1950s, Swiss cultural diplomacy concentrated on un– 84 –

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derlining the following themes relating to Swiss neutrality: the historical, cultural, and geographical factors that made this neutrality necessary; the positive impact of neutrality on the Western bloc; and the compatibility of neutrality with western economic integration and a clear anti-Communist position.9 These themes were introduced through lecture tours, movies, books, and similar means. At the time, neutrality appeared to be a national and perpetual value in Switzerland, one that would always be respected and that would allow Switzerland to first survive World War II and then the Cold War.10 The Swiss solution was to use cultural means for political and economic goals, manifested in the work of institutions responsible for cultural diplomacy. The second level of Swiss cultural diplomacy was more informal. This form of cultural diplomacy is strongly bound to informal cultural exchanges and non-state actors.11 It would be difficult and not very pertinent to list all the organizations involved in cultural relations. However, they can be divided into three categories following their varying approaches to Swiss operations toward the Communist bloc. The first category of non-state actors concerns the patriotic associations that were quite fundamentally against all cultural, and even economic and athletic, contacts with Communist countries. During the war, some associations, like Heer und Haus (Army and Home), worked within the army to counter foreign propaganda in the aforementioned context of the Spiritual National Defense. Under other names, like Schweizerischer Aufklärungsdienst (Swiss Enlightenment Service) or Rencontres suisses (Swiss Meetings), they continued to be partially funded by the government, especially by the Federal Department of Defense, after World War II.12 In contrast to the official diplomacy, these organizations considered that the war did not end in 1945, but rather called for increased mobilization against foreign propaganda, particularly Communist propaganda. The Swiss Enlightenment Service came into closer contact with a few scholars—for example the director of the Ost-Institut in Bern, Peter Sager, and the economist at the University of Bern, Fritz Marbach—as well as a number of student associations. Contacts with Communist states, in turn, were seen as synonymous with propaganda that reinforced the Soviet position.13 The second category of non-state actors includes those who considered cultural relations a way to weaken the Communist regimes and inspire the populations behind the Iron Curtain for liberal thinking. Such ideas were supported, for example, by strongly anti-Communist Jacques Freymond, the director of the Graduate Institute for International Relations in Geneva and active in the U.S.-backed Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), as well as in the management committee of Pro Helvetia.14 Philosopher Denis de Rougemont15 and historian Herbert Lüthy also shared these – 85 –

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views. Lüthy wrote an article in 1963 entitled “Guerre froide et dialogue” in Preuves, the French-language magazine of CCF, in which he expressed almost the same arguments as Freymond: that the Communist East should have more to fear from cultural exchanges than the West.16 CCF and the Geneva Rencontres internationales17 gathered a number of Swiss individuals who shared the views about cultural competition between the blocs. They also had a certain influence on the policymakers: Max Petitpierre, the chief of the Department for Foreign Affairs was a regular reader of Preuves, and the president of Pro Helvetia, Jean Rodolphe de Salis, was also a member of the committee of the Geneva Rencontres internationales. The third category is less important considering the size, but with regard to East-West contacts it was the most active: it includes the friendship associations with the Communist bloc, such as the Association SwitzerlandUSSR, which was established after World War II.18 It was largely marginalized within the Swiss political establishment in the 1950s, close to the Communist movements as it was. Yet, it enjoyed a kind of monopoly in the cultural relations between Switzerland and the Soviet Union. This way, it became problematic for the Swiss Embassy in Moscow: the association was the one and only interlocutor for cultural questions and the sole representative of Swiss culture in the USSR. Nonetheless, since it was considered only to serve Soviet propaganda, it remained a pariah.19 After 1956, however, changes regarding the goals of these different official and non-state actors took place, blurring previously clearer lines.

“Ostkontakte”: Revival of the 1930s, or Openness to the World? After the Hungarian uprising in 1956, a string of public demonstrations against Soviet action took place in Switzerland. In accordance with the neutrality doctrine, the government considered that individuals were free to express their opinions. However, such conspicuous manifestations had an impact on the national image: while other Western countries had begun to develop some cultural relations with Communist countries, Switzerland had resorted to the same kind of “hedgehog attitude” as during World War II. During the period from 1956 to 1961, however, the official Swiss attitude toward cultural relations with the Communist bloc was called into question. The arrival of fourteen thousand Hungarian refugees in 1956 incited anti-Communist organizations to attempt the mobilization of Swiss public opinion. Among numerous demonstrations, there were some student processions and boycotts of Soviet films, drawing help from the main cinema – 86 –

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owners’ association, the Schweizerischer Lichtspieltheater-Verband (Swiss Movie Theater Association), to constitute a “Committee to fight communist films.”20 There were also acts of violence against members of the Association Switzerland-USSR and generally those close to Communist ideology. Several patriotic associations were energized, such as the Swiss Enlightenment Service as well as action groups Niemals Vergessen (Never Forget) and Pro Libertate, which were particularly active against cultural and economic contacts with Communists.21 One such case of violence was that of Konrad Farner, a member of the Association Switzerland-USSR, attacked in Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The attack went so far that his private address was revealed, leading to demonstrations by his home.22 Another interesting case is that of Hellenist André Bonnard. He was accused of espionage for the USSR in 1952 and was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1954. In 1956, he was forced to resign from the Swiss Writers’ Society on the grounds of his ideological conviction. This controversy stretched to internal politics. Convinced of the importance of cultural exchanges with the Eastern bloc, Franck Jotterand, director of the Gazette littéraire—the main French-language cultural magazine in Switzerland— curtly protested against the leadership of the Writers’ Society in an article “La Suisse allemande et nous” (German Switzerland and us). While he criticized the reaction of the society’s leadership as exaggerated, comparing it to Communist methods, he also highlighted different attitudes of Frenchand German-speaking parts of the country.23 In the German-speaking part, anti-Communism was even more vehement because any foreign propaganda brought to mind the strong Nazi propaganda in the thirties and, at the same time, some nationalist concepts from Germany reinforced an anti-Communist climate in Switzerland24. However, the division was not so clear-cut. German-speaking writer Max Frisch, for example, defended André Bonnard,25 while French-speaking Marc-Edmond Chantre, former member of the Fascist political party Union nationale (National Union) before the war and linchpin of the Comité suisse d’action civique (Swiss Committee for Civic Action) since 1948, was strongly against any contact with the Communist countries. The high point of protests against contacts with Communist countries was reached around 1960–61. During these years, there were a few occasions that turned into focal points illustrating the controversy particularly eloquently. One such case was the banishing of Russian violinist David Oistrakh from performing at the Zurich Tonhalle, one of the most famous concert halls in Switzerland. Oistrakh was denied a visa by the immigration authority of the Canton of Zurich in 1961, with authorities appealing to the events of 1956 and thus making Oistrakh an official representative of Communism and the Soviet Union.26 – 87 –

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Another such case concerned the presence of writer Ilya Ehrenburg at the Geneva Rencontres internationales in 1960. This incident received less media coverage, but it was still a notable controversy between different factions. Jean Rodolphe de Salis, president of Pro Helvetia, and the organization committee of the Rencontres internationales had issued an invitation to Ehrenburg to take part in the discussions in Geneva. The aim of this invitation was to open this discussion circle to intellectuals from the Communist bloc. As the president of Pro Helvetia, a foundation on a national level, de Salis was accused by the president of the Swiss Enlightenment Service, Hans Huber, of making the Geneva Rencontres internationales a forum for Communist propaganda. De Salis replied in a virulent way by comparing the intolerance of the Swiss Enlightenment Service to Nazi methods.27 De Salis was an intellectual with connections to the government. Thus, he asked Friedrich Wahlen, the successor of Max Petitpierre as the head of the Department for Foreign Affairs, to take a stand against such aggressive and intolerant attitudes. These cases illustrate that reactions against cultural relations after 1956 did not squelch their support; instead, the reactions mobilized people such as Jotterand and de Salis. Furthermore, they were not alone, but were followed by individuals who shared their worldviews and were not completely distanced from connections with the Eastern bloc. However, these individuals did not represent the official Swiss attitude, which was not without controversies either.

The Department for Foreign Affairs between Stimulation and Arbitration The Department for Foreign Affairs was hardly anti-Communist. Among its main goals was to keep Switzerland in the Western bloc while continuing to defend neutrality. However, diplomats saw that virulent anti-Communism was damaging the national image. The country appeared out of phase with other Western countries. Indeed, there were several signs that showed that something within international relations was now changing. First, trade relations with the Eastern bloc were on the rise: in 1955, the proportion of the Eastern bloc of Swiss exports was certainly low at just 3.1 percent of the total.28 At the turn of the 1960s, however, the situation changed. On the one hand, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, which controlled the export of strategic goods to the countries of Eastern Europe, relaxed its embargo.29 Furthermore, Swiss economic actors were afraid that the Swiss membership of the European Free Trade Association would restrict trade with the European Economic – 88 –

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Community: Eastern Europe as well as the Third World appeared to be fresh markets. The Communist countries were, however, safer for business. Their share of Swiss exports grew,30 and, as trade increased, it became clear that a cultural presence was considered to improve Swiss chances in those countries. As had been the case since the beginning of the Swiss cultural diplomacy, culture was considered support for commerce by the Confederation. Second, several reports from Swiss embassies in the Communist bloc revealed the gap between increasing cultural activities of the Capitalist countries and the complete lack of Swiss activity.31 For many diplomats, there was much more to lose than to gain by abstaining from cultural relations that Communist countries now seemed ready for. The Swiss Embassy in Moscow lamented that only Swiss Communists and people from the Association Switzerland-USSR were active in the realm of cultural contacts. However, there were problems beyond ideological ones. Problems related to practices were also problematic: the Communist countries sought bilateral agreements of cultural exchange between governments. The Swiss government, however, had always refused such agreements, arguing that the cultural field was mostly dependent on individual cantons rather than the confederation, and that the cultural domain should not be part of any state settlement. Following the Soviet policies, the Association Switzerland-USSR and its Soviet counterpart signed yearly agreements on cultural exchanges from 1964.32 Such agreement with the Swiss government was what Soviet authorities were seeking. Faced with radical opposition from a section of the population, but with an international context in which conditions seemed quite positive for developing cultural exchanges with the Communist bloc, the Department of Foreign Affairs seemed ready for a half-open door policy. Many reports and surveys on the subject were produced by the diplomats in Bern, which together reflect the importance of the issue. It has generally been observed that while the internal political climate did not allow for the state level to actively develop such relations, it was also considered that Switzerland should not be more uncompromising than the United States on this question. As a result, it was decided that the Swiss state should support those who wanted to improve cultural exchanges with the Communist bloc.33 This change of attitude was also fueled more by the position of Switzerland toward the Western countries than by interest in these cultural exchanges themselves. It was the chief of the Department for Foreign Affairs, Friedrich Wahlen, who formulated this new approach. After a consultation with the president of Pro Helvetia, Jean Rodolphe de Salis, who supported expanding these exchanges, Wahlen did not give outright support, but gave assurance that – 89 –

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the Swiss government would consider cultural exchanges with the Communist bloc in a positive light and would not interfere. This assurance was comparable with the government’s export guarantee in the commercial field: should Pro Helvetia not have success with its cultural events beyond the Iron Curtain, the Federal Council would not intervene against this foundation. In his speech to the parliament, Wahlen recognized the rights of an individual to be against cultural relations, but reminded that Swiss neutrality required maintaining relations with all countries. He added that culture should not be a state matter, as was the case in the Communist countries, and gave the semipublic foundation Pro Helvetia a semiofficial role in improving cultural relations with countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain.34

After the Cultural Opening As was the case just after the war, the Swiss government’s view in 1962 was that culture supported overseas political and economic policies. Relations with the Communist bloc were no exception: they were to benefit commercial exchanges and further the cause of Switzerland’s international relations. In the competition between the East and the West, Switzerland was unwilling to take sides openly but was still supportive of Western points of view, particularly in economic affairs. Above all, the government did not want to be bound by any cultural agreements, which were frequently requested by the Eastern bloc. Official argument for the refusal was that culture is a cantonal matter, but the main reason was to keep the state out of cultural exchanges and have free hands to increase or interrupt them at any time. Toward such conditions the semipublic foundation Pro Helvetia was considered an ideal actor. After Wahlen had announced official support, Pro Helvetia started organizing art and book exhibitions, as well as Swiss film weeks in the countries of Eastern Europe. Editors were also present at the book fairs of Leipzig and Warsaw. The most favored country appears to have been Poland, but by the end of the 1960s, almost every Communist country had received Swiss cultural events. The number of these cultural events remained at a very low level in comparison to the number staged in the neighboring Capitalist countries or in the United States. However, the cultural fields of these events were diversified, and the management for them required an important commitment from the Pro Helvetia staff members. The contents of the events, however, were very similar to those organized in the West. The main emphasis was on the self-representation and – 90 –

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idealization of national know-how. In this way, these official cultural relations have been gradually normalized in spite of the constant refusal of any cultural agreements. While promotion of national brands worked in the Capitalist world, Communist countries were different in this respect, and whether such an approach was beneficial in developing cultural exchanges between people remains questionable.

The Culture in Cultural Diplomacy Swiss cultural diplomacy goals were mostly economic and politic. They were also situated out of the interests of cultural circles. In this way, Swiss cultural diplomacy lay closer to the concept of “soft power.”35 This explains why the number of cultural events was very low: the main national interests remained in the Western bloc. Yet, a quantitative approach should not prevent us from observing informal cultural relations: though marginal, they manifest individual desires to know better the countries whose otherness had increased during the Cold War. Exploring the question of cultural exchanges with Communist countries sheds light on a genuine change in the cultural life of Switzerland. The public debate about these cultural contacts was a part of a larger one about the Swiss way of life since the war: criticizing the absence of exchanges with the Communists was like criticizing their country for being closed in on its own comfort in this period of high economic growth. At the end of the 1950s and in the 1960s, the cultural scene in some Communist countries, particularly in Gomułka’s Poland, was attractive to many Swiss artists and intellectuals because of its novelty and its dose of exoticism, as well as its subversive nature within this hostile context. It was quite often the case that particular artists were close to the Swiss Communist movement, but not exclusively so.36 Some young writers from the Swiss Writers’ Association also called for increased contacts with their peers inside the Communist bloc. Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Max Frisch played the role of mentors by making numerous trips to the Communist East, and particularly so as they achieved a significant degree of success. Dürrenmatt’s play Der Besuch der alten Dame (The Visit) was, for example, considered a strong critique of Capitalism. In Poland, Dürrenmatt could celebrate 200 performances of Die Physiker (The Physicists) in 1964 and already sold 150,000 copies of the novel Die Panne (A Dangerous Game) in 1968.37 With these successes, Frisch and Dürrenmatt promoted Swiss literature and, above all, showed that there was demand for cultural exchanges in the Eastern bloc. They also supported some marginalized writers for – 91 –

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ideological reasons: in 1968, for example, Dürrenmatt drew attention to the fact that as a member of the Association Switzerland-USSR, Konrad Farner had been considered a traitor in 1956, at a time when the country was unwilling to call its policies into question.38 The dominant position of Dürrenmatt and Frisch in the Swiss literary field urged some writers to follow them, and, in 1964, young writers Walter Diggelmann and Herbert Meier called on the Swiss Writers’ Association to come into contact with similar associations in the countries of the Communist bloc.39 Calls for increased connections with Communists did not only come from the Swiss Left. Some journalists from liberal and right-wing daily papers like Le Journal de Genève and La Gazette de Lausanne expressed real desire to learn more about artistic and literary production behind the Iron Curtain. For example, Franck Jotterand and Walter Weideli, editors of these French-language daily papers’ cultural supplements, gave plenty of room for articles about the Communist countries. In 1957, Jotterand published a few articles about Poland with a lot of information about its cultural life.40 An even more remarkable example is provided by the cultural supplement of Le Journal de Genève from 1960, when it was published in Polish as part of the daily paper of Warsaw, Z˙ ycie Warszawy. At the same time, the Polish paper’s cultural supplement was published in French in Le Journal de Genève.41 Both supplements contained some texts by ambassadors from both Switzerland and Poland, emphasizing the semiofficial role of this exchange. More importantly, there were articles from writers and artists about different cultural fields. Originally issued from a non-state actor, and particularly from Walter Weideli, a journalist from Le Journal de Genève, this joint action illustrates the link between official diplomacy—which was helpful and necessary in terms of facilitation—and the informal side of cultural relations. These publishing projects contributed to fuel tensions between the journalists and their direction.42 However, these initiatives by artists and writers testify more generally to relative autonomy in the cultural sphere as there was an existing level of cultural relations outside official relations. They also demonstrate that a large share of artists did not accept the closed-off attitude that Switzerland had inherited and hung onto after World War II. This trend coincided with calls for a cultural policy that would be more beneficial for artists and artistic objectives than for political goals.43 To break the taboo of contacts with Communist countries was to break a kind of a cycle of political and cultural self-satisfaction. How else can we understand the sentence written by Walter Weideli in the diary that he kept during his journey in Poland: “This is the freest people I know. … At last a country where some questions are asked, a country unsatisfied.”44 Opposition to official Switzerland depicted it as a satisfied country that needed changes. – 92 –

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The Measure of Cultural Circulation An analysis of cultural relations with the Communist bloc is difficult when their impact and consequences are the focus. This applies both to official and more informal ones. Analysis of individual trajectories is much easier to come by, and it can provide us with information about the possibilities and difficulties in cultural exchanges more generally. It is also possible to count the number of exhibitions organized after 1962 or estimate how many films were shown. Some kind of balance could be best reached by combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. One way of recognizing the change is to look at the visas that were absolutely necessary for traveling from Switzerland to any Communist country and vice versa. Visas can also point out the general and geographical tendencies of cultural relations, but also the strong dependence of cultural relations on the international situation. From the 1950s until the middle of the 1970s, the Federal Immigration Authority collaborated with the Federal Department for Foreign Affairs counting the number of visas delivered to artists and scientists from the Communist bloc. There were some significant differences by countries: while the number of visas given to artists from the USSR remained on a very low level, East Germany and Czechoslovakia obtained the majority of the Swiss visas. This did not correspond to any strategy of the Confederation, but rather to other cultural as well as economic relations.

Figure 4.1. Figures for the yearly number of cultural and scientific visas delivered to foreign nationals from the Communist bloc.45 – 93 –

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First, these figures attest to the importance of cultural relations during this period. The table also shows that cultural relations were considered to be a question of diplomacy and of security: these relations had to be under surveillance and controlled by Swiss authorities. Finally, the graphic demonstrates how these cultural contacts experienced a relative take-off following Wahlen’s speech in 1962. The turning point of the 1960s is indeed observable with an initial increase visible until 1968, even if the artists from Communist countries were still considered to be suspicious. Cultural exchanges also seemed to depend very strongly on political progress. After the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, similar suppression of contacts is observable, even if it was certainly less strict in 1968 than in 1956. In the years before the Helsinki Final Act, stabilization can be observed on quite a low level. This means that these cultural relations are less politically problematic for Switzerland, while their importance remains minimal compared to the relations with the Capitalist countries.

Conclusion Cultural relations between Switzerland and the Communist bloc began in earnest after 1956, and although political events affected the amount of cultural relations, they were never quite suppressed completely. Furthermore, instead of having been inevitable and widely accepted facts, cultural relations became a target of political and even violent controversy in the public space. From the official Swiss point of view, to undertake some degree of cultural relations with Communist countries was an important way of adapting to the changing international context. Furthermore, it was considered important for escaping the cultural isolation that had prevailed since World War II. This approach was also shared by many individuals. While neutrality had been considered important by most since World War II, the meaning of neutrality seemed to be changing. The decision to increase cultural relations with Communist countries in the 1960s broadened the concept of neutrality. It did not, however, manage to make Switzerland a real mediator between the blocs. Switzerland was considered a solid part of the West by the Communist bloc. Real cultural exchanges were not initiated by the Swiss government, but by those individuals who decided to reach over the Iron Curtain. In some cases, such as Le Journal de Genève, Pro Helvetia and the more official institutions took over these individual exchanges. Through their informal actions, they tried to get to know the other part of Europe better and simultaneously separate culture from politics. In this way, the question of cultural relations found the sensitive spot of Swiss national identity, – 94 –

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which was looking for a different position than simply the fear of foreign propaganda. Matthieu Gillabert is postdoctoral researcher in contemporary history at the Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique (Paris Ouest/Nanterre, France, Swiss National Science Foundation Fellow). His doctoral thesis was published in 2013 under the title Dans les coulisses de la diplomatie culturelle suisse: objectifs, réseaux et realisations, 1938–1984.

Notes 1. At the Swiss Federal Department for Foreign Affairs in Berne, some cultural relations are envisaged in the framework of the new diplomatic relations with the USSR. Maurice Bastian’s note, Berne, 8 March 1947, Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (www.dodis.ch) DODIS–49. 2. J.-C. Favez, “De la Première Guerre mondiale à la Deuxième Guerre mondiale (1914– 1945),” in Neues Handbuch der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik = Nouveau manuel de la politique extérieure suisse (Berne: P. Haupt, 1992), 41–59. 3. L. van Dongen, “Entre altruisme et égoïsme, privé et public, idéaux et calculs: l’Aide suisse par le livre à l’Allemagne, 1945–1949,” in La diplomatie par le livre. Réseaux et circulation internationale de l’imprimé de 1880 à nos jours, ed. C. Hauser, T. Loué, J.-Y. Mollier, and F. Vallotton (Paris: Nouveau monde éditions, 2011), 288. 4. In 1944, the Federal Office of Police forbade the association’s poster by the artist Hans Erni. The members, who were mostly close to the Communist Party of Labor, were also scrupulously observed by the Foreign Office. C. Gehrig, “Die Anfänge der ‘Gesellschaft SchweizSowjetunion,’” in Bild und Begegnung; Kulturelle Wechselseitigkeit zwischen der Schweiz und Osteuropa im Wandel der Zeit, ed. P. Brang, C. Goehrke, R. Kemball, and H. Riggenbach (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1996), 598–604. 5. As a connection between the outside world and the country, cultural diplomacy is a historical object that allows better understanding of how such international events like those of 1956 have impacted political and cultural fields on the national level. For the transnational shock of 1956, see, among others, G. Mink, M. Lazar, and M. J. Sielski, eds., 1956, une date européenne (Paris: Noir sur blanc, 2010). 6. J. Zbinden, Sternstunden oder verpasste Chancen. Zur Geschichte des Schweizer Buchhandels 1943–1952 (Zurich: Chronos, 1995), 106. 7. “Message du Conseil fédéral à l’Assemblée fédérale concernant les moyens de maintenir et de faire connaître le patrimoine spirituel de la Confédération, 9 décembre 1938,” Feuille fédérale 2, no. 50 (14 December 1938): 1001–1043. 8. Federal decree of 28 September 1949, 3rd article. See P. Milani, “Septante ans d’histoire institutionnelle,” in Entre culture et politique. Pro Helvetia de 1939 à 1945, ed. C. Hauser, B. Seger, and J. Tanner (Zurich: NZZ/Slatkine, 2010), 39–44. 9. In the years 1950–52, the chief of the Department for Foreign Affairs, Max Petitpierre, introduced a new interpretation of Swiss neutrality: it was based on the maintenance of armed neutrality but also on the acknowledgement of sharing Western values against Communism. G.-H. Soutou, “Réflexions franco-suisses et modération dans la guerre froide (1945–1955),” Relations Internationales no. 98 (Summer 1999): 192. 10. Several books were ordered by official authorities to spread the message in AngloSaxon countries: R. de Traz, Switzerland, Land of Peace and Liberty (Lausanne: OSEC, 1944); E. Bonjour, Swiss Neutrality: Its History and Meaning (London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1946). – 95 –

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About the construction of the war’s memory in Switzerland, see L. van Dongen, La Suisse face à la Seconde Guerre mondiale: 1945–1948. Emergence et construction d’une mémoire publique (Genève: Société d’histoire et d’archéologie, 1997). 11. The definition of “cultural diplomacy” given by Andrew Falk is particularly useful: “I use the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ to refer to the collaborative process that creates and sustains official and informal cultural interaction between nations.” A. J. Falk, Upstaging the Cold War: American Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy, 1940–1960 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 7. 12. I. Perrig, Geistige Landesverteidigung im kalten Krieg: der Schweizerische Aufklärungsdienst (SAD) und Heer und Haus (1945–1963) (Brig: University of Friburg, 1993), 68–69. 13. M. Gillabert, Dans les coulisses de la politique culturelle suisse. Objectifs, réseaux et réalisations (1938–1984) (Neuchâtel: Alphil, 2013), 329–344. 14. N. Scott, “Jacques Freymond et ‘l’ouverture vers les pays de l’Est,’” Relations Internationales, no. 98 (Summer 1999): 172. 15. D. de Rougemont, “Lever de rideau culturel,” Bulletin du Centre européen de la culture, no. 4/1 (October 1955). 16. H. Lüthy, “Guerre froide et dialogue,” Preuves, no. 152 (October 1963): 47–56. 17. The Rencontres internationales started after the war under the impulsion of liberal-thinking personalities from Geneva with the aim of consolidating a Western intellectual elite. B. Ackermann, “Les rencontres internationales de Genève, 1946,” Revue suisse d’histoire 39, no. 1 (1989): 64–78. 18. M. Gillabert, “‘L’Association Suisse-URSS’ dans la Guerre froide: quête de légitimité dans les relations culturelles,” in Rites, hiérarchies, ed. F. Briegel and S. Farré (Chêne-Bourg: Georg, 2010), 133–45. This association is actually a continuation of previous networks between the two countries. See J.-F. Fayet, VOKS. Le laboratoire helvétique. Histoire de la diplomatie culturelle soviétique durant l’entre-deux-guerres (Chêne-Bourg: Georg, 2014), 333–341. 19. P. Micheli’s note, Berne, 2 November 1955. Swiss Federal Archive (SFA), E2003(A), 1970/115/88. 20. M. Petitpierre’s note, Berne, 9 February 1960. DODIS-15324. This committee was created under the direction of Erich Tillmann, the president of the Liberal Students Association of Zurich. Archiv für Zeitgeschichte (Zurich), IB SAD-Archiv, 2.1.8. 21. A. Janner’s note to F. Wahlen, Berne, 30 January 1962. DODIS-30152. 22. K. Bretscher-Spindler, Vom heissen zum kalten Krieg. Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der Schweiz im Kalten Krieg 1943 bis 1968 (Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1997), 244–45. 23. F. Jotterand, “La Suisse allemande et nous,” Gazette de Lausanne, 23 March 1957, 10. 24. H. U. Jost, “ De l’anticommunisme chez Gotthelf à l’antisocialisme helvétique du XXe siècle,” in Histoire(s) de l’anticommunisme en Suisse, ed. M. Caillat, M. Cerutti, J.-F. Fayet, and S. Roulin (Zurich: Chronos, 2009), 44–45. 25. M. Frisch, “La dignité des écrivains suisses,” Gazette de Lausanne, 4 June 1957, 20. 26. A. Janner’s note to M. Petitpierre, Berne, 3 August 1961. DODIS-30114. 27. Letter of de Salis to H. Huber, Zurich, 7 October 1960. Archives of Contemporary History (Zurich), SAD-Archiv, 2.1.12. 28. These figures include the Eastern bloc, but exclude Yugoslavia and China. Report of the Swiss Union of Commerce and Industry, 17 December 1956. DODIS-12320. The export concerned, above all, the sectors for watchmaking, pharmacy, and machinery. See C. Meyer, “Wilhelm Tell und der Osthandel. Innenpolitische Aspekte des schweizerischen Osthandels 1950–1971,” in Aufstieg und Niedergand des Bilateralismus, ed. P. Hug and M. Kloter (Zurich: Chronos, 1999), 423; P. Hug, “Der gebremste Aufbruch. Zur Aussenpolitik der Schweiz in den 60en Jahren,” in Dynamisierung und Umbau. Die Schweiz in den 60er und 70er Jahren, ed. M. König, G. Kreis, F. Meister, and G. Romano (Zurich: Chronos, 1998), 100–4. 29. C. Altermatt, La politique étrangère de la Suisse pendant la Guerre froide (Lausanne: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2003), 21. – 96 –

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30. Letter from the Swiss Embassy in Sofia to the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Sofia, 5 May 1960. DODIS-15251. In 1960, Swiss exports to the Eastern countries reached 4 percent of the total export. 31. Report from the Division of International Organizations to Petitpierre, Berne, 9 October 1958. SFA, E2003(A), 1974/52/193. 32. Agreement between both associations, 18 December 1964. SFA, E2200.157, 1985/ 132/17. 33. “Survey about the cultural relations between some countries and the Eastern States,” Berne, 9 October 1958. SFA, E2003(A), 1974/52/193. 34. F. T. Wahlen’s answer to the Reverdin Interpellation, Berne, 22 March 1962. SFA, E2003(A), 1974/52/193. 35. J. Nye, “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, no. 1 (March 2008): 94–96. 36. P. Jeanneret, Popistes; histoire du parti ouvrier et populaire vaudois 1943–2001 (Lausanne: Ed. d’En-bas, 2002), 586–93. 37. M. Gillabert, Dans les coulisses de la politique culturelle suisse. Objectifs, réseaux et réalisations (1938–1984) (Neuchâtel: Alphil, 2013), 473–82. 38. F. Dürrenmatt, “Tschechoslowakei 1968,” Gesammelte Werke, no. 7 (Zurich: Diogenes, 1996 [1968]): 789. 39. C. Doka’s letter to J. R. de Salis, Zurich, 15 June 1964. Literature Archive Berne, archive Salis, 142, C-2-a/13. 40. F. Jotterand, “Pologne 57: Comment ils vivent,” Gazette de Lausanne, 11 September 1957, 1. 41. Le Journal de Genève and Z˙ ycie Warszawy, 12 November 1960. 42. A. Clavien, Grandeurs et misères de la presse politique (Lausanne: Antipodes, 2010), 219–256. 43. These claims were conveyed by the significant increase in funds for the Foundation Pro Helvetia in 1965. 44. W. Weideli, Diary in Warsaw (1959). Archive Weideli, boîte 84, C-1-f, Literature Archive, Berne. 45. Reports of the Federal Immigration Authority, 1961–73 (excluding the periods between March and July 1963, and between June and October 1964). SFA, E2001(E), 1976/17/98, 1978/84/145, 1980/83/112, 1982/58/85, 1987/78/157. The figures concern nationals from Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR. Gillabert, Dans les coulisses de la politique culturelle suisse, 568.

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P A R T II

INTERPLAY IN THE ACADEMIC CONTEXTS

Chapter 5

EXPERT GROUPS CLOSING THE DIVIDE Estonian-Finnish Computing Cooperation since the 1960s Sampsa Kaataja

T

he Cold War and the rapid development of computer technology are phenomena that define the latter part of the twentieth century. The former was the most important political occurrence that shaped and divided the world during that period. The latter can be regarded as the main technological development that has revolutionized the human experience during the last fifty years. Due to its importance in the twentieth-century history of technology, it is understandable that Cold War computing has attracted scholarly attention. What is common for works covering the topic is the separateness of the East-West computing communities, and the Eastern bloc countries’ illegal technology purchases from the West are often emphasized.1 Nonetheless, at the same time it is easy to find evidence that computing cooperation and legal technology transfer between the East and the West took place at different stages of the Cold War. For example, Western firms sold computer technology directly to Eastern bloc countries with, and sometimes without, permission. Researchers from both sides of the Iron Curtain were often willing and able to visit and work with each other via scientific and technical exchange programs and within the limits set by international scientific organizations.2 This chapter focuses on the cooperative elements of Cold War computing.3 It analyzes computing contacts between Finland and Estonia from the 1960s onward: how did existing political conditions influence the sci– 101 –

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entific-technical relations between experts who were on different sides of the Iron Curtain, and what were the long-term effects of the contacts that developed during the Cold War? At the same time, the chapter examines computing-related technology transfer between the two countries, including transfer of computer technology and diffusion of scientific-technical information and expertise. The following pages illustrate researchers’ transnational interactions in a world divided by a political conflict and provide information on the mechanisms of acquiring technology, information, and expertise across the Iron Curtain. The source materials used in the chapter include oral histories and archive materials. The oral history data that forms the primary source material was collected from seven Finnish and five Estonian experts who all have been prominent figures in national computing spheres and who participated in computing cooperation between Finland and Estonia from the 1960s onward.4 The key archival sources have been gathered from the archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, Helsinki University of Technology, and the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics.

In the Shadow of Superpower Computing Despite internationally recognized results in computer science and technology, Estonia and Finland were small actors in the global computing arena and reliant on hardware and software imports during the latter part of the twentieth century.5 Due to political developments, computing communities in both countries experienced the Cold War differently. At the same time, the science and technology (S&T) relations between the United States and the USSR affected both countries directly, and thus the Finnish-Estonian cooperation cannot be analyzed separately from the superpower computing relations. After the Soviet occupation in 1944, Estonia was forced to adjust to the Soviet system in all sectors of life. For research and engineering communities, this meant that contacts with Western countries became limited. Due to the high-technology embargo system CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls), introduced by the United States and its allies in 1949, machines, devices, and instruments needed in everyday work were not freely available, either. Although the strictness of the CoCom rules varied in different periods of the Cold War, it formed an obstacle to the USSR, which could not respond to the U.S. technology output, which was more effective and more innovative in most high-tech fields, including computing. – 102 –

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In a rapidly developing field like computing, the lack of personal contacts, limited access to the latest results, and inadequate availability of top-quality computers and components hampered development in Estonia from the 1960s onward. Nonetheless, the case of Estonia shows that the severity of the situation varied significantly depending on a person’s field of interest. For those who were working on practical questions or computer building, poor access to information and technology hindered work considerably. More theoretically oriented individuals were in a better position: “machinery did not matter in software or theory of computing,” as one of the interviewees tellingly described the working conditions of the period.6 The first Estonian computing generation was educated in Moscow and Leningrad from the 1950s onward, and, until the collapse of the USSR, constant contacts existed to important Soviet computer centers (e.g., Novosibirsk and Moscow) with whom joint projects were executed. The leading Estonian computer center, the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, was founded in connection with the Tallinn University of Technology in 1960. From the mid-1970s onward, there was an active push for independent innovation in computer building in Estonia, and in the 1980s, software products were also produced for foreign markets.7 By that time the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics had reached a prominent position in the Soviet computing system. Its researchers were in the frontline of software engineering research in the USSR, and although there was no large-scale involvement with military projects, the institute also contributed to Soviet military computing. By 1989, the institute employed six hundred researchers and other staff, which made it the most important computer center in the Soviet Baltic region.8 Within the Soviet S&T system, the position of computing was good in many aspects. Due to its importance in military technology, resources were allocated to computer science and technology, and it developed faster than many other fields. For example, the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics grew by 10 percent annually from the 1960s.9 Therefore, when looking at the matter purely from the computing perspective, it can be argued that Estonia benefited from the Cold War period. Even though the second part of the twentieth century was a precarious period for the Estonian society at large, the U.S.-USSR conflict was the single most important reason for the notably fast growth of the country’s computing sector. The Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics is an example of a Soviet research center that remained relatively open to the outside world. It chose not to participate in fully classified projects, and, in the Soviet system, it belonged to the category B institutions, where the focus was on civil computing. Although the resources at hand were more limited than in military-oriented category A institutes, the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics also had a more – 103 –

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open working environment. Even visits of foreign researchers were not exceptional: in the 1970s and 1980s, Finnish experts visited on a yearly basis, joint projects were executed with French and Swedish colleagues, and other globally renowned researchers also visited the institute. At the same time, practically all important Soviet researchers spent periods of varying duration at the institute.10 In Finland a new line of sensitive foreign policy was adopted toward the USSR after being defeated by its eastern neighbor in World War II. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 (YYA) aimed at ensuring friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance between the two countries located on the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. While being a Capitalist country, Finland was politically inclined toward the Soviet Union, having active contacts with both superpowers throughout the Cold War decades. Thus, Finland became a potential knowledge and technology intermediary in the Cold War technology race that could benefit both the United States and the USSR. This in-between status Finland had gained makes it an interesting node in the Cold War history of technology.11 Post–World War II Finland industrialized quickly, with S&T sectors developing rapidly since the 1960s. In 1955, Finland was the first Capitalist country to sign an official scientific-technical cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union, and it became one of the USSR’s main partners in S&T collaboration. In 1980, the United States and West Germany were the only non-Socialist countries that had more researcher exchange with the USSR than Finland.12 The Cold War did not produce a similar boost in Finnish computing as in Estonia, although the post–World War II situation brought important changes for the whole national S&T system. Finnish researchers and engineers had traditionally focused on Western Europe, especially Germany, but after World War II, contacts to the United Stated increased throughout the S&T sector. According to a recent estimation, one third of Finnish professors and senior researchers active in the early 1980s had developed their professional skills in the United States at some point of their career. In proportion to the size of the population, Finland had more active academic contacts with the United States than any other European country.13 Nonetheless, there were important differences in Finland’s S&T relations with the East and the West. Even though an academic exchange program (ASLA-Fulbright) had existed between Finland and the United States since 1949, the researchers themselves were the ones who created and maintained contacts across the Atlantic. Cooperation with the USSR was based on official state-level contracts, and by 1970, cooperation agreements between Finland and its eastern neighbor existed in twenty different fields of science and technology.14 Annual exchange of appointed delegates – 104 –

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in each field was carefully planned by the Finnish-Soviet Commission on Scientific and Technical Cooperation, whereas bilateral contacts between individual researchers were somewhat rare. Materials on the S&T cooperation between Finland and the USSR in the archive of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland create an impression that cooperation was based on rigid forms and careful planning. Nonetheless, interviews of Finnish and Estonian computing experts reveal that there was also room for individuals to create cooperative networks. For example, the beginning of computing cooperation, first between Finland and the USSR and later between Finland and Estonia, illustrates that unofficial contacts among expert groups on different sides of the Iron Curtain could, in some cases, materialize as official S&T contracts at the national level.

Establishment of Official Computing Contacts The roots of Finnish-Estonian computing relations can be traced to the formation of official computing contacts between Finland and the Soviet Union. According to the minutes of the Finnish S&T Committee, the USSR proposed in 1969 that the countries should commence cooperation in computing, and in spring 1970, a working group on cybernetics was founded under the Finnish-Soviet Commission on Scientific and Technical Cooperation.15 There is an interesting temporal link between the formation of the Finnish-Soviet cybernetics group and the reorientation of Soviet computing, which makes one question the official motivations behind the initial steps of collaboration. Already in the 1950s, the USSR was falling behind the United States in computer technology, and efforts to close the gap proved unsuccessful. In this situation, a new strategy, criticized by the Soviet computing community, was adopted: independent innovation was cut down, especially in civil computing, and attention turned to copying and purchasing western computer technology.16 Thus, the role of computer imports and computing piracy started to play a bigger role from the late 1960s onward. Despite the convenient timing, founding of the cybernetics working group seems to have had little to do with the new Soviet computing strategy. It was based on the personal contacts of three individuals: Hans Andersin and Jussi Tuori from the Finnish Information Processing Association and Academician Anatolii A. Dorodnitsyn from the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.17 The three men had met at the conferences of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) that Andersin and Dorodnitsyn had participated in as – 105 –

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official representatives of their national computing organizations.18 IFIP meetings provided an arena for Andersin, Tuori, and Dorodnitsyn to plan Finnish-Soviet collaboration. An official initiative for cooperation was jointly proposed in 1969 in the name of the Finnish Information Processing Association and Computing Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Moscow). Interestingly, Finnish-Soviet cooperation never took off in the IFIP, but it provided the platform for establishing Finnish-Soviet computing relations.19 When the Finnish-Soviet working group on cybernetics was created in 1970, it was one of the twenty working groups responsible for S&T cooperation between the two countries. Nonetheless, government officials played a minimal role in the initial steps of the cybernetics working group: they merely approved the plans born through scientific contacts between the three specialists. The possibilities for experts to develop transnational cooperative plans among themselves also played an important role when bilateral FinnishEstonian computing relations were established. Since the 1960s, the Finnish-Soviet cybernetics working group had been the main forum for the development of Finnish-Estonian computing relations.20 However, in the late 1980s, an idea of a separate Finnish-Estonian computing working group that could make autonomous decisions about the content of cooperation and exchange of researchers emerged. This was seen as an answer to the problems that had become evident in the computing cooperation between Finland and the Soviet Union. According to Jussi Tuori, a long-time Finnish leader of the cybernetics group, administration of computing relations with the Soviet Union was rather uncomplicated. Due to Anatolii Dorodnitsyn’s high position in Soviet computing and his good command of English, maintenance of contacts was easy.21 Nonetheless, at the lower level of cooperation, the situation was different. A typical problem in Finnish-Soviet S&T relations was related to communication. Maintenance of day-to-day contacts across the border was difficult, and during the visits in the USSR, even scheduled appointments were regularly cancelled. In some cases, the language barrier hindered collaboration, but in computing, for example, a more common problem was the difficulty of meeting the right individuals. Despite careful planning and official invitations, persons who actually came to Finland and participated in meetings were not those who were initially invited.22 Nevertheless, it is clear that the intensification of Estonian-Finnish cooperation was not purely based on professional reasons. A shared linguistic background and a feeling of kinship were additional motivating factors behind the efforts to deepen the contacts. Helping of a kindred nation under Soviet rule clearly motivated some Finnish experts.23 This tendency – 106 –

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did not apply only to computing, but it was generally visible in the FinnishSoviet S&T relations, where joint projects were executed with Estonia more generally than with other Baltic states, for example. The decisive factor leading to an official acceptance of the FinnishEstonian computing group was the good contacts of the Finns and Estonians to Soviet computing authorities. Especially Jussi Tuori from Finland and Boris Tamm24 from the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics had close relations with Anatolii Dorodnitsyn, who was willing and able to permit bilateral Finnish-Estonian plans, practically excluding other Soviet nations from the cooperation. Dorodnitsyn allowed Finnish and Estonian experts to use up to twenty days of the two hundred annual working days allocated to the official Finnish-Soviet cybernetics cooperation. The Finnish-Estonian group could autonomously decide how to use this time and had the right to choose participants for meetings and researcher exchange. Furthermore, the Estonians got the right to use their share of the cybernetics working group’s budget independently, giving them the financial means to develop cooperation with Finnish colleagues. Thus, in practice, the USSR funded half of the Finnish-Estonian cooperation.25

The Nature of Computing Cooperation When the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics was founded in November 1988, cooperation was planned in several fields of computing, including artificial intelligence, database management, speech technology, algorithms, data structures, and computers in education. The purpose was also to exchange new products developed in Finland and Estonia, distribute knowledge, and launch joint projects.26 The execution of cooperation followed the customary lines of the Finnish-Soviet S&T collaboration. Meetings where researchers introduced their work were organized annually either in Finland or Estonia. Future cooperation was planned in these meetings as well, and reports of past events were presented. Communication between the participants was not limited to annual seminars, and study trips and research visits, for example, were organized within the limits of the committee, lasting from a few days to some months.27 What was common for the Finnish computing contacts both with the USSR and with Estonia was that the cooperation was active. In some years, the number of exchanges was equivalent to four hundred person-hours, which meant that the working group on cybernetics accounted for almost 50 percent of all researcher exchange executed under Finnish-Soviet S&T cooperation.28 When Estonia and Finland got the separate informatics working group, altogether forty computing experts participated in its meetings – 107 –

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between 1988 and 1995, with ten persons present at practically all meetings.29 This was relatively active participation when considering the modest size of the computing communities in both countries in comparison to larger European countries or to the United States. Regardless of rather ambitious official objectives set for cooperation and a relatively high level of researcher mobility, computing collaboration never really took off. Individual researchers who were brought together did, for example, publish together, but more substantial projects implemented across the Iron Curtain never took place. Even though shared research interests existed and a good scientific and technical communication network developed, they were not enough for permanent working relations. However, this is not to argue that cooperation was futile. In retrospect, it is easy to acknowledge that for single researchers, the Finnish-Estonian computing relations proved useful both professionally and outside the professional realm. The former leader of the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, Ants Wõrk, said revealingly that a “component of social interaction” constituted an important part of the Cold War computing relations.30 The result of this was that, as in any (trans)national encounter, shared professional and everyday interests (e.g., jazz music or playing bridge) brought individuals together, occasionally leading to friendships between computing experts and, in some cases, even involving their families. Relationships that surpassed the professional level become evident in different kinds of favors between Finnish and Estonian experts, but also with researchers from other parts of the Soviet Union. These included exchange of everyday goods like foodstuff, clothes, and entertainment or, for example, organization of medical services, as was done for a child of a Russian delegate who needed special care while visiting Helsinki. Participants were also invited to each other’s homes and thereby given an opportunity to experience everyday life in the target country.31 Sometimes more serious proposals were made: at least one Estonian high-ranking computing specialist was offered an option to defect to Sweden by his Finnish host. Also in 1991, when there was a threat of the Soviet Union overtaking Estonia, arrangements were made for a son of another Estonian computer scientist so that he could study at Tampere University of Technology in Finland. These plans never materialized, as the situation unraveled, but the person in question later actually became a student in Tampere.32 One important factor that allowed the S&T contacts between computing specialists to develop into personal relations providing friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance was that working group meetings never became an arena for political debates. Politics were consciously left out of – 108 –

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the cooperation. A good example of this comes from the late 1970s, when a Finnish computing scientist known for pro-Soviet views spent time in Moscow as a visiting researcher. The message received afterward from Anatolii Dorodnitsyn was clear: “We have enough politruks of our own, let’s stay in pure science in the future.”33

Diffusion of Technology in Finnish-Estonian Computing Networks The limitations in East-West technology trade varied considerably during the different periods of the Cold War. Intrabloc trade was encouraged from the late 1960s onward (e.g., the Export Administration Act of 1969), and this meant that bigger quantities of more effective computers could be sold to the East. For example, at the height of détente in 1972–77, $120 million worth of computers were sold from the United States to the USSR. At the same time, companies benefited from CoCom’s exceptions provisions, which allowed them to sell computer technology under embargo to Socialist countries.34 When the political climate became colder again in the late 1970s, a stricter control of the East-West technology trade became reality. New limitations were planned and implemented at the political level, complicating technology transfer to Eastern-bloc countries. However, the limitations were not enough to prevent the circulation of CoCom-listed technology. Purchase channels remained open to the West, if not as much to Europe or the United States as previously, but to other countries located further away, such as Australia and Japan. The case of Estonia illustrates how the transfer of computer technology occurred despite the tightened conditions of the early 1980s. At that point, computers in the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics were outdated when compared to the hardware generally available for example in Finnish universities, and, according to one Estonian researcher, “the situation was very, very difficult” at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s. Nonetheless, even during this period, connections to Western companies existed, and they were also used. For the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, Australia was an important source of new technology, and especially a company called Labtam. In the early 1980s, the institute purchased computers from Labtam, with the shipment including machines under embargo. In this case, the method for circumventing CoCom regulations was simple: the official consignment note simply stated that the shipment included computers that could be legally sold without any special permission. No closer inspection was made at any point, and the machines arrived in Tallinn without problems.35 – 109 –

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Another example illustrating the purchase channels of the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics in the early 1980s is related to Lisa, a computer produced by Apple Computers, Inc. Lisa was released in January 1983, and it was the first commercial personal computer with a graphical user interface—a computer controlled with a mouse by pointing and clicking icons on the screen. An updated version of the computer, Lisa II, was released in January 1984, and already next August, Lisa was in use at the institute. Thus, sometimes the latest technology became available very rapidly.36 Geographically close Finnish companies also got occasionally involved in the computer trade to Estonia, perhaps sometimes not fully realizing what was taking place. A new system of air conditioning was ordered to the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics from a Helsinki-based company in the late 1970s, and two Apple II computers were included in the order. The institute informed the company representatives that these machines were needed to control the air conditioning system. When Apple II computers came with the rest of the order, they were used for research purposes, not for tasks related to air conditioning.37 The examples above show how CoCom regulations were bypassed relatively easily and western technology was available for a Soviet research institution. Up to a point, purchase channels existed when something was needed. Some of the means used were slightly dubious, but typically they were not illegal. This notion is consistent with the descriptions from the 1980s on the transfer of high technology between the East and the West. Already at that time, it was admitted in the United States that the majority of the technology flow to the USSR was not based on illegal technology transfer.38 Although the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics set as its original task the introduction and exchange of new products developed in both countries, it never became an arena for active technology transfer. Partly this was caused by the other purchase channels the Estonians had, and partly by the global political situation, which prevented the Finnish side from supporting the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics’ need for up-todate technology more than they did. Nonetheless, the main reason why the exchange of computer technology between the two countries was limited was that, during the Cold War years, Finnish and Estonian computing communities did not produce technology that was truly needed in the collaborative country across the border. The trajectory of the software tool PRIZ (later known as MicroPRIZ) supports this argument. PRIZ was a program synthesizer developed by Enn Tõugu and his research group in the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics from the 1970s until the late 1980s. PRIZ was designed for the development of software applications, and Finnish visitors regularly brought it up as a – 110 –

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promising R&D (research & development) project that was under way in Estonia.39 The project also got wider international recognition, and in the 1980s PRIZ was sold to the USSR, Finland, and Sweden, and, with the help of a Swedish company, it was brought to markets in the United States.40 Even today, PRIZ is acknowledged as an advanced piece of technology and more innovative than many of its contemporaries. However, the fact that none of the established producers of computer technology were behind PRIZ made it difficult to succeed in Western markets. PRIZ was not adopted outside the USSR on a larger scale, and it could not break the hegemony of similar Western software applications that were commonly used in Finland and elsewhere.41 Another case illustrating the Cold War technology transfer between Estonia and Finland is related to the introduction of the Internet in Estonia. It is also the first example of the supportive technology transfer that occurred in the Estonian-Finnish computing relations. Supportive technology transfer refers to donations or trade of technology (e.g., machines, equipment, and production methods) or knowledge (e.g., publications and results of scientific-technical research) and expertise needed in technical processes in situations where the recipient cannot for economic, political, social, or other similar reasons purchase the technology in question freely from the market. A central feature in supportive technology transfer is that it often occurs without monetary compensation or with costs of the transfer significantly reduced in order to support the recipient. In Estonian-Finnish computing contacts, this form of technology transfer played an important role at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The Internet was introduced in Finland at the turn of 1988–89, when the country was linked to the World Wide Web via the Finnish University and Research Network (Funet). When Estonia followed two years later, the Joint Committee of Informatics was closely involved in the process. The connection became technically possible with a modem the Finnish Committee members provided for the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics. This modem and the willingness of the University of Helsinki to let Estonians use its Internet services brought the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics and eventually also the University of Tartu online. Estonians got a mailbox at the computing center of the University of Helsinki, and, via the university’s server, the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics was linked to the Internet, enabling direct exchange of emails and files with the rest of the world.42 Prior to this arrangement, direct connections to the World Wide Web from Estonia had been practically nonexistent, and continuous contact to the Internet via Moscow was impossible. Thanks to good relations between Estonian and Finnish computing experts, a constant data connec– 111 –

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tion existed from December 1990 onward, which significantly improved the possibilities of the Estonian research community to be part of international information networks. After 1990, it took a couple of years before the Internet era truly began in Estonia, first via a satellite connection to Sweden and a little later via a microwave link to Helsinki.43 Computer donations from Finland to Estonia in the early 1990s provide another example of supportive technology transfers in which the Joint Committee played an important role. In some cases, it was a single computer that was donated to an Estonian research center, but sometimes material assistance was more extensive. In spring 1992, Hannu Jaakkola, the Finnish leader of the Joint Committee, organized a campaign to support computing in newly independent Estonia. As a result, a group of Finnish companies and universities donated their extra computers to Estonia. According to the official extradition documents, the shipment included, for example, fourteen SUN computers and twenty-seven IBM PCs. All machines were distributed between the three important centers of research in Estonia: the University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology, and the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics.44 Donated machinery patched up the institutes’ lack of equipment for a few years after independence. After that, the financial support from the European Union, the Soros Foundation, UNESCO, and private companies (e.g., Sun Microsystems) enabled the purchase of up-to-date technology, and supportive technology transfer became meaningless in Estonian-Finnish computing relations.45

Important Knowledge Exchange Flows of scientific-technical information and expertise occupy a central place when East-West technology relations of the Cold War period are examined. In the computing contacts Finland had with Estonia, exchange of people and knowledge was more important than the transfer of actual machines and instruments. The period under examination mostly predates the birth of electronic publication systems. Prior to them, access to published materials or paper copies of books, journals, and technical reports was crucial for the world of research. Both Finnish and Estonian experts interviewed for the study brought up the importance of publications in S&T relations. Practically all Finnish experts comment that visitors from the East were very interested in the materials available at the Western libraries and often returned home carrying copied books and articles.46 In general, Estonian computing experts do not feel that the availability of publications was exceptionally limited during the Soviet period. The – 112 –

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Estonian Academy of Sciences was able to purchase relevant international publications, and a relatively effective system for distribution of publications existed inside the Soviet Union. Copies of articles, technical reports, and even conference presentations could be purchased from the Viniti Institute in Moscow, which provided publication services throughout the Soviet Union. Because the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics had a recognized position in Soviet computing, this arrangement worked quite effectively: materials ordered from Moscow usually arrived in two weeks, whereas for research centers and universities not working in the strategic fields of science and technology, these orders could take up to two months.47 In the case of Finnish-Soviet computing relations, the flow of publications was not always from the West to the East. As a rule, Finnish computing experts did not build up their work on Soviet computer science, instead relying on North American research.48 However, in some cases, materials published in the USSR became very useful at the local level. At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, the Department of Applied Mathematics in the University of Turku had few resources to purchase up-to-date research literature. In this situation, Russian translations became valuable. For the price of an original textbook ordered from a Western publishing house, several Russian translations of American or European research could be purchased. As a result, the department’s library had a significant collection of Russian translations of American research on, for example, optimization and statistics. For instance, translated works on search theory, one of the main research areas of the department, were used regularly.49 Apart from publications, researchers’ mobility and contacts to important academic centers are key elements behind the success in science and technology. During the pre-Internet era, active and continuous contacts with overseas colleagues were especially significant in rapidly developing fields of research such as computing during the closing decades of the twentieth century. It is already clear that Estonian computer science did not develop in a Soviet vacuum with no contacts with the West. Nonetheless, the formation of more regular transnational contacts was limited due to political realities, as the case of academician Enn Tõugu (1935–) indicates. Just like the whole first generation of Estonian computer scientists, Tõugu specialized in computing in Leningrad. He started working at the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics in 1976, having cooperative contacts with important Soviet computing centers and researchers like Andrei Ershov and Grigori Mints until the end of the Cold War. In the mid-1970s, Tõugu participated in his first IFIP conference,50 and networks with western colleagues also developed inside the USSR. There Tõugu got acquainted with famous computer scientists like John McCarthy and Donald Knuth. Involvement in French-Soviet computing cooperation introduced him to – 113 –

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colleagues in Paris, and groups of researchers who visited the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics brought about a number of other contacts in the West.51 Enn Tõugu poorly fits the stereotype of an Eastern-bloc scientist doing research in the secluded Soviet Union. Rather, Tõugu was a researcher working inside the USSR who had contacts with important individuals, research centers, and organizations on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Due to his research interest in programming and software, Tõugu’s work was not particularly affected by the lack of up-to-date computer hardware either. However, in retrospect, the major professional difficulty for him during the Cold War years was the lack of personal contacts and communication. Despite belonging to the inner circle of Soviet computing and his encounters with the important actors in the field, real contact with colleagues in the West was limited. In this situation, the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics proved to be useful for Enn Tõugu. Within its limits, the exchange of information was easy, whether it concerned the latest works and publications or was about general developments and ongoing projects in the field in different places.52 Enn Tõugu was not an exception in the Soviet research community. Soviet researchers visiting American universities during the Cold War highlighted that information was more easily available there and constant communication and interaction with domestic and international research communities existed.53 In this situation, where possibilities for having contacts with the global world of science were limited inside the USSR, the arenas constituted by transnational cooperative arrangements became relevant by offering a channel for real professional contacts where information was exchanged on a regular basis.

Diffusion of Expertise Technical tools, such as instruments and machines, and scientific-technical information are important prerequisites for the development of new technology. Another crucial component is expertise—implicit, wordless, and pictureless knowledge, as Walter Vincenti has described it, which is not inferior to other forms of knowledge.54 Expertise is a type of ability that develops in actual hands-on work where one gets acquainted with the practices, routines, and processes that are experienced in everyday operations. In the Cold War context, the importance of expertise is evident in the reverse engineering projects, where typically Western technology was duplicated in Eastern-bloc countries. Especially in R&D-intensive fields of technology like computing, expertise played an important role; while simple machinery could be reconstructed merely by using the blueprints, develop– 114 –

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ment of computers required a more sophisticated approach, which meant that besides scientific-technical information and components, knowledge on how to build a machine was also sought from the West. The significant role of expertise in technological innovation was recognized in the West. In 1982, a panel set by the U.S. government considered it the most important form of unwanted technology transfer that was threatening North American universities.55 Actions were also taken at the governmental level. The diffusion of expertise was limited with legislation in strategically important fields of science and technology.56 Thus the technology embargo did not apply only to products, but also the export of expertise was controlled. Diffusion of expertise is also evident in the computing relations that developed between Estonia and Finland during the closing decades of the twentieth century. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Finnish universities faced a shortage of teachers in computer science. In this situation, teachers were recruited from Estonia. One of them was Merik Meriste from the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, who came to the University of Turku, where he taught programming languages for some years.57 Finnish expertise, on the other hand, became useful in Estonia when computing education was reformed in the newly independent country in the early 1990s. At that point, Finnish members of the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics went to Estonia with the purpose of participating in the development of the new computer science curriculum for local universities.58 After Estonia regained its independence in 1991, the diffusion of expertise also became more visible in the commercial sector. The end of the Cold War had a drastic effect on Estonian computing because the resources previously available from the USSR were no longer at hand. In this situation, the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics had to cut its operations significantly, and in 1988–92 the number of employees was reduced from six hundred to less than two hundred.59 When national companies could not place enough orders for the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, the focus was turned outside Estonia, especially to Finland and Sweden. During the 1990s, a number of projects related to telecommunications were executed in the institute with Nordic partners. In retrospect, it is only natural that projects crossing the national borders started to emerge in this particular field because both in Finland and Sweden, ICT companies like Nokia and Ericsson were growing fast at the end of the millennium. One of the intermediaries through which Estonian expertise came into use in Finland was Elvior, a firm that did a number of software projects for Nokia. Elvior had direct contacts with the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, where the firm had its premises and its employees were ex-workers of the institute.60 – 115 –

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Due to the fact that the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics was actively searching for western partners in the early 1990s, it cannot be argued that business relations between the institute and Finnish companies depended on the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics. In any case, commercial contacts would have been eventually created. Nonetheless, it is obvious that contacts created from the 1960s onward played an important role in the commercial cooperation of the post-Soviet period. Thus, it can be argued that the benefits of the Cold War computing contacts between Estonia and Finland to some extent materialized only during the postSoviet period.

Conclusion The last official meeting of the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics was held in October 1995. By that time, the group was no longer needed because in the changed political climate it was more reasonable to continue the cooperation without an official framework. Interaction between Finnish and Estonian (and other Soviet) experts supports the view that bilateral personal links sometimes played a crucial role in the formation of transnational networks overcoming the bloc division. In addition, one has to be careful not to overemphasize the seclusion of the Soviet research community from the Western world. The political conflict placed restrictions, but information and technology were available for institutes such as the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, which in many ways benefited from the vast Soviet resources. Nonetheless, in some cases, limited possibilities for communication with colleagues became an obstacle for one’s work. In such situations, transnational groups like the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics could become a relevant knowledge intermediary. Even if transnational computing cooperation did not lead to major scientific-technical results, it would be a mistake to belittle its importance. Cold War interaction and exchange of favors may be the key factor in more substantial support, as in the case of supportive technology transfer that, for a short period, eased Estonia’s way into the Western computing system. Interactions of the Cold War era also created a basis for cooperation taking place after Estonia’s newly gained independence, when Estonian scientific and technical expertise benefited Finland and vice versa. Methodologically, oral history has proved to be a useful tool when transnational Cold War contacts and technology transfer are examined. This applies especially to the information related to unofficial decision making and person-to-person interaction. In contrast to official documents, inter– 116 –

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views have revealed the small science and modest transfers of information and technology that occurred in reality. Finally, when considering the gaps in the Cold War history of technology, it is evident that more information is needed about the legal hightech trade between the two blocs. North American, European, Australian, and Japanese companies sold technology to Socialist countries, but hardly enough is known about the scope and importance of these activities. More research is also needed on the role small countries like Finland had in the Cold War conflict. Several examples show that Finland functioned as a transit country in the Cold War’s dubious transfers of technology, but it remains unknown what the country’s role was more precisely. For the moment, it seems that, as in the political arena, Finland was also balancing between the East and the West in the terrain of technology. Sampsa Kaataja (Ph.D.) is a historian of science and technology working at the University of Tampere, Finland. In the Cold War context, his work has dealt with the transnational interaction and cooperation in computer science. Kaataja’s focus has been on the exchange of information, expertise, and technology across the division lines of the Cold War, especially between Estonia and Finland.

