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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 3, 1981
PAGE 10
Curiously, the Soviets are losing their grip in Eastern Europe at the same
time they are scoring sizeable propaganda successes in Western Europe. For
example, it is now a toss-up as to whether the U.S. will be able to persuade
its continental allies to back up NATO's December 1979 decision to upgrade
nuclear forces in Western Europe.
The tide of neutralism in the Low
Countries and West Germany continues to rise.
The Soviet leadership, sometime in the future, might see that it is to its
apparent advantage to encourage this process of gradual coalescing of
forces in Eastern and Western Europe--or "Finlandization." Notes political
affairs analyst William Pfaff:
"No fundamental change in the situation of Poland, or of the region, is
imaginable without� realignment of security arrangements in all Europe.
If Poland were to become internally autonomous, albeit communist, its
ability to guarantee Russia's security would have to be underwritten by the
other states of Central and Western Europe.
Even a qualified Soviet
military withdrawal from Poland would have to be matched by American
withdrawals in Western Europe or changes in NATO deployment."
Mr. Brezhnev's days are numbered. What will his successor(s) do? Eastern
Europe expert Richard F. Staar writes in his book, The Communist Regimes of
Eastern Europe:
"The future of intrabloc relations will depend primarily upon the new
Soviet leadership after Brezhnev has been removed or retires.... It is not
inconceivable that a new group of Soviet leaders might decide in the future
to purchase a West German exit from NATO by agreeing to the same status for
East Germany, that is, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and some form of
neutralization.•• these moves [could] materialize during the 1980s as part
of a� overall European settlement."
Out of the present division of the continent could arise a new Europe-
released from U.S. dominance, still offering security to the Soviet Union,
but essentially standing on its own, finding a source of strength in its
ancient traditions. Earlier this year, the Catholic Weekly of Australia
reported from Vatican City that "Pope John Paul
g,
during an audience with
more than 3,000 Yugoslavs, renewed his call for� united Europe including
the Western European nations and the communist bloc countries."
Columnist Pfaff, in pursuing his theme of Finlandization, one which he
writes about often, notes this:
"Poland, Bohemia and Hungary have been
coherent nations for 1,000 years. They have been Latin Christian nations
for that long, which means that historically and culturally they have
looked West, not East.
Poland was already
a unified
state
in
the 10th
century. Russia was under Tartar suzerainty until 500 years later, when
Ivan the Great made the Moscow principality a unifying force, and Mongol
and Lithuanian power faded.
"People often think that history doesn't count. It does: it is a safe bet
that Poland, Bohemia and Hungary (to speak only of them, in Eastern Europe)
will be around long after Leninism is forgotten. An intelligent foreign
policy, even an intelligent Russian foreign policy (leave aside Leninism),
would recognize such a factor. To restore the autonomy of such states, in
exchange for their voluntary guarantee of Russian security, would solve a
problem that otherwise will afflict the Soviet Union for years to come and
could even draw it into war."
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau