(1772-1839), Russian reformer and administrator. The son of a parish priest, he had a distinguished academic career before gaining rapid promotion in the civil service. He proposed to ALEXANDER I far-reaching administrative and constitutional reforms based on a network of advisory councils (see also duma), though he avoided suggesting an end to serfdom. The tsar valued his advice but did not fully follow it. Speransky fell out of favor and was dismissed in 1812. Brought back under Nicholas i, he oversaw a codification of Russian laws.
Squadristi The black-shirted paramilitary “squads” associated with Italian fascism. The idea behind them came originally from southern landowners who had formed armed brigades to eliminate dissent among their workforce. in April 1919 the potential of “squadrism” was demonstrated in Milan when mussolini’s supporters attacked the offices of the socialist newspaper Avan-ti. Thereafter, the fascists organized such groups to mete out violence against opponents - a favorite form of torture being the castor-oil purge. Prominent in the elaborately staged march on ROME of October 1922, the squadristi by then numbered some 200,000. A year later they were reorganized into the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, which operated on a regional basis. The squadristi helped to inspire the SCHUTZSTAFFEL (SS) and the British Union of Fascists, and participated in the italo-ethiopian war and the Spanish civil war. In world war ii they also fought alongside the Germans after the italian armistice of 1943.
Srebrenica massacre This war crime - the worst to have occurred in Europe since 1945 - was committed in July 1995 when at least seven thousand MUSLIMS, boys as well as men, were executed during a single episode of the Bosnian civil war (see Bosnia). The perpetrators of such carefully prepared “ethnic cleansing” were Bosnian Serb troops led by Ratko Mladic. The crime also extended to the forced deportation from Srebrenica of some 23,000 women, children, and elderly men. The event was all the more horrific in that it occurred within a Serb-surrounded Muslim enclave that had been explicitly placed under the protection of a Dutch battalion, whose united nations commanders then seem to have believed that active intervention lay beyond their brief as peacekeepers. Thus it was not the Bosnian Serbs alone who endeavored, at least for a time, to prevent publicity about the massacre. Mladic was later indicted in absentia at the Hague tribunal
SS (see SCHUTZSTAFFEL)
St Germain, Treaty of Agreement imposed in September 1919 by the victor-powers of world WAR I upon defeated Austria. As part of the Paris PEACE SETTLEMENT, it confirmed the fragmentation of the Austro-Hungarian imperial territories that had occurred in the final stages of the conflict (see HABSBURG empire). The treaty was also significant for prohibiting any future merger of the new, but essentially residual, Austrian republic into the rest of Germany (see also german unification). This provision was overturned by hitler through the 1938 Anschluss.
"stab in the back" (see dolchstoss)
Stalin, Josef (1879-1953), General Secretary of the Communist Party of the soviet union (1922-53). From 1924 onward he used this position to develop prolonged dictatorial power of greater scope than that enjoyed by any other figure in modern European history. Originally surnamed Dzhugashvili, he was born near Gori in Georgia. His impoverished parents, who worked as itinerant artisans and factory laborers, saw their academically-gifted son accepted into the theological seminary at Tbilisi in 1894. Here he proved rebellious, reading proscribed Russian and foreign authors. increasingly drawn more to the ideas of marx than to those of orthodox CHRISTIANITY, he was expelled in 1899. He then entered radical politics, adopting a number of codenames, including “Koba” and later “Stalin” (meaning “man of steel”).
As a professional revolutionary promoting COMMUNISM, he helped organize a workers’ demonstration at Batuni in 1901, after which he was arrested and exiled to Siberia, escaping three years later. By then he was supporting the hardline BOLSHEVIKS, though he played no role in founding the Party. The Russian revolution of 1905 convinced him that the end of tsardom was nigh, but he was disappointed that Mensheviks were elected to represent Georgia in the subsequent dumas. Between 1907 and 1916 Stalin did much traveling abroad, usually to party conferences, but on return to Russia he was invariably imprisoned or sent into internal exile. This game of “cat and mouse” with the police inevitably affected his private life, which always came a poor second to his revolutionary devotion. in 1905 he married fellow-Marxist Ekaterina Svanidze, but she died in 1907 soon after the birth of a son who was then raised by relatives.
