Herbert W Armstrong

In less than a month, European nations will take note of the fortieth anniversary of the Yalta conference, the big-power meeting that, more than any other (such as Teheran in 1943 and Potsdam in 1945), sealed the present state of affairs on the continent. In the next few weeks there will probably be a number of articles in the news media about Europe's quest to overcome its forty years of division. The first major article along this line appeared in the Winter 1984/85 issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, entitled "The Future of Yalta," written by former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. He condensed his far-sighted comments in the December 27 NEW YORK TIMES, from which the following excerpts are taken:

The coming year will mark the 40th anniversary of Yalta — the fateful Crimean meeting of Feb. 4-11, 1945, when the Allied Big Three completed the process of conceding Eastern Europe to Stalin. Yalta continues to symbolize the unfinished struggle for Europe's future. By now it should be clear that this struggle is unlikely to be resolved unless an active role is assumed by Europe itself.

It should be equally clear that there must be a better option for Europe and America than a partitioned Europe that perpetuates the American-Soviet collision or a disunited Europe, divorced from America, acquiescing piecemeal to Soviet domination over Eurasia. There is such an option: the emergence of politically more vital Europe less dependent militarily on America, encouraged in that direction by an America guided by historic vision, leading eventually to a fundamentally altered relationship with Eastern Europe and Russia.

But that objective, so essential to Europe's restoration, cannot be accomplished as an American victory over Russia. Nor will it be achieved by an explicit Russian acceptance, through a negotiated agreement, of Eastern Europe's emancipation from Russian vassalage. Moscow will not yield voluntarily. A wider Europe can emerge only as a consequence of a deliberately but subtly induced process of change that can neither be quickly detected nor easily resisted....

The time has come to rethink the relationship between Western security and political change in Europe as a whole.... America is needed in Europe to deter Russia not only from military aggression but from political intimidation. That is obvious and it justifies the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the American military presence on the Continent. But what we must change is an American military presence that reduces the incentive for the Europeans to unite politically yet simultaneously increases the incentive for the Russians to stay put militarily in Central and in Eastern Europe.

Ultimately, America, in NATO, should be responsible primarily for offsetting Soviet strategic power, thus deterring a Soviet attack or nuclear blackmail. But on the ground, European defense should become over the next decade even a more predominantly European responsibility. America should particularly encourage efforts at increased French-German military cooperation and eventual integration. France has a historic awareness of a European identity while West Germany chafes under Europe's partition.... The eventual fusion of these two national forces would represent a giant step toward a politically more vital Europe, Europe that would be less at conflict with the Soviet Union than a Europe hosting a large American army. A gradually reduced American ground presence would create pressure from even the existing Eastern European regimes for a commensurate Soviet redeployment, thereby gradually creating a more flexible political situation.

The following are additional comments extracted from Mr. Brzezinski's lengthy FOREIGN AFFAIRS article. In it he stresses the roles that economic aid in general and West German policies in particular can play as a magnet to the East European states.

The last four decades...reveal an important strategic lesson: what has come to be seen as the legacy of Yalta — namely the partitioned Europe — can only be undone either in Soviet favor...or to Europe's historical advantage by the emergence of truly European Europe capable both of attracting Eastern Europe and of diluting Soviet control over the region. America does not have the power or the will to change basically the situation in Eastern Europe, while crude and heavy-handed Soviet efforts to intimidate West Europe merely consolidate the Atlantic connection....

As it happens, the existing stalemate is increasingly resented by all Europeans. The Germans — no longer dominated by feelings of war guilt, less mesmerized by the American ideal, distressed by the failure of Europe to become an alternative to divisive nationalisms — are naturally drawn to a growing preoccupation with the fate of their brethren living under an alien system. The notion that the destiny of a united Germany depends on a close relationship with Russia is not a new one in German political tradition. Frustration with the nation's division is giving it a new lease on life.

