Iron Curtain Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by Anne Applebaum

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Group Ltd, London, in 2012.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Cover design by Michael J. Windsor

  Cover illustration © akg-images/ullsteinbild

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Applebaum, Anne

  Iron curtain : the crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 / Anne Applebaum.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  1. Europe, Eastern—Relations—Soviet Union. 2. Soviet Union—Relations—Europe, Eastern. 3. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1944–1989. 4. Europe, Eastern—Social conditions—20th century. 5. Communist countries—Politics and government. 6. Communist countries—Social conditions. 7. Communism—Europe, Eastern—History—20th century. 8. Communism—Social aspects—Europe, Eastern—History—20th century. 9. Political culture—Europe, Eastern—History—20th century. 10. Political persecution—Europe, Eastern—History—20th century. I. Title.

  DJK45.S65A67 2012

  947.0009’045—dc23

  2012022086

  eISBN: 978-0-385-53643-1

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to those Eastern

  Europeans who refused to live within a lie.

  The loss of freedom, tyranny, abuse, hunger would all have been easier to bear if not for the compulsion to call them freedom, justice, the good of the people … Lies, by their very nature partial and ephemeral, are revealed as lies when confronted with language’s striving for truth. But here all the means of disclosure had been permanently confiscated by the police.

  —Aleksander Wat, My Century

  Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie.

  —Vaclav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless”

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  A Note About Abbreviations and Acronyms

  Maps

  Eastern Europe, 1945

  Poland, 1939

  Poland, 1945

  Introduction

  PART ONE: FALSE DAWN

  1: Zero Hour

  2: Victors

  3: Communists

  4: Policemen

  5: Violence

  6: Ethnic Cleansing

  7: Youth

  8: Radio

  9: Politics

  10: Economics

  PART TWO: HIGH STALINISM

  11: Reactionary Enemies

  12: Internal Enemies

  13: Homo Sovieticus

  14: Socialist Realism

  15: Ideal Cities

  16: Reluctant Collaborators

  17: Passive Opponents

  18: Revolutions

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Interviewees

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  Illustration Credits

  Index

  About the Author

  Illustrations

  Other Books by This Author

  A NOTE ABOUT ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

  Abbreviations and acronyms were widely used to describe many different kinds of political organizations in the era described in this book—the Soviet Union had a kind of mania for them—but they can be very confusing for the general reader, particularly as they changed quite often. I have therefore avoided them as much as possible, often using “communist party” in place of “Polish United Workers’ Party,” for example, or “communist youth group” instead of FDJ or ZMP. Still, it was impossible to avoid them altogether, and they are often used in other history books and memoirs. This is a list of the most important.

  GERMAN

  CDU

  Christlich Demokratische Union: Christian Democratic Party

  DDR

  Deutsche Demokratische Republik: German Democratic Republic, also called GDR or East Germany

  FDJ

  Freie Deutsche Jugend: Free German Youth, the communist youth party, activated in 1946

  FDP

  Freie Demokratische Partei: Free Democratic Party, sometimes referred to as the Liberal Party

  KPD

  Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands: German Communist Party, founded in 1919, dissolved in the Soviet zone of Germany in 1946

  SED

  Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands: German Socialist Unity Party, the name of the German Communist Party after its unification with the Social Democratic Party in 1946

  SMAD

  Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland: German name for the Soviet Administration in Germany, 1945–49

  SPD

  Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands: German Social Democratic Party, refounded in 1945, dissolved in the Soviet zone of Germany in 1946

  SVAG

  Sovietskaia Voennaia Administratsia v Germanii: Russian name for the Soviet Administration in Germany, 1945–59

  HUNGARIAN

  ÁVH

  Államvédelmi Hatóság: State Protection Authority, the secret police from 1950 to 1956

  ÁVO

  Államvédelmi Osztály: State Security Agency, the secret police from 1945 to 1950

  DISZ

  Dolgozó Ifjúság Szövetsége: League of Working Youth, the communist youth movement, 1950–56

  Kalot

  Katolikus Agrárifjúsági Legényegyesületek Országos Testülete: National Secretariat of Catholic Agricultural Youth Clubs, Catholic youth organization, 1935–47

  Madisz

  Magyar Demokratikus Ifjúsági Szövetség: Hungarian Democratic Youth Alliance, the communist-backed “umbrella” youth movement, 1944–50

