After its Nation-States committed suicide in the two World Wars of the first half of the 20th century, in 1945 Europe was 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 had become in three decades ruined countries with no influence on the Planet. Only in this critical situation European States governments understood that the only way of being relevant again was getting together. First they tried the federal way (Teaching guide 9) and after the failure of this attempt they moved forward towards 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 Cold War and the period that started with the disappearance of the USSR. Until Ukraine’s invasion by Putin in the 24 of February of 2022. This is what we are going to study in this 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). 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 to Libya, Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and finally Hitlerian Lebensraum.
World War 2 and its Aftermath (1939-1948)
Cartoon on the Hitler-Stalin Alliance (8 September 1939)
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. Russian invasion started 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 worst part of it was that at the beginning, Russian people greeted German soldiers as liberators. Until they started committing atrocities. World history would have changed if they did not.
The Russian Army became decisive in the final victory over Nazism 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. Churchill was present too, but as “Stone Guest”.
The most interesting in all this was Stalin’s position. After having started the war as Hitler’s ally, Soviet Russia ended the war as enemy of the Nazis 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 young journalist who had gained some notoriety after interviewing Hitler. Thanks to his connections with the former British Prime Minister Lloyd George (they were both Welsh) he was granted an official authorization in 1933 to travel to the Soviet Union with the purpose of interviewing Stalin and finding out more about Russian apparently economic success of the five year development plan. Jones in principle could not leave Moscow but he escapes, jumps in a train and travels unofficially to Ukraine to discover evidence of the big Famine (Holomodor), meeting with 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).
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Replaced in 1934 by the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) that will send Ramon Mercader to assassinate Trotsky in Mexico in 1939. Since 1954 it was the KGB (Committee for State Security). And since 1991 the FSB (Federal Service of Security).
Trotsky killed by NKVD Agent Ramon Mercader (Mexico, 21 August 1940)
The Cold War (1948-1989)
Europe was in ruins in 1945. Reconstruction, after the failure of the dollar gap period, started really with the Marshall Plan (1947). But this American initiative backfired as it would be the detonator of the Cold War (1948-1989). Why? Because Stalin would not accept American aid for developing market economy in Eastern Europe, that in his perspective should remain communist. The result was the iron curtain (another great sentence of Churchill) and the Berlin Wall (1961-1989).
Of course this would not only affect Europe. The World would be divided between the countries that followed Capitalist Democracy and Communist Model. There was not an open war but a “Cold War”, as the USSR and the US were struggling in all continents, until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.
The end of the Cold War in 1989-1991, was not only the consequence of the collapse of the Communist model but also of the fact that Western democracies had 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. This was possible because the public sector (state intervention) was much stronger in Europe than in the US, where private sector is overwhelmingly bigger. 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. After the 1973 Oil crisis, supporting the cost of the Welfare State would be much harder for European Middle class.
The end of the cold war had a decisive influence also in the traditionally Communist’s regimes as most of them ended up joining the market Economy. Russia has become since 1991 a system dominated by powerful oligarchs -now sanctioned after Ukraine’s invasion. And China during Den Xiaoping’s Era (1978-1992) developed the model of Market Socialism that has transformed China in a leading World Power in the 21st century. A very powerful Dictatorial state that surprisingly is fully playing the Market rules. An amazing contradiction.
The “socialization” of Western capitalism and the “capitalization” of Eastern Communism has in fact led to the globalization of the World. Which from an International Relations perspective opened a sort of global constitutional history, starting with the League of Nations (1920-1946) and following with the United Nations (since 1945). Treaties and International Organizations (WTO, GATT, IMF, World Bank), offer the possibility of ruling the world through negotiation and governance instead of through authority and military intervention. At least until Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Now things are in a way back to the situation prior to 1945 with Russia and China heading a military alternative to NATO, the military Alliance created in 1949 when Europeans asked for US protection after the start of Cold War and the threat of a Russian invasion. NATO lost greatly its purpose, until the Ukraine’s War has brought back its full utility. Something that, for instance, has brought traditionally neutral Finland to ask for membership.
The Post Cold War World (1991-2022)
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. Especially because the 1973 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.
The anti regulation policy of “Reaganomics” have had however dreadful consequences in terms of the rising of inequalities. Capitalism after the 1980’s neoliberal wave has produced a substantial rising of economic and social differences and a shrinking of the bulk of Middle Class. The increase in social and economic inequalities, 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.
John Rawls (1921-2002)
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.
Washington D.C. 6 of January 2021
Challenges for Europe in the 21st Century
Let’s ask ourselves now where is Europe in this Global model? And the fact is that the European Union, despite its complexity that slows considerably the decision making to face world’s problems, is doing fas better than anyone else as far as the Rule of Law is concerned, one of the pillars of European integration, along with a respect of the Welfare State principle.
On top of it after the Ukraine’s invasion United 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. Simply put: economical union is not enough because if we Europeans want to maintain democracy we will have to fight for it
Versailles's Summit on Ukraine's War (10-11 March 2022)
The problem is that Europe is facing the 21st century as a huge market (first GDP in the world) but with no leadership, as it is lacking of a strong Executive. Because 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 –may be with the exception of India- are not real democracies.
Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister
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 And that 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 history is that we have not found an operational 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 states despite being developed economies 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 material comfort all that matters.
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