Eastern Europe Quotes
Vladimir Lenin. While Lenin was of this view, Stalin and other hard liners disagreed. They not only imposed their brand of communism on their own people via force with terrible consequences for any dissidents, but the Soviet Army imposed Communism on most of the states of Eastern Europe, and those states in turn used their Armies and secret police to impose it on their own citizens.
He and almost all of the Jews in Germany were expected to act like Germans. There was no room for maintaining and developing their own ethnic customs and traditions. When he arrived at New York, he was treated as a great celebrity by Mayor La Guardia, who was fluent in Yiddish, and other dignitaries some of whom were Jews and even met President Warren G. Harding. He lectured at City College and for the first time in his life saw Jews who had any distinguishing culture and customs—and the informality, egalitarianism, gregarious, free speaking, fun loving was just the opposite of the norms that he had grown up with in Germany which he did not like. See {640911}. He would later become a part of that culture and be seen as a leader, even being offered the Presidency of the new state of Israel in 1949.
In 2002, when Prodi made this offer on behalf of the EU, teh Russian economy was close to complete collapse, there was incufficient medicne available, the military was in disarray, and the EU thought that it could take advantage of Russia's weakness to offer them some economic benefits without the complications of even giving Russia the same degree of power and influence as Poland--Russia's former satellite. Russia's pride and dignity were offended. They rejected the arrangement and when Putin became President he began a very aggressive policy of pushback against NATO and EU expansion Eastward. Many political scientists feel that it would have been better had the EU not offered anything at all rather than the highly one-sided proposal that they made.
Kennan was one of the few people who saw the possibility of Soviet rule of Eastern Europe crumbling as it did almost 50 years later. Most Americans thought that the Soviet Union was so militarily entrenched that they would never be ousted short of war.
Many people mistakenly believe that this was the first political use of the “iron curtain” phrase—in German, “eiserner vorhang.” However, George Washington Crile used the phrase in 1915 {598870}. It is not known whether Geobbels knew of Crile’s work, or if Winston Churchill in his famous speech {411311} was familiar with either Crille’s or Goebbels use.
encouraging liberation movements in Eastern Europe Referring to Hungary
1st Viscountess Snowden. See Winston Churchill regarding the most famous use of the “iron curtain” phrase {411311}. She seems to have been an earlier user. The phrase " iron curtain" was used by T. St. Vincent Wallace Troubridge a few months earlier than Churchill. Also, it appears to have been used earlier than that by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in Das Reich {601664}. But George Washington Crile used the phrase in a political context in 1915 {598870}. And Viscountess Snowden used the phrase in her memoirs of a Past WWI trip to Russia {616546}. It is not known whether Troubridge or Churchill were familiar with any of these other works.
The potential spies I interviewed after WWII were He was one of the earliest employees of the CIA. He was assigned to interview all the characters from Eastern Europe in including Russia who were offering their services to the Americans to spy on the Russians whose troops and puppet communist governments were controlling most of the area. Unfortunately, most of these volunteers were just trying to save their skins or settle scores and had served the Nazis and often committed murder and other war crimes themselves. None the less, the CIA used many of them. See {635149}.
This was a big factor that made the Red Scare so damaging.
