Quote:
Originally Posted by Watser?
The most remarkable thing is not that the wars in Yugoslavia happened, but that it didn't happen everywhere.
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I disagree. I'm not sure it was all that remarkable. With the exception of Romania in 1991 and Moldova in 1992 (and Lithuania in '91), the post-communist experience of non-Yugoslav Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc
has been remarkably peaceful, but I don't think this can be attributed to the West. Western Europe certainly did play a role, but not a central one. After Poland was 'let go,' and especially after the August coup in Moscow, most Sovietologists and East European watchers were predicting large scale ethnic and separatist violence - despite their myopia about internal politics in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (which is easy to laugh about in hindsight, but was quite reasonable at the time) - and yet it failed to materialize. I see at least seven factors contributing to the fairly non-violent transition away from communism.
IMO, this can be attributed to several factors, in no particular order:
1) Helsinki Final Act Article III, by which signatories (most significantly the USSR) recognized the post-war borders. This only applies to Eastern Europe, not the republics of the former USSR.
2) Within the former Soviet bloc, the Soviet nationality policy and the legacy of the "friendship of peoples" (
druzhba narodov) kept titular or ethnic nationalism from escalating into armed confrontation; despite the presence of large non-titular populations in the Baltics, the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians were able to doge the pitfalls of citizenship legislation.
3) Local factors: for example, the homogeneity of Poland, or the nucleus of civil society that developed in Czechoslovakia that urged for a peaceful divorce process (the Czech Civic Forum and the Slovak Public Against Violence). Solidarity in Poland. Local politicians successfully navigated potentially treacherous policy areas, such as Hungarian-dominated Transylvania in Romania, through political pluralism, somewhat free elections, and provisions for local autonomy. The Baltic states were able to look back to their interwar period of independence for guidance. Of course, no one can deny that much of this politicking was done with an eye towards integration with the West. Ukraine granted Crimea autonomy in order to avoid a possible Russian separatist movement there.
4) Continuity vs. collapse. Yugoslavia witnessed a total collapse of central authority and was pulled apart from the periphery. The revolutions of Eastern Europe (or, as Timothy Garton Ash says, the 'refolutions' - reform + revolution) did not witness the total collapse of state authority. In many cases, the elites either remained in place and reformed (e.g. Bulgaria, Ukraine), or the anti-communist elites from civil society assumed political roles (e.g. Poland, Czech Republic). Institutions were retained, with all of the institutional burdens of communism, but the authority of the state, though certainly weakened, was preserved, and the new states were able to claim legitimacy and sovereignty within borders. This is especially true in placed like Hungary, where the new economic mechanism had allowed limited private ownership and markets to exist since the late 1960s.
5) In Eastern Europe, the collective memory of a) WW II and b) Soviet brutality proved a strong incentive for stability. The total destruction of the war. Poland in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968. All of these remained vivid reminders of the consequences of ethnic conflict for both sides. In Yugoslavia, the opposite was true. Despite Tito's best efforts at "Yugoslav" identity building, the perceptions of Croatians as fascist Ustashe and Serbs as Cetniki. Gorbachev's call to fill in history's "blank spots" and evaluate openly and honestly the horrors of Stalinism went far in opening dialogues between groups that may otherwise be hostile. Much of Eastern Europe - especially Romania, which also went its own way - is only beginning the process of coming to terms with its past. Fortunately, the West (and later East) German model so wonderfully summed up in
vergangenheitsbewältigung is there for reference. Various states have dealt with this legacy of communism in various ways; lustration, amnesty, or ignoring it altogether. Obviously, some have done better than others.
6) A desire to return to Europe. The Baltics claimed they never left Europe despite illegal Soviet occupation. Bulgaria and Romania suffer from crises of identity, but they know they belong to Europe somehow. Croatia and Slovenia were always the 'European' parts of Yugoslavia, which contributed to the economic disparities within the Yugoslav federation. Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland viewed themselves as the heart of Central Europe. Ukraine's slogan of "to Europe with Russia!" though not always well implemented, indicated a desire to cultivate these links. (Belarus, despite declarations of a "multi-vectored" foreign policy and attitude toward European integration, has done nothing more than occasional lip service and dialogue with Poland). NATO and, later, European Union conditionality did much to incite reform and improve stability within candidate countries, but much remains to be done.
7) Finally, mostly in Belarus, Romania, and Slovakia under Meciar, the rise of authoritarian populism (Lukashenka), democratic centralism (Iliescu), and an odd breed of autocracy (Meciar) retained tight social controls.
So while there is certainly a place for Western Europe in the vast explanandum of non-violent transitions in the former Soviet bloc and the former USSR, it is one among many other factors. The Yugoslav wars and Kosovo and the factors contributing to the outbreak of violence there are rather exceptional in the European post-communist experience.
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