After having seen how European Nation-States committed suicide in the two World Wars of the first half of the 20th century, in 1945 Europe was generally a continent in ruins, at the mercy of both World Power: the US and the USSR. European Nation-States that in 1914 were controlling the world in three decades had become ruined countries with no influence in the Planet. Only in this critical situation European States governments understood that the only way of being relevants again was getting together. First they tried the federal way (Teaching guide 9) and the failure of this attempt led to the Communitarian Integration (Teaching guides 10, 11 and 12). But before getting there we should know what has been the position of Europe from 1945 to the present in the World Order, including their position between the disappearance of the USSR after the end of the Cold War and Ukraine’s invasion by Putin in February 2022. This is what we are going to study in Teaching Guide 7.
Interbellum: After World War I (1918-1939)
The European Nation-States were destroyed in 1918. Economies in the Entente Allies and in the Central Powers sunk. The growth of national indebtedness, both internal and external, of the Entente Allies and the Central Powers rose from 27.883.000.000 USD in 1914 to 224,174,000,000 in the period 1918-1919. US economic output doubled in 4 years and became the leading economy of the world after the war. Before World War 1 European Nation-States had 55% of the World GDP, and in 1918 the US hold 45%. In 1914 the US imported more than exported to Europe. In 1918 it was the other way round. Since 1918 the US became the leading World Power. It would remain so until 1945, and then will share world supremacy with the USSR. Until 1991.
World War I provoked the crisis of the Laissez faire regimes, the Liberal Democracies, where the State had a minimum intervention. The Liberal model was replaced since the October 1917 Soviet Revolution by totalitarianism. Of course in Russia, but also, as a reaction (as the Establishment of European States were afraid that what it had happened in Russia could happen everywhere) by the raise of Mussolini’s Fascist regime in Italy (1922) and the triumph of Nazi regime in Hitler’s Germany (since 1933) then in Italy (from 1922) and Germany (from 1933). As a result of this Europe saw tensions grow between the Communist and the Fascist-Nazi models of Dictatorship.
Tensions exploded for the first time in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which Stalin supported one side and Hitler and Mussolini the other one, while European and American democracies followed the non intervention principle. The Spanish carnage was only the prologue of a much greater global confrontation: World War 2, the result of Russian imperialism (after the founding of the Kommintern by Lenin in 1919), Mussolini’s colonial expeditions in Libya, Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and finally Hitlerian Lebensraum.
World War 2 and its Aftermath (1939-1948)
World War 2 started because Hitler and Stalin agreed on an alliance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of September 8, 1939. Three weeks before the Wehrmacht attack on Poland that launched World War 2. Two weeks before Stalin occupied its part of Poland and ordered Katyn’s massacre from March to May 1940.
Hitler would have won the war if he had not ordered the invasion of the USSR in June 1941. Hitler made the same mistake as Napoleon invading Russia on 22 June 1941, being stopped at Stalingrad (actual Volvograd) in the fiercest battle of the whole war that lasted 6 months (From August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943).
The Russian Army after that would become decisive in the final victory two years and three months after Stalingrad’s battle. Along with the US. This is why in the Teheran Conference of 1943, and then in Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July-August 1945) the World was divided between Russians and Americans. European Governments had nothing to say in the New World Order.
The key of it was Stalin’s position. After having started the war as Hitler’s ally, Soviet Russia ended the war in the side of allies. This paradox explains why Soviet Dictatorship was accepted by intellectuals in the Western world, and the Communist Parties depending on Moscow spread in Western European democracies. At least until the advent of Euro communism, with leaders as Italian Enrico Berlinguer, as a reaction to USSR intervention during the Dubcek’s Prague’s Spring (January-August 1968).
If you want to understand the fascination that Stalin exerted over European Public Opinion you should not miss the film Mr Jones (2019) directed by Polish Agnieska Holland. The film is based on the true story of Gareth Jones, an ambitious ambitious young journalist who had gained some renown for his interview with Hitler. Thanks to his connections with the former British Prime Minister Lloyd George (both Welsh) he is granted official permission in 1933 t to travel to the Soviet Union to interview Stalin and find out more about Russian apparently economic success of the five year development plan. Jones cannot leave Moscow but he escapes, jumps in a train and travels unofficially to Ukraine to discover evidence of the big Famine (Holomodor), the enforced collection of grain, empty villages, with starving people that are reduced to cannibalism. But on his efforts to denounce the real Stalin on his return to Britain, he struggles to get his story taken seriously. The film ends by recording that Jones died while reporting in Inner Mongolia with a guide who was secretly connected the Soviet Secret Service the State Political Directorate (GPU). Replaced in 1934 by the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) tha will send Ramon Mercader to assassinate Trosky in Mexico in 1939, and since 1954 by the KGB (Committee for State Security). Since 1991 it has been replaced by the FSB (Federal Service of Security).
