Europe Since 1945: Cold War, Decolonization, Integration

This is Unit Eighteen of Western Civilization Two, part one of two: Europe since nineteen forty-five, the exam's last band. Unit seventeen ended with a division that held for forty-five years. This unit is that division and what Europe did inside it, and its governing idea, which part two pays off, is the anchor's line that Europe lost the world and found itself. In forty-five two outside powers held the continent and cut it in two along a curtain, Berlin's four sectors the picture of the cut. The West rebuilt on social democracy and a welfare state, and thirty glorious years followed; the East stagnated. The empires went in sixteen years, and Suez showed the old powers could act only by America's leave. What Europe built instead began with coal and steel. Part one runs the Cold War to détente, decolonization to Bandung, integration to Brexit, and the boom's end. Part two takes Gorbachev and eighty-nine, the culture from existentialism to the second wave, and the methods. By the end you will be able to describe the West rebuilt. To describe the Cold War to détente. To describe the empires going. To describe integration. And to describe the boom's end.

Three entries on rebuilding the West: two superpowers and the Marshall Plan, the compromise called social democracy, and thirty glorious years.

Lent to one half, extracted from the other.

WC2 1701 Two Superpowers, a Divided Continent, and the Marshall Plan

Power passed to the United States and the Soviet Union, and Europe was divided between them, both halves in ruins. The Marshall Plan of nineteen forty-eight lent enormous sums for rebuilding, twelve billion dollars over four years, the witness's period sum, unconverted; Stalin barred his sphere and extracted wealth from it instead. The West boomed within a decade.

A compromise neither side touched for thirty years.

WC2 1702 Social Democracy, the Welfare State, and the Center's Parties

Western Europe became democratic, and social democracy, the state guaranteeing a minimum standard, was the postwar compromise. The welfare state gave health, education and pensions, paid by progressive taxes and lower arms spending, thirty-seven percent of family income indirect, the anchor says. Socialists and Christian Democrats alternated and neither touched it for thirty years; the right accepted liberal democracy at last.

Cars, teenagers, DNA, and a vernacular Mass.

WC2 1703 Les Trente Glorieuses: Boom, Baby Boom, Consumers, DNA, Vatican II

Thirty glorious years, nineteen forty-five to seventy-five: British real wages up eighty percent, the anchor says. Credit, cars and television made a consumer society; the baby boom made teenagers and rock 'n' roll. DNA in fifty-three, polio vaccines, and Vatican II's vernacular Mass, with church attendance near five percent by the seventies. Figures are the anchor's.

Nine entries on the Cold War: containment and the curtain, Berlin's four sectors, two Germanies and Korea, Khrushchev and Hungary, Sputnik and the Wall, Cuba, Brezhnev and Prague, Vietnam, and détente with three theories of failure.

Resist communism wherever it appeared.

WC2 1704 Truman, Containment, the Iron Curtain, and Tito's Exception

Churchill named the iron curtain at Fulton in March nineteen forty-six. Kennan's Long Telegram gave containment its logic, and Greece's civil war gave Truman his doctrine in forty-seven: resist communism wherever it appeared. Behind the curtain coalitions became one-party terror, with show trials of so-called Titoists from forty-eight to fifty-three, the Nazi comparison the anchor's. Tito's Yugoslavia broke with Stalin.

An island supplied by air.

WC2 1705 Berlin Divided: Four Sectors, the Blockade, the Airlift

Berlin lay inside the Soviet zone, but the city was cut into four sectors: American, British and French in the west, Soviet in the east, three western flags and one Soviet. Stalin blockaded West Berlin from June nineteen forty-eight. Planes supplied it for nearly a year; in May forty-nine he gave up. The anchor's dates are shifted a month each and corrected.

Two states, two pacts, one war.

WC2 1706 Two Germanies, NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and Korea

The western zones became the Federal Republic in nineteen forty-nine, the Soviet zone the Democratic Republic. NATO, twelve founders, the anchor's nine corrected, formed in April; the Soviet bomb followed in August; the Warsaw Pact answered in fifty-five. In nineteen fifty North Korea invaded the South, and a UN force fought three years, three million casualties the anchor's figure.

The cult denounced, then tanks in Budapest.

WC2 1707 Khrushchev: The Secret Speech, the Thaw, Hungary 1956

Stalin died in nineteen fifty-three. Khrushchev's secret speech of fifty-six denounced the cult of personality; four million left the gulags, censorship eased, the Thaw. In October Hungary rose for humane communism and Soviet withdrawal, and Soviet tanks killed thousands in Budapest. The anchor's half million arrested against the record's twenty-six thousand: figures attributed, no verdict.