  MDP

  Magyar Dolgozók Pártja: Hungarian Workers’ Party, 1948–56, the Communist Party after unification with the Hungarian Social Democrats

  Mefesz

  Magyar Egyetemisták és Főiskolai Egyesületek Szövetsége: League of Hungarian University and College Associations, university youth group in existence from 1945 to 1950, revived briefly in 1956

  MKP

  Magyar Kommunista Párt: Hungarian Communist Party, 1918–48

  MSzMP

  Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt: Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, the Communist Party, 1956–89

  Nékosz

  Népi Kollégiumok Országos Szövetsége: National Association of People’s Colleges, 1946–49

  SZDP

  Szociáldemokrata Párt: Hungarian Social Democratic Party, founded in 1890, dissolved into the MPD in 1948 after unification with the communists

  POLISH

  KPP

  Komunistyczna Partia Polski: Polish Communist Party, founded in 1918, dissolved by Stalin in 1938

  KRN

  Krajowa Rada Narodowa: National Council

  PKWN

  Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego: Polish Committee of National Liberation

  PPR

  Polska Partia Robotnicza: Polish Workers’ Party, the name of the resurrected Polish Communist Party between 1942 and 1948

  PPS

  Polska Partia Socjalistyczna: the Polish Socialist Party, founded in 1892, forcibly dissolved into the Polish United Workers’ Party in 1948

  PRL
/>   Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa: People’s Republic of Poland, communist Poland

  PSL

  Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe: Polish Peasants’ Party, founded in 1918, in opposition to the communists from 1944 to 1946, later part of the regime

  PZPR

  Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza: Polish United Workers’ Party, the name of the Polish Communist Party after 1948

  SB

  Służba Bezpieczeństwa: Polish Secret Police, 1956–90

  UB

  Urząd Bezpieczeństwa: Polish Secret Police, 1944–56

  WiN

  Wolność i Niezawisłość: Freedom and Independence, the anti-communist underground from 1945 to about 1950

  ZMP

  Związek Młodzieży Polskiej: Union of Polish Youth, the communist youth group from 1948 to 1957

  ZWM

  Związek Walki Młodych: Union of Fighting Youth, the communist youth group from 1943 to 1948

  OTHER

  OUN

  Orhanizatsiya Ukrayins’kykh Natsionalistiv: Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

  StB

  Státní bezpečnost: State Security, Czechoslovak secret police

  UPA

  Ukrayins’ka Povstans’ka Armiya: Ukrainian Insurgent Army

  Click here to see a larger image.

  Click here to see a larger image.

  Click here to see a larger image.

  INTRODUCTION

  “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

  —Winston Churchill, speaking in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946

  AMONG MANY OTHER things, the year 1945 marked one of the most extraordinary population movements in European history. All across the continent, hundreds of thousands of people were returning from Soviet exile, from forced labor in Germany, from concentration camps and prisoner-of-war camps, from hiding places and refuges of all kinds. The roads, footpaths, tracks, and trains were crammed full of ragged, hungry, dirty people.

  The scenes in the railway stations were particularly horrific to behold. Starving mothers, sick children, and sometimes entire families camped on filthy cement floors for days on end, waiting for the next available train. Epidemics and starvation threatened to engulf them. But in the city of Łódź, in central Poland, a group of women determined to prevent further tragedy. Led by former members of the Liga Kobiet, the Polish Women’s League, a charitable and patriotic organization founded in 1913, the women got to work. At the Łódź train station, Women’s League activists set up a shelter for women and children, supplying them with hot food, medicine, and blankets, as well as volunteers and nurses.

  In the spring of 1945, the motives of these women were the same as they would have been in 1925 or 1935. They were witnesses to a social emergency. They organized themselves in order to help. No one asked them, ordered them, or paid them to do so. Janina Suska-Janakowska, in her late eighties when I met her, told me that she remembered these early efforts in Łódź as completely apolitical: “No one received money for charitable work … everyone who had a free minute helped.”1 Beyond aiding desperate travelers, the Łódź Women’s League, in its initial incarnation, had no political agenda.

  Five years passed. By 1950, the Polish Women’s League had become something very different. It had a Warsaw headquarters. It had a centralized, national governing body, which could and did dissolve local branches that failed to follow orders. It had a general secretary, Izolda Kowalska-Kiryluk, who described the league’s primary tasks not in charitable, patriotic terms but by using political, ideological language: “We must deepen our organizational work and mobilize a broad group of active women, educating and shaping them into conscious social activists. Every day we must raise the level of women’s social consciousness and join the grand assignment of the social reconstruction of People’s Poland into Socialist Poland.”

