MR SPENCE HISTORY
How secure was the USSR’s control over Eastern Europe,
1948–c.1989?
• Why was there opposition to Soviet control in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, and how did the USSR react to this opposition?
• How similar were events in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968?
• Why was the Berlin Wall built in 1961?
• What was the significance of Solidarity in Poland for the decline of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe?
• How far was Gorbachev personally responsible for the collapse of Soviet control over Eastern Europe?
The Communist parties were minorities everywhere. The Hungarian Communist party, for instance, had only around three thousand members when the war ended. They therefore had to depend on surveillance and the use of force to stay in power.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, the eastern European regimes turned toward stability and economic growth. This deliberate lessening of tension by the Communists made protest more possible, such as in Poland and East Germany in 1953. While Stalin's death brought some liberalisation, the states of Europe were still ruled by men appointed by the former Soviet dictator and who modelled their style on his cult of personality. By 1956, rather unexpectedly, Nikita Khrushchev had ascended to the leadership of the USSR. He met with the eastern European leaders and warned them that they faced a catastrophe if they did not reform. But most eastern European Communists resisted, concerned that reform would be interpreted by their populations merely as weakness.
Stalin attempted to move further away from Stalinism at the Communist Party’s Twentieth Congress in February 1956. It was the first since Stalin’s death, and Stalin had never bothered much with them. Khrushchev had prepared a speech that would stun the Soviet and foreign Communists assembled there. The speech was held at the end of the Congress, to a closed session of delegates and high-ranking party members who had been released from Stalin’s prisons. It was therefore dubbed “the secret speech,” but there was little doubt that Khrushchev expected it to eventually be made public. Your first job is to read the extracts from the speech and explain why it was so shocking.
In October 1956 the Soviets faced their most serious challenge to their control when people in Hungary rose up against Soviet occupation demanding political freedoms.The civil unrest eventually saw Soviet troops withdraw, before 30,000 returned in early November. The eventual clashes saw 20,000 Hungarians and 1500 Soviets killed. You will need to understand why the attempted revolution occurred, the events that transpired, why it was unsuccessful and it's wider significance.
By 1961 Berlin, trapped in stasis since the Second World War, had become the greatest challenge to the new East German state (GDR). By 1961 the exodus from East to West through the city meant that East Germany had almost ceased to function. Under intense pressure from the GDR leader, Walter Ulbricht, and underestimating Kennedy, Khrushchev confronted the new president about the issue at the 1961 Vienna conference. The move was self defeating as it went against the new Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence and neither leader wanted a stand off over Berlin. But Khrushchev had to solve the East German emigration problem and Kennedy had to show his commitment to the West German government and the NATO alliance. The feared confrontation never occurred, with Khrushchev overseeing the building of a wall between the two Berlins in August, well before the December ultimatum. Barbed wire went up along the dividing line separating the two parts of Berlin. The subway tunnels were quickly blocked off. The East German police shot at those who dared to cross. The city of Berlin had again become a victim of the Cold War. And this time its division remained permanent. But erecting the Berlin Wall signaled East Bloc weakness, not strength. Khrushchev was exultant that he had solved the migration crisis without a war, but the wall was a propaganda disaster. There was a tense showdown at Checkpoint Charlie in October, but ultimately both sides accepted each others European sphere of influence.
Building of the Berlin Wall
In 1964 Khrushchev was ousted as Soviet Premier in what amounted to a palace coup. He was replaced by the Ukrainian mining expert, Leonid Brezhnev. Too young to participate in the revolution, Brezhnev had joined the party in the 1920s to advance his career and aided by exemplary military service in the Second World War and an ability to organise industry he became a Khrushchev prodigy. The presidium selected him to replace his benefactor as he was seen as more collegial and a safer, stable pair of hands to guide the USSR. This belief turned out to be true as the Soviet economy grew at around 2.5% a year, living conditions and relations with the west improved, and social disturbances almost disappeared.
In Eastern Europe to, people became accustomed to life under Communism along with its incremental improvements to their living standards. However, those in Eastern Europe were more aware of the most sustained and extreme economic growth that was taking place not just in Western Europe, but also previously peripheral countries like Spain, Greece and Turkey. Seeing themsleves fall materially behind, some eastern European Communists queried what the future would hold for their parties. In Czechoslovakia, which had a strong domestic Communist tradition that went back much further than the 1948 coup, younger party leaders wanted to develop a Communist state that was more in line with popular priorities than had been the case before. These questions would trigger what has become known as the Prague Spring. A brief period of liberalisation in mid-1968 that was suppressed by Brezhnev and the other Warsaw Pact nations in August that year.
Amidst deteriorating economic conditions in Poland, the Solidarity emerged in 1980 at the Gdansk shipyard. Initially focussed on redressing declining working and living standards at the dockyard, the Solidarity morphed into a national anti-government movement of nearly ten million members. Caught off guard, the premier, Stanislaw Kania, conceded to many of the Solidarity's demands, thereby acknowledging it as a legitimate institution. The success of the Solidarity illustrated the fallibility of the Brezhnev doctrine. Although, the Warsaw Pact managed to replace Kania with the hardliner General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Moscow was clear that they would not intervene. Jaruzelksi eventually silenced the Solidarity through martial law and mass arrests. Howerever, his control remained tenuous. It was apparent to all that the peoples sympathies remained with the Solidarity and not the regime.
Homework:
a) Describe the economic crisis facing the Polish government by 1980. (4)
b) Why was the Brezhnev Doctrine introduced? (6)
c) ‘The inspiration provided by Solidarity was more important in bringing about the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe than the policies of Gorbachev.’ How far do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer.
The Polish Solidarity
At the beginning of the 1980s Communist governments were under pressure across the Warsaw Pact. Economic growth was slowing. A decline in oil prices sharply reduced the Soviet state’s foreign income. The high degree of centralization in planning hobbled the economy. European states had borrowed too much from the West and their exports struggled to compete with those from the booming Asia-Pacific region. Corruption, and drunkenness permeated the Soviet government. While no Soviet leader thought that the system they had inherited needed fundamental change, most were aware that it needed reform. Military expenditure was growing too quickly, and the Soviet Union supported too many Third World states and movements that were becoming accustomed to living off Moscow’s largesse. But while questions abounded, few had any answers. And even the questions could not be posed too loudly. The Soviet Union was a dictatorship, and the currency for promotion was loyalty.
Greater freedom of travel following the 1977 Helsinki accords revealed to many in Eastern Europe how far they had fallen behind, not just the North West European nations, but also Portugal, Spain and Greece who were booming due to their inclusion in the European Union. The US and Britain also enjoyed sustained economic growth, fueled by deregulation and a burgeoning information technology industry. Only 4% of the Soviet Union's GNP was in foreign trade, and the world appeared to be moving in a direction it was incapable of participating in. Its unsuccessful war in Afghanistan had also made it a global pariah. So in 1985, when the 54 year old Mikhail Gorbachev took power, he faced massive problems. His belief that Soviet society needed to be invigorated through the strict oversight of a more flexible Communist Party eventually saw the collapse of Communism in the Warsaw Pact nations in 1989 and the USSR in 1991.
