Home › Features › Essays › Post-Communist Nationalism

Post-Communist Nationalism

Zbigniew Brzezinski
Winter 1989/90
Summary -- 

The collapse of communism across Eastern Europe has created the dangers of nationalist competition and chauvinism. The West should encourage (1) the former 'satellites' to develop pluralist constitutions and to move towards closer association with the EC (2) "the eventual transformation of the Soviet Union -- which in reality is a great Russian empire -- into a genuine voluntary confederation or commonwealth". See also 1990:00167.

Zbigniew Brzezinski is Professor at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University and Counsellor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century. From 1977 to 1981 he served as President Carter's National Security Adviser.

We're sorry, but Foreign Affairs does not have the copyright to display this article online.

Related

Essay, Special 1988
Eastern Europe on Its Own
Charles Gati

Soviet writings on the future of Eastern Europe acknowledge a failure of Soviet policy as well as poor leadership in the countries concerned. Yet Moscow still regards the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia as having been provoked by the West. Assesses the prospects for Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the GDR. Concludes with comments on the US position and the possibilities for co-operation with the USSR over the future of Eastern Europe.

Read
Essay, Summer 1989
Berlin: Forty Years On
Robert E. Hunter

Site of post-WW2 tensions, Berlin now finds itself relegated to the margin of political and economic change across Europe. Even the FRG is showing less and less interest in Berlin's future. Nevertheless, NATO should not ignore it, but include it in a new vision for FRG-GDR relations and the ending of the division of Europe.

Read
Essay, Apr 1964
Russia and Europe
Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Soviet attitude toward the development of European unity has been ambivalent in both politics and economics. The Kremlin, unable to interpret the European movement accurately, has oscillated from one reaction to another. Meanwhile the processes of change within the Communist world, intensified by the Sino-Soviet schism, were creating the preconditions for a new historical relationship between the Western and the Eastern parts of the old Continent.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

November/December 2009 / 6, 88
Essay
In the Quicksands of Somalia
Bronwyn Bruton

Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
Read