Communist Rule in Eastern Europe - Assignment Example

Why Did Eastern Europe Fall Under Communist Rule In The First Place? The Soviet Union almost conquered the Eastern European nations including part ofthe Nazi Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia by the end of the Second World War. The military occupation by the Soviet Union was, undoubtedly, motivated by the spread of communism and socialism and the ultimate goal of the Soviet Union was to dominate the whole of Europe. The Eastern Europe conquests were aimed at occupying the areas that were allied to the former Nazi Germany, propagating socialism and protecting the nation and its allies from potential capitalist oppression, providing assistance to the flourishing communist parties in central Europe and ensuring dictatorship of the proletariat in the conquered nations. In fact, most of the East European nations were willing to be part of the communist regime as they sought better security, protection and peace under the Soviet Union. This paper seeks to explore the various reasons and favourable conditions that contributed to Communist rule in Eastern Europe. Many of the Eastern European nations that suffered under Nazi occupation saw communism “as the best safeguard against the possibility of a revival of fascism in the future”; besides, “many of the Eastern European countries were liberated from Nazi Germany by the Russians” and “countries like Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary were in extreme financial hardship and communist policies would definitely have been attractive to them” (Communism after 1945: Background 2010). Similarly, many of the Eastern European countries expected a stable government under the Soviet governance which would make them powerful economically and politically. In the same way the Soviet forces were successful in developing a popular sentiment for socialism and communism (which was brought out by the demolition of Nazi and Fascist forces) in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland and they were immensely assisted by socialist movements such as the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the Hungarian Working Peoples Party, the Romanian Workers Party and the Polish United Workers Party in these countries. Brown (2010), in this respect, states that the Eastern European nations might have been attracted by the six essential defining characteristics that governed communism: “its political organisation: the monopoly of power of a Communist party and rigid discipline and strict hierarchy within that party”, “its centralised, command economy (with prices and output targets fixed administratively) and state ownership of the means of production”, “the sense of belonging to an international Communist movement greater than the sum of its parts and the aspiration to build ‘communism’, the classless, stateless society of the future” (Brown 2010). Ethnicity has played a pivotal role in the rise of communism in the Eastern European nations. The weak ethnic groups in these nations considered communism as a source of power to them. Pilon (1992) writes about the misrule of the feudal landlords in Eastern Europe as opposed to the more forward looking monarchs in the West. Quoting Engels, the author states that the ordinary people of the area “were condemned to be inarticulate, anonymous, [and] silent” (Pilon 1992, p. 38). Later on attempts at nationalization on the basis of ethnicity and history alienated the minority groups living there. For example, Hungary changed its official language to Magyar from Latin in 1833. This alienation of ethnic minorities made them turn to communism. Polin states that in case where these minorities had traditional ties with Russia, the percentage of followers were much higher. While oppression of the feudal class was the primary reason for countries in Eastern Europe to come under communist rule, the ruling communist party in the erstwhile Czechoslovakia had an entirely different support, namely the Church. According to Abrams, there were two major reasons for this stand. The communists had the control of land that was taken from German occupation (in the country) after the defeat of Hitler and his Axis powers. With so much land under the control of the Communists, the Church had no option but to support them. A second more compelling reason was that many within the clergy were sympathetic or supportive of the communist ideology. Communist groups found their way even at the helm of the Church’s institutions and administration. Successive changes during the War years saw the appointment of a strong Communist ally and sympathiser as the Bishop of Prague. Abrams observes how the Bishop of Prague, the most important of the church’s four dioceses, when he died during the War “was replaced by Miraslov Novak, a representative of a younger, more progressive generation and a staunch ally of the Communist party” (Abrams 2005, p. 80) Jacobson is of the view that Communist governments often used the tool of anti-Semitism in order to propagate their ideology. It is a well-known fact that this attitude against the Jews had been used in Europe even earlier. During the last decade of Stalin’s life in the mid 1940s and early 1950s, “abundant use was made of anti-Semitism, most of it overt and virulent, in the USSR proper, as well as in the newly established Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe (Friedberg 1972, p. 33) In other words, the party used deep-rooted anti-Jew sentiment in order to propagate and grow in Eastern Europe. Similarly, the communist regime convinced its allies that “no Communist government could survive in Eastern Europe without Russian backing”; on the other hand, the Russians ensured the doctrinal loyalty of their East-European comrades by moving “swiftly to establish more reliable controls over the Satellites by infiltrating Russian agents directly into their police and military organization” (Daniels 1986, xx-xxi). Another factor that prompted the Eastern nations were the privileges and protection offered by the Soviet Union to its subordinates. As Rakowska-Harmstone (1984) suggests the Eastern Europe was “not only an imperialistic extension of the Soviet Union, it is also an extension of the Soviet Union’s social system” (Rakowska-Harmstone 1984, p. 46). As such, these nations