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| Pius II |
Gorbachev's Slogan picked up from a speach of Pius II
Девиз Горбачева - цитата Пия II
Lo slogan di Gorbaciov ripreso da Pio II
Le slogan de Gorbatschev repis de Pius II
Der Slogan von Gorbatschev stammt aus einer Rede von Pius II
1.From "Socialism in One State" to "Stagnation"
Once rejected the idea of a worldwide revolution, the only solution, at the end, remained to the Soviet Union was the one of the “Pacific Coexistence” launched by Khrusciov. Notwithstanding the efforts made by the Party, at those time, it seemed that all the efforts for reaching Communism, considered as a higher economic and social phase, had achieved only meager results. That period was called, by Soviets, the one of “Stagnation”.
“A posteriori”,this definition is understandable because the very high levels of growth of the Soviet economics, which had characterized the country during the Stalinistic period, could no more be achieved.It is astonishing that the great economic achievements of UdSSR are normally forgotten, whilst the procapite income in Russia has just recently recovered the 1991 level, after a dramatical fall in the 90ies. Unfortunately, later on, during the Gorbačev and Eltzin periods, people understood that the situation could had become even worse.
2.From Perestroika to the Great Recession
It is difficult to speak in a few word on those events, because there are neither objective points of reference, nor similar experiences with which to compare them.
Military force of the USSR remained unattained. But an army which does not fight a “real” war for 35 years cannot sustain the hardships of a present days “uneven war”, like the one in Afghanistan. This is something that also Westerners are experiencing at the end. When Soviets understood that they were defeated in their first “real” war after World War, against a few, badly equipped guerrillas, they lost any residual confidence towards their system.
So, Gorbatchev was chosen for trying a change of route. At the beginning, he had a good intuition: there were no more good reasons for disputes between Russians and Europeans, so that a wide-ranging cooperation would have been possible. However, he had no clearcut strategy: he did not understand that, in particular, without party dictatorship or someway of authoritarian rule, Socialism could not have resisted the overall pressures of western capitalism.
The typical slogan of Gorbachev, “A Common European House” had been invented, 500 years before, by a Pope: Pius II, that became Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who, as a geographer, had inserted, for the first time, Muscovy and Greater Lithuania, up to the Azov Sea and to the Don, into geographical Europe. It is not astonishing that this Slogan has been accepted and backed by Pope John Paul II. However, such an important t understanding between Russia and the catholic Church could have been effective only if the policy of integration of both, Russia and Europe, into the “Common European House” had been sustained strongly, since the beginning, from one side, by the Christian Democratic forces who had a leading role in the largest part of Western Europe, and, from another side, by the catholic nations of churches, which were very strong at least in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czechia and Croatia. What, according to us, did not happen.
In the absence, from one side, of the maintainment of the strength of the Soviet State at home and abroad, and, from another side, of a genuine alliance with strong cultural and spiritual forces all over Europe, the centrifugal trends, which the system itself (Stalin’s “Nationalities Policy” and its consistent application) had generated, but that the Communist Party had held under control in the past, were unlashed, becoming free to destroy the “Eastern system”. The idea of a “European Common House” was too vague: it did not materialize into a State, into a Treaty, into an ideology, into a military alliance, into an economic system. Also the forces which were starting to operate throughout the whole Empire lacked a clearcut strategy.
The first to act in this context had been the Ayatollah Khomeini, with his well-known Letter to Gorbatschev, announcing that Islam would have overcome communism, and would have even substituted it as the true revolutionary force of the future. He was right, but also the Schica was too weak in the former Soviet Union for aggregating forces; so, the leading role passed to Talibans. Who, at their turn, had not the ambition to create a State, but just to be left free to cultivate their religion according to their own fundamentalistic interpretation, without any secularistic ingerence from abroad. Osama Bin Laden had that ambition, but he had too many enemies for being able to create anything, and he was soon engaged in another, much broader, struggle.
From the other side of the Empire, the Poles have always been happy to surge against Russians. For a certain period, they succeeded to stay, when they had had an opportunity, united beyond Solidarność, which was promising extraordinary changes, including, as Lech Wałesa was saying, “a system which would be better both of Communism and of Capitalism”. However, not a long time after the “Round Table”, everybody saw that there was no “Polish Way”, but just a neo-liberal policy, to which the Church did not oppose any effective resistance, especially thanks to the extraordinary positive attitude of Gorbatschev. According to us, the interview which was released, not long time ago, by former Polish President Jaruzelski to a German newspaper, are of the utmost significance. Jaruzelsky said that both Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterand had asked the Russian to intervene in order to impede German reunification, whilst just Russia was favorable. also Walesa hoped that the Soviets would have intervened. What shows that there was more “European Solidarity” between Germans and Russians than between France, Germany and, even, Poland.
The absence of an adequate strategy by Gorbatschev caused a huge amount of troubles to Russia: an extraordinary fall in GNP, which has been recovered just recently; the civil war in Nagorno,-Karabagh, Chechnya, Ossetia, Abkhasia, Transnistria, but also Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, the coup in Romania; the selloff of Russian natural resources for several years; overall poverty and corruption. From that moment on, general trends were set by the first precedents: to apply existing constitutions as well as an interpretation of existing laws in such a way as to allow the introduction of democracy. In Islamic countries, like Chechnya, a precedent was constituted also by the example of Itan, talibans, al-Qaida, and, then, by the implementation of Shari’a.
3.The Recovery
For about one decade, Eastern Europe and Russia were submerged by these contradictions.
What is paradoxical because, precisely in the same period, China arose as one of the most formidable players in the World. In the same time, the events of these two decades are a practical demonstration of the tremendous interaction that always has existed, and which exists still now, between Russia and Europe. At the beginning, he lack of a clearcut proposal, from either Gorbatschev or Eltzin, lead to an insufficient response from Europe. Russia went on weakening itself too much. A political gap arose. East European countries fell into the chaos. In front of this chaos, Western Europe couldn’t identify its own identity, strategies and policies. Thus, Russia was obliged to reconsider its own policies. Europe was not able to finalise its own integration in a rerasonable way .
A situation which is deceiving for all of us, and that we can solve only together.
As we can see, the mutual attitudes in that period have deeply influenced our societies in the last twenty years. For Western Europe, the progressive lack of capability to organize their own strategiers. For Russia, the necessity to rely primarily on itself. And, for both parties,at the end, the need to find finally a common way of understanding.
We hope that the efforts that we are doing here will be helpful for all Europeans and all Russians who are sincerely interested to rebuild this common path.
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