Abstract
This article examines the contacts and attitudes of British MPs to Eastern Europe, especially the Soviet Union and the GDR with occasional glances at other East European countries. Especially Labour Party MPs were active in engaging representatives of communist dictatorships, and the article explores their diverse motivations for doing this. It begins by tracing the changes in the perception of the Soviet Union after 1945. With some on the left a residual sympathy with what was still at times perceived as a socialist state remained, but for the majority of MPs their desire to prevent the outbreak of another world war, to reduce tensions between east and west and to counter the dehumanisation of the ideological enemy was far more important. A variety of diverse Ostpolitik initiatives will be discussed and the question will be pursued why, during the course of the 1960s, British Ostpolitik lost its radical bite. The initiative passed to the Brandt governments, whose Ostpolitik was widely supported by British parliamentarians who perceived it as being in line with their long-standing desire for détente. Their commitment to peaceful co-existence was not shaken by repeated suppressions of attempts to reform or abolish Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe. This agenda seemed to become only more urgent when the outbreak of a second cold war under the presidency of Ronald Reagan threatened a return to the stand-off between the two superpowers which had characterised the 1950s. Only small groups on the left campaigned strongly against the human rights abuses of Communist dictatorships behind the Iron Curtain. The majority of parliamentarians throughout the 1980s were happy to maintain a dialogue with those in power and support the reforms of Communist regimes from above, as championed by Mikhail Gorbachev. When these efforts led to the collapse of Communism across Eastern Europe, British MPs were torn between their enthusiasm for the velvet revolutions and their fear of renewed instability after the end of the Cold War.
Translated title of the contribution | The contact of British parliamentarians to Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989. Between fellow travelling and eastern political renewal |
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Original language | German |
Pages (from-to) | -42-677 |
Number of pages | 719 |
Journal | Archiv für Sozialgeschichte |
Volume | 45 |
Publication status | Published - 2005 |