Soviet Union And European Communist Regimes example essay topic

In order to answer this question effectively I must portray a complete picture of what was happening in the Balkan countries at the end of the 1980's. However before I do that I shall define what makes my countries of study; Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, different to each other and other Communist block countries. This will allow me a context of which I can discuss how the countries particular systems collapsed in different ways. The role of the Soviet Union, especially events in Russia, played and important role in the collapse of European Communism and I shall gauge how the different Russian reforms, namely Glasnost and Perestroika, affected, if at all, my three case countries. The final days of the Communist system, and the events that predated them shall be analysed, including the extent of individual countries dissent and the role nationalism played in that dissent. Finally I shall conclude that although Communism as a regime was in retreat in the late 1980's and nationalism was being used by particular parties against it, in many countries the groups that held power under Communism continued to do so under the new regimes.

After the Second World War the Soviet Union was expanded due to Stalin's feeling of insecurity after the Nazi's initially successful invasion of Russia. However none of the countries that I shall discuss were actually in the Soviet Union although they did become Communist after the War. The Soviet Union played differing roles in the three countries. In Yugoslavia, who already had strong Communist partisans, had limited Soviet involvement.

However in Bulgaria and Romania, who did not have strong Communist party or workers parties, received large amounts of political, economic and military Soviet support (1). These levels of reliance were reflected in how closely the countries were affiliated with and were dependant upon the Soviet Union during the time between the Second World War and the Communist collapse. The country that was seen to be most closely associated with the Soviet Union without actually being part it was Bulgaria. So closely was the Bulgarian and the Soviet regimes linked that Bulgaria was known as the unofficial eighteenth state of the Soviet Union. In fact it even applied to join the union, but this was rejected. The Bulgarian Communist Party had a deeply rooted 'leftist' tradition (2).

This meant that there was not much support within the party, the only effective political body, for Social Democracy. In fact there was a predilection for left revisionism, which was the movement towards the more extreme end of Communism as seen in China and Albania in the late nineteen seventies. However the 'leftist' nature of the Communist Party was not reflected by the population as a whole, who were in fact to some extent 'westernised'. This characterised the many dualities of the Bulgarian Communist system and its leader Zhivkov. On one hand he enjoyed close ties with Moscow and employed a Stalinist regime with a cult of personality and extreme oppression, whilst on the other hand he allowed his population to be influenced by western culture (3).

Western media, namely television and newspapers were permitted to a limited extent in 1. Seton - Watson, The Pattern of Communist Revolution 2. J.D. Ball et all, Developments in Eastern European Politics, the introduction 3. Gallagher et all, Experimenting with Democracy Regime Change in the Balkans - Kuril Drezov, Transition comes full circle Bulgaria. Zhivkov had allowed the slow and gradual westernization of his population creating one of the most westernised societies in the Eastern Block. However the Communist party itself was one of the strongest in the Communist Block and so enjoyed an almost unquestioning political power monopoly. This meant that before the late nineteen eighties, that saw a swath of popular dissent across the Balkans, there was almost no popular protest or opposition to the Party.

In contrast Romania under Ceausescu was subject to a number of protests and strikes before the late nineteen eighties. However all of these were quelled or disbanded without gaining too much momentum or public support. Like Bulgaria though the Romanian regime was somewhat an oxymoron. Ceausescu liked to be perceived as a humanitarianism, he even received an award from the Queen of England for his actions during the Soviet invasion of Hungary. He was viewed in the west as a "mild" Communist ruler, a leader who could influence the others to the side of reason and humanity (4). Ceausescu also wanted to be viewed favourably by Moscow and shaped his internal policy around their wishes.

Romania was run fairly closely to the Stalinist model of extreme egalitarianism and was superficially similar to North Korea or China who had similar 'leftist' traditions. Internally Romania suffered one of the most extreme and wasteful 'cult of personality's ince the days of Joseph Stalin. Notable examples of Ceausescu's egotism include demolishing most of old Bucharest to built the second largest building in the world, the 'Peoples Palace' was almost unusable and he also promoted one of his dogs to Colonel (5). Another oxymoron of the Romanian regime was the difference between the states foreign policy and the amount of public freedoms individuals were able to enjoy. Ceausescu was able to enjoy an independent foreign policy and he constructed some close relations with the west. The western leaders allowed him to do this, ignoring Romania's appalling human rights record, as Ceausescu was an easy way of 'getting in' to the Eastern Block (6).

However, internally the people of Romania suffered at the hands of one of the most draconian regimes in the world let alone Eastern Europe. For example, citizens had to register all type-writers, this is a measure not even employed in the Soviet Union at the height of its oppressive policies (7). Also any unauthorised contact with a Westerner had to be reported to the proper authorities. This is somewhat ironic as Ceausescu attempted to be the darling of the West yet he would not allow his own citizens to be influenced by it.

Finally, like in Bulgaria, the Communist party was strong and had a tight grip on power. This meant that nineteen eighty nine marked the first real widespread and organised protests against the regime. Yugoslavia unlike Bulgaria or Romania was not closely affiliated with the Soviet Union. This dates back to the Second World War when Yugoslavia did not need much support in order to create a Communist regime, as it had a strong Communist partisan party already in operation.

