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National Liberation and International Balance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John A. Armstrong*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin (Emeritus)

Extract

For fifty years the Soviet Bloc constituted one pole of an essentially bipolar world power distribution. Although not unprecedented (consider Imperial Germany's defiance of most of the world during 1917–18, or later phases of Napoleon's challenge to Europe), bipolarism has usually been very brief. The sheer length of time the Soviet-American confrontation dominated world politics created, on the contrary, mind-sets and reflexes which only a conscious effort can overcome.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR 

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References

Note

1. See Armstrong, John A., “The Soviet-American Confrontation: A New Stage?Russian Review, XXIII (1964), 97115; and “The Soviet-American Confrontation: A New Phase?” Survey, XCVII (1978), 4051.Google Scholar

2. In part these reflexes were a response to John Foster Dulles’ premature advocacy of exploitation of national tensions in the Bloc. See Cook, Blanche V., “U.S. Foreign Relations History,” American Historical Association Perspectives, November 1991.Google Scholar

3. As early as 1941 Britain seems to have conceded Czechoslovakia to the postwar Soviet sphere. Despite revulsion at Stalin's brutality, later in the war Churchill was prepared to accept Soviet tutelage of the “northern tier”—Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary—while vainly trying to establish spheres of Balkan influence. US withdrawal from Saxony, Thuringia, and part of Czechoslovakia cemented this series of Soviet advances.Google Scholar

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5. See especially Adam Przeworski, “The ‘East’ Becomes the ‘South’? The ‘Autumn of the Peoples’ and the Future of Eastern Europe,” PS: Political Science and Politics, May 1991, p. 4.Google Scholar

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7. Translated in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XLIII, No.26. pp. 19–20. On April 6 (trans. in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XLIII, No. 14, pp. 19–20), Izvestia had commented that “much in Yugoslav practice is relevant to our search for a ‘renewed union of sovereign states.’ We would like to warn the authors of plans for the renewal of the Soviet federation against the bitter experience of the Yugoslavs…. The dramatic events showed once again how hard it is to retreat to national ‘apartments’ after living together under one roof.”Google Scholar

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16. New York Times, “U.N. is Yielding to Germany,” December 16, 1951.Google Scholar

17. New York Times, January 7, 1992.Google Scholar

18. Rheinischer Merkur, August 23, 1991 (trans. in German Tribune, September 1, 1991). For a more detailed description of East European reactions, see Pravda, August 31, 1991 (trans. in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XLIII, No. 35, p. 43): “The regional cooperation between Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia that was born in the Danube town of Visegrad has now been cemented…. Some Hungarians and Czechs crossed themselves, ‘Thank God Soviet troops have already left!'”Google Scholar

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27. See my brief discussion in “Sources of Administrative Behavior,” American Political Science Review, LIX (1965), pp. 643–55. Those comments were based on extensive interviewing in Western Europe during 1963–64; assurance of informants’ confidentiality prevented, at that time, publication of specific details on West European contacts with the Soviet Managerial complex.Google Scholar

28. America's in the Balcony as Europe Takes Center Stage,” New York Times, December 22, 1991.Google Scholar

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31. Gregory F. Treverton, “The New Europe,” Foreign Affairs, LXXI (1991–92), 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar