Culture Wars/Factors of Transition

In the chapter ‘Culture Wars’ Judt touches on the ways in which external factors can influence regime change. The direct involvement of Moscow in guiding and determining the policy of several national communist parties is an example of an external factor influencing the course of transition. For instance, the Partito Communista Italiano (PCI) had a comparatively moderate and inclusive platform, which welcomed intellectuals and promoted an air of legitimacy and temperance; however, pressure from Moscow caused the PCI to alter its policies to reflect a more devise and hard-line stance. Judt addresses the manner in which the post WWII mentality in Europe promoted an increased sense of polarization; “it was either one or the other – there was no middle ground” (201). This sense of polarization, that sense of “the clash of incompatible moral alternatives, excluding all possibility of compromise: good vs. evil, freedom against enslavement, resistance against collaboration” (198), was interpreted as both an impetus for political reform, and an unconscious guiding principle which funneled and directed the movement of change and reform. Postwar Italy faced an example of this choice between absolutes; a choice of either the US Christian Democrats or political Marxism. It is interesting how the physical devastation and destruction left in the wake of WWII, things such as the destruction of roads, buildings, factories, etc had far reaching political effects. The destruction of swaths of the prewar infrastructure brought into high demand, in the post war period, skilled manual laborers. A decline in the demand for intellectuals during the rebuilding period mirrored the improved position of laborers. The rise in relative power of workers had the effect of improving the position of parties which claimed to promote the interests of workers, such as Communism. Judt claims that the middle class was inclined to sympathize with the proletariat, and as such lend their support to communist movements. Judt is describing portions of post war Europe as transitioning from fascist states into communist states, but in terms of transitions as a result of cultural and economic factors, rather than any sort of predetermined movement towards a definite end. Judt also describes the manner in which regimes are marketed differently to different audiences. In Eastern Germany, communism was marketed as anti-fascist, a clean break with a new beginning; it was marketed as something solid, with roots tied into the ‘USSR’s anti-Nazi history’. To a lesser extent it was portrayed as open to a wider political spectrum than the Federal government. However, in Italy communism was marketed as an alternative to the conservative policies offered by the western backed regime. The course transition takes can be influenced by multiple external factors, and the same factor may influence different states in different ways.