were beneficiaries of the Soviet protection on the one hand whereas they had to subject themselves to Soviet domination. The Soviet Union’s primary aim was to universalize communism through the fallen Eastern nations and therefore any attempt to overthrow the communist regime in the Eastern Europe was considered to be threat to the Soviet system itself. The communist takeovers of the Eastern European nations were achieved step by step and as Hugh Seton Watson observes these takeovers were characterized by three stages: “a general coalition of left-wing, anti-fascist forces; a bogus coalition in which the communists neutralised those in other parties who were not willing to accept communist supremacy; and finally, complete communist domination, frequently exercised in a new party formed by the fusion of communist and other leftist groups” (Crampton 1994, p. 211). Social organizations such as trade unions, women’s and youth associations, professional bodies, and Soviet friendship societies exerted great pressure on the Eastern Europeans in the first and second stages of Soviet takeovers. In all these nations the important sections of the economy were regulated and controlled by soviet advisors who were placed in government institutions such as the army and the police. The superior military power of the Soviet Union was partly instrumental for its domination in the Eastern Europe. The small communist parties of Romania and Hungary succeeded due to the assistance of the powerful Red Army of the Soviet Union. R. J. Crampton observes how the soviet forces offered ‘massive material and psychological support to local communities’ and how the Red Army, soon after the war, won the favour of the local communists “by supplying them with vehicles, petrol paper, typewriters, and other scarce items necessary for the carrying out of political activities” (Crampton 1994, p. 213). Similarly, the failure of capitalism and subsequent depression in the West made the Eastern European nations to believe in the future prospect of socialism; the war had caused great destruction to the economies of these nations and they had to depend on the Soviet for renewal and restructuring. The communist rule was not limited to political repression alone; efforts were taken by the communist regimes to satisfy the demands of the working class in the conquered nations. As McDermott & Stibbe (2006) point out, “in the Post-Stalin era, considerable efforts were made to build a ‘socialist consumerism’ and leisure industries, which would satisfy the demands of workers for higher living standards and improved quality of goods and services in the shops, albeit combined with continued central control of production and distribution” (McDermott & Stibbe 2006, p. 3). As a result, the peasants and the working class in the Eastern Europe favoured communist rule to capitalism. Efforts were also made by the Soviet Union to guild a Soviet-style economic system in the conquered Eastern European nations; in Bulgaria the industries were nationalized, the independent banks were incorporated into the national system and private firms were confiscated (Frucht 2005, p. 829). In conquering the Eastern European nations, the Communist party maintained and promoted Communist Youth movements in these nations and the military actions conducted by the Communist guerrilla units were given wide level publicity. This is very well recorded by Rakowska-Harmstone (1984) when the author purports that throughout the summer 1942 the “Communist guerrilla units conducted military actions that they extensively publicized and that seem to have been well received by the people” (Rakowska-Harmstone 1984, p. 215). Similarly, the party newspaper Zeri i popullit was extensively used for communist propaganda. To conclude, it can be stated that after the Second World War the political and economic conditions were favourable for the Soviet forces to establish their dominion over the Eastern European nations. The sufferings, ill treatments and the continuous wars made by the Fascists and the Nazis had actually shaken the economic, political and military power of these nations and they needed a strong power like Soviet Union to restructure and rebuild the nation. Similarly, most of these countries were attracted by the communist socialist policies and its theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and communist youth movements and other socialist movements enhanced public opinion in favour of communism. Even though, communism was short lived in many of these nations the rapid spread of communism in the Eastern Europe was so bewildering and unexpected. References Abrams, B.F 2005, The struggle for the soul of the nation: Czech culture and the rise of communism, Harvard Cold War studies book series, Annotated Edition: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Brown, Archie 2010, Signposts: Why did Communism end when it did?, History Today, Viewed 21 March 2010, < http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=33880&amid=30306005>. Communism after 1945: Background 2010, Red Apple Education Ltd, Viewed 21 March 2010, < http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-56_u-490_t-1333_c-5122/communism-after-1945-background/tas/communism-after-1945-background/australia-after-1945/the-spread-of-communism-after-world-war-ii>. Crampton, R.J 1994, Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, Illustrated Edition: Routledge. Daniels, R.V 1986, A documentary history of communism, Volume 2, 2nd Revised Edition: I.B.Tauris, 1986. Friedberg, M 1972, “Anti-Semitism as a Policy Tool, in the Soviet Bloc”. In Soviet communism and the socialist vision, Volume 1 of New politics books. Ed. Julius Jacobson, HOEPLI EDITORE. Frucht , R 2005, Eastern Europe: an introduction to the people, lands, and culture, Vol.1, Illustrated Edition: ABC-CLIO. McDermott, K & Stibbe, M 2006, Revolution and resistance in Eastern Europe: challenges to communist rule, Revised Edition: Berg Publishers. Pilon, J.G 1992, The bloody flag: post-communist nationalism in eastern Europe : spotlight on Romania, Issue 16 of Studies in social philosophy & policy, Volume 16 of U.S.-Third World Policy Perspectives, Transaction Publishers. Rakowska-Harmstone, T 1984, Communism in Eastern Europe, 2nd Illustrated Edition: Indiana University Press. Read More