Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Ivan Vovkanych: Democracy and Totalitarianism in East European Countries: Transition Periods int he History of the 20th century
Democracy and Totalitarianism “Red Army bayonets” in imposing communist dictatorships in post-war Eastern Europe in doubtful. Obviously, the presence of the Soviet Army on the territories of the countries liberated from fascism in 1944-1945 formed favourable conditions for national radical left forces of East European countries to come to power, though each of these states fell into communist Moscow’s “arms” in its own specific way.4 The discussion of the rate of external and internal factors in “Sovietization” and “communization” of Eastern Europe in late 40s has a long history. In the course of the discussion the role of the USSR versus specific internal factors in the establishment of communist dictatorships in post-war Eastern Europe has been dealt with thoroughly by modem historians. For example, the argument of the “Soviet factor’s” influence on the national processes in East European countries has broken historians of Russian Federation into two groups approaching this issue from different angles.5 The first group of Russian researchers considers the external factor, the USSR, decisive in imposing the Soviet pattern of socialism on the countries of the region after World War II, and therefore disregards the alternative ways of the evolution of East European democracies in late 40s. The group is represented by such researchers as Y.S. Novopashyn, L.Y. Gibiansky, O.S. Anikeyev. The second group of Russian historians argues that, at a definite moment in the first post-war years, every East European country had a specific balance of internal and external factors. Such representatives of this group as G.P. Murashko, T. V. Volokitina and A.F. Noskova are confident of the potential poly-variant or alternative perspectives of the establishment of communist monopoly. According to the conceptual approach, recent Russian publications on the topic can be grouped into two major blocks. The first includes collective research of the problems of USSR’s policy in Eastern 4 Marina V. V., 1944-1945: idale ruske v Vostocinoi Evrope?. in Slavianovedenie, 1999, nr. l.p. 60-75. 5 Volokitina T. V., Murashko H. P., Noskova A. F., Narodnaia demokratzia: mir ili realnosti? Obcestveno-politecischie v Vostochnie Evrope: 1944-1948. 135
