totalitarianism today

Soviet sociological conclusions on heavy drinking.

The following is excerpted from the report, "On Certain Aspects of Preventive Measures Against Heavy Drinking", authored by Lt. Col. of the Internal Service G. G. Zaigrayev, Candidate of Philosophy an head of a department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs' Academy and published in the Soviet journal, Sociological Research, in 1982. Though American social scientists have downplayed the role of economic misfortune and social conditioning in mainstream academic literature, public propaganda campaigns and public service announcements are based on the assumption that binge-drinking is a social and personal choice-- one that can be socially engineered down to desirable levels. The truth of the matter, like the meaning of human existence, remains an open debate.

We cannot eradicate alcoholism without making a thorough study of the mechanisms and condition of its spread. We know that people often resort to alcohol to elevate their mood, to reduce tension, to alleviate fatigue and a sense of dissatisfaction, and to escape reality, with its cares and worries. Alcohol helps some people to surmount pscyhological barriers and establish emotional contacts, while for others it is a means of self-assertion, of appearing "manly" and "grown-up". Why is all of this? -- we asked. Why do people need an artificial stimulant?

To answer these questions, we studied the social characteristics of two groups of subjects: alcohol abusers and non-abusers. We interviewed an administered questionnaires to 2,252 residents of Dzrzhinsk (Gorky Province), Kirov, Novogrorod, and Moscow.

The results showed that alcohol abuse correlates most strongly with relatively lower educational levels and poorer use of free time. The percentage of problem drinkers who take part in sports is only one-fourth of the figure for the control group. On the other hand, the percentage of drinkers who prefer to spend their free time with friends, playing cards and dominoes is much larger. Only 25% of the heavy drinkers take walks with their children, attend movies or sporting events, or go on excursions in the country, as compared to 40% of the control group. Only 25% of the alcohol abusers do volunteer work (as compared to 70% for the nonabusers) and just 33% help with the housework (as against 64%). 

The data from Novogorod and Kirov showed that men drink five times as often as women when they are in a bad mood or have troubles at home or at work, and six times as often when they are bored. 

  

Although this does not exhaust the list of reasons for the spread of heavy drinking, we may conclude nevertheless that the phenomenon is socially conditioned and that it must be combated by social measures as various levels. Side by side with society's general efforts to eliminate factors conducive to a desire for alcohol and to provide socially constructive alternatives to its use, special preventive measures are also necessary: regulation of the production and sale of alcohol and wine; the molding of negative public opinion towards drunkards; the monitoring of drinkers' behavior and of the observance of antialcohol legislation; antialcohol education, especially for young people; and preventive work with individuals who have an unhealthy weakness for alcohol. 

There is no question that alcohol consumption should be banned for juveniles and pregnant women and restricted during the height of the harvest season, the work on major construction projects, etc. Drinking sprees among schoolchildren and technical vocational school pupils (often in the guise of "holiday parties") should be viewed as a gross violation of school rules...

The golden days of Romanian communism.

A new film, Tales From the Golden Age, promises a wry look backwards at Romanian communism in the 1980's. The film's title, somewhat lost in translation, is a pun-laden reference to the "Gilded Age", or the Belle Epoque. American critics haven't exactly taken to the film so far, but it takes a Titanic sometimes to get American critics going. For those who don't need a Titanic, here's the trailer:

The latest for Cold War History buffs: Spies, paeans to Reagan, newly unclassified documents.

Declassified documents confirm that prior to the launch of the first spy satellites into orbit by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in the early 1960s, the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collected by the National Security Agency and its predecessor organizations was virtually the only viable means of gathering intelligence information about what was going on inside the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and other communist nations. Yet, for the most part, the NSA and its foreign partners could collect only bits and pieces of huge numbers of low-level, uncoded, plaintext messages, according to Archive visiting fellow, Matthew M. Aid, who today posted a collection of declassified documents obtained for his new book The Secret Sentry on the Archive's Web site. The Secret Sentry discloses that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was far from the first time when U.S. government officials, including senior military commanders and the White House, "cherry picked" intelligence information to fit preconceived notions or policies and ignored intelligence which ran contrary to their expectations. Widespread manipulation of intelligence also occurred during the Korean and Vietnam Wars for example, when Washington ignored intelligence on Chinese intervention in Korea, resulting in catastrophic consequences. The book also details how since the end of World War II, constant changes in computer, telecommunications, and communications security technologies have been the most important determinants of NSA's ability to produce intelligence. NSA has oftentimes found itself behind the curve in terms of its ability or willingness to adapt to technological changes, with delays and bureaucratic inertia causing immense harm to the agency's ability to perform its mission. As a result, during the past four decades NSA has dramatically increased the amount of the raw material that it collects, even while it has produced less and less intelligence information.