The Cold War (1948-1989)
The Marshall Plan (1947) will be the detonator of the Cold War (1948-1989) as Stalin would not accept American aid for developing market economy in Eastern Europe. The result was the iron curtain (Churchill) and the Berlin Wall (1961-1989). But this not only affected Europe. The World would be divided between the countries that followed Capitalist Democracy and Communist Model. There was not an open war but the USSR and the US were struggling in all continents, until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
The defeat of the Communist model as a result of the Cold War was possible because Western democracies adapted to the Social Question through the development of the Welfare State Model, that paradoxically started in the US in the 1930’s with the New Deal policy of FDR. What made nevertheless European Welfare State different was the fact that the Tax payers supported the Welfare state, which made the state much stronger in Europe than in the US, where private sector is overwhelmingly bigger that the Public sector. In Europe is the other way round. From 1945 Social Security, and Public Welfare aids were supported all over Western Europe by tax payers. Something that was initially possible thanks to the extraordinary Economic growth of the Thirty Glorious years.
It is interesting that paradoxically in the traditionally Communist’s regimes have also joined the market Economy. Russian has become since 1991 a system dominated by powerful oligarchs that now are sanctioned after Ukraine’s invasion. And China after Den Xiaoping (1978-1992) has entered in the Era of Market Socialism that has transformed China in a leading World Power in the 21st century. A very powerful Dictatorial state that surprisingly is playing full the Market rules. An amazing contradiction.
The “socialization” of Western capitalism and the “capitalization” of Eastern Communism has led in very efficient way to the globalization of the World. The consequence of globalization from the International Relations perspective is may be the beginning of a global constitutional history starting with the League of Nations (1920-1946) and following with the United Nations (since 1945). Until February 2022 Treaties and International Organizations (WTO, GATT, IMF, World Bank), that seek to rule the world through negotiation and governance instead of through authority and military intervention.
But now thing are in a way back to 1945 and the International Policy of blocks, as Russia and China are heading a military alternative to NATO. A military Alliance created in 1949 when Europeans asked for US protection after the start of Cold War and the threat of a Russian invasion.
The Post Cold War World (1991-2022)
But the disappearance of the Iron Curtain and the fall of the Communists regimes did not led to a unique American leadership and today we are facing a multipolar world where China, India and the Russian federation are challenging US supremacy.
The problem is that the 1975 Oil crisis stopped the expansionist cycle and European states could afford less and less the Welfare State System. Which brought the anti-regulation movement of the 1980’s spearheaded by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and bringing back Laissez faire liberalism.
With dreadful consequences in terms of the rising of inequalities. Capitalism after the 1980’s neoliberal way has produced a substantial rising of economic and social inequalities, that is leading to a new oligarchic model of the State controlled by the Establishment, despite the interesting theories of the Legal and Political American thinker John Rawls who developed a very peculiar way of making compatible the Laissez faire principle and the protection of equality. Have you heard about the Universal income? He was the guy who brought the idea into our contemporary world.
After the collapsing of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the only two real communist countries are Cuba and North Korea. But Russia and China are trying to impose the dictatorial model to the globalized world, as an alternative to the Western Democratic System. The Ukraine’s invasion by Putin troops has made it clear, especially after the sudden alliance between Xi Jiping and Putin (4 February 2022).
Democracy is in crisis, with the rise of populisms, even in the US with the Trump Administration that brought the shameful episode of the storming of the United States Capitol by the mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.
