EASTERN EUROPE: THE UNSTABLE ELEMENT

IN THE SOVIET EMPIRE

By

Robert F. Byrnes

There is a finality, for better or worse, about what has happened in Eastern Europe.

If things go on as they are today, there will simply have to be some sort of an adjustment on the part of the peoples of Eastern Europe, even if it is one that takes the form of general despair, apathy, demoralization, and the deepest sort of disillusion with the West. The failure of recent popular uprisings to shake the Soviet military domination has now produced a bitter and dangerous despondency throughout large parts of Eastern Europe. If the taste or even the hope of independence dies out in the hearts of these peoples, then there will be no recovering it; then Moscow's victory will be complete.

These two statements were made by Ambassador George Kennan, one of our most perceptive analysts of Soviet politics and foreign policy. The first appeared in the spring of 1956, three months before the Poznan riots and six months before the revolt in Hungary. The other was made only two years later, ten years before the Soviet armed forces intervened in Czechoslovakia to crush the hopes there for "socialism with a human face." Thus even a perceptive analyst demonstrates a lack of understanding of and confidence in the peoples of Eastern Europe, their national response to foreign rule, and the immense challenge which their faith and Western intellectual and economic strengths combined pose for the Soviet Union.

Eastern Europe remains a part of Europe and therefore the very heart of the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. The thesis which Walter Lippmann emphasized in 1947 is still valid: the main problem is "whether, when, and under what conditions the Red Army can be prevailed upon to evacuate Europe," because the balance of power and peace can be achieved only with withdrawal. Soviet control of most of Eastern Europe has given it forward military bases and possession of the traditional invasion routes into Europe, especially across the northern plains. The Soviet position constitutes a threat to the security of Western Europe, in fact a kind of pistol held at the head of the West. The peoples and resources of the area behind the Berlin Wall constitute an important increment to Soviet economic

and military power. At the same time, the Soviet position gives the Soviet Union a veto not only over the unification of Germany but also over the unification or reconstruction of Europe as a whole. It also constitutes a permanent threat to the NATO system because Soviet control over Eastern Germany maintains the fear of another Russian-German alliance and therefore provides opportunities for Soviet diplomacy. By dividing Europe and perpetuating fear and tension, it therefore enables the Soviet Union to restrict the role which the European states can play in world politics.

The high position which Europe, including Eastern Europe, occupies in Soviet foreign policy is reflected in the constant efforts to undermine and destroy NATO and to acquire legitimacy for the Soviet position in Eastern Europe. Soviet expansion in the Middle East is in good part an effort to stage an end run (in Leninist terminology, one step backward in order to take two steps forward) around NATO, to strike at Europe by depriving it of access to 90 percent of its oil, and to undermine Greece, Turkey, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Italy, and the Western position in the Mediterranean.

F

THE SURFACE VIEW OF SOVIET AUTHORITY

Soviet control over Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland appears tighter and firmer than ever before, and the relative independence of Rumania is severely hedged by its geographical position. The force and skill with which Soviet-led ground forces crushed Czechoslovakia in August 1968 demonstrated to the Czechs, the Slovaks, and all those living under Soviet domination that the Soviet Union is powerful and resolute and that it would not tolerate significant modification of the Communist monopoly in these countries. Moreover, the crushing of Czechoslovak socialist humanism was accomplished at remarkably low cost. The Czechs and Slovaks received no support from friends and neighbors; in fact, their "allies" in the Warsaw Pact, except for Rumania, participated in the invasion. The diplomatic skill with which the Soviets handled the post-invasion situation was also exceptional. Neither the United States, its Western European allies, nor the United Nations provided effective criticism, and the cause of Czechoslovakia disappeared far more quickly from the international scene than did that of Hungary in 1956, or even that of Tibet. Even the losses within the international Communist movement were cleverly restricted. Moreover, the political skill with which the Soviet rulers have brought about change in the Czechoslovak political system since August 1968 has been most impressive. They have eliminated Dubcek, Smrkovski, Cernik, and their chief supporters and replaced them with Soviet puppets with no outward manifestation of disaffection at any stage within Czechoslovakia or, indeed, anywhere in the world.

At the same time, the United States has taken no diplomatic or other action and seems to concentrate its diplomatic energies upon finding honorable and quick endings to crises caused in good part by Soviet aggressive actions, the war in Southeast Asia and the conflict in the Middle East, and on reaching an agreement in the SALT talks. As the Soviet outward thrust has created tensions in other parts of the world, and as weapons technology has proceeded through several

revolutions, Eastern Europe has declined precipitously in the American public's system of priorities. Many Americans, like Ambassador Kennan, believe that Soviet authority and determination are so immense, the weaknesses of each of the peoples and states so manifest, and the disinterest and powerlessness of other governments so evident that those peoples now dominated by the Soviet Union are doomed to remain forever condemned to that situation. Others are still tempted by doctrines such as disengagement, or the belief that tensions in central Europe will decline if American and Soviet forces can only be withdrawn or reduced. Moreover, the United States, still the center of resistance to Soviet expansion, is swept by disillusion, weariness, a revival of isolationism, another wave of hedonism, and a kind of onesided intellectual disarmament which clearly reduce our influence in world politics and which must affect the Soviet view of Soviet prospects. In fact, we often resemble Great Britain or France in the 1930's. In addition, most Americans, for understandable reasons, are increasingly preoccupied with domestic social problems, at the same time that many of our intellectuals and opinionmakers concentrate upon debunking American policy since the end of World War II.