A new state historic site telling the story of the Cold War years in North Dakota will open to the public Monday, July 13 at 10 a.m. Central Time. Directly on the front lines of the Cold War, the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site - also known as Oscar-Zero and November-33 - near Cooperstown will preserve and interpret the story of the Minuteman missile system as well as the people working in and living around the missile sites.

Alleged Cuban spies have been apprehended in Texas. Close friends say they saw no signs of espionage.

James Mann's new book on Reagan continues to advance the fallacious thesis that Reagan ended the Cold War.

The Czech Interior Ministry has decided, controversially, to make Communist-era files available online. You can see where other post-communist states stand on the question of how much and how far the files of Communism should be opened to the public.

Six hours of interviews with a dying Alexander Litvineko offer new insight and information about life in post-Communist Russia. Litvineko, a former KGB star, described how he was ordered to recruit powerful businessmen for post-Communist Russia, hire assasins to neutralize their political rivals, and kill whistle-blowers who threatened the Kremlin. The British government was forced to cope with a public health alert and diplomatic crisis after traces of polonium 210, a by-product of uranium, were found at Mr Litvinenko's home as well as a sushi restaurant and London hotel he visited on 1 November of last year. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed that traces of the heavy metal, which is lethal if ingested in tiny quantities, were found in Mr Litvinenko's urine. Until he died from heart failure on Thursday night, doctors had failed to pinpoint the cause of symptoms that reduced a man who ran five miles every day to a "ghost" with a crippled immune system and a useless liver. A post-mortem will not be carried out until it is deemed safe for hospital staff to do so.

Black ooze emerging from the ground in a Canadian coastal town seems to be an unfortunate legacy of the Cold War.

The Iranian revolutions: A neocon's fondest daydream.

Iran is the latest galvanizing force for those poor hawks who have been disappointed by the nature of regime change in Iraq. I can almost hear the humanitarians on the Hill exclaiming, "Why just look at what those Iranians have done now! We need to come in and fix things for them again...." 

For the record, the Iranian people (and well-intentioned, distracted American citizens, for that matter) are still struggling with the consequences of the last time the US came in to "fix things". In fact, the term "blowback" first popped up in a classified sheet from the CIA's post-action report on the secret overthrow of the Iranian government. 1953 was a big year for Iranians-- the CIA helped to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh as Iran's prime minister, thus ensuring another 25 years of rule for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. At the time, the CIA had only existed for six years, but proved an enthusiastic and key mission-maker in the US war against communism. The covert action in Iran was considered a blueprint for similar coup plots around the world, so the CIA commissioned a "secret history to detail for future generations of CIA operatives how it had been done". Journalist James Risen traces the use of the word "blowback" to this secret report, in which the CIA warned of the possibilities of "unintended consequences of covert operations". Of course, Chalmers Johnson's book is the must-read on this topic.

So the heat is on to muddle around. Steve Clemons notes that pressure from hawks in Congress to take a stand on Iran only complicates matters for the President elected to improve our relations with the rest of the world. And Reihan Salam wistfully ponders the possibility of Obama's "inner neocon" while making it abundantly clear that his understanding of neoconservatism is milder and less militarized than most:

The peculiar truth is that Barack Obama, for all his realist convictions, is at his best when he embraces his inner neocon. In August 2001, two brilliant neocon foreign policy thinkers, Jeffrey Gedmin and Gary Schmitt, wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times that blasted President Bush for not being multilateral enough. They compared him unfavorably with neocon icon Ronald Reagan, who, in their words, "linked American interests to the greater international good." Though written before 9/11, Gedmin and Schmitt's piece anticipated the trouble Bush's rhetorical unilateralism would eventually cause. 

