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Nationalism and the Collapse of Soviet Communism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2009

MARK R. BEISSINGER
MARK R. BEISSINGER*
Affiliation:
237 Corwin Hall, Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; [email protected].
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Abstract

This article examines the role of nationalism in the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, arguing that nationalism (both in its presence and its absence, and in the various conflicts and disorders that it unleashed) played an important role in structuring the way in which communism collapsed. Two institutions of international and cultural control in particular – the Warsaw Pact and ethnofederalism – played key roles in determining which communist regimes failed and which survived. The article argues that the collapse of communism was not a series of isolated, individual national stories of resistance but a set of interrelated streams of activity in which action in one context profoundly affected action in other contexts – part of a larger tide of assertions of national sovereignty that swept through the Soviet empire during this period.

Le nationalisme et l'effondrement du communisme soviétique

Cet article analyse le rôle du nationalisme dans l'effondrement du communisme à la fin des années 1980 et au début des années 1990. L'auteur avance que le nationalisme (non seulement présent, mais aussi absent, et dans les différents conflits et troubles qu'il déclencha) a joué un rôle important dans la manière dont le communisme s'est effondré. Deux institutions d'un contrôle international et culturel en particulier – le Pacte de Varsovie et le fédéralisme ethnique – ont joué des rôles clés en déterminant quels régimes communistes échouaient et lesquels survivaient. L'argument de cet article est que l'effondrement du communisme n'a pas été un alignement de résistances nationales, individuelles et isolées, mais un groupe de courants d'activités enchevêtrés dans lequel des actions menées dans un contexte influençaient les actions menées dans d'autres contextes – en tant que partie d'un courant d'affirmations plus large.

Nationalismus und der zusammenbruch des sowjetkommunismus

Dieser Artikel erforscht die Rolle des Nationalismus im Zusammenhang mit dem Zusammenbruch des Kommunismus in den späten 1980er und frühen 1990er Jahren, indem er argumentiert, daß der Nationalismus (sowohl in seiner An- wie auch in seiner Abwesenheit, und in den diversen Konflikten und Unruhen die er verursachte) eine wichtige Rolle in der Art und Weise, wie der Kommunismus zusammenbrach, spielte. Zwei Institutionen mit internationaler und kultureller Macht – der Warschauer Pakt und der Ethno-Federalismus – haben im besonderen Schlüsselrollen in der Bestimmung, welche kommunistischen Regime scheiterten und welche überlebten, gespielt. Der Autor argumentiert, dass der Zusammenbruch des Kommunismus nicht eine Serie isolierter, individueller und nationaler Widerstandsgeschichten war, sondern ein Zusammentreffen von zusammenhängenden Handlungsströmungen, in denen die Handlung in einem Kontext die Handlung in anderen Kontexten stark beeinflusste – dies als Teil einer Flut von Geltendmachungen.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 18 , Issue 3: Revisiting 1989: Causes, Course and Consequences , August 2009 , pp. 331 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

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