OPPOSTITION IN EASTERN EUROPE

tan cloth hardbound 8vo. 8º (octavo). dustwrapper in protective plastic book jacket cover. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. contents free of markings. dustwrapper in fine cond. spine a little faded, not torn or price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings or store stamps, no stickers or bookplates, no names, no inking , no underlining, no remainder markings etc ~. first edition. first printing (FPu1979 & nap). xxiv+306p. chapter notes. index. world history. politics.economics. cold war. history of eastern europe. soviet union. warsaw pact. ~ This book traces the development of a new political consciousness among the peoples of the 'northern tier' (Czechoslovakia, Poland, the German Demoeratic Republic and Hungary) of Eastern Europe and analyzes the sources of opposition and dissent among the socialist intellectuals, industrial workers and the rural population of all of Eastern Europe in the decade since the Soviet crushing of the Czechoslovak reform movement in August 1968. Although the authoritarian essence of the regimes has remained the same, the issues that drove East Germans, Hungarians and Poles to the barricades in the 1950s have changed and so have the regimes' strategies in dealing with political discontent. The dominant issues of the 1970s have been human rights, with special emphasis on social and economic rights and the quality of life under socialism. While the threat of Soviet intervention limits national sovereignty and tends to inhibit the regime~people dialogues from erupting into uprisings and armed clashes, the system's widely perceived illegitimacy helps maintain an atmosphere of popular distrust and govemment hostility towards critical opinion. Official policies towards unauthorised expressions of dissent differ from country to country and affect intellectuals, industrial workers and peasants in a different manner. Low~status individuals and those without articulate supporters in the West are dealt with harshly (or kept quiet via the infusion of low~priced foodstuffs and consumer goods into the market), while prominent intellectuals such as scientists, economists and writers, except the incorruptible minority, are co~opted into the ruling establishment. Thus the story of East European opposition in the 1970s is that of the efforts of the Czechoslovak Charter 77, the Polish KOR, the Catholic Church and other groups, the East German and Hungarian critical intellectuals, the Yugoslav Praxis group, the spokesmen of Transylvanian ethnic minorities, and of the decimated Romanian human rights movement to pressure the governments to extend the benefits of full civil rights to all members of the society ~ communists and non~communists alike. Opposition in Eastern Europe is not an isolated phenomenon and its goals, strategies and participants influence and are influenced by external factors, sueh as detente, the Helsinki Final Act, Eurocommunism, Sino~Soviet rivalry and US~Soviet political, military and economic competition on a global scale. This unique combination of domestic and international factors helps enhance the visibility of East European opposition and assures it a prominent place on the agenda of East~West relations. The other contributors : Vladimir V. Kusin ~ University of Glasgow /Paul G. Lewis ~ The Open University / Alex Pravda ~ University of Reading / Jacques Rupnik ~ CARIS, BBC External Services / George A. Schöpflin ~ London School of Economics and Political Science / Ivän Szelenyi ~ The Flinders University of South Australia / Wemer Volkmer~ School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London / The jacket~design incorporates portraits of the following: top left: Gustav Husak; top centre: Jänos Kädär: top right: Edward Gierek; centre left: Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski; centre: Milovan Djilas, all reproduced by courtesy of Camera Press; centre right: Frantisek Kriegel, reproduced by courtesy ofTopix.…