Return to diversity: a political history of East Central Europe since World War II 9780195334746, 9780195334753

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RETURN to DIVERSITY

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RETURN to A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II FOURTH EDITION

Joseph Rothschild Late, Columbia University

Nancy M. Wingfield Northern Illinois University

New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2008

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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rothschild, Joseph. Return to diversity: a political history of East Central Europe since World War II / Joseph Rothschild, Nancy M. Wingfield. — 4th ed.

p.cm. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-533474-6 — ISBN 978-0-19-533475-3 (pbk.)

1. Europe, Eastern — History — 1945— I. Wingfield, Nancy M. (Nancy Meriwether) IT. Title.

DJK50.R67 2008

947’ .0009045—dce22 2007010032 Printing number: 9 8 765432 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To Sir William Deakin

and to the memories of Henry L. Roberts and Hugh Seton-Watson, teachers who introduced me to the study of East Central Europe. —]. R.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. MILAN KUNDERA

Preface to the Fourth Edition viit Preface to the Third Edition ix Preface to the Second Edition x Preface to the First Edition xi

1. TheInterwar Background 1

2. World War II 19 3. The Communists Come to Power 61 4. The Dialectics of Stalinism and Titoism 101 5. The Revenge of the Repressed: East Central Europe Reasserts Itself 118

6. APrecarious Stalemate 153 7. The Various Endgames 181

8. The Return to Europe 211 Notes 245 Suggested Readings 257

Index 264

vu

PREPAGE- TO. LEE

FOURTH EDITION

It has been almost two decades since Return to Diversity was first published, and its interpretative framework remains persuasive. In the fourth edition, I have updated earlier chapters of the book. There has been some reinterpretation in several of the chapters. These changes in analysis reflect greater access to archives in East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. This volume includes a thoroughly revised eighth chapter, now titled “The Return to Europe.” In addition to the problems of political transition from Communism since 1989, this chapter examines ongoing ethnonational tension in the western Balkans, uneven economic development, and issues of European integration. Once again, I have significantly expanded and updated the Suggested Readings to include some of the important new research on the region. I would like to thank Brad Abrams, Hugh Agnew, Melissa Bokovoy, Chad Bryant, Paul Hanebrink, Sally Kent, Charles King, Carol Leff, Peter Mentzel, and Milada Vachudova for their help in the preparation of the revised and expanded fourth edition of Return to Diversity. Ted Weeks read and commented on the entire manuscript. My debt to him is great.

DeKalb, Illinois N. M. W.

March 2007

Vill

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

In his preface to the second edition of Return to Diversity, Joseph Rothschild envisioned a book on postcommunist East Central Europe to complete a trilogy on the modern history of the region. These plans, however, have fallen victim to his failing health. Because Return to Diversity continues to stand up well to the test of time, Oxford University Press has chosen to publish a third edition. In this edition, I have occasionally updated earlier chapters of the book, and there has been some analytical reinterpretation in Chapter 7, “The Various Endgames.” A new chapter, “The Postcommunist Era,” replaces the Epilogue of the second edition. It examines the problems of political transition from Communism in the decade since 1989. In addition, I have significantly expanded the Suggested Readings to include some of the important new research on the region. This wealth of recent publications reflects the increased interest in East Central Europe since the fall of Communism. It is a pleasure to recognize the people who have helped me prepare the third edition of Return to Diversity: Melissa Bokovoy, Maria Bucur, David Crowe, Istvan Deak, Rick Frucht, Christine Holden, Charlie Ingrao, Mills Kelly, Padraic Kenney, Jim Niessen, Peter Mentzel, Nick Miller, Elaine Spencer, and Teresa Tickle. | would also like to thank Todd Huebner for designing the maps and Stacie Caminos and Gioia Stevens, my editors at Oxford, for their advice.

DeKalb, Illinois N. M. W. February 1999

1X

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The first edition of this book was published early in 1989—that annus mirabilis of East Central European political history—the year that saw the effective repudiation of Communism by the peoples of the Soviet bloc. Hence a revision has become appropriate and is presented herewith. Nevertheless, I do permit myself to claim that the book’s first five chapters

have stood up very well since 1989, requiring only some grammatical and occasional factual updating in this edition, but no extensive structural revision or analytical reinterpretation. I am also gratified to note that my much criticized decision to omit in-depth coverage of East Germany has been vindicated by history, as that soi-disant state has now vanished from the map of Europe. Chapter 6 has been rethought, recast, and restructured. Chapter 7 (“The Various Endgames”) is entirely new, as is the Epilogue. They relate the termination of Communism in each of the area’s countries, analyze the motors of this process in the area as a whole, and speculate about the problematics of the transition to postcommunism. If granted sufficient longevity and health, | would like, in due course, to write a successor book on postcommunist East Central Europe, as an exercise both in contemporary history and in the political-science specialization of systemic transitions. That book would, in effect, round out a trilogy consisting of my East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (University of Washington Press, 1974), the present volume, and the contemplated one.

New York J. R.

January 1993

X

PREPAC EDO) TIE FIRST EDITION

The main challenge in writing a basic general survey such as I attempt here is distillation. And distillation inevitably entails the omission or condensation of material that specialists would prefer to include or to develop. But a basic book cannot be a comprehensive chronology, nor a heavily footnoted research monograph, nor a deeply searching analysis. While I, too, regret the absence from the following pages of many interesting episodes, important personalities, and suggestive arguments that I would have liked to include, I must nevertheless ask the reader to judge this volume by the criteria that are appropriate to its own genre—that of a general survey—and not by standards alien to it. A word is in order as to why this book does not include a consolidated analysis of the political history of East Germany comparable to my extended probing into those of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania,

Bulgaria, and Albania. The (East) German Democratic Republic is indeed a state, but it is not a nation and is less than half a country. Before World War II it was not even a state (unlike my other cases), but simply a part of Germany

and hence not in East Central Europe. Since I view this book as a continuation of my East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (1974), those are

valid reasons for omitting East Germany here. More important, however, is the consideration that East German domestic and foreign politics are so overwhelmingly a part and a function of “the question of divided Germany” on the Great Power agenda, that any serious effort on my part to explore them in this book would have burst its perimeters and muddied my professional waters. Greece, in turn, is omitted because it is essentially a Mediterranean, not an East Central European, country in its cultural, economic, and political perspectives and because it was not subsumed into the Communist orbit after World War II. Analogous reasons account for the omission of Austria. Finally, the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are left out because their brief interwar period of formal independence did not survive World War II.

It is conventional for the author of a professional book to list a number of colleagues who have helpfully read all or parts of the prepublication manuscript, to thank them, and to avow a pious acknowledgment that any x1

XI Return to Diversity residual flaws and errors are nevertheless the author’s own responsibility and are not to be imputed to these readers. Deeming this convention to be saccharine and somewhat hypocritical, | do not abide by it. My expressions of public, and very sincere, gratitude are here reserved for my supportive family; my splendid typist, Audrey McInerney; and the helpful officers of two valued institutions who invited, encouraged, and generously subsidized my work: Drs. Enid C. B. Schoettle and Paul Balaran of the International Division of The Ford Foundation and Dr. Jason H. Parker of the American

New York Peds Council of Learned Societies.

January 1988

RETURN to DIVERSITY

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