Russia and Eastern Europe

1. Introduction

The emergence of communist Russia was the most significant event in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. After 1945, much of East Europe fell to Soviet dominance. The Russian Revolution also served as a model for communist movements in China and Cuba. After World War II, the Soviet Union emerged as one of the two great world powers. Russian history in the 20th century divides into four subperiods, including the revolution and its aftermath, 1917-28; Stalinism, isolation, and the new Soviet Empire, 1928-53; consolidation and superpower status, 1953-85; and dissolution of the communist system from 1985 onward.

2. The Russian Revolution



1. Introduction

Riots began in March 1917 in St. Petersburg protesting poor conditions and demanding a new political regime. Councils of workers, or soviets, took over the city. Unable to suppress the disorder, the tsar abdicated.

2. Liberalism to Communism

The first stage of the Russian Revolution was led by liberals, such as Alexander Kerensky, who wanted to establish parliamentary government. Lack of a substantial middle class, unwillingness to enact land reform, and devotion to continuation of World War I caused the liberal regime to lose support. In November of 1917, a second revolution unseated the liberal government and brought the Bolsheviks to power under the leadership of Lenin. Lenin centralized his power in the soviets. The Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from World War I, even at the cost of land losses in western Russia. The remaining Allies regarded the Bolshevik government as dangerous, excluded them from the Versailles peace conference, and carved new nations from formerly Russian lands.

The first election held following the November revolution returned a parliament in which the Social Revolutionary party, not the Bolsheviks, held a majority. Lenin shut down the parliament and replaced it with a Congress of Soviets, thus establishing a Bolshevik monopoly on political action. The Communist party controlled Soviet politics until 1989. The revolution produced foreign opposition and internal unrest. Britain, France, the United States, and Japan all attempted to intervene in Russia to overthrow the Bolsheviks, but they failed. Internal efforts to oust the Communists and reverse the process of nationalization of economic resources created a civil war.

3. Stabilization of the New Regime

The creation of the Red Army under Leon Trotsky and restoration of some order in the economy through the New Economic Policy reduced resistance to Communist rule. The NEP permitted some market freedom for both small businesses and peasants. In 1923, a new constitution established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which remained under the domination of ethnic Russians. Separate republics were subject to the national Communist party and the government remained strongly centralized. Universal suffrage elected the Supreme Soviet, but only Communist party members were allowed to stand for office. The parliament simply ratified decisions reached in the party's executive committees.

Although a new constitution in the 1930s promised human rights, the Communist regime represented a return to absolute autocracy. When Lenin died in 1924, a power struggle ensued for control of the Communist party and the government. Joseph Stalin emerged as Lenin's successor. Stalin was more devoted to national development than the spread of international communism. Stalin concentrated on building "socialism in one country." Rival political leaders were destroyed as Stalin created a stranglehold on political power. The Russian Revolution had swept away the tsar and the aristocracy. The Bolsheviks created a new political and economic reality for Russia.

3. Building Soviet Society



1. Introduction

Immediately after Lenin's death, there was more openness in the Communist party than thereafter. New groups, workers, and women were able to have some voice in the direction of the revolution. Conceptions of family changed, but, by the 1930s, efforts to protect the family structure were enacted. One key to the spirit of experimentation was the new education system that improved literacy and reshaped popular culture.

2. Stalinism

As Joseph Stalin was able to gain control of the Communist apparatus, the process of experimentation came to an end. Stalin wished to accelerate the process of nationalization temporarily halted by the NEP. Stalin wished to establish an industrialized society under governmental control without private initiative or capitalization. Even agriculture was to be subjected to the goals of industrialization.

3. Centralized Economic Policies

Stalin ordered the collectivization of agriculture in 1928. Large, state-run farms replaced individual family units. Collectivization permitted government capitalization and firmer control over the peasant population. When the wealthier peasants, or kulaks, resisted, Stalin ordered them killed or deported. The Communists imposed collectivization by force. Government-run farms produced little incentive on the part of the peasantry, and production suffered.

Collectivization did siphon capital and labor out of agriculture into industrialization. To foster industrialization, Stalin created a state planning commission and a series of five-year plans. Government capitalized infrastructure and industrialization. The focus was entirely on heavy industry, not consumer production. State planning did reduce dependence on markets, but also created bottlenecks and waste. Despite problems, Russian industrialization under the five-year plans was rapid.

4. Toward an Industrial Society

Soviet industrialization shared some aspects with Western developments. Urbanization rapidly increased, factory management of labor was strict, and welfare services developed over time.

Standards of living remained low, as industrialization produced few consumer products. The entire process was state-directed, and there was no mechanism to air worker grievances.

5. Totalitarian Rule

Stalin created a totalitarian state through the creation of a state police apparatus and the party. Potential rivals were ruthlessly eliminated. Dissemination of information was carefully controlled. Stalin's regime was repressive. His elimination of many military officials weakened the Soviet Union's ability to respond to external threats, particularly the rising challenge of Nazi Germany. His emphasis on internal development left the Soviet Union without allies or much of a foreign policy.

