Lecture 28: Speaking Truth to Power: The 4th Decolonization & the Fall of the Soviet Empire

History 5 - Spring 2008: The Making of Modern Europe, 1453 to the Present

Intro:   

Post-1945: Decolonialization, often accompanied with violence. The most dramatic of these struggles, over Algeria (conquered in 1830, administratively part of France since 1839), so divides France as to threaten its democracy. In 1958, as paratroopers are preparing a coup, a desparate president calls in Gen. Charles de Gaulle, resistance hero of WWII, to draw up a new constitution and manage (somehow) the crisis. Narrowly surviving assassination attempts, De Gaulle maneuvers between the National Liberation Front (FLN), representing c. 4 million “Arabs;” a French majority exhausted from the conflict; and the c. 2 million colons (“white” descendants of French settlers) supported by the French Right. A 1962 referendum finally legitimizes withdrawal.

The last empire to undergo De-Colonization is that Soviets’. How was it possible? We return to the 3 themes with which we began our semester: a strengthening distinction between public & private realms and the growing autonomy of each; the significance of religion; and power concentrated in the State – but now encountering increasing legal and international limits. The significance of Détente. 1968: Prague Spring (Alexander Dubček’s “Socialism with a human face”), student demonstrations West & East. Interest in marxism revives in West and “Eurocommunism” seems fashionable, while in East, faith in communism disappears, even among its leaders. But how did dissenters find mass support? Three important dates: 1978 Karel Wojtyła = Pope John Paul II; 1980 Lech Wałęsa and “Solidarity;” 1985 Mikael Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Community Party of the Soviet Union.