Notes 1. K. Macrakis, Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasi’s Spy-Tech World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); G. Trogemann, A. Y. Nitussov, and W. Ernst, eds., Computing in Russia. The history of Computer Devices and Information Technology Revealed (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 2001); J. Impagliazzo and E. Proydakov, eds., Perspectives on Soviet and Russian Computing (Heidelberg: Springer, 2011). Of the few works emphasizing the cooperative elements of Cold War computing, see K. Tatarchenko, “‘Lions—Marchuk’: The Soviet-French Cooperation in Computing,” in Perspectives on Soviet and Russian Computing, ed. Impagliazzo and Proydakov. See also F. Cain, “Computers and the Cold war: United States Restrictions on the Export of Computers to the Soviet Union and China,” Journal of Contemporary History 40, no. 1 (2005): 131–47. 2. See, e.g., Cain, “Computers and the Cold war,” 143–44, 147; P. Hanson, Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western Relations (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1981); Panel on Scientific Communication and National Security, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, Scientific Communication and National Security (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1982); K. Tatarchenko, “Cold War Origins of the International Federation for Information Processing,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 32, no. 2 (2008): 46. 3. Transnational contacts and collaborative networks of the Cold War period have become relevant research topics in recent years not only in the history of technology but also in Cold War studies at large. For example, transnational contacts in Cold War Europe have been one focus area in an extensive European research project entitled “Tensions of Europe” (see http:// www.tensionsofeurope.eu). Also in 2012, Cold War collaborations formed one of the focus areas at the annual conference of the Society for the History of Technology. For the contemporary Cold War research emphasizing transnational contacts, see, e.g., S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy, eds. Reassessing Cold War Europe (New York: Routledge, 2011). – 117 –

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4. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were organized in Finland and Estonia in 2010 and 2011. These meetings resulted in almost eighteen hours of interview material about computing history that, to a large extent, had not been available before. 5. For an introduction to the computing histories of both countries, see E. Tõugu, “Computing and Computer Science in the Soviet Baltic Region,” in History of Nordic Computing 2, ed. J. Impagliazzo, T. Järvi, and P. Paju (New York: Springer, 2009); P. Paju and H. Durnová, “Computing Close to the Iron Curtain: Inter/national Computing Practices in Czechoslovakia and Finland,” Comparative Technology Transfer and Society 7, no. 3 (2009): 303–22; P. Paju, “A Failure Revisited: The First Finnish Computer Construction Project,” in History of Nordic Computing, ed. J. Bubenko Jr., J. Impagliazzo, and A. Solvberg (New York: Springer, 2005). 6. Küberneetika Instituud muutuvas ajas (Tallinn: TTÜ Küberneetika Instituut, 2000), 45; Enn Tõugu, 10 March 2011. 7. The first electronic computer (M-3) was built in Estonia in 1960, but computer building started to intensify in 1976 when a section for hardware development (Küberneetika Instituudi programmeerimisbüroo Arvutustehnika Erikonstrueerimisbüroo / EKTA) was founded at the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics. 8. Tõugu, “Computing and Computer Science in the Soviet Baltic Region,” 30–34; Küberneetika Instituud muutuvas ajas, 14; Interview with Merik Meriste, 18 November 2011; Interview with Enn Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Interview with Ants Wõrk, 19 November 2011. 9. Küberneetika Instituud muutuvas ajas, 21; Tõugu, “Computing and Computer Science in the Soviet Baltic Region,” 36. 10. Meriste, 18 November 2011; Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Wõrk, 19 November 2011; Küberneetika Instituud muutuvas ajas, 40; Tõugu, “Computing and Computer Science in the Soviet Baltic Region,” 34–35; E. Tõugu, “Grigori Mints and Computer Science,” paper presented at the Estonian Theory Days, Kääriku, 30 January to 1 February 2009. http://www .cs.ut.ee/~varmo/tday-kaariku/GMe.pdf. 11. This, of course, did not apply only to computing but to science and technology in general. On the Soviet knowledge and technology acquirement via Finland, see S. AutioSarasmo, “Knowledge through the Iron Curtain. Soviet Scientific-Technical Cooperation with Finland and West Germany,” in Reassessing Cold War Europe, ed. Autio-Sarasmo and Miklóssy, 66–82. 12. Pääkonsulinviraston kirje UM:lle 23.10.1980, TT-yhteistyö 1978–, The Archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (UMA); Autio-Sarasmo, “Knowledge through the Iron Curtain,” 70. 13. Paju and Durnová, “Computing Close to the Iron Curtain,” 313. 14. 46 Z Neuvostoliitto, Tiet.-tekn. yhteistoimintakomitea pöytäkirjat 1968–73, UMA. 15. Minutes of the meeting of the Finnish Science and Technology Committee, 10 April 1970 and 8 May 1970, UMA. See also S. Kaataja, “Approaching the Cold War Technology Transfer via Oral History: A Case of Finnish-Estonian Computing Cooperation,” in Challenging the Shadows of the Cold War: A Special Issue of the LimesPlus Journal, ed. H. H. Dajc (Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences, 2013); Autio-Sarasmo, “Knowledge through the Iron Curtain,” 72. 16. S. Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 157; A. Nitussov and B. Malinovskiy, “Economic Changes in the Sixties and Internationalization of the Soviet Computing,” in Computing in Russia. The History of Computer Devices and Information Technology Revealed, ed. G. Trogemann, A. Nitussov, and W. Ernst (Wiesbaden: Vieweg, 2001), 164–65; Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Meriste, 18 November 2011. 17. Finnish computing pioneer Hans Andersin (1930–2010) was the first professor of information processing at the Helsinki University of Technology. Jussi Tuori (1940–) is, among other things, one of the early developers of computing in the Finnish banking sector. For decades, he was also the leader on the Finnish side in Finnish-Soviet computing cooperation. – 118 –

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Academician Anatolii A. Dorodnitsyn (1910–94) was a long-time director of the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow. He was also one of the founding members of the IFIP. Until 1994, he was the representative of the USSR/Russia in the IFIP and he was also the president of the organization from 1968 to 1971. 18. For decades, the IFIP was the most important international parent organization in computing. It was founded in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO, and one of its original aims was to bring together computing specialists from the East and the West. See Tatarchenko, “Cold War Origins,” and IFIP histories at http://www.ifip.or.at/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=156&Itemid=470. 19. Interview with Jussi Tuori, 1 March 2011. On the beginning of Finnish-Soviet computing collaboration, see also Kaataja, “Approaching the Cold War.” 20. TT-komitean suomalaisen osapuolen kokousten pk:t 24.1.1967–25.5.1970, Pk. 28.8.1967; TT-komitean suom. osapuolen kokousten pk:t 24.1.1967–25.5.1970, Pk. 16.12.1968; and also 46 Z NL luennoitsijavaihto, UMA; Interview with Reino Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010. 21. Tuori, 1 March 2011. 22. Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010; Interview with Hannu Jaakkola, 15 December 2010. 23. Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010; Jaakkola, 15 December 2010. 24. Boris Tamm (1930–2002) was educated among the first generation of Soviet computer scientists. From 1960 onward, Tamm worked at the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics for more than three decades, and, until the end of the Cold War, the institute benefited from his contacts to Soviet computing centers. Tamm was also an active member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and was even its president in the 1980s. Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Tuori, 1 March 2011. 25. Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010; Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Meriste, 18 November 2011; Wõrk, 19 November 2011. 26. As in the Finnish-Soviet cybernetics group, the official language of Finnish-Estonian cooperation was English. Minutes of the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics. 21–22 November 1988, UMA. 27. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Wõrk, 19 November 2011. 28. Tuori, 1 March 2011. 29. List of participants in the meetings of the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics 1988–95, Hannu Jaakkola’s personal archive. 30. Wõrk, 19 November 2011. 31. Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010; Interview with Ulla Pursiheimo, 1 August 2011; Tuori, 1 March 2011. 32. Wõrk, 19 November 2011; Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010. 33. Tuori, 1 March 2011 and 22 March 2012; Interview with Markku Syrjänen, 19 November 2010. Kaataja, “Approaching the Cold War.” 34. Nonetheless, many companies were careful not to be too public about their activities in the Socialist camp because of political and public relations reasons and in order to maintain good relations with the U.S. Commerce Department and Customs Service. R. S. Metcalfe, The New Wizard War. How the Soviets Steal U.S. High Technology—and How We Give It Away (Redmond: Tempus, 1988), 57, 86, 145; Scientific Communication and National Security, 101; Cain, “Computers and the Cold War,” 143; “U.S. policy on the export of computers to communist countries.” National security decision memorandum 22. 14 March 1974, 1. http:// www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdm-nixon/nsdm_247.pdf. 35. Interview with Ahto Kalja, 11 March 2011; Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Wõrk, 19 November 2011. A similar simple method to circumvent the embargo was also used in high-tech trade between East Germany and West Germany. Macrakis, Seduced by Secrets, 127–28. 36. Kalja, 11 March 2011; Tõugu, 10 March 2011. Unfortunately, the exact purchase channels of Lisa II remain unknown. 37. Kalja, 11 March 2011. – 119 –

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38. Metcalfe, The New Wizard War, 143, 150. 39. Pentti Hietala, Hannu Jaakkola, and Vesa Savolainen, Matkakertomus matkasta Tallinnaan 5–9.5.1980; Hannu Jaakkola, Matkakertomus Eestin tiedeakatemian Kybernetiikan instituuttiin 19–23.4.1988. Hannu Jaakkola’s personal archive. 40. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Tõugu, “Computing and Computer Science in the Soviet Baltic Region,” 33. 41. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Tõugu, 10 March 2011. 42. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Kalja, 11 March 2011; Syrjänen, 19 November 2010; Wõrk, 19 November 2011. See also P. Högselius, The Dynamics of Innovation in Eastern Europe: Lesson from Estonia (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005), 104–5. 43. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Kalja, 11 March 2011; Syrjänen, 19 November 2010; Wõrk, 19 November 2011. Högselius, The Dynamics of Innovation, 104–5. 44. Meriste, 18 November 2011; Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Eesti TA ja korgkoolidele Soome Vabariigi firmade ja korgkoolide poolt kingitud arvutustehnika jaotus. Juuni 1992. Hannu Jaakkola’s personal archive. 45. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Kalja, 11 March 2011; VI meeting of the Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics, Minutes of the meeting, UMA. 46. Jaakkola, 15 December 2010; Kurki-Suonio, 22 October 2010; Interview with Timo Järvi, 5 November 2010. 47. Kalja, 11 March 2011; Wõrk, 19 November 2011; Tõugu, 10 March 2011. Today the Viniti Institute is an all-Russian institute for scientific and technical information. http://www2 .viniti.ru/. 48. For example, none of the Finnish experts interviewed for this study felt that Soviet computer science had a crucial role in their personal research, but practically all had active contacts with the United States. 49. It also became customary that new assistants took the elementary course in Russian once they started to work at the department. Pursiheimo, 1 August 2011; Järvi, 5 November 2010. 50. Once the Gorbachev period started, Tõugu’s international visits became more frequent, and he visited colleagues in Glasgow, Scotland, for example, quite regularly. 51. John McCarthy (1927–2011) is known for his work on artificial intelligence and his invention of the Lisp programming language. Donald Knuth (1938–) is a pioneer of the analysis of algorithms. Tõugu, 10 March 2011; Meriste, 18 November 2011. For Enn Tõugu’s CV, please visit http://www.akadeemia.ee/_repository/file/LIIKMESKOND/LIIKMESKOND2013/ Tougu_2013.pdf. 52. After the collapse of the USSR, Tõugu was offered a professorship in the United States, which he turned down due to family reasons. A little later, he was appointed a professor at Kunglika tekniska högskolan (KTH) in Stockholm, where he worked from 1992 to 2000 before returning to Estonia and the Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics. Tõugu, 10 March 2011. 53. Y. Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War. Raising the Iron Curtain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 73. 54. W. G. Vincenti, What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 198. 55. Scientific Communication and National Security, 3, 42, 50, 52, 59. 56. Metcalfe, The New Wizard War, 212. 57. Meriste, 18 November 2011; Jaakkola, 15 December 2010. 58. Kybernetiikan suomalaisen työryhmän kokouspöytäkirja 30.1.1991, UMA. 59. Küberneetika Instituud muutuvas ajas, 14. 60. Wõrk, 19 November 2011; Högselius, The Dynamics of Innovation in Eastern Europe, 117–19.

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Chapter 6

FRENCH-ROMANIAN ACADEMIC EXCHANGES IN THE 1960S Beatrice Scutaru

I

n the context of the East-West rivalry during the Cold War, what type of relationship was able to exist between France and Romania, countries representing opposite camps, partly subjected to the will of their respective superpowers? Despite the interests of the superpowers that guided each camp, individual countries had their own motives for developing cultural, political, or economical relations. The analysis of academic exchanges, as part of larger bilateral cultural relations, offers a perfect example of the complexity of international relations in Europe during the Cold War era. According to French historians François Chaubet and Laurent Martin, the relaxation of the Cold War tensions began with cultural exchanges. Creating cultural relations eased political tensions between countries that continued to belong to opposite camps.1 Cultural diplomacy has become an important part of all countries’ foreign policy, particularly after World War II. It revolves mostly around the ideas of cooperation and confrontation. From the state’s perspective, its real objective is cultural influencing, hidden under the guise of cooperation. Generally, cultural diplomacy has been considered to be a part of the “soft power” concept developed by Joseph Nye. In the case of France, this type of action had existed since the late nineteenth century.2 During the Cold War, however, exporting cultural productions (exhibitions, literature, music, science, etc.) and stimulating academic exchange became “the most powerful tool for the promotion of ideological goals and strategies.”3 Through intergovernmental agreements, the French authorities hoped to influence Romanian society, all the while – 121 –

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protecting their own citizens from Communist influence. Inducing changes in the Romanian regime through cultural diplomacy eventually became France’s ultimate purpose. But how did these cultural exchanges unfold? And for what reasons did the Romanian authorities agree to allow some citizens to benefit from scholarships in France? This chapter takes a special interest in the practical aspects of the way these relations were conducted and the part they played in the strategies of the two countries. It will focus on Romanians who went to France. Exchange was mostly one-way, as few French students were willing to go to Romania during the 1960s, even though the Romanian government offered such chance as part of the cultural agreement. This is no surprise, as the geography of grant giving and grant receiving reflects the global hierarchy of “economic power, socioeconomic dynamism, scientifictechnological capabilities, and cultural influence and hegemony.” Thus, the most influential countries attract the majority of grant applications.4 Those French who did go to Romania were mostly researchers. Some even decided to continue to study topics related to Romania, as was the case with French historian Catherine Durandin.5 During the early 1960s, the world faced some of the worst crises of the Cold War with the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis. While this confrontation took place essentially between the United States and the Soviet Union, European countries understood that, should an armed conflict break out, Europe would face the severest consequences. Both Eastern and Western Europeans resented being treated as pawns by the two superpowers, giving way to détente as a European project. Excess bipolarity began to be challenged. For some leaders, like Charles de Gaulle, this reason was based on the need to elevate France’s international status—for example, by distancing itself from NATO.6 However, the Western bloc was not the only one active. Romania adopted a somewhat independent foreign policy in order to limit its dependence on the Soviet Union.7 In this particular context, relations between France and Romania started to regain impetus. Belonging to rivaling camps and without a leading position, France and Romania nevertheless managed to surmount these obstacles and develop further bilateral cooperation. While traditional Cold War narratives emphasize superpower rivalry, this example shows that foreign relations during the period were much more diverse and that the Iron Curtain was not impassable. Based on the archives of the ministries of foreign affairs in both countries,8 this chapter will consider the general evolution of French-Romanian cultural relations, the different types of scholarships available, the problems encountered during negotiations, and how the relations functioned in practice. – 122 –

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French-Romanian Cultural Diplomacy In 1958, when the Soviet army left Romanian territory, cultural exchanges were at a very low ebb with all Western countries.9 The establishment of Communism after World War II had ended Romania’s previously active relations with Western Europe. It was only after Stalin’s death in 1953, as Romania started to distance itself from the Soviet Union, that relations with the West started to improve again.10 For Romanian diplomats, France enjoyed a privileged position among Western countries, due to the existence of long-term bilateral relations that reached back several centuries. Although France had held a special place in the hearts of Romanians for a long time, Romania was unknown to most Western Europeans. Changing this fact became the primary goal for Bucharest’s cultural diplomacy. Romanian officials believed that a better knowledge of their country, not only about ideology or politics, but of language and culture, could improve its image and change perceptions. Consequently, political and especially economic exchanges would develop more quickly, with French investors setting aside their distrust for Communist Romania. For this purpose, different kinds of events believed to promote the country were organized. Romanian officials even tried to establish and reinforce connections to French organizations and preeminent figures not favorable to Communism. If they showed a positive attitude toward Romania, this would have a stronger impact than the measures of French Communists or leftist sympathizers.11 Therefore, in July 1959, the two countries signed their first agreement on cultural exchange. Following the signing, relations started to develop. During the 1960s, cultural relations between France and Romania went through two stages of evolution. Between 1959 and 1964, the exchanges sought their course, while from 1965 to 1971, cultural relations flourished. Coinciding with the period of ideological liberalization in Romania, these relations represented an opportunity to step beyond the traditional confrontation between the East and the West, allowing emergence of people-to-people ties.12 The most important aspects of bilateral cultural relations were established during this time frame, following this course later on. After the signing of the official agreement, Romanian authorities dispatched the first Romanian foreign language assistant to Paris. During this period, exchanges developed most vigorously in the academic area, but also involved technical, artistic, and media fields.13 The relative success of Franco-Romanian cultural relations and their constant improvement around 1959 and 1960 convinced authorities to sign a new agreement for the next two-year period. This opened the door to cooperative initiatives – 123 –

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of greater importance and led to the signing of several other agreements between French and Romanian institutions. An important example was the reopening of the French library in Bucharest in 1970.14 This gave the French a cultural institution to establish direct contacts with Romanian people. In spite of these positive developments, things were considered complicated: “cultural relations between the two countries contain … more shadows than those with other people’s democracies.”15 As French diplomats noticed, “[t]he mental Iron Curtain is definitely still on.”16 The attractiveness of France, perceived by the Romanians as the country of free opinions and the Declaration of Human Rights, made it dangerous for the Romanian authorities.17 Romania tried to keep its intellectuals and students as unaffected as possible by Western influences. This ideological vigilance of Romanian authorities manifested itself, for example, in their attempts to discourage Romanians from visiting the French Embassy or the French library in Bucharest and in the refusal to issue passports to Romanian scientists who were invited to participate in events in France.18 Romanian authorities apparently wanted to have exchange of academics, but on their own terms, deciding who would be suitable to go abroad. French authorities were aware that mere French presence in Romania would not be enough to change the regime. Nevertheless, they thought that they could, at a minimum, restrict the impact of the official ideology on Romanians. By giving Eastern Europeans access to a different way of living and thinking, de Gaulle aimed at making them question their own reality (political, social, and economic). These exchange programs also supported the creation of “informal empires,” of “networks of social bonds.” The new transnational elites thus tended to be more receptive to foreign agendas, ideas and norms.19 The Romanian government was very cautious regarding cultural exchanges, wishing that “the level of Western influence to which cultural, scientific and artistic elites might be subjected would be carefully measured.”20 This is why bilateral cultural relations, even if moving in a positive direction, failed to reach expected levels.21 While Romania led a somewhat independent foreign policy within the Communist bloc, the state persistently maintained control over its citizens. It is obvious that the evolution in Romanian foreign policy did not lead to domestic liberalization.22

Academic Exchanges and Their Contents In the 1960s, most scholarships, internships, or training programs between France and Romania were carried out through the official exchange agreement. In this particular framework, several types of exchanges were pos– 124 –

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sible, not only short-term study programs, but also grants and specialized scholarships with a longer duration.23 However, exchanges also took place outside the official bilateral settlement. First, there were special agreements between French and Romanian institutions, such as the one between the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Other institutions in different fields, such as nuclear energy, computers, radio, and television, as well as individual universities, developed bilateral relations for exchanging scholars.24 Private or semipublic institutions, such as the Alliance française, also offered scholarships to Romanian students.25 Unlike Germany or the United States, the state was the main actor of these exchanges since in France there were no large private foundations to support scientific and cultural activities.26 Even so, exchanges also took place based on invitations addressed by institutions to individuals in universities or institutes of higher education, writers’ or artists’ unions, and such.27 Most of these grants were short-term, most likely for ideological reasons. Long-term studies in France and prolonged contact with French students and Western culture certainly increased the risk of change in participants’ worldview. Despite the existence of nongovernmental arrangements, the focus here is on the more numerous exchanges taking place within the confines of official agreements. Academics in these exchanges can be divided into several categories: students, graduates, young researchers, experienced researchers, and specialists. Different types of grants were offered based on the status of the scholar in question. For example, the Association for Technical Internships in France (ASTEF) organized internships mostly for experienced researchers and specialists, with financial expenses divided between the two countries. Romania paid for the travel costs between Bucharest and Paris, while France was responsible for the actual scholarship and the costs of internal travel.28 The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in charge of bilateral cultural and scientific exchanges: the candidates’ applications were sent to the relevant ministry (education, tourism, and so on) by the institution they belonged to; the ministry then forwarded the documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The French Embassy in Bucharest then received all the applications brought together.29 However, the grantees selection process was very long and complicated. The first selection was made by Romanian authorities to ensure that candidates met their criteria. Then files of these people were sent to the French Embassy, which examined and forwarded them to the French institutions supposed to receive the grantees. Despite repeated requests to establish a joint selection committee, Romanian authorities resisted the idea, seeing it as a form of interference in the internal affairs of the country.30 Given the refusal of the Romanian – 125 –

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representatives, France decided to use a very effective means of pressure. Aware of the Romanian desire to increase the number of scholarships in the fields of science and technology (which was of the greatest interest for Romanian authorities), France refused the increase negotiated earlier in the year by the joint committee in the cultural agreement.31 The aim was to create pressure on the Romanians and force them to compromise.32 The French strategy proved somewhat successful. In the new procedure, Romanian authorities preselected applications to be sent to the French Embassy, which carried out a preliminary study. After a few weeks, a joint meeting devoted to specific issues raised by certain applications was to take place between French and Romanian representatives.33 The subcommittee included an official from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one from both sending and receiving institutions, and the cultural and commercial counselors of the French Embassy. France wanted to ensure that the selection was not based on political and ideological criteria, while Romanians wanted to maintain their share of control in the bilateral cooperation.34 However, as the French report from 1978 states, “Contrary to the provisions of our agreements and despite our insistence, selections continue to be made by Bucharest, without us being consulted.”35 Romanian authorities were ready to avoid respecting its agreements if it enabled them to control the citizens. Aware that too much pressure on this matter could lead Romanian authorities to cease exchanges altogether, French diplomats were ready for concessions. France’s main purpose was to keep the number of arriving Romanians high. Thus, not giving up the issue completely, French diplomats chose to delay the controversy, knowing they would be able to bring the issue up at a later point. According to the French diplomat Jean-Louis Pons,36 despite the fact that it was very difficult for average Romanians to go abroad, “the increasing number of Romanian grantees sent to France increase[d] the number of [those allowed to travel].”37 However, due to the failure to comply with the deadlines for completing applications or with some grantees not appearing in France, Romanians periodically lost months of scholarships. Because the scholarships were obtained for an academic year, the lost months could not be deferred to the following year. The scholars who arrived in France too late saw their scholarship taken from the following year’s quota. For example, during the academic year 1964–65, fifty-five months of scholarship were lost this way. The next year, 1965–66, another forty-nine months were lost, representing some 25,000 francs.38 Furthermore, a new candidate, based on a last-minute decision of Romanian officials, could not replace the one already accepted. If the student awarded the scholarship could not honor – 126 –

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the agreement, it was considered to be lost for the year.39 This was likely to prevent Romanians from slipping ideologically sound candidates past French authorities. Another subject of disagreement between the two countries was the request made by the French Embassy to verify the French skills of candidates before granting scholarships. The French argued that some scholars did not have the necessary level required to study in France.40 However, Romania strongly opposed any preliminary contact between the scholarship holders and the French Embassy staff.41 In order to put pressure on the Romanian authorities, French authorities decided that candidates who had been in touch with the French Embassy before leaving Romania would receive their grants immediately upon their arrival in Paris, while the others would have to wait about two weeks.42 Indeed, Romanian scholars were sent abroad with a very limited amount of cash. The latter thus risked finding themselves, upon their arrival in France, in a delicate situation and in need of financial support from the Romanian Embassy in Paris.43 The French authorities expected that a large number of complaints would force the Romanian authorities to reconsider their position. Again, this strategy worked, as Romanians complied with some of the French demands. During the 1960s, Romanian students wishing to study in France by their own means followed the same procedure as those in the official exchange program with scholarships. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to approve their application. From 1972, however, they could directly apply to French universities without first contacting French authorities.44 Such students were very few in number, and the archives provide very little and sporadic information on them. Sometimes French schools or institutions proposed to the Romanian authorities trainee positions for Romanian students, such as in 1968, when the National School of Administration offered to accommodate Romanian trainees for a period of one year. The amount of the scholarship would have been from 750 to 1,000 francs monthly, with students paying for their housing and meals.45 It was also possible for French research institutes to request scholarships for Romanian students whom they considered particularly able. For example, the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute of Higher Cinematographic Studies, IHEC) in Paris asked the Romanian government to give a grant to Nicolae Opritescu, an excellent Romanian student they had started working with.46 In 1969, after obtaining a degree at the Institute of Theatre and Cinematography in Romania, Nicolae Opritescu submitted an application to IHEC in Paris. He was one of those few Romanian students who came to study in France through their own means and was therefore compelled to work and study at the same time. Pleased – 127 –

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with his work, the Institute’s director wanted him to receive a scholarship and be able to concentrate only on studying.47 In 1971, Romania offered Opritescu an eight-month grant of 750 francs per month.48 However, it was very difficult for the average Romanian to go abroad, since travelling to Western Europe was the privilege of a small group of citizens. This privilege expanded when the number of Romanians benefiting from French grants increased. The French representatives were nevertheless aware that it was not a desire for liberalization that determined this development, but the inclination of the Romanian authorities to “take full advantage of opportunities for specializing offered by the Capitalist countries,” especially in advanced technologies.49 Indeed, when initiating relations with Western countries, Romanian officials’ aim was to accelerate the country’s industrialization process. The best way to achieve this goal was considered to be gaining access to Western technology. Romanians feared, however, that the French would only try to develop the fields that were of interest to France while ignoring issues Romania held important.50 According to a report by the Romanian Embassy in Paris, the French fields of specialization that presented great interest for Romania were electronic and electrical studies, physical and macromolecular chemistry, theoretical and applied physics, agriculture, theoretical mathematics, and biology. Hence, the Embassy’s objective was enhancing technical and scientific development of exchanges in these fields.51 However, one should not forget language studies. Romanian and French languages are both of Latin origin, making it easier to learn the other. From the Romanian viewpoint, French was an essential skill for studying in France. One can conclude that Romanian authorities encouraged their citizens to study French in order to facilitate their access to French technology. For the French, language was considered an important part of their culture and necessary for ensuring Romanians’ access to French culture. Thus, cultural exchanges were for de Gaulle a way of maintaining, and even reinforcing, the French influence in this part of Europe. Both parties were aware that the other’s interests hardly coincided with their own, but believed that, with proper surveillance, these relations could be beneficial. Cultural agreements thus forced both parties to make concessions. French authorities were willing to concede because foreign scholars in France were not allowed to work on sensitive projects. Furthermore, the French Ministry of Internal Affairs kept an eye on foreign students doing their research in France. For example, Petre Roman, the first Romanian prime minister after the fall of Nicolae Ceaus, escu in December 1989, had spent three years doing his Ph.D. in Toulouse. The school and the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST) monitored him throughout but without finding any incriminatory information.52 – 128 –

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The Permeable Iron Curtain From the signing of the first Franco-Romanian cultural agreement in 1959, exchanges developed, but for the first students, the situation was somewhat complicated.53 The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to intervene in order to convince French institutions to receive Romanian scholars. At times, direct contact with the leaders of the institutions was necessary.54 It seems that French institutions were, at first, reluctant to accept scholars from Communist countries. The Cold War attitudes were reality, and they were still influential even though East-West cooperation had started to develop and bilateral cultural relations flourished starting in the mid-1960s. Table 6.1. The Evolution of Franco-Romanian Cultural, Scientific, and Technical Exchanges Cultural scholarships

Cultural missions

Scientific scholarships

Scientific missions

Internships

Scholarships

1964

65

15

10

5

—

—

1966

102

37

45

33

—

20

1968

107

75

218

80

10

54

1970

153

75

184

126

23

64

1972

191

80

304

175

30

70

1974

217

103

338

225

35

100

Source: MAEF, Europe 1971–76, File No. 3530. Note: Evolution of cultural relations between France and Romania, Bucharest, 17 May 1976, 4.

These figures also include activities that took place outside the official bilateral agreement, such as the Alliance française scholarships or the missions funded by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS): cultural (humanities) and scientific (science, medicine, and technology) scholarships and missions, foreign language assistants in universities, youth training courses, French activity leaders of teaching practice in Romania, and scholarships offered by Romania to young French students.55 The table presents the months of scholarships that were actually used by both the French and the Romanians. It shows there was movement in both directions, even if fewer French citizens went to Romania than Romanians to France. Cultural and scientific “missions” refer to research groups of scholars, scientists who crossed the Iron Curtain and enabled the transfer of knowledge from one country to the other, and even the establishment of transnational networks. Exchanges were constantly on the rise. The evolution is even more impressive if these numbers are compared with those from the late 1950s. In 1959, only three Romanians received scholarships from the French government.56 The scientific missions and scholarships saw the most impressive increase, multiplying by thirty or forty in ten years – 129 –

Beatrice Scutaru

from 1964. This positive evolution in cultural relations between France and Romania was sustained by the improvement in political relations: only after Romanian Prime Minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer’s visit to France in 1964 were negotiations for a cultural agreement between the two countries concluded. The signing took place in Paris on 11 January 1965. This agreement included the establishment of a Cultural, Scientific and Technical Exchange Program that was to be renewed every two years, making it more permanent by nature. The program was supposed to be built on the principle of reciprocity.57 Following Charles de Gaulle’s official visit to Romania in May 1968, the progress was most significant, an indication that French authorities yielded to Romanian demands for more scientific exchanges. During their internships abroad, the beneficiaries had to write an activity report outlining their stay. These reports were sent to the Romanian authorities. All reports follow the same template. These documents provide valuable information on various fields of specialization, institutions, the personal contacts scholars established, the practical use of the data collected abroad, and even on the way they spent their free time. Before leaving Romania, each candidate proposed a research topic and work program.58 Once the application was accepted, the grantee could request an exit visa. Upon their arrival in France, scholars made contact with the host institution and met with the supervisor in charge. Those doing their internship in Paris had to go to the Romanian Embassy first and then to the host institution. After getting settled in their new home, scholars decided on their final work program in agreement with the scientist in charge.59 Most scholarship recipients were usually free to establish their own program according to the goals they were pursuing. However, on some occasions, and especially for short-term stays, their free time was organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs: visits to museums and institutes in Paris and surrounding areas.60 With respect to the internships organized by ASTEF, participants had a very well-prepared program for both their work and their free time. Internships in certain specializations began with a period during which the beneficiaries had to take French classes in order to ensure that their level suited the demands of the program, especially in technical fields.61 During their stay in France, scholars became acquainted with French technology or research, took part in conferences and symposia, did research work in libraries and labs, and published papers in French and Romanian specialized journals. For example, chemistry researcher Agata A. did her research at the École Supérieure de Physique et Chimie (ESPCI) in Paris but also had the opportunity to visit, during her stay in France, the Centre de recherché macromoléculaire in Strasbourg, where she was able – 130 –

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to become acquainted with “some very interesting discoveries” in her area of expertise.62 Along with conferences and symposia in France, some Romanian researchers, like Florin S., were able to disseminate their research results abroad (London, Bonn, Berlin, Zürich, etc.). This also allowed them to come into contact with some very well-known academics and consequently the newest trends in research.63 The newest trends, but this time in teaching, were the reason eleven Romanian French-language teachers carried out a short-term internship in France (November–December 1966). They were introduced to the latest methods of teaching foreign languages and making use of audio-visual aids. According to the grantees, this was “a great knowledge exchange,” allowing them to discuss new teaching methods with other French-language teachers from France or abroad. They also had the opportunity to visit some high school classes participating in an international language-teaching pilot program and observe the practical use of these teaching methods and material (books, audiovisual equipment, videos, etc.).64 Upon their return to Romania, they served as intermediaries, allowing their colleagues as well as their students to gain access to new techniques and information. This is precisely what Alexandra E. did when she decided to produce a textbook for Romanian stylistics students using the knowledge and teaching methodology acquired while attending lectures and tutorial classes in France.65 As the historian György Péteri noted, fellowships and grants “secure … access to the appropriation of knowledge, new technologies, and new ideas not readily available where the need seems to be the greatest.” These exchanges allowed the dissemination of knowledge and best practices across borders, across the Iron Curtain, connecting researchers and knowledge users who might not otherwise have an opportunity to interact.66 In their reports, the trainees regularly mentioned the discussions they had with French citizens, most with poor knowledge about Romania, on life and research in their country of origin. Several grantees emphasized the absence of information on Romania, both on general and on technical aspects. They often made suggestions on ways to develop propaganda, to promote Romania’s technical and scientific achievements.67 These interactions facilitated the flow of information, increasing the knowledge of the other country. The French would ask them about Romania’s economy and its internal or foreign policies. Most scholars attested to not having encountered hostility from the people they came into contact with. Some even found that the improvement of official relations between the two countries and the increasing amount of media coverage for Romania had enhanced French citizens’ awareness. Nevertheless, the lack of freedom of Romanian citizens was another topic addressed by French and Romanians. Reports show that Romanian grantees praised the achievements of Com– 131 –

Beatrice Scutaru

munist Romania as a way to counter negative information.68 No records could be found of Romanian citizens talking about the difficulties encountered in their home country, as this would certainly create problems with the authorities. However, one can ask if Romanian citizens might have used these reports and French citizens’ criticism as a means to present their own opinion concerning Romania’s domestic policy, while still showing their loyalty to the regime. The Romanian Embassy was responsible for keeping close contact with the grantees in France to ensure that they respected the program guidelines. The embassy maintained continuous contact with most of them, both by correspondence and by visits of some diplomats to meet students in Grenoble, Strasbourg, and Lyon. Students in Paris were, due to their geographical location, contacted more often by the embassy and were sometimes supposed to participate in monthly information sessions.69 This is why the embassy was the first to draw attention to the financial problems some of the grantees were facing. Paul M. and Vasile C. “are living in one of the cheapest hotels in Paris.” Even so, rent for their poor quality rooms (“small [1.5 x 2.5 m], located at the end of the hall, right next to the common toilets; shabby rooms … with no heating”) represented a third of their income (140 out of 480 francs per month). Due to this, the grantees had often been bedridden with the flu. They had to skip breakfast for financial reasons and had almost every lunch and dinner at a student restaurant, even though Vasile C. stated that “two hours after eating, I am already starving!” This is why Vasile and Paul lost three and five kilos respectively in only a month and a half. Furthermore, they couldn’t even afford to buy books and scientific magazines, or even use public transportation. The ambassador used this dramatic example to raise awareness of the hard living and studying conditions imposed upon scholars who were supposed to provide Romania access to Western knowledge. He even urged Bucharest to provide additional funding and decent living conditions to Romanian grantees staying in France and especially in Paris.70 As expected, the scholars’ actions were closely monitored by the embassy. They were even quickly disciplined if their extracurricular activities took up too much of their time. Although most of the scholars behaved accordingly to the regime’s expectations, in some occasions the Romanian Embassy paid special attention to certain students. For example, the student Alexandru A. was said to maintain very irregular contact with the embassy, spending most of his time in theatres or visiting museums and exhibitions. He obviously wanted to take advantage of this opportunity and visit Western Europe: besides France, he travelled to Germany and Italy. He even suggested to Romanian Embassy officials that his mother could come to see him in Paris. The embassy staff firmly explained to him – 132 –

French-Romanian Academic Exchanges

that this was not the reason for his being in France and encouraged him to behave.71

Conclusion Despite their control, the Romanian authorities could not select which parts of French culture their citizens came into contact with. The French succeeded in the objective of using cultural agreements to get citizens of Communist countries to make contacts with the West, and with French culture in particular. To this direction, ASTEF even organized encounters between scholars and French families in order to provide the visitors with an opportunity to discover the family life of French engineers. Even when such encounters were not previously determined, closer relations could be established between French and Romanian citizens. Some French continued to follow Romanian developments in the media, others went to Romania as tourists, and some even created international research networks. Although the impact of the exchanges has not been the focus of this chapter, it is likely that the French-Romanian contacts were not without consequences. Officially, both countries tried to increase knowledge about each other. This certainly took place within the framework of academic exchanges as well. Besides the information Romanians gathered and the research they conducted in France, they also spent time in the West, outside their own country, gaining experiences of the Western way of life, even if for a short time period. Academic exchanges were highly desired by France since they provided real contacts between the two societies, with all the elements this entailed. While Romanians sought the scientific and technical contacts and cooperation that was possible through academic exchanges, they also dreaded them for this same reason. The contacts between individuals made the Iron Curtain permeable, providing an alternative to the anti-Western Communist propaganda and facilitating interaction with another society. Nevertheless, the Cold War was a reality that cannot be ignored when analyzing East-West bilateral relations in the 1960s. The world remained divided into two blocs, and confrontation and conflict were still its main organizing features. This explains the way cultural relations between France and Romania evolved during this period. Besides each county’s interests, the ideological aspect was still very much present and played an important role. Yet, the two parties managed to influence one another throughout the 1960s and the early 1970s, trying to find a balance between giving and taking while keeping in mind that the other party’s goal was never what it may have seemed at first glance. – 133 –

Beatrice Scutaru

Beatrice Scutaru is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies of the University of Padua, Italy. She specializes in transnational interpersonal relations during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with an emphasis on exchanges and interactions between French and Romanian citizens. In September 2013, she received her Ph.D., with first class honors, from the University of Angers (France) and Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania). Her thesis, Relations between French and Romanian Societies from the 1960s to 1995: An Asset Linking Romania to Europe? argues that enduring relationships between French and Romanian peoples played a key role in facilitating Romania’s integration into the European community.

Notes 1. F. Chaubet and L. Martin, Histoire des relations culturelles dans le monde contemporain (Paris: Armand Colin, 2011), 98–100. 2. T. Gomart, “La diplomatie culturelle française à l’égard de l’URSS: objectifs, moyens et obstacles (1956–1966),” in Culture et Guerre froide, ed. J.-F. Sirinelli and G.-H. Soutou (Paris: Presses de l’Université de la Sorbonne, 2008), 173; J. S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1991). 3. J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht and M. C. Donfried, eds. Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 13–15; N. J. Cull, “Reading, Viewing, and Tuning in to the Cold War,” and J. M. Hanhimäki, “Détente in Europe, 1962–1975,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 2, Crises and Détente, ed. M. P. Leffler and O. A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 439. 4. G. Péteri, “Fellowships and Grants,” in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History from the Mid-19th Century to the Present Day, ed. A. Iriye and P.-Y. Saunier (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 387. 5. Catherine Durandin is a well-known French historian who wrote many studies on Romanian history. 6. Hanhimäki, “Détente in Europe, 1962–1975,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Leffler and Westad, 198, 199. On Charles de Gaulle’s foreign policy, see M. Vaïsse, La Grandeur. Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle (Paris: Fayard, 1998); M. Vaïsse, La puissance ou l’influence? La France dans le monde depuis 1958 (Paris: Fayard, 2009); P. G. Cerny, Une politique de grandeur (Paris: Flammarion, 1986). 7. A. Cioroianu, Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc (Bucures, ti: Curtea Veche, 2005), 519; R. Ivan, “Între internat,ionalismul proletar s, i nat,ional-comunismul autarhic. Politica externa sub regimul communist,” in “Transformarea socialista.” Politici ale regimului comunist intre idéologie si administratie, ed. R. Ivan (Ias, i: Polirom, 2009), 108–28; On Romania’s foreign Policy, see R. Ivan, La politique étrangère roumaine (1990–2006) (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2009); C. Moraru, Politica externa a Romaniei 1958–1964 (Bucures, ti: Editura Enciclopedica, 2008). 8. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAEF) in Paris, the Diplomatic Archival Centre from Nantes (CADN), and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAER) in Bucharest. 9. “Dispatch No. 154/ACT by Jean Deciry to Christian Pineau,” Bucarest, 5 March 1958, 4, Bucarest-Ambassade fonds, box 343, and Aide-memoire for the first discussion with Chivu Stoica, the Council’s president, Bucharest, 9 May 1958, 5, box 485, CADN. – 134 –

French-Romanian Academic Exchanges

10. In view of improving relations between Romania and the Western countries, in December 1960, a cultural agreement was signed with the United States, providing for the exchanges of experts, artists and art groups, books, films, and exhibitions. B. Barbu, Vin americanii! Prezent, a simbolica a Statelor Unite în Romania Razboiului rece (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2006), 233. 11. “Report by Traian Moraru on the activity of the legation in the cultural field during the last months,” Paris, 27 February 1960, 12, file 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER. 12. The “Third Basket” of the Helsinki Final Act promoted the development of contacts between the East and the West concerning people, information, education, or culture. N. J. Cull, “Reading, Viewing and Tuning into the Cold War,” 456. 13. “Dispatch No. 10.883 of the RPR legation in France for the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Paris, 9 December 1959, 6, file 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER. 14. “Note: Evolution of cultural relations between France and Romania,” Bucharest, 17 May 1976, 4, box 3530, Europe 1971–76 fonds, MAEF. 15. “Note: Cultural relations between France and Romania,” 15 April 1966, 5, file 476, Bucharest Embassy fonds, CADN. 16. “Dispatch No. 42/EU by Jean-Louis Pons for Maurice Couve de Murville: Romania en 1964,” Bucharest, 21 January 1965, 50, box 294, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 17. “Note: Cultural relations with Romania,” July 1964, 4, box 490, Bucarest-Ambassade fonds, CADN. 18. Ibid. 19. Péteri, “Fellowships and Grants,” in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, ed. Iriye and Saunier, 387. 20. “Dispatch No. 318/RC from Jean-Louis Pons to Maurice Couve de Murville: The French-Romanian Mixed Commission’s reunion,” Bucharest, 5 October 1967, 48, box 194, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 21. Ibid. 22. “Dispatch No. 200/DG from Pierre Pelen to Maurice Schumann: Cultural relations between France and Romania (April 1970),” Bucharest, 4 May 1970, 7, box 196, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 23. “Report on the cultural action of France in Romania,” June 1972, 20, file 490, Bucharest Embassy fonds, CADN. 24. The Secretariat for Youth and Sport of the Socialist Republic of Romania; the Atomic Energy Commission and the Romanian Committee for Nuclear Energy, Gas and Electricity from France and the Romanian Ministries of Electricity and Petrol; the Commission for Informatics Development and the Romanian Government Commission for Computing Equipment and Automation of Information Processing; the ORTF and Radio TV-Romanian; twinned universities. 25. “Dispatch No. 200/DG from Pierre Pelen to Maurice Schumann: Cultural relations between France and Romania (April 1970),” Bucharest, 4 May 1970, 7, file 196, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 26. M.-C. Kessler, La politique étrangère de la France. Acteurs et processus (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1999). Kessler analyzes the role of the state in France’s cultural policy on pages 372–83. 27. “Dispatch No. 200/DG from Pierre Pelen to Maurice Schumann: Cultural relations between France and Romania (April 1970),” Bucharest, 4 May 1970, 7, file 196, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 28. “A cultural, scientific, and technical exchange program between the French republic government and the Socialist Republic of Romania’s government for 1968 and 1969,” Paris, 12 April 1968, 18, file 194, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 29. “Dispatch No. 823 from the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers to the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” Bucharest, 10 May 1966, 7, file 217/1966/B, France fonds, MAER; – 135 –

Beatrice Scutaru

“Dispatch No. 10/00218 from the Directorate of Cultural Relations to the Romanian Embassy in Paris,” Bucharest, 24 February 1966, 2, file 217/1966/B, France fonds, MAER. 30. “Dispatch No. 593 from Peter Bouffanais to Maurice Couve de Murville: Academic Scholarships,” Bucharest, 21 August 1963, 2, file 368, Bucharest–Embassy fonds, CADN. 31. “State of scholarships, training courses, and missions completed in France during 1965,” Paris, 22 January 1966, 17, File 217/1966/B, France fonds, MAER. 32. “Dispatch No. 1106 from the RSR Embassy in France for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Direction III relations,” Paris, 3 April 1967, 7, file 217/1967/A, B, C, D, E, H, N, and “Activity report of the cultural service of the RSR Embassy–Paris for 1967,” Paris, December 1967, 25, file 217/1967/general, France fonds, MAER. 33. “Telegram No. 30–34,” Bucharest, 8 January 1966, 3, File 193, Europe 1961–70, MAEF. 34. “Note: Franco-Romanian cultural relations,” 15 April 1966, 5, file 476, Bucharest Embassy fonds, CADN; Telegram No. 1136, Bucharest, 27 September 1967, 4, file 194, Europe 1961–70, MAEF. 35. “Franco-Romanian cultural relations,” Paris, 1 June 1976, 8, file 3530, Europe funds 1971–76, MAEF. 36. Jean-Louis Pons was the French ambassador in Bucharest. 37. “Dispatch No. 42 from Jean-Louis Pons to Maurice Couve de Murville: Romania in 1964,” Bucharest, 21 January 1965, 50, file 294, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 38. “Situation of scholarships, internships, and missions in France during 1965,” Paris, 22 January 1966, 17, file 217/1966/B, France fonds, MAER. 39. “Dispatch No. 10/12.569 of the Direction of Cultural Relations to the Directorate General of Statistics,” Bucharest, December 1969, 1, file 217/1969/B vol. 1, France fonds, MAER. 40. “Telegram No. 30–34,” Bucharest, 8 January 1966, 3, file 193, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 41. “Note: Franco-Romanian cultural relations,” 15 April 1966, 5, file 476, Bucharest Embassy fonds, CADN. 42. “Telegram No. 142/44,” Bucharest, 13 April 1966, 2, box 193, Europe 1961–70 fonds, MAEF. 43. “Activity report,” 9 March 1966, 2, file 217/1966/B vol. 1, France fonds, MAER. 44. “Dispatch No. 8102 from the RSR Embassy in France for MAE,” Paris, 24 July 1968, 2, file 217/1969/B bis, France fonds, MAER. 45. “Note of the proposals No. 03/03626: Sending certain diplomats from MFA for advanced training courses at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in France,” 28 December 1968, 2, file 217/1969/B bis, France fonds, MAER. 46. “Dispatch No. 51 from the French Embassy in Romania to the RSR Embassy in France,” Bucharest, 19 February 1970, 1, file 217/1971/B bis, France fonds, MAER. 47. “Dispatch No. 2271 from the State Committee for Culture and Art for MAE,” Bucharest, 9 April 1970, 1, file 217/1971/B bis, France fonds, MAER. 48. “Dispatch No. 34873 from the State Committee for Culture and Art for MAE,” Bucharest, 8 October 1970, 2, file 217/1971/B bis, France fonds, MAER. 49. “Dispatch No. 42 from Jean-Louis Pons to Maurice Couve de Murville: Romania in 1964,” Bucharest, 21 January 1965, 50, file 294, Europe fonds 1961–70, MAEF. 50. “Activity report of the Cultural Service for the second semester of 1960,” Paris, 3 January 1961, 25, file 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER. 51. “Report by the Romanian Embassy in Paris: The state of scholarships, internships, and missions in France during 1965,” Paris, 28 January 1966, 13, file 217/1966/B, France fonds, MAER. 52. La Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST) is the former French police service for general information. (A. Chemin, “Roumanie: Fausses rumeurs,” Le Monde, 16 February 1990; A. Chemin, “Sur les traces de Petre Roman à Toulouse. Celui qui devait devenir le – 136 –

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premier ministre de la Roumanie a laissé dans la ‘ville rose’ où il a passé plusieurs années, le souvenir d’un marxiste antistalinien,” Le Monde, 16 February 1990.) 53. “Report by Traian Moraru on the activity of the legation in the cultural sector in recent months,” Paris, 27 February 1960, 12, 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER. 54. “Activity report of the Cultural Service for the second half of 1960,” Paris, 3 January 1961, 25, 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER. 55. “Note: Evolution of cultural relations between France and Romania,” Bucharest, 17 May 1976, 4, file 3530, Europe 1971–76, MAEF. 56. “Report by Traian Moraru on the activity of the legation in the cultural sector in recent months,” Paris, 27 February 1960, 12, file 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER. 57. “Report on the cultural action of France in Romania, June 1972,” 20, file 490, Bucharest Embassy fonds, CADN. 58. Each application for a scholarship had to include a curriculum vitae and a work program draft, both written in French. The CV had to include the following data: full name, place and date of birth, job, academic degree and title, scientific activity (published research), and foreign language skills. The draft program in turn had to indicate the duration of stay in France, project title, field of specialisation, scientist in charge, and host institution(s) and/or laboratory(ies) (“Dispatch No. 10/00886 from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Vice President of the National Construction, Architecture and Systematization Committee,” Bucarest, 30 July 1965, 1–2, file 217/1966/B VI, France fonds, MAER). 59. “Activity report,” 11 January 1963, 1, file 217/1963/A, B, C, France fonds, MAER. 60. This analysis is based on the reports written by Romanians who studied in France, from MAEF, France fonds. 61. “Activity report,” 1967, 3–4, file 217/1967/B III, France fonds, MAER. 62. “Activity report,” 11 January 1963, 1, file 219/1963/A,B,C, France fonds, MAER. 63. “Activity report,” 23 October 1967, 3–4, file 217/1967/B IX, France fonds, MAER. 64. “Activity report,” Bucharest, 1967, 2–3, file 217/1967/B IV, France fonds, MAER. 65. “Activity report,” 19 September 1967, 3, file 217/1967/B IV, France fonds, MAER. 66. Péteri, “Fellowships and grants,” in The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, ed. Iriye and Saunier, 387. 67. “Activity report, 1967,” 3–4, file 217/1967/B III, France fonds, MAER. 68. This analysis is based on reports written by Romanians who studied in France, from MAEF, France fonds. 69. “Information No. 1065 regarding the closing of the academic year 1970–71 by Romanian students in France,” Paris, 23 July 1971, 3, file 217/1971/B bis, France fonds, MAER. 70. “Report, Paris, 1966, 1–5,” file 217/1966/B vol. 3, France fonds, MAER. 71. “Traian Moraru’s report concerning certain actual problems of work in the cultural field,” Paris, 24 March 1960, 16, file 217/1960/general, France fonds, MAER.

– 137 –

Chapter 7

HUNGARY OPENS TOWARD THE WEST Political Preconditions for Finnish-Hungarian Cooperation in Research and Development in the 1960s and 1970s Anssi Halmesvirta

Introduction

T

his chapter focuses on the question of how it was possible for two countries on the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, Socialist Hungary and Capitalist Finland, to plan and launch rather intensive cooperation in research and development (R&D) from the early 1960s onward. The cooperation became so intensive that, in 1976, the Academy of Finland (AF) and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) drew up an agreement of cooperation in many fields of science and technology and, irrespective of ideological juxtaposition and suspicion, began an exceptional project to compare their science policies. The agreement testified to the flexibility afforded by the foreign policy of “good neighborliness and peaceful coexistence” even though Hungary and Finland are geographically relatively far apart. The agreement with Finland certainly was not as important to Hungary as those, for instance, with West Germany (1967) and the United States (1977), but its value rested in research within such fields of science that were destined to improve not only technical performance and quality of production, but also social efficiency.1 Furthermore, the so-called kinship cooperation of the interwar and war years for which there was an agreement of culturalscientific cooperation (1937) augmented the reestablishment of contacts between science authorities, even if the dominant ideological imports were now quite different: Socialist in Hungary and Progressive in Finland.2 – 138 –

Hungary Opens toward the West

Preparing the Ground It was remarkable and surprising for the Finns that it was János Kádár’s close ally, hard-line Communist Ferenc Münnich,3 who, from Moscow, monitored the reestablishment of the Finnish-Hungarian Society (FHS) in Helsinki already in 1950. In the process, the formerly right-wing and antiRussian kinship4 society was transformed into a medium for sympathetic (rokonszenvezo˝ in Münnich’s Hungarian wording) progressive and leftist Finnish politicians, scientists, and scholars to communicate with Hungarian colleagues both officially and semiofficially; the idea of Hungarian-Finnish kinship, jettisoned in 1945, was revived on a rhetorical level to serve rapprochement between them.5 The president of Finland (1946–56), J. K. Paasikivi, was at the time labeled as a dangerous reactionary by the Hungarians, while his disciple in foreign policy, Urho Kekkonen, a Hungarophile, rising Agrarian politician, and future president, was spotted as the man of the future in the Finnish-Hungarian rapprochement. As Finland had established friendly relations with the Soviet Union under the aegis of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance in 1948, Finland was for the Hungarians almost “rosy red” (rószaszinu ˝)—Sovietoriented, not an imperialist but a democratic Capitalist country that could become an easy partner and relatively fertile ground for Socialist cooperation and science propaganda. In view of high politics, it was realized that the two countries with different political systems could promote peace and stability in Europe and, as a result, benefit politically and economically from it.6 The old connections between scholars in the fields of ethnography, philology, and literary studies were also soon reestablished, but what seemed to be wanting were contacts between junior, progressive-minded researchers who could initiate cooperation in up-to-date natural, technical, and social sciences. For instance, medicine and related sciences became early key areas for researcher exchange and transfer of know-how as it was soon discovered in comparative studies that Finns and Hungarians actually suffered from similar kinds of “national diseases,” namely cardiovascular diseases, alcoholism, and suicidal behavior.7 This progressive attitude among the experts, which emphasized the significance of holistic social policy and public health, was accepted and enhanced at the highest political level, and after Kekkonen and Kádár had taken power in 1956 in their countries, the prospects for expanding R&D cooperation improved remarkably. One episode from the time of the 1956 Hungarian revolution demonstrates Kekkonen’s sympathetic attitude toward Hungary quite neatly. He was so shocked by the Soviet invasion that he contacted the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki, proposing himself as a mediator in the crisis and even offer– 139 –

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ing to travel to Budapest to prevent the bloodshed. However, Khrushchev would not listen to his plea, and the crusade misfired, leaving Kekkonen suspicious about Soviet friendship. Hungary became a warning example of challenging the Soviet power. In the United Nations, Finland did not directly condemn the Soviet intervention but exhorted Hungarians and Soviets to agree on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary in a way that would “respect the age-old traditions of freedom of Hungary.”8 After Kádár stabilized the Hungarian system with a strong hand, the relations between Finland and Hungary improved at the end of the 1950s, so much so that the ambassador of Finland in Budapest called them “miraculously good and unproblematic” despite the Cold War propaganda warfare between Eastern and Western blocs. After lengthy negotiations, a bilateral agreement of cultural and scientific exchange was signed in 1959—reviving the ideologically opposite 1937 agreement—and ambassadors were accredited in Helsinki and Budapest in 1960. Exchange of delegations of politicians in charge of science policy and leading scientists and scholars began to be conducted on a regular basis.9 Mutual understanding of opportunities for wider cooperation deepened in 1963. Kekkonen made an official state visit to Yugoslavia and stopped unofficially in Hungary on his way home in mid-May. This was the first post-1956 presidential visit to Socialist Hungary from the West, and Tito prepared Kekkonen by saying “Kádár is a very good and a wise man.”10 In Hungary, the visit assumed certain importance because Kádár had found Kekkonen’s arguments concerning international politics and the position of smaller countries in Europe very congruent with his own: both Hungary and Finland were seeking stability and peace in Europe as well as good relations with each other. It was foreseeable that new, more ambitious goals for R&D cooperation could be outlined.11 Kekkonen and Kádár met in the Hungarian university town of Debrecen, and, although their discussions were not overtly political, the meeting clearly implied “better times and relations” for both countries. Hungarian newspapers interpreted Kekkonen’s visit to be a further recognition of Hungary as a welcome member of the international community.12 In December 1963, the official Socialist paper Népszabadság labeled Kekkonen’s policy as “positive neutrality,” meaning that Finland maintained good relations with every country, be it Socialist, Capitalist, or neutral. Most importantly, Finland was not a member of any military alliance and advanced the idea of nuclear-free zones, a policy line Hungary could accept. At the time, both Kekkonen and Kádár had consolidated their positions as unchallenged leaders of their countries and had also gained more room to maneuver in international politics within their blocs. – 140 –

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From the late 1960s onward, the preparations for the European Security Conference, designed to bring peace and stability to Europe, also demonstrate how Finnish and Hungarian foreign policy makers found common ground. The Hungarians were so enthusiastic about the conference that Finnish Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto had to pacify them during his visit in October 1968.13 Just before Kekkonen’s first official state visit to Hungary in 1969, one Hungarian foreign policy expert wrote that Finland’s aim in speeding up the security conference process was to gain worldwide recognition for its neutrality policy and show that it was not as dependent on the Soviet Union as Western observers implied. This turn was welcomed by the Hungarian foreign ministry because the original idea for the conference had come from the Soviet Union and it would impinge on the unity of NATO and the West in general. However, during his meeting with Kekkonen, Kádár did not even mention the conference, but instead focused his attention on Hungary’s domestic situation, calling the nation “homogenous,” which was to say that all social classes were working together to build Socialism.14 For his part, Kekkonen expressed his compliments on the achievements of Hungarian Socialism, stating that if Hungary only had two hundred such farms as the Bábolna model farm, it could have the most developed agriculture in the world.15 In the shadows, delegations representing science and technology discussed how cooperation in their fields could be intensified by raising it to a higher level of official exchange agreement between the academies. Without going into details, it can be said that the signing of the Helsinki Act in 1975 was the climax in Kekkonen’s career, and, for Kádár, it was a confirmation that the Soviet Union trusted both him and Kekkonen to conduct their policies jointly and more independently. For Kekkonen, international recognition and neutrality were paramount; for Kádár, appeasement and economic cooperation with the West were crucial because they could help him to consolidate his domestic sway. Both of them were pragmatic in their stance toward the Soviet Union and had no illusions about it. A harmless and useful way to live with it was to cooperate—with its silent blessing—in fields of science by exchanging know-how in such a way that would help them to develop their countries, Hungary toward modernization and Finland toward a Nordic welfare state. This dualism of mutual interests paved the way for the 1976 agreement between the national academies.

