TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/122589/12258900.050

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.3 KB | 105 lines

                                                                                IDEAS, Page 80

In Europe, History Repeats Itself


But will there be a happy ending this time?

By Michael Mandelbaum


    When dizzying change sweeps the world, foreign-policy
experts often turn to history to find precedents for the
headlines. They want to reassure themselves that there is
nothing entirely new under the sun and perhaps even to find
clues to the future. The current upheavals in Eastern Europe
have inspired comparisons to another revolutionary year in
European history. In recent weeks former presidential National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Columbia University
historian Fritz Stern, and editorial writers in the New York
Times and Boston Globe have drawn parallels between 1989 and
1848.

    The Springtime of Nations, as the 1848 events were known,
was a chain reaction of democratic revolutions that erupted
against the autocratic rule of hereditary monarchs and in favor
of democracy. It began in Paris and spread south to Italy and
east to Poland. Crowds gathered in major European cities,
including Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Vienna demanding an end
to the regimes imposed on them three decades earlier by the
victorious kings, emperors and statesmen in the great European
war that Napoleon Bonaparte unleashed.

    In 1848 as in 1989, men with little or no political
experience were suddenly thrust into positions of leadership.
Then as now, the European uprisings fanned the flames of
nationalism and raised what came to be known as "the German
question" -- the possibility that all Germans would unite in one
state. In 1848 the widely despised symbol of the old order was
the aged Austrian Chancellor, Klemens von Metternich. His flight
from Vienna touched off the kind of rejoicing that greeted the
opening of the Berlin Wall this November.

    But the revolutions of 1848 failed. The leaders of the
uprisings fell out among themselves, and the forces of
conservatism managed to regain control. Autocrats in Austria and
Prussia revoked constitutions they had granted under popular
pressure, and Bonaparte's flamboyant nephew, Louis Napoleon,
became dictator of France.

    There are, however, important and auspicious differences
between 1848 and 1989. In 1848 multinational empires dominated
Europe. The revolutionaries wanted to dismember them, but could
not agree on where the new boundaries should be drawn. Such
questions as how far Germany should extend and whether there
should be an independent Poland provoked heated debate and
considerable bloodshed well into the 20th century. Now they have
been settled. At issue this year is not the location of Europe's
borders but simply whether Communist or democratic governments
should exercise power within them.

    In the mid-19th century the great powers opposed the
upsurge of democracy. Czar Nicholas I of Russia, for example,
sent an army to Hungary to crush the revolt there. By contrast,
this year's revolutionaries have had the tacit blessing, and
sometimes the explicit encouragement, of the Czar's successor
as the most powerful man in Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev. By what
he has done -- and, perhaps more important, by what he has
refrained from doing -- the Soviet leader has made possible the
astonishing events of this year.

    No less significant has been the restraint of the European
revolutionaries themselves. In 1848 armed mobs and soldiers
waged pitched battles. The enduring image of that year was the
barricade, often stained with blood. This year citizens have
also taken to the streets, but the demonstrations in Eastern
Europe have been peaceful. The symbols of 1989 are hand-lettered
banners, candles, flowers and, in Prague, jingling key chains.
So far there have been no Molotov cocktails exploding in city
squares or Communist functionaries swinging from lampposts. In
East Germany the protesters have barely mentioned the Soviet
Union, and they have been careful not to advocate leaving the
Warsaw Pact. Such forbearance not only is essential to avoid
provoking Soviet intervention but also suggests that the
revolutionaries of 1989 possess the patience and ingenuity that
will be necessary to build democratic political institutions and
make the painful transition from planned to market economies.

    Their discipline and sophistication may also mean that the
nature of revolution is undergoing a revolution. By
coincidence, Karl Marx published (with Friedrich Engels) The
Communist Manifesto in 1848. The events of that year helped
inspire the tradition that now bears his name. Marxist
revolution came to mean conspiratorial elites forcibly seizing
power and reshaping society to their own purposes. The
consequences have been political oppression, economic
backwardness, rampant militarism and moral ruin.

    In the streets of Eastern Europe this year, a different
revolutionary tradition has replaced the old one. With its
respect for nonviolence and the rule of law, and even a degree
of forgiveness for those who have abused power, it is the
tradition of Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Lech
Walesa. If that spirit is sustained, this year's events, unlike
those of 1848, could lead to the establishment of stable,
durable and peaceful democracies.