Hitler's rise necessitated a change to a more aggressive foreign policy. When Britain and France failed to support Stalin's initiatives in Spain, he signed a pact with Hitler in 1939. The alliance with Hitler was only a temporary respite. In 1941, the German assault on Soviet territory brought Stalin into an alliance with Britain and the United States. Soviet industrialization and the military eventually drove back the German invaders, but the costs in human loss were enormous. The advance of the Red Army at the end of World War II permitted the Soviet Union to establish a position of dominance in Eastern Europe.

4. The Soviet Union as a Superpower



1. Introduction

Following 1945, the Soviet Union wished to regain the tsarist boundaries and to continue playing a major role in European diplomacy. Industrialization and success in the war elevated the Soviet Union to the status of superpower along with its primary rival, the United States. Soviet participation at the very end of the war in campaigns against the Japanese also gave the Soviets a foothold in Asian islands and in North Korea. Soviet support for communist movements in China and Southeast Asia also elevated their role in that part of the world. Alliance with Cuba in Latin America and with some nations in the Middle East helped to construct the bipolar world divided between superpowers.

2. The New Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe

The clearest extension of Soviet influence was in East Europe, a development that helped start the cold war. Many of the East European nations were the creation of the negotiations that ended World War I. They were politically unstable and retained largely agricultural economies. Only in Czechoslovakia did industrialization and urbanization produce the basis for parliamentary democracy. Much of Eastern Europe fell to the Nazi advance after 1939. Some other nations chose to ally with Germany. The Red Army drove the Germans from Eastern Europe and became a new occupation force. Communist parties within the technically independent nations crushed opposition and became part of the Soviet bloc. Only three nations were able to escape dominance: Albania, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Soviet regimes removed possible rivals, established mass education and propaganda systems, collectivized agriculture, and began heavy industrialization.

Nations of East Europe became part of the Warsaw Pact to counterbalance the U.S.-oriented NATO. There was some resistance to overt Soviet control. East German workers rioted in 1953, but were quickly suppressed. To halt emigration, the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 and the border between Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe and the West was marked by barbed wire.

After Stalin's death, more liberal communist leaders arose in Hungary and Poland. Soviet response varied. The Soviet Union supported new leadership in Poland and some relaxation of controls, but crushed the reform government of Hungary. In general, post-Stalin governments in Eastern Europe were granted greater freedom in economic planning and cultural development. Limits to liberalization were demonstrated in 1968, when the Soviet Union expelled a reform government in Czechoslovakia. The Polish army took over the state during the late 1970s to prevent the growing influence of Solidarity, an independent labor movement. As in Russia, Soviet domination in Eastern Europe removed the aristocracy and introduced an industrialized economy. Cultural ties with the West were weakened.

3. Evolution of Domestic Policies

The Stalinist sense of nationalism continued into the cold war in opposition to the United States. Fear of U.S. aggression led many to consent to continued autocracy. Support for the government permitted relatively rapid recovery from the devastation of World War II and facilitated Stalin's attempts to retain isolation from the West. The party bureaucracy continued to direct the economy, systems of education, welfare, and the secret police from Moscow. Party membership was kept intentionally low to emphasize the elite nature of the Soviet command structure. The party itself was dominated by the Politburo, whose members also held ministries and military positions. Decision-making was left in the hands of a chosen few members of the party, then filtered down to subordinates. Innovation, to say nothing of criticism, was stifled. Electoral contests or open parliamentarianism was clearly avoided, but the Supreme Soviet had no legislative power.

4. Soviet Culture: Promoting New Beliefs

The Communist party also had a cultural agenda. The basis of Soviet culture was a pervasive secularism designed to glorify the functions of the state. The Orthodox Church was forbidden to offer instruction to the young, restricting active Church membership to the elderly. The Jewish minority was also discriminated against. The state abandoned emulation of Western artistic styles in favor of “socialist realism,” which glorified the lives of soldiers, workers, and peasants. Socialist realism spread to East Europe in the postwar years. Soviet literary forms remained more diverse and often earned censorship from the government. The Soviet academy also emphasized the sciences and social sciences. Urged to reject Western theories, Soviet scientists who served government ideology were rewarded through state funding. Technological advances in the postwar years were impressive.

5. Economy and Society

Manufacturing and industrialization increased rapidly after 1920. There were some features of Soviet industrialization that differed from the West. In the Soviet Union, the government controlled all aspects of the economy. There was virtually no emphasis on the production of consumer goods. Despite the absence of consumer products, standards of living did improve.

The communist system also failed to develop a thriving agricultural sector. In other ways, the Soviet economy was similar to the West. Work rhythms and leisure practices tended to be similar. Eastern European social structures also began to more closely resemble those of the West. Urban society was divided between workers and managers. The nuclear family became the primary social unit within the Soviet Union. Birth rates dropped until they approximated those of the West. Most Soviet women worked, and remaining in the home was less common in the East. Family expectations with respect to education and acquisition of goods shared some common goals with Western counterparts.