Cooperation in Practice How Hungarian-Finnish pragmatism facilitated the development of R&D cooperation in practice can be illustrated by looking at a few examples that – 141 –

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stand out from the flow of R&D exchanges. The first examples are rather general in nature, and the other two are more specific. Until the end of World War II, it had been representatives of the national or Finno-Ugric studies in Finland who had cherished scientific or scholarly relations with Hungary. When these Finns were largely discredited and regarded by the Hungarians as “academic scholastics” (meaning ideologically reactionary enemies), Finnish leftists and centrists (Agrarians, Progressives, and Liberals), who were generally also more favorable toward good relations with the Soviet Union, became favored instead.16 Hungarian propaganda work in Finland was directed against the influence of American cultural infiltration and geared to promote politics of peace and security with the Soviet Union in the Nordic sphere in general. This seemed to succeed since Kekkonen expressed his recognition of the Hungarians’ proposals for friendly cooperation, now praised as the classic example of peaceful coexistence of a Capitalist and a Socialist country.17 After the renewal of the agreement of cultural exchange between Hungary and Finland (1959), the concrete cooperation widened and deepened. The intergovernmental mixed committee and subcommittees resumed their work in small but intensive projects and organized exchanges of cultural and scientific delegations, directed the organization of seminars, conferences, and, most notably, developed a new venue, the Science Days, on a bilateral and quota basis. Hungarian science authorities were enthusiastic about how easily the younger, progressive section of the Finnish scientific community accepted their request so that they could, as one of them put it, “with risk, courageously and flexibly” reach advantageous agreements without roundabout tactics. Kekkonen’s visit in 1963 had boosted continuous exchange of ideas and plans on the highest level, between Kekkonen’s trusted man in Hungarian affairs, Kustaa Vilkuna, and his Hungarian colleague, Gyula Ortutay,18 in particular. They featured prominently in the R&D planning and the occasions of Vilkuna’s decoration in Hungary were considered good opportunities for propaganda work by Hungarian authorities. Furthermore, they together managed that the Helsinki International Fair (1964) offered a venue to show the achievements of Socialism in Hungary and that Kossuth Lajos Tudomány Egyetem (University of Debrecen) received fifty to sixty Finnish students yearly to study the Hungarian language.19 New, more aggressive planning of scientific cooperation with Finland was evidently due to Kádár’s personal intervention: after Kekkonen’s visit in 1963, it was reported from Hungary that he had personally revised the rules of science policy. Instead of prevalent party allegiance and workingclass origin as preconditions for researcher recruitment, new essential features were to be “expertise, skill and competence.” This new emphasis – 142 –

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was meant to clear obstacles to more extensive international cooperation. In this connection, Kádár had appreciated the Finnish realism in foreign policy, especially toward the Soviets, and more to the point, in showing “correctness” in the United Nations. From this perspective, the goals of Hungary and Finland appeared strikingly similar: Kádár and Kekkonen had agreed that cooperation in R&D also improved conditions for promoting peace and security, so badly threatened by the “imperialist forces.”20 It was in 1963–64 that Finland was spotted by the Hungarian foreign ministry as a particularly inviting target in the West, a bridgehead for constructive rapprochement to be achieved in close contact with the Soviet representatives stationed in Finland. A suitable forum for a Hungarian propaganda offensive was provided by the first postwar academic Finno-Ugric Congress in Helsinki in 1965. In keeping with Kádár’s new policy line, the number of Hungarian participants from the younger generation was increased, and, out of the total number of 150 lecturers, fifty-five were Hungarian. No wonder that Hungarian authorities entered the Congress in their records as a propaganda victory. The Finns had again shown tact by electing President Kekkonen the Honorary President of the Congress as, for Hungarians, he personified the guarantee of trust toward the Soviets. Kekkonen personally ensured that no provocation would be tried against the Socialist camp by the emigrant and dissident Hungarians or critical speakers from the West. However, in spite of all precautions, one Professor Robert Austerlitz21 from Columbia University spoke disturbingly about the decrease of population and increase of unemployment in Hungary. The mayor of Helsinki, Mr. Lauri Aho, also spoiled the otherwise friendly atmosphere by declaring that Helsinki University cultivated free and unbiased science, insinuating that in Socialist countries this may not have been the case. And yet, the Hungarian report from the Congress deemed it fortunate that these incidents were isolated, individual aberrations, not really effective ideological attacks. Prime Minister Johannes Virolainen and Ortutay had won the day with the “correct” political interpretation of the import of the congress: Finno-Ugric studies helped the small Finno-Ugric nations regain their common ancestry and history in a new, modern context. What was especially proper was that they rebuffed all illusory, nationalistically romantic ideas of political (re)union between Finno-Ugric nations that had been floated especially during World War II. Such views would have insulted the Soviets and meant a diplomatic crisis, since many of the Ugric tribes lived within the Soviet Union. The Hungarians were also satisfied with the fact that such modernist Finnish writers as Paavo Haavikko,22 whom they called “Nazis,” had been excluded from the Congress. In this way, Finnish science had become “positively neutral” for Hungarians in that it – 143 –

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was sufficiently anti-imperialist and could be set in the frame of the policy of peaceful coexistence and internationalism in Europe. In all, the reputation of Hungarian science was improved on the territory of a potential ideological enemy.23 After the elections in 1966, the so-called People’s Front, a leftist-progressive government, took office in Finland. It soon introduced, with strong pressure from Kekkonen, a full-scale democratization of higher education and researcher training as well as a comprehensive reform of the Academy of Finland. The former club of gentlemen/women professors was transformed into a more collective and democratic scientific institution in the funding of which natural, applied, and social sciences were now given precedence. This suited Hungarian authorities very well, and they reported that Kekkonen wanted this reform because the old system did not fulfill the expectations of the national economy and wider society. Projects that helped to plan progressive social policy—for instance, in medicine, sociology, and later in social psychology24—were at the top of the new agenda. The partners were ready for a fresh start, and the years 1966–67 saw further negotiations for concrete agreements in R&D between respective ministries, with the result, in 1969, that altogether ten different project agreements in various fields were being planned and launched. Consequently, previously preferred humanities were pushed into the margins and more resources were allocated to technical and applied sciences, such as wood processing, engineering, and agricultural sciences. Comparative law studies also featured on the agenda for the first time. At the time, however, Hungarians were particularly interested in Finnish agricultural chemistry, especially in fertilizers, and they were ready to buy both the related knowhow and the laboratory equipment.25 One good example of the soundings Hungarian science authorities took in Finland in the 1970s in order to prepare ground for the highest level of cooperation was the visit of a delegation led by Deputy Minister of Culture Károly Polinszky in late April and early May of 1971. Its purpose was to get acquainted with Finnish higher education and seek possibilities for scientific-technological cooperation. During the visit, the possible obstacles to the agreement between the academies were to be discussed. From the Finnish side, Ministers Jaakko Itälä, Meeri Kalavainen, and Olavi Salonen all agreed that it was now high time to “deepen relations,” and Itälä expressly pointed to the Academy of Finland as the suitable organ for the Hungarians guests to approach. Before negotiations started, the Hungarians toured some of the leading high-tech centers in Finland, Otaniemi (Valtion Taloudellinen Tutkimuskeskus, VTT), Universities of Helsinki and Oulu, and the Outokumpu Research Unit, among others. At first – 144 –

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they dropped by the brand-new laboratories of the Faculty of Medicine in Helsinki University and observed its top-quality facilities; the electron microscope made a particularly great impression on them. Their report to the authorities at home recommended that one researcher should be immediately sent to this facility. At Helsinki Technical High School, the satellite antennas bought from an American company flabbergasted the Hungarians—the bugbear, “imperialism,” appeared to bring great benefits to the Finns. The delegation was also quite astonished by the research conditions, which were healthy, aesthetic, and “puritanically clean and comfortable”—highly appreciated qualities in Socialism. The visit to VTT was especially rewarding to the Hungarians since its director, Pekka Jauho, was apparently so impressionable that they recommended he be officially invited to Hungary as soon as possible. The department of physics at Helsinki University and its research in computer communication networks, as well as SITRA’s 271 research programs, made the visitors thoughtful: it dawned on them that a very careful plan for near-future cooperation should be drafted since Finland evidently offered excellent opportunities that could also be soon utilized. The model was already set: it was agreed that Outokumpu, the state-owned mining company, would employ Hungarian engineer apprentices as trainees. It was in this connection that a proposal to lay Finnish-Hungarian scientific-technological cooperation on a permanent foundation was made; it was suggested by Professor Olavi Granö from the Academy of Finland that the Hungarian Academy of Sciences should establish direct relations with it.26 The initiatives of the Hungarians for cooperation were becoming so pressing that they had to be channeled to an institution that had the authority and means to coordinate the ensuing negotiation process. After complicated negotiations over the agreement of cooperation between the academies, the agreement was finalized in autumn 1975—quite fittingly just after the Helsinki Pact of CSCE—and signed in 1976. For Hungary, it was the fifth bilateral agreement with a Capitalist country preceding the agreements with the United States (1977) and with West Germany (1978), the latter being its most important scientific partner in the West. Having emphasized that research cooperation concretized and strengthened the already good relations between Hungary and Finland, the clauses of the agreement enumerated common projects, working meetings, symposia, conferences, and exchange of scientists and scholars. Joint planning was highlighted as an exceptional opportunity for experts from opposite systems to define common goals for research. By way of a follow-up process, it was also agreed that a joint committee should assess the successes and possible failures of cooperation every third year.27 Soon, a great number of research projects were being planned and launched. Let us – 145 –

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now finally turn to examining two achievements of the cooperation under the agreement of 1976. The projects of the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Traffic in improving traffic safety had attracted Hungarian attention already at the beginning of the 1970s—it had been realized that the Hungarians behaved recklessly and with risk in traffic, and many innovations were, according to special agreements, introduced to Hungary via Liikenneturva (Finnish Traffic Safety Committee) and OKBT (Országos Közlekedés Biztonsági Tanács, its Hungarian counterpart)—for example, drivers’ educational curricula, traffic lights, zebras, and reflectors.28 It had been realized during exchange visits that the researchers of Liikenneturva had conducted rather interesting experiments and made useful inventions to prevent traffic accidents, lowering the high rate of deaths in traffic in Finland. Under the project headings of the agreement of the academies, one junior Hungarian researcher, Ferenc Irk, who later became the head of the Hungarian Criminological Institute, worked as the key person in opening wide the doors to Liikenneturva. While writing his thesis, which compared traffic accidents and their causes in Hungary and in Finland, he saw how outdated the Hungarian research methods and literature on the subject were. In the process he culled data from the newest Western studies available in what he described as the “excellent” library of Liikenneturva. Irk also noted that the Finnish traffic safety experts regarded him as an outstanding researcher in the field who was genuinely devoted to traffic safety in Socialist systems.29 The conclusion of his studies in Finland was that the psychosocial disposition to fatal or irresponsible behavior in traffic was so similar among Finns and Hungarians that a reform of traffic safety legislation could be carried through along the same lines.30 In spite of such minor but successful breakthroughs, the 1976 agreement aroused serious criticism in Finland from the political right as it seemed to finance projects that were more ideological than scientific and supported Socialism with results that were meant only for Western use. While the Hungarians wrestled with their reform of the Academy of Sciences toward efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the Finns were in a position to allocate fresh resources in order to launch projects on wholly new fields, some of them manifestly based on theories of revisionist Marxism. One example is the notorious TANDEM project,31 aimed at studying the power relations and status of democracy in Finland. The project was heavily criticized by right-wing representatives of the Academy as an infiltration of vulgarly leftist science policy in Finnish science.32 However, one successful area of science in which one hardly can detect any ideological implications was medicine, which attained a central role in cooperation in 1977. As already indicated, both Hungary and Finland had – 146 –

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common problems of public health that were acute at the time. The academies adopted a common policy, prioritizing medicine under the heading “better quality of life” for citizens. This was well in line with the Finnish Progressive and the Hungarian Socialist social policies, and, in both countries, medicine was, at least in the opinion of the operating partners and medical experts, on a rather high level. Furthermore, there were long traditions of exchange of researchers in various branches of medicine dating from the early 1930s. For example, innovations in surgical techniques had been transferred in both directions. In the 1970s, up-to-date methods of electrocardiology had been developed in Finland, and the Kuopio Central Hospital was the center of innovations to combat cardiovascular diseases prevalent particularly in Eastern Finland and Karelia. Hungarian experts were called in to participate in an extensive research project aimed at finding new diagnostic methods as well as developing cures and a less fatty dietary regimen for the public. The project was financed from multiple sources, and the research concentrated on analyzing the bioelectrical functioning of the heart, as well as blood circulation and its problems. Hungarian participants, who had initially assumed a stance of scientific expertise and competence, even superiority, were dumbfounded to realize how well-equipped the Finnish laboratories in Kuopio were. A tangible achievement for them was the transfer of the technology of the EKG (electrocardiogram) measurement and diagnostics by a computerized program to Hungary.33 This must have been a successful exception in 1977, since there were complaints at the time from the Hungarian side to the effect that even if international research exchange relations had been expanded, they were still in their infancy—the relations of research institutions in particular. The culprit was found in the inflexible Hungarian bureaucracy, which often obstructed the transfer of useful know-how, innovations, and their applications. It was also difficult to find competent and ideologically reliable junior researchers who could be trusted to spend a longer period of time in the West.

Conclusion A joint project to comparatively study the science policies of Hungary and Finland34 showed that, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the same types of problems in both countries caused a hiatus in R&D cooperation: how to implement science policy priorities into research—for example, in social science—that seemed to lack the impetus of ideological struggle, at least in Hungary35; how to utilize the R&D connections and exchange more – 147 –

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efficiently; and how to procure follow-up data about how research results were actually applied in real life and how they benefited the wider society.36 It became obvious for both Finnish and Hungarian science authorities that the relation of prescriptions of science policy and scientifically valid and socially useful end products was still insufficiently controllable. In many cases, the research produced results that were either inadequately applicable or ideologically unacceptable, meaning too liberal for the Socialist system. Furthermore, perusal of the records of the academies allows one to conclude that this state of affairs pretty much continued until a change in the political and economic system in 1989–90, which suddenly created a situation more open to reevaluating the value of bilateral relations in general. It could also be deduced from this evidence that it was Hungary that benefited more from the cooperation because the flow of exchange was greatly in its favor: in 1984 Hungary sent 75 scientists, receiving 58 from Finland, and in 1987, 113, receiving only 37.37 Anssi Halmesvirta (D.Phil.) is senior researcher in the department of history and ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä. His main research fields are European intellectual history and the relations between former Socialist and Capitalist countries (ca. 1945–89). His published monographs include the following: The British Conception of the Finnish “Race,” Nation and Culture 1760–1918 (1990), Co-operation across the Iron Curtain: HungarianFinnish Scientific Relations of the Academies from the 1960s to the 1990s (2005), and Ideology and Argument: Studies in British, Finnish and Hungarian Thought (2006).

Notes 1. In 1971, 22 researchers from Hungary went to Finland (65 from Finland to Hungary), 178 to West Germany, and 30 to the United States. In 1979 the numbers stood at 49 (64), 270, and 125, respectively. The numbers have been gleaned from the annual reports deposited in the Archives of Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA, Budapest). 2. A. Halmesvirta, Rakkaat heimoveljet. Unkari ja Suomi 1945 (Joensuu: Historietti, 2010), 172. 3. Ferenc Münnich (1886–1967) was a hard-line Communist schooled in Moscow. He was one of the organizers of the Hungarian security police (ÁVO, later ÁVH) in 1946–49, subsequently in diplomatic service. Between 1958 and 1961 he was the chairman of the Council of Ministers, belonged to Kádár’s closest allies in consolidation (and repression) after 1956, then, from 1961 to 1965 state minister, and a member of the highest organ of the HSWP (MSzMP), the Political Committee, from 1956 to 1966. 4. Hungarians and Finns were the only Ugric nations (even if distant both linguistically and geographically) in the world with their own nation-states during the Cold War period. Estonians were the third such nation, but were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. A. Halmesvirta, “Unfortunate Kinship: Finnish-Hungarian Relations during the Second World – 148 –

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War,” in Nations and Their Others: Finland and Hungary in Comparison, ed. H. Nyyssönen and M. Vares (Helsinki: East-West Books, 2012), 95–113. 5. “Münnich to Budapest,” 1 March and 5 April 1950, Finn-KüM-XIX-J-1-Fin, 12/a020217, 019651, 7 d., MOL (Hungarian National Archives). For the revival of the idea of kinship, see M. Vares, “President Kekkonen’s Visits to Hungary in the 1960s: Satellite Policy in the Context of Kinship,” in Hungarologische Beiträge 14, ed. A. Halmesvirta (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2002), 130. 6. Kekkonen’s statement about “peaceful co-existence” in the Agrarian paper Maakansa in January 1952 was widely appreciated in the Hungarian press as an important opening to construct a peaceful status quo in Europe. The reports of the Hungarian press were quoted by Lauri Hjelt, the Finnish charge de affaires in Budapest. See Hjelt to Helsinki (Foreign Ministry), 17 March and 28 April 1952, UM 5/27 C, UMA (Foreign Ministry Archives, Helsinki). 7. A. Halmesvirta, Co-operation across the Iron Curtain: Hungarian-Finnish Scientific Relations of the Academies from the 1960s to the 1990s, Studies in General History vol. 12 (Jyväskylä: Jyväskylä University Printing House, 2005), ch. 2. 8. Quoted in A. Halmesvirta, “Finlandizálas, a hideg béke és az into˝ magyar példa,” Debreceni Disputa VI, no. 9 (September 2008), 6. Cf. J. Pohjonen, “In Kekkonen and Kádár We Trust,” in Bridge-Building and Political Cultures. Hungarologische Beiträge vol. 18, ed. A. Halmesvirta and H. Nyyssönen (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2006), 101–5. 9. “Memorandum of Finnish Hungarian Relations,” dated 22 January 1962, UM 5/C27, UMA; “Akcióterv: A magyar-finn kapcsolatok alakitása 1964–ben,” Finn-KüM, XIV-J-1Finn-4/bd. 5d., 524, MOL. 10. Kekkonen’s diary entries from 5 and 8 May 1963. J. Suomi, ed., Urho Kekkosen päiväkirjat 1963–1968 (Helsinki: Otava, 2002). 11. “Reino Palas to Helsinki, 20 May 1963.” Discussions with Kádár reported in UM 5/ C27, UMA. 12. E.g., Hajdu-Bihari Napló, 12 May 1963. 13. “Martti Ingman to Helsinki,” 28 October 1968, UM 7B, UMA. 14. “Tájékoztató a központi bizottság tagjai részére idöszeru ˝ nemzetközi kerdésekro˝l,” December 1976, M-KS-288f-4cs.-148öe-1976.12.01, MOL. 15. “Kekkonen to Kádár,” 29 September 1969, Finn-KüM-Finn-44-131-XIX-J-Finn 1, 002242-1969, 37d., MOL. 16. “Dömötör to Budapest,” 29 November 1952, Finn-KüM-XIX-J-1-k-21/a.01155/5, 18 d, MOL. 17. “Rezsö Mikola’s statement” in Finn-KüM-XIX-J-1-k-4/b, 524, 3d, MOL. 18. Kustaa Vilkuna (1902–80), was an ethnologist and academician. In postwar Finland, he worked in the service of censorship and as the Head of the State Information Office. He belonged to President Kekkonen’s inner circle of advisors and friends. Gyula Ortutay (1910– 78) was a renegade from the Smallholders Party to the camp of Communists and served as a minister of culture and denominational affairs in 1947–50. He was a famous ethnologist and had many friends and colleagues in Finland. He was the chief secretary (1957–64) and vice-president (1964–78) of the Patriotic Popular Front and played a major role in science relations by being the chairman of the Society to Promote the Dissemination of Knowledge (1964–78). He was also a member of the Council of Ministers in 1958–78. 19. “Akcióterv: A magyar-finn kapcsolatok alakitása 1964–ben,” Finn-KüM, XIV-J-1Finn-4/bd, 524, 3d., MOL. 20. “Reino Palas from Budapest to Helsinki,” 20 May and 11 June 1963, Reports 1 and 2, 126753, UM5/C27, UMA. 21. In 1965, Austerlitz researched the Hungarian language by invitation of the Institute for Cultural Relations, located in Budapest, Hungary. He had been a visiting scholar in Helsinki University in the early 1950s.

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22. Paavo Haavikko (1931–2008) was a leading Finnish modernist author, poet, and publisher, he published over seventy works, and his poems have been translated into twelve languages. He was nominated Academician of Arts in 1994 and received the Neustadt price in 1984. His relations with President Kekkonen were problematic. 23. “Kurtán to Budapest,” 4 September 1965, Finn-KüM-XIX-J-1-j, 730035592/2, 46d; 13 December 1965, Finn-KüM-XIX-J-1-j-14, 005153/1, 44d, and 26 May 1965, Finn-KüM-XIXJ-1-j, 73003592, 46d., MOL. 24. For details on the symposium titled “Psychological and Pedagogical Aspects of Youth Education” held at the University of Jyväskylä from 31 August to 1 September 1981, see A. Halmesvirta, “Searching for the Social Man: Hungarian and Finnish Psychologists Collaborate,” Hungarologische Beiträge 18 (2006), 261–98. 25. “Összefoglaló a magyar-finn mu˝szaki kapcsolatokról,” Finn-KüM-XIX-J-1-j-1-00697/ 12/1969, 36 d., MOL. 26. “Károly Polinszky’s report,” 14 May 1971, KüM XIX-J-1-j-Finn-71-002305, 44 d., MOL. 27. “Minutes of the meeting of the representatives of the Academy of Finland and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,” 9 September 1975, Hbb, AAF (Archives of the Academy of Finland, Helsinki). 28. Halmesvirta, Co-operation across the Iron Curtain, ch. 3. 29. Irk’s interview with the author, 15 October 2003 (Budapest, Criminological Institute). 30. F. Irk, “Unkarin ja Suomen liikenneturvallisuuden vertailututkimus,” manuscript 656.08, IRK, the Library of Liikenneturva; “A Magyar és a finn közlekedésbiztonság összehasonlitó elemzése,” Autóvezeto˝ 3 (1984), 33–38; Autóvezeto˝ 4 (1984), 32–34. 31. TANDEM was a neo-Marxist study project of Finnish administrative and political use of power and its economic foundations. Its core result was the following publication: J. Gronow, P. Klemola, and J. Partanen, Demokratian rajat ja rakenteet (WSOY: Juva, 1977). 32. Halmesvirta, Co-operation across the Iron Curtain, 36–37. 33. “Tökes országokkál folytatott együttmu ˝ködésének értekélése (1977),” NKO, 6d., MTA. 34. K. O. Donner and L. Pál, eds., Science and Technology Policies in Finland and Hungary (Budapest: Académiai Kiadó, 1985). 35. “Az MSZMP KB tudománypolitikai irányelvei megvalosításanak tapasztalai és ido˝szeru˝ feladatai” (PB 1977/6/28). Quoted in Magyar Tudomány 9 (1977), 654. 36. “NKO 728, 60.195/1979,” MTAA; E.-O. Seppälä, P. Löppönen, J. Farkas, P. Tamás, and P. Vás-Zoltan, “Expert Evaluation of the Similarities and Differences between Science Policy in Hungary and Finland,” Science and Technology Policies in Finland and Hungary, 362. 37. See Halmesvirta, Co-operation across the Iron Curtain, Table 1, 46.

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Chapter 8

“Discreet” Intermediaries Transnational Activities of the Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne, 1966–91 Ioana Popa

T

he Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne (the Foundation for European Intellectual Cooperation, hereafter FEIE) was a nongovernmental actor in the cultural and scientific East-West exchanges during the Cold War. It played a key role that was due not only to the intensity of the cultural transfers it initiated and sponsored, but also to its ability to connect institutional and individual actors belonging to different intellectual fields and countries. The FEIE was established in 1966 in Switzerland and France, with the aim of “facilitating and intensifying … the intellectual mutual support” between Eastern and Western intellectuals (as mentioned in its statutes), fostering the circulation of people and ideas across Europe, and thus limiting the effects of the geopolitical division of the continent. For the members of its board, as well as for the Eastern European beneficiaries of its programs, the FEIE’s objective was both cultural and political. They also repeatedly claimed that the FEIE’s mission was to create a sense of European unity. Its leaders were intellectuals from the western as well as from the eastern side of the Iron Curtain. Their project challenged the existence of common cultural affinities and encouraged the intellectual European heritage to be preserved, despite the political constraints. At the same time, the project was rooted in the early Cold War initiatives of the United States. Moreover, the FEIE was funded mainly by American philanthropic foundations and reflected certain features, purposes, and ways of networking originally embodied by these organizations.1 – 151 –

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Notwithstanding these ambivalent characteristics, the FEIE expanded its own identity, know-how, networks, and, although much more timidly, its continental sponsors, establishing itself as a European platform for unofficial exchanges. Relying on private contributions until 1991 was meant “to avoid all political commitment.”2 Thus, the FEIE’s activities emphasized the relevance of non-state actors and the transnational EastWest networks that escaped state control3 in the Cold War setting. These networks survived despite the international situation in which states and intergovernmental relations played a major role in framing and controlling cultural and scientific exchanges. The FEIE’s example highlights practices and strategies of actors that circumvented and fought against the official cultural diplomacy of undemocratic regimes by creating a private “diplomacy ‘step by step.’”4 Moreover, the FEIE’s modus operandi aimed to avoid all publicity, polemics, and overtly provocative actions toward Communist authorities, and followed “discreet”5 and unofficial paths that were neither governmental nor off limits for people of Eastern European countries. The study of these actions puts into question the supposed homogeneity of Western Cold War strategies and East-West interactions. Focusing mainly on non-Soviet Communist countries, the FEIE’s activities had a contrasted national and chronological impact, allowing a viewpoint that goes beyond a monolithic perspective of the Socialist “bloc” as well. Emphasis on these features of the FEIE, an actor that played a longlasting role in East-West exchanges, challenges particularly the so-called realist perspective on the international relations and the totalitarian view in the historiography of Communism. Through a combination of archival materials and interviews,6 this chapter focuses on the social and political conditions that allowed such an actor to come into being and to operate. It pays attention to the practices and know-how these unofficial transfers required. It also takes into consideration personal backgrounds and itineraries of the main protagonists and beneficiaries of FEIE’s programs, going beyond an institutional history of the organization. The social, political, professional, and linguistic characteristics of the Western representatives of the FEIE help to explain their practices and, more specifically, their ability to act at a transnational level. These issues are paramount particularly in the case of small organizations like the FEIE, formed by a few individuals and achieving action through personal contacts and informal networking, notwithstanding political and material constraints. Finally, the chapter considers the FEIE’s particular ways of operating in relation to other Cold War strategies, suggesting the usefulness of a differentiated analysis of flows and actors that aimed to permeate the Iron Curtain. – 152 –

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An Internationalized European Staff Redefining a Former Structure The FEIE promoted transnational circulation of printed materials and individuals across the Iron Curtain by sending books to Eastern Europe, facilitating the translation7 of works written by Eastern European authors, granting fellowships to Eastern European intellectuals, and organizing international seminars. Although created in 1966, the foundation inherited know-how and networks of the Comité d’écrivains et d’éditeurs pour une entraide intellectuelle (the Writers and Publishers Committee for Intellectual Cooperation). The latter was founded in 1957 during the East-West détente. It aimed to initiate and develop the diffusion of ideas and information across the Iron Curtain by sending books to Socialist countries. The committee operated under the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF)8 and was launched thanks to a Ford Foundation grant.9 The committee answered an existing need. It was supposed to meet the demand coming from Eastern Europe for Western books and scholarly journals. The committee’s informal and supple organization was more useful for this purpose than the CCF itself, as considered by the Polish exile intellectual Constantin Jelenski, who was one of the committee’s main initiators and became its secretary. Jelenski also belonged to the CCF secretariat since 1952 and had been the director of its seminar program. The new organization was supposed to appear as more neutral and “less politically committed”10 than the CCF. This committee was not sufficiently autonomous since, in 1966, when the financial links between the CCF and the CIA were revealed, restructuring was considered a necessity. The CCF morphed into the International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF).11 The Writers and Publishers Committee was replaced by the FEIE. The foundation was henceforth a distinct but financially dependent affiliate of the IACF, with the Ford Foundation as the main sponsor.12 The FEIE was incorporated in Switzerland, but operated mainly from its secretariat office in Paris. This was partly due to French legislation that prohibited foreign citizens from sitting on associations’ boards at the time.13 Neutral Switzerland was also supposed to be more reliable in the eyes of Communist authorities and even those of Western partners. Moreover, the existence of a Swiss network of leading collaborators was an important factor. The FEIE had a second office in Zurich, mainly in charge of sending books in the German language to Eastern Europe, underlining its transnational character. The president of the Writers and Publishers Committee, the Swiss Hans Oprecht, remained the FEIE’s president until his retirement in 1975. He was supposed to enhance the foundation’s credibility in Eastern Europe, as he had also been the president of the Swiss Socialist Party for seventeen years. – 153 –

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As stated by one of its leaders, the FEIE pursued its work “in the same vein”14 as before the reorganization of 1966. While the FEIE’s representatives and staff also experienced changes, their main social characteristics remained almost unchanged. Its board was a group of European intellectuals with different national backgrounds and cosmopolitan trajectories. Although born in different European countries (Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Poland, Germany, or Belgium), few of them continued to live in their native country. For instance, François Bondy, a longtime member of the FEIE’s board, then the last president of the FEIE, was born in Berlin in 1915. His mother was Hungarian and his father was a German theatre producer born in Prague, but the family settled down in Switzerland. Bondy studied in Italian, then in French, and began his professional career as a journalist in France. His linguistic skills and ability to network with different national cultural milieus were valuable to the FEIE, despite his return to Switzerland after the 1966 reorganization of the CCF to work as a journalist in Zurich. The cosmopolitan and multinational background of the FEIE is also underlined by Jelenski,15 already a key person for the FEIE’s predecessor. He was also a multilingual journalist, essayist, and translator, well-connected with the intellectual and artistic French, British, and Italian milieus. He graduated from Saint Andrew’s College in Political Science and Economics after leaving Poland in 1939. After the war, he worked in Italy as a civil servant employed by international organizations, then settled in France. Many of the FEIE’s representatives had previously worked under the CCF. In addition to Jelenski, Bondy, one of its founding members, who had created and directed the CCF’s French review, Preuves,16 working very closely with Jelenski. Pierre Emmanuel17 also joined the CCF in 1959, becoming director of its literary programs, and later its deputy secretary general. He started his work by leading a program that provided assistance to the intellectual opposition in Spain (he was born in Béarn, bordering Spain, in 1916), but moved on to join Jelenski and the activities focusing on Eastern Europe. He continued with them in his capacity as the FEIE’s secretary general from 1967 to 1971 and then as its board member and honorary president. Emmanuel was also the president of the IACF from 1974. Starting from 1964, through his path in the CCF, the IACF, and the FEIE, he was assisted by Roselyne Chenu (born in 1933), who would succeed him as the FEIE’s secretary general from 1971 to 1975. Some of the FEIE’s representatives were acquainted with the United States as well through their personal or professional experience (for instance, Chenu was a Fulbright fellow at Columbia University,18 and Emmanuel worked for the French Broadcasting Corporation from 1947 and was the director of its British and North American services). – 154 –

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Most of the representatives had been politically opposed to Fascism during World War II, such as Oprecht, Bondy (close to German anti-Nazi refugees in Switzerland and to anti-Fascist Italian intellectuals), Pierre Emmanuel (one of the youngest French writers in the Resistance), and some even militarily, such as Jelenski (who was a soldier in the Free Polish army, participating in several Allied campaigns). This commitment shaped their later activities towards Communist countries, conceived as a fight against totalitarianism. Moreover, together they had a direct and profound knowledge of Eastern European cultures and politics. The FEIE benefited particularly from Jelenski’s networks and skills, and above all from his cultural and political vision regarding Eastern Europe, and Poland in particular. Born in 1922 in Warsaw to a family of Lithuanian nobility, he was a diplomat’s son and the nephew of a Marxist anthropologist who taught Polish Communist intellectuals during the interwar period. This can partly explain why Jelenski continued to be contacted by many old family friends belonging to the Communist establishment, despite being an exile. Moreover, since its creation, he had been close to Kultura, one of the foremost cultural reviews of Polish exiles. Thus, he held contacts in the official Polish reformist circles and in the oppositional ones as well, being able to connect them with the FEIE. Armed with his literary recognition and the prestige he gathered in the Resistance, Emmanuel could travel to Eastern Europe, unlike Jelenski, who had refugee status. The former made his first trip in 1947, by lecturing at the request of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although a leftist Catholic at that time, he became critical of the implementation of Communist regimes.19 On his trip, Emmanuel made useful contacts that later served the FEIE’s networking in Eastern Europe. For example, he made friends with young Czech poet and translator Jan Vladislav,20 who later became a prominent figure in the dissident movement and Samizdat and was supported by the FEIE. Later Jelenski would remember Emmanuel as invaluable for the CCF’s and FEIE’s programs due to the prestige he enjoyed in these countries.21 As the FEIE’s secretary general, Chenu was yet another member of the FEIE’s board who traveled in Eastern Europe, being in regular contact with the beneficiaries of the FEIE’s programs. This allowed her to inform the foundation about the cultural and political situation in these countries as well as expand its networks. However, only some of the FEIE’s leading figures could maintain a direct contact with Eastern European intellectuals, while many worked behind the scenes either for personal, professional or political reasons. This was the case with Adam Watson,22 a former British diplomat and ambassador, the IACF’s director general and a member of the FEIE’s board since 1975. Born in England in 1914, he grew up in Bue– 155 –

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nos Aires and graduated from Cambridge University in history. He joined the British diplomatic service in 1937 after traveling in Eastern Europe and working as a junior correspondent for various newspapers in Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. In 1939, he was posted in the British Legation in Bucharest. Speaking fluent French and German, he liaised with the Free French forces in Northern Africa during World War II, and was then posted in Moscow from 1944 to 1947. During the early years of the Cold War, he dealt with Soviet and Eastern European matters at the Foreign Office. It has been assumed that he joined the Information Research Department, specializing in psychological warfare and recruiting left-wing intellectuals for the setting up of “grey” anti-Communist propaganda, and was finally posted in Washington as a liaison officer with the CIA.23 After concluding his diplomatic career in 1968, he became a visiting professor of international studies at the University of Virginia (the United States). Thanks to his connections, he played an important role in expanding the FEIE’s actions and finding sponsors in Western Europe and the United States. The diversity of national origins and of professional backgrounds of the board members ensured the FEIE’s ability to connect institutional and individual actors belonging to different countries and intellectual fields. Some of them held a go-between professional position and together cumulated notoriety and a penchant to discretion and even secrecy. Their direct experience of World War II favored these attitudes and types of action, also accounting for the collusions with the secret services. These proximities and connivances could easily occur through patriotic and anti-Fascist commitments, then pursued against new undemocratic political enemies. Moreover, the knowledge of, or at least the familiarity with, Eastern European countries and the attention paid to this region even before the Communist regimes came to power resulted in a pragmatic and nonideological comprehension of this area. This approach and the networks they held in these countries allowed them to constantly adjust their methods while staying true to their anti-Communist commitment. These common features and the relative continuity of the FEIE’s composition and practices beyond the 1966 organization did not rule out a diversity of strategic choices, even regarding the maintenance of Eastern European programs within the IACF from 1966 to 1977. Another debated question was whether the FEIE should act in its own name, after the CCF’s connections with the CIA were revealed, so as not to jeopardize their contacts in Eastern Europe. Juxtaposing intermediary organizations and multiplying institutional links were techniques that allowed the CCF’s discreet connections with the U.S. administration. Since this cover was blown, the FEIE’s challenge was to inherit the CCF’s networks and activities, but – 156 –

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with a new institutional identity. However, the strategy remained mainly unchanged; for example, a number of partners with loose connections to the FEIE were used as before. Certain actions leaned on the IACF (such as protesting openly against abuses of Communist regimes), while others were the FEIE’s own actions (such as sending books and invitations to Eastern European fellows). A subtle forecast of each situation as well as an intricate knowledge of the political and cultural national contexts led the members of the FEIE’s board to endorse “strategic identities”24 in order to preserve their contacts’ security and the efficiency of the programs.25

A Turning Point in Defining a Polycentric Action Finally, the FEIE became independent, while the IACF ceased to exist. This process started in 1975 and was completed by 1978. The foundation had to function henceforth “without the ‘parental’ protection and the control”26 of the IACF and, moreover, without its financial help, as Watson commented in a letter. Jelenski favored this evolution and had, at least from 1972 onward, anticipated the dissolution of the IACF while doing his best to preserve the FEIE.27 For him, conserving valuable networks among Eastern European intellectual circles was more important than the organization itself. The contacts of the FEIE and the IACF were deemed “loyal,”28 “irreplaceable,”29 “reliable, and nearly unique”30 by the FEIE’s board because they worked outside all official exchange programs. They were presented as the most valuable and distinctive resource of the organization31 and were emphasized to sponsors. Sponsorship became a key question. Although the Ford Foundation continued to sponsor the FEIE, it had its own financial and organizational conditions, which led to changes in the FEIE’s statutes. One of the Ford Foundation’s requirements was to seek additional funding, mainly from Western Europe. While this is a typical financial incentive for obtaining progressive independence, in this case it can be considered an attempt to stimulate awareness for Eastern European intellectuals in Western Europe and to push the FEIE to become a truly European organization.32 These requirements obliged the FEIE to launch campaigns in Switzerland, West Germany, and France in order to substantially increase the amount of European contributions. Board members also used their contacts with various foundations in Great Britain, Austria, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Belgium, and also in the United States. However, by the late 1970s, the Ford Foundation had become skeptical about the FEIE’s ability to obtain European funding. It had doubts even about the viability of the FEIE’s programs, although it was impressed by how committed the FEIE was to its – 157 –

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activities.33 The FEIE continued to benefit from Ford grants in the 1980s but encountered difficulties that recurrently endangered its programs. Funding was the reason the FEIE established its German and American branches in 1982 and 1985, respectively. Yet, it was thanks to George Soros’s Open Society Fund that the FEIE was able to maintain and improve its programs from 1983 to 1991. The main financial sources of the FEIE, then, remained American: in 1985, for example, nearly its entire budget came from the United States ($75,000 from the Ford Foundation, $65,000 from the Open Society Fund, and only $10,000 from French and German private sources). The FEIE’s board underlined at the time that it did not have “any perspective of European sponsorship.”34 The conditions laid out by the Ford Foundation also included the creation of an outside advisory group from well-known personalities assisting the FEIE in gathering greater public and financial support. Other conditions referred to a limited term for membership in the FEIE’s board and a more diversified representation of its members’ nationalities in order to counterbalance the “francocentricity” of the organization.35 Relocation of the FEIE’s headquarters to Germany or Great Britain was considered but it was never implemented. Criticism noted that most of the correspondence with Eastern Europe was in French, a large proportion of the books sent to these countries were also in French, and the beneficiaries of its programs were French-speaking people who often chose to visit France. Ensuring a more balanced approach was thus crucial. Hiring Annette Laborey was a step toward diversification. She took over correspondence in German and facilitated contacts for Eastern European fellows in German-speaking countries. She went on to succeed Chenu in 1975 and soon became the FEIE’s driving force, impelling the foundation’s work until its end. She was a daughter of a scientist, born in West Germany in 1947.36 She studied Romance and Slavic philology as well as history at Munich University, spending a year at Stanford University before receiving a master’s degree in modern literature at the Sorbonne. Thus, she was fluent in German, English, and French and had a working knowledge of Russian. Her linguistic, but also professional and relational, skills contributed to building a more “polycentric”37 organization, extending its programs, maintaining direct contact with Eastern European beneficiaries, and trying to find new sponsors and partners in Western Europe. The FEIE’s transnational nature was thus considerably extended. Moreover, the FEIE’s representatives considered prioritizing developing programs for countries where German was commonly spoken to the same extent as had been done with French.38 This was related to increasing sponsorship from Swiss, German, and Austrian funds. Co-opting Marion von Dönhoff—chief editor, then director, of the leading German newspa– 158 –

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per Die Zeit—to the FEIE’s board was a step in this direction.39 Although the extents of the programs in French and German would never be equal, a broader geographical range of the book program and grantee target countries is discernible from 1977. Books in German were mainly sent from the Zurich office, while the Paris secretariat sent books in French (76.5 percent of all printed material sent during the period 1977–90), but also increasingly in German (13 percent) and English (10.5 percent). As for the grants, they were focused on France (65.4 percent). Though France remained a central destination, other host countries were on the increase. While multilingual Switzerland counted for less than 1 percent of grantees, German-speaking countries (West Germany and Austria) drew 14.5 percent, and Anglophone countries (Great Britain and the United States) 6 percent. Individual cases included Italy, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and even Greece. The percentage of grantees choosing the United States was extremely low, but symbolic. While the FEIE’s grant program was mainly European, this was not because of its policy, but mainly because of financial, logistic, and geographical constraints leading the FEIE mostly to refuse extra-European destinations. Yet, the possibility of sending four Eastern European scholars to Cleveland University in the United States in 1981 was perceived by the FEIE representatives as an important one-time chance. A similarly isolated case was a U.S.-based conference with Eastern Europeans. The idea was presented by philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, visiting professor at the University of Chicago. Such a conference was intended to bring prestige to the FEIE in the United States.40 In 1987, the FEIE’s board concluded that it would be important to extend its activities in the United States through appropriate institutional partners.41 The increasing Western geographical diversity of the FEIE’s programs was coupled with the aptitude to accurately evaluate different and fluctuating Eastern European contexts and to choose appropriate practices. However, the FEIE’s challenges were not only about covering several national fields. Lying outside official exchange programs and being a nongovernmental organization inevitably crosses the sphere of foreign policy. This was problematic for political, financial, and social reasons. In the mid-1970s, the FEIE’s president witnessed “a greater recognition by public opinions in both halves of Europe of the need for private contacts supplementary to the programs established by governments.”42 The FEIE proceeded to take advantage of this context for improving its relationship with the Ford Foundation. However, two years later, the FEIE’s president registered negative attitudes toward nongovernmental activities, which were perceived to jeopardize the détente and promises raised by the Helsinki Accords. This attitude was exemplified by German foundations: while showing understanding and sympathy for the FEIE’s actions, they were – 159 –

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nevertheless reluctant to financially participate in activities that could be perceived as political, i.e., interfering with the affairs of the Communist countries.43 Thus, finding financial resources in Europe turned out to be more difficult than was anticipated, not only due to the specificities of European philanthropy,44 but also for political reasons. Moreover, Western cultural and academic institutions already participating in official bilateral exchanges with Socialist countries might have feared that their projects were jeopardized, and were consequently hesitant to collaborate overtly with the FEIE. Therefore, proving the necessity of unofficial cultural exchanges professed by the FEIE was considered a key issue by its representatives,45 particularly in a transforming international situation where the idea of free circulation of people and knowledge seemed to take root. “The misuse of this topic contributes to the propaganda of certain milieus,”46 wrote Pierre Emmanuel, who deplored that the idea of free circulation was led astray in official cultural exchanges by the Communist governments, which inevitably controlled contents of these exchanges. Consequently, the FEIE tried to fill this gap by identifying and supporting intellectuals who could be considered “nonconformist”47 and “independent,”48 meaning people who could not integrate into intergovernmental exchanges but who were still willing to live and work in Socialist countries. Recognizing such people required know-how and appropriate practices. For strategic reasons, this involved procedures that were not contravening Socialist legislation and were acceptable or tolerated by the governments of Eastern Europe.

Intermediating Unofficial International Exchanges: A Subtle Know-How Due to the challenging environment, the FEIE had to invent its own strategies and practices. Primarily, they were different from those of intergovernmental exchanges, even if, from the Western perspective, official cultural cooperation was aimed at contributing to the democratization of Communist regimes by engaging them in a “dialogue.” The FEIE’s practices also differed from international protest campaigns organized to support persecuted Eastern European intellectuals through publicity, as well as refugees from Socialist countries. These actions were considered by Watson to illustrate the “‘rejectionist front’ against Soviet domination,”49 even if, to some extent, they were close to the CCF and IACF traditions. Finally, the FEIE’s activities differed from clandestine cultural transfers and other actions considered illicit in Eastern European legislation, initiated by Western anti-Communist activists supportive of dissidents. Instead, – 160 –

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transnational support for Eastern European intellectuals given by the FEIE was discreet, cautious, and often confidential. This was a distinctive characteristic emphasized to sponsors, beneficiaries, and partners. The FEIE’s programs were not publicized outside their immediate networks. In Eastern Europe, personal networks were the basis of the system, working on individual references. Unlike other Western institutions fighting Communism by circulating printed materials,50 the FEIE chose an exclusively personalized approach despite political obstacles. It consisted of sending books and subscriptions to Western magazines only upon the request of its potential beneficiaries. This was done to avoid allegations of propaganda.51 On the other hand, this allowed emergence of personal ties and even friendship with Eastern European recipients. The beneficiaries were often individuals and rarely institutions such as libraries. The FEIE did not choose which types of books would be sent, but left this to be decided by the beneficiaries. Most of the time, its correspondents submitted lists of specific titles or asked for books on very general topics that were considered useful for their research, teaching, or even entertainment. The academic fields of books requested emphasized humanities and social sciences: literature, linguistics, history, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, economics, and even theology. The subscriptions favored weekly and monthly periodicals (such as Times Literary Supplement, La Quinzaine littéraire, Le Débat, Lire, Newsweek, The Economist, Die Zeit, and Kunstforum). Given their frequent issuance, periodicals were more costly than books and were riskier since they drew the attention of customs easily. Demand for subscriptions considerably increased during the second half of the 1980s. Periodicals were apparently important to those who ordered them, since requests for subscription renewals were usually made long before they expired. These periodicals were a source of valuable information about various intellectual fields and national areas, also feeding a demand for books. Sometimes the requested books were out of print. This underlined delays in information relay to Eastern Europe, resulting in additional work for the Paris secretariat that tried to find alternative suggestions. According to the annual report for 1983, the situation had improved. For example, Memoirs by Raymond Aron was requested by intellectuals from three Eastern European countries even while the book had just been released in France. Yet, differences between Eastern European countries were obvious in regards to speed in requesting recent publications. Moreover, gaps were noticeable in the FEIE’s overall distribution figures between 1968 and 1990.52 In a decreasing order, the biggest recipients were Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. Less significant flows were to East Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the USSR (see – 161 –

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fig. 8.1). The hierarchy of these flows of Western books is not directly linked to the order of the best-known foreign languages in the Eastern European countries. Indeed, this hierarchy mainly depends on the degree of permissiveness toward the circulation of Western printed materials and particularly on the progressive but unequal setup of the beneficiaries’ networks according to the target country.53 This discrepancy was already apparent at the beginnings of the Writers and Publishers Committee for Intellectual Cooperation,54 whose activities were already focused on Poland and Hungary, the most advanced countries on the path to de-Stalinization in the mid-1950s. While there were other book-related projects, including travelers smuggling books into certain countries, the FEIE’s main method was to use registered mail, making it legal. This was a key feature of its modus operandi. For example, a FEIE board member warned against activities of a British organization supporting Czech dissidents by sending books (and even the Bible): “the danger for us is that some of their activities are semi-clandestine and condemned by the Prague regime.”55 However, he suggested contacting this organization and considering some form of collaboration. The FEIE followed its mailings by sending a letter to recipients asking for a receipt of delivery. The overall rates of successful deliveries based on receipts were at 75 percent in 1970, over 80 percent in 1974, and 96 percent in 1984. Basically all books sent in 1987 reached their destination.56

Figure 8.1. The number of printed materials sent to each Eastern European country, 1968–90. Source: FEIE’s archives. – 162 –

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In the case of strictly controlled regimes, which varied over time in certain countries, books could be distributed indirectly. Some of the FEIE’s beneficiaries avoided receiving books and correspondence from the West directly, preferring to transmit their friends’ addresses, which became a kind of P.O. Box. Sometimes, they also specified the estimated risk in their demands: the list of requested books mentioned which ones could be sent by mail. Moreover, based on the FEIE’s correspondents residing mostly in Bulgaria or Czechoslovakia, books were sent to them from other Socialist countries. At the beginning of the 1970s, networking allowed also for books to be sent to the USSR via Yugoslavia. Another strategy minimizing book losses at customs was to send them one by one rather than in a single shipment. Despite these precautions, certain items did not reach their recipients or were returned to the sender. This was the case with Raymond Aron’s books (for example, Trois essais sur l’âge industriel, Plaidoyer pour l’Europe décadente, Essai sur les libertés), which were considered “noncompliant to customs regulations”57 in Poland in 1975. Examples of returned books could also be found in Hungary (such as a book written by Paul Ignotus, a former political prisoner and an exile to the UK after 1956) and in Romania (Le Mythe de l’éternel retour, written by the Romanian exile Mircea Eliade, and Contre tout espoir, by Nadezhda Mandelstam, alongside works that could be considered politically neutral, such as L’Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre français à Paris de 1600 à 1673, by Wilma Deierkauf-Holsboer). In the case of returned books, it was conventional to resend them again from France or Switzerland. Resending was not pointless. As internal FEIE documents indicate, sometimes these books happened to bypass the Iron Curtain, thus pointing out the hazards, vulnerabilities, and flaws of the control system. In some ways, interception of books was not necessarily a failure since books “remain[ed] somewhere inside [the system].”58 Sometimes they were even sold on the black market.59 According to the correspondence of Eastern European intellectuals close to the FEIE, books were circulated within the network, contributing to unofficial “moving libraries” and “common patrimony,” as the Hungarian dissident writer Miklós Haraszti highlighted.60 Thus, each title potentially had several readers. Letters also named other means of circulation: for instance, a professor from Prague translated books sent by the FEIE into Czech for his seminars. Sometimes these translations ended up as Samizdat editions, like Kwart, overseen by Jan Vladislav. In some cases, the junction with official publishing channels was apparent: texts and authors discovered by Eastern European intellectuals through the FEIE’s activities were unostentatiously introduced and became translated or commented references.61 This was due to the professional and political profile of its beneficiaries, who were not necessarily – 163 –

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dissidents. For instance, Polish Marxist philosopher Adam Schaff was able to read Freud’s works thanks to the FEIE. In the 1980s, the FEIE activity reports recognized the need to send books was due more to economic hardships than political obstacles. Certain recipients, especially from Hungary and Poland, used this argument to explain and justify their requests for Western literature. The FEIE activity report from 1988 pointed out the benefits of “transparency” (an allusion to Gorbachev’s reforms): “there is less censorship, less forbidden or ‘inadvisable’ reading and less constraints for persons receiving books or periodicals from West.”62 With access to high-quality local information, the FEIE was, however, able to appreciate the diversity of the contexts of Eastern European countries,63 which were all still Socialist. Hence, the FEIE was permanently adapting its strategies. On the one hand, it intended more than ever to reach out to the most closed countries, whose citizens were forbidden to travel. In 1988, the FEIE increased the number of books sent to Romania and Czechoslovakia when compared to 1987 and was successful in diverting the decrease in Bulgaria, despite the low number of books being sent there. The FEIE started to focus on the Baltic republics as well while continuing to pay attention to countries such as Hungary and Poland, even if they received a major part of the materials and their citizens could travel to the West more easily.64 While managed separately, the book and grant programs could not be completely dissociated. Considered the most important activity of the foundation by its board, grants relied indirectly on the book program: to some extent, it inherited the networks that were previously set up by sending books65, but spread out following its own logic. The grant program required more financial resources and encountered more difficulties and implementation risks than the book program. The main difficulty was whether Communist authorities accepted or refused the passports of prospective Eastern European travelers to the West. Not all prospective FEIE grantees were able to make it in the end. Therefore, the implementation of the grant program depended more on official agreement than in the case of the book program. It also required more precaution regarding the way in which grantees were chosen and invited. A total of 2,536 fellowships66 were effectively distributed from 1966 to 1991. Like the diffusion of books, there was an uneven distribution of the countries to which fellowships were granted. Yet their order was not the same: grantees were mostly Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian. The FEIE’s grants covered travel for the purpose of study and documentation for a short period (one or two months). These aims covered a very broad range of activities: reading books; consulting archives; visiting museums, galleries, and exhibitions; improving linguistic skills; attending con– 164 –

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Figure 8.2. The number of fellowships for each Eastern European country, 1966–91. Source: FEIE’s archives.

gresses, seminars, concerts, and plays; setting up professional networks; and so on. Following the professional categories defined by the foundation, fellowships benefited writers, artists, and academics (only those who specialized in humanities and social sciences). In fact, the diversity of professions was much greater: there were translators, editors, journalists, librarians, archivists, curators of museums, and even some scientists and specialists in medicine. The setup of the grant policy highlighted the question of the FEIE’s “main objective”67 and the key issue of defining the profile of grantees. The core of the FEIE’s program was to give grants to intellectuals chosen by the foundation. However, smaller grants were also attributed upon request, submitted directly to the FEIE secretariat in Paris, so as to extend the stay of intellectuals who had temporarily left their country by other institutional or personal means. Finally, the FEIE also issued a so-called equipment fellowship grant, allowing professional materials (books, films, canvasses, oil paintings, typewriters, etc.) to be bought. The proportion of the two main grant categories had been examined by the FEIE’s staff numerous times since the beginning of the 1970s, when the foundation intended to shift its policy by reducing the number of extension grants and increasing invitations. This choice called for more investigation and networking, but in the end it resulted in an increased number of potential grantees. However, neither the selection criteria and procedures nor the – 165 –

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individual project plans submitted by the candidates were very formal. The selection system was based on personal references and records obtained informally from the FEIE’s advisors, providing information about the career paths of particular candidates, as well as their ethical reputations and even political commitments. Referees were at times exiles, former grantees, or other contact persons. The network grew unofficially and informally, but the selection of its fellows was always indirectly dependent on the Communist regime’s criteria about who could travel to the West. For the FEIE, the challenge was to manage both of these perspectives. Due to these official constraints, but also to the broad and nonexclusive vision about the possible alternative elite in Socialist countries, not all fellows were political opponents. Nevertheless, political opponents were also represented among the FEIE’s beneficiaries by intellectuals such as Adam Michnik, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and Bronislaw Geremek from Poland; Romanians Dumitru Tepeneag and Mircea Dinescu; Hungarians Konrad György and Rajk Laszlo; and Czech Jan Vladislav. The “nonconformist” and “independent” profiles of the grantees (which were the FEIE’s categories for characterizing them) were fixed in principle, but were never detailed in the foundation’s documents. Inevitably, the criteria varied over time and depended on the grantees’ country of origin. Fluctuating constraints had an impact on the profile of those authorized to travel to the West.68 Intellectuals who occupied important positions in their professional domain and “in fields that help[ed] to form public opinion,”69 as pointed out by Watson, were also able to benefit from the FEIE’s assistance and, in particular, from its grants. This was also a tactical choice by which the FEIE supposedly avoided being systematically identified as favorable to anti-Communists, testifying to its “openness.”70 On the other hand, a principle that was strictly followed was the exclusion of people who were suspected of using grants for defection. Defections would have compromised FEIE’s program as Communist authorities would have received an excuse for refusing passports for those involved with the FEIE. The FEIE’s practices, as well as those of its grantees, were very careful. For instance, the FEIE issued invitations through intermediary institutions in order to maximize its chances of obtaining a passport for an invited fellow. Invitations were written by the FEIE’s employees, but were signed and sent by a formally inviting institution that was thought to be neutral or prestigious by the Communist authorities (such as the Pen club, galleries, theatres, universities, and newspapers). The grant itself, however, was always provided by the FEIE. Certain fellows preferred to avoid mentioning the FEIE’s name, believing this would prevent them from getting a passport. “The origin of the grant must be kept secret,” wrote a Roma– 166 –

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nian invitee to Laborey in 1986, signifying that the financial support of the foundation was essential for the intellectuals from his country but could not be direct. There were also tricks and stratagems for using or avoiding various expressions in order to circumvent any possible mix-up with intergovernmental exchanges. One had to find “accurate expressions that had to be, at the same time, sufficiently ambiguous,”71 as Laborey summed up. The amount of payment and the extent of the grant had to be mentioned, and the latter could even be overestimated in order to give the grantee room to maneuver. Finally, the institution that issued the invitation had to mention that its invitee and his or her work were well known and even famous in Western Europe. The invitation letter was therefore more reliable as it relied on the professional recognition of the grantee: “nobody, even the policemen, could have criticized someone for being well known because of his professional qualities,”72 stated Chenu. Even when the grantee did not obtain his passport, this approach seemed useful as a proof of respect and fame in Western Europe, which provided protection, as has been confirmed by Eastern European intellectuals’ testimonies.73 Invitation letters could be posted to private or professional addresses. Some of the grantees asked to receive letters at both so as to avoid problems, or provided addresses of parents or friends, which were thought to be safer. The concern for confidentiality and protection always came first. These methods were the result of trial and error, and were revaluated if necessary, thanks to the cooperation between the FEIE and its addressees and advisors. A cautious approach was also adopted concerning the documents the FEIE needed from grantees when they arrived in the West. Three documents were required: a form about their social identity, academic degrees, and professional career; a signed receipt attesting the amount of the grant that had been received; and, finally, a report on the activities pursued during their stay, the professional contacts that were established, and the benefits of participating in the FEIE’s grant program. The foundation promised its fellows that these documents remained confidential: they were kept internally or circulated anonymously in the FEIE’s reports to its own sponsors. Despite this agreement, the grantees were often reticent and felt uneasy writing such reports, as illustrated by the repeated reminder messages from the foundation. In such a situation, the grantee’s referee could be solicited (or propose himself or herself) to encourage the grantee to reply back to the foundation. The lack of feedback dismayed the FEIE’s sponsors and jeopardized its future fundraising campaigns. The FEIE’s secretary general explained the reasons to the British director of the Wates Foundation: “I have heard that you did not appreciate the shortness of the report sent to us by our last – 167 –

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year’s candidate. …We do ask for reports from all our grantees, but quite often they are afraid to write them. Coming from Eastern Europe, ‘reports’ have … a bad connotation and therefore some of our grantees … prefer to write rather short thank-you letters instead of reports, with details. … If you would like to meet one of our grantees once they are in England, it would be easy to arrange a meeting. Talking freely to someone is certainly much easier for people from Eastern Europe than writing reports.”74 This topic was also discussed with the representatives of the Ford Foundation, who further insisted on disclosing the identities of the grantees. Members of the FEIE’s board were disturbed by the request, as the FEIE emphasized confidentiality even in relation to its own main sponsor.75 This disagreement revealed a gap in the evaluation of a particular aspect (in this case, the confidentiality issue) demonstrating the FEIE’s specific know-how and deep understanding of Eastern European issues. The end of Communism brought recognition and legitimization to the informal national and transnational networks which previously contributed to unofficial East-West intellectual transfers. However, in this new context of democratization and normalization of international cultural exchanges, the FEIE’s staff considered the organization itself and its activities less useful, while its networks in Eastern Europe were still estimated as most valuable. The FEIE disbanded in 1991; henceforth, its contacts among the grantees and recipients informally seeded other cultural and academic institutions, such as the Institut für Wissenschaften vom Menschen (created by a Polish fellow of the FEIE, the philosopher Krysztof Michalski, in Vienna in 1983), the International Cultural Center in Cracow (which at the beginning of the 1990s was directed by the Polish art historian Jacek Woz´niakowski, another former FEIE fellow), as well as George Soros’s network of foundations in Eastern Europe and the Central European University76 he founded in 1991. The same year, the FEIE closed its offices and celebrated its past by organizing a symposium hosted by the Cultural Center in Cracow. Entitled “Post-totalitarian Mentalities and Culture,”77 it gathered FEIE’s close Western and Eastern relations: since the end of Communism, some of the latter became ministers, members of parliament, political leaders, or key figures in their countries. The symposium also accredited about twenty journalists affiliated to prestigious newspapers and broadcastings (such as Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Herald Tribune, Gazeta Wyborcza, BBC World Service, and Radio France International) who could report on the event. While it is difficult to document post-1989 individual public use of the past involvement in the FEIE’s programs and the delayed effects and symbolic benefits one could gain from them, the main features of the foundation’s past activities could be henceforward publicly revealed. – 168 –

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Conclusion Notwithstanding its early controversial institutional affiliation and its main sponsorship from American philanthropic sources, the FEIE’s case indicates the transformation of an increasingly transnational and European organization, taking off from a previously transatlantic initiative. It helps us avoid replicating a more conventional history of the Cold War as a superpower rivalry, introducing instead intermediary geographic spaces and hybrid actors. Originating from the “state-private networks”78 of the early Cold War period, the organization became a transnational actor eager to hang on to its independence from governments, thus heralding an increased role for private cultural diplomacy. The FEIE built on previous achievements while devising a new form of organization when it shifted from a committee affiliated to other institutions to become a philanthropic foundation. It was also armed with an awareness that the financial aspects of its activities were not sufficient to ensure the success of the cultural and scientific transfers and were not self-evident either, considering the financial difficulties encountered by the foundation. Moreover, the FEIE embodied a particular approach to generic Western anti-Communism and implemented specific ways in permeating the Iron Curtain.79 They associated two distinct forms of transnational circulation—flow of books and mobility of people—that dealt with different constraints but were both legally implemented in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, in resorting to an approach commonly associated with philanthropic organizations and operating cultural and scientific transfers by request instead of implementing an explicit political message and an ideological agenda from top to bottom, the association contributed to euphemizing an anti-Communist undertaking. The international movement of individuals and ideas was thus contemplated not only as a cause to be defended, but also as a practical means of political action. This case study also gives insight into confrontational strategies that were not frontal, but gradual and surreptitious. It thus challenges the supposedly homogenous view of the Cold War80 that would be shared by the pro-American West. Moreover, these strategies relied on individual EastWest contacts and personal cooperation. They allowed for distinct national distributions of printed materials and individuals, also pointing out the internal heterogeneity of the Socialist camp.81 If the Iron Curtain failed to prevent East-West contacts, the circulations subverting it were neither symmetrical nor undifferentiated. Finally, the analysis of these strategies is neither self-sufficient nor self-explanatory. Focusing on the social characteristics of the actors and beneficiaries of the cultural and scientific ex– 169 –

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changes, in addition to describing their know-how and practices, allows us to go beyond an institutional outlook and achieve a more subtle understanding of cultural warfare, thus contributing to a historical and political sociology of the Cold War. Ioana Popa is tenured researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (France). She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Graduate School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris). She is the author of Traduire sous contraintes. Littérature et communisme, 1947–1989 (2010), a comprehensive study of the translation channels and intermediaries that facilitated the importation of Eastern European authors and literary works into France during the Cold War. Her current projects deal with East-West scientific transfers and the institutionalization of an area studies program focusing on the USSR and Eastern Europe in France.