Obama, like Reagan, is a master at linking American interests to the greater international good. Whether he likes it or not, his engagement strategy with Iran has been revealed as a hollow hope, one that rested on an overoptimistic interpretation of Iranian intentions. As former Bush foreign policy adviser Peter Feaver has explained, Iran is far more likely to negotiate from a position of weakness than of strength. 

Rather than reassure the Iranians with a wink and a nod that we're ready to do business, President Obama should be building an international coalition to isolate a recalcitrant Iran as thoroughly as the the West once isolated apartheid-era South Africa. Bush, to the chagrin of the neocons, could never pull this off. But Obama can. But though Bush 41 was in many respects a smashing foreign policy success, he also made a number of egregious missteps, including the notorious "Chicken Kiev" speech, in which he essentially endorsed the survival of the multinational Soviet empire and not the nationalist aspirations of Eastern Europe.

Afshin Molavi, an Iranian scholar at the New America Foundation, believes the Iranian regime has yet to cope with the ramifications of such a legitimacy crisis. Contra the hawks, however, Molavi seems to support Obama's careful treading of diplomatic waters. Molavi's observations about the Basiji suggest a counter-revolution could easily be brewing.

• Christopher Dickey works himself into a huff over Chinese and Cuban responses to the election results in Iran. 
• Matt Welch reviews Vaclav Havel's statements on the Iran, and finds Havel to be more concerned about the US pursuing oil interests at the expense of human rights in Iran. For the record, Havel claims to support non-military measures to dealing with the Iranian government's recent human rights abuses.
• Political Animal takes on Daniel Finkelstein's unabashed advertisement of his neo-con sympathies as applied to the situation in Iran. 
• Will Iran be Obama's Iraq? 
• For more photos like the one above, which shows a photo from the Iranian revolution which took place 30 years ago, enjoy Ahmad Kavousian's collection. 
 

Bad memories: When the fiction feels like a documentary.

"Memory believes before knowing remembers." [William Faulkner, Light In August]

The difference between a good memory and a bad memory has no bearing on its reality. We do not choose what to remember. History, as an academic discipline, makes an attempt to choose this for us. Ultimately, however, the salience of memory takes place in the twilight. What we remember may (or may not) be something like what actually took place.

In his Mailer-esque novel-nonfiction about the Vietnam War, Tim O'Brien explains the "surreal seemingness" of war memories:

In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of visions are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. When a guy dies, like Curt Lemon, you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again. The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss alot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.

So maybe seeing is believing the story you told yourself. And maybe seeing and remembering share the connection of a mind to its mirage. 

When my grandfather describes life under Ceausescu’s communist regime in Romania, he talks about the cheap, hard bread procured after hours spent waiting in bread lines. He does not dissect the past for an explanation as to why flour could not be purchased, why a black market for bread did not exist, why no one questioned the scarcities that turned their lives into miserable shopping lists. Instead, he talks about coming home after work to change into his boots before going to wait in the lines. My grandfather did not want to destroy his nice work shoes.  There is something sacred about the way in which we hide our feet.

The impeccable status of witness, possibly related to the American respect for anything which smacks of faithful "testimony", has been known to cause problems in the modern pursuit of criminal justice. Molika Ashford brings up the example of Timothy Cole's recent exoneration: 

This February, 10 years after his death in prison, Timothy Cole was posthumously exonerated for a rape he did not commit. Before his trial, a victim picked him out of a series of photographs, but her memory may have been skewed by the fact that his image was the only one in color. Cole’s case is not an isolated one. The Innocence Project, a legal advocacy group that worked on his behalf, has cleared the names of more than 175 people who were wrongly convicted due to the unreliability of human memory. 

Psychological research continues to undermine the trust given to eyewitnesses’ ability to accurately remember the details of a crime, and we’re becoming increasingly aware of how often their memories are unconsciously manipulated. Paired with a growing interest in the field of neurolaw, which examines the intersection of neuroscience and legal systems, the desire for tools that can objectively assess the accuracy of memories is palpable.

