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Chapter 27: Redefining the West After World War II |
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Redefining the West After World War II
On August 13, 1961, East German workers built a barbed-wire fence dividing East and West Berlin. In some cases, the dividing line ran right through apartment buildings. For several weeks, the windows of these buildings provided a view between East and West Berlin though which people tried to escape the communist world. Like the people jumping through these windows to the West, Europeans found themselves caught between the influence of the United States and the Soviet Union in the decades of the Cold War.
At the end of the war, much of Europe was a rubble heap. Post-war purges and deportations continued after 1945.
By the end of the war, an estimated 55 million had been killed. The death toll continued as the victors inflicted vengeance on the defeated. Over 11 million Germans were deported from eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Poland was given part of eastern Germany and expelled the Germans living there. Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary also expelled Germans living in their territories. As many as two million Germans died in the forced deportation. In eastern Europe, to relieve ethnic divisions, governments deported ethnic minorities. Forced deportation, guerilla warfare, and civil wars all demonstrated the continuation of the fighting of the Second World War.
The Cold War served as the most serious threat to the post-war peace. Even before Germany and Japan's defeat, tension among the Allies became apparent. After the war, those tensions quickly turned openly hostile.
The major conflict of the post-war years was the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Stalin's chief post-war concern was to secure the Soviet Union's western boundary by establishing friendly regimes in eastern Europe. Churchill wanted to maintain the British Empire, and feared a defeated Germany would leave a European power vacuum, one that the Soviets would try to fill. President Roosevelt favored establishing democracies based on liberal free market principles. The question of post-war Europe also included the issue of German reparations, and problematic compromises were reached at the Teheran and Yalta Conferences. The Soviet army occupied eastern Europe, and this weakened British and American negotiating power. They agreed to the establishment of pro-Soviet regimes in eastern Europe. They also agreed to partition Germany and the city of Berlin among themselves, including France. Roosevelt's and Churchill's successors, Truman and Attlee, continued the negotiations. The successful atomic test drop convinced them they no longer needed to accommodate the Soviets. The Allies tried to prevent open hostility. Truman reduced the U.S. military presence in Europe while Stalin realized the necessity of reducing military expenditures to aid Soviet economic recovery. Britain's foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, who felt Stalinism threatened British imperialism, pushed the U.S. to stand up to the Soviet Union.
The issue of Germany led to the collapse of the wartime alliances. The British and Americans decided to give priority to German economic recovery. They joined their zones into a single economic unit and stopped reparations payment to the Soviet Union. In 1947, the United States began the policy of containment to resist communist expansion with the introduction of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan. The Truman Doctrine promised to provide aid to the countries resisting subjugation. The Marshall Plan provided aid for the economic recovery of Europe. The Soviet Union refused to participate in the Marshall Plan and forced other eastern European countries to decline aid. In 1949, the U.S. and nine west European nations formed NATO as a military alliance to block Soviet expansion. In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb and in 1955 the Soviet Union and the east European countries formed the Warsaw Pact. Europe was once again divided among hostile military blocs, now armed with nuclear weapons.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States used economic and military aid and covert action to draw the newly independent states into their camp.
World War II strengthened the nationalist movements in the colonies while eroding the economic and military resources needed by the European governments to hold their colonies. The European empires were not committed to decolonization and hoped to use their colonies to enhance their power in the new international order. In Indonesia, the nationalist resistance movement succeeded in forcing the Dutch out in 1949. The war hindered Britain's economic and military ability to hold onto its colonial possessions. The British government of Clement Attlee relinquished India, Burma, and Palestine. In Palestine, ethnic conflict continued to devastate the region through several Arab-Israeli wars. In India, the Muslim nationalists refused to be part of a Hindu-dominated state. Partition of India between Muslim and Hindu states led to mass slaughter.
France also resisted decolonization. In 1954, the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in North Vietnam, but continued to resist the nationalist movement in Algeria. The brutal Franco-Algerian War divided France and nearly plunged the country into civil war. Algeria finally became independent in 1962, only after 200,000 Algerians had been killed or imprisoned. World War II also sparked violent revolt in the colonies as the imperial powers tried to regain control. In Indochina, Ho Chi Minh fought for years against the French and American attempts to gain control of the region.