Notes 1. See, for example, G. Gemelli and R. MacLeod, eds., American Foundations in Europe: Grant-Giving Policies, Cultural Diplomacy and Trans-Atlantic Relations, 1920–1980 (Brussels: P.I.E., 2003); S. G. Solomon and N. Krementsov, “Giving and Taking across Borders: The Rockefeller Foundation and Russia, 1919–1928,” Minerva 39 (2001): 265–98; L. Tournès, ed., L’Argent de l’influence. Les Fondations américaines et leurs réseaux européens (Paris: Autrement, 2010). 2. As pointed out in the FEIE’s reports. 3. R. Keohane and J. Nye, Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971); T. Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back in: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); M. Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). 4. Jacqueline Pillet-Will to Adam Watson (members of the FEIE’s board), 12 November 1975, box 29/1, FEIE’s archives (hereafter FEIEA). 5. Watson to Hans Oprecht, 27 May 1974, and to Francis X. Sutton, 14 February 1989, 29/1 and 26/4 FEIEA. This term is frequently used by the FEIE’s staff in order to characterize its practices. 6. This chapter is based on analysis of the archives of the FEIE and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations (which partly funded the FEIE’s programs) and on interviews with members of its staff, and intellectuals close to it. I have discussed the methodological issues raised by this research in I. Popa, “Studying transnational circulations in an undemocratic political context through the case of the Fondation pour une Entraide Intellectuelle Européenne,” 12th Congress of the French Political Science Association, Paris, 9–11 July, 2013. 7. On these aspects of the FEIE’s activities, see I. Popa, Traduire sous contraintes. Littérature et communisme (1947–1979) (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2010), 433–41, 499–500. On the FEIE’s history, see P. Grémion, Intelligence de l’anticommunisme. Le Congrès pour la liberté de la culture à Paris (1950–1975) (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 474–509; M. Beylin, “A propos de la Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne,” L’Autre Europe 34–35 (1996): 212–22 issued from an unpublished report, Fondation pour une entr’aide intellectuelle européenne; N. Guilhot, “A Network of Influential Friendships: The Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle euro– 170 –

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péenne and East-West cultural dialogue,” Minerva 44 (2006): 379–409; L. Jílek, “La Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne et le soutien aux antécédents de Solidarité,” in Une Europe malgré tout 1945–1990, ed. A. Fleury and L. Jílek (Bruxelles: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2009), 167–82. One can see also W. Korey, Taking on the World’s Repressive Regimes: The Ford Foundation’s International Human Rights Policies and Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 119–37, which relies on Beylin’s work. 8. P. Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Post-War Europe (New York: The Free Press, 1989); Grémion, Intelligence de l’anticommunisme; M. Warner, “Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom,” Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995): 89–98; F. S. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta, 1999); G. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA and Post-War American Hegemony (London: Routledge, 2002); M. Hochgeschwender, “A Battle of Ideas: the CCF in Britain, Italy, France and Germany,” in The Postwar Challenge: Cultural, Social and Political Challenge in Western Europe, 1945–1958, ed. D. Geppert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 9. “Application for a grant to send books and cultural materials to intellectuals and students in Eastern Europe,” Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 05700097, reel #526, Rockefeller Archives Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY (hereafter RAC). 10. Jelenski, “La FEIE et ses origines,” 29/1 FEIEA. 11. Its first president was Shepard Stone, who was previously the chief of the international division at the Ford Foundation. On his itinerary, see V. R. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy and Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 12. The Ford Foundation had previously financed the CCF. 13. Interview with Roselyne Chenu, 18 July 2011. 14. Ibid. 15. Folder “Fiche Individuelle,” 29/4 FEIEA; C. Jelenski, “Kultura, la Pologne en exil,” Le Débat 9 (1981): 59–71; F. Bondy, “Pour Kot,” Commentaire 39 (1987): 622–24. 16. P. Grémion, Preuves, une revue européenne à Paris (Paris: Julliard, 1989). 17. Folder “Pierre Emmanuel,” 29/3 FEIEA. 18. “Curriculum vitae,” 29/2, FEIEA. 19. P. Emmanuel, L’Ouvrier de la onzième heure (Paris: Seuil, 1953). 20. Interview with Jan Vladislav, 18 February 1999; Dr. Neuwirth to Emmanuel, 21 June 1974, 29/3 FEIEA. 21. Jelenski, “Commentaire concernant le mémorandum de Pierre Emmanuel à Adam Watson,” 29/1 FEIEA. 22. “Biographical Sketch,” Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 07300043, reel #2434, RAC. 23. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?, 152, 412; A. Defty, Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda (London: Routledge, 2004). 24. A. Collowald, “Identités stratégiques,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 73 (1988): 29–40. 25. Interview with Roselyne Chenu, 18 July 2011. 26. Watson to Marion von Dönhoff, 19 January 1978, 29/1 FEIEA. 27. Jelenski, “La FEIE et ses origines,” March 1975, 29/1 FEIEA. 28. Watson to von Dönhoff, 29 April 1976, 29/1 FEIEA. 29. Jelenski, “Rapport de la réunion du Conseil,” 15 September 1979, 27/4 FEIEA. 30. Annette Laborey to H. Martin, 18 March 1977, 20/5 FEIEA. 31. For example, Jelenski to Zbigniew Brzezinski, 6 December 1976, 29/1 FEIEA. 32. Francis Sutton to Emmanuel, 8 February 1979, 26/1 FEIEA; Watson to Dönhoff, 19 January 1978, 29/1, FEIEA. 33. Sutton to Reiniger, 29 September 1978 and 22 December 1978, 26/1 FEIEA. – 171 –

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34. Laborey’s memorandum to the board’s members (emphasis in the original), 19 December 1985, 27/4 FEIEA. 35. David Heaps, “Inter-Office Memorandum to Sutton and Gaer,” 24 December 1977, Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 07800125, reel #3542, RAC. 36. “Curriculum vitae,” 29/1, FEIEA. 37. Watson to Oprecht, 27 May 1974, 29/1 FEIEA. 38. Watson to von Dönhoff, 6 February 1975; Watson to Thyssen Foundation, 5 November 1975; Watson to Richard von Weizsäcker, 10 February 1975, 29/1 FEIA. 39. Born in 1909 in Eastern Prussia, she was from an aristocratic family. Her father was a former diplomat and deputy at the Reichstag. She received a Ph.D. in economy in 1932 and was linked to the anti-Nazi resistance. M. von Dönhoff, Une Enfance en Prusse orientale, trans. Colette Kowalski (Paris: Albin Michel, 1990). 40. Laborey to Felice D. Gaer, 21 July 1981, 26/1 FEIEA. 41. Also, one year before, Watson to Andreas Gerwig, 25 June 1986, Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 08400228, reel #6373, RAC. 42. Reiniger to Sutton, 30 June 1978 and 1 December 1980, 26/1 FEIEA. 43. Laborey to Gaer, 8 December 1980, 26/1 FEIEA. On the German foundations, see D. Dakowska, Le Pouvoir des fondations. Des acteurs de la politique étrangère allemande (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014). 44. Watson to Andreas Gerwig, 25 June 1986, Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 08400228, reel #6373, RAC. 45. Jelenski, “The Intellectuals and Détente,” 23 January 1974, 29/4 FEIEA. 46. Emmanuel to G. Jean, 17 October 1973, 20/3 FEIEA. 47. Jelenski to Stone and Emmanuel, 19 November 1973, box 29/4, C. Jelenski to Emmanuel and Errera, 6 December 1974, box 29/1; various FEIE annual activity reports. 48. Watson to Reiniger, 28 September 1976, box 29/1; various FEIE annual activity reports. 49. Watson to von Dönhoff, 19 January 1978, 29/1 FEIEA. 50. Those initiated by the Free Europe Press, for instance. See I. Popa, “La circulation transnationale du livre: un instrument de la guerre froide culturelle,” Histoire@Politique. Politique, culture, société 15 (2011), www.histoire-politique.fr. See also the work done on this topic by insiders of this organization, J. P. C. Matthews, “The West’s Secret Marshall Plan for the Mind,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 16, no. 3 (2003): 409–27, and A. A. Reisch, Hot Books in the Cold War: The CIA-Funded Secret Western Book Distribution Program Behind the Iron Curtain (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2013). 51. “Rapport d’activité semestriel, août 1968,” 1/1, FEIEA. Interview with Chenu, 18 July 2011. The Writers and Publishers Committee had already adopted this approach in the mid1950s, rejecting the idea of a “mass distribution program”. “Application for a Grant to send books and cultural materials to intellectuals and students in Eastern Europe”, 29 November 1956 and “Request for Grant Action. Congress for Cultural Freedom—Materials for Eastern Europe,” 9 January 1957, Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 05700097, reel #526, RAC. 52. There are about twenty thousand prints. I calculated these values on the basis of the FEIE’s internal documents. From 1968 to 1989, the FEIE sent 18,294 printed materials. For some periods, sources did not allow separating books and subscriptions. 53. “FEICE [the acronym of the FEIE’s name in English] Activities 1975–1985,” Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 08400228, reel #6373, RAC, and various internal FEIE documents. 54. “Writers and Publishers Committee for Intellectual Cooperation. Report on Activities,” March–October 1957, 1 October 1957–1 June 1958, “On reactions in Budapest to the program of the Writers and Publishers Committee and to the CCF,” Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 05700097, reel #526, RAC. 55. Watson to Laborey (undated), 29/1 FEIEA. – 172 –

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56. FEIE annual activities reports, 27/1 FEIEA. 57. “Rapport d’activité 1976,” 27/1 FEIEA. 58. Interview with W. Vazsonyi (an exiled Hungarian intellectual), 15 September 2008. 59. Jelenski to Laborey and Goldstein, 3 February 1976, 29/1 FEIEA. 60. Harazsti Miklos to Laborey, 22 July 1979, 2/4, FEIEA. 61. “FEICE Activities 1975–1985,” Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 08400228, reel #6373, RAC; and various grantees’ activities reports, FEIEA. 62. “Rapport d’activité 1988,” 27/1 FEIEA. 63. For example, Watson to Andreas Gerwig, 25 June 1986, Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 08400228, reel #6373, RAC. 64. These observations are formulated on the basis of internal documents of the FEIE, especially its annual activity reports and correspondence with its Eastern European beneficiaries. 65. “The Writers and Publishers Committee for European Cooperation Report on Activities. 1 October 1957–1 June 1958” had already indicated that, as a consequence of contacts by letters with Eastern European intellectuals concerning the book program, some scholarships in the West were also obtained for some of them. Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 05700097, reel #526, RAC. 66. I calculated these values based on the FEIE’s reports and on the grantees’ individual files. Depending on the kind of fellowship considered, this number can be higher. 67. “Procès verbal de la réunion du Conseil de la FEIE, 1976,” 27/4 FEIEA. 68. “FEICE Activities 1975–1985,” Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 08400228, reel #6373, RAC. I am working on a statistical analysis of the grantees’ social characteristics on the basis of their files. 69. Watson to Christopher Falkus, 20 June 1986, “Boursiers 1984,” FEIA. 70. Interview with Chenu, 18 July 2011. 71. Laborey to Zdenek Strmska, 18 March 1986, 6/1 FEIEA. 72. Interview with Chenu, 18 July 2011. 73. Watson to Jelenski, 28 September 1976, 29/1 FEIEA. 74. Laborey to Sir John Moreton, 4 September 1984, box “Bourses 1984,” FEIEA. 75. Jelenski to Laborey and Watson, 14 March 1977, 29/1 FEIEA; Gaer to Watson, 7 March 1977, and Gaer to F. Sutton, B. Bushley, D. Heaps, Inter-Office Memorandum, “Discussion with Paul Doty concerning IACF,” 8 March 1977, Ford Foundation Archives, Grants, grant number 07800125, reel #3542, RAC. 76. See N. Guilhot, “Une vocation philanthropique: George Soros, les sciences sociales et la régulation du marché mondial,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 151–52 (2004): 36–48. 77. Box 19/2, “Colloque final de Cracovie 1991,” FEIEA. 78. S. Lucas, Freedom’s War: The US Crusade against the Soviet Union, 1945–1956 (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Scott-Smith, Politics of Apolitical Culture. 79. G. Péteri, “Nylon Curtain: Transnational and Transsystemic Tendencies in the Cultural Life of State-Socialist Russia and East-Central Europe,” Slavonica 10, 2 (2004): 113–23; P. Villaume and O. A. Westad, eds., Perforating the Iron Curtain: European Détente, Transatlantic Relations and the Cold War, 1965–1985 (Copenhagen: Museum Tysculanum Press, 2010); Popa, Traduire sous contraintes; S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklossy, Reassessing Cold War Europe (London: Routledge, 2011). 80. M. Leffler, “New Approaches, Old Interpretations and Prospective Interrogations,” in America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941, ed. M. Hogan (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990); S. Docrill and G. Hughes, Palgrave Advances in Cold War History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 81. Popa, Traduire sous contraintes; for other case studies, see also Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, Special Issue “Le bloc de l’Est en question,” 109 (2011).

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P A R T III

LIMITATIONS FOR TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS

Chapter 9

THE IMAGE OF “REAL FRANCE” Instrumentalization of French Culture in the Early Communist Czechoslovakia Václav Šmidrkal

I

n 1952, during the culmination of Czechoslovak Stalinism, the Czech translation of the novel Tiens bon la rampe! (Hold On!) by French Communist writer Pierre Abraham (1892–1974) was published. The thin novel was followed by a lengthy afterword in which young Czech literary critic Antonín J. Liehm explained the ideological background of the Communist cultural policy concerning distribution of French literature in Czechoslovakia. According to Liehm, works like Abraham’s novel would show “real France, France of working people, of miners from the North, of dockers from Atlantic and Mediterranean ports, of Parisian metalworkers, of Burgundy peasants, of Brittany fishermen, France that is so familiar to us, one beloved by our Jula Fucˇík,1 one which stands side by side with us in the great world fight for peace.”2 Following such class-oriented logic, France had not been perceived as one entity anymore but was cumbersomely described as two societies, one of which was “condemned to downfall” while “the other [was] walking and fighting towards happiness and glory.”3 In this view, the previous fallacious perception of France as a source of inspiration, a point of reference, and an object of desire by the Czech elites since modern nation building in the nineteenth century and state building in the first half of the twentieth century was replaced by the seemingly “real” image of France based on tenets of Marxism-Leninism, such as proletarian internationalism, and on the current needs of the domestic political discourse in Communist Czechoslo– 177 –

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vakia. The French cultural output, both contemporary and historical, was to be reassessed by the Communist ideologues and bureaucrats responsible for cultural politics in order to separate the newly defined wheat from the chaff. A favorable circumstance in this effort was the existence of a distinctive excéption française, represented by a large Communist milieu in France, which attracted a number of brilliant intellectuals. Despite being on the other side of the Iron Curtain, they eventually produced cultural works that ideologically fit into the reformulated Czechoslovak policy on foreign cultural exchange and were generally favorably appraised in the Communist East. The traditional Czech Francophilia4 was believed to be diverted from the bourgeois stratum to the Communist-oriented parts of French society gathered around the French Communist Party (PCF). The Czechoslovak Communists were connected to the French Communist “counter-society”5 through numerous spiritual and personal ties. In his study on French intellectuals from 1944 to 1956, Tony Judt mentions surprising similarities between the historical background and mental setting of French and Czech Communists: “For the ‘Vichy syndrome’ the Czech can offer the ‘Munich syndrome’; for overblown résistantialisme and overenthusiastic purges, the Czechs can offer the same thing. And more than any other nation except the French and the Italians, Czechs of all classes but intellectuals especially welcomed Russians, the Communists, and the promise of revolution.”6 Besides these spiritual ties, there were also numerous personal connections between Communists from both countries. Czechoslovak volunteers in the international brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War fled to France after the defeat of the Republicans and established contacts to the PCF—some of them even joined the party. After World War II, Communists with this valuable international experience took up high positions in the security apparatus and international departments of Czechoslovak authorities. Prague also became an important hub for Communist organizations and for mutual contacts between Western and Eastern Communists after 1945, which qualified it for the nickname “Communist Geneva.”7 However, after a period of postwar renewal and a fragile political compromise that lasted in Czechoslovakia until 1948, the developing Cold War and the radicalization of the Communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia created an atmosphere of anti-Westernism that was extremely unfriendly to Westward cross-border relations. Czech historian Jirˇí Knapík metaphorically describes this period in regard to cross-border cultural exchange between Czechoslovakia and the outer world as an “attempt to create a quarantine”8 or to build up “an ideological greenhouse selectively perme– 178 –

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able eastwards only.”9 These generally correct observations may nevertheless require rethinking of conventional territorialization of the East and the West alongside the Iron Curtain. After 1948, the regime intended to block all unwanted cultural influences through curtailment of possible channels of exchange, rigorous decision-making processes, and close surveillance of society, but, on the other hand, it did not want to be perceived as the culprit of the Cold War—in this very case, on the Czechoslovak-French front. Even though the Communist propaganda machinery promoted the image of division into two adversary camps, these were not only understood geographically in terms of groups of states that evidently belonged to one or the other, but also rather idealistically as cross-border class societies rivaling each other inside of these camps.10 Besides the Iron Curtain that divided Europe as an unchangeable physical border materialized in electrified fences of barbed wire, there was also a powerful mental image of divided societies and their cultures. On the one hand, Communists doggedly fought against any culture that might be stamped as bourgeois or Western, rooted out its domestic sources, and successively stopped flows of such culture from the West after 1948, but, on the other, they did not want to cut themselves off from the Communist parties and intellectuals that made up tactically valuable Eastern enclaves amidst Western political adversaries. Such demarcation of the political-cultural border between these two camps was an ambiguous process that did not lack—metaphorically expressed—numerous border disputes and corrections. This process included not only the contemporary situation but it also reevaluated the rich French cultural heritage and rearranged the canon of masterworks. Therefore I argue that although direct cultural contacts and exchange between Czechoslovakia and France dropped to a minimum in the early Communist period, French culture was not mechanically denied access to the Czechoslovak quarantine in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but it was instrumentalized in order to serve the current Communist politics of cultural demarcation of the two camps. Focusing on the impact of the radicalized political development upon the presence of French culture in Czechoslovakia, this essay makes use, apart from secondary literature, of archival sources kept by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It also substantiates the changing nature of cultural import from France to Czechoslovakia by the use of statistics that contextualize the period of early Communist rule into a broader historical context. Finally, it should be noted that Czechoslovakia was in fact divided into two cultural circuits, the Czech lands with Czech as their main language and Slovakia with Slovak as its dominant language. However, this essay mainly reflects the situation in the Czech lands. – 179 –

Václav Šmidrkal

From Post-War Renewal to Cold War Impasse The geopolitical position of the post–World War II Czechoslovakia as a bridge between the Soviet-dominated East and the democratic West, envisaged by Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš, was an unstable construction that eventually collapsed after the Communist takeover in February 1948. The compromise, recorded in the Košice Government’s Program in 1945, combined policies of five political parties that were allowed within the National Front. It enabled the introduction of various statist regulations for cultural production during the Third Republic (1945–48), with the aim of forestalling the prewar market economy failures. The newly formulated public interest in cultural production was motivated by eliminating kitsch or vulgarity and by promoting artistic and educative values.11 This was especially noticeable in the film industry, which was nationalized already in 1945 by a presidential decree, when the state became the only entitled professional film producer and distributor. In other cultural branches, the changes were more subtle, but all of them had to count on tighter regulations and the bigger role exercised by the state. In spite of the explosive mixture of East and West in foreign politics and of Communist and democratic influences in domestic politics, cultural life blossomed and so did the foreign cultural exchange. After years of German occupation oppressing the Czech culture and also limiting circulation of foreign cultural products, the cultural life revived quickly. France, too, planned to reestablish its cultural presence in Czechoslovakia, which had been interrupted since 1939. However, France had lost some of the attractiveness and prestige it had enjoyed in the interwar period with the Czechoslovak population due to its appeasement policy and signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938. Furthermore, it became overshadowed by the victorious Soviet Union, the idea of Slavic togetherness, and revolutionary desires. French diplomat Louis Keller summarized this change on grounds of his observations from liberated Prague in June 1945 in the letter to the French minister of foreign affairs, Georges Bidault: “The words ‘reactionary’ and ‘Francophil’ have become close relatives in Prague.”12 Despite this unfavorable tendency, both France and Czechoslovakia were interested in the renewal of their cultural exchange, although Czechoslovakia stressed that, in contrast to the prewar praxis, the relations should be more reciprocal and balanced. The Declaration on Scientific, Literary, and Educational Contacts from 1924, amended by a Supplementary Protocol in 1945, became its legal base, although Czechoslovakia perceived this document as obsolete and interim. The French government reopened the Ernest Denis French Institute in Prague in 1945 and its regional branches (Maison de France) in Brno and Bratislava in 1947. The Alliance Française – 180 –

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also renewed its activities, but its network consisted of a mere twenty-nine branches compared with up to seventy-two branches in interwar Czechoslovakia.13 The reciprocity in cultural exchange was represented by newly ˇeskoslovfounded sister societies for cultural exchange—Spolecˇnost C ensko-Francie in Czechoslovakia and Société France-Tchécoslovaquie in France. The significance of these contact societies was underlined by their executive staff, which consisted of well-known personalities from different spheres of public life and of different political affiliations. Louis-Eugèn Faucher, a retired general who served in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period, became its chairman on the French side. Romance scholar Václav Cˇerný, who eventually avoided membership in the society, recalled that the French literary committee as a part of society was represented by authors such as Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, Jean Cassou, François Mauriac, André Chamson, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Pierre Emmanuel, which underscored the importance of this society.14 The Slovak branch of the society (Spolocˇnost’ Cˇeskoslovensko-Francúzko), seated in Bratislava, was chaired by Ladislav Holdoš, a Communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War and spent most of World War II in France. After the Communist takeover in February 1948 and the establishment of a Communist dictatorship, the contacts with the West gradually worsened, and in 1949–50, the situation was aggravated when the Soviet influence was strengthened through a contingent of Soviet advisors delegated to central Czechoslovak authorities.15 Czechoslovakia wanted to promote the achievements of the young Communist regime in France and to support the PCF, but it refused, with growing radicalization, to tolerate uncontrolled French cultural activities in Czechoslovakia. Moreover, after 1948, France received Czechoslovak political émigrés who organized oppositional activities for their homeland against the Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, such as radio broadcasting in Czech and Slovak. Support for émigrés and the occasional use of police force against Communist activists in France reinforced the negative perception of a French bourgeois state. On the other hand, Czechoslovakia organized pro-Communist radio broadcasting in French under the title Ce soir en France (Tonight in France) and helped to publish the magazine Paris-Prague (later Parallèle 50) in France.16 The parallel attempts to penetrate with one’s own influence into the other country and to quickly curb these efforts of the other led to a rupture in French-Czechoslovak relations.17 Even though France, which traditionally perceived cultural diplomacy as a strong pillar of its foreign policy, was ready for certain compromises, the radicalizing Communist regime in Czechoslovakia persisted on its standpoints. Adolf Hoffmeister, the Czechoslovak ambassador to France in 1948–50 and rather a “fellow – 181 –

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traveler” than a diehard Communist, carefully warned Prague that the lack of understanding for the French point of view could have serious consequences for bilateral relations.18 Notwithstanding, because of the growing paranoia nurtured by the American policy of containment and, later, of the rollback of Communism,19 the regime feared that cultural cooperation with the “official France” could be misused as an enemy “agency” fulfilling tasks of “political intelligence, industrial and military espionage, distributing disconcerting news, for propagation of ideologies alien to Socialist construction.”20 The Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned in March 1949 that the Western cultural influences in Czechoslovakia and Poland should be done away with and the Soviet cultural presence should be strengthened.21 The joint French-Czechoslovak cultural commission met for the last time in the fall of 1948. At the beginning of the academic year 1948–49, Czechoslovakia withdrew its students from the Czechoslovak departments of high schools in Dijon, Nîmes, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and Angoulême, and, from 1950, no more university lecturers of French and Czech were exchanged.22 The French high schools in Prague and Brno were also closed down in 1951 and 1953 respectively. Communists saw in the network of Alliance Française a useless relic from prewar times that united “reactionary Francophiles,” and thus it was dissolved.23 The “bourgeois” leadership of the sister contact society Cˇeskoslovensko-Francie was replaced with a Communist cadre, also changing its objectives in 1948, but it soon became redundant since organizing of foreign cultural contacts was concentrated at the highest party and state levels. On the French side, the Association France-Tchécoslovaquie was overrun by PCF members in fall 1949 and appointed a new chairman, composer Roger Désormière. General Faucher and other non–Communist sympathizers of Czechoslovakia set up their own Amitié Franco-Tchécoslovaque (French-Czechoslovak Friendship), supported by both Czechoslovak émigrés and the French government.24 The last isle of French cultural influence that was not yet controlled by Czechoslovak Communist authorities was the Ernest Denis French Institute in Prague and its branches in Brno and Bratislava. Míla Soukup, the inspector for culture and education of the Prague Municipality, visited an event called “55th gathering of poet Pepa Pánek’s friends” on the Institute’s premises in late December 1950. Judging by its humorous title, the whole program was probably meant to be an intellectually entertaining evening open to free literary creativity. Soukop described what he had seen in the darkest colors as a deplorable bourgeois gathering: “In the classroom where it all took place smoking was allowed so that it looked there like in a pub, only liqueurs and wine served by décolleté dames were missed there. … This was a modern style poetry of a, I would say, degenerated society – 182 –

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that indulges in sexuality, drinking and the like.”25 Such reports persuaded the Communist authorities that the institute had become a center of petty bourgeois elements and remnants of reactionary Czechoslovaks, and its further existence was perceived as a potential threat. After continuing pressure, the Communist authorities made the institute close down in April 1951. It caused a diplomatic scandal between Czechoslovakia and France, but Prague got rid of the uncontrolled “French window” that was not reopened until 1990. During the years 1948–51, Czechoslovak diplomacy weakened relations with the French state step-by-step and extended its connections to the PCF, despite warnings that it was no substitute for the official France. Czechoslovakia was loath to revoke the Declaration, for it feared that doing so could give France a pretext for a harsh reaction. Instead, it stopped realizing its provisions, and the Declaration became a dead document. Typically, for the period from 1951 to 1954, the Czechoslovak Embassy in Paris discussed its plan of cultural contacts between France and Czechoslovakia with PCF’s leadership, ignoring the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.26 Although Czechoslovakia could count on pro-Communist publishing houses such as Agence litteraire et artistique or Éditions Seghers and musical companies such as Chant du Monde, the infrastructure of the French Communist environment could not match that of the official France, and mutual cultural exchange was severely decreasing. French Communists hoping for more intensive relations with Czechoslovakia were often disenchanted with the confusing situation there, although they did not speak out their objections publicly.27 Poet Paul Éluard let loose his irritation when he stopped in Prague on his way back to France from Budapest in September 1949 and a planned meeting with a Czechoslovak delegation did not take place. Éluard explained this organizational failure as a result of Czechoslovaks pulling away from everything French, be it progressive or not.28

The Communist Anti-Westernism Éluard’s observation reflected upon the radicalization of Czechoslovakia, which carefully distinguished between progressive and reactionary Western cultures on the rhetorical level, but became generally anti-Western in its practices. Even though anti-Western attitudes in culture could be remotely connected with historical cultural cleavages, represented by disputes such as the one between cosmopolitan writers (lumírovci) and patriotic writers (ruchovci) that took place in the 1870s and 1880s, the strict anti-Westernism that developed shortly after 1948 became grotesquely tragic. Czech historian Jan Krˇen considers the Bohemian lands throughout its history as – 183 –

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the traditional eastern edge of the West and argues that the sense of Czech history is the repeated catching up with the more advanced West.29 The Communists tried to reverse this tendency and remake Czechoslovakia as the Western edge of the East—that is, to make its further historical progress a result of the revolutionary project of Soviet Bolsheviks. The multifaceted anti-Westernism aimed to increase the plausibility of this switch by defamation of Communist Czechoslovakia’s external enemy, which was unmistakably located in the West. The growing East-West tension and the ideologically based fear of Western expansionism led the Soviet Union and other people’s democracies to prepare intensively for a war against the West on the brink of the 1950s. Notions of West German revanchism and Fascism in Western Europe revived enemy images from World War II. The anti-Westernism of the young Communist regimes was also brutally manifested in the show trials that began with László Rajk in Hungary in 1949, where accusations of high treason, espionage, or sabotage in favor of the West became a standard model. This covertly anti-Semitic witch hunt did not spare diehard Communists such as the so-called Spaniards or Frenchmen, Party members who fought in the Spanish Civil War or joined the wartime resistance in

Figure 9.1. Dve kultúry [Two cultures]: the satirical cartoon contrasts peaceable works by Communist artists from different Western and Eastern countries and preparations for bacteriological war (the tube in the middle says “Japanese experience with waging of bacteriological war”; test tubes: “Plague,” “Typhus”). Source: Rohácˇ, 3/1951, 2. – 184 –

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France. Those convicted were vilified as the worst criminals by the use of the ideological cliché of cosmopolitism. For example, one journalist wrote, “Cosmopolitans enter the services of American imperialism again, these venal tarts that are unconcerned about their affiliation to motherland, individuals that are unable of warm human feelings, cynical egoists capable of everything, monsters like Slánský, Reicin, Frank.”30 The idea of cosmopolitism was derived from zhdanovshchina, the Soviet cultural policy of the late Stalin era, which was essentially a disguised antiWesternism. Under the pretext of the fight against cosmopolitism, positive relations to Western cultures were gibbeted throughout Czechoslovak history as a wrong policy of previous presidents T. G. Masaryk, Edvard Beneš, and Emil Hácha that strengthened the low national self-esteem of the Czechs and was marked by “kowtowing to the unculture of western bourgeoisie.”31 The minister of information and leading party ideologue in this period, Václav Kopecký, explained in his lecture the meaning of cosmopolitism as an “ideology of American imperialism” at a high-level conference held at the Military Technical Academy in Brno in 1952, drawing the ideological border across the bipolar world: Our deep aversion towards cosmopolitism does not mean at all that we would like to underestimate real values of world culture as long as these were merits of big personalities of western nations. On the contrary! … It is ridiculous when our adversaries from the West misinterpret our fight against cosmopolitism as if we would like to underestimate, for example in literature, Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe, Whitman and the like. And even more ridiculous it is when they hold themselves up as protectors of these world poets. … Isn’t it an insult for the motherland of Molière when dollar moguls, like foreign masters, can lay down the law in today’s France? … Our fight against cosmopolitism is led on the frontline of ideological and cultural struggle for a new world, on the frontline that goes across all countries, that makes distinctions in the rows of scientists, artists, scholars in the West, too, and that puts the best ones by our side.32

In reality, most Western intellectuals did not stay on “their side,” and the audience in Czechoslovakia did not lose its interest in different cultural products of the West either. In Communist thinking, a work of art and its role in the new society was understood as a weapon used in an ideological fight. Such weapons were not lethal, but they “poisoned” one’s mind with “imperialist opium” and eventually caused a person to abandon the Communist cause. Demonizing broadly understood enemy ideas and severe punishments for their spreading were typical features of early Communist dictatorships. The Western culture was not only blocked,33 carefully censored, and propagandistically instrumentalized; “bourgeois mass culture” was also publicly disdained as “perverted culture” and interpreted as a clear symptom of everyday misery of “rotting” Capitalism. For example, – 185 –

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the presence of U.S. troops on the westernmost part of the Czechoslovak territory from April to November 1945 was retrospectively reinterpreted as a dangerous direct contact with this “barbaric” culture: “The population of West Bohemia got a good lesson about the American occupants who wanted, under the elevated words of ‘American democracy’ and ‘culture and civilization,’ to impose a rule of gangsters, of pornographic unculture and nightclubs, a rule of violent Americanization and colonization of our country. … By gory stories and pornography, they strived for closing the way of our people to real culture, to real art that helps and gives strength in the fight for a better tomorrow.”34 In the French context, a similar dishonoring campaign was waged against existentialism, which was seen as a prominent product of degenerated Western culture. Journalist Marie Kot’átková reported from Paris in 1950 that she identified a youth subculture of existentialists there whom she called “people monstrously dying” because their worldview seemed “poisoned” by American ideas scattered around like potato beetles in Czechoslovakia.35

The Culture of “Real France” in a Communist Dictatorship After 1948, the Communist Party could impose its leading role in all spheres of public life. Cultural exchange abroad was centralized at the highest state and party levels and scrutinized in a long decision-making process. The inflexibility of such a system also contributed to a decrease in the number of works produced or introduced in Czechoslovakia. The statistical overviews of French cultural presence in Czechoslovakia are available in the form of literary translations from French into Czech (fig. 9.2) and of screenings of foreign films in the Czech lands (figs. 9.3 and 9.4), embedding the early Communist period in the longer cultural development of postwar Czechoslovakia. The curve showing the number of titles translated from French into Czech and published in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1975 has two similar tops. These represent the years 1945–48 preceding the Communist rule and the years around the Prague Spring in 1968, when Czechoslovakia reopened to Western cultures again. The decreasing trend began shortly after 1948 and bottomed out in the mid-1950s. The outputs from the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the regime tried to tighten the ideological control after a certain thaw, correspond with the level of the early 1970s, the era of “normalization” after the defeat of the Prague Spring, when the regime reinforced some of its ideological claims on cultural transfers from the West. – 186 –

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127 116 103

97 63

74

74 61

58

38

49

58

73

57

54

58

77 77

88

100

91 81

76

56

54

43 32

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

23

Figure 9.2. Translations of French literature into Czech. Note: The table includes translations of both fictional and nonfictional French literature published in the Czech language in the given year. ˇ eské prˇeklady francouzské literatury (1960–1969) (C ˇeské Budeˇjovice: Source: K. Drsková, C Jihocˇeská univerzita, 2010), 68. Based on Drsková’s own calculations and, ˇech in C ˇech, Francouzsko-cˇeské vztahy, 279. for the years 1945–53, those of Pavel C

90 80 70 60 France

50

UK

40

US

30

USSR

20 10 0

Figure 9.3. Feature films in Czech cinemas according to country of origin (selection). ˇ s. filmové hospodárˇství 1945–1950 (Praha: C ˇeský filmový ústav, 1970), 202; Sources: J. Havelka, C ˇ ˇ J. Havelka, C s. filmové hospodárˇství 1951–1955 I (Praha: Ceskoslovenský filmový ústav, 1972), 296; ˇ s. filmové hospodárˇství 1956–1960 (Praha: C ˇeskoslovenský filmový ústav, 1974), 188. J. Havelka, C

– 187 –

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The statistical data available for film screenings in the Czech lands show again that after a postwar revival and domination of U.S. films, Western productions were eliminated from distribution after 1948. Not only premieres of French and other Western films hit the bottom in the years 1951–53 but also the production output of Czechoslovak cinematography got stuck. From 1953 to 1957, the number of films from non-Communist countries steadily rose; in the years 1958–60, it slightly dropped again, and a rapid growth continued from 1961. It reached its peak in 1969, when screenings of films from non-Communist countries made up more than 50 percent of all screening (fig. 9.4). Interestingly, films from non-Communist countries usually had higher turnouts than films from other Communist countries than Czechoslovakia. The Communist Party’s cultural policy aimed to purify repertoires that the regime had inherited from the past—repertoires based on the cultural cornucopia of the postwar years—and, concurrently, to strictly impose Communist ideological criteria on both newly created domestic or transposed foreign works. The purification campaign strictly eliminated cultural symbols of the previous era and gave explanations why these works were dangerous for the new order and therefore must be hidden in depositories or destroyed right away. The most spectacular case was the purification of public libraries, which was carried out mainly on the grounds of two long lists of “defective” literature. The aim was to purify the public libraries of both literarily inferior (pulp fiction) and ideologically or politically unacceptable

1970

1969

1968

1967

1966

'Other'

1965

1964

1963

1962

1961

1960

1959

1958

1957

'People's Democracies'

1956

1955

1954

1953

USSR

1952

1951

1950

1949

1948

1947

1946

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

1945

Czechoslovakia

Figure 9.4. Screenings of feature films in Czech cinemas by percentage according to their origin. Note: “Other” countries of origin are defined as all other countries outside the Soviet bloc in Europe. ˇ s. filmové hospodárˇství 1945–1950, 228; J. Havelka, C ˇ s. filmové hospodárˇství Sources: J. Havelka, C ˇ s. filmové hospodárˇství 1956–1960, 240; J. Havelka, C ˇ s. filmové 1951–1955 I, 342; J. Havelka, C ˇ s. filmové hospodárˇství 1966 –1970, 330. hospodárˇství 1961–1965, 314; J. Havelka, C – 188 –

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works propagating racism, fascism, formalism, naturalism, pornography, or colonialism.36 Among these works, there were also numerous translations from French: J.-P. Sartre’s Les Chemins de la liberté (The Roads to Freedom) was blacklisted for existentialism, Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s books were branded as “perverted unmoral literature,” and André Gide’s books as “cosmopolitan formalist reactionary literature.” It is estimated that, altogether, about twenty-seven million removed volumes were meant to be recycled and the paper used for printing Czech classics, such as Alois Jirásek.37 ˇech, who systematically analyzed literary translations from French Pavel C into Czech from 1945 to 1953, distinguishes two main lines of French literature that were published in Czechoslovakia after 1948: the “realist progressive tradition” included the reinterpreted French literary heritage of the early modern and modern era, and the “topical progressive themes,” which presented current literary works of the French Communist milieu.38 The Communist regimes proudly displayed their careful attention to classical culture of the West as a source of incontestable artistic values that had been neglected by Capitalism and its deplorable mass culture. Yet they did not simply acclaim aesthetic mastery; such classics were ideologically reassessed on grounds of current political needs.39 The fictional literature, such as Honoré de Balzac’s novels, was interpreted as a valuable artistic source of social analysis showing the growing class conflicts in early Capitalist society. Its value was increased by positive assessments of French critical realism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.40 Even though the situation had changed since Balzac’s times, the literary critic contextualized the seemingly remote historical stories into the current political discourse in Czechoslovakia by explaining these links in the preface or afterword to the literary text. Thus, the descendants of the Grandets, Rastignacs, and Gobsecks of Honoré de Balzac’s novels were to be located in present day Wall Street and London.41 Similarly, the anti-Church satirical criticism in Molière’s Tartuffe was topically liaised with “intrigues” of Hungarian Cardinal József Midszenty and Czechoslovak Cardinal Josef Beran, both victims of the respective Communist regimes.42 Although French classics were not always unanimously accepted, definitely more conflicting was the decision-making in the case of “contemporary progressive literature,” where both the author and his work were scrutinized for their political and literary qualities and, even more importantly, for the appropriateness of their works in the current political discourse in Czechoslovakia. Therefore, many booklets concerning topical political issues published by French Communist militants were already outdated when they were considered for translation and publication in Czechoslovakia. Further, whereas dead authors did not interfere with cur– 189 –

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rent politics anymore, living authors could be banned because of their political engagement. A group of French writers protesting against Záviš Kalandra’s death penalty in 1950 and asking him to be pardoned by President Klement Gottwald were to be blacklisted and their works eliminated from distribution in Czechoslovakia. Should this suggestion have materialized, it would have affected dozens of prominent French authors who signed the letter.43 On the other hand, correct political opinions did not guarantee a smooth entrance: the dictatorship was full of contradictions, and its bureaucracy was not error-free. Thus, the Czech literary critique highly appraised the autobiography of Maurice Thorez Fils du peuple (Son of the People). It was not certainly on grounds of its literary values but simply because it was written by the secretary general of the PCF.44 In other cases, the bureaucratic approval process, which followed different selection criteria, could also result in surprising decisions, such as the withdrawal of prominent Communist author Louis Aragon’s novel Les Voyageurs de l’impériale. The novel was translated into Czech and printed in 1948 by the Máj Publishing House, but this company, which specialized in Western literature, was to be liquidated and replaced by the state-run Cˇeskoslovenský spisovatel. Under unclear circumstances, Aragon’s novel also ended up on a blacklist. A similar hot case was the refusal to publish Elsa Triolet’s novels L’Inspecteur des ruines and Les Amants d’Avignon, which were turned down during the multilevel decision making process. In all these cases, a combination of ideological, aesthetic, and managerial criteria led to the negative decisions that irritated both Aragon and his wife Triolet. Although Czechoslovakia officially highly esteemed their political and artistic achievements, it was not willing to translate these works, which differed somewhat from the ˇech concludes, the far-reaching elimnewly created canon.45 As Pavel C ination of most modern French literature could hardly be compensated by “contemporary progressive” authors and by translations of authors and literary streams that were previously unknown in Czech, such as the works of Paul-Louis Courier (1773–1825) or of writers connected with the Paris Commune of 1871.46 Apart from literature, the offerings of the “progressive” France were quite limited compared to what France produced as a whole. Shortly after February 1948, French “bourgeois” dramatic plays that were being rehearsed, such as J.-P. Sartre’s Les Mouches (The Flies) in the National Theatre in Prague or Jean Giraudoux’s La Folle de Chaillot (The Madwoman of Chaillot) in the Municipal Theatre in Prague-Vinohrady, had to be withdrawn from the programs.47 The chair of the Theatre and Dramatic Council, Ota Ornest, formulated the priorities for theatrical repertoires in Bratislava in January 1949:48 (1a) new domestic plays with contemporary themes, (1b) new – 190 –

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domestic plays with historical themes, (2) reevaluated Czech and Slovak dramatic heritage, (3a) Russian and Soviet plays, (3b) plays from people’s democracies, (4) reevaluated world classics, and (5) progressive Western plays. The last category was also given the least priority. As a result, during the early years of the Communist regime, French drama by classical dramatists such as Molière or P.-A. C. de Beaumarchais was scarcely represented on Czechoslovak theatre stages. The switch in the relations between Czechoslovakia and France from the “official France” to the Communist milieu meant also a rupture in film exchange in both directions. The French film industry could not offer many films like La bataille du rail (The Battle of the Rails, dir. René Clément, 1946), which was highly acclaimed by Communist film critics for its “realism.” The dramatized documentary Nous continuons la France (dir. Louis Daquin, 1946) about the PCF, one of few French films that entered the Czechoslovak cinemas in 1950, did not attract much audience. Hits such as Fanfan la Tulipe (1952, dir. Christian-Jaque), starring Gérard Philipe and premiering in 1953 in Czechoslovakia, were scarce examples of a French box-office success in those years (totaling 4,148,600 viewers in the Czech lands from 1953 to 1963). The reverse in the trend of cutting off from the West began slowly after the death of both J. V. Stalin and his Czechoslovak follower Klement Gottwald in 1953. During the second half of the year, the policy of a “New Course,” meant to ease the situation in foreign cultural exchange, was discussed in the Communist Party.49 Ivo Fleischmann, who a few years earlier had fiercely propagated the two camps theory toward French literature, attacking particularly existentialists, warned in December 1953 against “sectarianism” in the perception of French culture, which had resulted in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Not only the Communists but also other French intellectuals sympathizing with the “idea of peace” were to be considered allies of the East.50 Similarly, Antonín J. Liehm welcomed the abandoning of the restrictive course in his 1955 review of three French comedies that premiered in Czechoslovak cinemas: “Recently, so to speak, the assortment in our cinemas has been extended. It is a good, beneficial thing. … We can congratulate ourselves that the time is over when this interest was artificially canalized to suburban cinemas or even to cinemas outside of Prague.”51 The détente after the armistice on the Korean Peninsula and negotiations in Geneva in 1954 led the Czechoslovak authorities to rethink its relations with the West. Ignorance and the guerrilla-like cultural diplomacy of the previous years quickly became obsolete, and Czechoslovakia concluded it would achieve more by cooperating with the official representatives of France.52 The tour of the Théâtre national populaire in Czecho– 191 –

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slovakia in 1955 was the first hosting of a French theatre company since 1948 and became a great success not only artistically but also in terms of propaganda. As an official of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted, the press coverage of this tour by French bourgeois journalists was unexpectedly positive.53 The extension of cultural exchange between France and Czechoslovakia needed to include commercial subjects as agents of exchange since state authorities were not capable of administrating the growing agenda. The relations with the French Communist milieu remained important in the sense of party-to-party relations, but Czechoslovakia understood that the PCF had only limited possibilities and that it was in Czechoslovakia’s interest to benefit from state-to-state relations with France. At the same time, this turn in mutual relations did not mean that Czechoslovakia was ready to resign from a certain degree of ideological claims on and political expectations from French culture that was to be let into Czechoslovakia. The gradual process of de-ideologization in cultural exchange took place as late as the 1960s.

Conclusion The early Communist period of Czechoslovak history was marked by a denial of the previous cultural orientation of Czechoslovakia toward France and other Western countries, which happened as a part of the delimitation of the Eastern bloc against the West. Unlike Nazis during World War II and their general bans on the enemy country’s culture, the Communists understood culture in class terms in which geographical borders collided with borders across societies. Traditional cultural ties between Czechoslovakia and France that were torn after 1948 were believed to be substituted by refocusing on relations with the French Communist Party and its intellectual milieu, which, apart from the militants included numerous “fellow travelers” and “card-carrying” Communists. However intellectually strong the Communist milieu in France was, it could replace state-to-state cultural diplomacy and commercial cultural exchange only to a limited extent. After the cultural cornucopia of the Czechoslovak Third Republic in 1945– 48, the French cultural presence became strictly limited and could offer only a handful of literary translations that had made their way through rigorous, protracted, and occasionally erratic censorship. Especially the works of contemporary authors were not presented as pure works of art but rather deliberately used for political purposes of the Communist dictatorship and its legitimization.54 The anti-Westernism of Communist Czechoslovakia as a part of the bipolar world’s dichotomies found it difficult to effectively distinguish be– 192 –

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tween progressive and bourgeois French cultures. This distinction became rather a popular rhetorical instrument than an applied daily practice. By more or less disguised appeals on nationalism, Russophilia, anti-Semitism, and anti-Germanism, the West was shown in the worst possible light. Both international and domestic politics slowly changed after 1953 with the realization that the rupture in relations with official France, based on distrust and a frenetic blockade of French bourgeois culture in Czechoslovakia, had slowly turned out to be disadvantageous for Czechoslovak cultural diplomacy and for the development of the Czech culture itself. The West remained its main political adversary, but Communist Czechoslovakia felt forced to look for a new modus operandi in foreign cultural exchange that would still follow an ideological line but would not hamper Czechoslovakia’s own interests. Václav Šmidrkal earned his Ph.D. in modern history at Charles University in Prague in 2014. In his dissertation, he dealt with comparative history of artistic institutions in Central European Socialist militaries. He is currently working at the Masaryk Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in a research project on cultural history of violence during World War I and its aftermath in Austrian and Bohemian lands. He is the author of a book on the history of the Czechoslovak Army Film Studio (2009), as well as numerous articles and book chapters in Czech, and also in English and German.

Notes 1. Julius Fucˇík (1903–43) was a Czech Communist journalist and resistance fighter who was executed by the Nazis. The Communist Party transformed him into a notorious propaganda character, a Communist hero prototype. See S. Zwicker, “Der antifaschistische Märtyrer der Tschechoslowakei Julius Fucˇík,” in Sozialistische Helden: eine Kulturgeschichte von Propagandafiguren in Osteuropa und der DDR, ed. S. Satjukow and R. Gries (Berlin: Ch. Linsk, 2002), 244–55. 2. A. J. Liehm, “Doslov,” in Držte se, soudruzi!, ed. P. Abraham (Praha: Naše vojsko, 1952), 151f. 3. Ibid., 162. 4. See S. Reznikow, Francophilie et identité tchèque 1848–1914 (Paris: H. Champion, 2002). 5. See A. Kriegel, Les communistes français: essai d’ethnographie politique, 2nd ed. (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1970). 6. T. Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 267. 7. A term coined by Annie Kriegel. See K. Bartošek, Zpráva o putování v komunistických archivech Praha—Parˇíž (1948–1968) (Prague: Paseka, 2000), 103–17. 8. J. Knapík, “Der Versuch, eine Quarantäne zu errichten. Zu den Beschränkungen und der Kontrolle kultureller Kontakte der Tschechoslowakei zum westlichen Ausland 1948–1956,” in Kultur als Vehikel und als Oponent politischer Absichten. Kulturkontakte zwischen Deutschen, – 193 –

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Tschechen und Slowaken von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhundertsbis in die 1980er Jahre, ed. M. Marek et al., (Essen: Klartext, 2010), 95–105. 9. J. Knapík, V zajetí moci. Kulturní politika, její systém a aktérˇi 1948–1956 (Praha: Libri, 2006), 55–60. 10. R. Krakovsky, “The Representation of the Cold War: The Peace and the War Camps in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1960,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 6, no. 2 (2008): 160. 11. See P. Janácˇek, Literární brak: Operace vyloucˇení, operace nahrazení 1938–1951 (Brno: Host, 2004). 12. J. Hnilica, Francouzský institut v Praze 1920–1951. Mezi vzdeˇláním a propagandou (Prague: Karolinum, 2009), 120. ˇeskoslovenskem a Francií v letech 1948– 13. L. Motejlková, “Kulturní diplomacie mezi C 1968,” Slovanský prˇehled 45, no. 3 (2009): 356. 14. V. Cˇerný, Pameˇti 1945–1972 (Brno: Atlantis, 1992), 94. ˇeskoslovensku 1949–1956 (Prague: ÚSD AV CˇR, 1993). 15. K. Kaplan, Soveˇtští poradci v C ˇeskoslov16. D. Olšáková, “V krajineˇ za zrcadlem: Politicˇtí emigranti v poúnorovém C ensku a prˇípad Aymonin,” Soudobé deˇjiny 14, no. 4 (2007): 719–43. 17. See L. Motejlková, “Cˇeskoslovensko-francouzské vztahy na pocˇátku studené války: ˇeskoslovensku v letech 1948–1956,” Moderní deˇjiny Francouzské diplomatické zastoupení v C 16 (2008): 251–89. 18. Zasedání Smíšené komise kulturní dohody francouzsko-cˇeskoslovenské v Praze (23 August 1949), 4, k. cˇ. 24, f. TO-O 1945–59 Francie, Archiv ministerstva zahranicˇních veˇcí (hereafter AMZV). 19. See J. Faure, L’ami américain: la Tchéchoslovaquie, enjeu de la diplomatie américaine 1943– 1968 (Paris: Tallandier Éditions, 2004). ˇsl. francouzské kulturní styky. Zpráva o obeˇdeˇ s prof. Audubertem (15 March 1950), 20. C 1, k. cˇ. 5, f. TO-T 1945–55 Francie, AMZV. 21. “Predlozheniia zaveduiushchego IV Evropeiskim otdelom (EP) MID SSSR S. P. Kirsanova ob usilenii sovetskogo vliianiia na kul’turnuiu zhizn’ Pol’shi, Chekhoslovakii i drugikh stran Vostochnoi Evropy, 21 marta 1949 r,” in Vostochnaia Evropa v dokumentakh rossiiskikh arkhivov 1944–1953, Tom 2, 1949–1953, ed. G. P. Muraško and T. V. Volokitina (Moskva: Sibirskii khronograf, 1998), 37–41. 22. Cˇs.-francouzské kulturní styky a další možnost jejich rozvoje (9 September 1954), 3, k. cˇ. 24, f. TO-O 1945–59 Francie, AMZV. 23. Z. Raková, Francophonie de la population tchèque 1848–2008 (Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2011), 66–7; Vývoj kulturních styku° mezi CˇSR a Francií, 1945–49, 10, k. cˇ. 189, f. Ministerstvo informací—dodatky, Národní archiv (hereafter NA). 24. Ibid., 9b. 25. Zpráva osveˇtového inspektora Míly Soukupa (28 December 1950), k. cˇ. 5, f. TO-T 1945–55 Francie, AMZV. 26. Plán kulturních styku° na rok 1953 (14 November 1952), k. cˇ. 5, f. TO-T 1945–55 Francie, AMZV. 27. F. Noirant, “1949–1950: la naissance d’un malentendu. Les intellectuels communistes français et les non-dits de la soviétisation tchécoslovaque,” Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps 59 (July–September 2000): 33–42. 28. Paul Eluard—dojmy z Prahy (20 September 1949), k. cˇ. 30, TO-O 1945–59 Francie, AMZV. 29. See J. Krˇen, Historické promeˇny ˇcešství (Prague: Karolinum, 1992); P. Drulák, Politika nezájmu. Cˇesko a Západ v krizi (Prague: Sociologické nakladatelství, 2012), 219–22. 30. The author refers to the show trial against high Communist officials from 1952–53, the Slánský trial. J. Franeˇk, “Pravá tvárˇ kosmopolitismu a buržoazního nacionalismu,” Rudé právo, 4 January 1953, k. cˇ. 1114, f. AMVZ—Výstrˇižkový archiv 3, NA.

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31. J. O. Fischer, “Do boje proti kosmopolitismu v západní kulturˇe,” Tvorba, 6 December 1951, 1, 190. 32. V. Kopecký, Proti kosmopolitismu jako ideologii amerického imperialismu (Praha: Orbis, 1952), 24–26. 33. For example Western radio broadcasting was jammed in Czechoslovakia in 1952–88, with a short break in 1968. See P. Tomek, “Rušení zahranicˇního rozhlasového vysílání pro Cˇeskoslovensko,” Securitas imperii 9 (2002): 334–66. ˇechách v 34. K. Bartošek and K. Pichlík, Hanebná role amerických okupantu ˚ v západních C roce 1945 (Prague: Svoboda, 1951), 26, 32. 35. The last reference connected to a big propaganda campaign that accused Americans of infesting Czechoslovakia with potato beetles in order to damage potato fields. M. Kot’átková, “O lidech zru°dneˇ odumírajících,” Lidové noviny, 22 June 1950, k. cˇ. 618, f. AMVZ— Výstrˇižkový archiv 2, NA. 36. P. Šámal, Soustružníci lidských duší. Lidové knihovny a jejich cenzura na pocˇátku padesátých let 20. století (s edicí seznamu ˚ zakázaných knih) (Prague: Academia, 2009), 220f. 37. Ibid., 62f. 38. P. Cˇech, Francouzsko-cˇeské vztahy v oblasti prˇekladu (1945–1953) (Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2011). 39. J. C. E. Gienow-Hecht, “Culture and the Cold War in Europe,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 1, Origins, ed. M. P. Leffler and O. A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 404. 40. Cˇech, Francouzsko-cˇeské vztahy, 95. 41. I. Skála, “Honoré de Balzac—velký kritik buržoazní spolecˇnosti,” Rudé právo, 18 August 1950, k. cˇ. 618, f. AMVZ—Výstrˇižkový archiv 2, NA. 42. Cˇech, Francouzsko-cˇeské vztahy, 87. 43. Ibid., 180. 44. Ivo Fleischmann, “Francouzská kultura v boji o mír,” Lidové noviny, 25 June 1950, k. cˇ. 618, f. AMVZ—Výstrˇižkový archiv 2, NA. 45. Cˇech, Francouzsko-cˇeské vztahy, 198–201. The Czech translation of Les Amants d’Avignon did not appear until 1961, but it was published in Slovak already in 1950. 46. Ibid., 118. 47. V. Just, Divadlo v totalitním systému: Prˇíbeˇh ˇceského divadla (1945–1989) nejen v datech a souvislostech (Prague: Academia, 2010), 61. 48. Ibid., 58–59. 49. J. Knapík, V zajetí moci, 212–33. 50. I. Fleischmann, “Francouzská kultura bojující,” Literární noviny, 24 October 1953, k. cˇ. 3205, f. AMVZ—Výstrˇižkový archiv 3, NA. 51. A. J. Liehm, “Trˇi francouzské veselohry,” Kino 1955, cˇ. 22, 358. 52. AMZV, TO-T 1945–55 Francie, k. cˇ. 5, Otázky kulturní spolupráce s Francií (11 March 1954), 1. ˇeskoslovenska s kapitalistickými 53. Poznatky z provádeˇní kulturních a veˇdeckých styku° C státy (16 February 1956), Prˇehled vývoje kulturních a veˇdeckých styku° s jednotlivými kapitalistickými zemeˇmi, 2, kniha cˇ. 19, f. Porady kolegia 1953–89, AMZV. 54. See J. Bláhová, “No Place for Peace-Mongers: Charlie Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Czechoslovak Communist Propaganda,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 29, no. 3 (2009): 321–42.

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Chapter 10

DEALING WITH “FRIENDS” Soviet Friendship Societies in Western Europe as a Challenge for Western Diplomacy Sonja Großmann

O

n 9 June 1977, the NATO Political Committee had the following apparently marginal item on its agenda:

Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the October Revolution by the BelgoSoviet Friendship Society THE COMMITTEE: was informed by the Belgian Representative that the Belgo-Soviet Friendship Society had invited the Governor of the Province of Brabant to become a patron of this commemorative ceremony; the Belgian Authorities would like to know if similar invitations had been extended by Soviet friendship societies to senior officials in other member countries and, if so, what answer had been given.1

This short citation illustrates three aspects of the role of friendship societies2 during the Cold War. First, the Belgo-Soviet Friendship Society is not a single case, but part of a worldwide network of associations working to distribute information about and improve relations with the Soviet Union. As in the case of the Belgian association, founded in 1929,3 their existence generally dates back to the interwar period when associations called “Friends of the Soviet Union” were created in several countries, particularly in the Western hemisphere, uniting intellectuals who were interested in the different facets of the social experiment going on in the former Russian empire.4 Coordinated by the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (Vsesoiuznoe obshchestvo kul’turnoi sviazi s zagranitsei, VOKS) and, since 1958, by the Union of Soviet Societies of Friendship and – 196 –

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Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (Soiuz Sovetskikh Obshchestv druzhby i kul’turnoi sviazi s zarubezhnymi stranami, SSOD), the friendship societies corresponded to the Soviet idea of narodnaia diplomatiia or “people-to-people diplomacy,” aiming to gain sympathizers for its policies among the working class and progressive intellectuals abroad in order to supplement or complement the “bourgeois secret diplomacy.”5 In the context of the Cold War, the network of associations was organizationally and ideologically more streamlined and became part of a giant image campaign, promoting Soviet ideology and Soviet policies abroad. The friendship societies became agents of cultural exchange during the Cold War, depending on the international diplomatic constellation, the vicissitudes of the relationship between the superpowers, and the bilateral relationship between the home country and the Soviet Union. Second, it was certainly not accidental that the Belgian association wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution. This was one of the annual obligatory events for all friendship societies, listed by SSOD for every year and country.6 However, friendship societies were not just marionettes obediently playing out Soviet propagandistic instructions. Since they were part of a pluralist civil society, their activities, their membership, and their political orientation were strongly influenced by the political constellations in their home countries. One important parameter was the impact of the Communist Party and the Communist milieu on the political landscape of the respective country, the Party’s ability and opportunity to collaborate with other political actors, and its anchoring in the society. Third, in the context of the Cold War, friendship societies were not only private associations, but interfered with the governmental and intergovernmental spheres. By organizing cultural events, town twinning, and tourism with the Soviet Union in collaboration with Soviet state-controlled bodies like the SSOD and by negotiating directly with the governmental level, this type of activity affected the official bilateral exchange and was a continuous challenge for Western governments and their foreign policies. Contemporary judgments, and for a long time historiography, perceived friendship societies as one-sided propagandistic instruments of the Soviet government and the local Communist parties, infiltrated by the secret services.7 With the cultural turn of Cold War research, historians have become more interested in the reciprocity of cultural exchanges beyond the Iron Curtain at the civil society level.8 The Soviet perspective on cultural diplomacy toward the West has, however, remained a marginal field of research to this day.9 Friendship societies in the West have been, if at all, examined in the context of bilateral relations, a perception that risks setting aside their global network character as part of Soviet foreign policy.10 – 197 –

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Focusing on the third of the three aspects cited above—the interdependence of friendship societies and governmental cultural diplomacy—this chapter aims to give insight into the multifaceted and entangled history of Soviet friendship societies in the West, taking examples from Great Britain, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany. First, these largest European NATO member states were political and ideological antagonists of the Soviet Union, in which movements for friendship with the “Communist enemy” were political provocations per se. Second, the Soviet Union and these countries had strong reciprocal political and economic interests that might be supported by good cultural relations. Third, the examples will illustrate the great variety of friendship societies according to the respective role of the Communist parties and the national political situation. Based mainly on sources from Western ministries of foreign affairs as well as Russian archives, this chapter attempts to trace the changing role of friendship societies from disruptive elements to partners of the official cultural diplomacy from the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Proscription and Ignorance In the immediate post-war years, friendship societies were able to benefit from certain pro-Soviet euphoria in the aftermath of the victory against National Socialist Germany. The Association France-URSS was established in December 1943 in Algiers in the context of the Résistance, before being officially refounded after the Liberation of Paris in October 1944.11 In Great Britain, there were two parallel friendship societies: the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR (SCR), founded in 1924 and based on a more intellectual membership, and the more proletarian and trade union-oriented British-Soviet Friendship Society (BSFS), which was refounded in 1946 uniting several associations of the interwar period.12 In Germany, following the creation of the F.R.G. and the G.D.R. in 1949, the Association for German-Soviet Friendship (Gesellschaft für DeutschSowjetische Freundschaft, DSF) of the Soviet occupation zone created a formally independent Western department in September 1950.13 In light of the growing differences between the former Allies, the mere existence of Soviet friendship societies was already an important challenge for the foreign and domestic policies of Capitalist countries. Organizationally and politically controlled by VOKS, the main function of friendship societies was to lobby for Soviet foreign policy campaigns and to fight antiSovietism.14 Until 1953, direct contact and exchange between the Soviets and the Western associations was close to impossible; their activities – 198 –

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resembled a one-way transfer of information via talks, exhibitions, journals, and pamphlets. Personally and politically involved in the “struggle for peace”, the friendship societies spread, for example, the Stockholm Appeal of 1950 and combated the creation of a European Defense Community.15 The president of the World Peace Council, French nuclear physicist and Communist Frédéric Joliot-Curie, was, for instance, also president of France-URSS. Despite their claim of political independence and noninterference with national politics, friendship societies tried to influence domestic politics and were closely entangled with their respective Communist parties, which provided key positions, such as the societies’ general secretaries, and the large majority of the members. Thus, it does not seem surprising that Western governments perceived friendship societies as political adversaries and treated them as part of a large-scale Communist conspiracy. The most rigid position against Communist influence was taken up by the West German government. In the 1950s, several laws severely restricted Communist activities and prohibited state employees from membership in Communist organizations.16 The activities of the DSF were, therefore, successively hampered. In the context of the ban of the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956, all regional branches of the DSF were prohibited. By summer 1955, its general secretary Georg Gampfer had been sentenced to a three-year imprisonment for high treason, subversion of the state, and the organization of illegal secret associations.17 Only the Saar-Soviet Society and the DSF in West Berlin remained untouched, as these territories were not integral parts of the Federal Republic at this time.18 Indeed, the DSF in West Germany was not as much linked to the Soviet authorities, but was a financially, organizationally, and politically dependent branch of the Eastern DSF, which served as a “transmission belt” of the Communist government in the G.D.R.19 Its main function was not German-Soviet friendship or even the propagation of Soviet foreign policy, but the political mobilization of the West German population in favor of German unification under Socialist conditions.20 Therefore, this particularly harsh reaction toward friendship societies was mainly due to the unique German situation. Other Western governments did not react in such an intransigent way. Thanks to the popularity of the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF) in post-war France, achieving between 25 and 30 percent of the votes in national elections and being part of the governmental coalition by May 1947, the Association France-URSS was able to develop into a rather large nationwide association with more than fifty-nine thousand members in 1954.21 Official measures against its activities, therefore, seemed inconceivable. The French authorities—as well as the British— – 199 –

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mainly tried to avoid any cooperation and to treat the Soviet friendship societies with disregard. The French Socialists strictly forbade their members from collaborating with France-URSS, as the British Labour Party did with the British-Soviet Friendship Society. As long as the societies restricted themselves to obvious Soviet propaganda and could not initiate any exchange, their impact was mainly limited to Communists. To undermine their initiatives for cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union, the strategy of the French, British, and Italian authorities aimed to delay or refuse the granting of visas for Soviet citizens who were invited by the friendship societies.22 However, when the Soviet attitude towards cultural exchanges became less restrictive, Western authorities quickly realized that their boycott strategy was leading toward a monopolization of cultural relations by the friendship societies, forcing them to amend their strategies.