6. De-Stalinization

The rigid government system began to loosen after Stalin's death in 1953. It was not until 1956 that a new leader, Nikita Khrushchev, emerged. Khrushchev attacked Stalin for his autocracy, theoretical dogma, brutality, and arbitrary government. While few institutional changes were made, more political opposition was visible. Party control and centralized economic planning continued to be features of the Soviet government. Agricultural failures in Siberia led to Khrushchev's political demise.

Following de-Stalinization and Khrushchev's fall, little innovation appeared in the Soviet economy or government. The intensity of the cold war, which reached its peak during the Cuban missile crisis under Khrushchev, lessened under subsequent Soviet leaders. Soviet technological advances were reflected in the launch of the first space satellite, Sputnik. In both the space and the arms race, the Soviet Union remained competitive with the U.S. Foreign policy rifts with China after 1950 and growing dissidence among minorities within the Soviet Union foretold serious problems. The invasion of Afghanistan during the 1970s proved a costly disaster. Social problems and the continued lack of consumer products began to seriously handicap the economy of the Soviet Union, and industrial production began to lag behind the West.

5. The Explosion of the 1980s and 1990s



1. Introduction

Economic disruption forced political changes that led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union after 1985.

2. Economic Stagnation

Environmental deterioration contributed to a declining sense of well-being in East Europe and the Soviet Union. Industrial production began to slip as a result of poor worker morale and continued central planning. As production dropped, the percentage of gross national product devoted to the military reached unacceptable proportions.

3. Reform and Agitation

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev began to dismantle some of the most obvious flaws of the centralized state and economy. The new leader acted to reduce nuclear armaments and ended the war in Afghanistan. Internally, the new policy of glasnost was intended to provide a more open atmosphere, in which criticism of the government would be somewhat tolerated. While Gorbachev hoped to introduce some Western management techniques, he continued to be critical of Western culture and politics. With some misgivings, Gorbachev opened the Soviet economy to Western investment and limited trade. Although Gorbachev's reforms failed to stimulate the economy, they did open markets to more private initiative. The Soviet Union did reduce expenditures on the military and attempted to redirect funds into production of consumer goods.

A new Soviet constitution in 1988 granted some powers to a new parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies. Parties other than the Communists began to develop. In 1990, Gorbachev was elected to the newly powerful position of President of the Soviet Union. After 1988, ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union began to agitate for national self- determination. By 1991, Georgia and Lithuania voted for independence.

4. Dismantling the Soviet Empire

As the Soviet military power weakened, states in East Europe moved toward independence. Bulgaria moved away from communism in 1987 and 1989. Hungary installed a noncommunist government in 1988. In Poland, Solidarity, the noncommunist labor movement, became the primary political voice after 1988. East Germany expelled its communist government in 1989 and took down the Berlin Wall in 1990. By the end of the same year, unification between East and West Germany was completed. Czechoslovakia moved away from communism in 1989. Of all the independence movements, only the ouster of the Romanian leadership led to violence. Even within the newly independent nations of East Europe, ethnic violence was common. Slow economic growth and political indecision led to the reestablishment of communist governments in Poland and Hungary by 1994. Both Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin, withdrew Soviet troops and allowed political self-determination in East Europe.

5. Shocks in 1991: The End of the Soviet Union

An attempted coup against Gorbachev's government failed in 1991, as popular demonstrations supported the democratic trend within the Soviet Union. Sensing the weakness within the central government, ethnic minorities moved toward independence in the Baltic republics, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Muslim regions of central Asia. The Soviet Union ceased to exist and was replaced by a loose confederation of republics, the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Boris Yeltsin replaced Gorbachev as Russian president in the final stages of the process. As in East Europe, the new republics were devastated by internal ethnic violence. Yeltsin himself was forced to suppress conservative elements within the Russian parliament, but was unable to establish a firm basis for continued democratic government. In the aftermath of centralized planning, the Russian economy remained weak. There was little progress in producing consumer goods or in creating sufficient jobs.

6. Conclusion: What Next?

Recent trends in Russian history demonstrate that Russia and East Europe had changed relatively little in some ways during the twentieth century. Ethnic differences continue to divide the new nations of the post-Soviet era. Religion continued to remain a vital force, despite its relegation to insignificance under the Soviets. Despite the establishment of a totalitarian state for much of the century, Russia remained attracted to Western culture, including the concepts of political liberty and a market economy. Russian aggression during the twentieth century was actually moderate.

Some aspects of the Soviet Union have been retained in East Europe. Despite reforms, the new Russian government continues to stress the significance of strong, central authority. Democracy has not been well-established. Many of the new nations wish to continue the concept of a welfare state that typified the communist governments and to attack individualism associated with Western culture.