Decolonization influenced the American civil rights movement whose leaders could compare their struggle for rights with the struggle for colonial independence in Africa. Even after decolonization, the legacy of imperialism lingered on. In Rhodesia and South Africa, the white settlers remained in control. In 1948 the Afrikaner National Party came to power in South Africa and imposed policies of apartheid, which denied black South Africans basic civil rights. The economic legacy of imperialism is known as neo-colonialism. Although the Europeans' imperial powers left, the economies of the former colonies continued to be involved in a dependent relationship with the West. The former colonies continued to produce raw materials for export, while they became dependent on the importation of manufactured goods. Democratic forms of government failed to take root in the former colonies. Within a few years, military governments came to power in most former colonies.
Initially, it seemed that the Cold War would turn hot in Berlin, but instead fighting broke out in developing nations across the globe.
The Korean War globalized the Cold War. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. North Korea was supplied by Soviet arms and Chinese communist soldiers. South Korea was assisted by a UN-sponsored force made up mostly of American troops. The conflict convinced Truman to aid the French in their struggles against Ho Chi Minh and the communist nationalists in Indochina. The Korean War brought Japan into alliance with western powers. Fearful that the Korean War was the first step in Soviet aggression, European leaders pushed for the transformation of NATO into a coordinated fighting force. In addition, West Germany rearmed with NATO aid.
In 1953, the Eisenhower administration committed the U.S. to roll back communism and threatened nuclear retaliation against communist aggression. For his part, Khrushchev convinced allies and foes of the Soviet nuclear superiority. The realization by Eisenhower and Khrushchev that nuclear war made total war unwinnable, led both sides to find alternative ways to combat the Cold War. This realization led to a period of thawed tensions followed by renewed hostilities from 1954 until 1964. For example, the first summit of the Cold War was held in Geneva to negotiate, but this bridge-building between East and West was interrupted in 1956 by the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and in 1957 with the Soviets' successful launch of the satellite Sputnik. In 1958, the Soviets voluntarily agreed to suspend nuclear testing.
Tensions flared again in 1960 when the Soviets shot down an American spy plane, and this event brought the East and West dangerously close to war. Both sides increased military spending. Most people expected the city of Berlin to be the starting point for a nuclear war. In 1961, the Soviet Union and East Germany decided to stop the crossings and build the Berlin Wall around the western zone.
While Western governments increased defense spending, war did not break out. The next danger point was the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962. In 1959, Fidel Castro had liberated Cuba and sided with the Soviets. In 1962, the U.S. found evidence that the Soviet Union was building nuclear bases in Cuba. Secret diplomatic negotiations reached a compromise between the two superpowers. The Soviet Union withdrew its missiles from Cuba, and the U.S. guaranteed that it would not invade Cuba and removed its missiles from Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis marked a turning point in Cold War politics. Both superpowers agreed to an aboveground Nuclear Test Band Treaty and a communications "hotline" to encourage personal consultation in future crises. Relations between the superpowers remained tense, as the events of the Vietnam War illustrate. The Soviets and Chinese aided North Vietnam, while the U.S. provided aid to South Vietnam.
Both superpowers played a role in the conflicts that broke out in the former colonies. In Vietnam the U.S. intervened directly in the war between the communist North and the anti-communist South. By 1966, 429,000 American soldiers were fighting in Vietnam. The Soviet Union and the United States used military and economic aid and covert action to foster friendly governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the Middle East, the superpowers replaced France and England as the regional powerbrokers, and Middle Eastern states were either forced to choose sides or to play the superpowers against one another. The Six-Day War of June 1967 resulted in foreign policy shifts with the U.S. supporting Israel and Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Libya siding with the Soviet Union.
Many of the new nations tried to remain outside the orbit of either superpower. They came to be collectively known as the Third World. In 1955 the first conference of non-aligned nations was held in Indonesia. None of these non-aligned nations was able to hold much power.
The post-World War II world for eastern Europeans was not one of peace, as it generally was for western Europeans. Eastern Europe was filled with terror, economic turmoil, and political discontent.
When the Red Armies moved into eastern Europe in the last years of World War II, few saw it as a form of liberation. Stalin accused various ethnic groups of conspiring with the Nazis, and the Soviets deported thousands of civilians, many of whom starved or froze during their journey or stay in the East. Stalin's paranoia over Western conspiracies to divide the Soviet bloc and the loss of Yugoslavia resulted in a campaign to torture, imprison, or murder any potential threats to his complete control over eastern Europe.
The persecutions ended when Stalin died in 1953. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, was determined to set communism on a new course. His de-Stalinization campaign brought greater openness to communist countries, including greater freedom of speech and publication. De-Stalinzation also allowed for the loosening of economic controls. Dissent and debate reappeared. But the continuations of Stalinist repression lingered. Political and cultural repression still existed, and in 1959 there were still at least a million prisoners in the Gulag. Religious persecution worsened under Khrushchev. De-Stalinization failed to resolve the economic weaknesses of the Soviet Union. Projects to increase agricultural production through greater mechanization, use of chemical fertilizers, and irrigation produced environmental disasters.