Competition in Cultural Exchanges After Stalin’s death, the cultural thaw and the idea of “peaceful coexistence” also changed cultural relations with Capitalist countries and the role of friendship societies.23 Already in 1954, internal discussions and reforms arose which led finally to the transformation of VOKS into the SSOD in February 1958, an umbrella organization covering thematic branches as well as the simultaneously created friendship societies in the Soviet Union with specific countries, such as USSR-Great Britain (SSSR-Velikobritaniia) or USSR-France or (SSSR-Frantsiia).24 One aim of these reforms was—at least formally—the integration of larger parts of the Soviet population into international cultural relations by means of these friendship societies, with branches in all Soviet republics and main cities.25 Yet, usually presided over by outstanding intellectuals with ample knowledge of the respective languages and countries, such as, for example, Ilya Ehrenburg in the case of the SSSR-Frantsiia and Aleksei Surkov in the case of the SSSR-Velikobritaniia, these associations were mainly composed of collective members and managed by SSOD employees.26 Towards the partner countries, the new friendship societies in the USSR were meant to more flexibly and adequately answer the growing demand for cultural exchanges and communicate to the partner countries reciprocity of interests of the Soviet population. A second main aim of the reforms was the opening of friendship societies abroad for a broader bourgeois public interested in the Soviet Union for professional or cultural reasons. Friendship societies were to be a less political than cultural offer in the bid for a positive attitude towards the Soviet Union. They were asked to free themselves from a pro-Communist – 200 –

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image by integrating non-Communists in leading positions, organizing new activities to mobilize a broader public as well as events for the promulgation of their culture in the Soviet Union to prove reciprocity.27 The new Soviet attitude to cultural relations with the West asked and enabled friendship societies to diversify their activities and to become more attractive to a larger public that was less interested in the political achievements of the Soviet Union than in the Russian cultural heritage. After 1953, VOKS helped to improve the image as well as the finances of the friendship societies by sending outstanding Soviet cultural personalities and famous ensembles like the Bolshoi ballet, David Oistrakh, Dmitry Kabalevsky, or Sergei Obraztsov. Apart from these popular tours, friendship societies started to organize Russian language courses, establish specialized libraries, and offer affordable trips to the Soviet Union for certain professional groups. By 1955, when the Soviet Union manifested its willingness to foster East-West contacts at the Geneva Conference,28 most Western governments were unsettled by the friendship societies’ monopolization of cultural exchange. They were faced with the question of whether they really wanted to leave it to these fellow-traveling organizations to represent their countries vis-à-vis the Soviet authorities and to host and guide Soviet citizens coming as guests. The British representatives of the Foreign Office felt more and more that they could no longer boycott the cultural events organized by the friendship organizations in cooperation with the Soviet embassy, giving the impression that the government sought to prevent any cultural exchange.29 After returning from a trip to the Soviet Union with a parliamentary delegation in 1954 and under the impression of the falsified image of Britain the Soviet people had through the filter of the friendship societies, Christopher Mayhew, former Labour Member of Parliament and one of the initiators of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (to counter Soviet propaganda), proposed, in a newspaper article, to found a special body for cultural exchanges, which was carefully noted by the Soviet embassy.30 Not being satisfied with the efforts of the British societies, BSFS and SCR, to mobilize non-Communist circles and adapt to the new circumstances, Yakovlev, deputy chairman of VOKS, signalized to the British ambassador that the Soviet side would be prepared to put the cultural exchanges on a “broader basis.”31 Consequently, in April 1955, the Soviet Relations Committee (SRC) was launched within the British Council with the following aims: “(i) to bring influential Russians to this country, (ii) to send reliable representatives of this country to the Soviet Union, and (iii) to facilitate the exchange of cultural manifestations. … to endeavour to squeeze out the fellow-traveling societies and to persuade British organizations to channel their exchanges through the Committee.”32 The SRC – 201 –

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quite successfully organized several visits, artistic tours, and meetings up until the Soviet intervention in Hungary in November 1956, when they froze relations for political reasons with the “balance going right over in favour of the BSFS.”33 Its obvious financial and political dependency on the British government as well as its nature as a closed expert body without any contact with civil society prevented the SRC from being a real alternative to the friendship societies.34 This is why Mayhew, also chairman of the SRC, finally convinced the British Council and the Foreign Office to found a larger association comprised primarily of politicians and representatives of institutions interested in exchanges with the Soviet Union.35 In 1959, the same year that Britain signed an official cultural agreement with the Soviet Union, the officially independent but still government-controlled Great Britain-USSR Association was launched, mainly financed by the Foreign Office. This association tried to overtake all types of activities realized so far by the British-Soviet Friendship Society and the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR: colloquia, the Russian library, language courses, cultural events, and scientific lectures.36 Within the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there were comparable considerations for establishing an alternative association for cultural relations with the USSR to weaken the Association France-URSS.37 In spite of a certain decline in membership numbers following the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956 and in contrast to their British colleagues, the PCF encouraged France-URSS to enlarge the political spectrum of its membership at its 8th National Congress in 1957 to non-Communist personalities. Several well-known leftist Gaullists and former protagonists of the Résistance, such as Raymond Schmittlein, René Capitant and Léo Hamon, joined its collective presidency. In remembrance of the common fight of Gaullists and Communists in the Résistance on the Soviet side against National Socialist Germany, they favored relations with the Soviet Union to counterbalance dependency on the United States.38 However, the French authorities also fostered cultural exchanges at the governmental level: in 1957, the French and Soviet governments signed a cultural agreement, and France was the second country after Belgium to establish a permanent Mixed Commission of high functionaries from both countries, which, in the following years, negotiated plans for cultural, academic, scientific, and technological exchange.39 This policy was not only motivated by the aim to gain more independence from the United States via a special relationship with the Soviet Union, but also by a general reluctance to leave such an important issue to a politically unreliable friendship society. For example, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs assessed the development of French-Soviet cultural relations in a preparatory paper for – 202 –

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Khrushchev’s visit in France in 1960 with the following words: “However, it was in the French interest to place the cultural exchanges at an official level in order to take them from the political exploitation of the parties and organizations that dominated them in that moment, especially the ‘Association France-URSS,’ and to establish precise conditions and a reciprocal foundation. Therefore, in 1957, the government agreed on the creation of a mixed commission.”40 Similarly, the Associazione Italia-URSS pushed the Italian government with a large campaign and a broad variety of cultural exchange activities to sign a comparable cultural agreement and to establish a Mixed Commission in 1959.41 Even though the activities of the friendship societies urged Western governments themselves to establish and foster cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union, their success in replacing friendship societies with official exchange programs was rather limited. The hybrid status of SSOD and the friendship societies in the Soviet Union enabled them to negotiate, on the one hand, as civil organizations with the Soviet friendship societies in Western countries and, on the other hand, as governmental organizations with the cultural departments of the Western ministries of foreign affairs. For example, neither VOKS nor the SSOD ever gave in to the British demands to renounce their privileged relations with the friendship societies in favor of an exclusive collaboration with the Great Britain-USSR Association.42 The Soviets preferred rather a two-fold strategy, negotiating simultaneously with all interested parties and playing them off against each other—often advantageously for the friendship societies. In 1955, for example, the SRC lost a rather prestigious tour of the Moiseev Dance Company to BSFS to the annoyance of George Jellicoe of the Northern Department in the Foreign Office: “We must admit that the Russians and their British sympathisers have won a minor engagement in the cold war by their success in presenting Moiseev Company under the auspices of the B.S.F.S. at the Empress Hall, and by seeing that they were represented at the Royal Variety Performance. Indeed, as long as the Russians refuse to withdraw their support from those ‘front’ organisations, it is difficult to see how we can torpedo them although this must clearly remain our objective.”43 In the context of Khrushchev’s and Bulganin’s visit to Britain in April 1956, when cultural relations were one of the discussion points, the Soviet Relations Committee, for their part, won an engagement: Only four weeks before the start of the tour of the Moscow State Circus in Britain, the Soviet Ministry of Culture decided to take the tour out of the hands of the BSFS and place it at the governmental level.44 Obviously, for the Soviet side, it was now more important to show good will towards the Foreign Office than to support Communist aims and loyal friends. Nevertheless, after the Soviet intervention in Hungary in October 1956, the Soviet au– 203 –

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thorities were glad to rely on the old “friends” when the SRC declared the freezing of all cultural relations. In 1969, Thomas Churchill, director of the Great Britain-USSR Association, complained that sometimes he arranged visits between his association and the SSOD, “only to be told at the last minute that the Russian visitors would not be coming as guests of the Association but instead as guests of the BSFS.” Furthermore, sometimes visitors switched between both associations within one tour.45 The official association was torn between two risks: making either too many concessions to the Soviets and becoming a “fellow-traveling organization” itself or losing privileged relationships and prestigious projects to the friendship societies. The Foreign Office even used information from the secret services to inform the Association beforehand about Soviet intentions of exchange to forestall plans of the friendship associations.46 From the mid-1960s onward, one of the major matters of dispute in the relationship between friendship societies and governments was the Soviet practice of signing official annual Plans of Cooperation between the friendship societies, the Soviet partner societies, and the SSOD. These ceremonial acts of signature and the negotiations at a quasigovernmental level clearly raised the status of the friendship societies. The foreign policy departments, in contrast, were annoyed by this interference in intergovernmental cultural exchanges. The leaders of the European Department of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs complained to the General Secretary about the takeover of what they supposed to be spheres of governmental responsibility. They feared that the parallel agreements between France-URSS and the SSSR-Frantsiia, signed from 1963 onward, would undermine the official exchange plans of the Mixed Commission: Indeed, if we limited ourselves to demonstrating our disapproval [regarding the plans of co-operation] by silence and abstention, we would risk soon finding ourselves in a situation where the official protocol seems to be aimed at organizing cultural relations “state-to-state,” whereas France-URSS will have taken care of the “people-to-people” exchanges; this would be like a transfer to the cultural area of the Marxist-Leninist theories on the distinction to be made between “state-to-state” relations and “party to party” relations when it is a question of Peaceful coexistence with liberal countries. … The existence of this agreement remains, indeed, extremely shocking, because its annual conclusion signifies that a French private association and dependent on the Communist Party assumes the right to negotiate with a Soviet association, which is, in fact, only an emanation of the government of the USSR. This approach contains the seed of dissidence and of division of governmental prerogatives.47

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As the French ministry did not dispose of a comparable organization anchored in civil society, it was unable to compete with or prevent the friendship society’s activities in the area of people-to-people exchanges. When, in October 1963, France-URSS invited the first “mass delegation” of over fifty Soviet personalities of various professions (journalists, professors, kolkhoz leaders, etc.) to come to France,48 the visibly annoyed local prefects could only report to the ministry about groups of Soviets coming to their Départements and being received by local—often Communist—authorities.49 The French embassy was not in the position to refuse the visas, on the one hand, because the delegation members were officially coming as tourists, and, on the other hand, because, given the high social and political status of the guests and the personal intervention of René Capitant in favor of the exchange, the refusal of visas would have caused major diplomatic disturbances.50 In the following year, when, in accordance with the reciprocity always requested, 150 French personalities—among them several politicians, academics, and trade unionists—were invited by the SSSR-Frantsiia to the Soviet Union, the French authorities were even less able to intervene or to influence the composition of the delegation.51 After the visit, the French ambassador in Moscow had to admit that the trip had been a successful endeavor with regard to the intents and purposes of France-URSS: “[The visit] also regarded the number, the quality, and the diversity of the participants in such a way that it increased the credit of the Association France-URSS. We have to recognize that, for low costs, the organizers were able to compose a very interesting program and to restrain themselves at the political level, so that it was appropriate to reassure and to win over those who had not been seduced until now—that is, the non-Communist elements of the group. And this was the principal aim of the operation.”52 The growing governmental uncertainty about how to deal with Soviet cultural diplomacy, as well as its strategy to bypass formal cultural agreements, contributed in 1960 to the creation of the NATO Working Group on East-West Cultural Contacts, which repeatedly put the issue of the friendship societies on its agenda.53

Cooperation In the 1970s, the relationship between friendship societies and official foreign policy changed significantly. After a period of ignorance and competition, the Western ministries of foreign affairs had to accept that they could neither replace the friendship associations nor compete with them, especially in terms of personal exchanges. In the context of the relaxation – 205 –

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of the international climate, it seemed, therefore, more expedient for them to turn to decent cooperation and to make use of the friendship societies for their own purposes. The German example illustrates this development. Since the ban of the DSF had deprived them of their potential partner organization, VOKS and later SSOD got in touch directly with West German institutions and, at the same time, were themselves contacted by individuals, cultural organizations, and universities requesting information on the Soviet Union and asking for cooperation and personal exchange. The Soviet position was strengthened by the opening of the Soviet Embassy in Bonn in 1955, the cultural attaché establishing contacts with personalities and cultural institutions all over West Germany.54 From that time onward, the flow of information was even more difficult for the authorities to control. The cultural agreement between the Soviet Union and the German Federal Republic, signed in May 1959 for two years, was never really implemented and never renewed because of the open Berlin question.55 By the mid-1960s, with the formation of the Grand Coalition and Willy Brandt becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1965, the political climate regarding Communism and the Soviet Union in West Germany began to change considerably. Brandt’s “Ostpolitik” aimed at the normalization of relations with the Eastern countries and silently accepted the existence of the G.D.R. The negotiations culminated in treaties with the Soviet Union in 1970, with Poland in 1972, and with the G.D.R. in 1974, which fixed the renunciation of any force between the states and the respect for territorial integrity and the existing borders.56 Among other reasons to facilitate these negotiations, the Federal Government consented to the formation of a new German Communist Party (Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, DKP) in 1968, despite the fact that it was a marionette of the Communist party of the G.D.R.57 Discretely pushed by the DKP and SSOD, several regional German-Soviet societies emerged at the instigation of private personalities who were interested for one reason or another in the Soviet Union and established contact with the SSOD.58 In 1968, both the Soviet and German sides took an active interest in the foundation of the largest of those associations, the Society for the Stimulation of Relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union (Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Sowjetunion),59 comprising several regional branches. Most of its protagonists were close to the leftist Christian peace movement, such as its general secretary, the pastor Herbert Mochalski; journalist Eugen Kogon; and its president, nuclear physicist Boris Rajewsky. The first public event in April 1969 was attended by the Soviet ambassador but also by high representatives of the Federal Foreign Office, social – 206 –

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democratic and liberal politicians, and other renowned personalities.60 Initially, even the Federal Minister of Justice and, in 1969, President of the Federal Republic Gustav Heinemann had accepted the invitation.61 The SSOD used the establishment of this association as an opportunity to initiate a Soviet partner society for the F.R.G. as well.62 In 1970, along with the Treaty of Moscow between the F.R.G. and the USSR, the Soviet Institute for Relations with the Public of the Federal Republic of Germany (Sovetskii institut po razvitiiu otnoshenii s obshchestvennost’iu FRG) was founded, developing into the society SSSR-F.R.G. in 1972.63 The strategy of the political department of the Federal Foreign Office went far beyond merely tolerating the Gesellschaft Bundesrepublik Deutschland-UdSSR; rather it stayed in close contact, making sure that its members were acting in the “right” direction, and using it wherever possible “to scarify the grounds” for further political actions.64 To this end, representatives of the association were regularly invited to the ministry to discuss their activities and to stress the necessity of reciprocity in the exchanges. The West German diplomats also encouraged them to act, especially in areas where official institutions were not very successful, such as the publication of a journal on West Germany in Russian in the Soviet Union or a book exposition. In return, the collaborators of the Federal Foreign Office promised financial support for activities within the Soviet Union bolstering its own cultural diplomacy.65 When it became obvious that the Gesellschaft Bundesrepublik Deutschland-UdSSR failed to live up to the ministry’s expectations, as its political base was not representative enough, the foundation of an alternative institution was discussed within the Federal Foreign Office. However, instead of a competing association, the officials finally opted to create an open discussion group following the example set by the Anglo-German Königswinter Conference. The editor, and later publisher, of the German weekly Die Zeit and fervent supporter of the Ostpolitik, Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, was designated for presidency. The project failed, apparently because neither the SSOD nor German politicians took further interest in it.66 However, also the Gesellschaft Bundesrepublik Deutschland-UdSSR was disbanded in 1974, which preposterously, neither the Soviet nor the German side seemed to regret; the former were discontented because the society’s leaders wanted to enlarge its activities to the territory of West Berlin, the latter because they did not stick strictly to the principle of reciprocity.67 In April 1975, the regional associations founded a new umbrella organization, the Consortium of the Associations of the Federal Republic of Germany-the Soviet Union (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gesellschaften Bundesrepublik Deutschland-Sowjetunion, ARGE). Under the successive presidency of three former social-democratic members of the Bundestag, Harald Koch, Walter Behrendt and Dietrich Sperling, the ARGE and the – 207 –

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs developed a very constructive and efficient “private-public partnership”; with the negotiations for official cultural exchange plans being encumbered with the Berlin question, the Foreign Office was very satisfied with the ARGE, which served as a loyal partner advancing the issue of cultural exchange in the sense of the “third basket” of the Helsinki Final Act.68 They organized, for example, colloquia with important personalities of the political, scientific, and socioeconomic world, as well as the very successful exhibition Blick in die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (A Look into the Federal Republic of Germany), displayed in several capitals of the Soviet republics between 1978 and 1988.69 All these projects, including the wording of the plans of cooperation with the SSOD, were carefully discussed in advance with representatives of the Foreign Office. Publicly, however, when the Berlin issue was raised or when the public comments of a member were not in line with official policy, the Federal Foreign Office could always insist on the independent, private character of the ARGE and deny any political influence.70 When, in 1980, the British delegation asked for statements regarding the respective friendship societies in order to discuss this issue in the NATO political committee, the Soviet department within the Federal Foreign Office wrote, In contrast to Great Britain, there is no dualism between friendship societies controlled by the Soviets on the one hand and German-Soviet associations cooperating with the Federal Government on the other hand. The existing German-Soviet Association cannot be called uncritical or pro-Soviet; rather, they are quite suitable for cooperation with official German institutions, especially in the academic and cultural areas and in self-presentation. … The associations should not be vehicles for Soviet propaganda here, but they are useful mediators and agencies for various projects. Furthermore, they provide us with additional channels of communication.71

By “additional channels of communication,” the diplomats were especially referring to the ARGE’s close relations with the branches of the SSOD in the Soviet republics, where the embassies had almost no opportunity to establish direct contacts or to present their countries.72 The privileged relationship between the friendship societies and the regions far from Moscow was also important and useful for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs by 1966. The French ambassador in Moscow stressed the necessity of cooperation with the SSOD branches in the Soviet republics that seemed to be more culturally than politically oriented, less dependent on Moscow, and very interested in the partner country.73 In contrast to Ostpolitik, détente in French-Soviet relations had already reached the first climax in the mid-1960s. After several agreements on cultural, technical, and economic exchanges, de Gaulle’s visit to Moscow in June 1966 institutionalized regular exchanges in a Permanent Mixed Commission.74 – 208 –

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The Association France-URSS claimed this French-Soviet rapprochement for its own merits when, symbolically, a delegation welcomed de Gaulle at the airport as he returned from Moscow.75 In general, after the signature of the Helsinki Final Act, with the multiplication of direct contact with civil society such as town twinning and student exchanges, it seems that the French government came to a more flexible and relaxed attitude regarding France-URSS, including tactical cooperation when it was useful to their own self-representation.76 By 1965, the Socialist Party’s ban on FranceURSS had been lifted; in the following years, several Socialists became members of its presidency.77 Analogous, the British Labor Party’s ban on the BSFS was lifted in 1973.78 The British authorities still seemed to stick quite unsuccessfully to the policy of competing activities of the Great Britain-USSR Association. On the one hand, the Association became a very expensive endeavor for the Foreign Office without the possibility of decisively influencing its activities and personnel in order to avoid any impression of governmental pressure.79 On the other hand, the results remained minor as the Association had to protest and cease cooperation with every diplomatic incident, as, for example, the intervention in Afghanistan.80 The attempts of the French and West German governments to exploit the friendship societies for their own cultural diplomacy also prevailed during Perestroika when people-to-people exchanges were needed to answer to the exploding demand for information about and contacts with the Soviet Union. In the Federal Republic, the ARGE could hardly answer to the increasing demands for town twinning, information trips, and tours of professional and nonprofessional artists to the Soviet Union.81 During Gorbachev’s visit to France in October 1985, the French authorities officially recognized the Association France-URSS’s role in Soviet-French relations when its representatives were invited to all official receptions and when Raisa Gorbacheva visited the premises of the association.82 Even if it lost its monopoly on personal cultural relations, France-URSS could benefit from its strong contacts to organize outstanding exchanges. In September 1987, returning to the idea of the mass delegation of 1963, France-URSS set up the so-called “Initiative ‘87.” About 370 personalities, including former ministers, politicians, journalists, intellectuals, academics, and church members, took the opportunity to inform themselves about current developments in the Soviet Union through individual meetings with peers in their fields, official visits, and discussions.83 The highlight of the journey was the reception of the whole delegation by Mikhail Gorbachev, who answered the questions of the delegates and presented his conception of cultural diplomacy as a pioneer of diplomatic relations: – 209 –

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Because … it is not only the politicians who will eventually determine the orientation of global developments and the preservation and survival of humanity, but certainly, every day, at every stage, the voice of public opinion, of global public opinion, is growing. … In this sense, I consider Initiative 87 an important political initiative which deserves to be welcomed, as we see here the desire to search for pathways that lead to mutual understanding, to cooperation, to a change of the whole climate. And these changes can afterwards transform in policies and assure a new character and a new type of international relations. … The whole tradition of our foreign policy goes back to Lenin. It is the people’s diplomacy.84

During a corresponding follow-up event called “Dialogue 89,” a large delegation of 350 Soviet personalities was invited by the Association FranceURSS to come to France in October 1989. The delegation was received by both the then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, and President François Mitterrand—a strong political statement equivalent to an official recognition of the association’s contribution to French-Soviet cultural exchanges.85

Conclusion To conclude, I would like to return to the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. At the end of September 1977, the SSOD invited representatives of friendship societies from eighty-six countries to a three-day meeting in Moscow. The participants in the meeting officially extended their thanks to Brezhnev for his “tireless acting for peace” and appealed to all friendship societies to “spread the truth about the Soviet Union” and “unmask the enemies of peace and the propagandists of the Cold War.”86 Yet, the German delegation preferred to go for a walk instead of listening to the long “boring” speeches.87 Of course, the SSOD would have preferred that the friendship societies functioned as propaganda tools transmitting this message to the publics of their countries. However, the Soviets showed a high level of flexibility and responsiveness to different national realities by accepting a diversity of friendship societies. As they were confronted with actors of a pluralistic civil society, the Soviet side had to accept certain room for maneuvering. Unlike the Communist-dominated Belgo-Soviet Friendship Society, the ARGE told the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it did not envisage any special celebration of the anniversary of the October Revolution.88 Despite all the differences between the friendship societies, there were some obvious similarities concerning the development of their relationships with the respective Western governments and their adaption to the changes in the international political landscape. In the 1950s, even if only – 210 –

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the West German DSF was outlawed, other Western governments tried to boycott the activities of the Soviet friendship societies in their countries and observed them suspiciously from afar. The increasing activity of friendship societies in East-West exchanges after Stalin’s death compelled Western governments to allow and to establish more intense cultural relations with the Soviet Union, both at an official and a private level. As Soviet cultural diplomacy addressed civil society and governmental institutions equally, Western governments were never able to replace friendship societies, even if they tried to create alternative bodies, as in Great Britain. Finally, in the 1970s, Western governments learned to make use of the friendship societies for their own purposes, establishing, especially in the case of West Germany, a sort of private-public partnership that peaked during the Perestroika. The broad variety of friendship activities and governmental responses makes it difficult to determine exactly the influence of friendship societies on official diplomacy and on the cultural relations between the East and the West. In any case, their history illustrates how blurred the borders between the political and socio-cultural spheres were in the context of the Cold War, to what extent civil society groups were able to influence intergovernmental relations, and to urge the political authorities of both sides to act. Soviet friendship societies in the West were, therefore, always oscillating in an intermediate space between the governmental and civil society levels, between culture and politics, between the East and the West. Sonja Großmann studied at Saarland University (Saarbrücken), University of Lorraine (Metz), and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She holds master’s degrees in German-French studies (2005) and East European studies (2007). From 2007 to 2012 she worked as a scientific coordinator at Centre Marc Bloch Berlin and Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences. Financed by Gerda Henkel Foundation, she is currently writing her Ph.D. thesis at the Universities of Tübingen and Munich on Soviet friendship societies in Western Europe during the Cold War.

Notes 1. “NATO Political Committee, Meeting held on Thursday, 9th of June, 1977,” Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes (PAAA), ZA 133126. The chapter is based on documents from the following archives: The National Archives, Kew (TNA); Archives Diplomatiques, Paris (AD); Archives Nationales de France, Paris (ANF); Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin (PAAA); Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArch); Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow (GARF); and Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii, Moscow (RGANI). – 211 –

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2. The term “friendship society” is, as a working definition, to be understood here as an association aiming to inform others about the Soviet Union and to foster cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union, in order to improve relations between their country and the Soviet Union. However, during the Cold War, anti-Communists often used the term in a pejorative sense. That is why several Western societies themselves avoided the term “friendship” in their names, as did their partner societies in the Soviet Union, who reserved the term for associations with Socialist countries. See also J. Van Oudenaren, Détente in Europe: The Soviet Union and the West since 1953 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), 288. 3. For the history of Les amitiés belgo-soviétiques, see M. Singer, “Belgien-Sowjetunion,” Kultur und Leben, no. 4 (1980): 27. 4. For Friends of the Soviet Union, see S. Estienne, Les Amis de l’Union soviétique 1928– 1939 (Abbeville: Soc. d’Émulation d’Abbeville, 2004). 5. For VOKS in the interwar time, see M. David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921–1941 (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); J.-F. Fayet, VOKS. Le laboratoire hélvétique. Histoire de la diplomatie culturelle soviétique durant l’entre-deux-guerres (Chêne-Bourg: Georg, 2014); Golubev, A. V., “… vzgliad ha zemliu obetovannuiu”. Iz istorii sovetskoi kul’turnoi diplomatii 1920-1930-ch godov (Moskva: Institut Rossiiskoi Istorii RAN, 2004). 6. See, for example, the lists in GARF, f. 9518, op. 1, d. 48; and the discussion on the celebration of the anniversary in the plans for cooperation with the German Association: “Vermerk: Deutsch-sowjetische Gesellschaften,” 11 February 1977, ZA 133126, PAAA. 7. Some examples: C. Rose, The Soviet Propaganda Network: A Directory of Organizations Serving Soviet Foreign Policy (London: Pinter, 1988), 9–24; M. K. Leighton, Soviet Propaganda as a Foreign Policy Tool (New York: Freedom House, 1991). 8. To cite some recent collective works: P. Romijn, G. Scott-Smith, and J. Segal, eds., Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012); S. Autio-Sarasmo and B. Humphreys, eds., Winter Kept Us Warm: Cold War Interactions Reconsidered (Helsinki: Aleksanteri Institute, 2010); J.-F. Sirinelli and G.-H. Soutou, eds., Culture et guerre froide (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2008). 9. See N. Gould-Davies, “The Logic of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy,” Diplomatic History 27 (2003): 193–214; G. Péteri, ed., Nylon Curtain: Transnational and Transsystemic Tendencies in the Cultural Life of State-Socialist Russia and East-Central Europe (Trondheim: Program on East European Cultures and Societies, 2006); Van Oudenaren, Détente in Europe; and the still valuable contemporary approach: F. C. Barghoorn, The Soviet Cultural Offensive: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Soviet Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960). 10. For France, see T. Gomart, Double détente: Les relations franco-soviétiques de 1958 à 1964 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003), 103–21. For the Spanish case with an outlook on Great Britain, see M. M. Caballero Garrido, “Las relaciones entre España y la Unión Soviética a través de las Asociaciones de Amistad en el siglo XX,” http://www.tesisenred .net/TDR-1215106-121642/index.html (accessed 12 July 2010); for Italy, see G. Gravina, “Per una storia dell’Associazione Italia-URSS,” Slavia, no. 2 (1993): 70–108; no. 1 (1995): 40–100; no. 3–4 (1995): 103–41; no. 3 (1997): 135–59; for Finland, see S. Mikkonen, “The Finnish-Soviet Society. From Political to Cultural Connections,” in Nordic Cold War Cultures. Ideological Promotion, Public Reception and East-West Interactions, ed. R. Magnúsdóttir and V. Ingimundarson, (Helsinki: Kikimora Publications, 2015), 109–131. 11. “Notre raison d’être,” France-URSS, no. 1 (1943): 2; France-URSS, no. 10 (1944): 2. Since 1943, Algiers was the headquarters of the Conseil National de la Résistance, body of coordination of the different movements of the Résistance. See O. Wieviorka, Histoire de la Résistance: 1940–1945 (Paris: Perrin, 2013); M. Cobb, The Resistance: The French Fight against the Nazis (London: Simon & Schuster, 2009). 12. In March 1946, the British-Soviet Society was founded by uniting the Russia Today Society, der Anglo-Soviet Youth Friendship Alliance, des British-Soviet Women’s Committee, – 212 –

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and the British-Soviet Friendship Houses Ltd. National Conference for British-Soviet Friendship: Adopted Resolutions, in: Hull History Centre, U DEV/1/38. In 1950, its name changed to British-Soviet Friendship Society. For more details on British associations, see the second chapter in Garrido Caballero, “Las relaciones entre España y la Union Sovietica.” 13. See L. Dralle, Von der Sowjetunion lernen: Zur Geschichte der Gesellschaft für DeutschSowjetische Freundschaft (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1993), 404–8. 14. For the aims of the VOKS after the war, see N. Yegorova, “The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS) and the early détente, 1953–1955,” in Une Europe malgré tout, 1945–1990: contacts et réseaux culturels, intellectuels et scientifiques entre Européens dans la guerre froide, ed. A. Fleury (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2009), 89–102, here 91–92. 15. For example, “Aufruf des Präsidiums der Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft,” SAPMO DY 32/10712, BArch; C. Pailleret, “La volonté du peuple français,” FranceURSS, no. 2 (1950): 2; Annual Report of the British Soviet Friendship Society for 1950. 16. For the legal measures in detail, see T. Kössler, Abschied von der Revolution: Kommunisten und Gesellschaft in Westdeutschland 1945–1968 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2005), 280–91; P. Major, The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945–1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 277–95. 17. K. J. Becker, Die KPD in Rheinland-Pfalz 1946–1956 (Mainz: von Hase und Koehler, 2001), 297. See also the memories of Gampfer’s advocate in D. Posser, Anwalt im Kalten Krieg: Deutsche Geschichte in politischen Prozessen, 1951–1968 (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 2000), 109–28. The minutes of the process are conserved in the BArch, SAPMO BY 1/2247–51. 18. Until 1957, the Saarland was a semiautonomous territory under French protection. West Berlin became an official part of Germany only in 1990. 19. For the DSF in G.D.R. see C. J. Behrends, Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR (Köln: Böhlau, 2006); K. Kuhn, “‘Wer mit der Sowjetunion verbunden ist, gehört zu den Siegern der Geschichte’: Die Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft im Spannungsfeld von Moskau und Ostberlin,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Mannheim (2002), http://madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/madoc/voll texte/2003/64/pdf/DSF.PDF. 20. The archives of the DSF in the G.D.R. give evidence of the close control and clear dependency of the Western branches. See, for example, “Über die weiteren Aufgaben auf propagandistischem Gebiet,” 3 December 1954, SAPMO DY 32/10714, BArch. 21. “Pour une grande association populaire qui contribuera grandement à une meilleure connaissance mutuelle et au développement de la coopération amicale franco-soviétique, Rapport au 9ème Congrès National,” 88 AS 16, ANF. 22. Obviously, the British and French authorities also exchanged their experiences with this practice of the refusal of visas. British Embassy, Paris, R. S. Faber to P. de Menthon, Section soviétique, MAE, Confidentiel, 19 March 1958, MAE Europe 1940–60 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations franco-soviétiques, carton 274, AD. 23. For cultural relations during the thaw see E. Gilburd, “The Revival of Soviet Internationalism in the Mid to Late 1950s,” in The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s, ed. D. Kozlov and E. Gilburd (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 362–401. 24. See the report in “Unionskonferenz sowjetischer Gesellschaften für Freundschaft und kulturelle Verbindungen mit dem Ausland,” Kultur und Leben, no. 3 (1958): 7; and the minutes of the meeting of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP, which decided to replace VOKS: “O reorganizatsii VOKSa,” Sekretariat TsK KPSS, 5 September 1957, f. 89, per. 55, d. 21, 11. 1–3, RGANI. Contrary to VOKS, there is almost no basic research on the SSOD. For the organization and activities of the SSOD, see Materialy k 60-letiiu Soiuza Sovetskikh Obshchestv druzhby i kul’turnoi sviazi s zarubezhnymi stranami (Moskva: Mysl’ 1985). 25. See “Otchet o rabote Soiuza sovetskikh obshchestv druzhby i kul’turnoi sviazi s zarubezhnymi stranami (fevral’ 1958g—aprel’ 1959g.),” GARF, f. 9576, op.18, d.1, l. 198–223. – 213 –

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In this report are mentioned the resolutions of the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU on 5 September 1957, “O perestroike raboty VOKS,” and on 31 July 1958, “O perestroike republikanskikh obshchestv kul’turnoi sviazi s zagranitsei.” 26. On the foundation of the SSSR-Velikobritaniia and SSSR-Frantsiia, see “‘UdSSRGrossbritannien,’” Kultur und Leben, no. 5 (1958): 59, and I. Ehrenburg, “Das französische Volk: unser glorreicher alter Freund,” Kultur und Leben, no. 12 (1958): 49–51. 27. These strategies were communicated to the general secretaries of the Communist Parties and the leaders of the friendship societies in personal meetings. See, as one example, “Zapis’ besedy s gensekretarem Kompartii Velikobritanii Golanom,” 9 July 1956, f. 5, op. 28, d. 460, l. 158–60, RGANI. 28. See V. M. Zubok, “Soviet Policy Aims at the Geneva Conference, 1955,” in Cold War Respite: The Geneva Summit of 1955, ed. G. Bischof and S. Dockrill (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 2000), 55–74. 29. For example, see the draft letter from H. Hohler, Northern Department, to the ambassador in Moscow, Sir William Hayter, 1 January 1955, FO 371/116671, TNA. 30. C. Mayhew, A War of Words: A Cold War Witness (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), 51–58; “O rabote posol’stva v 1954 godu po linii VOKS,” f. 5283, op. 22, d. 499, l. 48–63, GARF. 31. William Hayter, Ambassador in Moscow, to A. F. Hohler, Foreign Office, 29 December 1954, FO 371/116671, TNA. 32. “Soviet Relations Committee of the British Council, Report on Activities: April 1955 to December 1956,” BW 2/532, TNA. 33. “British-Soviet Friendship Society,” 18 November 1957, BW 2/532, TNA. For BritishSoviet exchanges in the 1950s, see M. B. Smith, “Peaceful Coexistence at All Costs: Cold War Exchanges between Britain and the Soviet Union in 1956,” Cold War History 12, no. 3 (2012): 537–58. 34. “Mr. Allan to J. E. S. Simon,” Treasury (May 1959), BW 2/719, TNA. 35. “Comment to Parliamentary Committee,” 20 November 1958, BW 2/719, TNA. 36. See T. B. L. Churchill, “The First Ten Years: An Informal Review and Commentary on the Work of the Great Britain-USSR Association 1959–1969,” 10 December 1969, FCO 28/1115, TNA. 37. “Note du département Europe centrale pour le Cabinet du Ministre,” July 1958, Cabinet du Ministre, Couve de Murville, dossier 314, AD. 38. “Trois journées qui compteront pour la connaissance et l’amitié franco-soviétique,” France-URSS Magazine, no. 7 (1957): 6–9. In the Résistance, Conservative and Communist groups of resistance formed an alliance under General de Gaulle’s leadership to coordinate their fight against the German occupation. H.-C. Giraud, De Gaulle et les communistes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989). The so-called gaullistes de gauche wanted to integrate Socialist elements like worker participation and dirigisme into Capitalism. J. Pozzi, Les Mouvements gaullistes. Partis, associations, réseaux 1958–1976 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011), 205–24. 39. For French cultural diplomacy, see T. Gomart, “La diplomatie culturelle française à l’égard de l’URSS: objectifs, moyens et obstacles (1956–1966),” in Culture et Guerre froide: actes du Colloque ‘Culture et Guerre froide’ 20–21 octobre 2005, ed. J.-F. Sirinelli and G.-H. Soutou (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2008), 173–88. 40. “Conversations franco-soviétiques,” Paris, March 1960, a/s: Relations culturelles entre la France et l’URSS, MAE Europe, 1944–1960, carton 270, AD. 41. G. Gravina, “Per una storia dell’Associazione Italia-URSS,” Slavia 4, no. 3–4 (1995): 103–41, here 103–12 and 122–26. 42. The director of the SCR and later the Great Britain-USSR Association urged the SSOD to stop collaboration with friendship societies several times. For example, see “Record of Mr. Mayhew’s Interview with Mr. Zhukov on August 19,” 19 August 1957, BW 2/532, TNA; “Mr. Mayhew’s Record of a Meeting with Mr. G. A. Zhukov on March 28, 1959,” BW 2/719, TNA. – 214 –

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43. Jellicoe to J. O. Rennie, UK Delegation to Foreign Ministers Conference, 11 November 1955, FO 371/116672, TNA. 44. See letter from Ambassador Malik to Minister of Culture Mikhailov, 5 May 1956, f. 5283, op. 22, d. 538, l. 4–5, GARF; and Mayhew, A War of Words, 63. 45. Churchill, “The First Ten Years.” 46. R. L. Speight, “Anglo-Soviet Friendship Organizations,” 22 June 1964, FO 1110/1820, TNA. 47. “Échanges Est-Ouest: Note pour le Secrétaire Général, s/a Activité de l’Association France-URSS” (1965), MAE Europe 1961–65 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations franco-soviétiques, carton 1934, AD. 48. See the list of Soviet members of the delegation in France, 14–27 October 1963, MAE Europe 1961–65 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations francosoviétiques, carton 1934, AD. 49. See several letters in MAE Europe 1961–65 URSS—Relations politiques FranceURSS; Associations franco-soviétiques, carton 1934, AD. 50. See the letter from R. Capitant to C. de Murville, Minister of Foreign Affairs, MAE Europe 1961–65 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations francosoviétiques, carton 1934, AD. 51. See “Note pour le Ministre, a/s: Attitude à l’égard de l’association France-URSS,” 24 March 1964, MAE Europe 1961–65 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations franco-soviétiques, carton 1934, AD. 52. P. Baudet, French Ambassador in the USSR, to C. de Murville, Minister of Foreign Affairs, a/s Visite en URSS d’un important groupe de Français sous l’égide de l’Association France-URSS, Direction Europe, MAE Europe 1961–65 URSS—Relations politiques FranceURSS; Associations franco-soviétiques, carton 1934, AD. 53. On the committee see M. Rostgaard in this book; M. M. Caballero Garrido, “Las relaciones entre España y la Unión Soviética”; A. Macher, “Le Groupe de travail des échanges Est-Ouest: Acteur ou simple observatoire occidental des relations culturelles entre les deux Europes (1960–1966)?” in Les deux Europes: Actes du IIIe colloque international de RICHIE, ed. M. Affinito (Bruxelles: Lang, 2009), 31–46. 54. See N. Donig, “Kulturaustausch oder Propaganda? Westdeutsche Reaktionen auf die sowjetische auswärtige Kulturpolitik in den 50er Jahren,” in Dem Raum eine Grenze geben, ed. V. Krüger and A. Olshevska (Bochum, 2006), 179–207. 55. For the conflict about the cultural agreement, see B. Lippert, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik im Zeichen der Ostpolitik: Verhandlungen mit Moskau 1969–1990 (Münster: LIT, 1996), 200– 10. 56. For an overview on Ostpolitik see G. Niedhart and O. Bange, “Die ‘Relikte der Nachkriegszeit’ beseitigen: Ostpolitik in der zweiten außenpolitischen Formationsphase der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Übergang von den Sechziger- zu den Siebzigerjahren,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 44 (2004): 415–48. 57. For the foundation of the DKP see H.-P. Müller, “Gründung und Frühgeschichte der DKP im Lichte der SED-Akten,” in Geschichte und Transformation des SED-Staates: Beiträge und Analysen, ed. K. Schröder (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1994), 251–85; and Kössler, Abschied von der Revolution, 415f. 58. The cultural department of the KPD discussed several times the refoundation of a West German-Soviet Association: Überlegungen zur Entwicklung einer Gesellschaft Bundesrepublik-Sowjetunion, 21. February 1964, SAMPO BY 1/4048, BArch. See a list of the associations in Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz an Bundesministerium des Innern Betr. Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaftsgesellschaften in der Bundesrepublik, 29 July 1968, B 41 No. 68, PAAA. For example, see “Zapis’ besedy s 1-ym predsedatelem ‘Nemecko-sovetskogo Obshchestva’ Vil’gel’m’ Rotterom 17 sentiabria 1964g,” 30 September 1964, f. 9576, op. 6, d. 280, l. 142–43, GARF. – 215 –

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59. For practical reasons, it is called in this article Gesellschaft Bundesrepublik Deutschland-UdSSR. Yet, this was not an official abbreviation as it resembled too much the title of a typical friendship society. 60. “Aufzeichung. Betr: Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Sowjetunion; hier: Festakt im Hessischen Staatstheater am 19. April 1969,” B 41 No. 68, PAAA. 61. The German Foreign Office finally convinced Heinemann that his presence at the inauguration event would disproportionately raise the status of the Association. See “Aufzeichnung Sahm, Betr. Festvortrag des Herrn Bundesministers der Justiz, Dr. G. Heinemann, am 27.10.1968 im Kurhaussaal Wiesbaden auf Einladung der Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Sowjetunion,” 29 July 1968, B 41 No. 68, PAAA. 62. “Ob obshchestvennykh sviaziakh Soiuza sovetskikh obshchestv druzhby s FRG,” (April 1969), f. 9576, op. 6, d. 431, l. 40–46, GARF. 63. A. Urban and I. Wedernikow, Verständigung im Namen des Friedens: 10 Jahre Gesellschaft “UdSSR-BRD” (Moskau: APN, 1982), 4. 64. See Leiter der Abteilung II VLR Dr. Blumenfeld, LR Lincke: Aufzeichnung. Betr: Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Sowjetunion; hier: Festakt im Hessischen Staatstheater am 19. April 1969, B 41 No. 68, PAAA. 65. “Aufzeichnung. Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Beziehungen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Sowjetunion,” 24 July 1970, B 41 No. 68, PAAA. 66. See several letters and draft papers on this issue, ZA 112717, PAAA. 67. Meyer-Landrut to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 3 December 1974, ZA 112717, PAAA. 68. Lippert, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik im Zeichen der Ostpolitik, 320. 69. The exhibition was shown in the following cities: Kiev and Tbilisi (1978), Erevan and Baku (1979), Tashkent and Alma-Ata (1980), Leningrad and Tallinn (1982), Dushanbe and Ashkhabad (1986), and Kalinin and Smolensk (1988). 70. For example, see the answer to a minor interpellation in the Bundestag: “DKPbeinflußte Freundschaftsgesellschaften. Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die kleine Anfrage: Drucksache 8/4188,” 12 June 1980, http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/08/041/0804188 .pdf. 71. The Soviet Department of the Foreign Office to the German NATO mission regarding the British proposition for an exchange of experiences in the political committee, 8 August 1980, ZA 133145, PAAA. 72. See “Vermerk: Deutsch-sowjetische Freundschaftsgesellschaften; Hausbesprechung am 7.12.1976,” 8.12.1976, ZA 112804, PAAA. 73. Philippe Baudet, ambassadeur de France en URSS à son Excellence Monsieur Couve de Murville, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères; Direction de l’Europe, 5 April 1966, in MAE Europe 1965–69 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations franco-soviétiques “URSS-France,” AD. 74. For the French Détente see M.-P. Rey, “L’expérience française de la détente: Les relations franco-soviétiques, 1966–1975,” in Ost-West-Beziehungen: Konfrontation und Détente 1945–1989, ed. G. Schmidt (Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1993), 81–98. 75. See L. Hamon, “Le voyage en U.R.S.S. du Président de la République,” France-URSS, no. 6 (1966): 3; G. Martin, France—URSS 1945–1992: histoire d’une grande association de connaissance, d’échanges et d’amitié (Saint-Martin-d’Hères: France-Russie-CEI, 2002), 111. 76. For example, see cooperation with La Documentation Française in 1978, MAE Europe 1976–80 URSS—Relations politiques France-URSS; Associations franco-soviétiques, carton 4820, AD. 77. Discours de clôture du Maître Blumel, 6 June 1965, 88 AS 17, ANF. – 216 –

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78. “Labour lifting ban on BSFS,” British-Soviet Friendship, no. 5 (1973): 3. 79. For an example of internal discussions on the growing financial needs, see the confidential letter from the Information Administration Department to the Financial Department regarding GB/USSR Association, FCO 34–296, TNA. 80. Interesting insights are given by J. Roberts, director of the Great Britain-USSR Association 1973–93: J. C. Q. Roberts, Speak Clearly in to the Chandelier. Cultural Politics between Britain and Russia 1973–2000 (Richmond: Curzon 2000). 81. See Lippert, Auswärtige Kulturpolitik, 496–97. 82. See M. Guilbert, “Vers des initiatives communes? ,” France-URSS Magazine, no. 11 (1985): 9; “In einer Atmosphäre der Freundschaft,” Kultur und Leben, no. 12 (1985): 2. 83. See the list of members and the program in 88 AS 47, ANF. 84. “Discours de Gorbatchev,” 88 AS 47, ANF. 85. See “L’échange à mille voix,” France-URSS Magazine, no. 11 (1989): 4–7; “‘Initiative’ führt zum ‘Dialog,’” Kultur und Leben, no. 3 (1990): 2–5; and the talks of Chirac and Mitterrand, 88 AS 49, ANF. 86. “Für Frieden, Freundschaft und Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Völkern,” Kultur und Leben, no. 11 (1977): 2–5. 87. See their report to the Federal Foreign Office: “Reise einer Delegation der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der deutsch-sowjetischen Gesellschaften in die Sowjetunion,” 10.10.1977, Neues Amt 10390, PAAA. 88. “An die Ständige Vertretung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bei der NordatlantikpaktOrganisation,” 30 June 1977, ZA 133126, PAAA.

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Chapter 11

THE SOVIET UNION ENCOUNTERS ANGLIA Britain’s Russian Magazine as a Medium for Cross-Border Communication Sarah Davies

A

s Cold War historians begin to gravitate away from “phenomena of the great” to “phenomena of the small,” attention has turned to the ostensibly minor actors, processes, and initiatives that were significant despite or even because of their size.1 This chapter explores one such small undertaking: Anglia, the Russian-language quarterly magazine about life in Britain, produced by the Foreign Office (FO) and distributed in the Soviet Union between 1962 and 1992. Influencing and engaging with publics from the opposite camp was a high priority for both the East and the West throughout the Cold War. What was labeled variously as “psychological warfare,” “international propaganda,” “publicity,” “cultural diplomacy,” “cultural exchange,” or “public diplomacy” assumed multiple forms. While international broadcasting has attracted most attention, slower, smaller-scale media such as magazines also had an important, if less prominent, role to play in this process.2 Mass circulation periodicals were enormously popular by the mid-twentieth century, with illustrated magazines of the Reader’s Digest, Life, and Paris-Match variety enjoying a particular boom.3 As East-West communication began to accelerate from the mid-1950s, both camps came to regard national magazines such as Amerika, Anglia, and Soviet Weekly as an effective means of “perforating” the Iron Curtain and advertising the merits of their respective systems to the other side. Unlike Amerika, which is relatively well-known and has been discussed by several scholars, Anglia appears to have been overlooked.4 In part, this – 218 –

The Soviet Union Encounters Anglia

neglect reflects the familiar tendency of Cold War historiography to privilege the role of the superpowers at the expense of that of smaller actors. The burgeoning literature on the cultural Cold War includes multiple studies of American efforts to influence opinion behind the Iron Curtain,5 but it is only relatively recently that attention has turned to the parallel initiatives undertaken by Western European states, including those of Britain.6 Notwithstanding ambiguous feelings in Britain about the concept of “overseas propaganda,” with its connotations of totalitarian media manipulation, the British government, in contrast to that of the United States, had the advantage of extensive and diverse pre-Cold War experience in these matters, which afforded it a strong position to build upon. Despite, or perhaps because of, its waning global power, Britain was determined to offer an alternative, British contribution to a sphere that would otherwise have been dominated by the United States.7 Drawing on Foreign Office archival material as well as the magazine itself, this chapter first considers how and why Anglia was established and investigates its fundamental ethos. Deliberately differentiated from Amerika, Anglia aimed to tell a subtle and credible story about Britain as a modern and progressive nation with a distinct set of values and way of life. The chapter then shifts focus to some apparently very minor actors: ordinary Soviet readers of Anglia who wrote letters to the magazine. Since it was considered important that Anglia serve as a catalyst for dialogue between Britain and the USSR, the exchange of letters between the editor and the readers was strongly encouraged. Although necessarily limited, this correspondence represents a small but intriguing example of how borders could be crossed, symbolically and physically, during the Cold War.

Magazine Diplomacy in the Cold War Following the post-war deep-freeze, the thaw in Soviet relations with the West that occurred after Stalin’s death—“the spirit of Geneva”—opened up new opportunities for various forms of cultural diplomacy and exchange. The USSR took the lead in these initiatives: the Bolsheviks had always viewed culture as a powerful political weapon and had been actively practicing various forms of cultural diplomacy in the interwar period under the auspices of VOKS, the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.8 From the early 1950s, Moscow embarked upon what was described in military terms by some Western observers as a new “cultural offensive” or “cultural campaign abroad,” using cultural diplomacy as a form of bridge building, as a means of acquiring useful information from the West, and as a somewhat more palatable way of exporting Soviet values.9 – 219 –

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Although initially suspicious of Soviet overtures, governments in the West soon joined in this new Cold War game. Even before 1956, the Americans had begun to question their strategy aimed at the “liberation” of the “captive peoples” behind the Iron Curtain through the use of covert operations and psychological warfare.10 Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” and the crushing of the Hungarian Uprising simply confirmed these doubts, and the United States came to share the view prevailing in the Foreign Office that any change in the Soviet bloc would only come about as a result of a process of internal evolution. Assuming that exposure to Western values and ways of life would, in the long run, contribute to this evolution,11 the United States, Britain, and other states began to invest in cultural diplomacy and exchange with the Soviet Union and its satellites. By the late 1950s, for example, official exchange agreements had been concluded between the USSR and France (1957), the United States (1958), and Great Britain (1959).12 It was in this relatively benign climate that Britain’s initial ideas for a new Russian magazine emerged. The Soviet authorities had always gone to great lengths to obstruct the circulation of what it dubbed “Capitalist propaganda,” including non-Communist publications and radio broadcasts. In the 1950s, for example, the only British newspaper in general circulation in the Soviet Union was the Communist Daily Worker, while the BBC’s Russian Service was routinely, if ineffectively, jammed. Gradually, small and not entirely symbolic steps were taken to ease the barriers to communication. Something of a breakthrough occurred at the high-level meeting in Britain between Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, and the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, in April 1956. Demonstrating that the Soviet Union was serious about “peaceful coexistence” and that Britain could play a key role in East-West relations, the talks resulted in a number of constructive agreements, including a joint declaration on the desirability of furthering cultural exchange and of taking “practical steps directed towards ensuring a freer exchange of information by the spoken and written word.”13 A magazine seemed an obvious medium through which Britain could disseminate information by the written word. FO-sponsored “general projection” magazines such as Commonwealth Today and the Arabic-language Al Aalam had played a prominent role in British cultural diplomacy from the early 1950s.14 The magazine format was deemed particularly suitable for the USSR with its highly developed culture of reading.15 Periodicals were especially favored by Soviet readers, and their circulation increased hugely in this period, reaching 2.6 billion by 1970, 14 times the 1950 level.16 The serious “thick journal,” such as Novyi mir, a blend of literature and broader sociopolitical articles, enjoyed phenomenal success among the burgeoning intelligentsia, particularly during the Khrushchev-era thaw.17 – 220 –

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The Foreign Office was evidently well aware of this tendency, with one official commenting that “the Russians wanted a good read.”18 A previous British government periodical, the illustrated weekly British Ally (Britanskii soiuznik), set up on the basis of a reciprocal agreement during the period of British-Soviet wartime cooperation, had been well received in the USSR, although it suffered when relations soured in the late 1940s and was terminated in 1950 (its counterpart in Britain, Soviet Weekly, was permitted to survive).19 Support for a new version of British Ally gathered momentum from 1955, particularly after the relaunch of the U.S. illustrated magazine Amerika.20 Published from 1945 until 1952, Amerika was resurrected in 1956 following a U.S.-Soviet agreement concerning the reciprocal distribution of national magazines; its Soviet equivalent in the United States was USSR, later renamed Soviet Life. The British were evidently concerned not to be left out of this accelerating periodical diplomacy. However, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November 1956 created dilemmas. On the one hand, it caused temporary setbacks in cultural relations, as public revulsion created considerable pressure to ostracize the USSR, while on the other, it persuaded some officials of the urgency of extending cultural contacts in the interests of fomenting change, particularly amongst the Soviet intelligentsia and youth, who were perceived to be potentially rebellious and receptive to Western values. Cecil Parrott, Minister at the British Embassy in Moscow, pressed for a policy of what he called “injecting … western ideas” to encourage these groups. This view prevailed, and by 1957 the British government had accepted the case for a magazine.21 However, because of the vicissitudes of East-West relations and the intractable nature of Anglo-Soviet negotiations, as well as domestic financial pressures, it was only in January 1961 that an agreement to set up the magazine was finally concluded with the Soviet authorities. The wording of this agreement largely followed the model of the 1955 U.S.-Soviet agreement on Amerika. It specified that the magazine should be “non-political in character” and “devoted to an objective presentation of various aspects of British life, particularly in the sphere of culture, science and technology.” This was the price to be paid for a further clause maintaining that it would not be subject to censorship by the Soviet authorities. The Soviet agency Soiuzpechat’ was to distribute fifty thousand copies of the quarterly magazine, with 10 percent of these on subscription, while a further two thousand complimentary copies were to be distributed by the British Embassy to Soviet institutions and individuals. If any copies remained unsold for three months, Soiuzpechat’ had the right to return them to the Embassy for a refund—an opportunity for the authorities to restrict the distribution of ideologically suspect editions. In return for all this—and reciprocity was always important—the British government – 221 –

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agreed to facilitate the distribution of Soviet Weekly in the event of any difficulties.22 Following the agreement, various practical arrangements were put in place. Responsibility for the production of the magazine was assigned to the Central Office of Information (COI), a service department established in 1946 to produce publicity material for government departments.23 The magazine’s editor was officially attached to the COI. However, it was the FO’s Information Research Department (IRD) that took charge of the magazine’s editorial policy. Formed in 1948 with the explicit remit of countering Communist propaganda, this clandestine department had originally concentrated on anti-Communist propaganda in Britain and areas of British influence, but from the mid-1950s it turned its attention to the Soviet bloc. It was thought that the IRD’s expertise in both Communist states and propaganda made it especially qualified to take on the project.24 The title of the new magazine was the subject of some discussion at this stage. Since Britain was (and is) generally known as Англия (Anglia— England) in Russia and the Soviet Union, Anglia seemed a natural choice by analogy with the two other national projection magazines then circulating in the USSR, Amerika and Jugoslaviia.25 It was acknowledged that this might provoke a vociferous reaction from the “Scottish lobby” in particular,26 yet it proved difficult to find a suitably inclusive alternative. One suggestion, British Life, was vetoed in the USSR on the grounds that the word “life” had acquired a hint of “foreign propaganda penetration.” Velikobritaniia (Great Britain) was also rejected by FO officials who argued that it sounded too pompous and carried colonialist overtones in the USSR. A compromise suggestion, Britannia, was deemed to be poor Russian. Finally, it was agreed that the title Anglia should be accompanied by a subtitle: “a magazine about life in Great Britain today.”27

Projecting “Life in Great Britain Today”: the Subtle Philosophy of Anglia This protracted discussion about the name of the magazine exemplifies the problem inherent in any attempt to establish a suitable narrative about contemporary Britain—it was one thing to propose a magazine about “life in Great Britain today,” but quite another to agree on precisely how to project such an amorphous and contested subject. The approach adopted by the IRD, which bore ultimate responsibility for the magazine’s editorial line, was informed by the department’s interpretation of Anglia’s objectives: “The magazine aims at presenting an attractive, truthful and convincing picture of all aspects of Britain to serious Soviet readers. Although – 222 –

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‘Anglia’ cannot deal directly with political subjects, this presentation of an honest and accurate picture of Britain can both counteract the misleading account given in the Soviet press, and reveal how unfavourably many aspects of life in the Soviet Union compare with Britain.”28 To ensure that Britain was portrayed in a way that was both “attractive” as well as “truthful and convincing” required some subtlety. As Embassy officials had emphasized in 1957, they would have to be “careful not to risk accusations of propaganda (and to avoid this we shall have to be very subtle indeed!).”29 The British approach was distinguished from that of the Unites States in this respect, with the COI’s director of publications proposing a “rather subtler approach” than the “blatantly lavish efforts of the Americans.” It had always been envisaged that Britain’s magazine would be more modest than Amerika, partly for financial reasons and so as not to duplicate American efforts, but also because of differing notions about the whole matter of “publicity.” While Britain and the United States cooperated closely in this field, there was an assumption within the Foreign Office that American practices were inferior; for example, one FO official observed very little difference between British and American policies toward Eastern Europe, apart from in the area of “publicity” where “the Americans are more adventurous than we are.” This strategy had “not always proven more effective than our quieter methods.”30 “Quiet” Amerika certainly was not. A large-format, sixty-page monthly magazine with a print run of fifty thousand copies, it was full of glossy color photographs and designed for a mass readership. It promoted the American way of life in a quite unashamed fashion: the first issue included a five-page spread on American cars, accompanied by a glaringly obvious price chart.31 By contrast, it was proposed in 1957 that Britain’s magazine should appear quarterly, initially in a run of about ten thousand copies (although this figure was later increased), and that it would have an unusual pocket-sized format (similar to that of the Reader’s Digest), which was considered to be more subtle than that of Amerika. It was thought that the small size would allow readers to hide it in their pockets, and mean that it was likely to be longer-lasting—passed around and kept on bookshelves. While it was intended that the magazine should be illustrated, the main emphasis was to be upon text oriented toward a particular readership, “the intelligent, non-technical, layman, particularly of the emergent middle class and the administrative class.”32 This was in line with the elite-oriented tradition of British overseas propaganda, which aimed to target the “influential few and through them [at] the many.”33 All these proposals were ultimately adopted, thus ensuring that Anglia’s identity remained quite distinct from that of Amerika. Once the magazine was up and running, various strategies were employed to minimize any risk that it might be rejected as blatant propaganda – 223 –