A satellite, then a wall.

WC2 1708 Sputnik and the Wall, 1957 to 1961

Sputnik in October nineteen fifty-seven put the first satellite in orbit; the space race and missile claims followed. East Germans kept leaving through Berlin, and in August sixty-one the East built a wall through the city, a border guard leaping the wire in the witness's image. It stood until eighty-nine. Witness-built; the anchor names only the Wall's fall.

Thirteen days nearest extinction.

WC2 1709 Cuba: Bay of Pigs, Thirteen Days, the Hotline

Castro's Cuba aligned with Moscow after fifty-nine. The Bay of Pigs invasion of April nineteen sixty-one, the anchor's year corrected, failed in days. Khrushchev then placed missiles in Cuba, and for thirteen days in October sixty-two the world stood nearest extinction, a submarine officer's refusal among the anchor's details, until both sides withdrew missiles. A hotline followed.

Socialism with a human face, invaded.

WC2 1710 Brezhnev, Stagnation, and the Prague Spring

Khrushchev was ousted in nineteen sixty-four; Brezhnev ruled to eighty-two through stagnation, nominal Marxism, corruption and nepotism. In spring sixty-eight Dubček's Czechoslovakia tried socialism with a human face, free speech and workers' councils. On the twentieth of August the Warsaw Pact invaded, all but Romania: the Brezhnev Doctrine, intervention wherever socialism was threatened. The Prague Spring is named on the witness.

Elections refused, escalation, withdrawal.

WC2 1711 Vietnam: From Dien Bien Phu to Saigon

Ho Chi Minh declared independence in nineteen forty-five; France reinvaded and lost at Dien Bien Phu in fifty-four. America refused the promised elections and propped up the South. After Tonkin in sixty-four Johnson escalated; the anchor's fabricated attack is attributed, and one attack occurred. Nixon withdrew in seventy-three; Saigon fell in seventy-five. Over a million Vietnamese dead, the anchor says.

Three theories, no verdict.

WC2 1712 Détente, Helsinki, and Why the Soviet System Failed

SALT at the Moscow summit of nineteen seventy-two opened détente; Helsinki in seventy-five traded borders for a Soviet promise on human rights. Why the system failed, the anchor offers three theories: impossible circumstances, communism against human nature, and a command economy of arcane quotas, adding that cheap housing and medicine were not failure. No verdict. Theories attributed; the diplomacy witness-built.

Seven entries on the empires going: Suez, India's partition, Palestine, two roads out in Iran and Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, Algeria, and Bandung with the empire striking back.

America now set its allies' limits.

WC2 1713 Suez, 1956: The End of British and French Independence of Action

Nasser nationalized the canal in summer nineteen fifty-six. Israel attacked on the twenty-ninth of October, Britain and France landed on the fifth of November. Eisenhower threatened the pound and demanded withdrawal; Khrushchev threatened rockets. They withdrew, and Eden, witness-named, resigned. The lesson: America now set its allies' limits, dominating them almost as the Soviets dominated theirs, in the anchor's phrase.

Free, partitioned, and a toll contested.

WC2 1714 Why Empire Could Not Survive: India and Partition, 1947

Two and a half million Indians fought a war for democracy they lacked, and Britain was bankrupt. On the fifteenth of August nineteen forty-seven India was free, partitioned into Hindu-majority India and a two-part Muslim Pakistan against Gandhi's wishes, and Gandhi was murdered in forty-eight. Millions crossed each way; hundreds of thousands died. The toll is contested; over a million is the anchor's.

Two promises, one land, four wars.

WC2 1715 Palestine: Balfour, the Mandate, Israel 1948

Balfour's promise of nineteen seventeen and Britain's mandate brought Jewish immigration, riots and a wartime double promise. Britain handed Palestine to the UN in forty-seven; partition was rejected regionally. Israel declared itself in May forty-eight and won nine months' war; hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees, the anchor's figures attributed. Wars came again in fifty-six, sixty-seven and seventy-three.

A coup in one, a negotiation in the other.

WC2 1716 Iran 1953, Ghana 1957: Two Roads Out of Empire

Mossadegh nationalized British oil in nineteen fifty-one; in fifty-three a CIA and British coup, Operation Ajax on the witness, restored the Shah, the Truman Doctrine's asymmetry. Ghana went the other way: Nkrumah negotiated independence in fifty-seven, the first in black Africa, preaching Pan-Africanism and a United States of Africa. Avoiding communist rhetoric kept a movement out of the Cold War.

Camps in Kenya; apartheid to ninety-four.

