Naslov
The repercussions of 1956 for the Communist bloc and Western Europe

Autori
Bešker, Inoslav

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, stručni

Skup
1956 - Un any europeu

Mjesto i datum
Barcelona, Španjolska, 30.10.2006

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Pozvano predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

Ključne riječi
communism; 1956; Hungary; Poland; Suez

Sažetak
The year 1956 brought the greater number of shocks and turbulences that any other year between the end of the WW2 and the breakdown of the Berlin Wall. The root of the problem in communist bloc was in the very nature of the system, called “ socialism” or, afterwards, the “ real socialism” . Differently from the Marxist theory, the system was not organized to free the working class as the most oppressed, gaining so the freedom for the whole society, but to ensure the power of the Communist Party apparatus (picturing it as the “ vanguard of the working class” ). And the Party apparatus was the State apparatus. Its economy had to by a kind of state capitalism, centralized as the state was. It could product some results in the phase of the primary accumulation of capital (whereas that phase was not yet achieved, as in China, Yugoslavia etc. – but not in Czechoslovakia), and certainly not after it. That was the Achilles’ heel of the entire Soviet bloc (well centered by Reagan’ s “ Star Wars” ), and of other countries with their economies based on the central position of unique party. The inefficiency of the system was easy discovered, as well as its oppression. But neither the parties, nor the part of the population in those countries, were ready to accept the bankruptcy of the “ real socialism” , on the moral and on the economic level. “ Real socialism” jeopardized not the capitalism, even in its most rude European variants, but the communist idea itself, opening doors sometimes to the most evil spirits of nationalism and/or exploitation. With a use of a brutal force the crisis was stopped in Hungary 1956 (as well as in East Germany 1953, Czechoslovakia 1956, and in Poland 1980) – but the communist idea suffered mortal wound. It was obvious that his strong men, when got into mess, use their weapons not for people, but against it. There is no nation ready to forgive or forget it.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Politologija

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