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by its readers. Anglia never criticized the USSR directly; on the contrary, it aimed to project an attitude of friendship and mutual respect between the two countries. For example, articles about science often mentioned the connections between British and Soviet scientists, and the magazine regularly reported on visits between the two countries, the activities of the G.B.-USSR Association and so on.34 More controversially, an article on “Lenin in London” was even published in 1967 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, despite the initial reservations of some FO officials who agreed that it should go ahead only if it was used as an opportunity to include photographs showing how the parts of London Lenin had visited had changed for the better: “anything which brings home the point that Lenin’s ideas are totally unrelated to the world of today, without of course ever saying that!”35 Rather than engaging in explicitly negative propaganda, the Anglia team concentrated on telling a positive story about Britain designed both to interest the serious Soviet reader and to draw an implicit contrast with life in the USSR. In 1957, the COI had suggested that the magazine focus on “the common experiences of people in relatively similar circumstances, so that the reader may readily identify himself with the subject of the article.”36 Anglia certainly followed this recommendation, for many of its articles addressed subjects of common interest and experience, particularly science and technology, industry and agriculture, the arts, sports, and leisure. However, the view from the embassy in Moscow was that British political objectives would be better served by dwelling on areas in which Britain differed substantially from the Soviet Union, such as government, the legal system, education, trade unions, and so on.37 While this was precluded to some degree by the “nonpolitical” terms of the Anglia agreement, later issues did begin to incorporate more explicitly sociopolitical content designed to underline differences, rather than similarities, between the two societies. In addition, the magazine regularly featured extracts from contemporary British literature, crosswords, material on the regions of Britain, examples of humor, and items in English. In order to avoid a “rag-bag” appearance and to engage the serious reader with complex subjects, Anglia was frequently centered on one major theme, such as chemistry or travel, although most issues also contained additional material unrelated to the theme. A representative example from the mid-1960s, Anglia no. 11, included articles connected to the main theme of British design, as well as material on parliamentary elections, cricket, books published in 1963, East Anglia, fashion, the nervous system, stamps, and English sporting terminology, plus some caricatures, a short story, and a crossword.38 Whether the subject was sport or department stores, education or gardening, the underlying message was always that Britain represented mo– 224 –

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dernity and progress. Great emphasis was placed upon the country’s recent economic achievements and scientific advances (the latter were accorded a particularly high priority given the prestige of Soviet science). Britain was presented as a land of contented workers and consumers reaping the benefits of a buoyant economy and a thriving welfare state, and as the home to a diverse, innovative, and widely accessible modern culture (in both its high and popular variants). The British political system was portrayed as genuinely democratic and as open to modern developments such as opinion polling. This “branding” of Britain as modern and progressive was considered essential given that Soviet propaganda constantly painted a picture of the country as backward looking and in steady decline. In 1961, as detailed plans for the first editions of the magazine were being drawn up, the IRD’s Mark Russell argued they “must try to get across the impression of a progressive society which is moving forward all the time as against the picture of Capitalist stagnation with which the Soviet public have been fed.”39 At a time when the USSR seemed to many in the world to represent the future, Anglia needed to show that a modern Britain offered a viable alternative to the Soviet Socialist model of modernity (and, implicitly if not explicitly, to the American version of Capitalist modernity, too). This image of an unequivocally modern and progressive Britain was necessarily based on a somewhat selective approach to the “truth.” As Lord Christopher Mayhew—one of the prime movers behind the creation of the IRD and an Anglia supporter—subsequently observed, the key to effective propaganda was the selection of facts: “The policy of IRD was not to lie or distort facts, but to select the facts that proved our case.”40 Written in a dispassionate rather than an opinionated style, Anglia’s articles incorporated a dazzling array of facts and figures; for example, detailed statistics were inserted into many of the articles, and the editor went to considerable lengths to ensure that these were up-to-date, accurate, and in line with those used by the BBC Russian Service.41 To enhance credibility, the personal testimonies of concrete individuals were often incorporated, and, where possible, their direct speech was used since this was thought to be more convincing than indirect reporting. Visual images were also employed as evidence to substantiate the claims of the magazine, as well as to make it more interesting—while Anglia was never intended to be as lavishly illustrated as Amerika, it was still important that Soviet citizens could see aspects of British life for themselves. Appealing photographs accompanied many articles, particularly those devoted to fashion, furniture, and so on. This attractive vision would have seemed unbalanced and unconvincing without at least some acknowledgement of the problems Britain faced. Right at the outset, the magazine’s first editor, Wright Miller, insisted that they should be “frank sometimes about our deficiencies.”42 However, the – 225 –

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nature and extent of this frankness were never entirely clear. In 1961, the IRD’s Mavis King asked, “Are we allowed to include criticism, i.e., x houses have no indoor sanitation, 40 children in the class?” Her opinion was that “some negative facts must be included, otherwise the Russians are going to classify everything we say as propaganda.” Mark Russell agreed that problems should not be hidden, but suggested that the magazine should always indicate what was being done to tackle issues such as slums. Another FO official, Bryan Cartledge, also argued for a cautious approach since “the Soviet press pounces joyfully on admissions of defects in Western society and one gets no credit for ‘good sportsmanship’ in showing both sides of the picture”; Pravda would delight in beginning an article by stating that “According to the official British magazine Anglia 15% of British homes have no inside sanitation.” Cartledge recommended focusing on “past shortcomings which have been or are being remedied.” Presenting as full a picture of Britain as possible, with the emphasis not on “hiding shortcomings” but on showing how problems were being tackled, was thus the approach that was said to inform editorial policy.43

Exchanging Letters: Readers’ Correspondence with Anglia How successful was this effort to explain the British way of life to Soviet readers? Although it was always difficult to measure its effectiveness, the magazine, with its “subtle” approach, appeared to be well received by both the Soviet authorities and the educated public. It was clearly in high demand, its circulation was not generally obstructed, and the available evidence suggested it was being read by the desired target groups: professionals and younger people. Informal conversations indicated that most readers did not dismiss it as “propaganda,” perceiving it rather as interesting and informative. Some claimed explicitly that they preferred it to Amerika.44 Significantly, Anglia managed to stimulate a process of two-way communication: readers were strongly encouraged to correspond with the editor, not only because their feedback was valuable, but also because the whole process of dialogue with individual Soviet citizens was considered intrinsically worthwhile in itself. The USSR had always had a tradition of encouraging letter writing to the press, and journals such as Novyi Mir clearly received large quantities of readers’ mail in this period.45 However, writing to a foreign periodical was another matter altogether. Censorship of mail continued to be routine in the post-Stalin USSR, and corresponding with foreigners was still regarded as a risky activity. The IRD’s Mavis King thus observed that the thirty letters Anglia received in 1962 might not seem many, but were “more – 226 –

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than I dared to hope for.” By way of comparison, it is worth noting that the much more widely accessible BBC Russian Service only received forty-one letters in 1956, and somewhat over a hundred in 1963.46 Between 1962 and 1969, a total of 240 letters reached the offices of Anglia.47 Of course, we cannot know how many never made it at all. The letters were never published in the magazine, but a small selection from the periods 1963–65 and 1974–75 have been retained in the Foreign Office archives, along with an even smaller sample of the editors’ responses. Although the numbers are quite limited, some conclusions can be drawn from them.48 What is quite striking is the geographical spread of the correspondence. Anglia was supposed to be available in eighty cities, and readers certainly wrote from as far afield as Magadan, Perm, Vladivostok, and Yalta. Indeed, it may be surmised that communication with foreigners was valued particularly highly by those living far from Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities with greater exposure to foreign influences. It is also clear that most letters emanated from professionals and young people (many who wrote in 1974–75 described themselves as students or children). While the majority wrote in Russian, some correspondents enjoyed practicing their English. They generally supplied their names and addresses, evidently anticipating that their letters would elicit a response.49 Not surprisingly, the content of their letters was, from a political point of view, ostensibly quite innocuous. Some wrote simply to express their appreciation of the magazine. Others offered constructive criticisms, or suggested themes Anglia could address, ranging from pop music and the lives of young people to contemporary visual arts, cinema, cartoons, and even fireworks. Correspondents also requested further information relating to specific articles they had read, or asked to be put in touch with British specialists on topics covered by the magazine. A few readers even made polite requests for material objects such as records, books, or postcards.50 Regardless of their content, these letters from ordinary Soviet citizens were highly valued by the FO, and the Anglia editor was expected to handle them in an appropriately responsive manner. The first editor, Wright Miller, seemed particularly well suited to this task. He was equipped with a good knowledge of the USSR, having visited the country several times, including a spell during the war when he worked for British Ally in Moscow and Kuibyshev. After the war, he had served as a London-based editor of Ally. In 1960, he published his Russians as People, a book that expressed much understanding of and sympathy for the Russian people (as opposed to the Soviet political system). One of the book’s themes was the centrality of personal relationships in Russian culture: Miller argued that Russians set great store by personal ties and friendships and observed the importance of “respect for and expression of genuine personal feeling.”51 – 227 –

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In his correspondence with Soviet readers, Miller always took the trouble to cultivate a sense of warm friendship and trust between editor and reader, to avoid an official, bureaucratic approach, and to demonstrate that he cared about each correspondent on a personal level. He made sure to answer letters fully and in a sympathetic and personal tone, paying attention to even the smallest details of the correspondence. For example, he concluded his reply to one nineteen-year-old Vitalii Reshetov, who had mentioned in passing that he was taking exams: “Wishing you all success with your entrance examination for the institute, and thereafter.” Wright Miller’s successors also followed this practice: when twelve-yearold Dima Droshnev professed to be a long-time reader of the magazine and to be studying English with the help of his sister, a later editor, Jean Penfold, sent cordial greetings to Droshnev and his sister and wished him well with his studies. This warm, friendly tone was often echoed by the correspondents themselves, for example, one concluded his missive with the words “To end this letter, I wish you a lot of success, to you personally and to ‘Anglia.’”52 The editor and correspondents often exchanged seasonal greetings, a practice that served to reinforce the impression of personal friendship. A regular correspondent, Volkov from Magadan, sent Wright Miller his greetings for Christmas and New Year, expressing his hope that “the New Year and further numbers of Anglia will enable us to continue our correspondence in the same friendly manner as before.” Else Brucene, a teacher from Lithuania, wrote to compliment the editors on the magazine, which she claimed to use in her teaching: “I await the appearance of each new issue as a feast.” Brucene accompanied her letter with a New Year’s card. The editor in turn thanked her for the “delightful” card and encouraged her to continue the correspondence and pass on her suggestions for future issues. A Margarita Pasekova from Moscow wished the editorial team her best wishes for the New Year adding: “I would like our friendship to continue in the New Year.” Pasekova included a New Year’s poem beginning with the lines: “The good Russian Father Frost / Wishes you to take leave of the old year without tears / And to greet the New Year and to love it.”53 Another means of cultivating friendship between the editor and the readers of the magazine involved the giving and receiving of gifts. Anglia endeavored where possible to satisfy readers’ requests for various small items: the aforementioned Volkov from Magadan, who had read a report on razor blades in Anglia (reprinted from the British consumer magazine Which?), was given a Wilkinson blade, which he clearly appreciated—although he complained that he had only received one blade rather than the two he was promised! The magazine sometimes sent out books, for example, a reader from Gorky, L. Krai, was given a book about British prov– 228 –

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erbs, a subject on which he had expressed an interest. Cards and pictures were common gifts, especially postcards of London or pictures of British pop groups. In some cases, the principle of reciprocity seems to have been observed. A regular correspondent from Uzhgorod, Pavel Sankov (an engineer), who had requested information about various matters, including British architecture and landscape gardening, gave Wright Miller a guide to his region, the Transcarpathian oblast, “for our better acquaintance.” In his reply, Miller expressed his delight at having received the volume. L. Krai, the recipient of the book about British proverbs, reciprocated with some postcards about Russian proverbs, while one couple, the Baizantovs from Cheliabinsk, sent Miller a set of postcards of Tbilisi in exchange for the postcards of London he had sent them. Their letter provides an interesting indication of the depth of emotion the relationship with the editor could evoke, for they claimed to be “unspeakably glad” to receive his “wonderful letter,” continuing, “We are extremely grateful for your sensitiveness, for your warm words, for your invaluable help in realising our old dream—correspondence with your country … and at last for your brilliant gift—wonderful postcards with the sights of London. We earnestly ask you in token of our deep gratitude to take our modest present—series of postcards with the sights of our beautiful city—Tbilisi.”54 The Baizantovs’ mention of “correspondence with your country” was a reference to Miller’s success in putting them in touch with a pen-friend. The business of cultivating British-Soviet friendship required not only the exchange of warm words and small gifts, but also the provision of various types of practical assistance to the magazine’s readers. Particularly in the mid-1970s, when détente was flourishing, many Soviet citizens asked Anglia to help them find pen-friends. Their requests were usually satisfied, frequently with the help of the G.B.-USSR Association. In this way, the initial correspondence with Anglia often acted as the catalyst for a further process of East-West communication. One notable example was Anglia’s facilitation of correspondence between a bedridden reader, Dzhaminat Kerimova from Makhachkala, and Lady Susan Masham, a campaigner for the rights of people with disabilities who had been the subject of a feature in the magazine. When Kerimova wrote to Anglia to ask if they could pass on her letter to Lady Masham, they did so, as well as offering to pass on and translate further correspondence. Masham herself duly responded with a full letter, in which she discussed her own disability and expressed an interest in Kerimova’s life, and that of disabled people in the USSR more generally. She volunteered to continue the correspondence and send Kerimova magazines about the disabled in Britain.55 The editors and FO officials went to considerable lengths to satisfy correspondents’ requests for information on all manner of subjects. The strict – 229 –

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rationing of information within the USSR created a tremendous “thirst for knowledge” and many readers appeared to value Anglia as a source of useful and credible information.56 Following the publication in the magazine of a profile of Diana Barnes, a postgraduate medical researcher, a professor at a Moscow children’s hospital wrote to enquire whether Barnes could supply some specific information about breast cancer treatment. Anglia arranged for Dr. Barnes to contact her directly. Similarly, a professor of biological sciences from Ul’ianovsk who had read articles about British agriculture in the magazine went on to ask for further material on wheat selection in Britain, and this was arranged through the G.B.-USSR Association. Stanislav Gurin wrote to Wright Miller from Kharkov to communicate his feelings about the death of a British specialist on the poet Alexander Blok—“I was extremely sorry to hear from you of the death of Sir Cecil Kisch; the death even of someone with whom one is not acquainted can produce a sad impression”—and to ask if there were any other Blok specialists in Britain. Miller spent some time tracking down and putting him in touch with the relevant experts.57 As well as assisting Anglia readers with their requests for pen-friends and information, the editors helped out in other ways, from correcting the English of correspondents who were learning the language, to attempting to resolve the problems of those having difficulty subscribing to the magazine.58 This practical help, in conjunction with the personal approach, seems to have been greatly appreciated. The editor was regarded by some not so much as a British government official but rather as a trusted friend. Certainly this is the impression conveyed by one of Wright Miller’s regular correspondents, Savitskii from Stavropol, who wrote to the magazine to express his grief at the death of Miller, whose obituary was published in Anglia in 1974.59 Savitskii had conducted an extensive correspondence with Miller that he clearly treasured. He recalled how the editor “did not leave a single of our letters unanswered and always patiently replied to all our queries. We awaited his replies eagerly and read them with the greatest interest. His letters, as his articles, were full of his gentle sense of humour, showing that he was a good and out of the common person.” Savitskii enclosed a card for Wright Miller’s wife and daughters, which read: “My wife, my son and I deeply mourn and share your grief on losing your husband and father, Mr. Wright Miller.”60 By promoting the exchange of letters between the editor and the readers in this way, Anglia facilitated grassroots communication between Britain and the USSR during the Cold War. Ordinary individuals from all over the USSR felt inspired to enter into friendly correspondence, not only with the editors themselves, but also with others whom they encountered thanks to Anglia’s interventions. Although these Soviet citizens may not have been – 230 –

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able to travel to Britain in a physical sense, their letters certainly did, and this must have gone some way to eroding their sense of isolation from the West (and, quite possibly, their British correspondents’ sense of isolation from the East).61

Conclusion The enduring fascination with the actions of the two main protagonists in the Cold War drama has tended to obscure the roles played by other supporting actors. This case study of Anglia builds on recent research that has cast light on Britain’s very significant involvement in the cultural Cold War.62 Motivated by the desire to maintain global influence and prestige at a time of decline and aware that it had considerable pre-Cold War experience on which it could draw, the British government was determined to make its own distinctive contribution to the process of East-West communication. Although Britain and the United States always cooperated closely, it was accepted that the two allies could only gain from “shooting at the same target from different angles.”63 When compared with the lavishly funded initiatives of the United States or the USSR, or even with Britain’s own activities in the sphere of radio broadcasting to the Soviet Union, Anglia might justifiably be regarded as one of the “small phenomena” of the Cold War.64 Produced by one of the lesser “great powers,” it cost relatively little and was designed to have a modest reach. In terms of physical appearance, it was, quite literally, small. Nevertheless, it would be fair to claim that the magazine was remarkably successful, in part because of its small scale and subtle approach. Anglia told an appealing and reasonably credible story about Britain to Soviet citizens who were hungry for any information about zagranitsa (abroad).65 By showing that Britain possessed a distinct ethos and way of life, Anglia complicated simplistic binary notions about “East” and “West.” In its own small way, it helped to break down barriers and ease communication between Britain and the USSR, not only at the level of the state, but, perhaps equally importantly, at the level of the ordinary individual. By 1992, when the last issues of the magazine appeared, the Cold War was over, and Anglia’s work appeared to be done. Sarah Davies is senior lecturer in history at Durham University, UK. She is the author of Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia (1997), the coeditor of Stalin: A New History (2005), and the coauthor of Stalin’s World: Dictating the Soviet Order (2015). She is currently working on a study of British and Soviet cultural diplomacy in the Cold War. – 231 –

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Notes 1. S. Autio-Sarasmo and B. Humphreys, eds., Winter Kept Us Warm: Cold War Interactions Reconsidered (Helsinki: Aleksanteri Institute, 2010), 14. 2. On the radio see, for example, G. Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda: The BBC and Voice of America in International Politics, 1956–1964 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996); M. Nelson, War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War (London: Brasseys, 1997); A. Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000); A. Ross Johnson, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010); A. Ross Johnson and R. E. Parta, eds., Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Budapest: Central European Press, 2012). 3. K. Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006), 15; G. Barnhisel and C. Turner, eds., Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 12. 4. W. L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997), 118–19; Y. Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2003), 148–51; A. Yarrow, “Selling a New Vision of America to the World: Changing Messages in Early U.S. Cold War Print Propaganda,” Journal of Cold War Studies 11, no. 4 (2009). 5. E.g., Osgood, Total Cold War; Hixson, Parting the Curtain; N. J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); S. Lucas, Freedom’s War: The American Crusade against the Soviet Union (New York: New York University Press, 1999); F. S. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999); Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War; J. Gienow-Hecht, Transmission Impossible: American Journalism as Cultural Diplomacy in Postwar Germany, 1945–1955 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999); L. Belmonte, Selling the American Way: US Propaganda and the Cold War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). 6. On some Western European initiatives, see G. Scott-Smith, “Interdoc and Western European Psychological Warfare: The American Connection, 1958,” Intelligence and National Security 26, no. 2–3 (2011); G. Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network: Cold War Internationale (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012); A. Macher, “Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1957–1963: Echoes of Western Cultural Activity in a Communist Country,” in Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy, ed. J. Gienow-Hecht and M. Donfried (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010). There is now a growing body of literature on British activities: Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda; Nelson, War of the Black Heavens; FCO Historians, IRD: Origins and Establishment of the Foreign Office Information Research Department 1946–48 (London: FCO/LRD, 1995); P. Lashmar and J. Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War (Stroud: Sutton, 1998); R. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001); A. Defty, Britain, America, and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945– 1953: The Information Research Department (London: Routledge, 2004); L. Schwartz, Political Warfare Against the Kremlin: US and British Propaganda Policy at the Beginning of the Cold War (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009); M. B. Smith, “Peaceful Coexistence at All Costs: Cold War Exchanges between Britain and the Soviet Union in 1956,” Cold War History 12, no. 3 (2012). 7. P. M. Taylor, The Projection of Britain: Overseas Publicity and Propaganda 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); P. M. Taylor, British Propaganda in the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), especially 227–29; Defty, Britain; Schwartz, Political Warfare, 3; L. Risso, “A Difficult Compromise: British and American Plans for a Common Anti-Communist Propaganda Response in Western Europe, 1948–1958,” Intelligence and National Security 26, no. 2–3 (2011). – 232 –

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8. J.-F. Fayet, “VOKS: The Third Dimension of Soviet Foreign Policy,” in Gienow-Hecht and Donfried, Searching, 31–49; M. David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 9. F. C. Barghoorn, The Soviet Cultural Offensive: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960); “The Soviet Cultural Campaign Abroad,” FO 975/77, The National Archives of the UK (henceforth TNA); N. Gould-Davies, “The Logic of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy,” Diplomatic History 27, no. 2 (2003). 10. Hixson, Parting the Curtain, 101. 11. Defty, Britain, 239–41; Schwartz, Political Warfare, 181. 12. Barghoorn, The Soviet Cultural Offensive. 13. Cmd. 9753, appendix; Smith, “Peaceful Coexistence at All Costs.” 14. On Al Aalam, see J. R. Vaughan, “‘A Certain Idea of Britain’: British Cultural Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1945–57,” Contemporary British History 19, no. 2 (2005). 15. S. Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000). 16. K. Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire that Lost the Cultural Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 12. 17. E. R. Frankel, Novy Mir: A Case Study in the Politics of Literature, 1952–1958 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 18. Minutes, 27 January 1965, INF 12/1094, TNA. 19. V. Pechatnov, “The Rise and Fall of Britansky Soyuznik: A Case Study in Soviet Response to British Propaganda of the Mid-1940s,” The Historical Journal 41, no. 1 (1998). 20. FO 371/111774, TNA. 21. Parrott to Brimelow, 11 January 1957, FO 371/129124, TNA. 22. Cmnd. 1287. 23. M. Grant, “Towards a Central Office of Information: Continuity and Change in British Government Information Policy 1939–51,” Journal of Contemporary History 34, no. 1 (1999). 24. Defty, Britain, 239; Murray to Hopson, 8 February 1961 and Hopson to Murray, 10 February 1961, FCO 95/1232, TNA. 25. I transliterate Англия as Anglia throughout this chapter, as this was the form used by the FO. 26. Draft FO Brief, August 1958, INF 12/1095; FO to Moscow, 25 January 1960, FO 953/1990, TNA; Hansard HC Debates, 10 April 1957, Series 5, vol. 568, cc. 1133–34. 27. Mason minute, 22 March 1960 and Morgan minute, 23 March 1960, FO 953/1990; Moscow to FO, 12 May 1960 and FO to Moscow, 13 May 1960, FO 953/1991, TNA. 28. Bayne to Clive, 9 April 1968, memorandum on Anglia, FCO 95/348, TNA. 29. Simpson to Slater, 15 January 1957, INF 12/1347; Embassy to Simpson, 16 October 1957, INF 12/1095, TNA. 30. Schwartz, Political Warfare, 150, 169. For another example, see Defty, Britain, 104. 31. Richmond, Cultural Exchange, 149; Schwartz, Political Warfare, 198. 32. McMillan to Lovell, 27 August 1957 and Draft FO brief, August 1958, INF 12/1095, TNA. 33. Taylor, Projection, 3; Cmd. 9138, 6. 34. Funded by the British government, the G.B.-USSR Association was set up in 1959 as an attempt to promote dialogue and contacts between Britain and the USSR in a way that would circumvent the front organizations such as the British-Soviet Friendship Society. 35. Morgan to King, 18 January 1967 and Fretwell minute, 31 January 1967, FCO 95/343, TNA. 36. McMillan to Lovell, 27 August 1957, INF 12/1095, TNA. 37. Embassy to Simpson, 16 October 1957, INF 12/1095, TNA. 38. Anglia 11 (1964). 39. King minute 5 May 1961 and Russell minute 15 May 1961, FO 1110/1459, TNA. – 233 –

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40. Lashmar and Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War, 36; C. Mayhew, A War of Words (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998). 41. King to Miller, 23 June 1967, FCO 95/343, TNA. 42. Miller to Bewg, 16 May 1960, INF 12/1347, TNA. 43. King minute, 5 May 1961, Russell minute, 15 May 1961 and Cartledge minute, 15 May 1961, FO 1110/1459; Hopson to Marett, 1 March 1962, FO 1110/1586, TNA. 44. S. Davies, “The Soft Power of Anglia: British Cold War Cultural Diplomacy in the USSR,” Contemporary British History 27, no. 3 (2013). 45. M. Lenoe, Closer to the Masses: Stalinist Culture, Social Revolution, and Soviet Newspapers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); M. Dobson, “Contesting the Paradigms of De-Stalinisation: Readers’ Responses to ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,’” Slavic Review 64, no. 3 (2005); D. Kozlov, “‘I Have Not Read, But I Will Say’: Changing Ideas of Social Membership, 1958–66,” Kritika 7, no. 3 (2006). 46. King minute, 16 January 1963, FO 1110/1586, TNA; Schwartz, Political Warfare, 90– 92. See also G. Mytton, “Audience Research at the BBC External Services during the Cold War,” Cold War History 11, no. 1 (2011): 55. 47. Hall, “FCO-Sponsored COI/HMSO Services—A Survey,” 12 June 1969, FO 95/677, TNA. 48. Readers’ letters 1963–64, FO 1110/1845; readers’ letters 1965, FO 1110/1977; readers’ letters 1974–75, FCO 95/1844, TNA. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. W. Miller, Russians as People (New York: Dutton, 1961), 58–59. 52. Anglia to Reshetov, 4 November 1965, FO 1110/1977; Droshnev to Anglia, 11 May 1975 and Penfold to Droshnev (no date), FCO 95/1844; Krai to Anglia, 8 September 1974, FCO 95/1844, TNA. 53. Volkov to Anglia, 16 December 1963, FO 1110/1845; Brucene to Anglia, 18 December 1974, Anglia to Brucene (no date) and Pasekova to Anglia, December 1974, FCO 95/1844, TNA. 54. Volkov to Anglia, 16 December 1963, FO 1110/1845; Krai to Anglia, 8 September 1974 and Anglia to Krai (no date), FCO 95/1844; Sankov to Anglia, 22 September 1965, Anglia to Sankov, November 1965 and Baizontovs to Anglia, 19 September 1965, FO 1110/1977, TNA. 55. Kerimova to Anglia, 24 December 1974, Anglia to Kerimova (no date) and Masham to Kerimova, 18 March 1975, FCO 95/1844, TNA. 56. S. Mikkonen, “Stealing the Monopoly of Knowledge? Soviet Reactions to U.S. Cold War Broadcasting,” Kritika 11, no. 4 (2010): 790. 57. Vishnevetskaya to Anglia, 6 February 1964 and Berliand to Anglia, 31 January 1964, FO 1110/1845; Gurin to Anglia, 1 September 1965 and Anglia to Gurin, November 1965, FO 1110/1977, TNA. 58. Komarova to Anglia, 12 August 1965, FO 1110/1977, TNA. 59. The publication of the obituary was a significant event in itself. 60. Savitskii to Anglia, 18 August 1974, FCO 95/1844, TNA. 61. For a discussion on the importance of direct interpersonal communication in relation to U.S. exhibitions in the Soviet Union, see T. Tolvaisas, “Cold War ‘Bridge-Building’: U.S. Exchange Exhibits and Their Reception in the Soviet Union, 1959–1967,” Journal of Cold War Studies 12, no. 4 (2010). 62. See footnote 6 for some examples. 63. Defty, Britain, 104. 64. Autio-Sarasmo and Humphreys, Winter Kept Us Warm, 14. 65. For a discussion on the concept of zagranitsa, see A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).

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P A R T IV

ALONG THE BORDERLINES

Chapter 12

TRANSNATIONAL TELEVISION IN EUROPE Cold War Competition and Cooperation Lars Lundgren

T

his chapter aims to broaden the perspective on the history of television by exploring the relations between Europe’s two main broadcasting organizations during the Cold War: the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the International Organization of Radio and Television (OIRT). In particular, the chapter demonstrates how the EBU and the OIRT were involved in fierce competition during the 1950s and 1960s, trying to present themselves as the leading broadcasting organizations in the global arena. At the same time, they established a common framework for the production and transmission of live transnational television in Europe, resulting in the linking of their respective networks and the inauguration of a live cross-border television network covering the entire continent in spring 1961. The analysis of these relations demonstrates two things. First, early television history had a transnational dimension that is often neglected in the predominantly national narratives of television history. Second, the relations between broadcasting organizations counter the image of a divided Cold War Europe with a rigid East-West binary.1 The dominance of the national perspectives has been pointed out before, and I share Michele Hilmes’s understanding of media history, arguing that “media historians frequently adopt a national perspective blindly.”2 To this I would add that the field is overwhelmingly dominated by research carried out in the Anglo-American context, with a deficit of histories stemming from other world regions.3 The national and Western bias of media research in general, and media histories in particular, have not gone unnoticed, and, since the mid-1990s, there has been a growing number of stud– 237 –

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ies with an aim to de-Westernize media theory.4 With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the liberation of Eastern Europe, this need was even further accentuated, with repeated calls for a renewed historiography of transnational television.5 Besides this tendency, Cold War dichotomies have also affected media theory and history quite notably, sometimes in a naïve and direct way, as in the influential Four Theories of the Press, published at the height of the Cold War.6 Lately, several studies have been published that provide significantly more nuanced and intellectually challenging accounts of the media during the Cold War.7 However, attention is usually directed toward one of the two superpowers and their efforts in the field of media and communication, not least regarding radio broadcasting and propaganda.8 Finally, it is sometimes argued that scholarly attention to media history is primarily restricted to different aspects of political communication, i.e., media and democracy, especially regarding the liberalization of media systems in post-Communist times.9 While television historiography is most often restricted to national perspectives or to emphasizing the American dominance of satellite television, this chapter suggests that early transnational television during the Cold War was more diverse and complex than traditional narratives usually acknowledge. This diversity and complexity is investigated and analyzed by means of looking at two examples of competition and potential conflict between the OIRT and the EBU, and one example of cooperation that eventually led to the linking of their respective television networks, the Eurovision and Intervision. The end of the Cold War meant that things previously kept separate could once again come together. That was true in the case of East and West Germany, and it was true for the major broadcasting organizations in Europe. The EBU and the OIRT merged in January 1993 and their respective records are today kept at the EBU headquarters in Geneva, collecting correspondence, photographs, and minutes from meetings, as well as official documents such as the EBU Review and the OIRT Information. The files provide details regarding first and foremost the relations between the EBU and the OIRT, both in terms of their rivalry but also the emerging framework for cooperation. The organizations primarily cooperated in the field of cross-border broadcasting and information exchange, and such issues are further analyzed by examining records from the BBC written archives, since the BBC was, besides the EBU and the OIRT, instrumental in early transnational broadcasts in Europe. The records help us paint a broad picture of a rather complex situation regarding broadcasting in Europe during the Cold War. The ambition of the chapter is twofold. I will initially study how the two organizations com– 238 –

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pete for a leading position in the global broadcasting system. First, I look at the OIRT initiative called Science in the Service of Peace, which was a program series offered to broadcasters around the world. Second, I look at the internal discussions of the EBU concerning the name of the union and the question of whether to drop the adjective “European” or not. Shortening the name was thought to open up the union to members outside the European broadcasting zone, particularly to countries suspicious about Europe’s colonial past. In the final section of the chapter, I analyze the organization and cooperation behind the first transnational broadcast to penetrate the Iron Curtain. This analysis draws upon one particular broadcast, which spanned the entire European continent, in April 1961, when Yuri Gagarin returned to Moscow after completing the first manned spaceflight during which he had orbited Earth.10

Organizing Broadcasting in Europe: From IBU to EBU and OIRT The division of Europe’s broadcasting organizations into the OIRT and the EBU was the result of Cold War tensions and political controversies between broadcasters in Western and Eastern Europe. The skirmishes within their predecessor, the International Broadcasting Union (IBU), established in 1925, eventually led to its dissolution in 1950 and the formation of the two new broadcast organizations. It is crucial to be aware of these changes in order to understand the conditions of conflict and cooperation in the field of broadcasting during the Cold War.11 Despite the splits, new organizations inherited much of the IBU’s purpose, organizational structure, and working routines. To a large extent, the IBU was created in response to what was perceived as “American chaos” regarding the development of broadcasting on the other side of the Atlantic. Even though the dichotomy of “American chaos” and “British quality” was exaggerated, the establishment of an international body to deal with international broadcasting issues was considered necessary.12 The IBU had three main fields of operation. The most urgent one concentrated on technical issues, such as frequency allocation and monitoring of the spectrum, something very much needed in the densely populated Europe with an abundance of competing broadcasters.13 Additionally, a number of legal issues had to be dealt with—for instance, questions of copyright and the concerns regarding the use of broadcasting for propaganda purposes. Finally, the IBU provided a framework for program exchanges between member organizations, which was mainly evident in the production of musical program series such as National Nights and European Concerts.14 This tripartite division into technical, legal, and program activ– 239 –

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ities was inherited by both the EBU and the OIR (The T for “television” was added in 1960 and the organization was thus originally named the OIR).15 The IBU was essentially a regional broadcasting union of Europe, but one with a number of associate members all over the world.16 However, one important player was missing from the IBU: the Soviet Union, despite engaging in international radio broadcasting at the time.17 When it was clear that the IBU would have difficulties in maintaining operations after World War II, the Soviet Union came to play a key role in the founding of the OIR. The IBU’s most flourishing years took place from the beginning of 1925 until the breakout of World War II, when many of the activities such as concerts and program exchange were abandoned. After World War II, the IBU was accused of collaborating with Nazi Germany, mainly due to issues having to do with the location of the technical center in Brussels, allowing for German influence. This resulted in a number of members cancelling their membership, providing the Soviet Union with a favorable position from which to suggest a new union. After the war, there was an attempt to rebuild the IBU, but the strong and influential broadcasting organizations had quite a few difficulties agreeing upon the structure of the organization. According to Ernest Eugster, the French wanted to turn the IBU into a truly international organization, parallel to international collaborations such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations (UN).18 The Soviet authorities were still skeptical toward the IBU because of the Nazi links, while the British wanted to keep the old and experienced organization rather than try to create something completely new. Even more importantly, the BBC was strongly against allowing membership to broadcasters from the Soviet republics since that would seriously affect the voting procedure and power balance of the union in a similar way as in the UN, where the Soviet republics had voting rights. The question of voting rights soon became even more problematic as other Western broadcasters shared the BBC’s criticism. As a consequence, a complicated process started during which the OIR was founded and the IBU remained alive but seriously weakened since a number of broadcasting organizations had resigned, most notably the BBC. The IBU was dissolved in May 1950 after the foundation of the EBU at a conference in Torquay in February the same year, by the initiative of the BBC. This meant that Western and Eastern European broadcasters now had their respective broadcasting organizations and that the ambition to create an international organization similar to, for example, the ITU or UN fell short. Instead, the dualism of the Cold War was reproduced on the European broadcasting arena. – 240 –

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Thus, from 1950 onward, Europe hosted two broadcasting organizations acting as competitors on the international arena.19 Still, the organizations continued some of their cooperation concerning broadcasting on the European continent. The linking of the Intervision and Eurovision television networks in 1961 was, as we will see below, the result of cooperation and negotiation during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the light of the severe conflicts only a decade earlier, this accomplishment is even more remarkable. However, as we will see, the relation between the two organizations was utterly complex, marked by tensions and conflicts as well as a strong will to cooperate and collaborate.

Science in the Service of Peace There is an implicit promise in communication, and most notably so in broadcasting: the capacity to build bridges by connecting people separated by vast distances has spurred a view of broadcasting as a means to overcome differences and to act as a catalyst for mutual understanding.20 This line of thought is perhaps mostly elaborated in the American context, where broadcasting has been linked both to hopes of mutual understanding and world citizenship, and fears of alienation and propaganda. However, as demonstrated by Kristin Roth-Ey, the ambition of the Soviet broadcasting program was also to reach out on a global scale and to provide a platform for Socialist internationalism.21 The plans for an international program series called Science for Peace were first proposed by the OIR in a letter sent out to members as well as to other broadcasting organizations in 1956.22 The letter addressed the members of the OIR while at the same time trying to win over members from competing organizations. In effect, this meant that the letter needed to vacillate carefully between direct address to members, such as references to decisions by the OIR Program Commission, and more universal values on offer in the series. The opening paragraph stated that the series was “devoted to topical scientific problems interesting the broad masses of world public” such as “Radioactive radiation” and “Interplanetary journeys,” supposedly universal topics of the Cold War era.23 The proposal continued by asserting that the organization wished not only to give the series an international character in terms of production and the participating scientists, but also in respect to its audiences and thereby to “contribute to strengthening international co-operation.” 24 One apparent source of conflict was the organizational nexus of the series, both the location of the production and how it was to be organized in terms of decisions over contents. To the OIRT, Prague was the natural site – 241 –

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of production, arguing that synergy would be provided as the World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW) and OIRT headquarters were both in Prague.25 The WFSW was a Socialist initiative and, for the EBU, this proposal was about opening up the airwaves to Socialist scientific propaganda. Still, it took more than a year for the OIR’s proposal to evoke any reaction from the EBU. In the OIR’s original proposal, the series was set to be launched in September 1957, and only by mid-November did the EBU address its members regarding the issue. Leo Wallenborn, the director of the EBU’s administrative office, circulated a letter pointing out that the OIR’s proposal was “merely a sort of imitation of the activities carried out since 1949 by the International University of the Air (URI).”26 Even though this formulation was pretty straightforward, advising the recipients of the letter to turn to the EBU initiative rather than the OIR’s Science in the Service of Peace, the letter in its entirety balanced on the same edge as the OIR did. Wallenborn clearly wanted to advise EBU members to abstain from transmitting the series, but since one imperative of the EBU was not to force any decisions upon its members, he also had to acknowledge that the “policy of … the EBU towards members of the Union has always been to leave them the entire responsibility for their relations with broadcasting organisations which are not members of the EBU.”27 The records show that Wallenborn managed to get his message through. The majority of replies from members, actual or associate, briefly declared that they had no intention to broadcast any of the programs suggested by the OIRT, or that they had not received the offer in the first place (for instance, the Norwegian and Austrian broadcasters). Some broadcast organizations elaborated a bit further on the reasons for rejecting the offer. Radiotjänst in Sweden, for instance, explained that they were careful regarding international broadcasts given the difficulties in coordination, and that if they were to engage in such a broadcast it would be with the EBU rather than the OIRT.28 Most EBU members were thus willing to distance themselves from the OIRT. This included Israeli Broadcasting Service, the only non-European member of the EBU.29 While political reasons for declining the offer were obvious, they went unmentioned apart from a single occasion in which the Dutch broadcaster, Nederlandsche Radio Unie, asserted that its definition of peace was different from the countries behind the Iron Curtain.30 The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) had an interesting and sensitive position as a member of both the EBU and OIRT, but nevertheless replied that they did “not intend to avail itself of ‘Science in the Service of Peace’, the programme series offered by the OIR.”31 That active members of the EBU would reject the OIRT offer is perhaps not so surprising, especially since they were likely already aware of the URI initiative. Radio Ceylon, an associate member of the EBU, in turn pro– 242 –

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vided only a very brief response informing Wallenborn that they had, so far, broadcast Professor J. D. Bernal’s talk. The short announcement may be interpreted as unwillingness to yield to Wallenborn’s suggestions.32 In order to mark their independence toward the EBU, perhaps, Pearl Ondaatje from Ceylon Radio restrained from making any references to or showing any interest in the programs offered by the EBU via their competing URI project. Two broadcasters that were not members of either the EBU or OIRT also replied to Wallenborn’s letter: the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and Radio Pakistan.33 The SABC clearly stated that they had no intention of broadcasting the series, presumably not willing to risk being subjected to propaganda. Mr. Hameed Naseem, director of program planning at Radio Pakistan, wrote that they had not yet decided to broadcast any of the series but that they had “invited scripts of some of the talks produced by them, which we expect would be useful to us as background material.”34 He further noted that they had so far received no information regarding the URI from the EBU and would be glad to receive it if there were no obligations attached, and concluded the letter by noting that Radio Pakistan was not a member of the OIRT. The intermediate position of belonging to neither organization appears to have been handy. In contrast to YLE in Finland, which belonged to both organizations and refused the OIRT’s offer, Radio Pakistan seized the opportunity to use programming from both organizations. The responses from broadcasters around the world seem to have been in line with the geopolitical and cultural proximity of the broadcasters. The broadcasters based in Ceylon and Pakistan, arguably the organizations with the least developed relations with the EBU, were also the most inclined to keep the door open to both the EBU and the OIRT. The predictable responses to both the offer and the letter from Wallenborn should not lead us to think that the entire issue was a superficial matter. The OIR’s intentions were not restricted to attracting new members or creating possibilities for cooperation. Rather, it also included demonstrating that they were active in the field of transnational broadcasting rather than being merely a regional broadcasting organization. Already in the late 1950s, the EBU was significantly larger than the OIRT, with a large number of associate members around the world. However, changes in the geopolitical environment opened up the field of broadcasting, and the OIRT initiative may be seen as a way to challenge the EBU in the international scene. While the Dutch response noting a different conception of peace was likely meant as a straightforward dismissal of the OIRT initiative, it also made an illustrative point. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, broadcasting was considered a means of creating intercultural understanding, albeit in – 243 –

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two different versions. In this sense, the competition for non-European broadcasters was linked to the Cold War, even though it was not necessarily the two superpowers competing in order to present and promote their view to the world. In particular, what was being presented through the program series was the Socialist alternative both in the field of science and in the field of broadcasting. Both science and broadcasting were part of a particular kind of universalism and world citizenship, forward-looking and with a promise of mutual understanding in a world so thoroughly deprived of understanding.35

A European Broadcasting Union? As it has been discussed above, exporting program series such as Science in the Service of Peace built upon an idea of strengthening international relations through program exchange, as did the similar EBU initiative University of the Air. Program exchange was an effective means of creating transnational relations, both by providing content but also by creating structural and organizational links between broadcasters.36 The early 1960s was a turbulent period with decolonization and a growing number of broadcasting organizations—for instance, in Africa. The OIRT and the EBU entered into competition over these new organizations, offering membership and promises of support regarding development—for instance, of technical infrastructures. This new situation also meant that the regional emphasis of the EBU became somewhat superfluous, resulting in a discussion within the organization on how to reduce the risk of being perceived as representing regional interests rather than universal broadcasting. The division of membership into passive and active members became a key issue in this discussion of whether the EBU would be regarded as a regional or truly global organization. The membership issue reflects the hierarchical structure of the EBU, in which the active membership was stipulated by broadcasters’ geographical location within the European Broadcasting Zone.37 As broadcasting became an increasingly transnational field, this proved even more problematic. In a number of meetings and in correspondence between member organizations, the question of changing the union’s name was therefore discussed intensively. The suggestion was to leave “European” out since it was thought to disregard non-European broadcasting organizations. At a meeting of the General Assembly in Madrid in November 1960, representatives of the Israeli and Tunisian broadcasters addressed this as a potential problem for the EBU. They argued that it would be difficult to attract new members from Africa and Asia if the adjective “European” was kept in the union’s name. It was – 244 –

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soon realized that the question regarding the change of the name was too complex to be settled during the meeting in Madrid, and the matter was postponed to the next General Assembly. Meanwhile, an inquiry regarding members’ standpoints on the matter was made.38 The inquiry showed that the majority of EBU members were in favor of changing, and it was decided that the principles of the name issue would be discussed, as well as possible alternative names should the name changing become reality.39 The correspondence in the time between the Madrid meeting and the next meeting in Copenhagen in June 1961 illustrates the diversity of opinions but also the difficulties in reaching a decision about the name issue. In February, Hugh Carleton Greene declared to Olof Rydbeck that the BBC had made a thorough examination that “fortifies us in our view that the present name should be retained.”40 Referring to their intimate contacts with African and Asian broadcasters, Greene also argued that the BBC “fully understand[s] their special sensitivities” but that he “personally do[es] not think that this tendency is likely to be a permanent one or has any deep-rooted significance.”41 The letter thus exposed some colonial undertones, expecting the former colonies to eventually come to their senses, and maintaining that, in this process, Europe “need[s] to protect its status in the present scheme of things and should not appear to be abdicating from the traditions and achievements it enjoys.”42 In his reply, Rydbeck fully agreed with Greene in keeping the name unchanged. The letter also outlined a strategy in reasoning why the name not be changed. Rydbeck identified two dilemmas that needed careful consideration: first, he argued that it was important not to stir unnecessary emotions among members, and, second, he wanted to make sure that associate members and nonmembers did not feel excluded by this decision. His considerations on these points were carefully elaborated: Nevertheless, I still think it was wise to postpone the final decision in Madrid and I think the way in which we deal with the matter in Copenhagen is not without importance. Two facts remain unchanged, the sensitiveness of the new states, and our interest in making them turn to us and not elsewhere in seeking professional contacts and advice. I do not think we should underestimate the OIRT. … It would certainly be to the great disadvantage of our members if we were to be surrounded by organisations wholly committed to the OIRT and it would also do serious harm to the international position of the EBU. I am therefore personally of the opinion that our future decision to keep our old name ought to be combined with some positive gestures towards our non-European associate members and towards other states who might wish to join the EBU. We ought to try to convince them that our decision does not mean that we are not actively interested in developing our relationship with them and that on the contrary we are willing to assist them in various ways if they wish us to do so.43 – 245 –

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Since the core members of the EBU, such as the BBC, argued in favor of keeping the name, Rydbeck concluded that changing the name was not an option. However, he also argued for the need to proceed carefully in the matter and not force the decision, which could worsen the relations between the EBU and its members as well as nonmembers. Rydbeck feared that deciding to keep the name might weaken the EBU’s position in the field of international broadcasting if Asian and African broadcasters then turned to the OIRT, which would consequently undermine the EBU’s position in the international field. At a first glance, the issue of keeping “European” in the name of the organization may seem artificial. But the discussion shows that tensions over Cold War broadcasting by no means were restricted to the European continent. Instead, the anxiety over not being able to attract broadcasters in Africa and Asia shows how broadcasting was already entangled in worldwide Cold War tensions. When addressing Hanoch Givton, the head of the Israel Broadcasting Service, Rydbeck used his diplomatic skills in order to present this decision. Givton had been the main protagonist for the name change together with the director-general of Radiodiffusion-Television Tunisiene, Chadli Klibi. In a letter dated 20 March 1961, after corresponding with Greene, Rydbeck carefully explained to Givton the administrative requirements for a possible name change, concluding, “To decide for or against a concrete proposal for change in Copenhagen is … not possible.”44 After having established that the Copenhagen meeting could not decide on the name change, Rydbeck assured Givton that the question would still be carefully considered and stressed the importance of further collaboration with associate and nonmembers in Asia and Africa alike, ending the letter with a promise to “personally do everything in my power to promote such development.”45 The name of the union and its statutes were thoroughly intertwined: if the union was to drop the adjective “European” from its name, it would lead to demands to change the statutes that prioritized membership of European organizations. At the Copenhagen meeting, this issue was discussed under the rubric “Possible Revision of the Statutes.”46 However, during the meeting of the administrative council in Geneva one month prior to Copenhagen, it was decided that the statutes were not to be changed, just as Rydbeck had pointed out in his letter to Givton. So, even though the rubric stated otherwise, the Copenhagen meeting did not discuss possible revision of the statutes since such a change had to be submitted at least two months prior to an extraordinary session of the General Assembly. In several aspects, the Copenhagen meeting followed the same lines of argument as the Madrid meeting six months earlier, with representatives falling into opposing camps, with a small majority supporting changing the – 246 –

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name.47 In addition to Israel and Tunisia, representatives from Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria all argued in favor of a different name. Their main argument was the exclusion of Asian and African organizations and increased leverage of the OIRT. Tunisian Klibi noted that with “International” in its name, the OIRT had an advantage in the decolonizing world. One alternative was put forward particularly strongly. Norwegian representative Fostervoll reminded the assembly that, in the founding meeting of the EBU in Torquay in 1950, “the aim had been to create an international Union and not merely a European one.”48 Those in opposition were a little less articulate, but with strong advocates from the BBC and the RAI in Italy. Their main argument was that changing the name was mere cosmetics and that the relations with Asian and African broadcasters could be maintained without too much difficulty. A couple of delegates, Stephenson of the BBC and Zaffrani of the RAI in Italy, argued that the EBU was essentially European and should remain such but also develop relations with other regional organizations. Belgian representative Kuypers thought that the EBU should be proud of its work during the last decade and argued that there was no point in risking the cooperation “for the sake of superficial universalization.”49 Toward the end of the meeting, it became clear that the two camps would find it difficult to agree on the matter, and French representative Bonami suggested that a “written consultation of all the member organisations should be carried out” for the next meeting in Rome.50 Finally, then, the discussion led nowhere. Consultation was also unable to further the issue. Thus, the agreement between Rydbeck and Greene persisted, possibly due to the strong position of the BBC as the initiator of the union back in 1950. While the exact reason for keeping Europe in the name may remain secret, correspondence and discussions at the meetings displayed two main concerns. The threat of internal conflicts was an important factor, bearing in mind the difficult history of European broadcasting both before and after World War II. However, it was not merely the return of old conflicts that caused anxiety. Swiss representative Bezençon noted that the delegates from Tunisia and Israel “were trying to tell us as nicely as possible that they were subjected to intensive propaganda on the part of other organisations.”51 The threat of the OIRT’s expansion was ever-present, and fears reached far beyond the name question. A future in which the EBU would be isolated to Europe as a regional organization was unacceptable, especially as transnational and worldwide television were becoming reality. If the EBU was to avoid succumbing to the expanding American and Soviet networks, good relations with Asian and African broadcasters were a necessity. – 247 –

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Cooperation and Program Exchange Neither Science in the Service of Peace nor the name issue came anywhere close to an open conflict. The situation is better described as competition. With its science program series, the OIRT wanted to catch the attention of broadcasting organizations in different parts of the world and to point out the superiority of their services over the EBU. The EBU had a similar objective for changing its name: it did not want to be seen as a regional organization. The EBU wanted to be seen as an attractive alternative to non-European broadcasters. Furthermore, both initiatives were directed away from the European continent and addressed Third World organizations, although both organizations were essentially European. A closer look at their activities on the European continent paints a slightly different picture in which the EBU and the OIRT are engaged in joint projects and cooperation in the field of television.52 In some instances cooperation was necessary, as with information exchange regarding frequency allocation and ionospheric propagation, in order to avoid interference and other technical problems. However, in the late 1950s, the two organizations started to discuss program exchanges and the possibility of live transmission across the Iron Curtain. The first tentative discussions mainly concerned technical obstacles, but, as the negotiations progressed, they turned toward program exchanges as well as cultural and legal matters connected to such exchanges. The political division of Europe that took place after the end of World War II kept the organizations at arm’s length for a number of years. However, in the mid-1950s, the contacts were reestablished and, in February 1957, the technical committees of the organizations met unofficially in Helsinki. The invitation was wishful that this informal meeting “can point out the path leading to a successful co-operation between the OIRT and UER.”53 Parties were first brought together by the questions of frequency use and ionospheric propagation, which could be dealt with only if the two organizations worked together. The initial meeting could thus be understood in terms of necessary cooperation, but the Helsinki meeting went further by discussing the possibility of developing the relations between the two organizations further. Concrete measures included regular visits to the meetings of the other organization. This suggestion by the OIRT was met with skepticism by the EBU. A later document of the EBU’s technical committee makes it clear that the EBU saw the consolidation of cooperation as “not desirable” and “premature,” not least because the OIRT had often failed to follow previous agreements concerning information exchange.54 Yet, even if mutual visits did not materialize following the Helsinki meeting, it did break an important barrier. The idea of joint problem solv– 248 –

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ing was now imaginable, and the field of television could be considered a transnational arena where Cold War tensions might be put aside. Later, the meeting was referred to as the important first step after which representatives from the two organizations started to share information and knowledge. This meeting, then, could be regarded as an icebreaker that allowed for the sharing of viewpoints and the building of social relations that made future cooperation possible. Almost exactly three years later, in February 1960, the organizations met again, now in Geneva.55 This time it was an official meeting with full representation from both organizations. This Geneva meeting was more directly concerned with cross-border broadcasting, dealing with legal and programming issues as well as the already established cooperation in the technical field. The expanded agenda included three separate working committees that worked in different ways and with varied success. Legal issues were difficult to solve cooperatively due to different national legislations and their often residing outside the organizations’ jurisdiction. Issues of program exchange were less dependent on national frameworks. Thus the EBU and OIRT were able to act as catalysts for these exchanges, even if bilateral solutions were recommended in some cases. At the time of the meeting, there was no physical junction between Intervision and Eurovision, the broadcasting networks of these organizations, that would have made it possible to produce live transmission over the Iron Curtain. One of the last points on the agenda was the OIRT proposal about five junction points strategically distributed along the East-West border, connecting networks hitherto separated by the Cold War.56 The EBU immediately rejected this suggestion by referring it back to the national postal, telegraph, and telephone services (PTTs) that had jurisdiction over these matters. The Tallinn-Helsinki link was not included in the OIRT’s suggestion, but it became reality fourteen months later, being the first such link. One explanation why this link was not included in the OIRT’s proposal could be that the Soviet Union was not part of the Intervision network at the time. This left the OIRT little power to include this link in its proposal. Furthermore, Finland was a special case, with its membership in both organizations. The meetings between the OIRT and the EBU had a dual focus, and the entire process of establishing a link between Intervision and Eurovision was complex, with a number of different stakeholders. The main goal was to set up a general framework for program exchange and cross-border broadcasting, issues that had to be dealt with from legal, technical, and cultural points of view. Still, the EBU and the OIRT had separate agendas and had to try to reach a common understanding about the future of television. Negotiations were also constrained by obstacles and difficulties linked to Cold War politics. – 249 –

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Plans for a more immediate future paralleled the discussions of longterm cooperation between the transnational organizations. The BBC had been involved in bilateral negotiations with Soviet authorities regarding a live transmission of the May Day parade in 1961. However, during the preparation for the May Day broadcast, the Soviet Union launched the first manned spaceflight on 12 April 1961. At the time, the BBC already had personnel in Moscow preparing the planned May Day broadcast. As soon as news of the spaceflight spread, the BBC tried to speed up the process in order to be able to provide a live broadcast to London and the rest of Europe.57 At first, these efforts were in vain, and Western Europe had to settle for recorded and edited images of the spaceflight and of the Soviet reactions. However, during the following days, the work intensified in order to overcome the obstacles of the link. The plan was to let the signal pass through nine countries before reaching London. Since the Eurovision network had been in service since 1954, there was a formalized protocol regarding cross-border broadcasting, and, from a technical point of view, the transmission would have been easy.58 Thus, once the signal was inside the Eurovision network, difficulties were over. The key problem was to get the signal across the Gulf of Finland with a reasonable quality. The Soviet authorities had promised to erect a stronger transmitter in Tallinn in order to secure reception in Helsinki. This was not possible with such a short notice. Instead, a complicated three-part negotiation was initiated between the BBC, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), and the Soviet authorities. Bridging the Gulf of Finland was not merely a technical challenge, but a political one, as the correspondence between the BBC and the Soviet broadcasters points out. Konstantin Kuzakov, the director of Soviet Central Television, had two strong demands that needed to be met before the BBC could use the signal.59 First, he requested that Danish broadcasters provide East Germany with a feed of the broadcast, in this way securing the signal to the countries of Intervision. Indeed, at the time, the Soviet Union did not have a direct link to the rest of the Communist countries. Second, he wanted all rebroadcasts to use the well-known announcer Richard Dimbleby’s commentary. In a telegram that was sent late in the evening of 13 April from Paul Fox, editor of the BBC program Panorama, and Noble Wilson, outside broadcast producer at the BBC, to a number of people in leading positions at the BBC, it was stated, “All relaying countries to take Dimbleby commentary as guide line or rebroadcast since Kuzakov happy our commentary but concerned other national approaches.”60 Even though the live broadcast was planned and executed via bilateral agreements, the cooperation between the BBC and Soviet television had – 250 –

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to take into consideration the larger frameworks since both Intervision and Eurovision were to rebroadcast the event. Soviet authorities were eager to use the chance to get the signal through to the Intervision network, and having the broadcast sent through the Eurovision network was considered a clear propaganda victory. Once the technical problems were solved, it soon became a matter of negotiating the terms of broadcast. Additionally, it was evident that the transnational character of the broadcast made it a rather complicated agreement. Since the Eurovision network was used, the EBU had to be involved, as well as national broadcasters in each of the relaying countries. Most issues were solved between the BBC, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, and the Soviet authorities, but the broadcast would not have been possible had it not been for the general framework worked out between the EBU and the OIRT.