  The Women’s League also held national congresses, like the one in 1951 where Zofia Wasilkowska, then the organization’s vice president, openly laid out a political agenda: “The League’s main, statutory form of activism is educational, enlightening work … increasing women’s consciousness to an incomparably higher level and mobilizing women to the most complete realization of the goals of the Six-Year Plan.”2

  By 1950, in other words, the Polish Women’s League had effectively become the women’s section of the Polish communist party. In this capacity, the league encouraged women to follow the party’s line in matters of politics and international relations. It encouraged women to march in May Day parades and to sign petitions denouncing Western imperialism. It employed teams of agitators, who attended courses and learned how to spread the party’s message further. Anyone who objected to any of this—anyone who refused, for example, to march in the May Day parades or attend the celebrations for Stalin’s birthday—could be kicked out of the Women’s League, and some were. Others resigned. Those who remained were no longer volunteers but bureaucrats, working in the service of the state and the communist party.

  Five years had passed. In those five years, the Polish Women’s League and countless organizations like it had undergone a total transformation. What had happened? Who had caused the changes? Why did anyone go along with them? The answers to those questions are the subject of this book.

  Although it has been most often used to describe Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, the word “totalitarian”—totalitarismo—was first used in the context of Italian fascism. Invented by one of his critics, the term was adopted with enthusiasm by Benito Mussolini, and in one of his speeches he offered what is still the best definition of the term: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”3 Strictly defined, a totalitarian regime is one that bans all institutions apart from those it has officially approved. A totalitarian regime thus has one political party, one educational system, one artistic creed, one centrally planned economy, one unified media, and one moral code. In a totalitarian state there are no independent schools, no private businesses, no grassroots organizations, and no critical thought. Mussolini and his favorite philosopher, Giovanni Gentile, once wrote of a “conception of the State” that is “all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.”4

  From Italian, the word “totalitarianism” spread into all the languages of Europe and the world. After Mussolini’s demise the concept had few open advocates, however, and the word eventually came to be defined by its critics, many of whom number among the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers.5 Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom is a philosophical response to the challenge of totalitarianism, as is Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four is a dystopian vision of a world entirely dominated by totalitarian regimes.

  Probably the greatest student of totalitarian politics was Hannah Arendt, who defined totalitarianism in her 1949 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, as a “novel form of government” made possible by the onset of modernity. The destruction of traditional societies and ways of life had, she argued, created the conditions for the evolution of the “totalitarian personality,” men and women whose identities were entirely dependent on the state. Famously, Arendt argued that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were both totalitarian regimes, and as such were more similar than different.6 Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski pushed that argument further in Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, published in 1956, and also sought a more operational definition. Totalitarian regimes, they declared, all had at least five things in common: a dominant ideology,
a single ruling party, a secret police force prepared to use terror, a monopoly on information, and a planned economy. By those criteria, the Soviet and Nazi regimes were not the only totalitarian states. Others—Mao’s China, for example—qualified too.7

  But in the late 1940s and early 1950s, “totalitarianism” was more than just a theoretical concept. During the early years of the Cold War, the term acquired concrete political associations as well. In a pivotal speech in 1947, President Harry Truman declared that Americans must be “willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.”8 This idea became known as the “Truman Doctrine.” President Dwight Eisenhower also used the term during his 1952 presidential campaign, when he declared his intention to go to Korea and bring an end to the war there: “I know something of this totalitarian mind. Through the years of World War II, I carried a heavy burden of decision in the free world’s crusade against the tyranny then threatening us all.”9

  Because American Cold Warriors openly positioned themselves as opponents of totalitarianism, Cold War skeptics naturally began to question the term and to ask what it meant. Was totalitarianism a real threat or was it merely an exaggeration, a bogeyman, an invention of Senator Joseph McCarthy? Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, revisionist historians of the USSR argued that even Stalin’s Soviet Union had never really been totalitarian at all. They claimed that not all decisions in the Soviet Union were really taken in Moscow; that local police were just as likely to initiate terror as those at the top of the hierarchy; that central planners were not always successful in their attempts to control the economy; that mass terror had created “opportunities” for many in society.10 Among some, the term “totalitarian” came to be seen as crude, imprecise, and overly ideological.