Abstract
This chapter discusses how nationalism affected international relations among Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union between the death of Stalin in 1953 and the onset of ‘normalization’ in 1969. It suggests that once Communism was clearly established the national Communist Parties, including the leadership of the CPSU, were incapable of burying national differences. In many cases, rather than cementing over differences, the Parties actually became accomplices to the cracking of the so-called Communist monolith. In a situation parallel to that which led to the break-up of the socialist movement in the late nineteenth century, as outlined in Chapter 2, the events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s bore out E. H. Carr’s assertion that ‘the socialization of the nation has as its corollary the nationalization of socialism’.1
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Notes
Edward Hallett Carr, Nationalism and After (London: MacMillan and Co., 1945), p. 20.
Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988), p. 204.
Edward Taborsky, Communism in Czechoslovakia 1948–1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 123. A useful definition also comes in Yaroslav Bilinsky, ‘Mykola Skrypnuk and Petro Shelest: an essay on the persistence and limits of Ukrainian national Communism’, in Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York: Praeger, 1978), p. 106, which describes Ukrainian national Communism as ‘an attempt to establish a Ukrainian state, based on Ukrainian national culture but led by the Communist Party and oriented toward the achievement of Communist political, economic and social goals’. In describing what she refers to as ‘communist nationalism’ in post-war Bulgaria, Maria Todorova says that it was nothing but a ‘transvestite, ordinary nationalism’, in her ‘The courses and discourses of Bulgarian nationalism’, in Peter F. Sugar, Eastern European Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Washington: American University Press, 1995), p. 91.
Robert A. Jones, The Soviet Concept of ‘Limited Sovereignty’ from Lenin to Gorbachev: the Brezhnev Doctrine (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), p. 4.
T. Gilberg and J. Simon, Security Implications of Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 86.
As cited in Robert C. Tucker, ‘The psychology of Soviet foreign policy’, Problems of Communism, 6/3 (May–June 1957), p. 5.
Josip Broz Tito, The National Question: Socialist Thought and Practice (Belgrade: STP, 1983), p. 191.
Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 511.
Raymond Aron, ‘On polycentrism’, Survey, 58 (January 1966), p. 10.
Peter Zwick, National Communism (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983), p. 88.
Francois Fejto, A History of the People’s Democracies: Eastern Europe Since Stalin (London: Pall Mall Press, 1971), p. 174.
Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Post-Communist nationalism’, Foreign Affairs, 68/5 (Winter 1989/90), p. 5.
Ibid. p. 555. See also Azrael (ed.) 1978, p. 178 on the effect of nationality on patron-client relationships.
R. J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 276.
See extracts from a speech to the Hungarian National Assembly, 4 July 1953, in Denise Folliot (ed.), Documents on International Affairs, 1953 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 177–81.
Thomas W. Simons, Jr., Eastern Eumpe in the Postwar World (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), p. 95.
J. F. Brown, Eastern Europe and Communist Rule (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), p. 42.
See Joan Barth Urban, Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: From Togliatti to Berlinger (London: I.B. Tauris & Company, 1986), pp. 225–33.
Leo Gruliow (ed.), Current Soviet Policies II: the Documentary Record of the 20th Communist Party Congress and its Aftermath (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), p. 53. In Jones 1990, pp. 24–31 and p. 44, the author develops the link between pre- and post-war theories of international relations even further. His thesis is that ‘far from precipitating a sharp break in Soviet theory, the advent of the Peoples Democracies and the emergence of “socialist international relations” resulted, in large measure, in the adaption and transposition of pre-war Soviet doctrines to that of the USSR’s post-isolation environment.’
Le Monde 4 June 1955, as cited in Geoffrey Barraclough and Rachel F. Wall (eds.), Survey on International Affairs 1955–56 (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 136.
Emil Lengyel, Nationalism: The Last Stage of Communism (New York: Frank & Wagnells, 1969), p. 92. For more on all aspects of the Comecon, see Kaser 1967.
Joseph Stalin, ‘Theses on national factors in party and state development’, Marxism and the National and Colonial Question (hereafter MNCQ) (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1936), p. 138.
Milovan Djilas, The New Class (London: Thames & Hudson, 1957), p. 174.
See also Milovan Djilas, ‘Lenin on relations between socialist states’ (abridged translation of an article from the September 1949 issue of The Communist), published by the Yugoslav Information Centre, New York, 1950, particularly pp. 29–35.
Rakosi and the conservatives viewed Nagy as a threat. They accused his New Course as compromising the economy. He was seen as Malenkov’s disciple, and when Malenkov was stripped of power in February 1955 Nagy was removed soon after. For a full account see Charles Gati, ‘Imre Nagy and Moscow, 1953–1956’, Problems of Communism, 35/3 (May-June 1986), pp. 32–49.
