Conscious that the Western powers were watching Polish politics carefully, in the spring of 1945 Stalin allowed the non-communist politician Stanislaw Mikolajczyk to return to his homeland. Before the war Mikolajczyk had been president of the Polish Peasants Party (PSL) and served as Prime Minister in exile after General Sikorski perished in a plane crash in 1943. Although he was under no illusion about the prospects of establishing genuine democracy in post war Poland, Mikolajczyk thought it possible that Stalin might tolerate pluralistic politics so long as Warsaw remained under Moscow’s yoke.
Upon his return, crowds gathered to greet Mikolajczyk.
Indeed, in Krakow excitable supporters carried his car through the streets. The
Polish communists, however, were not so impressed. PSL members were soon
subject to harassment, arrest and worse.
Unbowed, Mikolajczyk led a campaign to retain the Polish
Senate. Although largely symbolic, the issue of whether or not to abolish the
Senate was one of three put to the Polish people in a referendum of 1946. By advocating
a No vote, the PSL defied the communists whose slogan ‘Three Times Yes!’ was
disseminated on over 84 million posters, leaflets and brochures.
Yet, in spite of the propaganda (or perhaps because of it) only
a quarter of Poles voted as the communists had designed. This prompted the release
a falsified set of results and a brief period of introspection. Once over, the
communists concluded that the PSL could not be tolerated.
In the parliamentary elections of January 1947, for instance,
its candidates were prevented from contesting in ten out of the fifty-two districts.
Worse, in the six months between the referendum and the parliamentary ballot,
all of PSL’s Krakow leadership was arrested. Soon, fearing for his safety,
Mikolajczyk fled the country, leaving the politics of his homeland to Stalinist
cronies like Boleslaw Bierut.
The death of political pluralism in Poland is just one of
many depressing tales from this period in Eastern Europe. In her gripping book,
Anne Applebaum makes a good fist of recounting most of them as she documents
the imposition of Soviet control in Warsaw, Budapest and East Berlin.
The systematic deconstruction of Polish, Hungarian and
German society was aided by the newly established secret police forces,
modelled on the Soviet NKVD, which transmitted an anti-democratic mind-set to
Eastern Europe. Suddenly, to be classed an ‘enemy’, one needed not to oppose
anything; freedom of thought and individual expression were all that was
required to attract the attention of the authorities.
Consequently, in order to preserve their- and their family’s
security- individuals compromised with the regime. Whether they believed the
propaganda or not, men, women and children bowed their heads and got on with
life. For a period truth was replaced by power.
It is this process, the implementation of totalitarianism,
which is so vividly described by the book. Applebaum documents how one set of
institutions, already damaged by the Second World War, were deconstructed and
replaced by the almighty State. But it was not just the armed forces, the
secret police and the media that fell into communist hands, all manner of
groupings from the Scouts to jazz clubs were snuffed out because they promoted
free association and thinking.
Ultimately, once Stalin had died and his cult of personality
been dented, people began to express themselves once again. The young in particular,
who resisted the attempts to create homo
sovietics, eventually helped to facilitate the 1956 revolution in Hungary.
In terms of structure and focus, one of the key strengths of
the book lies in Applebaum’s ability to synthesise a vast amount of research
into various different issues- from art to industrial policy- and presents this
in an engaging fashion. And while there is a political purpose to the book-
Applebaum seeks to prove that the Soviet takeover was not a by product of
American early cold war hostility, and discredit the resulting communist
regimes- it does not distract from the scholarship.
Although a minor detail, it is worth pointing out that this
focus- on Poland, Hungary and East Germany- means that strictly speaking the
subtitle: ‘The crushing of Eastern Europe’ is slightly misleading, for while Czechoslovakia,
Romania and other nations are touched upon, Iron
Curtain is essentially a transnational history of three states.
And, it must be said, a very good one at that. In the first
part of the book Applebaum documents how the public sphere fell into communist
control. Her argument is that while the Soviets initially used soft power in an
attempt to win hearts and minds, when this failed the communists resorted to
harsher, more brutal techniques. This led them eventually to target the private
lives of all citizens. It is this over-reach that forms the basis of the second
half. Applebaum shows how by equating all free thinking with dissent the
Soviets sowed the seeds of rebellion; suddenly every joke was in itself a tiny revolution.
But while the Soviet system was certainly flawed, for those
who experienced it this did not always seem the case. Some benefited from
communist rule, and many dared not challenge it. Combined this meant a previous
way of life was overwhelmed by an aggressive, suffocating force. Iron Curtain shows how precarious norms
and institutions really are. It is a lesson we should never forget.
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