In “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism”  Tina Rosenberg delves into the topic of how the new governments of Eastern Europe deal with their respective country’s history. Rosenberg grapples with this profound topic in the former Soviet bloc countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, and East Germany (GDR). Each with its own  myriad of complexities she wonders if the tactics and logic of these evolving democracies can effectively evaluate their repressive histories. Rosenberg states in the introduction “For too many governments, dealing with past injustices has been not a way to break free of it, but the first step in its recurrence. This book is about breaking that link, which promises most of those who survived communism’s tragic past a tragic future as well” (xxiv).  She seems to echo Winston Churchill’s sentiments from his speech Their Finest Hour in which he states “…if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future” (Churchill). Written so close after the fall of communism in these countries Rosenberg seems to think these countries will be mired down in uncertainty dealing with their past thus impeding the transition to democracy. Rosenberg believes that “communism has left a poisonous reside” one being the lack of understanding by citizen to discover their own morals and values and simply acknowledging those offered by the sate and the “lack of institutions that can check the power of unscrupulous leaders” (402). She certainly had some good points as we can see over the last 25 years but the countries of Eastern Europe have navigated those pitfalls fairly well. Rosenberg also contrasts the differences between the fall of communism and the fall of totalitarian dictatorships of Central and South America as well in her conclusion.

Being written so son after the fall of communism gives us a good insight into the times looking back from today. South Africa had just tossed off apartheid and upon reflection it appears that their truth commissions worked effectively in the realm of moving forward. Plus they had a great leader in Nelson Mandela.

Rosenberg, Tina. The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism. New York: Random House. 1995.

Churchill, Winston. “Their Finest Hour.” The Churchill Centre. n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.

A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 by Padraic Kenney posits the idea that the fall of the communist regimes in Central Europe during 1989 was sudden. That over a three and a half year period “from the post-Chernobyl demonstrations in Poland in the spring of 1986 to the Velvet Revolution in Prague…new issues, new movements, and a new generation altered the relationship among state, opposition, and society.”  Kennedy depicts this time as a carnival due to its varied “almost bewildering pluralism of movements.”  The vast amount of these movements had similiare goals in mind i.e. more freedom or human rights, but the strategies, diversity, and creative initiative of the groups and individuals created an everlasting dilemma for each regime. Intellectual “humanistic critiques of state-socialist regimes” helped foster the motivation for action. Whether the issues were political or social ranging from homelessness, temperance, workers councils, cultural tradition, rock music bans, economic, nationalism to name a few, created a carnival like atmosphere in their opposition according to Kennedy. They were neither “angry nor desperate” and “broke the rules of politics” such as the antics of the Orange Alternative. Each group seemed to operate on there own initially using samizdat (self publishing) and many found support or konkretny (people who knew how to to organize a demonstration) through connections to different venues and groups. For instance the Catholic Church in Poland was a major force as a starting point for many groups through education, networking, coordination, and organization. Kennedy seems to assert that these many groups through there individual and sometime collected disregard of regime normalizations collectively was more influential to the downfall of socialism than say one large mass movement directly contesting the communist system.

Kennedy’s hypothesis differs from Stokes in that Stokes asserts that the beginning of the collapse of Eastern Europe block countries was the Prague Spring in 1968 and carried over the 20 years until the final collapse in 1989. Stokes builds his from there and follows the evolution of struggle to 1989 when the block countries transition to more democratic societies. Stokes is more organized in his structure and does not focus on as many different organizations or movements as Kennedy. Kennedy’s state his book is more of an oral history as can be seen by his source material.

I find Kennedy’s book to depict the 80’s as a huge grass roots movement in Eastern Europe. It reminds me of growing up in that era listening to hardcore/punk underground music in the U.S. and how the topics these groups brought up in their songs about the government seem similar to the Eastern block countries. I guess I should say complained about the government in their songs. The punk movement in the U.S. was all underground it seemed to me. Plus all the show flyers I remember from the 80’s were self published xerox copies. Ahh! The 80’s.

