ABSTRACT
In Stalinian and post-Stalinian mythology, the October Revolution was, for the peoples of Eastern Europe as for other peoples living farther away from the borders of Russia, the decisive event making possible the self-determination of oppressed nations and marking a new phase in the struggle of the working class against capitalism. Pilsudski’s defeat of the invading Red Army in 1920 put an end to hopes of Red revolution in Eastern and Central Europe. Hungarian and Polish landowners, Romanian and Balkan rising capitalists and their West European associates, quailed from time to time at the floods of bloodcurdling rhetoric proceeding from Moscow. In the war in Spain, ideological passion, which had been apparently languishing in Russia, burst into bright flame. In Eastern Europe the territorial settlement was dictated by the Soviet Union. Capitalism in Eastern Europe did not seem to have achieved much. It had led to economic depression and this had brought the Fascists to power.
