March 16, 2022
Guests featured in this episode
Georgi Derluguian, Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus. Born in the Soviet Union, Georgie then experienced its breakup as a young social scientist. Having pursued African studies in Moscow, Georgi spent two years in Mozambique during the civil war in the 1980s, and then moved to the United States right after that to work with Immanuel Wallerstein, graduating with a PhD in sociology from the State University of New York at Binghamton.
His dissertation research formed the basis of a groundbreaking and idiosyncratic book of historical sociology: Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Glossary
What were the Brest- Litovsk Treaties?
(At 00:2:46 or p.1 in the transcript)
Treaties of Brest-Litovsk, peace treaties signed at Brest-Litovsk (now in Belarus) by the Central powers with the Ukrainian Republic (Feb. 9, 1918) and with Soviet Russia (March 3, 1918), which concluded hostilities between those countries during World War I. On March 3 the Soviet government accepted a treaty by which Russia lost Ukraine, its Polish and Baltic territories, and Finland. (The treaty was ratified by theCongress of Soviets on March 15, both the Ukrainian and Russian treaties were annulled by the Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918, which marked the Allied defeat of Germany. Source:
What was the Marschall Plan?
(00:7:19 or p.2 in the transcript)
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. The brainchild of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for whom it was named, it was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbors—as well as foster commerce between those countries and the United States. In addition to economic redevelopment, one of the stated goals of the Marshall Plan was to halt the spread communism on the European continent. Source:
Who was Vaclav Havel?
(At 00:16:30 or p.3 in the transcript)
Václav Havel, (1936-2011), Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003).
Havel was the son of a wealthy restaurateur whose property was confiscated by the communist government of Czechoslovakia in 1948. As the son of bourgeois parents, Havel was denied easy access to education but managed to finish high school and study on the university level. He found work as a stagehand in a Prague theatrical company in 1959 and soon began writing plays with Ivan Vyskočil. By 1968 Havel had progressed to the position of resident playwright of the Theatre of the Balustrade company. He was a prominent participant in the liberal reforms of 1968 (known as the Prague Spring), and, after the Soviet clampdown on Czechoslovakia that year, his plays were banned and his passport was confiscated. During the 1970s and ’80s he was repeatedly arrested and served four years in prison (1979–83) for his activities on behalf of human rights in Czechoslovakia. After his release from prison Havel remained in his homeland. When massive anti-government demonstrations erupted in Prague in November 1989, Havel became the leading figure in the Civic Forum, a new coalition of noncommunist opposition groups pressing for democratic reforms. In early December the Communist Party capitulated and formed a coalition government with the Civic Forum. As a result of an agreement between the partners in this bloodless “Velvet Revolution”, Havel was elected to the post of interim president of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989, and he was reelected to the presidency in July 1990, becoming the country’s first noncommunist leader since 1948. As the Czechoslovak union faced dissolution in 1992, Havel, who opposed the division, resigned from office. The following year he was elected president of the new Czech Republic. Source
Who was George Kenan?
(00:30:33 or p.6 in the transcript)
George F. Kennan, in full George Frost Kennan, American diplomat and historian best known for his successful advocacy of a containment policy to oppose Soviet expansionism following World War II.
Kennan’s views on containment were elucidated in a famous and highly influential article, signed “X,” that appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine for July 1947, analyzing in detail the structure and psychology of Soviet diplomacy. In the article Kennan, who drew heavily from his Long Telegram, questioned the wisdom of the United States’ attempts to conciliate and appease the Soviet Union. He suggested that the Russians, while still fundamentally opposed to coexistence with the West and bent on worldwide extension of the Soviet system, were acutely sensitive to the logic of military force and would temporize or retreat in the face of skillful and determined Western opposition to their expansion. Kennan then advocated U.S. counterpressure wherever the Soviets threatened to expand and predicted that such counterpressure would lead either to Soviet willingness to cooperate with the United States or perhaps eventually to an internal collapse of the Soviet government. This view subsequently became the core of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. Source