Imre Nagy, On Communism (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), p. 40.
This sentiment was echoed in the broadcast of Radio Rajk on 5 November 1956, which concluded, ‘Those who cooperate with the occupying colonial power … are traitors not only to Hungary but to communism, and we shall fight them. Comrades, the place of every honest Hungarian Communist is on the barricades.’ See Richard Lowenthal, ‘Ferment over Eastern Europe’, Problems of Communism, 5/6 (November-December 1956), p. 7.
Ibid. p. vi.
Ferenc A. Vali, Rift and Revolt in Hungary: Nationalism versus Communism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 263.
See Geoffrey Stern, The Rise and Decline of International Communism (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1990), p. 167.
Konrad Syrop, Spring in October: The Polish Revolution of 1956 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1957), p. 81.
William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 48.
T. H. Rigby and Ferenc Fehér (eds.), Political Legitimation in Communist States (Oxford: Macmillan, 1982), p. 46.
Paul G. Lewis (ed.), Eastern Europe: Political Crisis and Legitimation (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 13.
See e.g. Hansjakob Stehle, The Independent Satellite: Society and Politics in Poland Since 1945 (London: Pall Mall Press, 1965).
See Mark Kramer, ‘New light shed on 1956 Soviet decision to invade Hungary’, Transition, 2/23 (15 November 1996), p. 36.
Nicholas Bethell, Gomulka, His Poland and His Communism (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1969), p. 233.
For Gomulka’s speech to the PUWP which launched national Communism in Poland see Sugar 1995, pp. 252–6. See also his speech to a mass meeting in Warsaw 24 October 1956, in which he outlines his vision of socialist international relations. In one passage he states that within the framework of the socialist camp ‘every country should have full independence and sovereignty, and each nation’s right to sovereign government in an independent country should be fully and mutually respected’. In Noble Frankland (ed.), Documents on International Affairs, 1956 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 449.
See e.g. Nagy’s broadcast of 28 October 1956 in which he refers to the necessity of ‘guaranteeing our national freedom, independence, and sovereignty’, or his speech of 30 October which concluded with the slogan ‘Long live a free, democratic and independent Hungary’. Both speeches can be found in Frankland 1959.
See Archie Brown (ed.), Political Culture and Communist Studies (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984), p. 265.
The declaration is quoted in Soviet News no. 3502 (Wednesday 31 October 1953), pp. 1–2.
Melvin Croan, ‘Moscow and Eastern Europe’, Problems of Communism, 15/5 (September–October 1966), p. 61.
See John Gittings, Survey of the Sino-Soviet Dispute (London: Oxford University Press, 1968).
Carl A. Linden, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership 1957–1964 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966). This is the theme of the whole book, but see particularly p. 207. For a discussion of Tito’s rather similar dilemma, see Steven L. Burg, Conflict and Cohesion in Socialist Yugoslavia: Political Decision Making Since 1966 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 26–7. See also James G. Richter, Khrushchev’s Double Bind: International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1994).
Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1963), p. 115.
It is worth noting that a similar debate was being carried out in Yugoslavia at the same time, where the relative merits of merging or unitarianism (creating a sense of Jugoslovenstvo or Yugoslavness) was being backed by the conservative faction of the party (and the less developed republics), while confederalism was being forwarded by the liberal faction (with the support of the more developed republics).
‘Khruschev’s anniversary report to supreme Soviet’, Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 9/45 (18 December 1957), p. 16.
Leo Gruliow (ed.), Current Soviet Policies III: The Documentary Record of the Extraordinary 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 56.
See particularly Katherine Verdery, National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
These basic tenets of international law and international relations were recognized as principles for governing relations between socialist states by the 1960 Moscow Declaration.
Significantly, when the ‘Further Deepening and Perfecting of Co-operation and Development of Socialist Economic Integration of Member Countries of CEMA’ was agreed upon in 1971 there was no supra-national body, and the voluntary nature of CEMA was stressed. For more see John Michael Montias, ‘Background and origins of the Rumanian dispute with Comecon’, Soviet Studies, 16/2 (October 1964), pp. 125–51.
George Schopflin, ‘Rumanian nationalism’, Soviet Survey, 20(2–3) (SpringSummer 1974), p. 92.
Kurt London (ed.), Eastern Europe in Transition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), p. 109.
The Dacians were an ancient kingdom which are alleged to have lived on the territory of present-day Romania. Historians claim that when the Romans abandoned Dacia in AD 270 the native population stayed behind. For more on the history and the historical controversy see James Ermatinger, ‘Ceausecu’s nationalism: ancient Dacian translated into modern Romanian’, in Richard Frucht (ed.), Labyrinth of Nationalism Complexities of Diplomacy: Essays in Honor of Charles and Barbara Jelavich (Columbus, on.: Slavica, 1992), pp. 180–89. See also ‘The Daco-Romanian Empire’, in Walter Kolarz, Myths and Realities in Eastern Europe (London: Lindsay Drummond, 1946), pp. 171–88.