Tito, the Yugoslav leader was independently minded and did not want to simply be Moscow's lap dog (8). He wanted to create his 4. Gilberg Trond, Nationalism and Commun sim in Romania 5. Roger East & Joly on Pont in, Revolution and Change in Central Europe 6.

& 7. Gilberg Trond, Nationalism and Communism in Romania, the conclusion 8. Richard West, Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia own socialist utopia. This independent stance meant that Tito was free to form his own policies outside of Moscow's influence but it also meant that he lacked broad Soviet support. Yugoslavia was widely seen, both internally and in foreign policy, as the most 'Westernised' of the Eastern Block countries.

Tito did not have a completely planned economy and allowed some free market actions to take place. Also personal liberties were respected and upheld far more than any other European Communist country at the time. However Tito's coolness towards the Soviet Union and close relations with western countries meant that Yugoslavia did not get the economic support that Romania and Bulgaria received. Cheap power, imported from the Soviet Union, was an important factor in the survival of the Romanian and Bulgarian regime, Yugoslavia however did not receive such support.

With this and other supports enjoyed by other Eastern Block countries not present Yugoslavia was dependent upon western aid. Economic aid was readily supplied by the west in order to prop up the Yugoslavian regime. The system was seen very much as how mild Communism or even Democratic Socialism can survive and the West was not about to let it fail (9). Yugoslavia of course became dependant upon this aid and was unable to operate when it was taken away.

With the continued international isolation of Yugoslavia the very survival of the regime became dependant upon the personal strength of Tito. Yugoslavia was made up of six separate republics, all with their own national identity and culture. In order to ensure the survival of Yugoslavia itself Tito suppressed these national ideals. Serbia was the most populace, making up 40% of the total population, and therefore most powerful republic. Tito was afraid that Serbia would go on to dominate and take over the smaller republics of Yugoslavia and so put in placed measures to keep Serbia weak.

Tito was famously quoted as saying that "a weak Serbia meant a strong Yugoslavia" (9). However Tito could not live for ever and his paranoia about Serbia meant that he enacted several measures to ensure that no single republic would be powerful enough to dominate all the others. He did this by creating a rotating presidency that moved annually around the six republics. However although this did weaken the individual republics it also weakened the central republic meaning that it did not have enough power or authority to effectively run the country. Without the strong hand of Tito Yugoslavia as a single state was impotent and ineffective. There are a number of reasons why the Soviet Union and European Communist regimes that were supported or indirectly linked to it began to collapse at the end of the nineteen eighties.

Michael Walter cites three central failures of each country as well as the Soviet Union; economic, political and military failure (10). The economic failure stemmed from the fact that the Communist philosophy, especially the Marxist-Leninist ideology, was built was built upon the premise that the Communist system would prove superior to capitalism and eventually out perform it. This however proved to be untrue with all European Communist countries, in or out of the Soviet Union, suffering severe economic problems by nineteen eighty nine. In fact in Eastern Europe all capitalist countries out performed and over took their communist neighbours. Bulgaria for example had a higher GNP, literacy rate and was more industrialised than Greece in nineteen thirty nine but by nineteen eighty nine Greece 9.

Duncan Wilson, Tito's Yugoslavia 10. Michael Walter, The end of the Communist Power Monopoly was far richer, more literate and had was more industrialised than its Communist neighbour. The second reason behind the Communist collapse, listed by Michael Walter, was the political failure of the Balkan Communist countries. The regimes received varied amounts of support from the Soviet Union with some countries forming governments "in blood" (11). Ceausescu especially used terror as an effective form of oppression with many concentration camps still in used up to nineteen eighty nine. This combined with the resurgence of nationalism in Eastern Europe caused an increasing amount of dissent towards the regimes.

However in previous times, namely in nineteen fifty nine and nineteen sixty eight, dissent towards the government had been met with swift military incursions and subjection. Yet by nineteen eighty nine the Soviet Union was on its knees and could no longer continue its massive military commitment in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev announced that he would no employ the Brezhnev doctrine, namely that any country that had been communist would remain so. This meant that the dissenters were free to force domestic change without fear to reprisals from the Soviet Union, which lead to a chain reaction of events that would eventually topple all communist influence in Europe.

Nationalism, although not included by Michael Walter played an important role in the creation of dissent in all three of my case countries although to different degrees. Communism in its purest form is supposed to ignore all concepts of national identity, however some leaders such as Ceausescu in Romania combined it with Communism in order to galvanised support. National-communism as it was called was invented by Stalin but was used to great success by Ceausescu to channel the feelings of a Romanian national identity into support for him and the Communist Party of Romania. However Romania, like so many other countries does not have one simple national identity; as ethnic and national lines do not run parallel to one another. There are a large number of Hungarian-Romanians in Western Romania and it was there struggle that was the catalyst for national dissent (12). The outspoken clergyman Lasco Turkish, a Hungarian with a wide amount of support in Western Romania, stirred up feelings of nationalism that reverberated throughout Romania.

