This is the second of four collective volumes on the interaction of the developments in European communism and the Sino-Soviet dispute. Its intention is to illuminate in depth and time the interaction between domestic and Sino-Soviet developments within the European Communist states and parties. It deals specifically with East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Forthcoming volumes cover the French and Romanian Communist parties.
Policies in Moscow have declined in importance as causes of change. Instead, history sociology, differing stages of economic and political development, personalities, and accidents have come to play a much more traditional role in the development of events. By November 1965, nationalism had become the prime dynamic for change, and rapidly increasing Communist pluralism began to dominate the European Communist scene.
The rapid decline in Soviet prestige, influence, and authority has had two primary causes: first, Soviet internal and foreign policy developments (de-Stalinization and the Sino-Soviet rift), and second, the rising power and influence of the United States and Western Europe. Both volumes 1 and 2 examine the present state of European communism and set forth some provisional hypotheses concerning the course of its development. Contributors to each volume bring to their task highly specialized national, linguistic, and on-the-scene familiarity with their subjects.