See Stephen Fischer-Galati, ‘The continuation of nationalism in Romanian historiography’, Nationalities Papers, 6/2 (Fall 1978), pp. 179–84, particularly p. 183.
For more on Romanian-Soviet relations on Moldova, see Charles E. King, ‘Soviet policy in the annexed East European borderlands: language, politics and ethnicity in Moldova’, and Adrian Pop, ‘When the mouse challenges the cat: Bessarabia in post-war Soviet-Romanian relations’, chapters 4 and 5 of Odd Ame Westad, Sven Holtsmark and Iver B. Neumann (eds.), The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945–89 (London: St Martin’s Press, 1994).
Graeme J. Gill, ‘Rumania: background to autonomy’, Survey, 21/3 (Summer 1975), p. 99.
That had been the name of the Communist Party until February 1948.
See e.g. Karel Pomaizl, Nacionalismus — jeho zdmje a pmjevy (Prague: Academia Praha, 1986). For the official justification and explanation of the invasion see ‘Defense of socialism is the highest internationalist duty’ in Pravda, (22 August 1968) reproduced in Robin Alison Remington (ed.), Winter in Prague: Documents on Czechoslovak Communism in Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), pp. 299–323.
Robert W. Dean, Nationalism and Political Change in Eastern Europe: The Slovak Question and the Czechoslovak Reform Movement (Denver, Colo.: University of Denver, 1974), p. 3.
Ota Sik, ‘The economic impact of Stalinism’, Problems of Communism, 20/3 (May–June 1971), p. 7.
For a look at the issue of rehabilitation and the Slovak issue in general see Stanley Riveles, ‘Slovakia: catalyst of crisis’, Pmblems of Communism, 17/3 (May–June 1968), pp. 1–9.
See David W. Paul, The Cultural Limits of Revolutionary Politics: Change and Continuity in Socialist Czechoslovakia (Boulder, Colo.: East European Quarterly 1979), pp. 233–4.
See Jaroslaw Piekalkiewicz, ‘Public political opinion in Czechoslovakia during the Dubcek era’, in E. J. Czerwinski and Jaroslaw Piekalkiewicz (eds.), The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia: Its Effects on Eastern Europe (New York: Praeger, 1972), pp. 3–41.
For an interesting article on this subject, see Virgil Krapauskas, ‘Marxism and nationalism in Soviet Lithuanian historiography’, Journal of Baltic Studies, 23/3 (Fall 1992), pp. 239–60.
Thomas Remeikis, Opposition to Soviet Rule in Lithuania 1945–1980 (Chicago: Institute of Lithuanian Studies Press, 1980), p. 15.
V. Stanley Vardys (ed.), Lithuania Under the Soviets: Portrait of a Nation, 1940–1965 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 115. This figure is a bit misleading because there were many Lithuanians, even in political life, who supported the Communist Party but were not members. Most notable among these was Justis Paleckis (Sr.), who was a leading figure of the liberal Populist Party and later became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR.
See T. Zenklys, ‘Pasibaigusi Lietuvos gyvenimo epocha’, Akiraciani, 3/57 (March 1974), p. 6.
Close to 300,000 Lithuanians were deported and/or killed by the Soviets between 1940–41 and 1945–59. Total losses (due to the war, German occupation and the guerilla war) for the period 1940–1959 totalled approximately 1,090,000. See Pranas Zunde, ‘Demographic changes and structure in Lithuania’, Lituanas (Fall/Winter 1964), pp. 5–15.
See Vincas Rastenis, ‘A “diehard Kremlinist”: A. Snieekus, chief Communist in Lithuania’, The Baltic Review, 9 (31 December 1956), p. 37.
Thomas Remeikis, ‘Political developments in Lithuania during the Brezhnev era’, in George W. Simmonds (ed.), Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Eumpe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin (Detroit: Detroit University Press, 1977). Remeikis makes the observation that there was a disproportionately high number of Marshals and generals at the funeral as if ‘to communicate to the Lithuanian people a warning of the futility of national separatism’, p. 170.
A graphic example of Snieckus’ desire to be on the winning side can be seen in his notes from June and July 1957. Judging by the large number of corrections and revisions on his reports on the debates which were going on in the Presidium between Khruschev and the anti-Party group he seemed to have been very careful about who he would back until it became clear which side would win. Even when Khruschev came out on top he hedged his bets by criticizing the anti-Party group, but also upbraiding Lithuanian writers and artists for not pursuing an orthodox line of socialist realism in their work. Lietuvos Visuomenes Organizacijs Archyoas (LVOA) 16895.2.74.