Khrushchev's reforms unsettled many high-ranking officials and, as a result, in 1964 Khrushchev was forced out of office. His successor, Leonid Brezhnev, failed to improve the economy, and stagnation occurred. He retained Khrushchev's policies of free higher education, improving living standards, and greater availability of consumer goods. Growth in industrial production and labor productivity declined in the 1960s and stagnated in the 1970s. Brezhnev returned to rigid censorship and repression of dissenters. However, dissenters continued to make their voices heard through reviving "self-publishing" (samizdat) and circulating copies made by hand or duplicated on typewriters. Nationalism among non-Russians continued as a source of discontent, and they increasingly equated Russia with oppressive colonialism rather than with communist solidarity.
In eastern Europe, various states developed along different parts despite the uniformity imposed by Soviet-style communist regimes. In Poland, protests in 1956 brought back to power Wladislaw Gomulka, who had been purged in 1951. He abandoned collectivization, but kept Poland in the Warsaw Pact. The de-Stalinization reforms in Hungary under Imre Nagy slowed down collectivization and industrialization. When Hungary attempted to leave the Warsaw Pact, however, Soviet troops invaded and crushed all resistance. Nagy's successor, Janos Kadar, who had been purged by Stalin, allowed greater economic freedom and initiative than other eastern European countries. Romania experienced one-person dictatorships under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceausescu. Except in Romania, the standard of living improved, there was greater availability of consumer goods, and educational opportunities increased.
During the 1960s, reform efforts emerged within the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. In 1968, these efforts merged with popular protest to produce a revolution within the party that brought to power Alexander Dubcek. He began to expand basic freedoms and decentralize the economy. The result was the "Prague Spring." As Czech reform ideas began to produce calls for reform in surrounding countries, including the Soviet Union, the other members of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed the Prague Spring. Brezhnev proclaimed the Brezhnev Doctrine, stipulating that the Red Army would be used to stomp out revolution in any eastern European country. Although eastern Europeans continued their opposition, the events of 1968 proved to them that the political systems were out of reform's reach, and so they retreated to the private worlds of family and friends.
Cold War concerns helped shape postwar society in western Europe. Material prosperity returned to western European economy.
Western governments agreed on the necessity of parliamentary democracy. Protection of individual rights, women's suffrage, and the guarantee of a decent standard of living were all put into place. To ensure a decent standard of living to all citizens, governments got more involved in the economy and even began the construction of welfare systems. The postwar period was clearly dominated by social democratic politics.
In western Europe and the U.S., the Cold War constricted political debate, and radical politics were marginalized. Christian Democrats on the right and Social Democrats on the left refused to allow communists to participate in government. In France and Italy, the Communist Party drew 20-30 percent of the vote, but remained out of power. The discrediting of the extreme right by World War II,led the Christian Democratic Parties to abandon authoritarianism. The result was that the Social Democratic Party and Christian Democratic Party agreed on the viability of parliamentary democracy and the need to use the power of government to improve the lives of the people. Post-war governments guaranteed adequate income and medical care to their citizens.
These political events coincided with an age of economic prosperity.
The idea of a European union first appeared during World War II as people looked for ways to ensure peace. After the war, two events occurred that pushed the idea of greater European unity. First, was the common opposition to Stalin. Second, was the Marshal Plan that required recipients to develop transnational institutions to oversee the distribution of American aid. Both Socialists and Christian Democrats promoted the idea of European economic unity. In 1952, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy created the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), joining together their coal and steel industries. Their success led them to form the European Economic Community (EEC), or Common Market, in 1957. The rapid expansion of trade among the members produced a flourishing economy. By contrast, Britain stayed out to preserve its preferential ties to the former colonies and struggled to compete.
After years of depression and wartime rationing, the political consensus and economic expansion gave Europeans economic security, which led to a spending spree. Many people were now able to buy homes and furnish them with the latest appliances.
The new affluence brought Europeans new possibilities, as well as fear that materialism could restrict opportunities. Several cultural currents responded to the need to make sense of the new materialism.
Existentialism reflected the despair of the 1930s and the mass destruction of World War II. Jean-Paul Sartre argued that the key to existence is man's condemnation to be free in a world devoid of meaning. Alberto Giacometti's fragile sculptures represented people on the verge of breaking apart from the agony of existence. Artists found they could not adequately portray the force of the atomic age, and this reinforced the reliance upon abstract art. Abstract expressionism emerged with an emphasis on spontaneity. The average person confronted nuclear fears in films and fiction, with giant creatures attacking the Western world. William Golding's Lord of the Flies illustrates fears about the moral deterioration of Western, civilized society.
