The Failure of Peace in Europe, 1943-1948 (review)

This collection of twenty-seven short essays, written mostly by European historians, applies a realist perspective to reevaluate the onset of the Cold War in Europe. The authors, basing their work on new archival materials from Russian and East European archives, seek to highlight the complex nature of European politics during the early Cold War, a topic that is often overlooked. The essays are grouped in five parts, each containing four substantive pieces and one summary. Part I addresses mainly the American, British, French, and Soviet plans for postwar Europe; Parts II and III compare Eastern and Western perspectives on East-West European relations in the aftermath of World War II; Part IV deals with the partition of Europe in 1947-1948; and Part V highlights the Marshall Plan as the endpoint of the division of Europe.

Overall, the authors argue that the Cold War developed unexpectedly, even unintentionally, and that European politicians were active agents in the reestablishment of prewar trans-European contacts and the division of the continent into regional spheres of influence. By including Eastern and Southern Europe, this volume provides a welcome corrective to the often exclusive focus on Germany or Western Europe. Nonetheless, it remains unclear why, from a realist standpoint, one would consider the Cold War division of Europe a "failure of peace," particularly in light of the wars that erupted in the former Yugoslavia following the end of the Cold War. After all, the breakdown in negotiations in the late 1940s was, as various authors indicate, quite calculated. Traditionally, concern over "failure" has preoccupied revisionist historians of various political stripes—be it the failure to de-Nazify Germany thoroughly enough, the failure to check lingering fascist tendencies in Europe, or the failure to bring justice to the millions of victims and refugees ofWorld War II—but most of the historians in this volume ignore the social history of Cold War Europe and agree that the division of the continent was precipitated by security conflicts between the great powers.

According to the authors, none of the leaders at the time had any Wilsonian or other "grand designs" (p.84) to remake Europe. Instead, they simply pushed for accommodations that furthered their own national or imperial interests. Not even Josif Stalin—and this may prove the most surprising argument in the volume, especially in light of some of the newly available documentation—had a grand plan to divide Europe or was overly driven by ideology. Soviet policy developed haphazardly, argues Vojtech Mastny, and even though the Cold War was predetermined by Stalin's quest for a "weak and fragmented Europe," the Soviet leader "preferred Eastern Europe to be divided and pliable, rather than Communist" (pp.68-69). Stalin did not get his wish, but he is depicted here as a realist politician who simply miscalculated the extent of Western tolerance for his security ambitions.

László Borhi argues that historians need to look past Marxist ideology to understand that Soviet expansion could also take the form of "economic imperialism" as defined by Hans Morgenthau. In the case of Hungary, the Soviet Union did not seek territory; instead it wanted to acquire economic resources. Hence, economic Sovietization, as sanctioned by the Western powers at Potsdam, prepared the ground for political Sovietization. Stalin, in this rendering, was not as skilled a power player as his Western counterparts. Stalin's decision to reject Soviet and East European participation in the Marshall Plan was, according to Mikhail Narinskii, a "serious diplomatic blunder" (p.281). Narinskii points out that Stalin had accurate intelligence from his undercover informants in the British Foreign Office and therefore knew that the United States and Great Britain had long ago decided to exclude the Soviet Union from theMarshall Plan. Stalin could have exposed the West's "double game" (p.276) of public invitation and private rejection, but instead he chose to consolidate his owncontrol over Eastern Europe. Several authors concur that Stalin created the Communist Information Bureau...