Historical Methods

In the first part of The Walls Came Tumbling Down, Gale Stokes talks about attempts of changing the communist regimes in Eastern Europe.  People were increasingly discontent with Communist Party leaders from Berlin to Budapest, Prague, Belgrade, Warsaw, Bulgaria, and Romania. A series of revolutions wiped the region but provoked a mild reaction from the Western States. Generations of activists protested against Soviet domination and poor quality life. Soon those generations will be educated to fit the mold of a communist party member.

Chapter 2, The Gang of Four and Their Nemesis, was the focus of my reading. Gale Stokes explains how artists and writers, politicians in exile initiated a democratization of socialist regimes. At the same time, party leaders were always fighting for power, “the conflicts of interest that inevitably occur among the leadership are hidden behind an ideological screen,” wrote Stokes. (21) The tension within the party itself created the right environment for revolts and revolutions. Unfortunately, these were short lived agitations of discontented people. The Communist Party with aid from Moscow curbed down the violence. Thousands of students were arrested. It strikes me that although the party leaders were inefficient, they were almost impossible to overthrow. Since the end of WWII Communist Party has gone through periods of purging of communist party members. By 1960’s the least intellectual was welcome in the party. It was a worker’s party and it aimed its power to the weak ones, working class. There are two angles to view the leaders from:
1. inefficient– because they failed to improve the living standards, education curricula, and shift from heavy industry based economy to a variety within the industry.
2. efficient– because their anti-intellectual approach of leading their inclination to recruit leaders among peasants sustained the longevity of the Communist Party (e.g. Ceauşescu, Zhivkov).

The 1956 Hungarian revolution started with students demonstrating in front of the Magyar Radio Station. Shortly people joined the demonstrations and demanded Imre Nagy be the Prime Minister. The security forces were ordered to shoot the crowds and some refused to. That would have been the right moment to replace an inefficient leader- Mátyás Rákosi with an efficient one- Imre Nagy (both Communists).  The students were arrested and they have failed to destroy socialism. But they succeeded to slowly bring socialism to a mental decline. The Party could not keep up with the isolated violence and when the economy crushed, the students managed again to get the crowds join them. In December 1989 students were shot again, for the last time.

Stokes doesn’t introduce that youth factor as main factor for the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. It was definitely a necessary factor, in my opinion.  December 20, 1989 coming form school I found a note from my grandparents. It read “The students are here. We went to Brasov with Radu and Vlad (our neighbors, pharmacy students). Ceauşescu is falling. God help us!” My mother was livid and I didn’t get it. Years later she told me that she felt she had missed out that day. It was the only time I remember my grandparents not complaining of back pains. They felt young!