For more detailed figures, see Vytautas Tininis, ‘Lietuva ir A. Snieckus: 1955–1960’ [Lithuania and Snieckus], Lietvuos, 20/55, p. 11.
Alexander J. Groth, Major Ideologies: An Interpretive Survey of Democracy, Socialism and Nationalism (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971), p. 165.
As cited in ‘Fostering Lithuania’s identity under Soviet rule’, Transition (8 September 1995), pp. 54–5.
Gregory Gleason describes this phenomenon in his Federalism and Nationalism: the Struggle for Republican Rights in the USSR (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 83–103.
Alexander J. Motyl, Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 95. See also Richard Ericson, ‘Soviet economic structure and the national question’, in Alexander Motyl (ed.), The Post-Soviet Nations: Perspectives on the Demise of the USSR (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), pp. 246–7 on the clash between branch/functional and territorial principles.
Ibid. p. 96. See also Grey Hodnett, ‘The debate over Soviet federalism’, Soviet Studies, 18/4 (April 1967), pp. 458–81; reprinted in Denber (ed.) 1992.
These councils were never fully developed, as they were phased out when Khruschev was dismissed in 1964.
Speech by A. Snieckus to the 20th Party Congress, reported in Pravda (19 February), as cited in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 8/9, p. 24.
Machine Tractor Stations (MTS) were the agricultural equivalent of heavy industrialization. It gave the regime control over the organization and production of the collectivized peasantry.
As reported in Pravda (6 March), p. 3, as cited in Current Digest of the Soviet Press X(10), p. 18.
Interview with Justis Paleckis, 19 October 1995. Substantiated by Snieckus expert Vytautas Tininis in interview with the author on 21 October 1995.
Author’s interview with Tininis, 21 October 1995.
Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 14/8, p. 15.
‘Turn decisions of CPSU Central Committee plenary session into reality: for close alliance of science and production’, Pravda (18 April), p. 2 in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 17/16, p. 35.
For more on Khruschev’s scheme to promote the massive expansion of petro- chemical industries (particularly chemical fertilizers for agriculture), see Linden 1966, pp. 187–91.
The name has since been changed to Visaginas.
See Remeikis 1980, pp. 82–4, and ‘Protest against industrialization ills in Lithuania’, The Baltic Review, 33 (January 1967), pp. 22–3.
There were several jokes at the time about how this was the first time a Lithuania sent a Russian to Siberia.
For more on Shelest see Azarel (ed.) 1978, pp. 119–32, and Gerhard Simon, Nationalism and Policy Toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 283–4.
As cited in Vincas Trumpas, ‘The problem of cultural heritage’, Lituanas, 3 (1961), p. 69. This quotation is ironic when one considers how vehemently Snieekus attacked the so-called ‘single current’ theory, a theory which regards the development of Lithuanian history and culture as an organic process unrelated to the framework of Marxist-Leninist ideology.
For more on the restoration of historic sites and monuments in Lithuania, see Jurgis Gimbutas, ‘The protection and restoration of architectural monuments in Lithuania after 1950’, in Rimvydas Silbajoras (ed.), Mind Against the Wall: Essays on Lithuanian Culture Under the Soviet Occupation (Chicago: Institute of Lithuanian Studies Press, 1983).
LVOA F.16895 ap.2 b. 329.
LVOA 16895.2.329.
For more on artist and composer Ciurlionis (who is virtually unknown outside Lithuania) see Juozas Pivoriunas, ‘The Lithuanian individualist’, Lituanas, 11/4 (Winter 1965), pp. 5–16; Joan M. Vastokas, ‘M. K. Ciurlionis: abstraction and the visionary experience’, Lituanas, 21/2 (Summer 1975), pp. 15–38, and several articles in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death in Lituanas, 7/2 (June 1961).
See Bronis Vaskelis, ‘The assertion of ethnic identity via myth and folklore in Soviet Lithuanian literature’, Lituanas, 19/2 (Summer 1973), pp. 16–28.
‘Acculturation and socialization in the Soviet Baltic Republics’, Lituanas, 18/4 (Winter 1972), p. 32.
For more, see chapter 2 of Michael Bourdeaux, Land of Crosses: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Lithuania, 1939–78 (Chulmleigh: Augustine, 1979).
For more on the rise of dissent, see V. Stanley Vardys, The Catholic Church: Dissent and Nationality in Soviet Lithuania (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1978).
Paul Lendvai, Eagles in Cobwebs: Nationalism and Communism in the Balkans (London: MacDonald, 1969), p. xvi.
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© 1999 Walter A. Kemp
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Kemp, W.A. (1999). Socialist Patriotism or National Communism?. In: Nationalism and Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375253_5
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