EUROPE:1945-1965

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EUROPE1945-1965

• Will Europe ever be
• Normal again?

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TWO EUROPES
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Both in the shadow of the bomb. 1953 Soviets
have Hydrogen Bomb. Atomic War becomes
unthinkable
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Europe-WestI. Ultra-Cautious Politics

• Deep fear of extreme politics
• Focus on cautious day-to-day management
• 1945-1965 conservative decades

No Experiments!
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Britains Harold MacMillan
Frances De Gaulle
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Europe-WestII. A New Definition of Citizenship

• Feudal citizenship King Subject
• French Revolution Citizen free from State
• Totalitarianism State controls everything
• Social Citizenship State must be concerned
  with social issues

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What is private? What is public?

• Private religion, dress, diet, family life,
  marriage
• Public armed forces, fire police, highways,
  bridges, parks

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Social Citizenship a re-definition of public

• LESSONS LEARNED FROM GREAT DEPRESSION
• State must be concerned with
• 1. Jobs
• 2. Pensions Accident Insurance
• 3. Housing
• 4. Education
• 5. Health care
• 6. Quality of Life

1943 Beveridge Report
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Social Citizenship

• THE IDEAL
• Prosperous Democracy
• (the economy works well)
• Democratic Prosperity
• (the fruits of Prosperity are widely shared

Alva Myrdal an architect of Swedens Welfare
State
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Europe-WestIII. Astonishing Economic Recovery

• BEFORE

• AFTER

Cologne, Germany
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What triggered the amazing recovery?

1. Marshall Plan
2. Huge Demand for everything!
3. Sophisticated Pre-War Economies
4. Skillful Economic Management (The German
   Economic Miracle)

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West Germanys ECONOMIC MIRACLE ECONOMICS
MINISTER LUDWIG ERHARD THE WEST GERMAN
MARK Strict Accounting! No govt debts Balanced
budgets Strict business honesty
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EXPORTS!
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SYSTEMATIC INVESTMENT IN BASIC INFRA-STRUCTURE
Schools, roads, bridges, public buildings
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SOCIAL MARKET ECONOMY Free Market Economy
Major Government investment in Public Goods of
education, health care, accident insurance,
pensions, housing
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What triggered this amazing recovery?

• 5. THE COMMON MARKET

JEAN MONNET
ROBERT SCHUMAN
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The Common MarketBuild a genuinely free market

• 1952 European Coal Steel Community
• 1957 TREATY OF ROME six founding members
• European Economic Community (EEC)
• European Community (EC)
• European Union (EU)

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Europe-WestIV. Dramatic Social Change

• Prosperous middling classes
• Increasingly independent women
• Technocrats
• Baby Boom

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Europe-WestV. Whiff of Danger Ahead

• Practical problem raising huge Baby Boom
  generation
• Philosophical Problem Is Consumerism Heaven?

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Britain Angry Young Men
Sartre the Existentialists
Deep skepticism about consumer heaven
French New Wave films
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Mixed reaction to immense American impact

• PASSION FOR EVERYTHING AMERICAN

• A DEFENSE OF EUROPEAN DIFFERENCE

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Europe-EastI. Soviet Empire/ Eastern European
Colonies
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1945 1953 CREATION OF THE STALINIST
DICTATORSHIPS

• 1. COMMUNIST PARTYS POLITICAL DICTATORSHIP
• 2. COMMAND ECONOMY
• 3. PROPAGANDA
• 4. TERROR

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Klement Gottwald (with Stalin) Czechoslovak
Communist leader
Walter Ulbricht, East German Communist Leader
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Europe-EastII. Repression-Rebellion-Repression

• 1953 East Germany Anti-Communist riots

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1956 POLAND

• 1956 Anti-Communist protests
• Wladislaw GOMULKA promises to relax dictatorship
• Turmoil dies down

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Hungary 1956 Violent rebellion against Communist
Dictatorship
HUNGARIAN FREEDOM-FIGHTERS, 1956
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USSR INVADES HUNGARY, SUPPRESSES REBELLION
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Europe-EastIII. Some Recovery mostly stagnation

• Mass investment in heavy industry
• Free basic necessities
• But Communist/ government-run economies dont
  perform well

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Poorly constructed housing East German plastic
plywood Trabi
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Marek Hlasko, The Eighth Day of the Week
(1956) Comic story of Polish couple who want
some privacy but cant find any anywhere in
Communist Poland!
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Europe-EastIV. Dramatic Social Change

• Huge shift from farming to factories
• New Middle Class
• Mini-Baby-Boom
• New Ruling Class of Communist Bureaucrats
  (Milovan Djilas)

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Europe-EastV. Whiff of Danger Ahead

• Rise of DISSIDENTS
• Who call for end to Communist dictatorship
• V. Dudintsev, Not By Bread Alone (1956)
• A. Solzhenitsyn, One Day (1962)