Index. Bibliography: p.489-498.

With the end of World War I, a new Republic of Poland emerged on the maps of Europe, made up of some of the territory from the first Polish Republic, including Wolyn and Wilno, and significant parts of Belarus, Upper Silesia, Eastern Galicia, and East Prussia. The resulting conglomeration of ethnic groups left many substantial minorities wanting independence. The approach of World War II provided the minorities' leaders a new opportunity in their nationalist movements, and many sided with one or the other of Poland's two enemies--the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany--in hopes of achieving their goals at the expense of Poland and its people. Based on primary and secondary sources in numerous languages (including Polish, German, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian and English), this work examines the roles of the ethnic minorities in the collapse of the Republic and in the atrocities that occurred under the occupying troops. The Polish government's response to mounting ethnic tensions in the prewar era and its conduct of the war effort are also examined.

The collaborative effort of scholars from Russia and the United States, this book reevaluates the history of postwar Eastern Europe from 1944 to 1949, incorporating information gleaned from newly opened archives in Eastern Europe. For nearly five decades, the countries of Yugoslavia, Poland, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet zone of Germany were forced to live behind the ?iron curtain.? Though their experiences under communism differed in sometimes fundamental ways and lasted no longer than a single generation, these nations were characterized by systematic assaults on individual rights and social institutions that profoundly shaped the character of Eastern Europe today. The emergence of the former People's Democracies from behind the iron curtain has been a wrenching process, but, as this book demonstrates, the beginning of the communist era was equally as traumatic as its end.With the opening of the archives in Russia and Eastern Europe, the contributors have been able to get a much firmer grasp on Soviet policies in the region and on East European responses and initiatives, which in turn has yielded more satisfying answers to vexing questions about Soviet intentions in the region and the origins of the Cold War. Exploring these events from a new, better-informed perspective, the contributors have made a valuable contribution to the historiography of postwar Europe.

This book examines the outcome of the British commitment to reconstitute a sovereign Polish state and establish a democratic Polish government after the Second World War. It analyses the wartime origins of Churchill’s commitment to Poland, and assesses the reasons for the collapse of British efforts to support the leader of the Polish opposition, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, in countering the attempt by the Polish communist party to establish one-party rule after the war. This examination of Anglo-Polish relations is set within the broader context of emerging early Cold War tensions. It addresses the shift in British foreign policy after 1945 towards the US, the Soviet Union and Europe, as British leaders and policymakers adjusted both to the new post-war international circumstances, and to the domestic constraints which increasingly limited British policy options. This work analyses the reasons for Ernest Bevin’s decision to disengage from Poland, helping to advance the debate on the larger question of Bevin’s vision of Britain’s place within the newly reconfigured international system. The final chapter surveys British policy towards Poland from the period of Sovietisation in the late 1940s up to the October 1956 revolution, arguing that Poland’s process of liberalisation in the mid-1950s served as the catalyst for limited British reengagement in Eastern Europe.

This new edition of Norman Davies's classic study of the history of Poland has been revised and fully updated with two new chapters to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century. The writing of Polish history, like Poland itself, has frequently fallen prey to interested parties. Professor Norman Davies adopts a sceptical stance towards all existing interpretations and attempts to bring a strong dose of common sense to his theme. He presents the most comprehensive survey in English of this frequently maligned and usually misunderstood country.

Eclipsed by the scope of the Atlantic economy, obscured by Anglo-German rivalry, and nearly destroyed by the post-1945 division of Europe, the flow of goods across East Central Europe has been, nonetheless, an immensely significant pattern of European economic exchange. For Germany, the Osthandel (Eastern trade) was both a blessing and a curse; its bounty provided much of the raw material for the rise of German economic and political power in Europe, while its lure tantalized German ambitions to the point of madness. Despite the enduring importance of this commerce, no monograph has yet made this pattern of trade the centerpiece of its treatment of German-East European relations. This study puts this important pattern of German-East European trade into the center of discussion and views an extended period of German foreign policy toward Eastern Europe through this lens.

Products of war rather than revolution, the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe emerged in a global conjuncture defined by the aftermath of the Second World War. How did these regimes manage to overcome the domestic impact of the war and build socialism at the same time? This book shows how a commitment to productivity structured the transition from the period of postwar reconstruction to the take-off of industrial development during the late 1950s. Conceived as (1) pacification of labor relations, (2) the recovery of managerial authority, (3) monetarization of everyday life, (4) rationalization and (5) austerity, the politics of productivity provides a comprehensive conceptual framework for grasping together the end of the postwar period and the building of state socialism in Eastern Europe. By revealing how the social consequences of the Second World War were absorbed in the transition to authoritarian state socialism in the age of the rolling steel mill, this book carries implications for the way in which we may think about the aftermath of wars, reconstruction and development during the second half of the twentieth century.

Poland pioneered the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Domestic reformism and the negotiated abdication of ruling elites in 1989 have structured the country's politics in the 1990s. But the division between the communist and Solidarity camps continues to cause problems for a potential reform coalition aiming to complete modernisation through the restructuring required for EU membership. Secular-Catholic and rural-urban conflicts, and well as the growing regional split between the north-west and south-east, have fragmented political life and the party system. Nevertheless, Poland has made remarkable steps in the consolidation of democracy and the development of her political system, whilst maintaining social stability; she is also successfully transcending her historical security dilemma of open western and eastern frontiers and stronger, aggressive neighbours, by embedding herself in Europe through membership of NATO and the EU. Poland is overcoming her historical problems.

This comparative study of post-war European socialism explores the problems of socio-economic and political reconstruction across the Iron Curtain.

There are two popular myths concerning the relationship between communism and nationalism. The first is that nationalism and communism are wholly antagonistic and mutually exclusive. The second is the assertion that in communist Eastern Europe nationalism was oppressed before 1989, to emerge triumphant after the Berlin Wall came down. Reality was different. Certainly from 1945 onwards, communist parties presented themselves as heirs to national traditions and guardians of national interests. The communist states of Central and Eastern Europe constructed "socialist patriotism," a form of loyalty to their own state of workers and peasants. Up to 1989, communists in Eastern Europe sang the national anthem, and waved the national flag next to the red banner. The use of national images was not the exception, but the rule. From Cuba to Korea, all communist parties attempted to gain national legitimacy. This was not incidental or a deviation from Marxist orthodoxy, but ingrained in the theory and practice of the communist movement since its inception. The study of communist national legitimacy is an exciting new field. This book presents examples of communist attempts to co-opt nationalism from both sides of the iron curtain and lays bare the striking similarities between such diverse cases as the socialist patriotism of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the national line of the Portuguese communists, between Romanian communist nation building and the national ideology of the Spanish Communist Party. This book was published as a special issue of Nationalities Papers.