An Empire in Dissolution

...An entirely different concept prevails in Europe east of the Rhine...

...In the West, nationalism has a distinctly territorial connotation?indeed the terms "a national" and "a citizen" are used synonymously...

...Take the Rumanian example: Stalin's support of autarchy in each Communist state led Bucharest to embark upon its own industrialization program...

...At a time when it seems fashionable to assume that the second word in "Political Science" precludes the first, it is deeply satisfying to find living proof that this need not be so...

...Moreover, thanks to Stalin's convenient assistance in relieving GheorghiuDej of the presence of powerful rival factions, the Rumanian leader did not have to fear Soviet manipulations in his backyard when he decided to challenge Khrushchev's attempt to restrict the diversification of Rumania's economy...

...A man's nationality is determined primarily by the place where he resides and the authority to which he owes allegiance...

...Having eschewed economic integration with its neighbors, Rumania was reasonably invulnerable to economic reprisals and could proceed with equanimity along its separate path, even when Khrushchev belatedly tried to enforce an "International Division of Labor" in Eastern Europe...

...The trouble is that Western thought does not distinguish clearly between these concepts...

...As a result, East European leaders suddenly discovered that their local power base had been augmented sufficiently for them to be able to indulge, with relative impunity, in policies lacking Moscow's approval...

...In the concluding paragraph of this edition, moreover, Brzezinski was able to reprint his original conclusions by simply changing some of the tenses...

...Of course due caution, if not actual fear, still restricts the range of policies explored by some of the East European governments...

...Albanian broadcasts, supporting a pro-Chinese underground faction in Poland, do not hesitate to recruit hoary racial prejudices against the revisionists by constant use of the phrase "Go-mulka and his Zionist gang...

...The Kremlin no longer has the authority—perhaps not even the naked power—to fill this role...

...However, since East European national and state frontiers simply do not coincide, an appeal to nationalism usually produces disruptive countercurrents...

...There, "nationality" and "citizenship" are two completely separate terms...

...The new edition continues Brzezinski's study from the 1950s into the mid-1960s and contains admirably clear, logical and concise analyses of the more significant aspects of the process of dissolution...

...Thus, although U.S...

...its compelling arguments are no longer drowned by ideological incantation led by the grim Muscovite high-priest, nor by paeans sung to that once awesome leader...

...Although internecine strife in Eastern Europe may superficially seem advantageous to the West, these are, in themselves, far from positive trends that are likely to be reinforced rather than weakened as the various Communist regimes come to rely increasingly upon their domestic power base...

...Stalin duly exploited this situation, but in some instances the long-term effects of his measures actually diminished Soviet leverage...

...Reviewed by URI RA'ANAN Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy The second half of the 20th century has witnessed the transformation of the Communist camp from a near-monolith to a group of distinct political entities increasingly motivated by competing (and mutually antagonistic) state egotisms...

...This has not proved easy, for generally speaking the Communist leadership has been distinctly lacking in domestic appeal: Unwilling to jeopardize its monopoly of power, it has narrowly limited the play of political and intellectual forces in urban areas, while (except in Poland and Yugoslavia) ideological prejudices have prevented it from effectively wooing the countryside by letting the peasants own the land...

...Moscow itself, of course, has always been able to temper its ideological commitments with a suitable dose of state interest...

...A man's nationality is determined by his personal identity and ancestry, quite irrespective of his country of residence and his formal allegiance...

...Thus it is only on national grounds that Communist regimes have been able to make a meaningful plea to "their" peoples...

...An ecumenical movement can be held together by a doctrine only as long as there is a single authorized interpreter able to impose one valid and orthodox version of the true belief...

...Brzezinski's book is sensitively attuned to the nuances of the situation and reveals an encyclopaedic grasp of contemporary developments (including the Sino-Soviet dispute...

...The frontiers of states and of nationalities not only do not necessarily coincide, they almost invariably overlap...

...Paradoxically, in fact, Stalin's own policy during the years 1948-53 assisted in creating a basis for the subsequent transformation of his empire into a looser alliance of states that now pays only limited heed to the USSR's hegemony...

...Since the disintegration of the bloc has made Eastern European regimes increasingly dependent upon their domestic power base, each has naturally attempted to strengthen its ties with the dominant nationality in its state...

...Yet it is compellingly lucid, unfolds effortlessly and remains happily unencumbered by jargon...

...By virtue of a common state and a common allegiance, a Frenchman may be a Parisian, an Italian-speaking Corsican, a German-speaking Alsatian, a Basque, or, for that matter, the native of a tropical island under the French flag...

...territorial issues and irredenta abound, along with national and minority questions...

...Clearly, we are confronted by highly complex phenomena and Zbigniew Brzezinski's definitive work on the rise and dissolution of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe does not shun such complexities, nor does it overlook subtleties...

...The situation changed radically, however, once "de-Stalinization" deprived the USSR of some of its political prestige...

...immigration quotas were originally conceived in essentially ethnic terms, they are actually allocated to country of birth (which, of course, provides no real indication of the applicant's ethnic or cultural identity...

...The Hungarians make snide references to the treatment of the Magyar minority in Slovakia, quoting Marx to prove that the Slovaks, historically speaking, are reactionaries and the Magyars progressives...

...But within the limits set by such factors, a growing choice of options is becoming available to individual Communist regimes...