Moreover, for Germany especially but also for Western Europe as a whole, the East holds a special economic attraction. It has been the traditional market for West European industrial goods. As Western Europe discovers that in its fragmented condition it is becoming less competitive with the high-tech economies of America and Japan, the notion of special economic relationship with the East becomes particularly appealing. The fear that America may be turning from the Atlantic to the Pacific has in this connection a self-fulfilling and a self-validating function: it justifies a wider economic, and potentially political, accommodation between an industrially obsolescent Western Europe and the even more backward Soviet bloc, a logical consumer for what Western Europe can produce.

More than most Europeans, the East Europeans, no longer expecting American liberation, long for a genuine Europe, which would free them from the Soviet yoke. That longing explains the extraordinary standing to this day in Eastern Europe of de Gaulle — simply because he raised the standard of "Europe to the Urals." It explains also the special appeal of the Pope, whose vision of Europe's spiritual unity has obvious political implications. But the East Europeans will settle for half a loaf if they cannot have the whole. Faced with the choice of exclusive Soviet domination, only occasionally contested by American policy, or of at least growing ties with even a politically weak Western Europe, the East Europeans clearly prefer the latter....

As President Mitterrand put it some two years ago, "tout ce qui permettera de sortir de Yalta sera bon...." But how to escape from Yalta?... This third option [of a politically more vital Europe] requires a long-term strategy.... The point of departure...has to be joint recognition of the important conclusion which the experience of the last several decades teaches: the historic balance in Europe will be changed gradually in the West's favor only if Russia comes to be faced west of the Elbe rather less by America and rather more by Europe....

Undoing the division of Europe, which is essential to its spiritual and moral recovery, is a goal worthy of the Western democracies and one capable of galvanizing a shared sense of historic purpose.... First, on the symbolic plane, it would be appropriate for the heads of the democratic West as a whole, perhaps on February 4, 1985, to clarify jointly, through a solemn declaration, the West's attitude toward the historic legacy of Yalta.... The West should underline its commitment to a restored Europe, free of extra-European control. It should stress its belief that there now exists a genuine European political identity, the heir to Europe's civilization, which is entitled to unfettered expression. It should affirm the right of every European nation to choose its sociopolitical system in keeping with its history and tradition.... Finally, by drawing attention to the positive experience of neutral Austria and Finland, it should pledge that more authentic Europe would not entail the extension of the American sphere of influence to the European state frontiers of the Soviet Union.

Moreover, reaffirmation of the continued Western commitment to the Helsinki Final Act could help to resolve the potentially fatal European ambivalence regarding Germany. The fact is that, while the Europeans resent their historic partition, they fear almost as much a reunited Germany. Therefore, the renunciation of Yalta's legacy — the division of Europe — should be accompanied by an explicit pledge ...that the purpose of healing the East-West rift in Europe is not to dismantle any existing state but to give every European people the opportunity to participate fully in wider all-European cooperation. In that context, the division of Germany need not be undone through formal reunification but by the gradual emergence of a much less threatening loose confederation of the existing two states....

If Europe is to emerge politically, it must assume a more direct role in its own defense.... To move Europe in this direction, the United States will have to take the first steps, even perhaps unilaterally through a ten-year program of annual cuts in the level of the U.S. ground forces in Europe.... It would also have to be made clear that some American combat forces would remain in Europe, as they do in Korea, thereby ensuring immediate American engagement in the event of hostilities.... [Earlier in his article Mr. Brzezinski said: "The U.S. deficit will, in any case, drive Congress toward a more critical look at the cost of the U.S. NATO commitment ."]

In the final analysis, only Europeans can restore Europe; it cannot be done for them by others. To be sure, Moscow will resist the aspirations of the Europeans. No empire dissolves itself voluntarily — at least not until it becomes evident that accommodation to gradual dissolution is preferable to the rising costs of preserving the imperial system. So it will be also with the Soviet empire.... As time passes, with the organic growth of a larger Europe gathering momentum, it will become more and more difficult for the Kremlin to resist a process that over time may acquire the hallmarks of historical inevitability....

