Bridget Kendall’s 2017 oral
history is clustered around particular flashpoints worldwide in the Cold War
(perhaps we should start calling it the First Cold War), from the Greek Civil
War in 1944 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The BBC publication was designed to accompany
a radio series, The Cold War: Stories
from the Big Freeze. Kendall has
gathered interviews with many people who experienced its various facets, and
has produced a bottom-up history supplemented by short, and thus not very
detailed, contextualising essays.
There are references to Romania,
though its few appearances in passing indicate that in terms of the conflict it
was fairly marginal, probably no bad thing.
The first is in the introductory essay to the Greek Civil War chapter,
which outlines the ‘Percentages Agreement’ reached between Churchill and Stalin
in October 1944. This was designed to
split Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, as if this could be hammered
out over a conference table. Romania was
to be 90% in the Soviet sphere and 10% in the British; not quite how it turned
out.
The introduction to the chapter
on the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, described as an early example
of what we now call hybrid warfare, refers to the ‘liberation’ (quotes in
original) of Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary in 1943-4. It demonstrated the pointlessness of haggling
over percentages but the reality of the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia wanted pro-Moscow buffer states, and
the occupation by the Red Army facilitated the installation of subservient
regimes in those countries.
The next reference is in the
introduction to the chapter on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, which talks about
Soviet political and economic control over client states. East Germany, Romania and Hungary were
obliged to pay ‘draconian’ war reparations, and to finance Soviet troops
stationed locally.
Jump forward to Czechoslovakia in
1968, and the introduction dealing with the crushing of the Prague Spring. Nicolae Ceaușescu, who had sided with Alexander
Dubček (surprising to us now, but Ceaușescu, only three years in power, was
trying to keep his own distance from Moscow), to his credit refused to supply
troops to assist in occupying Czechoslovakia.
Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria acquiesced.
We have to wait for the chapter
on Chile in 1973 before Romania is mentioned by one of the eyewitnesses,
actually the only occasion. Osvaldo
Puccio was imprisoned by the Pinochet regime, expelled, and went into exile in
Romania in 1974 before moving to Germany.
He does not say anything about Romania, nor why he initially settled
there, and he was back in Chile a decade after leaving.
In the introduction to the
chapter on the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002), Romania is mentioned as one of
the countries ‘pitching into the fracas to back their preferred sides.’ I had to look elsewhere to establish that
Romania, among many others, supported the MPLA.
The introduction to the chapter
devoted to ‘Gorbachev’s Perestroika’ (1985-91) refers to his communication to
Communist leaders in the Eastern European states that they could no longer rely
on the Soviet Union to keep them in power.
As those parties enjoyed little real public support, the governments
were vulnerable to popular dissent.
Hence, with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the movement to unseat
Communist governments began, largely peacefully, though Ceaușescu’s overthrow
was more violent.
