ÎÁÙÅÑÒÂÎ "ÅÂÐÅÉÑÊÎÅ ÍÀÑËÅÄÈÅ"

© Brandeis University
Author: Dr. Antony Polonsky

EAST EUROPEAN GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Description of the Course

The Revolution of 1989, which saw the end of communism in East-central Europe, was an event which will have consequences similar to the transformations initiated in 1789, 1815, 1914 and 1945. The collapse of communist regimes first in this area and then in the former Soviet Union has brought to an end a period in which the liberal democratic system, based on the market economy and pluralist politics in which government by consent was ensured by the rule of law, was challenged ideologically from the right and from the left. This challenge, which began with the emergence of right-radical movements in the 1880s and with the growth of revolutionary socialism before 1914, assumed a large and threatening character as a result of the disruption occasioned by the first world war and the attendant social and political unrest. The challenge from the right in the form of fascism was defeated after the loss of fifty million lives in 1945. The totalitarian threat from the Soviet system, which became increasingly less an ideological challenge and a call to revolution and more the conflict between geo-political systems, only finally came to an end as a result of the political transformation of East-central Europe and the former Soviet Union since 1989. This course will examine the rise and fall of Soviet hegemony in seven countries, Poland, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria and will investigate both domestic politics as well as the international relations of these countries. Beginning with the inter-war years, the course will cover the sovietization of the area, the Stalinist political and social system, the phase of real socialism and post-1989 developments. Throughout, special emphasis will be devoted to the experience of the Jewish communities in the various countries of the area.

Required Reading

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, Routledge, London and New York, 1994.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, Blackwells, 1993.
  3. Irena Grudzinska-Gross The Art of Solidarity
  4. Vaclav Havel The Power of the Powerless, M. E.Sharpe, New York, 1985.
  5. Heda Kovaly Under a Cruel Star, Horizon Press, New York, 1973.
  6. Timothy Garton-Ash We The People. The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague, Granta Books, Cambridge, England, 1990.

Recommended Reading

  1. Antony Polonsky The Little Dictators: The History of Eastern Europe since 1918, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.
  2. Joseph Rothschild Return to Diversity: A Political History of East-Central Europe since World War II, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989.
  3. Martin McCauley (ed.) Communist Power in Europe 1944-1949,
  4. Macmillan, London, 1977.
  5. Antony Polonsky (ed.) From Shtetl to Socialism: Studies from Polin, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford, 1993.
  6. Paul Lendvai Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, Macdonald, London, 1971.

 Topics

Introduction

Politics in Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 1-209.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp. 1-56.
  3. Timothy Garton-Ash We The People. The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague. The Experience of War and the Communist Takeovers.
  4. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 211-254.
  5. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp. 57-74.
  6. Martin McCauley (ed.) Communist Power in Europe 1944-1949, pp. 40-149.

The Creation of the Stalinist System

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 240-274.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp. 75-103.

The Crisis of the Stalinist System

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 275-303.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp. 104-126.

The Crisis of 1968 and its Consequences

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 307-341.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp. 127-156.
  3. Vaclav Havel The Power of the Powerless, pp.23-96.

The Rise and Fall of Solidarity, 1976-81

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp. 345-389.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp. 157-223.

 East Central Europe in the 1980s

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp.379-415.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp.186-223

The Revolution of 1989

  1. Timothy Garton-Ash We The People. The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague.

The Politics of Post-Communism

  1. Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, pp.391-415.
  2. George Schopflin Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-1992, pp.256-300.

The Wars of the Yugoslav Succession

Summing up