Why must these memories, these morsels for the memoirs, be so certain to us? Why not leave them as the beautiful unbelievables which do best when they suggest? Canadian WWII veteran Pat Hennessey's memories were found in an attic, swaddled in dust. The latest versions of Russian history have been duly massaged into a more presentable, cocktail-worthy version. Ollie North's memories of Reagan make a life in the present rather difficult; the nostalgia breaks out like sweat beads on his upper lip. An exhibition of communist propaganda is greeted with a fond, unforgiving tenderness by Bulgarians. Who really remembers Italian-style divorces? 

Tiberius' sporting life on Capri.

Tiberius built at Capri a private sporting-house where sexual extravagances were played out for his secret pleasure. To furnish it he collected from all over a bevy of girls and youths, selected as adepts in every monstrous kind of libidinous filthiness; called spintriae, they performed before him in groups of three, so as to excite his waning lust. He had as well several chambers which he furnished with lascivious pictures, little puppets twisted into wanton postures and erotic manuals from Elephantis in Egypt, so that the spintraie would learn exactly what was required of them. He laid out little nooks of lechery in the woods and groves of the island, and had youths and girls dressed as Pan and nymphs frolic in grottoes; the island became generally known as Caprineum, because of his goatish antics.

Suetonius, History of the Twelve Caesars

Tiberius was the son of to the unfortunate Empress Livia. He cast gold coins in her image. It was the least he could do since he skipped out on her funeral.

 

Capri, once called Caprineum, is one of the three islands located just outside the Gulf of Naples. It has functioned as a resort since the times of the Roman Empire, when Tiberius retired there in 27 AD to chase nymphs and pleasure. 

The Villa Jovis, Tiberius' residence, was uncovered by a later king. It remains an "imperial eagle's nest". The leap of Tiberius and the Hotel Tiberius look good in black and white. But Tiberius couldn't be bothered with looking good; he was beyond good and evil. 

The writer Norman Douglas, who lived on the island, says you shouldn't believe the "antiquity gossip" about Tiberius. Apart from that, the chipping of a Roman nose is genetic tragedy.

Hungarian extremists seek to re-draw results of Trianon Treaty.

"Altogether, the new European Parliament will have more than 30 members who could be described as being on the extreme right, and in some cases xenophobic or outright racist. Among the ex-communist EU member states in particular, where the average turnout was just over 31 percent, compared with an overall average of 43.24 percent for the 27-nation bloc, such splinter groups did especially well.
 
Extreme-right parties – aided by the historically low voter turnout – captured enough of the protest vote to win seats for the first time. The most militant and successful of them all, the neo-fascist For a Better Hungary (Jobbik) party, which campaigned against “Gypsy crime” and other minorities, got nearly 15 percent of the vote and will send three representatives to Brussels and Strasbourg. “So-called proud Hungarian Jews should go back to playing with their tiny little circumcised tails,” said future MEP Krisztina Morvai, leaving little doubt as to her party’s leanings." [Transitions Online, June 12]

The three Jobbik winners who will hold seats in the European parliament have already announced that they wish to end the implementation of the Czechoslovak post-war Benes degress in the EP. Apparently, Jobbik's deputy chairman and new MEP Csanad Szegedi made this clear in Budapest on Saturday. 

The decrees issued by Czechoslovak president President Edvard Benes (in office 1935-48) provided for the confiscation of the property of collaborators, traitors, ethnic Germans and Hungarians, except for those who themselves suffered under the Nazis. They also formed a basis for the transfer of the former groups from Czechoslovakia after WWII. Szegedi said Jobbik would first submit a request for the abolition of the Benes decrees in the EP. 

The movement would also push for the abolition of the Trianon peace treaty signed after World War I in 1920 that diminished the territory of the former Hungary to its current scale. Due to the treaty millions of Hungarians suddenly found themselves in the position of ethnic minorities in the neighbouring countries, including the 5-million Slovakia where some 500,000 ethnic Hungarians live. "The Trianon border must be forgotten completely in several generations or even earlier," Szegedi claimed, adding this is one of his party's main goals. Jobbik wants 2010 to become the year of Trianon. Szegedi gave a speech at a meeting of the youth 64 Counties Movement, attended by some 250 members of the para-military Hungarian Guard and some 500 of its supporters.

In response to Jobbik's assertions, the junior ruling nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) of Jan Slota said in reaction to it that it would propose a resolution rejecting the demand for a border change in the EP. How do other EP members feel about the Benes decrees? Can Jobbik draw on enough existing nationalist malaise to move such a motion through parliament?