WC2 1717 Kenya and South Africa

In Kenya the Mau Mau rose in nineteen fifty-two, the anchor's fifty corrected and the name's etymology disputed; Britain answered with camps, and independence came in sixty-three under Kenyatta. South Africa formalized apartheid in forty-eight and became a republic in sixty-one; Mandela was freed in ninety, the laws repealed in ninety-one, and he was elected in ninety-four.

Torture, a coup, and generals against de Gaulle.

WC2 1718 Algeria, 1954 to 1962: The FLN, Torture, de Gaulle

Algeria's Muslims lacked the rights its settlers held. The FLN rose in November nineteen fifty-four, the anchor's fifty-two corrected; France answered with systematic torture; the war killed hundreds of thousands. An army coup in fifty-eight brought de Gaulle, and his own generals tried to kill him when he negotiated. Independence came in sixty-two, and about a million pieds-noirs went to France.

Without the superpowers, then into Europe.

WC2 1719 Bandung, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Empire Strikes Back

At Bandung in nineteen fifty-five African and Asian states met without the superpowers, and the Non-Aligned Movement grew past a hundred members; third world dates from fifty-two, not Bandung. The boom drew guest workers from the former colonies into Europe; families followed by the mid-sixties, and multi-ethnic Europe met racism and official silence. The empire strikes back is the phrase the anchor borrows.

Three entries on integration: Schuman's coal and steel and the Common Market, Britain joining and Maastricht, and Schengen, the euro, enlargement and Brexit as dated events.

War materially impossible.

WC2 1720 Schuman, the ECSC, and the EEC, 1957

On the ninth of May nineteen fifty Schuman proposed pooling French and German coal and steel under a common authority, to make war between them materially impossible; Europe will not be made all at once, he said. The Coal and Steel Community of fifty-one had six members; the Treaty of Rome in fifty-seven made the Common Market. Witness-built; the anchor starts at fifty-seven.

Out, then in, then a union.

WC2 1721 Britain Joins, and the Community Becomes the Union, 1973 to 1993

Britain stayed out in nineteen fifty-seven and lagged; it joined in seventy-three, the standard record. The Community's institutions merged in sixty-seven. Maastricht, agreed in December ninety-one and in force on the first of November ninety-three, made the Community the European Union with a single market, fifteen members by ninety-five, the witness says.

Dated events, not readings.

WC2 1722 Schengen, the Euro, Enlargement, Strains, and Brexit

Schengen removed passport controls; the euro arrived in nineteen ninety-nine as accounting money and in two thousand two as cash. Ten eastern states joined in two thousand four. After two thousand eight members could not devalue. Britain voted to leave in twenty sixteen and left in twenty twenty; twenty-seven members remained in twenty twenty-two. Dated events only; the anchor's readings are not voiced.

Two entries on the boom's end: the oil shock and Thatcher's record, and a mainstream left without Marx beside a far right dated rather than characterized.

The embargo, then the Iron Lady.

WC2 1723 The Oil Shock of 1973 and Thatcher

OPEC's embargo of October nineteen seventy-three, after the Yom Kippur War, ended the boom. The center-right turned against the welfare state from the mid-seventies. Thatcher, prime minister from seventy-nine to ninety, privatized, broke the miners' strike, closed the mines and deregulated finance; manufacturing unemployment rose. Major followed in ninety. Her policies are the record; verdicts are not voiced.

How much to deregulate became the argument.

WC2 1724 The Left Without Marx, and the Far Right Reborn

The mainstream left dropped Marxism: New Labour under Blair from nineteen ninety-seven, France's Socialists by the nineties; the argument became how much to deregulate. The Greens took the far-left space. Anti-immigrant parties revived after the boom with quotas and bans as their program, France's first; the racial definition of European identity is factually wrong, the anchor says. Present-day parties are dated, not characterized.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe two superpowers and the Marshall Plan, the compromise of social democracy, and thirty glorious years. You can describe containment and the curtain, Berlin's four sectors, two Germanies and Korea, Khrushchev and Hungary, Sputnik and the Wall, thirteen days over Cuba, Brezhnev and Prague, Vietnam, and détente with three theories and no verdict. You can describe Suez, India's partition, Palestine, Iran and Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, Algeria, and Bandung. You can describe coal and steel, the Common Market, Britain joining, Maastricht, and the euro to Brexit as dated events. And you can describe the oil shock, Thatcher's record, the left without Marx, and the far right dated. Part two takes Gorbachev, eighty-nine and ninety-one, existentialism to postmodernism, sixty-eight, Beauvoir and the second wave, four procedures, and the capstone.