Our allies in Europe, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia briefly interrupted some of their activities, also resumed their relationships with the Soviet Union and its East European allies. In fact, the West German government, with the full understanding and support of its allies, on August 12 signed a non-aggression agreement in Moscow which recognizes the inviolability of the present boundaries of Europe, which means apparent acceptance of the Soviet position in that critical area and may lead to some kind of status or recognition for East Germany. A European security conference seems likely in 1971; this may also strengthen the apparent legitimacy of Soviet hegemony.

Western acceptance of Soviet hegemony and even perhaps of the German Democratic Republic helps explain the Soviet drive for a détente. The Soviets will also seek to soften and divide the West; to take advantage of the current American disarray and irresolution to ease the United States out of Europe; to destroy NATO; to paralyze West European efforts toward some kind of unity; to obtain trade and credits for itself and for the equally stagnant economies of Eastern Europe; and to attain some kind of security on their Western borders at a time of prolonged tension with Communist China. Indeed, some worried Western observers share the illusions expressed by Ambassador Kennan that Soviet resolution and skill will end once and for all hope of independence or even of gradual progress for self-determination. throughout Eastern Europe.

In fact, as the Soviet rulers no doubt realize, the policy of détente also raises problems and challenges. Indeed, I believe that Soviet policy represents a great gamble and that it exposes its Western borderlands to developments it will be unable to control. Basically, West German acceptance of the present boundaries of Eastern Europe represents no real change: no Western states hoped or intended to change those boundaries, and no treaty can guarantee their permanence, any more than the Congress of Vienna ensured the permanence of the status quo of Europe then. Moreover, the August 12 agreement, other West German treaties with the several states under Soviet hegemony, and a European security agreement will not only reduce

Czech and Polish fear of West Germany, which has helped turn them toward the Soviet Union, but will also help create a climate of trust. cooperation, and peaceful rivalry by reducing somewhat the danger of war. Soviet controls lose their justification and some of their potency when fear is reduced, while those elements of our strength become ever more effective as peaceful relations are more widely accepted. In short, moving the competition into fields where our weapons are effective will enable the Western states to use their economic, intelleetual, and diplomatic tools with the different countries in such a way as to undermine the Soviet position.

THE BASIC INSTABILITY OF COMMUNIST EASTERN EUROPE

Eastern Europe is a seriously unstable area and one which will test Soviet resourcefulness, and that of all of us, throughout the next few years. It constitutes, first of all, the Achilles heel of an overextended empire, an area which has already given Soviet leaders several serious cases of indigestion and one which will become more troublesome and burdensome in the years ahead. Eastern Europe is not Central Asia, or Tibet, and the Soviet Union will not be able to absorb its peoples as easily as Russia did those of Central Asia just one hundred years ago. Moreover, Eastern Europe is subject to the same economic, social, and intellectual forces which are causing rapid change everywhere in the world.

The basic problem for the Soviet Union is simple: its military and political rule is threatened by powerful economic, social, and intellectual forces which are not susceptible to the kinds of controls which have proved effective in the Soviet Union (and which will remain effective within that country). First of all, nationalism is a rising phenomenon throughout Eastern Europe, as it is in most other parts of the world. It enabled Tito to unite his country and to survive. against both intensive Soviet pressure and enticements after 1948. It helped the Albanian Communist rulers successfully to switch their allegiance from Moscow to Peking when they suspected their country might be sacrificed as part of an attempted rapprochement between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. It has united most Rumanians behind the Rumanian Communist leaders in their effort to carve out an independent role in economic development and in foreign policy. The peasants kept it alive during the dreadful years under Stalin and his puppets, "rolling with the punch" as they had under other foreign regimes. Now, the affection for the national history and culture, and for the national interest, has been adopted by the workers, the middle class, the students, and the intelligentsia as well. In fact, one of the ironies of the last twenty years is that Communist success in transforming the economies of the East European states has created new classes of skilled workers and trained men and women who have rediscovered their national past and who now direct more of their animosity against the Russians for recent restrictions than against the Germans, who were the hated enemies for the first two decades after the war. The recent trade and aid agreement completed between Bonn and Warsaw, the successful talks between Moscow and Bonn concerning the mutual renunciation of force and other issues, and the forthcoming discussions and, presumably, agreements between West