In an interview from a few years back, historian Jan Kuklik explained,"the Benes decrees are a part of Czech, or Czechoslovak legislation, because in 1991, a special constitutional bill was adopted which said that also those parts of the Benes decrees" contrary to human rights principles are not in force. The "so-called problem of the Benes decrees according to international law is solved because there is really no contradiction between Czech legislation and international law, especially from the point of view of human rights in the Czech Republic." Kuklik makes the obvious point that the Benes decrees did not pose an obstacle to EU accession for the Czech Republic, which clearly indicates the European Union's support of the Benes decrees as currently understood.

New revelations & scholarship in Cold War history.

A German double-agent and a death Last month, new information was discovered about a West German police officer named Karl-Heinz Kurras. The story begins with a shooting. On June 2, 1967, protestors in West Berlin demonstrated against the Shah of Iran's visit to Germany. Policemen in plainclothes watched the demonstration with plans to arrest its organizers. Street fighting began and a shot was fired from the gun of West German police detective Karl-Heinz Kurras. The bullet hit young literature students Benno Ohnesorg in the back of the head (see photo above). Ohnesorg did not survive the shooting; a few months later, a court acquitted Kurras of the shooting. This incident radicalized the student opposition movement. In May 2009, German government researchers discovered that Kurras was actually a committed socialist who was acting as a spy for the East German Stasi at the time. While there is no evidence that Kurras was acting on Stasi orders, it is clear that his shooting of Ohnesorg added fuel to the West German protest movement-- fuel which warmed the GDR's fire.

A reader on the end of the Cold War. Mircea Munteanu compiled a document reader for a 2006 conference on "The End of the Cold War", but the documents are as fascinating in 2009 as they were a few years ago.

A photo gallery of communist Berlin. The Beier Collection is an online photo gallery of one man's life in communist Berlin. From 1946 to 1980, Manfred Beier taught German, geography, English, and astronomy in East Berlin. During this time, he developed an interest in photography.

A call for papers. A call for papers on the Cold War and American ethnic groups from the Cold War Center for International History. The deadline is December 1, 2009.

New files on Soviet intel. The Vassiliev Notebooks, a 1,115 page collection of detailed notes on Soviet intelligence activities in the US from 1930-1950, are available for download from the Cold War International History Project. Drawing upon operational files, personnel files, and other documents, the notes were taken by former KGB officer and journalist Alexander Vassiliev during his two years of research in the KGB archive. You can watch a video of the recent conference on the notebooks at CNN.

The GDR's attempts to create a source of national loyalty. As a replacement for the nationalism "discredited" by Lenin, political scientist Dolf Sternberger suggested the term "constitutional patriotism" to provide a democratic basis for loyalty to the German Democratc Republic.

Idealistic communists critique the Soviet Bloc. In 1977, Communist idealist Rudolf Bahro criticized the version of "real existing socialism" in the Soviet Bloc and proposed the creation of a new Communist League that might tap into the original revolutionary spirit.

Newly-declassified documents on Israel's nuclear weapons capability and its strategic assessment by the American executive branch during the 1960's are available to hungry eyes in the National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 276, released last week. The new NSA Briefing Book also includes documents pertaining to Henry Kissinger's views on the Soviet SALT delegation, Soviet nuclear weapons in Egypt, US intelligence performance in the Arab-Israeli war, the likelihood of nuclear attacks by terrorist groups, and more.

Eisenhower's secret propaganda war. In 2006, H-Diplo hosted a notable roundtable on Kenneth Osgood's notable book,Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad. The roundtable members clutter their conversation with the latest bits Cold War factoids and US archives research results. Similar historical treasures dapple the dialogue of the roundtable for a quasi-new book about Dean Acheson's life as a Cold Warrior.

The latest on Helsinki. "Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe" offers three explanations, as well as a decent discussion, for the failure of communist leaders to anticipate the repercussions of their signatures to the Helsinki Final Act.

Reviewing Solidarity's role in the Polish revolution. Poles are still divided over the legacy of the 1989 Solidarity revolution which removed the Polish communist regime from power. Although the compromised nature of the roundtable talks between the communists and the Solidarity representatives has been duly acknowledged, no one seems quite sure where to take the historical legacy from there. Some Russians have decided to take Polish celebrations of the fall of communism as a personal affront.