Upon the outbreak of the Russian revolutions OF 1917 Stalin returned from Siberian exile to Petrograd, reclaiming a seat on the editorial board of Pravda. In July he was elected to the Central Committee and, pending the return of the exiled LENIN, temporarily fronted the Bolsheviks without necessarily knowing what course of action to pursue. After the seizure of power in November he joined the politburo. In 1918 he married Nadezhda Allilueva, with whom he would have a further son as well as a daughter. He now took a prominent role in crushing anti-Bolshevik forces during the Russian civil war, notably at Tsaritsyn (later renamed Stalingrad). As Commissar for Nationalities (1917-22), he displayed his organizational and bureaucratic skills, his disregard for the rights of minorities, and his vaunting ambition. By 1922 he was clearly a leading candidate to succeed the ailing Lenin. Despite the latter’s growing anxieties over such an outcome, Stalin managed in the course of 1923 to consolidate a crucial hold over the Party apparatus within the newly-created Soviet Union. Through the COMINTERN, he was also strengthening his influence over Communist parties abroad.
After Lenin’s death in 1924 Stalin began his struggle with trotsky, prioritizing “socialism in one country” rather than the more internationalist endeavor of “permanent revolution.” By 1929 Stalin had largely neutralized his main opponents, who also included kamenev, Zinoviev, and BUKHARIN. Armed with dictatorial authority, he now replaced Lenin’s new economic policy with the FIVE-YEAR PLANS and schemes of agrarian collectivization, all as means of accelerating economic modernization. These initiatives also entailed elimination of the kulaks, and mass deportations to the gulag. As the great purges intensified during the 1930s under the direction of Yezhov and beria, no one seemed safe from his state terror (see terrorism; totalitarianism). The victims included leading Party colleagues, many of whom were eliminated in the show trials of 1935-8. Questions have subsequently been asked about Stalin’s sanity - whether it was a madman who sent millions to their deaths, among them several of his friends and long-time associates. it was even rumored that in 1932 he had killed his own wife, although she most likely committed suicide. Evidence of Stalin’s mental state remains ambiguous. He may have displayed symptoms of paranoia in 1937, as he would do in the late 1940s, yet he generally kept his composure and appears to have taken no personal pleasure in the killings. Many of these were pursued by zealous local party officials, poorly supervised from above.
By the late 1930s, Stalin was somewhat belatedly acknowledging the scale of the threat posed by NAZISM. Having begun to encourage the formation of POPULAR FRONTS against the spread of European fascism, he then engaged in a particularly cynical act of APPEASEMENT. In August 1939 he authorized molotov to conclude the nazi-soviet PACT, which facilitated the USSR’s territorial ambitions in the Baltic states and Poland. It also allowed Stalin to buy time for rebuilding the red ARMY whose leadership had been decimated by the purges. In mid-1941 hitler’s launching of Operation BARBAROSSA ended the understanding with Berlin and plunged the Soviet Union into the “Great Patriotic War” (see world war ii). This was perhaps Stalin’s “finest hour,” though it also cost the USSR at least 25 million military and civilian deaths.
In the face of the German advances, the Soviet dictator quickly accumulated new responsibilities. These included the premiership, the chairmanship of the state Committee of Defense which directed the military-economic mobilization, and the post of supreme commander of the armed forces. In 1943 he assumed the rank of marshal, by which point he had acquired a formidable grasp of strategy and logistics. Able to assimilate huge quantities of information, he was better than Hitler at listening to senior officers. Stalin unquestionably made mistakes, yet, particularly after the battles of stalingrad and kursk were won, a widespread cult of personality intensified around him. This had first been witnessed in the 1930s, and came partially from below as peasants replaced portraits of tsars with those of their new leader. But his identification with the defense of “Mother Russia” was largely orchestrated from above, in a manner often subsequently interpreted as one of the manifestations of Soviet totalitarianism.
As the fortunes ofwar turned in his favor, Stalin focused on securing the interests of the USSR at the conferences of Tehran, yalta, and potsdam. Fear lest Roosevelt and churchill might do a secret deal with Hitler and turn their combined armies on Moscow was one reason why the Soviet leader misled the western Allies over his intentions towards Berlin. whether he had plans for exporting revolution to western Europe in 1945 is debatable; yet, with the exception of Yugoslavia under tito, he was successful in establishing Soviet dominance across the eastern regions. Stalin remained troubled, however, by the threat from the USA - the one rival superpower, and sole possessor of atomic weaponry until 1949 (see COLD war). He was concerned too about the supposed existence of traitors at home. Such anxiety was demonstrated in the so-called “Leningrad case” (1949) which resulted in the execution of the economics expert voznesensky. This also served as a reminder that purges continued to be part of state policy, now pursued in a form where antisemitism often proved prominent: it was alleged, for instance, that Jewish doctors had been plotting the murder of Politburo members.