Postwar culture continued many of the trends of the prewar years. Existentialist concerns about man living in a world without meaning, requiring him to create his own meaning, prevailed through the 1950s in the literature and the arts. The 1960s brought a postmodernist retreat from dealing with the horrors of World War II and the concerns of the Cold War. In its place appeared a concern with the effects of consumer abundance. This was shown in pop art, which reflected the material rather than the spiritual. In social thought, the existentialist concerns about creating meaning were replaced by structuralism. The leading figure in the new movement was Claude Levi-Strauss. He argued that the myths of all cultures had the same "deep structures" and repeated patterns that give order to culture. Structuralists were interested in the web or structure that dictates how people understand the world.
The discovery of DNA structure brought debates of the possibilities of cloning and genetic manipulation, as well as concerns about individual freedom. The development of penicillin, new vaccines, and organ transplants made a long, healthy life appear more possible. The Cold War inspired a space race to put a man on the moon in 1969, freeing man for the first time from the physical confines of the earth. In religion, the first decade and a half after the war saw an increase in participation in religious life. The 1960s saw a reversal and dramatic decline in religious activities. For the Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council introduced important changes in religious practice, including the use of vernacular languages in the worship services. Vatican II reaffirmed traditional church doctrines on clerical celibacy. Following the council, the pope reaffirmed church teaching on contraception.
With increased prosperity came new encounters between differing social and cultural groups. More and more U.S. goods entered the global market. The demand for labor meant an increase in immigration and female employment. Prosperity also enabled more people to enter college. The encounters and developments forced the West to make sense of this Age of Affluence.
One of the most important cultural trends of postwar Europe was the Americanization of European culture. The U.S. dominated scientific research. It also dominated popular culture. American films and programs dominated the film and television industry. American music took over the airwaves. Europeans grew alarmed over "coca-colonization," which they equated with a degradation of their own culture as well as a loss of intellectuals flocking to American universities. France's president Charles De Gaulle was an ardent anti-communist and who revered French culture. To him, the threat of "coco-colonization" was a greater enemy to France than communisim because the importation of American culture threatened French culture. He vowed to reduce America's influence and restore France's grandeur in France by acting independently in diplomatic and military situations. However, adoption of American culture also meant transforming it to match European countries' identities, not just one-way Americanization. For example, the Beatles adopted American rock and roll and mixed it with their own styles to transform popular music in Europe and America.
A second cultural trend was the growing presence of peoples in the periphery of southern Europe and the formed colonies in European industrialized countries. They provided the labor for the most dangerous and dirtiest jobs. At first they had come as single men who returned to their native countries. By the 1960s, they were coming as families. Europe was becoming increasingly multiethnic, and this complicated domestic politics and raised troublesome questions about national and ethnic identity.
In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex as a critique of gender division of society. Changes in the postwar years reinforced domesticity. In the postwar years women began marrying younger, as well as having fewer children. Religious cultures of the 1950s, in particular the devolution to Mary, reinforced the maternal identity of women. The maternal image of women was reinforced also by the popular culture in television programming, which portrayed women as staying at home and presiding over an array of new machines that made their lives easier. However, over the two postwar decades, the new prosperity also pushed women into higher education and the labor force. In part, the expanding list of household necessities required women to work to pay for them. Women's salaries remained substantially lower than men's, and traditional legal inequalities remained.
The 1960s saw challenges to established norms in both eastern and western Europe. For example, in France, the "Paris `68," a strike of eight million people, represents the political and social dissatisfaction of many Westerners, particularly the youth. New Left thinkers began warning about the expansion of the state that threatened the individuality of the ordinary citizen. They rejected both Soviet communism and U.S. capitalism. New Left thinkers demanded the right for ordinary people to participate in the structures that determined their lives. Discussions on liberation coincided with a sexual revolution in which people engaged in behavior traditionally labeled as immoral. Protestors even challenged the Cold War. They often drew inspiration from colonial independence movements.
The Cold War's two sides both claimed to be "democratic." The Soviet tanks rolling through eastern Europe, crushing dissent, prevented democracy from existing. In western Europe, on the other hand, democracy lasted. By the late 1960s, however, protestors began to challenge the link between democracy and "the West." They pointed to the absence of ordinary people in decision-making. To many, "the West" simply meant "anti-Soviet."
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