New documents on the Berlin Crisis For many observers, the Berlin Crisis truly signaled the beginning of the Cold War in the mainstream American press. Douglas Selvage's introduction and translation of newly-released historical documents on the Berlin Crisis offer insight into Khruschev's thinking during the diplomatic crossfire. Recently-declassified minutes from a meeting between Gomulka and Khruschev immediately prior to Khruschev's November 10th speech offer a new perspective on what led to the ultimatum of November 27th. It seems that Khruschev's goals in provoking the Berlin crisis included the desire "to differentiate himself from his ousted opponents, to counter the Federal Republic of Germany's expanding role in NATO, and-- above all else-- to gain international recognition of the GDR". The latter was to be accomplished by Moscow's handing over of its control functions in Berlin to the GDR, thus forcing the West to deal directly with the GDR, which Khruschev hoped might lead to its recognition. A fascinating new look at one of the Cold War's biggest nail-biters.

The USSR's early motions for peace. Geoffrey Robert's working paper, "A Chance for Peace: The Soviet Campaign to End the Cold War, 1953-1955 ", takes a new look at the so-called post-Stalin peace offensive. 

Romania and the Warsaw Pact. Not quite so recent but still enthralling is the paper by Dennis Deletant and Mihail Ionescu, "Romania and the Warsaw Pact: 1955-1989", which looks at the nationalist Romanian version of communism as it was developed under the Dej and Ceausescu regimes.

European peace and protest cultures during the Cold War. A conference report on "Confronting Cold War Conformity: Peace and Protest Cultures in Europe, 1945-1989", held at Charles University in Prague, represents the difficulties of writing "good cultural histories of protest cultures" while implicitly supporting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of protest cultures.

Statues of Soviet solders in national narratives. The controversy around the statue of the Soviet soldier in Tallinn in April 2007 provided a striking demonstration that Russia remains both an external and an internal factor in the national narratives of the post-Soviet space. Here, history is used to lay claim to European identity and as a means of emancipation from Moscow. In the former socialist satellite states, meanwhile, nationalists are using their opponents' communist pasts for political capital. Tatiana Zhurzhenko suggests that before we talk about European solidarity, we need to trace the emergent fault lines running through eastern European memory.

One man's oral account of what he saw before the end. Walter James Murray tells the story of his train ride through the last days of communism in the Eastern bloc.

How American military personnel understood the Korean War in the context of the Cold War. "The Extended Mission of Stardust Four Zero", written by Bill Baumer, chronicles his experiences as an Operations Officer and Aircrew Member of the 91st Strategic Recon Squadron, flying out of Yokota Air Base in Japan. Baumer's book-length tale reflects the connections between the Korean war and the early developments of the Cold War from the perspective of American military personnel, those men called upon to risk their lives in the battles of the Cold War.

A friendly British spy recruiter. Arthur Wynn was a prominent British civil servant and social researcher. He was also a spy for the Soviet Union responsible for the creation of the Oxford Spy Ring.  

L'affaire de tete with Tony Judt.

I hope it never ends. You see, 933 pages of sheer thought-provoking bliss is not enough to satisfy my greed. Being a footnote fanatic, the fact that Tony Judt's Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 was deemed too vast for footnotes-- he offers a bibliography online at his Remarque Institute-- proved an initial disappointment. But Judt's work is dense and rich enough to keep this lady from seeking the alternative wealth of footnotes. In fact, I'll share a bit of Judt with you later this week, as his analysis of European history applies to the current political malaise in Europe.

For those who wish to learn more about this brilliant man and his work, I've compiled a link list to his most significant articles, interviews, videos, and essays below. Explore and enjoy. My only request is that you savor them.

• "The Problem of Evil in Postwar Europe"
• "Bush's Useful Idiots" 
• "Liberal Nationalism" 
• "Tale From the Vienna Woods" 
• "From the House of the Dead: On Modern European Memory" 
• "America and the War" 
• "It's Own Worst Enemy" 
• "America and the World" 
• "Israel: The Alternative" 
• "Europe v. America"
• "Lunch with the Financial Times: Tony Judt" 
• "The country that wouldn't grow up" 
• "In Defense of Academic Freedom", a Google video
• "Disturbing the Peace: Intellectuals and Universities in An Illiberal Age"  
• Tony Judt on the Charlie Rose Show 
• "The Past Is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe" 

Nationalism and the extreme Right are back with a vengeance in Europe.