However these initial protests were severely dealt with by the Ceausescu regime. All this do though was fan the flames for more protest and dissent towards the central government. Gilberg Trond outlines four main reasons behind the successful revolution in Romania (13); firstly individuals were willing to "risk lives" for what they believed in. Secondly the armed forces were not willing to slaughter their own people, after the violence of September the twenty first. Thirdly the military provided leadership for the revolution and had long been planning the removal of Ceausescu. Trond does not believe that nationalism as a concept was victorious over communism, but simply that it had been perverted for the benefit of Ceausescu for so long that it eventually was used against him by dissenters.

Compared to the Soviet Union the reforms of the late eighties had a limited effect in Romania, due centrally to the complete grip on power the Communist Party enjoyed. Perestroika and Glasnost only had limited effects because the Party was able to filter and control the public's exposure to it. 11. Thomas T. Hammond, The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers 12. Jonathan Eyal, Why Romania Could not Avoid Bloodshed - Spring in Winter the 1989 Revolutions 13.

Gilberg Trond, Nationalism and Communism in Romania In Bulgaria the Communist Party had an even tighter monopoly upon power and so were able to filter and control the influence of Perestroika and Glasnost. This contributed to the fact that there was not much widespread protest or dissent towards the Communist Party; Zhivkov was simply removed in a palace coup. Nationalism in Bulgaria was controlled and suppressed in the same way as in Romania. The southern region of Bulgaria has a high proportion of people of Turkish origin.

Zhivkov attempted to remove their ethnic identity by forcibly changing place names and forcing the Bulgarian language upon them. However it was not national issues that were the main force behind the nineteen eighty nine revolution, according to Robert J McIntyre, it was simply part of the wider dissatisfaction with the Zhivkov administration (14). The revolution in Bulgaria is seen as an anomaly compared to other Balkan countries as the Communist party itself still, to a wide extent held power, Zhivkov and his immediate administration were simply removed. The revolution happened very differently in Yugoslavia than it did in Romania or Bulgaria. It was not simply a country with some small ethnic minority discontent, it was a country of six unified republic with four main languages and two alphabets. Yugoslavia was a country that's survival demanded the equal division of power between the six main republics, if this balance was tested then the whole system would be undermined.

That, according to Chris Bennet, is what happened. Nationalism played the central role in the disintegration of both the Yugoslav Communist Party and Yugoslavia itself. The Party was already divided essentially into eight bodies along ethnic lines. This created a situation where there was no central party for the whole of Yugoslavia which meant it had no means of controlling the whole state. Nationalism had been contained and suppressed under Tito but it was his attempts to prevent one republic dominating the rest that indirectly caused the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Nationalist dissent had been suppressed before in both Serbia and Croatia but the increase of feeling in the late eighties could not be suppressed by a weak and fragmented central authority.

Politicians like Milosevic used Serbian nationalism, after the incident in Kosovo in 1987, to gain and maintain power. He used huge rallies to gain power in Montenegro, Kosovo and Vajindia; thus controlling four of the eight positions of presidency making the position itself impotent. Milosevic converted the Serbian Communist Party in the National Communist Party which prevented opposition parties emerging and channelled and nationalism support through his party (15). Similarly by December of nineteen eighty nine both Slovenia and Croatia have agreed to have internal multi party elections which indirectly lead to the wars in both Bosnia and Croatia as the countries sought independence from the dominant force of Serbia and Milosevic. To conclude then, it is true to say that by the end of the eighties that all the Eastern European communist regimes had either fallen or were on their way to destruction. As I have shown nationalism played a differing role in all three countries.

In Bulgaria the Communist Party had such a strong hold on power that it was not until nineteen ninety seven that its last holds on power were finally removed. In nineteen eighty 14. Robert J. McIntyre, Bulgaria Politics, Economics and Society 15. Experimenting with Democracy Regime Change in the Balkans, chapter 10 nine there was simply a palace coup which removed Zhivkov, the Communist Party continued to operate and hold power under the guise of a new name and behind the facade of democracy. Nationalism played only a limited role. Similarly in Romania it was dissent towards the regime and the thirst for democracy that caused the demise of the Communist regime, only for it to continue to hold some power under the democratic system.

In Yugoslavia however it was the ascendancy of nationalism, or its perversion for personal gain, that eventually put an end to an already fragmented and ineffective Communist Party.

Bibliography

Trond Gilberg, 'Nationalism and Communism in Romania. The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu's Personal Dictatorship', Westview, 1990 Chris Bennet, 'Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences', Hurst, 1996 Gallagher et all, 'Experimenting with Democracy, Regime Change in the Balkans', Routledge, 2000 Jacque Levesque, 'The enigma of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe', University of California Press, 2000 Thomas T.
Hammond, 'The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers' Yale University Press, 1975 Hugh Seton-Watson, 'The Pattern of Communist Revolution: An Historical Analysis', Methuen, 1960 J.
D. Bell et all, 'Developments in East European Politics', Macmillan, 1993 Duncan Wilson, 'Tito's Yugoslavia', Cambridge University Press, 1979 Richard West, 'Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia', Sinclair and Stevenson, 1994.