...The democratic Czechoslovak Republic of Masaryk and Benes gave all its inhabitants a common Czechoslovak citizenship, but by nationality they were not Czechoslovaks—they were Czechs, Sudeten Germans, Slovaks, Magyars, Ruthenians, Jews and Poles...

...There is, to be sure, a great deal of traditional nationalism just now in Eastern Europe, but it should not be confused with the separate, if parallel, phenomenon of an increasing identification between Communist leaders and their local power bases, i.e., the particular states they rule...

...Nationalism in Eastern Europe, therefore, can be a cohesive force only as far as the dominant nationality (Staatsvolk) in the state is concerned...

...Apparently, even some of his agents have assimilated and the days when a portion of the Bloc could be run by Lavrenti Beria's representative in Baden, Fyodor Belkin, have gone forever...

...Nor can they easily assimilate in a society where "we" and "they" are the basic concepts of everyday life and the melting pot is not even an ideal...

...Traditional concepts of foreign policy are beginning to have some relevance to the international posture adopted by the weaker Communist powers...

...As always, in the search for factors to cement the interests of the ruled to those of the rulers, the appeal has been to the lowest common denominator...

...Minorities do not profit from an alignment between the regime and the dominant nationality: They become particularly "alien" when there is a wave of national solidarity and may even be regarded as suspect if they live close to the frontiers of a foreign, albeit Communist, state with which they have ethnic ties...

...Each state has, in its midst, minorities who carry the country's passport but whose national identity links them to other states and peoples...

...consequently, most of them were pathetically dependent on Moscow...

...The Bulgars, normally faithful supporters of Moscow, publish nasty attacks upon certain Soviet journals for suggesting that the Macedonians in Yugoslavia and Greece are not Bulgars, but a separate people...

...Perhaps, they are even experiencing a secret sense of guilt because life increasingly demands actions which, in spite of all sophistries, clearly and flagrantly violate the very precepts of Communist ideology...

...it becomes disruptive when, as is inevitable, it also affects the various minorities...

...The propositions he conditionally advanced some years ago have become the self-evident truths of today...

...The Rumanians become irate when the treatment of the Magyars in Transylvania is mentioned, insisting that this issue is closed, but constantly attempt to reopen the question of Soviet rule in Bessarabia and the fate of the Rumanians there...

...The highly complex processes by which Communist power has become "domesticated" in most East European states are sometimes subsumed under the general heading of a "resurgence of nationalism...

...In other words, in Western political philosophy, nationalism is practically coterminous with the state—a cohesive force that strengthens the popular roots of government by reinforcing the sense of separate identity shared by a given country, its population and its rulers...

...In the economic field, his desire to seal off his satellites hermetically from one another led him to encourage complete autarchy rather than integration and interdependence...

...Replying, the Slovaks actually go so far as to say that, in their attitude toward the Slavs, Marx and Engels were guilty of pan-German bias...

...Now serving as a senior policy planner in the State Department, Brzezinski has indeed done pioneering work in his sober assessment of the limits within which Western policy may derive benefits from contemporary developments in the Communist world...

...Mother tongue, cultural traits, names and even religion may be relevant indications of the national group to which an individual belongs...

...Individual Communist regimes now hear the voice of raison d'etat more and more clearly...

...In the immediate postwar period, hardly any East European Communist party could boast of a solid, domestic power base...

...Nevertheless, all the evidence indicates that by now, formal allegiance to a common creed serves as much to divide as to unite the Communist world...

...loss of respect was automatically attended by a sensible diminution of Soviet influence...

...The present Revised and Enlarged Edition, more than ever, uses a political approach toward essentially political phenomena in a part of the world which traditionally thinks in political terms...

...The negative results of these policies were not apparent, of course, as long as every satellite leader was under the sway of Stalin's authority and power...

...Probably a couple of Moscow's former satellites, especially the rulers of East Germany, are not yet sufficiently confident of the enduring strength of their domestic power base to risk the total loss of Soviet support...

...And surprisingly enough, the process of devolution has not been hampered much by the fact that Stalin, in his day, was able to infiltrate the very core of the power apparatus in Eastern Europe, namely the defense and security (police) organs...

...A Ukrainian residing in Moscow, whose ancestors moved there and who, perhaps, speaks little but Russian, is still a Ukrainian by nationality and not a Great Russian...

...The first edition of The Soviet Bloc was one of the significant pioneering efforts in systematizing the analysis of Communism in Eastern Europe, yet it had all the hallmarks of authorship by a profoundly political thinker...

...In truth, today as during the 1930s, Eastern Europe is engulfed in a tidal wave of chauvinism...

...To be sure, the various Communist regimes continue to view the Western world as a fundamental antagonist in a prolonged historic struggle, and to regard themselves and their comrades almost as a race apart—bitter internecine quarrels notwithstanding...

...Politically, Stalin's monolithic concepts caused him to throw his support behind one particular group in each East European Communist party and to help that faction eliminate all its rivals...

...They seem uncertain about the extent to which they may openly disagree with Moscow, although the examples of Yugoslavia, Rumania, Albania and China, to mention only a few, stand before them...

...Consequently, differing "interpretations" of Marxism-Leninism abound and serve conveniently to cloak the fact that individual Communist regimes have become more responsive to separate and conflicting state interests...