The Historical Evolution of Europe after 1945

With the end of the Second World War in 1945, Europe faced the overwhelming task of literally rebuilding itself from the inside-out and the ground up. As Bruno Foa states in his post-war analysis of the continent, “{I}t is already clear that the economic and social disturbances of the last war were child’s play in comparison with the crisis Europe is now facing . . . {T}he experiences of this war and the new dark age which began on January 30, 1933, have destroyed old frames of references and created conditions favorable to nihilism and despair.” Emerging from what has been dubbed a 30 year European Civil War, the old order of Europe – politically, socially, culturally, and psychologically – had been utterly destroyed. If Europe was to have any chance of finding its new center in the chaotic post-war reality, the old ways of thinking would have to be cast aside in favor of a more progressive and mutually beneficial approach to existence.

    The first order of business for battered Europe was the dismantling of imperialism and recognition of the new state of world affairs. With the United States and the Soviet Union dominating the affairs of West and East Europe, respectively, the self-determination of Europe as a whole, as opposed to individual nationalist states, became paramount in driving forward the economic and social recovery of Europe. The creation of the United Nations in the spring of 1945 was the first major step in bringing the newly emerging Europe closer to a unified reality. The ensuing Cold War, pitting Soviet and Western ideologies against one another forced Central and Western Europe to realize its need for a strengthened existence, as it faced the stark reality that the ideological war between East and West was likely to be fought on the same battlefields as the previous two wars. The implementation of the Marshall Plan in 1947 sped the process of re-stabilization in Europe greatly. As Brose points out, “Marshall’s ERP aimed to facilitate reconstruction, stimulate private European investments and intra-European trade, provide dollar liquidity for the purchase of American exports, and, perhaps most importantly, free Europe from social and economic instability so that it could avoid revolution and afford to help the U.S. militarily.” The infusion of American money (in addition to a not-insubstantial amount of Americanization) helped kick start Central and Western Europe’s miracle of economic recovery. This process proved ideologically and economically beneficial for the United States and Europe, a fact that was not overlooked in the lagging Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe. Additionally, while the Marshall Plan was successful in quelling revolutionary ideas in the west, it fueled the flames of democratic revolution in the east.

    The death of Stalin ushered in a new era of Soviet Communist control in the east. Helmed by Nikita Khrushchev and mobilized along the lines of his (in)famous Secret Speech, an ideological thaw settled over Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe. This slackening of totalitarian Communism, when coupled with the model and influence of resurging Western Europe, facilitated active attempts of democratization and self-determination in Soviet satellites, most notably Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, initially a peaceful student protest, serves as a quintessential example of the thinking the thaw produced. A peaceful student protest rapidly spiraled into outright democratic revolution, a result of Communist reaction to weakening control. “After a decade of Communist control over our country,” wrote Hungarian Andor Heller, “we are going to show our feelings spontaneously, in our own way – something never allowed under Communist rule . . . The peaceful demonstrations of the youth and the workers have been turned by Communist guns into a revolution for national freedom.” The Soviet military response, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Hungarians, severely undermined the hopes of democratic self-determination within the Soviet satellites. A little over a decade later, the economic reform movement in headed by Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia, raised the ire of the Soviet regime. In attempting to keep pace with the rapid technological and economic gains of Western Europe, facilitated by expanding trade agreements and free-market economies, Dubcek implemented the “Action Program” which in-turn sparked cries for social and political reforms as well. The Soviet response was again military in nature, and, although bloodless, showed that the failure of the “Prague Spring” effectively ended any hope of democratic reform in the east.

    The changing democratic and industrial landscape in Western Europe, however, was not without its share of problems. The student revolutions of 1968 challenged the newly established authority of a unifying Europe, particularly in France. Pressure from below resulted in the resignation of de Gaulle, thus removing the largest obstacle hampering deeper unification along economic lines. Additionally, Americanization had come full-circle in its influence of Western Europe. The continent had successfully followed the American model to such a degree that it had become self-sufficient to the point of helping the spread of democracy on its own, such as in Italy and Spain, while also allowing its citizens to be in the frame of mind to question and challenge the establishment, a mark of truly democratic freedom.

    The same democratic freedom, albeit a difficult transformation, was to eventually come to the whole of Eastern Europe. The western model of Democratic Capitalism continued to far surpass the Communism of the Soviet Bloc, which, despite the threatening illusion of strength and solidarity, was collapsing upon its disintegrating infrastructure. Despite the idealistic attempt to reform the Soviet Union back to its Marxist-Leninist roots through the dual efforts of Perestroika and Glastnost, Mikhail Gorbachev preside over the demise of the Communist Era of Russia and Eastern Europe. Much to the shock and delight of the West, the single largest threat to an autonomous and unified European state practically disappeared overnight. The time of the European Union had finally arrived.

    The question presented by the history of post-war Europe is whether the formation of the European Union, as it is today, was inevitable or not. Arguably, the reality of its existence is a product of inevitability for three reasons: the historic push for unification, the fully realized consequences of purely nationalist interests, and the necessity of mutual understanding and protection whilst in the threatening shadow of the Cold War. The push for unification, deeply intertwined with the call for pacifism, had remained a consistent undercurrent within the social dialogue of Europe since before the First World War. However, the evolution of the competitive-state system plunged the continent into two bloody conflicts, the result of which bared the soul of Europe unto itself and begged for a reevaluation of the old modes of thinking. As Western Europe rapidly reorganized itself along multi-beneficial lines while standing between the aggravated ideologies of the East and West, it made perfect sense for the reforming nations to come to grips with their collective past and direct themselves toward a brighter collective, or unified future. While the process has not been met with overwhelming approval or appreciation and continues to face challenges it may or may not be able to handle (the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia and the antagonistic reassertion of legitimate power in the Russian Federation, for example), the unification of Europe was, after 1945, immediately recognized as the best defense against a continuation of the European Civil War.

 

Bibliography

Brose, Eric Dorn. A History of Europe in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2005.

 

Fao, Bruno. “Europe in Ruins.” In Sources of Twentieth Century Europe, edited by Marvin

Perry, 284 – 287. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

 

Heller, Andor. “The Hungarian Revolution, 1956.” In Sources of Twentieth Century Europe,

edited by Marvin Perry, 358 – 360. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.