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Europe's Second Dark Ages? (book review) - Page 2

© Joseph Sramek

However, while many have focused on this "Miracle Economy" as it has come to be called, fewer have realized that the effect of the Second World War and the Cold War on Communist Eastern Europe was equally profound. Within the course of only two decades, Eastern Europe was transformed into a predominately urban society. [9] In addition, the socialist ideal of a classless society was being effected; despite the perhaps inevitable creation of its own ruling lcass, Mazower argues that Communism was the least elitist of any previous system to have existed in Eastern Europe. In terms of income distribution, by the 1960s, Czechoslovakia was the most egalitarian state in Europe, with Poland and East Germany not that far behind. [10] While one can object to Communism as a system on moral and other grounds, he argues that one should not fail to notice that it effected a social revolution, one that in many ways improved the lives of many Eastern Europeans. [11]

This "remarkable" period of social change and relative calm and prosperity came to an abrupt end, however, in 1973. Due to the oil embargoes as well as sudden inflation caused by the Americans during the Vietnam War, European economies suffered from recession and stagflation. As a result, older tensions from before 1945 - tensions between Left and Right, between capital and labor, and between members of a national group and ethnic minorities - resurfaced. [12] Racism reared its pre-war ugly head once more as Gästarbeitern [German word for "guest-workers"], brought in as a result of the labor shortages of the 1950s and 1960s were increasingly seen as unwelcome during the high-unemployment years of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. [13] In short, the entire edifice of the post-war consensus broke down, and it is unsure even today in 1999 what exactly will replace it.

Even more shocking than this breakdown of the post-war consensus, however, was the sudden collapse of Communism in 1989. One interpretation of the causes of this points to the Reaganite military buildup, and the Soviet inability to compete. Yet while there is certainly some truth in this, Mazower cautions against viewing this collapse in triumphalist tones, noting that the collapse and the way it came about were completely unanticipated by the West. [14] Rather than the final victory of a Manichaean Cold War, the collapse of Communism should be seen more as the last case of European decolonization. [15]

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