Kenney, Padraic.  A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2002.

Stokes, Gail. The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Collapse and Rebirth in Eastern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Gale Stokes in his book “The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Collapse and Rebirth in Eastern Europe” puts forth the idea that Eastern Europe was entering a phase of pluralism in which non governmental groups used their influence to bring about change basically starting with the Prague Spring of 1968 in Czechoslovakian which was put down when invaded by armies of Warsaw Pact countries.  He creatively weaves his narrative through the Romanian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian attempts to foster change during the 1970’s through the Polish Solidarity movements in 1980’s.  Stokes’ says that the fall of the Iron Curtain is the latest in the evolution of 20th century Eastern European experiments moving from antirationalist fascism such as Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy to the hyper rationalist communism of the Soviet Block to pluralism. Stokes goes on to say that the heavy handed response to the Prague Spring was the beginning of the end of the socialist experiment which came tumbling down in 1989.  He does emphasize the role of Mikhail Gorbachev glasnost and perestroika initiates as a big step.

I would like to know a bit more about the Chernobyl meltdown and how that disaster influenced the political affairs of the block countries.  It certainly made Gorbachev’s glasnost initiative more imperative.  He had to let the world know what the situation was surrounding Chernobyl.  What were the economic consequences of the meltdown?  I believe it cost around 18 billion dollars to clean up.  What were the political ramification?  The Soviet Union was already economically challenged as were the other block countries.  Did this event signify to the populace of the countries under the sphere of  Soviet influence that the Soviet Union was on its last legs and give them more initiative to push for change?

Watching the “Video of Ceausescu’s Last Speech” on the Making the History of 1989 website, a speech which Nikolae Ceausescu made on 21 December 1989, I was curious to see what the disturbance was that so rattled Ceausescu because by the end of the speech it appears a semblance of order had returned.  Why would Ceausescu be so flabbergasted by some heckling as appears in the video on the 1989 website?  After giving speeches for 25 years what would cause him to be so confused?  I decided to look up more video of this speech and found “Videograms of a revolution / Ceausescu’s last speech” on Youtube which has some extra footage that the 1989 website video does not have.  It shows a mass of people trying to enter the Central Committee Headquarters building.  Where does the extra footage from “Videograms” fit in to the original footage?  I guess a telltale sign would be the shaking of the camera that is visible in each video as the crowd surges forward.  Did Ceausescu become bewildered when the crowd started heckling him of was it when the mass surged forward to try to enter the Central Committee Headquarters? Or did both of these happen at the same time?  I would suppose so but the extra footage does not seem to have sound.  Is there more footage?  So naturally I am interested in reading interviews of first hand accounts of the event.  Both videos depict that at this particular moment the state has little control over the people.  Who, by the way, were bussed in for the speech to provide choreographed propaganda of party support .  By the end of these videos the state seems to have put the crowd back in order.  What does that signify?  By watching the videos it certainly does not seem like a revolution has occurred or is anyway threatening to the regime yet the Ceausescu’s reign is about to end.  Events at Timisoara seem to be the galvanizing factor for the revolution and  spilled over to this speech.  The next day Nikolae and his wife Elena attempt to flee to no avail.  On December 25th Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were tried in a show court, found guilty, taken outside and executed.

Here is the video from Youtube:

To view the other video of the speech go to this site:

“Video of Ceausescu’s Last Speech, December 1989,” Making the History of 1989, Item #696, http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/696 (accessed February 02 2014, 4:29 pm).

Mc Parker. “Videograms of a revolution / Ceausescu’s last speech”. Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 11 May 2009. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.

This is a completely new experience.  I definitely have a lot to learn about blogging. I feel as if I am adrift at sea.  With that being said I believe I shall learn a lot seeing as how I am starting with limited computer savvy.  Hopefully one day I might even become proficient at using a blog.  Cherio!!