One should not underestimate in this connection Moscow's adaptability. Despite his ruthlessness, even Stalin accommodated himself to the reality of an independent Catholic Church in Poland; Khrushchev to a Polish peasantry free from collectivization and to a separate Romanian foreign policy; Brezhnev to "goulash communism" in Hungary and to army rule in Poland. Why then should not the next generation of Soviet leaders be pressed also to come to terms with the fact that even the interests of the Soviet people would be better served by a less frustrated and oppressed east-central Europe, partaking more directly of the benefits of all-European cooperation?

As divided Europe enters the fifth decade after Yalta, it is important to reiterate that undoing Yalta cannot involve a precise blueprint or a single dramatic initiative. The shape of the future cannot be reduced to a neat plan, with specific phases and detailed agreements. Rather, it requires an explicit commitment and a sense of strategic direction for a process of change that is bound to have also its own dynamic. In any case, for America the emergence of a more vital Europe would be a positive outcome, for ultimately a pluralistic world is in America's true interest.

Mr. Brzezinski, like so many others, believes that a united Europe would "naturally" be in the best interest of the United States. Nevertheless, his studied analysis represents one of the clearest prognoses to date on the likely path European unity will take. And now, finally, is an article which appeared in the SUNDAY TIMES of London, December 30, 1984, analyzing the nostalgic fascinations that Hungarians are having with their "golden era" of Habsburg rule. It goes along with Brzezinski's belief that the Eastern Europeans, especially, are longing for a more "authentic" Europe.

Communist hardliners in Hungary are becoming nervous about a remarkable wave of nostalgia which is sweeping the country. There now seems to be a widespread belief that the 19th century, when Hungary was ruled by the Habsburgs, was a golden period in the country's history. [During Emperor Franz-Josef's reign — 1848-1916 — Hungary was granted autonomy and ruled over much of eastern Europe.] This wistful view was given semi-official approval this month when the communist weekly Magyar Ifusag published an interview with a prominent historian, Dr. Peter Hanak. He attacked the traditional communist view of the Habsburg empire as a vehicle of national oppression.

Whereas in most eastern European countries the Habsburgs are described in schools and official publications as "those cruel tyrants who crushed the spirit of national freedom," Hungary has increasingly viewed its imperial past in a more favourable light. Hanak's remarks, in praise of the national "integration" and "peaceful flourishing of different cultures under one ruler" during the Habsburg rule, struck a chord with many Hungarians who are worried about the fate of their fellow countrymen who make up the large Magyar minorities of Romania and Czechoslovakia. Hungarians are increasingly hearing reports of "cultural genocide" in Transylvania, the area now ruled by Romania which they regard as the cradle of Magyar culture. They hear of Hungarians being forced to change their names to the Romanian equivalents and of the suppression of Hungarian poetry and prose....

During the past year, a stream of books concerning 19th-century Hungary has been published. Bookshops are filled with romantically titled coffee-table books depicting the grand buildings and cultural events of the days when Budapest was an elegant royal capital. The recent opening of the capital's newly-restored opera house, a building which personifies this age, has helped to concentrate Hungarians' minds on their past.

With statues and bridges named after the empresses of the Austro­ Hungarian empire, and an annual changing of the guards in imperial uniforms, Hungary is careful not to neglect its imperial heritage. No more striking a symbol of this could be found than the Hungarian royal crown, displayed after years of absence in the capital's national museum. Watched over by eight policemen, visitors solemnly file past the crown, in a darkened room, as if paying respect to a communist martyr rather than a relic of imperialism.

The "pull of the past" is going to be increasingly difficult for the Soviets to deal with. It should be noted too, that there is a widespread belief that the U.S.S.R.'s next leader will be Mikhail Gorbachev. The personable 53-year-old lawyer and agronomist "wowed them" on his recent visit to London. Tough but considered practical and not unquestionably wedded to ideology, Gorbachev just might be the individual necessary to enable the Soviet Union to accommodate itself to the realities of Yalta's fifth decade.

— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau