Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War IIOnly by understanding Central and Eastern Europe's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century can we hope to make sense of the conflicts and crises that have followed World War II and, after that, the collapse of Soviet-controlled state socialism. Ivan Berend looks closely at the fateful decades preceding World War II and at twelve countries whose absence from the roster of major players was enough in itself, he says, to precipitate much of the turmoil. As waves of modernization swept over Europe, the less developed countries on the periphery tried with little or no success to imitate Western capitalism and liberalism. Instead they remained, as Berend shows, rural, agrarian societies notable for the tenacious survival of feudal and aristocratic institutions. In that context of frustration and disappointment, rebellion was inevitable. Berend leads the reader skillfully through the maze of social, cultural, economic, and political changes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Soviet Union, showing how every path ended in dictatorship and despotism by the start of World War II. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1998. Only by understanding Central and Eastern Europe's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century can we hope to make sense of the conflicts and crises that have followed World War II and, after that, the collapse of Soviet-controlled st |
Contents
Catching Up or Lagging Behind? | 3 |
Temptation and Threat | 4 |
Reforms and Revolutions | 5 |
Latecomers in an Internationalized World Economy | 11 |
The Role of Railroads and Their SpinOff Effects | 13 |
Agriculture and the Export Sectors | 14 |
International Division of Labor and Its Impact on the Balkans | 16 |
The Awakening Giant | 17 |
Making a Great Romania | 173 |
National Revolutions without Nations | 178 |
From National Revolution to Nationalist Authoritarianism | 185 |
Nationalism Multiplies by Bipartition | 190 |
The Link to RightWing Authoritarianism | 194 |
From Bolshevik Revolution to a NationalImperial Modernization Dictatorship | 203 |
The Introduction of War Communism | 204 |
The New Economic Policy | 207 |
The Polish and Baltic Miracles | 18 |
Hungarys Semisuccessful Modernization | 19 |
Industrial Breakthrough in Austria and the Czech Lands | 20 |
The Semifailure of Central and Eastern European Modernization | 22 |
The Peculiar Pattern of Central and Eastern European Societies The Remnants of Nobleand Incomplete Societies | 24 |
The Large Estate and the Remnants of Noble Society | 25 |
LuckenPositionen and the Emergence of the Jewish Question | 32 |
The Incomplete Societies and the BureaucraticMilitary Parvenu in the Balkans | 40 |
Minorities and National Conflicts | 43 |
The Ideologies of Revolts and Revolutions The Birth of Nationalist Communist and Fascist Ideas | 48 |
Nationalism | 50 |
The Eastern European Approach to Nation Building | 52 |
NationState versus Knlturnation | 53 |
From Cultural Movement to Mass Organizations | 56 |
Communism | 61 |
The Rise of Western Socialist Reformism | 64 |
The Emergence of Eastern Revolutionarv Leninism | 65 |
Fascism | 70 |
Populism and Rising RightWing Radicalism in Central and Eastern Europe | 76 |
Revolution in Art and the Art in Revolution | 84 |
Art Nouveau Jugendstil Sezestion | 87 |
Ornamentation Is Sin | 91 |
The Expression of Irrational Reality in Literature | 92 |
Schoenberg Stravinsky and Bartok | 96 |
Kandinsky Kupka Brancusi and Archipenko | 100 |
Destruction Too Is Creation | 104 |
Constructivism and Suprematism | 106 |
Class Revolutions and Counterrevolutions National Revolutions and Their RightWing Deformation 19181929 | 113 |
Introduction | 115 |
Class Revolutions Counterrevolutions | 119 |
Hungarys Two Revolutions | 124 |
Bulgarias One and a Half Revolutions | 130 |
Revolutionary Attempts in the Baltic Countries and Austria | 133 |
The Wave of Counterrevolutions | 138 |
Belated National Revolutions | 145 |
Plans to Create Democratic Confederations | 146 |