The results of this weekend's elections to the EU Parliament indicated a clear victory for center-right and right-wing parties. Der Spiegel interpreted the historically low turnout as an attempt by voters to "punish the left", specifically the Social Democratic parties. With only about 43% of eligible voters taking the time to vote in this election, European pundits and journalists are looking for explanations. 

And everyone has a theory. Czech leader Vaclav Klaus believes voters chose to "counterbalance" the recent national victories of European leftist parties by bringing parties on the right to power in the parliament. Exploring the results, it does seem that voters tended to vote in the opposition parties, regardless of their ideological aims. Politician and scholar Daniel Cohn-Bendit blamed European politicians for the low voter turnout. But the reasons for the election results and low voter turn-out aren't nearly as interesting as the ideological platform of the European right.

Overall, the right-wing parties who rose to power did not do so on platforms of free-market conservatism or limited government. In fact, the European right doesn't even bother to go through the motions of supporting economic liberty anymore. This is evident in the names of the various national right-wing parties, which use "populist" or "people's party" while almost completely forsaking the "conservative" label. In fact, the right and center-right parties which made such tremendous gains in the parliament elections campaigned on the basis of nationalism and anti-immigrant platforms. The "classical liberals" are nowhere to be found.

In a distracting and frightening development, Romanian voters gave right-wing nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor and his Greater Romania Party two seats in the parliament. Notably, Tudor expressed his gratitude for such unexpected support. After all, Tudor and his extremist friends didn't even secure enough votes last year to secure a single seat Romanian National Parliament. But things have changed since last year, and the stars seem to be lining up just Right. As Tudor told an excited crowd, "I believe in numerology. Today is June 7; we were 7th on the ballot; we got 7.2% of votes..." 

Apart from numerology, xenophobia, populism, and chest-thumping nationalism, what hopeful message does the European right offer disenchanted Europeans? Has the EU become the best scapegoat for the economic crisis in Europe? If so, does this election actually reflect a strong anti-EU sentiment on the part of European voters? How will the EU deal with this most recent roadblock on the way to creating a stronger European identity worthy of loyalty?

Speaking to Radio Free Europe on questions of regional identity, Timothy Garton Ash expressed one of the major challenges facing the formulation of a European, supra-national identity in the present day. Identity formation is often rooted in shared interpretations of common historical narratives. The history of European identity in the 20th century is muddled, bomb-laden one where even the impetus for the creation of a shared identity can be considered as a consequence of war and violence. Is there such a thing as a common European history underlying efforts to consolidate the EU? Garton wavers:

I think it's a huge mistake to try and legislate historical truth, to say the past should be remembered in this way and may not be remembered in that way, that this has to be described as a genocide and that may not be -- that is the business of historians, and journalists, and writers, and ordinary people. But I think what is perfectly appropriate is to try and develop a common sense of where we are coming from. I'm not sure how much the European Parliament can do about this. Let's not kid ourselves that everybody is waiting on the edge of their seats to read the latest resolution of the European Parliament on the European past. That's not the way it works. But I do think that in our schools -- and that is something the state can influence -- we should have history books which tell us the horrors of Nazism and the horrors of communism. And that absolutely isn't happening at the moment across Europe. We have very different historical stories, and on the whole too little of them.

Clearly, the recent return to the worst of the Right will add shape the "historical stories" emerging from the EU member states. Unfortunately, this shape might not be the sort one hopes to see on a topless beach in St. Tropez.

• "European voters know what they don't want", Henryk Broder, Der Spiegel
• "Region votes for Euro Parliament", Balkan Insight  
• "Major voter swing to Russian party", The Baltic Times 
• "Right, center parties win EP elections", The Baltic Times  
• For the research-minded, you can find all the election numbers and stats here.
• "Berlusconi's Blues", Guy Dinmore, Financial Times 
• "Turkey nervous after EU election results", EU Observer