Conclusion This chapter began by suggesting that television history has adopted some perspectives from Cold War history rather blindly. Historians of television have almost exclusively been interested in national histories, and, in a similar way, the two superpowers have had a privileged position in Cold War history. The three cases presented here have displayed a more complex and multifaceted picture, with national and transnational stakeholders involved in a fierce competition but also trying hard to find common ground for developing a Europe-wide television network. Based on these cases, one may discern a geopolitical dimension. In their relations with non-European countries and broadcasters, the EBU and the OIRT were engaged in competition, trying to win over new members and develop program exchanges. Both the program series Science in the Service of Peace and the question of whether the EBU should drop “European” from its name aimed at making organizations more attractive to broadcasters in the developing world. In relations with non-European organizations, Europe (as a name and as an origin) served as a symbolic site of power, requiring a balancing act when trying to attract new members to the organization. This balancing act was difficult for both, but for different reasons. The EBU had a stronger European, and thereby regional, identity, while the OIRT was perceived as inherently political. Although both organizations were limited by regional or political identities, their efforts show that each was engaged in trying to present itself as an attractive option to non-European broadcasters. The traditional narratives of broadcasting in Cold War Europe usually concern propaganda and conflict, depicting a divided continent where – 251 –

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contacts between the East and the West were restricted to broadcast spillover and propaganda. However, in addition to the regular exchanges of program material there were also rather intense efforts to establish formal cooperation between the OIRT and the EBU, efforts that eventually resulted in a live transmission link binding the entire European continent together. This effort depended on cooperation between a large number of broadcasters across Europe, and not least the EBU and the OIRT. The activities of the EBU and the OIRT have been overlooked or even neglected in histories of cultural exchange during the Cold War. This is perhaps explained by their unfortunate positions as falling outside both the national bias of television history and the superpower rivalry of the Cold War. Being relatively close to national broadcasters, both the EBU and the OIRT consisted of national organizations, and their close affiliations with the superpowers probably also contributed to their relative invisibility. The activities of the EBU and the OIRT may easily be incorporated into national narratives of superpower rivalry. However, the present chapter has countered this tendency to some extent and shown that cultural exchanges during the Cold War evoke questions far beyond Cold War dichotomies and national broadcast histories. Lars Lundgren is assistant professor of media and communication studies at Södertörn University, Sweden. His current research focuses on early transnational television in Europe and specifically on program exchange across the Iron Curtain during the 1960s. He is heading the research projects “Through the Iron Curtain: Early Transnational Broadcasting and Television Discourses,” funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and “Via Satellite: Transnational Infrastructures in European Television History,” funded by The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies. Notes 1. Sabina Mihelj and Marsha Siefert have addressed this issue in studies of journalism in the northwestern part of Yugoslavia and East-West coproduction of films. S. Mihelj, “The Dreamworld of New Yugoslav Culture and the Logic of Cold War Binaries,” in Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West, ed. P. Romijn, G. Scott-Smith, and J. Segal (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012); M. Siefert, “Co-Producing Cold War Culture: East-West Film Making and Cultural Diplomacy,” in Divided Dreamworlds? ed. Romijn, Scott-Smith and Segal. 2. M. Hilmes, Network Nations: A Transnational History of British and American Broadcasting (London: Routledge, 2012), 3. There are, of course, early works on transnational broadcasting, most notably the account provided by Nordenstreng and Varis, which delineates the broad structures regarding program exchange across the world. K. Nordenstreng and T. Varis, “Television Traffic: A One-Way Street? A Survey and Analysis of the International Flow – 252 –

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of Television Programme Material,” Reports and Papers on Mass Communication (Geneva: UNESCO, 1974). Radio broadcasting is traditionally a field with greater interest in crossborder communication, especially regarding radio stations active during the Cold War. For a descriptive account by an insider, see M. Nelson, War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War (London: Brassey’s, 1997). 3. J. D. Pooley and D. W. Park, “Communication Research,” in The Handbook of Communication History, ed. P. Simonson, J. Peck, R. T. Craig, and J. Jackson (New York: Routledge, 2013), 76–90. 4. J. Curran and M.-J. Park, eds., De-Westernizing Media Studies (London: Routledge, 2000); J. Downing, Internationalizing Media Theory. Transition, Power, Culture (London: Sage, 1996); C. Sparks and A. Reading, Communism, Capitalism and the Mass Media (London: Sage, 1998). 5. This interest can be noted in a number of publications with a particular focus on transnational television in Europe: J. Bignell and A. Fickers, A European Television History (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008); C. Johnson and A. Fickers, eds., “Transnational Television History: A Comparative Approach,” Media History 16, no. 1 (2010); and the recently launched journal VIEW: Journal of European Television History and Culture. 6. F. S. Siebert, T. Peterson, and W. Schramm, Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956). For an extended critique of Four Theories of the Press, see Downing, Internationalizing Media; Sparks, Communism, Capitalism; and A. Imre, T. Havens, and K. Lustyik, eds., Popular Television in Eastern Europe During and Since Socialism (New York: Routledge, 2013). 7. Prime examples being James Schwoch’s Global TV, which addresses television as a new medium during the early stages of the Cold War, and Kristin Roth-Ey’s Moscow Prime Time on the development of a Soviet media empire, which eventually tumbled down by the end of the Cold War. J. Schwoch, Global TV: New Media and the Cold War, 1946–69 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009); K. Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011). 8. W. L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War, 1945–1961 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997). 9. Imre, Havens, and Lustyik, eds., Popular Television. 10. See L. Lundgren, “Live from Moscow: The Celebration of Yuri Gagarin and Transnational Television in Europe,” VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 1, no. 2 (2012): 45–55; L. Lundgren, “‘Forerunners of a New Era’: Television History and Ruins of the Future,” Media History, 21, no. 2 (2015): 178–191. 11. For an exhaustive account of the organization and activities of the IBU, see S. Lommers, Europe—on Air: Interwar Projects for Radio Broadcasting (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012). 12. For a more nuanced picture, see Hilmes, Network Nations. 13. See N. Wormbs, “Technology-Dependent Commons: The Example of Frequency Spectrum for Broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s,” International Journal of the Commons 5, no. 1 (2011): 92–109. 14. Lommers, Europe—on Air, 256ff. 15. The program committee of the EBU was not established until 1953 (then called Radio Program Committee). E. Eugster, Television Programming across National Boundaries: The EBU and OIRT Experience (Dedham: Artech House, 1983), 73. For the sake of simplicity the initialism OIRT is used throughout the text. 16. Lommers, Europe—on Air, 69. 17. See S. Mikkonen, “Mass Communication as a Vehicle to Lure Russian Émigrés Homeward,” Journal of International and Global Studies 2, no. 2 (2011): 45–61. 18. Eugster, Television Programming, 39–46. This book is still today the most comprehensive account of the activities of the OIRT and the EBU. For a more recent work on organizational – 253 –

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ties and cooperation between the OIRT and the EBU, see C. Heinrich-Franke and R. Immel, “Piercing the Iron Curtain? The Television Programme Exchange across the Iron Curtain in the 1960s and 1970s,” in Airy Curtains in the European Ether: Broadcasting and the Cold War, ed. A. Badenoch, A. Fickers, and C. Heinrich-Franke (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2013). 19. For a contemporary portrait of the respective organizations and Soviet broadcasting, see R. B. Barber, “The European Broadcasting Union,” Journal of Broadcasting 6 (1962): 111–24; K. Harwood, “The International Radio and Television Organisation,” Journal of Broadcasting 5 (1961): 61–72; F. Williams, “The Soviet Philosophy of Broadcasting,” Journal of Broadcasting 6 (1962): 3–10. 20. L. Parks, Cultures in Orbit. Satellites and the Televisual (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005); J. D. Peters, Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999); Schwoch, Global TV. 21. Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime. Additionally, in his analysis of Intersputnik, the Soviet satellite system, John Downing describes a later phase in transnational Soviet broadcasting. J. Downing, “The Intersputnik System and Soviet Television,” Soviet Studies 37, no. 4 (1985): 465–83. 22. Undated letter from the OIR to broadcasters, appendix to Wallenborn’s letter, 15 November 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, Archive of the European Broadcasting Union (hereafter the EBU), Geneva. 23. Undated letter from the OIR to broadcasters, appendix to Wallenborn’s letter, 15 November 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. In a later document from the OIRT, the topics for the broadcast year 1961/62 are listed in detail, with topics such as “Seltene Tiere Mongoliens” (Mongolosiche VR) and “Das Leben im Kosmos” (UdSSR). EBU Registry File “OIRT Sammelband der Dokument eder Programmkommision der OIRT VI, Tagung Budapest, Juli 1961; Beilage Nr. 1 zu Dok. PK-1/61, “Kalenderplan des Internationalen Rundfunkzyklus ‘Die Wissenschaft im Dienstes des Friedens.’”. 24. Letter from the OIR to broadcasters, appendix to Wallenborn’s letter, 15 November 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU. In the early 1960s there was yet another international initiative from the OIRT, the “‘Peace and Friendship’ literary-dramatic competition.” “OIR: Address to International and National Radio and Television Organisations of the World,” 2, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva; L from J. Hrebik, General Secretary of the OIRT, received by the EBU on 8 March 1962, O6 – “OIRT Documents and Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. 25. The letter refers to the World Federation of Scientists, but the correct name of the organization is the World Federation of Scientific Workers, a Socialist initiative for the international organization of scientists. 26. Letter from Leo Wallenborn to EBU members, 15 November 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”. “The International University of the Air” was initiated by Radiodiffusion Télévision Française and organized by the EBU. 27. Ibid. 28. Reply to Wallenborn from Nils-Olof Franzén, Program Director at Radiotjänst, Sweden, 22 November 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. 29. Reply to Wallenborn from Harry Zinder, Director at Israel Broadcasting Service, 20 December 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. 30. Reply to Wallenborn from Nederlandsche Radio-Unie, 6 December 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. 31. Reply to Wallenborn from Jussi Koskiluoma, Program Director at the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), Finland, 22 November 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. 32. Reply to Wallenborn from Pearl Ondaatje, English Programs Organizer for Director General of Broadcasting, Radio Ceylon, 16 December 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Cor– 254 –

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respondence”, EBU, Geneva. John Desmond Bernal was a British professor in physics with a strong engagement in politics and Marxism, which, along with many other things, got him engaged in the World Federation of Scientific Workers. 33. Reply to Wallenborn from Hameed Naseem, Director of Program Planning, Radio Pakistan, 4 December 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva; Reply to Wallenborn from G. Dickson, Head of English Service, South African Broadcasting Corporation, 4 December 1957, O6 – OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. Both the SABC in South Africa and Pakistan Radio would join the EBU as associate members at a later stage. 34. Reply to Wallenborn from Hameed Naseem, Director of Program Planning, Radio Pakistan, 4 December 1957, O6 – “OIRT Documents Correspondence”, EBU, Geneva. 35. See Schwoch, Global TV. 36. See H. Gumbert, “Exploring Transnational Media Exchange in the 1960s,” VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 3, no. 5 (2014), 50–59; T. Beutelschmidt and R. Oehmig “Connected Enemies? Program Transfer between East and West during the Cold War and the Example of East German Television,” VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 3, no. 5 (2014), 60–67. 37. The European Broadcasting Zone (now “Area”) is extended outside the European continent and includes countries bordering the Mediterranean. 38. “Fifth Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly,” Madrid, 25 November 1960, O.A./1567-A.G./208, EBU, Geneva; “Eleventh Ordinary Session of the General Assembly,” Madrid, 25–26 and 28 November 1960, O.A./1568-A.G./209, EBU, Geneva. 39. “Twelfth Ordinary Session of the General Assembly,” Copenhagen, 2 to 5 June 1961, 35, O.A./1644-A.G./221, EBU, Geneva. 40. Letter from Hugh Carleton Greene to Olof Rydbeck, 10 February 1961, O15 – “Statures 1960-65”, EBU, Geneva. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Letter from Olof Rydbeck to Hugh Carleton Greene, undated (reply to above), O15 – “Statutes 1960-65”, EBU, Geneva. 44. Letter from Olof Rydbeck to Hannoch Givton, 20 March 1961, O15 – “Statutes 196065”, EBU, Geneva. 45. Ibid. 46. “Twelfth Ordinary Session of the General Assembly,” Copenhagen, 2 to 5 June 1961, 34ff, O.A./1644-A.G./221, EBU, Geneva. 47. Not all countries participated in the debate, and it was a discussion rather than a referendum with two clear options. In the discussion, Hanoch Givton of Israeli Broadcasting noted that in the working documents, a majority of the members were for a change in name, but that during the Administrative Council’s meeting in Geneva in May 1961, this had changed. During the Copenhagen meeting, the representatives of broadcasters from the Netherlands, Finland, Tunisia, Norway, Israel, Switzerland, and Germany all expressed a wish to change the name of the union. Representatives from broadcasters in Belgium, Italy, Ireland, and the United Kingdom (both the BBC and the ITA/ITCA) argued to keep “European” in the name. “Twelfth Ordinary Session of the General Assembly,” Copenhagen, 2 to 5 June 1961, 34–45, O.A./1644-A.G./221, EBU, Geneva. 48. Ibid., 38. 49. Ibid., 36. 50. Ibid., 41. 51. Ibid., 39. Marcel Bezençon was an important figure in the field of international program exchange and the originator of the so-called Bezençon plan, which would facilitate program exchange within the EBU. C. Heinrich-Franke, “Creating Transnationality through an International Organization?” Media History 16, no. 1 (2010): 67–81. – 255 –

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52. Heinrich-Franke, “Creating Transnationality”; Heinrich-Franke and Immel, “Piercing the Iron”; Lundgren, “Live From Moscow: The Celebration of Yuri Gagarin and Transnational Television in Europe.” 53. “Final Report of an Unofficial Meeting of Representatives of the O.I.R. and E.B.U. Technical Committees, Helsinki, [6 to 9] February 1957,” 9 February 1957, 6, CA PV 2 Anglais 1957/1960, EBU, Geneva, App. 8, p. 6. The invitation was sent out by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), which held a favorable position as a member of both organizations. UER is the French initialism for Union européenne de radio-television. 54. “Report of the Bureau of the Technical Committee,” 18 C.T./127-Com.T./16-C.A./464, appendix to “Sixteenth Meeting of the Administrative Council,” 5 July 1957, O.A./1103C.A./483, EBU, Geneva. 55. “EBU-OIRT Meeting Geneva 3rd to 6th Feb 1960, Final Resolution.”, O.A./1446Com.T./25-Com.Pro./377-Com.J./295, EBU, Geneva. 56. “EBU-OIRT Meeting, Geneva 3rd to 6th February 1960, Final Resolution,” 6 February 1960, Appendix 3, “Report of the Group of Programme Experts,” 1, O.A./1446-Com.T./25Com.Pro./377-Com.J./295, EBU, Geneva. 57. “Peter Dimmock, head of television outside broadcast, tells the story of how television history was made in April 1961”, T11/70/2, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham. 58. W. Degenhardt and E. Strautz, Auf Der Suche Nach Dem Europäischen Programm. Die Eurovision 1954–1970 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1999). 59. Telegram from Paul Fox and Noble Wilson to Baverstock, Dimmock, Peacock, et al., marked “LO/BU63 LO/TC50 13APL 2155,” 13 April 1961, T11/70/2, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham. The document refers to “Soviet Television” but the production was in cooperation with Moscow Television, the regional television service at the time. 60. Telegram from Paul Fox and Noble Wilson to Baverstock, Dimmock, Peacock, et al., marked “LO/BU63 LO/TC50 13APL 2155,” 13 April 1961, T11/70/2, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham.

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Chapter 13

TRANSNATIONAL SPACES BETWEEN POLAND AND FINLAND Grassroots Efforts to Dismantle the Iron Curtain and Their Political Entanglements Anna Matyska

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. —Winston Churchill, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 1946 Europe is experiencing an unusual time. Here you have half a continent, cut off from its roots nearly half a century ago, that now wishes to return. —Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Polish Prime Minister, the forum of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, 1990

Introduction

T

wo mutually constitutive metaphors can be considered to mark the beginning and the end of the Cold War in Europe: the “Iron Curtain” metaphor coined by Churchill in his famous “Sinews of Peace” speech (better known as the “Iron Curtain” speech) in 1946, and the “return to Europe” metaphor ubiquitously used by politicians, scholars, and journalists in reference to Eastern European countries after 1989. The Iron Curtain entails a definite division between the Eastern and Western bloc, a “crucial structural boundary, in the mind and on the map,”1 that emerged in the aftermath of World War II and left “Eastern States of Europe” in the “shad– 257 –

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ows” (to use Churchill’s phrasing) until the late 1980s. The post-1989 “return to Europe” draws on the Iron Curtain metaphor and simultaneously revalidates it as a historical truth. It suggests that Eastern European countries left Europe along with the Iron Curtain’s raising, and only its collapse could enable the return. The “Iron Curtain” and “return to Europe” metaphors read in conjunction produce a linear vision of Cold War and post– Cold War history. From mere figures of speech they evolved into social and political facts, shaping the popular and political understanding of history. They suggest a linear progress from dichotomous and antagonistic bipolar relations between the Eastern and Western bloc to their integration and merging, epitomized by the gradual inclusion of former Soviet-bloc countries into the European Union, ergo Europe. The Cold War boundaries are projected as having iron-like qualities—they were enduring, unbreakable, and impermeable. Speaking from the perspective of transnational anthropology and history, this chapter indicates ruptures in the above linear narrative. It applies transnationalism as a theoretical tool for delinearizing the Cold War history, stressing the mutual making of “East” and “West” through transnational cross-border practices. I indicate that Cold War relations were based not only on confrontation and isolation, but also on corroboration and integration, the constant multipolar “interplay” and “interlinkedness”2 between particular Eastern and Western countries and their individual actors. As a consequence, the curtain emerges as penetrable and negotiable and the dichotomy between the East and the West becomes blurred. In this chapter, I ask what the grassroots practices were—that is, what people said and did—that allowed for the everyday dismantling of the curtain between Poland and Finland, and how these practices were entangled in state policies and politics of ruling elites. I will focus on two types of practices: those explicitly aimed at supporting or challenging the Communist regime and its ideology transnationally, and the more intimate practices related to the transnational maintenance of family ties. In my analysis, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork encompassing interviews and participant observation that I conducted among Polish people living in Poland and Finland from 2006 through 2009. My fieldwork was part of the research project on transnational families living between Poland and Finland in the changing Cold War and post–Cold War political conditions. For this chapter, I draw on the accounts of nineteen Polish persons who have lived in Finland since the Cold War and six of their extended family members in Poland. My interlocutors originate from various cities and towns in Poland and upon coming to Finland were in their twenties and thirties. Men came to Finland as musicians or engineers or to work in academia. Women usually came to join their Finnish spouses. Most of my – 258 –

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interlocutors in Finland were already divorced or remarried when we met, having either a Polish or Finnish partner in Finland. My research includes only one nuclear family that lived separated during the Cold War period: the husband worked in Finland and his wife and children stayed in Poland. I call my research participants interlocutors, considering our relationship of rapport and the conversational and unstructured character of our meetings typical for ethnographic fieldwork. My starting point is the experiences of my interlocutors and their interactions with Finns and other Poles, which marked transnational ties across the curtain. My analysis regards the post-Stalinist period from the 1960s, when my interlocutors first came to Finland, to 1989. I complete my interlocutors’ accounts with existing documents, particularly in relation to the Finnish engagement.

Transnationalism and Destabilization of the Iron Curtain I define transnationalism broadly as a multistranded process that unbinds nation state containers through material and immaterial cross-border activities, leading to the emergence of transnational social spaces that link different localities and people across borders and “shape seemingly bordered and bounded structures, actors, and processes.”3 People think and act transnationally when their activities entail movement of bodies and/ or ideas that create links across borders. Transnationalism is produced by activities of various types and scale conducted by grassroots actors (such as migrants and members of nongovernmental organizations) “from below” as well as more powerful institutional actors (political establishments and economic elites) “from above.” I concede that the same conceptual umbrella for different types of activities enables studying their power dynamics and mutual constitution,4 whereby from-below and from-above transnationalism are not disjoined but are entangled with one another. As Smith and Guarnizo argue, “the political elites ruling nation-states do not merely react to, but actually act to constitute the scope and meaning of ‘transnationalism’ within their territories,” resisting, reinforcing, or coopting the activities of ordinary people.5 My aim at delinearizing Cold War relations through the concept of transnationalism is guided by two interrelated reasons. First, it helps take Cold War Eastern Europe from behind the Iron Curtain and show its global belonging despite systemic differences. Chari and Verdery argue that it is time to “liberate the Cold War from the ghetto of Soviet area studies,” which for Chari and Verdery entails studying post-Socialist states “emerging from behind the Iron Curtain” in the global context of different countries (also post-colonial ones) with their intertwined histories.6 I support the above – 259 –

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project, but I also suggest that, to achieve it, one has to dismantle the idea of the Iron Curtain itself. The Soviet area studies Chari and Verdery refer to were a direct product, not the side effect of the bipolar Cold War paradigm, providing a test case for area studies that promoted thinking within bounded territories rather than across them.7 Thus, to effectively counter the present divisions, the past East-West divisions have to be dismantled— something that many historians, sociologists, and anthropologist still fail to do. The recently burgeoning field of the anthropology of Eastern Europe has produced multiple monographs that, to various extents, deal with the economic and sociocultural aspects of living under the Communist regime in Eastern Europe. However, their perspective is rather nationally bounded and local as opposed to transnational and multilocal. Similar mental mapping is shared by many Western scholars whose studies have an explicit transnational angle and, hence, whose perspective should be the one that “de-ironizes” the Cold War world divisions the most. Nevertheless, transnationalism that appears in their accounts is often surprisingly narrow, encompassing only countries explicitly affected by the Capitalist project and the unequal global Capitalist division of labor. This includes Eastern Europe, but only in its post-Communist period. As the well-known transnational anthropologist Ulf Hannerz authoritatively argues, in the last half-century or so, the Second World, that of state socialism for as long as it lasted mostly had its own globalization: the media could to some degree slip in from the outside, but mostly not the material goods, and people could seldom get either in or out. … It has been the First World industrial and capitalist, that has been most intensely involved, within itself, in all kinds of interconnectedness, and sharing some of it with the Third World. …8

Thus, in the world divided into the First World, Second World, and Third World (the categories themselves being a product of the Cold War scientific labor and area studies), only the First World and Third World were imagined as interlinked. The Second World was disconnected. This argumentation obscures the fact that Eastern European countries did not only have their own globalization, but they were also “embedded in the global system,” having global aspirations and aiming at a global impact.9 By bringing transnationalism into Cold War analysis, we can conceptualize the world “behind the Iron Curtain” as a part of the global world and the larger theoretical project of rethinking all national divisions, including those of the Cold War. Interrelated with the above, the destabilization of the Iron Curtain is needed to challenge the cultural hierarchy such reading implies—a task on par with the anthropological aim to deconstruct power relations lying – 260 –

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behind the knowledge production and imaginary of the world. One can easily suggest that the metaphors of the “Iron Curtain” and “return to Europe,” particularly when read together, project not merely a misleading linearity but also the hierarchical relations between the East and the West. Eastern Europe’s “return to Europe” implies that it was Eastern Europe that was excluded from Europe and now returns to it, not vice versa. This imaginary goes beyond Churchill’s invention. As Larry Wolff suggests, the Iron Curtain quickly became a widely accepted “geopolitical fact” because it reflected the ideas of Eastern Europe invented long before Churchill’s speech, reaching back to the Enlightenment period when Eastern Europe started to be imagined as the “shadowed lands of backwardness,” culturally and economically inferior to the Europe “proper.”10 Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” rhetoric only reified these divisions. In this context, I regard transnationalism as an emancipatory theoretical paradigm. It allows showing that the West11 was constructed by influences from the East as much as vice versa, and that Poland, or any other Eastern European country, did not return to Europe after 1989, but was part of Europe and the global world all along. Transnationalism of the Cold War helps to dismantle the powerful image of the Iron Curtain as the absolute and hierarchical divide.

Transnational Space between Cold-War Poland and Finland My investigation focuses on Poland and Finland, countries that furthermore disrupt binary East-West divisions. Both countries are good examples of the ways individual countries and their citizens worked their own ways across the curtain, in relation to, but also independently from, two major superpowers. As Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy suggest, recognizing individual Western and Eastern states as more independent actors is a necessary step in dismantling the image of the bipolar juxtaposition between two homogenous blocs.12 Finland and Poland are located in a relative geographical proximity to each other, on opposite sides of the Baltic Sea. However, their geographical closeness has been complicated by neighboring Russia, which has always cast a shadow over the histories of both countries. During the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, Poland and Finland were part of Russia, and they gained independence when the Russian Empire collapsed. After World War II, Poland became a part of the Soviet bloc and its Communist system, while Finland retained Capitalist democracy. As a consequence, Cold-War Poland is regarded as being located behind the Iron Curtain, whereas Finland was located outside of it. Yet the position of both countries was more complicated. On the one hand, Poland’s pre– 261 –

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war tradition of international mobility laid the basis for its relatively liberal (for a Communist state) migration policies since the 1960s and stimulated Polish authorities’ active attempts to build a deterritorialized state that followed its citizens wherever they went.13 A passport was owned by the state and was granted very selectively for particular trips as a temporary document, but, with a proper reason and social connections, it could be obtained. International mobility from Poland reached its peak in the 1970s and the 1980s. In the 1980s, over one million people left Poland permanently and over one million people left Poland temporarily. In emigration terms, Poland not only exceeded other Soviet bloc countries but also Western European countries. 14 Finland, on the other hand, had exceptionally close economic and political relationships—for a Western state—with the Soviet Union until the end of the Cold War. Close ties were formally grounded on the “Agreement of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance” that Finland and the Soviet Union signed in 1948. Due to this agreement, Finland faced heavy limitations with regard to independent foreign policy, and until the Soviet Union collapsed, the Finnish foreign policy had to be carefully weighted not to appear as anti-Soviet.15 Finland’s particular status had an important bearing on Finland-Poland relations and mobility between the countries. Finland and Poland officially maintained the relations of “friendship,” unfolding in the economic, political, and cultural sphere. In order to “further and strengthen the relationships between the two countries,” the agreement on the cultural and scientific exchange was signed in 1973. In 1974, in order to enhance the “closeness and tourist exchange,” Polish and Finnish governments signed an agreement on visa-free mobility of up to three months.16 A year earlier, a ferry connection between Helsinki and Gdan´sk had been launched. There were numerous student and scientific exchanges between various Polish and Finnish universities. Twenty to forty Polish persons were coming to Finland for permanent residence annually. In the 1970s, the Polish community in Finland reached approximately one thousand people permanently residing in Finland and approximately eight hundred people residing temporarily.17 Poles worked as musicians, engineers, architects, researchers, doctors, and skilled workers. Many Poles came to Finland to reunify with their Finnish spouses. However, due to Finland’s reluctance to accept Polish asylum seekers, Polish immigration to Finland did not reach rates as high as in other Western countries. Accordingly, only two persons were granted a refugee passport in my study. “It was something extraordinary in Finland,” one of my interlocutors told me. In these terms, they constituted an exception in the global map of Cold War Polish migration. – 262 –

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“But this is such a beautiful idea!” Politics of the Communist (Non-)Endorsement The friendly relationship between Poland and Finland at the governmental level contributed to various tangible and intangible exchanges, of which the most significant grassroots force for the destabilization of the curtain was human mobility. It entailed the circulation of people across borders and produced transnational encounters. People on the move always carry with themselves life experiences, ideas, and ties to the places of origin as well as expectations of what new places would look like. In encounters with the locals, they compare and evaluate and bring their old ideas and ties to work in a new context. For my Polish interlocutors, coming to Finland meant, among other things, the concretization of their imaginary of the Capitalist West, which challenged the very meaning of the West in the process. The West always penetrated the Eastern bloc through material commodities and cultural trends that the Socialist system appropriated or even enabled, thus suggesting the transnational constitution of the seemingly bounded bloc already at the cultural level. Western Capitalism and Eastern Socialism were not antithetical, but mutually constitutive and complementary, as Alexei Yurchak suggests.18 At the same time, the idea of the Imaginary West says more about Western influences behind the curtain than about the reverse process. Accordingly, the key component of the Imaginary West for my interlocutors, as well as arguably for many other citizens of the Eastern bloc, was the unidirectionality of impact, a process in which the West affected and was appropriated by the East while the latter did not make much of a cultural impact outside its borders. In my study, the most significant sign of the opposite process was the appropriation of the Communist ideology by a small but very vocal and politically significant number of Finns. For two of my interlocutors, whom I quote below, noticing the above seemed like the Cold War paradigm turned upside down. Adam, an engineering student, came to Finland at the beginning of the 1970s for a student exchange with other Poles. It was his first trip outside of the Eastern bloc. He considered himself very lucky. To reach Finland, they traveled through the Soviet Union. Finnish students were supposed to pick them up from the railways station in Helsinki. As Adam recalled, the change in the landscape and the surprise that followed were remarkably contradictory: When we crossed the border with Finland, it was a shock. We travelled two days through the Soviet Union and in Leningrad we had to change trains and get seating places and it was very difficult. It was a real mess. And suddenly we cross the border and we see that everything is clean and in order. And I re– 263 –

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member well a group of Finnish students who received us at the railway station in Helsinki. They were very leftist and thought that they would meet students who, coming from the Communist country, would share with them their worldviews. And when we got off the train, we told them enthusiastically, “It’s such a relief we’re finally here! The Soviet Union was terrible!” So they were shocked at our comments. They thought that they would welcome young people from a Communist country who would have a particular outlook and moral fundamentals, and here we are coming and complaining on the Soviet Union and the mess there. So this was very interesting for us, we did not expect it.

A similar example was recalled by Jarek, a student of architecture who came to Finland at the end of the 1960s, also under a student exchange program: In the 1960s and the 1970s the Finnish youth was very leftist. They were joining the Communist Party and traveling to the Soviet Union for the organized trips. When we came to Finland, my friend told them: “Come on! Don’t you see that whole Communism is a one big nonsense and a hoax.” They opposed: “But this is such a beautiful idea!” … For instance, when we complained about the situation in Poland, the assistant at the university told us that quite the contrary, “You have such a beautiful system.” What is more, when the Warsaw Pact army entered Czechoslovakia she told us, “It had to happen.” So that’s the way they thought. Also many Finns who are currently well known belonged to radical Communist movement and Russians supported them more or less openly. The Finnish Communist Party was also very strong. But they were simply naïve. When I talked to them about the Soviet Union, they would tell me, “We went there for a trip, Komsomol welcomed us very warmly, there was so much food, everybody was happy, we were singing. Nobody is hungry and people live well in the Soviet Union.” But we [living] in the Eastern Bloc, we knew.

For both Jarek and Adam, their meeting with the Finnish students offered the first clear glimpse and realization of the multifaceted position of Finland in the geopolitical Cold War structures and the power of the Soviet political establishment to undermine the curtain in its ideological favor. Upon their arrival in Finland, both Jarek and Adam had ambivalent attitudes toward the Communist system and both saw the student exchange as a privileged opportunity to explore the world outside of the Eastern bloc. Hence their surprise when young Finnish people they met were more eager supporters of their homeland’s official ideology than they had ever been. The cultural wind from the West that they looked forward to turned out to be the wind from their own backyard, stirred by the political regime they did not support and who made their travels beyond the curtain so complicated. The kind of Finland they encountered was of course particular, and not all of my interlocutors shared the above experiences. The quotes above show, however, the fragmented political and cultural landscape of Finland, in which cultural and political ties to the Eastern bloc were parallel to the ties to the Western bloc. – 264 –

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The Finnish Communist youth whom Adam and Jarek met constituted a minority in Finland—most Finnish students were either moderately leftist or right-wing. Yet, Communists, despite their small numbers, managed to achieve a dominant position in the Finnish political youth and student scene at the turn of the 1960s and during the 1970s.19 They were politically allied with the Finnish Communist Party, which after the invasion of Czechoslovakia was split into the moderate Communist majority and a radical minority (known as the Taistolaiset) that uncritically supported the Soviet Union. Although the radical student left was present also in other Western countries, its position in Finland was unique. “What served to distinguish the Finnish situation from that of other Western Europe countries after 1968 was the predominant leftist politics of the new student generation. While elsewhere these activists embraced EuroCommunism, Maoism, anarchism, or new-left pacifism, most young Communist Finns remained loyal supporters of Brezhnev’s Soviet Union,” Kotila argues.20 Thus when the Czechoslovakia events happened, many students opposed it, but under the slogan “Socialism yes, tanks no.”21 A minority supported the invasion, which is reflected in my interlocutors’ recollections.22 Soviet involvement in Finnish state affairs created a fertile ground for the above attitudes to thrive. The Finnish Communist Party had considerable political influence in Cold War Finland, four times constituting the Finnish government throughout the 1960s and the 1970s. Communists were financially supported by the Soviet Union, and the party’s political moves and programs were agreed upon with Soviet politicians.23 The party’s participation in the government was supported by President Kekkonen, who promoted Lenin as the father of Finland’s independence and the driving force behind Finland’s good relations with the Soviet Union.24 Kekkonen himself was widely considered the key political builder and guarantor of the Finnish position of neutrality. His frequent travels to the Soviet Union and close relationship with the Soviet politicians are well known, albeit evaluated differently by his supporters and detractors.25 For Jarek and Adam, their coming to Finland seemed to clarify their political views of opposition. Each time they paid visits to Poland or interacted with Polish consuls in Finland, they reaffirmed to themselves that Finnish enthusiasts of the Soviet system were “simply naïve,” not noticing its gross social and economic failures. One can argue that different types of transnational grassroots practices and national experiences were set against each other in claims for authenticity. From the perspective of my interlocutors, Finnish supporters of Communism were engaged in the transnational space across the curtain intermittently and superficially through travels, interaction with members of other Communist organizations, and an intellectual outlook to the East. They thought they knew what was going on – 265 –

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behind the curtain, but as my interlocutors suggest, they did not. “We in the Eastern Bloc, we knew,” as Jarek said. My interlocutors legitimized their claims by the fact of living in Poland and maintaining intimate ties to Poland also after coming to Finland. In their transnational lives, they were dependent on unpredictable and coercive Communist policies, which, in their desire to protect the regime, kept the doors to the West only partially open. A different type of transnational engagement affected mutual skepticism and disagreement. It also undermined the clear-cut division into East and West, understood as geographical spaces dominated by particular political ideologies. Jarek and Adam seemed more Western-minded than Finnish students whose mindsets were directed toward the East. If from Poland’s perspective there was the Imaginary West, from Finland’s perspective there was also the Imaginary East, but it was fragmented and heterogeneous. The uneven destabilization of the curtain, underpinned by the contradictory practices and political mindsets of Finnish Communists and Poles living in Finland, was also manifested saliently during the emergence and subsequent disbanding of the Solidarity movement in 1980–81. The disbanding of the Solidarity movement by the introduction of martial law in Poland in December 1981 created fervent protests throughout the Western world.26 Many of these protests gained an institutionalized character through the grassroots organizations established to support the Solidarity movement from afar. They usually included Polish people living abroad and their host society members. The organizations were established in, among others, Finland’s neighboring Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.27 In Finland, the organization was established by leftminded Finns, and then several Polish persons (among them, two of my interlocutors) joined in. The Solidarity movement was considered by its Finnish supporters the authentic voice of the Polish working class that the Polish authorities wanted to suppress.28 In these terms, the situation resembled the Finnish youth protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when the main slogan was “Socialism yes, tanks no.” Similarly, at the turn of the 1980s, the Finnish support for Solidarity was not essentially “anti-Communist” but antiauthoritarian: directed toward the Polish state, not the ideology itself. My interlocutors, on the other hand, tended to resist both the Polish state and the Communist ideology the state claimed to represent. Before joining the Finnish Solidarity they did not formally oppose the Communist regime. This came only with the Finnish initiative. In the Finnish Solidarity, they used their cultural and practical ties to Poland to help with translation, smuggle Solidarity materials to and from Poland, mediate meetings with Solidarity members from Poland and neighboring Sweden, and write articles and speeches. Their transnational practices served what they saw as the Polish national interest (understood differ– 266 –

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ently than the Polish national interest envisioned by the Polish state) of freedom and independence;29 for the Finns, the practices were to help the global interests of the working class, indicating that similar types of practices may be spurred by different ideas stemming from a different position in a transnational space. Nevertheless, the possibility of support for Solidarity in Finland was considerably curtailed, for unlike in other Western countries, the organization had limited top-down support. During the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia a decade earlier, the Finnish government had taken the official position of neutrality (Suomi calls it “cynical realism”30), neither condemning nor supporting. The Finnish Communist Party officially condemned the invasion. During Solidarity events, the reaction was more decisive. Laakia, the leader of the Finnish Solidarity, writes: “In between 1980–1989 there was nearly one hundred civic activists working to support Polish Solidarity in Finland. … We received plenty of support from the ordinary people and the media. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the elites and authorities.”31 Among others, many of the Finnish elites refused to sign the public list protesting against the imposition of martial law. A piece in Kansan Uutiset, the Communist Party newspaper, said that the protests against the martial law were “not today the best expression of solidarity toward real interests of Polish people,” and, in support of the radical minority who wholeheartedly supported the Solidarity suppression, said “the aim of Solidarity was the mass murder of the Communists and the liquidation of those sympathetic to Socialist power ‘in some way or another.’”32 Finland also abstained from voting in the United Nations on the human rights situation in Poland,33 and the supporters of the Polish Solidarity movement in Finland were actively suppressed. One example of the above was the creation, in 1980, of an unofficial black list including members of the Finnish Solidarity organization. The origins and the exact purpose of the list are still unexplained. It was probably created by the Finnish Security Police, with or without the KGB’s involvement, and it was meant to register members who were potentially threatening to the Finnish status of neutrality and whose activities should be observed.34 When the existence of the black list became public, the number of Finns publicly supporting Solidarity decreased significantly.35 For the Finns who actively supported Solidarity, their presence on the black list did not seem to affect their intimate relationship to Poland. For my interlocutors, it contributed to the deterioration of their relationships with Polish authorities and, as a consequence, to difficulties in traveling to Poland and contacting their families. Krzysztof recalled that because the black list was not official, there was also no official information when one was taken off it. Therefore he once tried to cross the Polish border, testing the border guards. “But they stopped me. They let in my [Finnish] wife but – 267 –

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they did not let me in.” As a consequence, he met with his family in East Germany, where all of the family could come without problems. Support for Solidarity also resulted in conflicts with the Polish Embassy, including difficulty getting a passport extension and a strained relationship with the Polish consul. The political activism and transnational solidarities going against the Communist (and Finnish) government’s wishes had thus more tangible consequences for the Poles, for whom dismantling of the curtain was not only a matter of the political vision of liberating workers but a practical matter of keeping ties with their homeland and family, to which the collapse of the Communist state was indispensable. Thus, people differently positioned in a transnational space had different motives for bringing the curtain down and the process of bringing it down affected their lives differently. My interlocutors also intimately experienced the discrepancy between their and Finnish political elites’ relationship with Poland, even in the informal version. In a Yearbook of Finnish Foreign Policy (1982), a brief note states that, on 18–21 October 1982, “Speaker Johannes Virolainen paid an unofficial visit to Poland at the invitation of the Polish Speaker of Parliament Stanislaw Gucwa. He met Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski.” The visit seemed like any other. The note did not comment that the visit took place during martial law when other Western countries boycotted the Polish government, and that Wojciech Jaruzelski had a leading role in imposing martial law. In contrast, this is how the aforementioned Krzysztof, for whom the visit has a significant emotional resonance, talks about it: “At the moment when there was a complete boycott of Polish government in the West, when nobody wanted to talk to Jaruzelski, a Finnish MC went to Poland to meet with Polish MCs and the chief of the parliament. Jaruzelski made a big fuss out of his visit: he organized a welcoming at the airport and with orchestra, as if it was an official visit. Later on [Finnish politicians] maintained direct contact with Jaruzelski.” Krzysztof personally felt the power imbalance and different aims he and the Finnish officials had in the transnational space they both created.36

Political Life of Intimate Family Relations: Keeping in Touch with Poland The above section discussed more classic political attitudes and practices that created ties cutting across the curtain. As I mentioned, in my interlocutors’ lives, those attitudes and practices were always in parallel with transnational family engagement. For the purpose of this chapter, transnational families are defined as families stretched across national borders, maintaining the sense of familyhood despite separation.37 Transnational – 268 –

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families, although not explicitly political in nature, had their own impact upon destabilization of the Iron Curtain. Buchowski argues that Polish families can be regarded as a part of the civic society in Communist Poland.38 They connected individuals with the wider society and were built in the ideational opposition to the state. In the transnational context, transnational family relations functioned under the purview and disciplining of the Polish state. I would argue that families of my interlocutors destabilized the Iron Curtain through the desire to stay together realized through communication, visits, and material exchanges. Simultaneously, many of these activities were enabled and co-opted by the Polish state, which looked to keep the door beyond the curtain partially open rather than totally closed. Polish Communist authorities already in the 1960s realized that the best way to capitalize on Polish human capital residing abroad in symbolic and economic terms was to allow for contact with family members who stayed in Poland.39 Throughout the Communist era in Poland, millions of Polish people living abroad maintained steady contact with their families in Poland.40 The agreement on visa-free movement between Poland and Finland smoothed these types of relations for my interlocutors from 1974 onward. My interlocutors met with their families either in Poland or in Finland at least once every few years. Some family members came to Finland from Poland for stays of several months. Steady letter circulation and intermittent phone calls also took place. Nevertheless, transnational contact was never smooth enough to allow family members to forget that they lived in a transnational space ridden by ideological antagonism and that their families were forged beyond the bloc, not within it. The international telecommunications infrastructure was poorly developed, and connections within the Eastern bloc had the investment priority. People had to wait for hours to get connected. Obtaining a passport for a visit to Finland demanded several months of bureaucratic hassle, and one was never certain whether the passport would be granted. Like other foreigners, Poles with Finnish citizenship had to make obligatory currency exchange before they visited Poland, although they could be released from it if they were in good standing with the consul. Poles who stayed in Finland permanently on the consular passport had to be in good standing with the consul to have their passport regularly prolonged. Family reunifications were particularly difficult for people who left Poland illegally by overstaying the legal length of travel abroad. Such people usually could not return to Poland, and their family members in Poland were denied the possibility of visiting. In the case of my study, only three persons had legal difficulties visiting Poland since, as I mentioned, Finland tended to send back people who broke the Polish emigration rules. – 269 –

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Along with communication and visits, transnational families were engaged in the exchange of material support. Tangible goods and dollars flew mainly from Finland to Poland—a clear sign of living in different and economically unequal systems. On the one hand, one could argue that the need of family members in Poland for material support proved the malfunctions of the Communist Polish state and its loss in the global race for the satisfaction of citizens’ needs. It was one of the signs that a centrally planned economy was not so centrally planned after all,41 as transnational material support was spontaneous grassroots support rather than a product of the deliberate state involvement. On the other hand, particularly from the 1970s onward, the Polish state needed the foreign currency to pay off the loans from the West. As family members residing abroad were one of the valuable sources of hard currency for the Polish state, the tacit goal was to appropriate this type of transnational practice rather than let it go unbridled or cease completely. Starting from the 1970s, the appropriation took place through creating spaces in which the currency could be legally spent or saved in Poland: Pewex shops and foreign currency saving bank accounts. The obligatory currency exchange for foreign citizens also served this purpose. The state could also economically capitalize on telecommunications, as the prices for international phone calls from Poland were among the highest in the world, while for local phone calls among the cheapest.42 The strategy was to let callers from abroad pay for the infrastructure and provide Poland with the necessary foreign currency.43 In the experience of my interlocutors, the initial months of martial law were the only period when Polish authorities aimed to prevent all transnational family contact. Along with the introduction of martial law, the telecommunication infrastructure and Polish borders were shut down. When the lines of communication were finally opened, communication was subjected to official monitoring. When people called, they heard a message in the background: “This conversation is monitored.” Some of the letters were received with “censored” stamped on the envelope. Janek, who upon the introduction of martial law was granted refugee status in Finland, recalled the impeded contact in the following way: “At some point due to all this stress some nerve in my face got damaged and I got facial paralysis. Everything from the face down was fine just my face was like cut in half. On one side nothing moved, one eye was constantly open, the tongue was in half. When I drank a beer, I had two tastes. … So I think it was because of what was happening in Poland. I am sure of that. All the nerves, when one did not know what was going on. One could not go. Well, nothing was known.” At the same time, even the martial law borders were not impenetrable. The difficulty did not mean that people did not manage to circumvent the – 270 –

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state’s power. Family members usually managed to find some way to contact each other, working around strict regulations, negotiating the border entry or using somebody else’s help. The abovementioned Janek managed to contact his parents by giving a letter to his friend, who was able to go to Poland at some point. Several months after the introduction of martial law, Bronislaw managed to sneak into Poland as a translator with the Finnish basketball team. Similarly, those of my interlocutors who had, outside of the martial law period, difficulty entering Poland because of problems with Polish authorities, managed to meet their family members, for instance in the Polish harbor, or as Krzysztof mentioned, at a camping site in East Germany. The top-down power of the Polish authorities to shape the scope of transnational engagement stretching from its territory had its limits. It was also fragmented, as sometimes Polish state representatives turned out to be more supportive than the official policies implied. For instance, Bronislaw, going to his father’s funeral, decided to skip the obligatory currency exchange, hoping he would manage to get through at the border: In Poland, people are buried very quickly after their deaths. So after I got a telegram that my dad had died, I quickly bought a ticket to Warsaw with all my savings. It was 1973. … There was still an obligatory currency exchange, but because I spent all my money on the ticket I had no money left to exchange. I thought to myself, “Maybe the immigration control will let me through anyhow.” But once I arrived at the Warsaw airport they didn’t want to let me out. I didn’t exchange currency; I had no money. They told me, “Well, in that case you’ll have to return to Helsinki on the next plane.” But I knew my cousin was waiting for me in the arrivals hall, so I told the guard, “Please sir, I can’t return. I came for my father’s funeral. If you let me out for a second, I’ll get legal dollars from my cousin, who’s waiting for me in the arrivals hall.” The guard said, “No, you can’t go through.” Finally, though, my begging moved one of the guards. I showed him the telegram and managed to convince him that I was telling the truth. They have me an escort of two soldiers, who I went out to the arrivals hall with. I got the dollars and we went back.

The intimate family transnationalism of my interlocutors was also the space where Finns could show support for Poles leaving under the Communist regime, without the necessity of official declarations of doing so. As my interlocutors told me, Finns helped them in gaining access to Poland, provided legal advice, and contributed to their material support by donating cloths or food. The aforementioned Bronislaw, for instance, would not have been able to go to Poland during martial law if it had not been for his friends in the Finnish sports world who helped him go there with the basketball team. Janek, visiting the Poland of the 1980s for the first time since he had come to Finland illegally, went with his Finnish friend who was a lawyer. Janek hoped that the presence of a Finnish friend would provide legal insurance that he would not be imprisoned. Alina told me – 271 –

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that when her parents visited her in the 1980s, her Finnish friends always organized a collection of cloths and other needed items that her parents would subsequently take to Poland and distribute among family networks. Similar support was particularly true for Finnish spouses and extended family members of my interlocutors. The way intimate Finnish support for certain transnational practices could saliently contradict with official attitudes can also be seen in the case of elites. Professor J. P. Roos is quoted by Laakia as one of the high-profile Finns who did not want to sign the list officially condemning the imposition of martial law in 1981. As Laakia writes, Professor Roos told the Ydin newspaper that “he cannot sign the list, because the company is so bad.”44 Exactly at the same time, though, Roos was a leader of a Polish-Finnish comparative research project that was interrupted by the introduction of martial law. In the introduction to the monograph on the project results published in 1987, Roos, along with the Polish project leader, Andrzej Sicin ´ski, pointed out that some of the Polish project participants were actively involved in Solidarity and imprisoned, and thus, for the Finnish project participants, the martial law events “had a very different significance” since “they knew intimately some of the participants and could either observe by themselves or get first-hand report of everything that was taking place.”45 Furthermore, in 1995, Sicin ´ski published an article regarding the project results in Polish Sociological Review in which he thanked his Finnish project colleagues in a footnote for “unexpected and beyond-academic” support: “Our engagement in a Polish Finnish project brought also benefit when after the introduction of the Martial Law we received packages with food and detergents from our Finnish colleagues (with whom we became friends during the project). It was for us a considerable material and mental support.”46 Thus, one can conclude that, in Finland, the public attitudes toward the events in Poland were more neutral than the actual private feelings of support. They resulted in contradictory top-down and bottom-up practices of supporting, or at least not protesting against the martial law and alleviating its consequences through intimate practices at the informal level.

Toward the Carbon Curtain Transnational practices discussed in this chapter indicate the emergence of a multilevel and multipolar47 space across the Iron Curtain, in which grassroots transnationalism was firmly entangled in a contradictory or harmonious way with the practices and policies of Polish, Finnish, and Soviet establishments. Investigation of the links between individual countries such as Poland and Finland disrupts thinking in the dichotomous East– 272 –

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West categories stemming from the “iron” qualities of the curtain, and shows the curtain as permeable and transparent, allowing for the circulation of people and ideas. The activities of political establishments at the top combined with the grassroots involvement had a mutually reinforcing yet contradictory effect on the destabilization of the curtain between Poland and Finland. Different actors had different visions of the shape of the transnational space between Poland and Finland, and some were engaged in it much more intensively and regularly than others. However, even those who remained seemingly uninvolved in the Finnish-Polish affairs impacted transnational activities of others by maintaining their neutral stance. By elaborating on the transnational practices between Poland and Finland, this chapter indicated the analytical failures of the “Iron Curtain” metaphor, but it did not abandon the term “curtain” altogether. Péteri proposed the term “nylon curtain” to indicate that the curtain was transparent and penetrable. However, I find the “nylon curtain” to trivialize certain legal and ideological aspects of Cold War realities. The curtain might not have been made of iron, but it was a curtain nevertheless, and it was not only about unequal access to consumer goods. It was not solid and impenetrable, but one cannot dismiss the political ambitions of the Western and Eastern states and their desire to discipline their citizens. Poland might have been fairly liberal in terms of mobility and relations with the West, and Finland fairly open to relations with the Soviet bloc, but both of them discouraged particular forms of transnationalism, or its more intensive enactment, that would allow for the curtain’s total disappearance. If one wishes to look for a more appropriate metaphor, perhaps “carbon curtain” would be a better alternative. Carbon emerges in different forms and has the unique ability to form a variety of compounds with other elements found in nature, some of them being hard and others soft. Therefore carbon would manifest the temporally and situationally fluctuating “osmotic”48 characteristics of the curtain, which changed depending on the element it reacted and combined with, starting at the very level of an individual person. The destabilization of the curtain depended heavily on the intersection of legal policies and personal interactions with people who were supposed to enforce them, fragmenting the power of the state at the grassroots level in shaping the transnational space. At the same time, carbon has high thermal conductivity, and as a metaphorical part of the “carbon curtain,” it always radiates political and ideological heat. Thus it indicates loopholes, contradictions, and the negotiated character of transnational relations between Poland and Finland, but, at the same time, it does not negate that the curtain—legal, political, and economic—existed. Finally, one of the constitutive elements of carbon is that it is everywhere. It is the basis of life. – 273 –

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In this chapter, I empirically addressed Finland and Poland, but I treat these countries as a part of Europe and the world at large. In the world divided by the permeable curtain, Poland was not excluded from Europe. It was in Europe all along. This also has implications today as Poland’s metaphorical return to Europe is still not fully ascertained—despite Poland’s accession to the EU. In the crisis-ridden “new” Europe, old divisions die hard, reemerging under the figure of the Eastern European migrant who abuses the welfare of the Western states and invades their civilized space from within. The building of the Iron Curtain shows the continuous tendency to build political and legal walls of exclusion and inclusion around particular populations and to perpetuate the world hierarchically divided into separate nation-states and blocs of states. These, as I indicate, are often undermined in practice by people, even the same people who build political and legal systems that erect boundaries in the first place. Anna Matyska is a postdoctoral researcher in social anthropology at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her Ph.D. dissertation investigated transnational families living between Poland and Finland in the changing political circumstances of the Cold War and post−Cold War period: “Transnational Families in the Making: The Polish Experience of Living between Poland and Finland throughout and after the Cold War” (2014). She is currently working on a study of the transnational class practices and identifications of Polish posted workers in Scandinavia and their families in Poland.

Notes 1. L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1. 2. S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy, “Introduction,” in Reassessing Cold War Europe, ed. S. Autio-Sarasmo and K. Miklóssy (London: Routledge, 2011), 3. 3. P. Levitt and S. Khagram, “Constructing Transnational Studies,” in The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations, ed. P. Levitt and S. Khagram (New York: Routledge, 2007), 5. 4. A. Portes, L. E. Guarnizo, and P. Landolt, “The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22, no. 2 (1999): 217–37. 5. M. P. Smith and L. E. Guarnizo, eds., Transnationalism from Below (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 10. See also P. Ladolt, “The Transnational Geographies of Immigrant Politics: Insights from a Comparative Study of Migrant Grassroots Organizing,” The Sociological Quarterly 49 (2008): 53–77. 6. S. Chari and K. Verdery, “Thinking between the Posts: Postcolonialism, Postsocialism, and Ethnography after the Cold War,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 51, no. 1 (2009): 6–34. 7. D. C. Engerman, Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). – 274 –

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8. U. Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London: Routledge, 1996), 18. 9. G. Péteri, “Nylon Curtain: Transnational and Transsystemic Tendencies in the Cultural Life of State-Socialist Russia and East-Central Europe,” Slavonica 10, no. 2 (2004): 113–23. 10. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, 4. 11. I use the terms West/Western Europe and East/Eastern Europe as political-cultural constructs and always in “mental quotation marks.” 12. Autio-Sarasmo and Miklóssy, “Introduction”. 13. L. Basch, N. Glick Schiller, and C. Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States, 2nd ed. (Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach, 1995). 14. People who left Poland permanently often left on a temporary passport that they subsequently failed to prolong or return to the Polish authorities, applying for asylum in the destination countries. Thus, they were illegal emigrants from the Polish perspective. People who left permanently but legally were given a so-called consular passport that legitimized their stay abroad from the Polish perspective. They should already have been issued a visa from the destination country. See, e.g., T. Frejka, M. Okolski, and K. Sword, eds., In-Depth Studies on Migration in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Poland, United Nations, Economic studies No. 11 (Geneva: United Nations, 1998), xx. 15. J. Lavery, The History of Finland (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2006); F. Singleton, A Short History of Finland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 16. The Polish government signed a similar agreement with only two other Western countries: Austria and Sweden. 17. E. Later-Chodyłowa, Polacy i Polonia w Finlandii/ Puolalaiset ja Polonia Suomessa (Torun´: Oficyna Wydawnicza Kucharski, 2004). 18. See A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). 19. J. Relander, “From Flowers to Steel: Development of the Leninist Mind in Finland 1968–1972,” Scandinavian Journal of History 33, no. 4 (2008): 464–77; L. Kolbe, “From Memory to History: Year 1968 in Finland,” Scandinavian Journal of History 33, no. 4 (2008): 366– 81. 20. P. Kotila, “Hertta Kuusinen—The ‘Red Lady of Finland,’” Science & Society 70, no. 1 (2006): 46–73. 21. Kolbe, “From Memory”. 22. Relander, “From Flowers”. 23. J. Paastela, The Finnish Communist Party in the Finnish Political System 1963–1982 (Tampere: Tampereen Yliopisto, 1991). 24. J. Krekola, “Lenin Lives in Finland,” in The Cold War and the Politics of History, ed. J. Aunesluoma and P. Kettunen (Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2008), http://hdl.handle .net/10224/4029. 25. K. Rentola, “Kekkonen and Kádár in the Soviet Sphere of Influence,” Hungarologische Beiträge 14, (2002): 99–118, http://epa.oszk.hu/01300/01368/00001/pdf/06rento.pdf. 26. Martial law lasted until 1983. It was introduced by the Polish government led by General Wojciech Jaruzelski. Its aim was to disband Solidarity and prevent a possible Soviet invasion, although it is still arguable whether the latter would have happened. 27. A. Chodubski, “Formation of Polish Colony in Finland,” in Poles in Scandinavia, ed. E. Olszewski (Lublin: PANTA, 1997), 307–21. 28. R. Laakia, ed., Solidarnoscin nousu tuhosi imperiumin—suomalaisen tukiliikkeen pieni historia (Jyväskylä: Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy, 2005). 29. Similarly, Kubik indicates that the Solidarity movement in Poland emerged as the movement of people sharing common cultural and political values of Catholicism, freedom, and independence, rather than as the working class movement. See J. Kubik, “Who Done – 275 –

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It? Workers, Intellectuals, or Someone Else? Controversy over Solidarity’s Origin and Social Composition,” Theory and Society 23, no. 3 (1994): 441–66. 30. J. Suomi, Urho Kekkonen, 1968–1972. Taistelu puolueettomuudesta (Helsinki: Otava, 1996). 31. Laakia, Solidarnoscin nousu tuhosi, 5. 32. Cited in Paastela, The Finnish Communist Party, 223. 33. A. Rosas, ”Finnish Human Rights Policies,” Yearbook of Finnish Foreign Policy (1986): 9–8. 34. Laakia, Solidarnoscin nousu tuhosi. 35. Ibid. 36. The visit was also criticized by the Finnish Solidarity, which suggested that Virolainen made the visit to improve his personal relationship with Moscow, thus engaging in a triple power play. Ibid. 37. D. Bryceson, and U. Vuorela, eds., The Transnational Family: New European Frontiers and Global Networks (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 7. 38. M. Buchowski, “The Shifting Meanings of Civil and Civic Society in Poland,” in Civil Society: Challenging Western Models, ed. E. Dunn and C. Hann (London: Routledge, 1996), 79–98. 39. J. Lenczarowicz, “Polska Ludowa Wobec Diaspory,” in Polska Diaspora, ed. A. Walaszek (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001), 529–52. 40. See, e.g., M. Okólski and E. Jaz´win´ska, eds. Ludzie na Hus´tawce. Migracje Między Peryferiami Polski i Zachodu (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2001); R. Kantor, Między Zaborowem a Chicago: Kulturowe Konsekwencje Istnienia Zbiorowos´ci Imigrantow z Parafii Zaborowskiej w Chicago i Jej Kontaktow z Rodzinnymi Wsiami (Wrocław: Zakł. Nar. im. Ossolinskich, 1990). 41. K. Verdery, What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 42. J. Kubasik, “Regulation without a Regulator: The Tariff Policy in Poland,” Seminar on telecommunication market analysis for the CEE countries and Baltic States, Vilnius, Lithuania, 5–7 October 2004. Retrieved October 2008 from http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/finance/ work-cost-tariffs/events/tariff-seminars/lithuania-04/kubasik-summary.pdf. 43. A. Jajszczyk and J. Kubasik, “Telecommunication Tariffs in Central Europe,” IEEE Communications Magazine (1993). 44. Laakia, Solidarnoscin nousu tuhosi. Quote in Finnish: “koska seura on niin huonoa.” 45. J. P. Roos and A. Sicin´ski, eds. Ways of Life in Finland and Poland (Aldershot: Avebury, 1987). 46. A. Sicin´ski, “Polsko-Fin´skie porównania stylów ˙zycia: interesujące dos´wiadczenia, mizerne wyniki,” Studia Socjologiczne 3–4 (1995): 87–96. 47. Autio-Sarasmo and Miklóssy, “Introduction”. 48. Péteri, “Nylon Curtain.”

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Chapter 14

A FILTER FOR WESTERN CULTURAL PRODUCTS The Influence of Italian Popular Culture on Yugoslavia, 1955–65 Francesca Rolandi

T

his chapter aims to analyze the influence of Italian popular culture on Yugoslavia in the decade between 1955 and 1965. My hypothesis is that, during this period, Italy played the role of a filter for cultural products coming from Western Europe that could not find any other way to enter the country. Moreover, some light will be shed on the similar role that Yugoslavia played toward neighboring people’s republics. Here I will refer to a broad definition of popular culture, including both artifacts (pop music, light films, TV programs, etc.) and everyday practices (e.g., the habit of going shopping in Trieste and of listening to Italian radio broadcasts) able to reach a wide audience and intimately connected with an idea of modernity and industrialization. This research is based on archival and press sources from the former Yugoslavia, with a specific focus on its two main cities, Belgrade and Zagreb. In the last two decades, the focus of Cold War studies has moved toward cultural relations and transnational connections between European states, shedding light on the differences among the countries within the same bloc.1 In this setting, popular culture has turned out to be an increasingly meaningful perspective for investigating wider dynamics affecting societies. This focus has also extended outside the two superpowers. This chapter draws on a number of recent research projects concerning the role of popular culture in Socialist Yugoslavia.2 Far from being a subversive agent, popular culture is shown to have been a tool of – 277 –

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legitimization for Socialist Yugoslavia and a good medium for delivering an image of openness and modernity abroad. In the aftermath of World War II, Italy, as part of the Western bloc, was strongly influenced by trends coming from the Anglo-American world, mainly through the new media of the time: first cinema, and then music and television. Moreover, Italians had direct contact with the United States thanks to U.S. soldiers during World War II. As a result, Italians became fascinated by new trends and items these soldiers brought into the country, from music records to chewing gum and manufactured cigarettes. These encounters increased the interest in cultural phenomena such as jazz and fashion trends, and in artifacts coming from what was perceived as the New World. The United States became a synonym for modernity, change, and a fascinating way of life. The phenomenon of Americanization affecting the younger generations was mocked in popular culture, for instance in the movie Un americano a Roma (An American in Rome) and the song Tu vuo’ fa’ l’americano (You Are an American Wannabe). The American influence continued to be strong after World War II, drawing on ideological affinities stressed by the Italian ruling Christian Democratic Party, and it was strengthened by direct contact with the United States through Italian immigrants and American soldiers based at the Allied Joint Forces NATO Command in Naples. It has been observed that the Italian popular culture accepted and accommodated some phenomena coming from the United States, depriving them of their original subversive or controversial meanings, as happened with some rock ’n’ roll classics.3 Moreover, Italy had an important position as a border country of the Western bloc, hosting the strongest Communist party in Western Europe.4

Yugoslavia’s Exceptionalism and Popular Culture After World War II, Yugoslavia was one of the most orthodox countries of the Socialist bloc. This loyalty allowed the Yugoslav leadership to criticize other Socialist leaders of being too soft and pliable at a meeting in Poland in 1947. Within a year, however, the international position of Yugoslavia changed. As a consequence of its 1948 split with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia found itself completely isolated in the international scene,5 and it started to move gradually closer to the Western bloc, which lavishly supported the country through economic aid in order to keep Tito afloat.6 After the first years of hard-line Communism, when Western cultural products were rejected, Yugoslavia started opening up and undertaking a process of liberalization in the cultural and economic spheres, and also partially in the political sphere. The Yugoslav leadership was not inspired – 278 –

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by an already existing model, but rather shaped a new and original system, adjusted to the international situation. For a couple of years, Yugoslavia was regarded as an odd ally of the Western bloc, but from 1955 it started to draw closer to the Soviet Union, a process symbolized by Khrushchev’s visit to Belgrade, which represented a bright political and economic victory for Yugoslavs.7 Already in 1956, Soviet-Yugoslav relations chilled again due to the Hungarian crisis, and later other crises affected relations with both the United States and the Soviet Union. However, in the mid-1950s, Yugoslavia discovered how to position itself in the international scene. It set three principles for its foreign politics: continuous collaboration with the Western bloc, normalization of its relations with the Soviet bloc, and a role as the leader of the NonAligned Movement.8 The Yugoslav Federation greatly benefited from this intermediary position, which enabled contacts with both blocs, especially in the field of culture.9 Although Yugoslavia had a Socialist one-party system, with government controlling cultural production, the cultural sphere experienced a degree of freedom that was much broader than in most other Socialist countries. This openness was tolerated and often even endorsed by the Yugoslav leadership, thus fostering its image as a modern country. Nevertheless, this balance was always precarious and often leaned toward the Western countries. The Ideological Commission of the League of the Yugoslav Communists—the organ in charge of ideological issues—devoted many sessions to discussing foreign influences, usually brought up by remarking the dominance of influences from Capitalist countries within the Yugoslav society. In 1960, Petar Stambolic´—at that time President of the Federal Parliament—complained that one could not find any specific position on this topic from the press. Moreover, according to him, magazines presented the situation with a bias. Everything was too well disposed toward the West, and everything connected with the Soviet Union was rejected by the younger generations.10 The orientation of Yugoslav youth toward foreign influences was a recurring matter in discussions of the Ideological Commission. In 1962, an entire session was devoted to this topic. Youngsters were regarded as conscious of the position Yugoslavia had attained at the international level, but disoriented by the large number of foreign influences in the country and unable to approach them in a critical way: according to a widespread view in the Ideological Commission “In a situation in which our society is completely opening up towards the world, including political, cultural, artistic, scientific and other currents, political criteria of our youth are not strong enough to handle different ideological influences, to choose and acquire positive and progressive elements and to reject the ideologically alien ones. This creates worsening conditions of cosmopolitism, inade– 279 –

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quate critical sensibility and resistance against diverse influences among the youth.”11 A few members of the Ideological Commission stressed that countermeasures undertaken by the Yugoslav authorities against cultural influences were unsuccessful. In particular, the popular press was blamed for accepting a large number of articles devoted to foreign countries, and without serious scrutiny: It is very negative that that material is chosen and presented in an uncritical way. They are often just translations, entire or summarized, of articles from the Western press, usually without any commentary or stance, or seldom with formalistic limitations. Unordinary topics from the “upper class” or from the silver screen or the sport world are often dominant. The approach to the topics mentioned gives a onesided and distorted image of Western countries, erroneous representations about achieving an easy life and about freedom in those countries. The flood of similar writings affects without any doubt the gaze and the way of thinking, and especially the taste, sensibility and habits of our audience.12

The Yugoslav leadership had two different conceptions of this question: (a) according to many opinions the foreign influence is regarded as the main source of our several failings; (b) according to some other opinions, the problem is connected with our objective and subjective frailties on which negative influences from other countries just stick and graft upon. It is true that both conditions and elements in our society are susceptible to negative and alien influences of different kinds, and therefore we should not underestimate the proportions and meaning of organized ideological-political and propagandist-psychological pressure from the two blocs, especially since we live in a quite tense Cold War environment.13

The liberalization drive in Yugoslavia had not removed the fear of foreign propaganda from a consistent part of its leadership. The influence of foreign propaganda was regarded as asymmetric not because the Eastern bloc was not active in using culture in propaganda but because the Western culture was much more successful. According to Yugoslav authorities, this relation should have been balanced with an effort to limit the Western influence and to support the Eastern one, focusing on a wide range of issues: how to overcome ignorance of cultural and scientific achievements of the USSR and other socialist countries; how to secure an improvement of the quality of our press and liberalize it from the foreign propaganda; to analyze from this point of view television broadcasts, and to consider the situation with personnel at the television, in order to relieve in the best possible way TV broadcasts from imitating Western TV stations and from our distinctly provincial taste; it is necessary to analyze the structure of foreign correspondents of our

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newspapers who are often used to paraphrasing the positions of the Western press on certain events.14

The opening up of Yugoslavia was regarded as inevitable but also problematic. It is not a coincidence that, in 1960, the Yugoslav authorities felt an urge to control and to some extent even limit both foreign propaganda and the development of popular culture. The “law on press,” which entered into force in October 1960, stated under which conditions foreign informative centers were allowed to work in Yugoslavia.15 The same law aimed at controlling local media by banning the “publication and diffusion” of cultural products that “seriously offended and prejudiced the education of children and the youth,”16 a concept which, in its broader interpretation, could have a restrictive impact on every sector of the cultural sphere. Popular culture is a field that was potentially very important in the Cold War setting due to its ability to get through to so many people. The Yugoslav authorities seemed to understand this strategic potential. Both models were considered problematic: the Western model that separated popular culture from the state, linking it with the market, as well as the Socialist one that mainly opposed or strictly controlled popular culture. Western mass culture was said to “reduce cultural needs of people into a pastime,” while “socialist realism reduced it into upbringing in the spirit of strictly dictated State rules. There the leader is the market, here the State.”17 The idea that the Yugoslav popular culture should adopt a “third way” became popular among cultural workers. The third way included being aware of the role of culture in the state-building process but without completely disregarding its commercial value or broader popular appeal. This approach was based on the persistence of the Yugoslav leadership in pushing forward the idea of Yugoslav exceptionalism, a specific identity in which elements from both opposite Cold War blocs coexisted. It was in the 1950s that this hybrid identity—Maja Kolanovic´ defined it as “a Yugoslav bastardity in which filo-Western tendencies on one hand and grounded aspirations to a dominant ideology from the East on the other mixed together on several levels”—came into being.18 This exceptionalism was also visible in the Yugoslav consumer culture, which was a hybrid sharing characteristics from both the Capitalist and the Socialist systems.19 Perhaps also for this reason, the Yugoslav authorities paid special attention to influences from both blocs, anxious to keep the balance. However, certain influences were less associated with the blocs than others. This applied to Italian popular culture, which was able to spread more freely in the country, being perceived as less consciously propagandist and dangerous than American popular culture. – 281 –

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The Porous Italian-Yugoslav Border Starting from the mid-1950s, the growth of these relations became possible with the détente in relations between the two Adriatic neighbors. A turning point in Italian-Yugoslav relations took place when the settling of border disputes began in autumn 1954, following long negotiations that would still span two decades.20 With the first series of agreements signed, the formerly tense frontier started to quickly turn into one of the most porous borders of the Cold War. The harsh tensions that had characterized the long negotiation process faded after the territorial settlement and the authorities on both sides grasped the importance of reconstructing the transborder relations. In fact, both border areas had been heavily affected by the artificial division of formerly complementary territories—especially the Slovenian and Croatian countryside and the cities of Trieste and Gorizia, allocated to Italy. A sign of the changing circumstances was Tito’s interview on the signing of the agreement in October 1954, which was quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA: “It is possible to establish an economic, cultural and political cooperation between Italy and Yugoslavia. The agreement over Trieste erased elements that were preventing it.”21 The stabilization of the Italian-Yugoslav border was the premise for the reconstruction of different kinds of relations between the two countries. Soon Italy turned into a gate for cultural influences and goods into Yugoslavia from the West. The geographical proximity, as it turned out, allowed for TV sets and radios on the Yugoslav coast to receive Italian signals. The proximity also allowed for different goods and cultural products to enter the country, both in legal and illegal ways. This was particularly thanks to border areas such as Trieste, which had traditionally served as a market place for the Yugoslav area.22 In 1955, when the border agreement was signed, inhabitants remaining on the Yugoslav side of the border areas received a permit allowing them to cross the border into Italy four times a month. From the early 1960s, the procedure for getting a passport became easier for other Yugoslav citizens, too. For instance, according to the Slovenian data, 46,766 passports were issued there in 1961. In 1962, the number was already 70,251, and 77,302 the next year. In 1964, it reached 107,776. In 1961, only 3 percent of the applications were rejected; 2 percent in 1962; 4.9 percent in 1963, and 1.8 percent in 1964.23 Trieste’s meaning for Yugoslavs, even if strongly emotional, leaned on a utilitarian base. On the one hand, there was a tradition of Yugoslavian tourists going to this Adriatic city just to buy goods. Shopping was such a totalizing experience for them that they usually did not pay attention to – 282 –

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the city around them, instead devoting all of their time to shopping. The Cold War only seemed to emphasize this trend. On the other hand, people in Trieste had mixed feelings about Yugoslavian shoppers. They looked at the poorly dressed tourists with a mixture of racism and compassion, even if more and more triestini were becoming conscious that the city lived through them. Therefore, Trieste was simultaneously perceived by the Yugoslavs through a sense of belonging and a sense of otherness, fostering its role as a gate. It was also a gate to a different economic system, through which it was possible to enter the fascinating Capitalist zone with its bright colors and well-furnished shop windows. The possibility of going shopping abroad was criticized in the Yugoslav press and limited by border controls and the lack of currency. It was, however, never seriously obstructed by the authorities. In this way, shopping in Trieste, caused by the lack or the high price of goods on the local market, instead of becoming a matter of discontent, turned out to be a safety valve or even a matter of pride for Socialist Yugoslavia, as it proved that its citizens were allowed to travel freely. Some of the goods bought in Trieste, such as blue jeans, had to be smuggled into the country and sometimes out of the country into other people’s republics.24 This allowed some people with a poor economic status, particularly women, to earn some extra income. At the same time, they spread goods with a strong symbolic meaning into countries that were more hostile to the Western consumer culture, particularly Bulgaria and Romania.