Challenges for Europe in the 21st Century
But in this Global model where is Europe? The European Union is from this perspective doing better as the Rule of Law is one of the pillars of European integration, along with a respect of the Welfare State principle. But with the Ukraine’s invasion Europe has discovered that they cannot entirely count on the US military protection and that European States have to reinforce their military policy independently from NATO. Economical Union is not enough and if we Europeans want to maintain our democracies we will have to fight for them
The problem is how Europe is facing the 21st century as a huge market (first GDP in the world) but with no leadership, as lacking of a strong Executive. The problem for Europe is that our old Nation States are doing very poorly at the global level. We are irrelevant compared to China, Russia, India or even the Petro Monarchies as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the United Arab Emirates. And most of this countries –with may be with the exception of India- are not real democracies.
Of course we are not used to it because the world had been in peace from 1991 to 2022. But things will never be the same, independently of the issue of the Ukraine’s war.
The most important idea you have to retain of Teaching Guide 7 is how after 1945 Europe was left far behind World leadership, despite our considerable economic expansion Nevertheless prosperity has not helped European nation states to join the league of the leading protagonists of the World contemporary history. But Ukraine’s War may change this situation after almost 8 decades.
The main problem that Europe is facing to get back as a protagonist in World historya is that we have not found an effective way of getting together to defend our interests and our political, legal, social and economical model. Why? This is what we are going to find out in the next Teaching Guides.
INSTRUCTIONS: First read the text included in your Materials (pages 163 to 181), before proceeding to answer the Concrete Questions, the Concepts and the General Questions.
Concerning the Basic Chronology (pages 182-186) the crucial dates are the following:
1946 (Appearance of the Italian Republic),
1947 (Marshall Plan)
1948, June (beginning of the Berlin Blockade),
1949 (Creation of NATO, Appearance of German Federal Republic and Mao’s triumph in China),
1953 (Death of Stalin),
1958 (DE Gaulle’s in power),
1959 (Castro’s victory in Cuba),
1961 (beginning of the Berlin Wall),
1963 (JFK’s assassination),
1964 (beginning of the Vietnam War),
1966 (beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution),
1968 January-August (Prague Spring),
1973 (military coup in Chile against Allende),
1974 (Nixon’s resignation Watergate scandal),
1975 (end of Vietnam War and death of Franco),
1976 (Death of Mao),
1978 (Den Xiao Ping in Power and beginning of Market Socialism in China),
1979 (Founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran),
1985 (Gorbatchev in power in the USSR),
1989, November 9 (Fall of the Berlin Wall),
1990 (German reunification),
1991 (Extinction of the USSR),
2001, September 11 (Islamic Terrorism hits the US),
2004, March 11 (Terrorist attack in Madrid),
2005 (Angela Merkel becomes German chancellor),
2008 (Obama becomes US President),
2014 (Juan Carlos I resigns on his son Philip VI as king of Spain, and Scottish referendum of independence),
2015 (Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris),
2016 (Brexit referendum and Donald Trump election),
2017 October 1st (Catalan independence illegal referendum),
2020, January 31 (The UK leaves the EU).
2020, March (Expansion of COVID 19’s Pandemic all over the world),
2021 (January 6: assault on US Capitol by Trump supporters;
January 20: Joe Biden takes office as the 46 US President
8 December: Olaf Scholz German Chancelor.
And of course you have to add:
1999, the 31st December when Putin gets to Power after Boris Yeltsin resignation,
2022, the 24th of January, date of the beginning of the Ukraine’s invasion.
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION IN CLASS: Why Europeans despite being developed economies we do not have a decisive influence in today’s world?
Please consider the following aspects:
1. Remember the History of Europe in 1919-1939, and from 1945. Especially during the Cold War period. Try to think of the most influential European leaders during this period.
2. Think why a country like the Russian Federation where the average population is facing serious economic problems is far more influential than European nation-States today.
3. Do the US, China, Russia, India have a powerful national narrative? If so explain why and which one. And compare with the European reality.
4. Is the Welfare State a problem in terms of Economic growth? Read the pages about John Rawls theory (176) before answering. Is social justice (reducing inequalities) a problem for becoming a powerful country worldwide? Think about Boris Johnson following statement: "The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends." (24 March 2021)
5. Is democracy a problem for having a powerful State? Think of how Russia has been trying to destabilize Western democracies, taking advantage of local domestic conflicts (as US Presidential Elections, Catalan Conflict, Brexit). And also how a dictatorial regime as China is becoming a leading power. Also consider the case of Petro Monarchies.
6. Does the money really makes the world go round? Is it material comfort all that matters.
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