TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/122589/12258900.050

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 5KB | 96 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.