Consuming Italian Pop Culture in Yugoslavia During the decade that followed the beginning of the border dispute settlement, the Italian-Yugoslav border was crossed not only by goods, but also influences and trends from the West. Music well illustrates how influences traveled. Popular music in Yugoslavia developed after World War II and became deeply influenced by Italian music, entering the country mainly through two channels: through reception of televised Italian music festivals and through smuggling records across the border. The main bordering towns (Trieste, as well as the Austrian cities) were smuggling hubs for the music records that inspired the first generation of Yugoslav pop composers. Coastal Rijeka was not a border town, but its inhabitants were the first ones in Yugoslavia to be able to listen to the Sanremo Festival broadcast by the Italian radio stations. Rijekan music fans also played the role of a filter by translating and arranging these songs that were then broadcast by Radio Rijeka, spreading them throughout Yugoslavia. According to the contemporaries: – 283 –

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A small group of musicians, together with Mario Kinel and the singers, was used to carefully listening to Sanremo radio broadcast and waiting for the nomination of the winner. They recorded the broadcast (they got their first taperecorder in 1952) and, immediately after the end of the festival, the very same night, chose the winning compositions—Petrovic´ took music, Kinel the lyrics, immediately translating or, to say it better, reworking and accommodating them. Usually they were doing it in Crimea, in a radio employee’s flat, because there you had better audibility than downtown. When they accomplished it, they rushed to the studio and rehearsed till dawn. In that way the next morning the impatient listeners could listen to the rearrangements from Sanremo of the previous night. In the following days, all Yugoslavia—for which there was no other way to listen to Sanremo music apart from Rijeka radio station’s rearrangements—had listened to them and in this way people from Rijeka became very popular.25

Rijeka was a home to several people who contributed to the improvement of music relations between Italy and Yugoslavia. These included Mario Kinel, a composer who rearranged foreign compositions for the popular singer Ivo Robic´ and later became an editor of the main Yugoslav label Jugoton.26 At the time when gramophones were not affordable yet for the majority, rearrangements of Italian songs broadcast on Yugoslav radio were able to reach wider audiences than mere recordings. The Sanremo Festival achieved huge popularity in Yugoslavia, inspiring the rise of the genre of zabavna (entertainment) muzika,27 instead of the majority of the artists merely performing foreign (mostly Italian) songs. The Sanremo music contest established itself as a model for the music contests that flourished all over the country, starting from the foundation of the Zagreb Festival in 1953. Yugoslavia became a destination for international musicians, Italian included. From the mid-1950s, Italian stars ranging from Mina and Little Tony to Domenico Modugno and Rita Pavone and many others occasionally performed in Yugoslavia. The importance of Italian music in post–World War II Yugoslavia was stressed by the Bosnian poet and screenwriter Abdulah Sidran in a recent interview, in which he recalled how the first editions of the Sanremo Festival was regarded as a collective ritual: At that time there were no private television sets in people’s houses and one could watch Sanremo just in “Kultura dom” [sic], the Houses of culture. The television set was kept in closet with heavy wooden doors locked by a latch chain. Turning on the television was the outcome of a slow and solemn ceremony: the keeper of the club arrived like a Napoleon, unlocked the latch chain with a key and said: “Now you can watch Sanremo.” We talk about the decade from 1955 to 1965. It is no coincidence that later when I wrote the screenplay for Dolly Bell—which was awarded the Golden Lion in Venice in 1981—the soundtrack had two [famous Italian singer] Celentano’s songs, 24.000 baci and Sei rimasta sola. The first one being the leitmotif of the movie.28 – 284 –

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Along with zabavna muzika, early Italian experiments with rock ’n’ roll music, which had already adapted the Anglo-Saxon classics to a different audience and deprived them of their original subversive meaning,29 also spread in the country. For instance, in 1959 Little Tony—an Italian singer who not only performed rearrangements of the first American rock ’n’ roll singers but also imitated the look, sound, and stage act of Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, and Gene Vincent—achieved huge success in Yugoslavia. His first EP was released by the Yugoslav label Jugoton thanks to the collaboration with the Italian label Durium.30 Soon, Yugoslav versions of Western music spread from Yugoslavia to other Eastern European countries, especially in the bordering areas where people were already familiar with Yugoslav popular culture, accustomed to listening to Yugoslav radio and TV broadcasts. Another meaningful example of this chain of influences is the artistic parabola of those Yugoslav music stars who attained huge popularity in the Eastern bloc performing rearrangements of American, British, French, or Italian songs. Even if Western performers were not a priori banned in the Eastern bloc, they were still perceived as a suspicious and external element and often turned out to be a target for criticism for their supposed Western qualities. Instead, Yugoslav performers were regarded as a less controversial, ideologically diluted version that would satisfy the audience by providing them with new trends in music.31 One of the first performers able to exploit Yugoslavia’s international position was Ðorđe Marjanovic´, who had his first tour in the Soviet Union in 1963. At that time, Marjanovic´ was one of the first idols for the Yugoslav audience, but, as soon as his popularity faded away back home, he built a career in the Soviet and Eastern European markets.32 The first Yugoslav rock bands were already used to having tours in the Eastern bloc and, according to the accounts of some of the protagonists, they were warmly welcomed by the local teenagers, who strove to show that they knew foreign bands, too.33 Another sector in which the Italian model played an important role was cinema, partly due to the worldwide popularity of Italian directors, but also due to the contacts established through co-productions.34 Italian cinematography was regarded as a model in Yugoslavia for many reasons: it was politically acceptable, but at the same time appealed to the masses, particularly left-leaning. Cooperation included study exchanges. Veljko Bulajic´ was the first one to go study in Italy. In 1955, he was accepted as an observer to Centro sperimentale di cinematografia in Rome and managed to get financial support from Yugoslavia.35 In his application letter to the Yugoslav Commission for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Bulajic´ stressed that his experience from Centro sperimentale di cinematografia would have an impact on Yugoslav cinematography. During his stay in It– 285 –

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aly, he wrote articles from Cinecittà for Vjesnik u srijedu36 and collaborated as a member of the crew for the comedy movies Gli ultimi cinque minuti (The Last Five Minutes), by Giuseppe Amato, and Ragazze d’oggi (Girls of Today), by Luigi Zampa. The impact of the genre of Neorealismo on his work turned out to be explicit, especially in his films Vlak bez voznog reda (Train without a Timetable, 1959), Uzavreli grad (City in Ferment, 1961), and Rat (War, 1961), based on a screenplay of Cesare Zavattini, the major theorist of Neorealismo. He reached the top of his success in 1969 with Bitka na Neretvi (The Battle of Neretva), based on a screenplay of Ugo Pirro—another leading Italian screenwriter—and dealing with one of the most epic episodes of the Yugoslav liberation struggle. Following the first exchanges, an official bilateral agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia offered several scholarships per year for Yugoslav students at Italian cultural institutions, included Centro sperimentale di cinematografia.37 Nevertheless, the main contacts were established not with the genre of Neorealismo or with acclaimed Italian directors, but with the popular genres, especially peplum movies, that were often shot as co-productions with foreign partners in Yugoslavia. This turned out to be very good business. From the late 1950s, Italian movie enterprises were the biggest foreign investors in the Yugoslav film industry. At that time, the Italian Cinecittà found it convenient to rent out its own studios to Americans and rent considerably cheaper Yugoslav studios for its own productions. The first outstanding coproduction was La strada lunga un anno (The Year Long Road, 1958) by Giuseppe De Santis, who, in 1949, had directed Riso amaro (Bitter Rice), one of the last masterpieces of neorealist cinema. De Sanctis was emotionally connected to Yugoslavia for both political—he was a leftist—and private reasons—he had married a Yugoslav woman. The same happened with Gillo Pontecorvo, who, in 1959, directed the Italo-French-Yugoslav co-production Kapò, characterized by neorealistic elements and dealing with the Holocaust. However, another Italian coproduction paved the way for the profitable world of historical movies: in 1958 Alberto Lattuada shot La tempesta (The Blizzard), based on Pushkin’s short story, in Yugoslavia, thanks to a coproduction agreement between Bosna Film and De Laurentiis movie enterprise, with the collaboration of Paramount Pictures. Yugoslav film studios specialized in historical movies, offering a large number of horses and walk-on actors at a very competitive price. This flow of money also supported local projects with strong cultural values that otherwise would hardly have been financed, such as the movies belonging to the Novi jugoslovenski (New Yugoslav) film movement, which criticized the contradictions of contemporary Yugoslavia, exploring social issues, including the topic of humanity’s alienation in a Socialist society.38 However, co-productions with foreign partners also raised an issue about – 286 –

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what they perceived as an inferiority complex affecting the Yugoslavs.39 While films were formally co-productions, foreign partners controlled the products, providing directors and actors, while Yugoslavs usually provided lower technicians, supporting people, and animals for historical movies. The Italian model, or rather the Western model mediated through Italy, penetrated Yugoslavia not just through the cinema screen but also through television.40 Early on, Yugoslavia was unable to provide its own programming throughout the day, and opted for foreign programming that was mostly Italian—itself influenced by American television—and to a lesser extent Austrian. The Italian government, understanding the propaganda potentiality of the situation, seized this opportunity by signing an agreement allowing an increase of Italian programs without any fees. Broadcasting was made possible by a network of conveniently placed antennas. As one of the pioneers of the Yugoslav television industry has recalled, “we seldom broadcast Austrian television programs. The editors of our three television centres41 agreed about which RAI [Italian public television] programs were going to be broadcast in the common program. This co-operation with RAI was invaluable, especially in the first two years of the common programming, 1959 and 1961.”42 In the following years, Yugoslavia signed an agreement with both Eurovision and Intervision radio and television networks, which paralleled the Cold War lines of division. Yet the dominance of Western programming was obvious not only regarding audience preferences, but also in the number of screened programs. In 1963, the Yugoslav television broadcast 131 hours of Eurovision programming, including 37 from RAI, and just 2 from Intervision. In 1965, RAI broadcasts reached 60 hours.43 It was clear from the beginning that the Yugoslav radio-television industry was shaped on a Western model. Yugoslavia was a founding member (1950) of the Western EBU (European Broadcasting Union) and was never part of the Soviet-led OIRT (International Organization for Radio and Television).44 In addition to official program exchange, people in the coastal areas were able to receive Italian broadcasts directly, having access to newscasts and other programs outside the exchange, and this raised an issue about foreign propaganda. Furthermore, these people were usually able to understand Italian, having been former Italian citizens and due to additional historical circumstances. They were therefore able to overcome linguistic barriers and gain direct access to an external source of information. A few years after the beginning of Yugoslav TV broadcasting, the coastal areas (such as Istria, Dalmatia, and Montenegro) were beyond Yugoslav signal reach (in 1962, radio signals were received by 70 percent of inhabitants and the TV signal by a mere 29 percent). Instead, Italian signals were received loud and clear, a matter of concern for Yugoslav authorities.45 – 287 –

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Just as with music and cinema, suspicious authorities followed the first steps of Yugoslav television, which was often blamed for spreading petty alien bourgeois influences around the country, especially through entertainment. As a member of the Ideological Commission stated: “Because of the absence of its own traditions, low competence of its personnel, underdeveloped technical base, scarcity of funds at its disposal, as well as poor scene of entertainment—our television tends to massively use foreign sources, to broadcast foreign programs and movies. In addition to the fact that watching foreign programs can be useful in expanding knowledge and the views of a limited number of our citizens, at the same time it can also represent a quite intensive, and often negative, influence on their insights, images and taste.”46 In the early years, the first television technicians were sent to Italy to visit RAI studios to learn from their expertise.47 In 1957, a team of Radio Televizija Beograd—which at that time was experimenting on programming, starting its broadcasts in less than a year—visited RAI studios in Rome and Milan. One of the participants recalled that they were especially interested in the newscast and in quiz shows such as Lascia e raddoppia and Telematch.48 Even if shaped as a state monopoly and controlled by the ruling Christian Democratic Party, RAI established itself in a midway between the U.S. commercial model and the more informative BBC model aiming at informing, educating, and entertaining.49 Watching RAI broadcasts, Yugoslavs came into contact with American programs thanks to their Italian imitations. One such example is provided by the Italian program Lascia o raddoppia, inspired by the American quiz show The $64,000 Question. It was broadcast on Tuesdays when the Yugoslav TV station had a break in its schedule. This program was hosted by Mike Bongiorno, who had several connections to the United States: he was born in New York to Italian parents, and he had worked for The Italian-American Progress and Voice of America.50 As with other cultural influences, the Italian-Yugoslav connection had its influence further east. Yugoslav television had many followers in the neighboring Communist countries. The most significant case study can be found from the Banat region of Romania, where inhabitants became accustomed to listening to Yugoslav radio stations, later watching Yugoslav TV broadcasts. Ordinary people grew up with Yugoslav television broadcasts, recalling them as their “only source of information.” They even learned the Serbian language, contributing to the softening of the Romanians’ sense of isolation not just from the Western countries but also from the more liberal Socialist regimes.51 – 288 –

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Italy as a Place of Passage to the “Real West” In Yugoslav popular culture, references to Italy are usually positive; Italy symbolizes good-quality, charming products and a fascinating way of life. It is worth stressing that Italy’s engagement in cultural propaganda was mainly devoted to spreading classical culture, ignoring the potential of popular culture. Insisting on this approach, they proved not to be able to exploit the influence of popular culture as a potentially effective weapon to be used in the Cold War. In the documents regarding Italian cultural diplomacy, there is no reference to music, popular movies, or fashion. The elements that characterized the image of Italy in Yugoslavia were mostly omitted. In general, Italian official cultural exchanges promoted exhibitions, lectures, and publications, mostly what was considered “high culture,” corresponding to classical ideas of Italian culture. Moreover, the Italian Communist Party helped spreading leftist cultural products in the neighboring Socialist country. This approach also went the other way around, with Italian left-wing politicians and intellectuals striving to spread Yugoslav cultural products in Italy, which mostly consisted of committed artists that drew on a declared ideological affinity. Popular culture was simply ignored, as both major Italian political forces—Catholic and Communist movements—were hostile toward entertainment.52 Consequently, Italian popular culture was able to spread in Yugoslavia in a spontaneous way, outside official frames, with its agents at least partly unconscious of their role. On the other hand, official Yugoslavia allowed these influences to penetrate, not considering them subversive, allowing them to become mainstream. In this way, the government was aware of the foreign influences existing in the country, especially popular among young people, but it also delivered a message of democratic Yugoslavia abroad. Moreover, to some extent, Yugoslavia’s access to Western popular culture and consumer society was part of a deliberate strategy carried on by the government to present the country as a successful blend of Socialist and Capitalist elements and a testing ground for the “new social form that might avoid some of the worst ills and excesses of both Cold War paradigms.”53 Contemporary memories of citizens of former Yugoslavia about meetings with Italy often underline them as moments of opening up, getting to know the world, reminding them of a time when people were free to travel and had better economic standards than now, allowing them to buy cheap Italian goods and to get a little taste of increasing wellbeing. It has to be noted that, in the second postwar decade, Italy and Yugoslavia were both living a period of economic boom. Both started with very poor economic standards, developing and urbanizing quickly, but at the – 289 –

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same time suffering—to a different extent—from similar economic and social problems. Especially the southern areas of both countries felt the contradictions of fast urbanization strongly leading to a clash of modernization and patriarchal society. Moreover, Italian and Yugoslav migrants could be found side by side as guest workers in German and Swiss factories. The affection for Italy in the Yugoslav gaze was possibly fostered by these shared experiences, allowing Yugoslavs to look at Italy not as a rich and faraway Western country but as a place of gradual passage between what has been called the “real West”54—meaning countries such as France, Germany, and Switzerland—and Yugoslavia itself, sharing some characteristics with both systems. This gradual aspect is even more evident in the place of passage of Trieste, an Italian city that was also home to a strong Slavic community. Drawing on this familiarity, Italian popular culture contributed to the shaping of Yugoslav popular culture, inserting new influences in a more harmonious and less conflicting way than would have probably been the case with a direct connection with the United States. The Italian model, far from being demonized, represented a more acceptable one, based on experiences not far from the Yugoslav reality and mentality. The cultural phenomena that entered Yugoslavia through the Italian filter did not just originate in Italy but also from the United States, for which there were not that many direct channels at that time. Italian yellers (young singers who, inspired by rock ’n’ roll, sang loudly, differentiating themselves from the typical Italian melodic style) brought to Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana the rock ’n’ roll sound based on American models; Italian public television broadcast quiz shows inspired by American ones; and Italian electric appliances (symbols of the success of Western Capitalist society), bought in Italy by the most well-off Yugoslav families, allowed the Yugoslav way of life to resemble the American one. Western elements from Italian culture were emblems of a modernity deprived of transgressive elements, representing a model of “moderate consumerism” in comparison with the American model. Through the Italian intermediary, however, these influences became acceptable in Yugoslavia. Considering a wide range of different elements, this chapter has demonstrated how Italy can be regarded as a filter for Western cultural products entering Yugoslavia. One could define a filter as an element that allows a flow but professes selection, retaining only some of the features. In this case, another selection took place in the Italian context, removing the most controversial aspects of the Western Capitalist model from the Yugoslav perspective. Furthermore, if we look at the chain of influences connecting the Western and the Eastern bloc through the Italian-Yugoslav connection, we should not forget that this connection was also a filter further east, to other people’s democracies. As has been pointed out, this – 290 –

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took place in the smuggling of goods through Yugoslavia, or in Yugoslav performers’ tours within the Soviet bloc. In this chain, every step represented a new process of accommodation and negotiation of foreign influences in a local context. Although at first sight this relation could seem a one-way street dominated by the West, one should remember that, in cultural encounters, even the most influential culture is compelled to interact with external influences and, to be successful, has to adjust to the local context. Therefore, local cultures were not just passive receptors but also actively influenced the external stimuli, allowing them to enter the country after a process of negotiation with the dominant values. Yugoslav directors and producers, musicians, and fashion designers were not importing foreign models, but essentially made acceptable versions of them. Western trends could be made acceptable for official Yugoslavia, but certain elements that were considered alien by politicians had to be played down. Also, some other elements had to be added sometimes in order to help the reception. In view of the fact that every border crossing represented a new process of accommodation and negotiation, trends and goods acquired a meaning different from the original one when introduced in a new context. Indeed, while the light motorbike Vespa was in the UK a symbol of the working class teenager, in Yugoslavia it was affordable only to older and well-educated members of the urban middle class.55 If Italy was perceived as a gradual place of passage to the real West, Yugoslavia was, even on the geopolitical plane, a place of passage to the “real East,” sharing several political and economic features with the Eastern bloc, but with an independent international position. Francesca Rolandi studied history at the University of Milan. She obtained a Ph.D. in Slavic studies at the University of Turin in 2012. Her Ph.D. research, which received the Vinka Kitarovic award in 2014, investigates the influence of Italian popular culture in Yugoslavia in 1955–65 and its role as a filter for Western cultural products. Her current research is focused on the migrations of Yugoslav citizens to Italy in the 1950s and 1960s. She has been a research fellow at the Italian Institute for Historical Studies in Naples and a visiting fellow at the Centre for Southeast European studies of the University of Graz. She is currently based at the University of Rijeka, Crotia. Notes 1. A. Vowinckel, M. M. Payk, and T. Lindenberger, eds., Cold War Cultures: Perspective on Eastern and Western European Societies (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012). – 291 –

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2. I. Duda, U potrazi za blagostanjem. O povijesti dokolice i potrošacˇkog društva u Hrvatskoj 1950–ih i 1960–ih (Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2005); I. Duda, Pronađeno blagostanje. Svakodnevni život i potrošacˇka kultura u Hrvatskoj 1970–ih i 1980–ih (Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2010); Z. Janjetovic´, Od “internacionale do komercijale.” Popularna kultura u Jugoslaviji 1945–1991 (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2011); R. Vucˇetic´, Koka-kola socijalizam (Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2012); B. Luthar and M. Pušnik, eds., Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2010); H. Grandits and K. Taylor, eds., Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side: A History of Tourism in Socialism (1950s–1980s) (Budapest: Central University Press, 2010). 3. M. Merolla, Rock ‘n’ roll, Italian Way. Propaganda americana e modernizzazione nell’Italia che cambia al ritmo del rock (Roma: Coniglio, 2011), 11–13. 4. P. Scrivano, “Signs of Americanization in Italian Domestic Life: Italy’s Postwar Conversion to Consumerism,” Journal of Contemporary History 40, no. 2 (2005): 317–40; R. Agostini, “Change and Continuity in Italian Mainstream Pop: A Study on the Sanremo Festival in the 50s and the 60s,” paper presented at the conference Making Music, Making Meaning, IASPM 13th Biennial Conference on Popular Music Studies, Rome, 25–30 July 2005; A. Portelli, “L’orsacchiotto e la tigre di carta. Il rock and roll arriva in Italia,” Quaderni storici 58, no. 1 (1985): 135–47; Merolla, Rock ‘n’ roll. 5. J. Perovic, “The Tito-Stalin Split: A Reassessment in Light of New Evidence,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 32–63. 6. L. M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia and the Cold War 1945–1960 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). 7. S. Bianchini, La questione jugoslava (Firenze: Giunti, 1999), 93–95; S. Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War: Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation 1953–57 (London: Routledge, 2010). 8. The foundations of the Non-Aligned Movement were set at the Bandung Conference (1955) in order to gather all the countries that considered themselves an alternative to both blocs. Together with India, Egypt, and Indonesia, Yugoslavia was one of the leading countries of the Non-Aligned Movement and hosted its first summit in 1961. 9. P. J. Markovic´, Beograd između Istoka i Zapada (Beograd: Službeni list SRJ, 1996). 10. Sednica o omladini, 26–27, 9/1/1960, I/2- b. 132, k. 8, fond 507 (Ideološka komisija), Centralni Komitet Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije (CKSKJ), Arhiv Jugoslavije (AJ). 11. Neki vidovi idejnog uticaja iz inostranstva u određenim oblastima našeg kulturnoumetnicˇkog, zabavnog i naucˇnog života, 9, 1/6/1962, II/2-b.166, fond 507, CK SKJ, AJ. 12. Ibid., 8. 13. Teza za diskusiju o nekim obeležjima i problemima današnje omladine, 7, 11/05/1962, II/2—b. 165, k. 10, fond 507, CK SKJ, AJ. 14. Ibid., 8. 15. Markovic´, Beograd između Istoka i Zapada, 263. 16. R. Senjkovic´, Izgubljeno u prijenosu. Pop iskustvo soc kulture (Zagreb: Biblioteka etnografija, 2008), 77. 17. Quoted in Senjkovic´, Izgubljeno u prijenosu, 74. 18. M. Kolanovic´, Udarnik! Buntovnik! Potrošacˇ! Popularna kultura i hrvatski roman od socijalizma do tranzicije (Zagreb: Ljevak, 2011), 77–79. 19. P. H. Patterson, Bought and Sold: Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 1–18. 20. G. Sluga, The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference, Identity and Sovereignty in Twentieth Century Europe (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001). 21. M. Crevatin, “La stampa jugoslava e la polemica anti-italiana,” in La questione adriatica e l’allargamento dell’Unione Europea, ed. F. Botta, I. Garzia, and P. Guaragnella (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2007), 200.

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22. B. Luthar, “Shame, Desire and Longing for the West: A Case Study of Consumption,” in Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2010), 341–77; A. Švab, “Consuming Western Image of WellBeing: Shopping Tourism in Socialist Slovenia,” Cultural Studies, special issue Consumption, Shopping, Tourism and Informal Trade in the Socialist Countries of Eastern Europe 16, no. 1 (January 2001): 63–79; M. Mikula, “Highways of Desire: Cross-Border Shopping in Former Yugoslavia 1960s–1980s,” in Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side, ed. Grandits and Taylor, 211–37. 23. Porocˇilo državnega sekretariata za notranje zadeve za leto 1961 (zap. št. 14), 16; Porocˇilo državnega sekretariata za notranje zadeve za leto 1962 (zap. št. 15), 11; Porocˇilo državnega sekretariata za notranje zadeve za leto 1963 (zap. št. 16), 12; Porocˇilo državnega sekretariata za notranje zadeve za leto 1964 (zap. št. 17), 23, šk. 1440, 1931, Republiški sekretariat za notranje zadeve, Ministarstvo za notranje zadeve, Arhiv Republike Slovenije. 24. G. Battisti, Una regione per Trieste. Studio di geografia politica ed economica (Udine: Del Bianco—Industrie grafiche, 1970), 201. For instance, Timisoara was a large market for products from Yugoslavia. 25. E. Dubrovic´, Cˇarobna igla. Zbirka gramofona i rijecˇka diskografija (Rijeka: Muzej grada Rijeke, 2004), 69. 26. L. Kuntaric´, “Moja sjec´anja na festival Zagreb ’53,” in Pedeset zlatnih godina. U povodu 50 godina Zagreb festa, ed. N. Marjanovic´-Zulim (Zagreb: Hrvatsko društvo skladatelja—Cantus, 2003), 25. 27. Zabavna muzika literally means “entertainment music,” a definition that implies an explicit comparison with serious (ozbiljna) music, which, according to some critics, especially in the earlier years of the rise of Yugoslav pop music, was the only kind regarded as a form of art. Irena Miholic´, in her Ph.D. dissertation, tried to answer the same question and, comparing categorizations from different periods published in essays and encyclopedias, stresses that the dichotomy between the ideas of “music as a form of escapism” and “music as a form of art” faded throughout the decades. I. Miholic´, “Zabavna glazba u Hrvatskoj: etnomuzikološki i kulturno-antropološki pristup,” Ph.D. diss., Sveucˇilište u Zagrebu (2009), 17–23. Moreover, the category of zabavna muzika is often connected with mass media. In the period we are dealing with, zabavna muzika can be regarded as a big umbrella covering different genres, such as šlager and the earliest rock ’n’ roll, whose categorization was often blurred. On the one hand, zabavna muzika can be regarded as a synonym for pop music; on the other, as a precursor. 28. A. Sidran, “24mila baci da Sarajevo,” Il Sole 24 Ore, 7 June 2009, 37. 29. Portelli, “L’orsacchiotto e la tigre di carta,” 135–47. 30. S. Škarica, Kad je rock bio mlad. Pricˇa s istocˇne strane 1956–1970 (Zagreb: VBZ, 2005), 45–47. 31. D. Vuletic, Sounds Like America: Yugoslavia’s Soft Power in Eastern Europe, in Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West, ed. P. Romijn, G. Scott-Smith, and J. Segal (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 115–31. 32. P. Lukovic´, Bolja prošlost. Prizori iz muzicˇkog života Jugoslavije 1940–1989, Vol. 1 Estrada (Beograd: Mladost, 1989), 84–86. 33. Ibid., 225. 34. D. Kosanovic´ and D. Tucakovic´, Stranci u raju. Koprodukcije i filmske usluge, stranci u jugoslovenskom filmu, jugosloveni u svetskom filmu (Beograd: Stubovi kulture, 1998). 35. 5359, Materijali o stipendistima 1955–56, fasc. 68, fond 559 (Komisija za kulturne veze sa inostranstvom), AJ. 36. See these articles, all by V. Bulajic´: “‘Rat i mir’ snima se u Jugoslaviji,” Vjesnik u srijedu (hereafter VUS) 141, 12 January 1955, 7; “Vittorio De Sica govori o sebi i o svojim planovima,” VUS 153, 6 April 1955, 7; “Aldo Tonti ‘kamera br. 1,’”VUS 176, 7 July 1955, 8; “Zampa: Vjerujem u jugoslavenski film,” VUS 170, 3 August 1955, 7; “Za ‘Vjesnik u srijedu’

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govori Giuseppe De Santis,” VUS 176, 14 September 1955, 8; “Udruženi scenaristi,” VUS 188, 7 December 1955, 8. 37. Materijali o stipendistima 1955–56, fasc. 68, fond 559, AJ. 38. D. J. Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 66–67. 39. II/2-b. 103, k. 6, fond 507, AJ; V. Dobrinic´, “Koproducija: da-ne?” VUS 341, 12 November 1958, 7; M. Ašanin, “U sljepoj ulici filmske ‘koprodukcije’,” VUS 436, 7 September 1960, 1, 4; S. Goldstein, “Dilema koproducije: između umjetnosti i trgovine,” VUS 439, 28 September 1960, 7. 40. On Yugoslav television, see S. Mihelj, “Television Entertainment in Socialist Eastern Europe: Between Cold War and Global Developments” in Popular Television in Eastern Europe During and Since Socialism, ed. A. Imre, T. Havens, and K. Lustyik (London, Routledge, 2012), 13–29. 41. At that time, Yugoslav Radio Television had three broadcast centers in Zagreb (created in 1956), Belgrade, and Ljubljana (both created in 1958). Later on, every Republic or autonomous province of the Yugoslav Federation was endowed a broadcast center. 42. I. Pustišek, “Međunarodna saradnja Televizije Beograd u okviru sistema Jugoslovenske Radio-Televizije 1958–1978,” in Iz istorije televizije Beograd, ed. V. Popovic´ (Beograd: Televizija Beograd, 1984), 194–95. 43. Ibid., 195. 44. B. Paulu, Radio and Television Broadcasting on the European Continent (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1967), 141; D. Vuletic, “European Sounds, Yugoslav Visions: Performing Yugoslavia at the Eurovision Song Contest,” in Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2010), 125. 45. Školstvo, kulturni život i propagandna aktivnost u Istriji, 22, d. 670, D-Dokumentacija – Katalog 1, fond 1220 (Centralni komitet Saveza Komunista Hrvatske), Hrvatski Državni Arhiv. 46. O nekim vidovima stranog uticaja u našoj zemlji, 10, 1/6/1962, II/2-b-166, k. 10, fond 507, CK SKJ, AJ. 47. M. Otaševic´ and B. Andric´, “Strašljivi div,” in Beograd šezdesetih godina XX veka, ed. D. ´iric´, L. Petrovic´-Ðuric´, and Lj. Dimic´ (Beograd: Muzej grada Beograda, 2003), 2. C 48. I. Leandrov, Pre pocˇetka. Secˇanja na pripreme za uvođenje televizijskog programa u Beogradu (Beograd: Televizija Beograd, 1986), 33. 49. E. Menduni, “L’influenza americana nella nascita della televisione italiana,” Memoria e ricerca 15, no. 26 (September–December 2007): 97–109. 50. J. Bourdon, “Modelli americani alle origini delle televisioni europee. Un primo passo verso la ‘cultura’ globale?,” Contemporanea 4, no. 1 (January 2001): 47–68; M. Otaševic´ and B. Andric´, “Strašljivi div,” 132. 51. A. Sorescu-Marinkovic´, “Serbian Language Acquisition in Communist Romania,” Balcanica XLI (2010): 9, 16. 52. S. Gundle, Between Hollywood and Moscow: The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000). 53. Patterson, Bought and Sold, 10. 54. 42007, 3, d. 10, fasc. 43, 1963, Italija, Diplomatski arhiv Ministarstva spoljinih poslova Republike Srbije. 55. Luthar, “Shame, Desire and Longing,” in Remembering Utopia, ed. Luthar and Puškin, 375.

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INDEX

A

Anglia, 218–19, 222–31 anti-Communism, anti-Communist, 26, 28–29, 34, 39, 71, 85–88, 156, 160, 166, 169, 222, 266 anti-Westernism, 178, 183–85, 192 Apple Computers, Inc., 110 Aron, Raymond, 161, 163 Asia, 244–47 Association for Technical Internships (ASTEF) (France), 125, 130, 133 Atlantic alliance, see NATO Australia, 109, 117 Austria, 14, 157–59, 242, 247, 283, 287

Abraham, Pierre, 177 academic exchanges, 104, 121, 124, 133, 154 ASLA-Fulbright, 104 fellowship(s), 131, 153, 164–65 grant(s), 33, 122, 125–28, 131, 153, 158– 59, 164–67 scholarship(s), 2, 5, 122, 124–30, 286 academics, 30, 49, 124–25, 131, 165, 205, 209 Afghanistan, 209 Africa, 35, 156, 244–47 agreements on cultural and scientific exchanges, 7, 44–46, 66–68, 89 Denmark and German Democratic Republic (1972), 48 Denmark and Poland (1960), 45–47 Denmark and the Soviet Union (1962), 45 Finland and Hungary (1959), 140 Finland and the Soviet Union (1955), 104 France and Romania (1965), 123, 130 France and the Soviet Union (1957), 202–3, 220 Italy and the Soviet Union (1959), 203 United Kingdom and the Soviet Union (1959), 220 United States and the Soviet Union (1958), 220 Albania, 63, 68 Alliance française, 125, 129, 180, 182 All-Union Society for Cultural Relations (VOKS), 196, 219 Alting von Geusau, Frans, 23, 25, 28, 32–34, 37–38 americanization, 186, 278 Amerika, 218–19, 221–23, 225–26 Amnesty International, 27, 31 Andersin, Hans, 105–6 Andropov, Yuri, 76

B Baltic Sea, 57, 261 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 238, 240, 245–47, 250–51, 288 Russian Service, 227 World Service, 168 Behrendt, Walter, 207 Belgium, 27, 154, 157, 202 Belgrade, 31, 277, 279, 290 Beneš, Edvard, 180, 185 Bolshoi Theatre and Ballet, Moscow, 201 Bondy, François, 154–55 Bonn, 67, 131, 206 Bonnard, André, 87 books sending, distribution, circulation of, 153, 157–59, 161–64 flows, 162, 169 Brandt, Willy, 58, 206 Ostpolitik, 24, 27, 206–8 Brezhnev, Leonid, 29, 64, 69, 72, 74, 76, 210, 265 British Ally, 221, 227 British Council, 201–2 – 319 –

Index competition, 71, 75, 86, 90, 200, 205, 237–38, 244, 248, 251 computer science, 101–3, 105, 107, 109–12, 114–15 technology, 103, 107–8, 113, 115, 117, 125, 145 computing cooperation, 101–2, 105–7, 113, 116 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), 26, 31–32, 47, 53–57, 63–81, 141 First basket, 69 Second basket, 69 Third basket (basket III), 69, 70, 73, 75–77, 208 Helsinki Accords, 23–43, 45, 47, 55, 58–59, 63–64, 70, 75, 94, 159, 208–9 Helsinki Final Act, 25, 45, 47, 64, 94, 208 Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), 85–86, 153–56, 160 consumer culture, 5, 281–83 Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), 88, 102 Copenhagen, 48–50, 53–54, 59, 245–46 cosmopolitan, 154, 183, 185, 189 cosmopolitism, 185, 279 CSCE. See Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Cuban missile crisis, 24, 122 cultural agreements, 27, 90–91, 128, 135, 205 cultural Cold War, 4–5, 16, 59, 219, 231 cultural internationalism, 10 Czechoslovakia, 156, 161, 163–4, 177–195

broadcasting, 168, 181, 218, 231, 237–44, 246–52, 287 Bucharest, 31, 123–26, 129, 132, 156 Bulganin, Nikolai, 203, 220 visit to Britain, 220 Bulgaria, 161, 163–64, 283

C Canada, 63, 68 Capitalism, 5, 30, 52, 91, 185, 189 Capitant, René, 202, 205 Cartledge, Bryan, 226 CCF. See Congress of Cultural Freedom Chantre, Marc-Edmond, 87 Cheliabinsk, 229 Cˇech, Pavel, 187, 189–90 censorship, 66, 75, 164, 192, 221, 226 Centre de recherché macromoléculaire in Strasbourg, 130 Chenu, Roselyne, 154–55, 158, 167 China, 64 Chirac, Jacques, 72–73, 210 Churchill, Thomas, 204 Churchill, Winston Speech in Missouri (1946), 257–58 CIA, 28, 153, 156 circulation of people and ideas, people and knowledge, 151, 160 of printed materials, 153, 162–63, 169 (see also books) civil society, 31, 197, 202, 205, 209–11 CoCom. See Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls Cold War discussion on the concept, 12–13 the end of, 63, 238, 257–58 historiography, 1–4, 219 as a paradigm, 1–4, 257–61, 263, 289 studies: cultural turn in, 4, 14, 197, 277 technology race, 104 Communism, 1, 30, 65, 87, 123, 152, 161, 168, 182, 206, 264–65, 278 Communist movement, 51, 52, 86, 91, 264, 289 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC), 177–195 Denmark (DKP), 45, 49, 51 Finland (SKP), 14, 264–65, 267 France (PCF), 14, 178, 181–83, 190–92, 199, 202 Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD), 199 Germany (Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, DKP), 206 Italy (PCI), 14, 203, 278, 289 Poland (KPP), 51 Soviet Union (KPSS), 7, 53 comparative history, 11–12

D Danish Young Communists (DKU), 45–46, 51 Danish Youth Council (DUF), 44, 46 decolonization, 244, 247 democracy, 31, 58, 64, 84, 146, 186, 238, 261 democratization, 27, 144, 160, 168 Denmark, 44–62 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27–28, 33, 44–49, 53, 55–58 Désormière, Roger, 182 de-Stalinization, 162 détente, 12, 25, 29, 30–32, 34–35, 46, 49, 53–55, 63–67, 70, 72–73, 77, 109, 122, 153, 159, 191, 208, 229, 282 Diggelmann, Walter, 92 Dinescu, Mircea, 166 diplomacy cultural, 5–6, 8, 14–16, 82–85, 87, 89, 91, 121–23, 152, 169, 181, 191–93, 197–98, 205, 207, 209, 211, 218–20, 289 informal, 15, 23–24, 26, 36, 55–56, 58 parallel, 15, 23, 26, 28, 32, 34–35, 39 people-to-people, 197 periodical, 221 – 320 –

Index Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), 242–43, 250–51 Finnish-Soviet Commission on Scientific and Technical Cooperation, 105 working group on cybernetic, 105–7 Finno-Ugric studies, 142–43 Foundation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne (The Foundation for European Intellectual Cooperation), 151–76 Ford foundation, 153, 157–59, 168 France, 14, 63–81, 83, 121–137, 151–73, 177–95, 196–217, 220, 290 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), 65, 127, 130, 155, 183, 202, 204, 208 Ministry of Internal Affairs, 128 freedom (as Cold War concept), 30, 64–65, 67, 131, 140, 267, 279–80 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), 125, 129 Freymond, Jacques, 86 friendship societies, 196, 198, 200, 202, 205, 210. See also SSOD & VOKS Belgo-Soviet society, 196, 210 British-Soviet society, 202–4, 209, 229 Finnish-Hungarian society, 139 France-Czechoslovakia society, 181–82 French-Soviet society, 200, 202–5, 209–10 German-Soviet society (DSF), 198–99, 206, 211 Italian-Soviet society, 203 Swiss-Soviet society, 83, 86–87, 89, 92 West-German-Soviet society(ies), 207–10 Frisch, Max, 87, 91–92

public, 14–15, 218 magazine, 219 dissident movement, 155, 27 dissidents, 58, 77, 160, 162–64 Dorodnitsyn, Anatolii A., 105–7, 109 Dönhoff, Marion Gräfin (von), 158, 207 Dubinin, Yuri, 70 Dürrenmatt, Friedrich, 91–92

E Eastern bloc, 27, 31, 44–48, 51–53, 55, 58–59, 63, 65, 67, 77, 83, 87–88, 90–91, 101, 109, 114, 192, 263–64, 266, 269, 280, 285, 290–91 East Germany. See German Democratic Republic EBU. See European Broadcasting Union École Supérieure de Physique et Chimie (ESPCI) in Paris, 130 Eden, Sir Anthony, 220 Ehrenburg, Ilya, 88, 200 electrocardiology, 147 Eliade, Mircea, 163 elites, 7, 24, 39, 49, 124, 166, 177, 223, 258–59, 267–68, 272 emigration, 66, 262, 269 Emmanuel, Pierre, 154–55, 160, 181 entangled history, 1, 12, 198 espionage, 87, 182, 184 Estonia, 101–120 Soviet occupation of (1944), 102 Academy of Sciences, 113 Estonian-Finnish Joint Committee of Informatics (1988), 107, 110–11, 114–16 European Broadcasting Union (EBU), 237–40, 242–49, 251–52, 287 European Security Conference. See Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe European Union (EU), 6, 9, 112, 258 Eurovision, 238, 241, 249–51, 287 experts, 7, 30, 102, 104–8, 111–13, 116, 139, 145–47, 230

G Gagarin, Yuri, 239 Gampfer, Georg, 199 Gaulle, Charles de, 64–67, 73, 77–78, 122, 124, 128, 130, 208–9 Geremek, Bronislaw, 166 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 27, 93, 161, 250, 268, 271 the recognition of, 48 Geneva, 63, 69, 70, 74, 77, 85, 88, 178, 191, 219, 238, 246, 249 Geneva Conference (1955), 201 Germany. See either German Democratic Republic or Federal Republic of Germany Gide, André, 189 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 63, 78, 164, 209 Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), 228 Gottwald, Klement, 190–1 Granö, Olavi, 145

F Farner, Konrad, 87, 92 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), 49–50, 104, 138, 145, 157–59, 198–99, 206–8, 211, 238 Foreign Office, 206–8 Ostpolitik, 24, 27, 206–8 FEIE. See Foundation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne Finland, 3, 14, 101–20, 138–50, 247, 249, 257–76 Academy of Finland, 138, 144–45 Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 (YYA), 104, 262 neutrality, 56, 140–41, 265, 267

H Haavikko, Paavo, 143 – 321 –

Index influence of the fall on historiography, 4, 238 and isolation, 54, 66, 220 permeability of, 133, 163, 169, 239 Iron Curtain metaphor, 1–3, 122, 124, 133, 179, 259–61, 272–74 carbon curtain metaphor, 272–74 nylon curtain metaphor, 273 Iron Curtain speech. See Churchill, Winston Israel, 37, 75, 242, 244, 246–47 Italian public television (Radiotelevisione Italiana, RAI), 247, 287–88, 290 Italian-Yugoslav border settling of the border dispute, 282 shopping in Trieste, 277, 283 Italian-Yugoslav coproductions, 286–287 Italy, 14, 132, 134, 154, 159, 247, 277–94

Hamon, Léo, 202 Haraszti, Miklós, 163 Heinemann, Gustav, 207 Helsinki Accords. See Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Helsinki Final Act. See Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Himmelstrup, Per, 48 historiography, 1, 9, 25, 63, 152, 197, 219, 238 Hoffmeister, Adolf, 181 Huber, Hans, 88 humanities, 129, 144, 161, 165 human rights, 15, 25, 29–32, 35, 38, 57, 64, 69, 124, 267 Hungary, 14, 31, 34, 47, 138–50, 156, 161–64, 184 Academy of Sciences, 138, 145–46 Soviet invasion of (1956), 8, 139–40, 202–3, 221

J I

Japan, 109, 117, 184 Jelenski, Constantin, 153–55, 157 Joliot-Curie, Frédéric, 199 Jotterand, Franck, 87–88, 92

IACF. See International Association for Cultural Freedom IBU. See International Broadcasting Union IFIP. See International Federation for Information Processing Ignotus, Paul, 163 immigration, 87, 262, 271 Information Research Department (IRD) (UK), 201, 222, 225–26 Initiative ’87, 209–10 Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute of Higher Cinematographic Studies, IHEC), 127 intellectual(s), 49, 70, 75, 88, 91, 124, 151, 153–57, 160–67, 178–79, 185, 191, 196–97, 200, 209, 289 Interdoc (International Documentation and Information Center), 28–29 International Association for Cultural Freedom, 153–57, 160 International Broadcasting Union, 239 International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), 105–6, 113 international history, 4, 10 internationalism, 9–10, 32, 144, 177, 241 International Organization of Radio and Television (OIRT), 237–39, 241–49, 251–52, 287 Internet, 111–13 internships, 124–25, 129–30 Intervision, 238, 241, 249–51, 287 intrabloc trade, 109 Irk, Ferenc, 146 Iron Curtain contact across, 6, 7, 49, 55, 58, 68, 90, 94, 101–2, 104–5, 108, 114, 129, 131, 138, 151–53, 197, 218, 248–49, 268–69

K Kabalevsky, Dmitry, 201 Kádár, János, 139–43 Kekkonen, Urho Kaleva, 139–44, 265 KGB, 36, 39, 76, 267 Khrushchev, Nikita, 64, 140, 202–3, 220, 279 visit to Britain, 220 King, Mavis, 226 knowledge transfer, 8, 129. See also technology transfer cultural (and scientific), 151, 160, 168–69, 186 Koch, Harald, 207 Kogon, Eugen, 206 Koivisto, Mauno, 141 Kolakowski, Leszek, 159 Konrad, György, 166 Kosygin, Alexei, 73 Kremlin, 32, 36, 67–68, 76, 78 Kuibyshev (Samara), 227 Kunth, Donald, 113 Kuznetsov, Vladimir, 29–30

L Laborey, Annette, 158, 167 Labour Party (UK), 200–201 La Gazette de Lausanne, 92 Le Journal de Genève, 92, 94 Lenin, V. I., 210, 224, 265 Leningrad, 103, 113, 227, 263 – 322 –

Index non-state actor, 4, 10, 23, 25, 85–86, 92, 152 Norway, 247, 266 Novosibirsk, 103 Novyi Mir, 220, 226

Liehm, Antonín J., 177, 191 Lisa and Lisa II (computers), 110 Little Tony, 284–85 London, 68, 82, 84, 131, 189, 224, 227, 229, 250 Lüthy, Herbert, 85

O M Obraztsov, Sergei, 201 OIRT. See International Organization of Radio and Television Oistrakh, David, 87, 201 OKWOM. See Polish National Council for the Cooperation of Youth Organizations Oost-West Instituut, 28 Oprecht, Hans, 153, 155 Ortutay, Gyula, 127–28

Madrid, 244–46 Magadan, 227–28 Makhachkala, 229 Mandelstam, Nadezhda, 163 Masaryk, T. G., 185, 193 Maurer, Ion Gheorghe, 130 Mayhew, Sir Christopher, 201–2, 225 Mazowiecki, Tadeusz, 166, 257 McCarthy, John, 113 media, 5, 11, 37–38, 88, 123, 131, 133, 218–19, 260, 267, 278, 281 media history, 237–38 Meier, Herbert, 92 Michalski, Krysztof, 168 Michnik, Adam, 166 migrant(s), 48, 259, 274, 290 migration, 262 Ministry of foreign affairs. See respective country Miller, Wright, 225, 227–30 Mitterrand, François, 210 mobility, 4–5, 11,13, 15, 66, 108, 113, 169, 262–63, 273 Mochalski, Herbert, 206 modernity, 225, 277–78, 290 Moiseev Dance Company, 203 Moscow, 7, 27, 30–32, 34, 36–39, 64, 66–68, 71–75, 77–78, 86, 89, 103, 105–6, 109, 111, 113, 139, 156, 205, 207–10, 219, 221, 224, 227–28, 230, 239, 250 Moscow State Circus, 203 Münnich, Ferenc, 139 music, 66–67, 76, 108, 121, 183, 227, 277–78, 183–85, 288–89

P Paasikivi, J. K., 139 Paris, 65, 67–68, 71, 75, 77, 84, 95, 114, 123, 125, 127–28, 130, 132, 153, 159, 161, 163, 165, 170, 183, 186, 190, 198, 210 peaceful coexistence, 7, 29, 32, 82, 138, 142, 144, 200, 204, 220 Perestroika, 63, 209, 211 Perm, 227 Petitpierre, Max, 82, 86, 88 Poland, 34, 44–62, 64, 66, 90–92, 154–55, 161, 163–64, 166, 182, 206, 257–76, 278 Martial law (1981), 56, 266–68, 270–72 Polish National Council for the Cooperation of Youth Organizations (OKWOM), 45, 49, 53–56 Pompidou, Georges, 64, 66–74, 77 popular culture, 14, 277–78, 281, 285, 289–90 post-Communism, 238, 260 post-Socialism, 1 Prague, 64–65, 67, 94, 154, 162–63, 178, 180, 182–83, 186, 190–91, 241–42 Prague Spring, 64, 67, 94, 186 Preuves, 86, 154 PRIZ (MicroPRIZ software tool), 110–11 Pro Helvetia, 84–85, 88–90, 94 proletarian internationalism, 32, 177 propaganda, 15, 77, 84–88, 156, 179, 210, 218– 20, 222–26, 238–39, 241, 280–81, 287, 289 psychological warfare, 28–29, 37, 156, 218, 220

N national history(ies), 5, 9, 251 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 2, 6, 14, 30, 33, 36–37, 47, 49, 51, 55–56, 64, 68–69, 77, 122, 141, 196, 198, 205, 208, 278 Council of Ministers, 37, 47, 55 neutrality, 82–86, 88, 90, 94, 140–41, 265, 267 Finland, 140–41, 265, 267 Switzerland, 82–86, 88, 94–95 Netherlands, 23–44, 157, 247 New diplomatic history, 24 Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 87 Nixon, Richard, 1 administration of, 68 Non-Aligned Movement, 279

R radio broadcasting. See broadcasting Radiotjänst (Sweden), 242 RAI. See Italian public television Rajewsky, Boris, 206 Rajk, Laszlo, 166, 184 Reader’s Digest, 218, 223 – 323 –

Index Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 70, 182 Soviet Weekly, 218, 221–22 spaceflights, 239, 250 Spain, 154, 159 civil war, 178, 181, 184 Sperling, Dietrich, 207 Spiritual National Defense, 84–85 SSOD. See Union of Soviet Societies of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries Stalin, Joseph, 3, 8, 16, 65, 87, 123, 191, 200, 211, 219 Stavropol, 230 students, 35, 55, 122, 124–25, 127–29, 131–32, 142, 182, 227, 263–66, 286 supportive technology transfer, 111–12, 116 Surkov, Alexei, 200 Sweden, 14, 108, 111–12, 115, 159, 242, 266 Switzerland, 3, 14, 82–97, 151, 153–55, 157, 159, 163, 247, 290 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 82–83 neutrality, 82–86, 88, 94–95 Swiss Enlightment Service (Schweizerischer Aufklärungsdienst), 85, 87–88

R&D. See research & development cooperation Rencontres Internationales de Geneve, 86, 88, 96 research & development cooperation, 111, 114, 138–44, 147 “return to Europe” (metaphor), 257–58, 261, 274 Rijeka, 283–84 Roman, Petre, 128 Romania, 14, 34, 47, 55, 66, 121–37, 156, 161, 163–64, 166, 283, 288 Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 125 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 125–26, 129 National School of Administration, 127 Roosevelt, Franklin, 65 Rougemont, Denis, 85 Russell, Mark, 225–26 Russia. See Soviet Union Russian and East European Studies, 5 transnationalism in, 3, 5, 9, 13, 258–61, 271–73

S Sager, Peter, 85 Salis, Jean Rodolphe de, 86, 88–89 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), 68 Sanremo festival, 283–84 influence on Yugoslavia, 284–85 Sartre, J.–P., 181, 189–90 Schaff, Adam, 164 Schmittlein, Raymond, 202 science and technology (S&T), 102–8, 112–13, 115, 117, 124, 138, 141, 221, 224 Science in the Service of Peace, 239, 241–42, 244, 248, 251 Second World, 5, 14, 260 SITRA (The Finnish Innovation Fund), 145 small actors, 102, 219 Socialism, 3, 5, 8, 30, 141–42, 145–46, 260, 263, 265–66 social psychology, 144 social sciences, 139, 144, 161, 165 sociology, 13, 144, 161 Solidarity, 266–68, 272 Polish Solidarity in Finland, 267 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 66, 71 Soros Foundation, 112 Soros, George, 158, 168 Soviet Union, 1–7, 11, 13–14, 29–30, 34–39, 44–45, 52, 61, 63–81, 82–83, 86–89, 92–93, 102–15, 117, 122–23, 139, 141–43, 148, 158, 161, 163, 178, 180, 184, 187–88, 191, 196–217, 218–34, 240, 249–50, 261–65, 278–80, 285 Academy of Sciences, 105–6, 113 computer piracy, 105 Institute for Relations with the Public of the Federal Republic of Germany, 207

T Tallinn, 103, 109, 249–50 Tallinn Institute of Cybernetics, 102–3, 107–13, 115–16 Tampere, 108, 117 Tbilisi, 229 technology transfer, 101–20, 128–30, 147 television, 71, 74–76, 125, 237–41, 247–52, 278, 280, 284, 287–88, 290 satellite, 58, 67–68, 112, 145, 220 Tepeneag, Dumitru, 166 Tito, Joseph Broz, 140, 278, 282 totalitarianism, (post–)totalitarian, 5, 67, 152, 155, 168, 219 Tõugu, Enn, 110 translations, 71, 113, 163, 186–87, 189–90, 192, 280 transnational approach, 5–12, 15 transnational family, 268–71 transnational history, 3, 6, 8–9, 25 transnational television, 237–38 Tunisia, 244, 247 Tuori, Jussi, 105–7

U Ul’ianovsk, 230 Union of Soviet Societies of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (SSOD), 197, 200, 203, 206–10. See also AllUnion Society for Cultural Relations – 324 –

Index Warsaw Pact, 264, 267 Washington, 67–68, 75, 84, 156 Wates foundation, 167 Watson, Adam, 155, 157, 160, 166 Weideli, Walter, 92 West Germany. See Federal Republic of Germany Wõrk, Ants, 108 World Festival of Youth and Students, 7, 11, 51–52 Berlin 1951, 3 Moscow 1957, 7 World Peace Council, 11, 199 World War II, 4, 7, 14–16, 25, 31–32, 66, 82–86, 92, 94, 104, 121, 123, 142–43, 155–56, 178, 180–81, 184, 192, 198, 240, 247–48, 257, 261, 278, 283–84 World Wide Web. See internet Woźniakowski, Jacek, 168 Writers and Publishers Committee for Intellectual Cooperation, 153, 162

United Kingdom, 32, 154, 157–59, 163, 187, 198, 201–3, 208, 211, 218–35, 239–40, 185, 291 Foreign office (UK), 156, 201–4, 209, 218–31, 223, 227 United Nations (UN), 75, 140, 143, 240, 262 UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), 75–76, 112 United States of America (USA), 2, 4, 30, 151, 152–59, 202, 219–21, 223, 231, 278–79, 288, 290 University Free University (Amsterdam), 34 of California, Berkeley, 32 of Chicago, 159 of Columbia, 35, 143, 154 of Debrecen, 140 of Helsinki, 111, 143–145 of Tartu, 111–12 of Technology of Helsinki, 102 of Technology of Tallinn, 103, 112 of Technology of Tampere, 108 of Tilburg, 32 of Turku, 113, 115 USSR. See Soviet Union

Y Yalta, 65, 227 YLE. See Finnish Broadcasting company youth, 8, 44–58, 68, 129, 186, 221, 264–66, 279–81 Youth leader seminars (Danish-Polish), 44, 46–51, 52–53, 56, 58 Yugoslav Radio Television, broadcast of Italian programs, 287–88 signal reception, 287 Yugoslavia, 3, 14, 34, 140, 161, 163, 277–94 split with the Soviet Union, 278 liberalization, 278–280 Ideological Commission, 279–80, 288 idea of a “third way”, 281 YYA. See Finland, Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948

V Van den Heuvel, Kees, 23, 28–35, 37–39 Van Eeghen, Ernst H., 23, 29, 35–39 Vilkuna, Kustaa, 142 Virolainen, Johannes, 143, 268 visas, 93, 200, 205 Vladislav, Jan, 155, 163, 166 Vladivostok, 227 VOKS. See All-Union Society for Cultural Relations

W Z Wagner Hansen, Richard, 46–47 Wahlen, Friedrich, 88–90, 94 Wallenborn, Leo, 242–43

Zagreb, 34, 277, 284, 290 Życie Warszawy, 92

– 325 –