Versailles and the Great Powers Policy of Balkanization | 151 |
The Polish Case | 154 |
The Independent Baltic States | 159 |
The Making of Czechoslovakia | 163 |
The Making of Yugoslavia | 168 |
Socialism in One Country | 210 |
The Concept of Forced Industrialization and Central Planning | 214 |
Merging Socialism in One Country and the Program of Forced Industrialization | 219 |
Economic Nationalism and Its Consequences | 224 |
Economic Slowdown and Structural Crisis in the World Economy | 227 |
Stabilization Efforts | 231 |
The Principle and Practice of Nationalist Economic Policy | 234 |
Agricultural Protectionism in Central Europe | 239 |
The Decline of International Trade | 241 |
Success Stories of the Twenties | 243 |
The Lack of TechnologicalStructural Adjustment | 244 |
The Great Depression and Its Impact Social Changes The Triumph of the Right The Art of the Crisis and the Crisis in Air 19291939 | 247 |
Introduction | 249 |
A Distinctive Great Depression in Central and Eastern Europe | 253 |
The Agricultural Crisis and Declining Terms of Trade | 255 |
The Debt Crisis and the Golgotha of the Debtors | 259 |
Lack of Adjustment to the Structural Crisis | 261 |
From the Great Depression to Nazi and Stalinist Isolationist Autarchy | 266 |
Government Interventions and SelfSufficiency | 269 |
The Creation of a GermanLed Isolationist Regional Agreement System | 273 |
Isolationism and SelfSufficiency in the Stalinist Soviet Union | 278 |
Social Changes New Forces and Factors | 287 |
The Emergence of a Confused Lower Middle Class | 294 |
The New Strata of Workers and Humiliating Unemployment | 297 |
Political Impact The Dirty Torrent of Dictatorships | 300 |
A Compromise between Political Catholicism and Heimwehr Fascism | 302 |
Hungary Shifts Further to the Right | 308 |
Josef Pilsudski and the Dictatorless Dictatorship in Poland | 314 |
Presidential Dictatorships in the Baltic Countries | 318 |
Royal Dictatorships in the Balkans | 324 |
The Characteristics of Fascism and the Authoritarian Regimes in Central and Eastern Europe | 340 |
From Bolshevik Revolution to a Deformed PartyState Dictatorship | 345 |
The Art of Crisis and the Crisis in Art | 358 |
Protest against a Dadaist World | 359 |
NaziFascist RetroGarde | 366 |
Mandatory Socialist Realism | 373 |
Conservative Academism and the Impact of Fascist Art | 383 |
CONCLUSION | 396 |
407 | |
423 | |
Other editions - View all
Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II Tibor Iván Berend Limited preview - 1998 |
Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe Before World War II Ivan T. Berend Limited preview - 2001 |
Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II Ivan T. Berend Limited preview - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
agricultural Albania army artists Austria-Hungary Austrian authoritarian avant-garde backward Balkans Baltic countries became began Bolshevik bourgeois Budapest Bulgaria capital Central and Eastern century communist coun Council created crisis cultural Czech Czechoslovakia declared declined democracy dictatorship early Eastern Europe Eastern European economic elections elite emerged Empire established Estonia ethnic exports fascist forces foreign German goals groups Heimwehr Hitler Hungarian Hungary ideology important increased independent industrial Iron Guard Jewish Jews Lajos Kassák land Latvia leaders Lenin Lithuania majority mass military million modern movement national revolution nationalist Nazi nineteenth organization painting parliament parliamentary peasantry percent Piłsudski Poland Polish political population populist postwar production radical reform regime region revolutionary right-wing role Romanian Russian sezession Slovak Social Democratic socialist society sought Soviet Union Stalin structure struggle thirties tion tional trade traditional transformation trend Trotsky Vienna West Western workers Yugoslavia Zogu
Popular passages
Page xix - It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which, however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the curiosity and candor of the public.