In the event, Stalin’s death in 1953 stemmed the bloodshed, and at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 KHRUSHCHEV began the process of “de-Stalinization.” This eventually led to a denunciation of the Great Purges and the removal of Stalin’s embalmed corpse from Lenin’s mausoleum. In this atmosphere, Stalin’s many enemies, both at home and abroad, came to the fore, their revelations badly denting the reputation of the Soviet Union among a European left already disenchanted by the suppression of the Hungarian RISING OF 1956. During the STUDENT REVOLTS OF 1968 it was clear that, among the young, Stalinism had lost its allure, to be replaced by more fashionable and supposedly less repressive versions of Marxism. After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, there followed official attempts to rehabilitate Stalin, albeit principally as a war hero. Such myth-making, accompanied by the appearance and disappearance of primary evidence to suit the needs of the Russian authorities, has rendered it hard for historians to make sense of Stalin. He has often been likened to Hitler: but, while the Fuhrer’s murderousness was entirely consistent with the Nazi ideology of extreme racism, the otherwise comparable brutality of the Soviet dictator stemmed from his betrayal of a Marxist worldview theoretically committed to far more humane purposes. Cynical and opportunistic, Stalin was undoubtedly a consummate politician, committed to entrenching his own interpretation of the purity of Bolshevik revolution. Nonetheless it was a colossal tragedy that his perverse mindset should have cost the lives, liberties, and livelihoods of millions, not only in the USSR but in much of eastern and central Europe.
Stalingrad, Battle of A protracted struggle lasting from September 1942 until early February 1943 that stands, alongside the later battle of KURSK, as the most significant action witnessed on the Eastern Front during world war ii. As an industrial and transport hub, Stalingrad (today’s Volgograd) was one of the principal objectives on the southern flank of the invasion launched in June 1941 by hitler against the soviet union (see barbarossa). By the end of summer 1942 the
German forces, with some Romanian support, had advanced through the Ukraine and beyond the Don, and were now aiming to push across the Volga towards the oilfields of the Caucasus. On September 12 the Sixth Army, commanded by General Friedrich Paulus, began to enter Stalingrad. Though controlling most of it by October, he did not succeeded in crossing to the far bank of the Volga where the red army retained a strong artillery capacity. Meanwhile, stalin was allocating massive reinforcements to the defense of the city that bore his name. Led by Generals Chuikov and ZHUKOV, the Soviet troops proceeded to encircle their enemies. Hitler ordered that his invading force should stand and fight rather than attempt a breakout into retreat. goering’s matching reassurances about adequate supplies due to come through by air proved to be inflated, and the German troops increasingly succumbed in relentless house-to-house combat. Obedient to the last, Paulus was promoted to Field Marshal on January 30, 1943, just hours before his headquarters were overrun and he himself became captive to the Russians. Within days, the remaining pockets of resistance had been eliminated. During this campaign some 30,000 wounded Germans had been evacuated by air, while between 150,000 and 200,000 others were killed. The Russians also took more than 100,000 prisoners. Hitler’s failure to conquer Stalingrad marked the beginning of the German retreat from southeastern Europe - a process hastened by further defeat in the great tank battle around Kursk during July-August 1943.
Stalinism (see under stalin; communism)
Stamboliisky, Alexandar (1879-1923), Prime Minister of Bulgaria (1919-23). A radical populist, he became leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BZNS) in 1911. He opposed involvement in the Balkan wars of 1912-13, and was imprisoned for similarly condemning in 1915 Bulgaria’s entry into world war i on Germany’s side. The government released him in 1918, hoping that, as an armistice was being sought, this might reduce discontent within the defeated army. Having headed an abortive revolt, he then achieved power after the elections of 1919. He attempted to develop a one-party agrarian state, with a program of legal and land reforms.
However, both his social radicalism and his refusal to be distracted into endorsing irredentist claims (see irredentism) upon Macedonia brought him into conflict with right-wing nationalists. These mounted the coup that deposed him and led, shortly afterwards, to his decapitation.
Stambolov, Stefan (1854-95), Regent (1886-7) and Prime Minister (1887-94) of Bulgaria. He first emerged as a prominent nationalist during the period immediately preceding the achievement of independence in 1878. By 1885, when the Bulgars of eastern rumelia also sought to free themselves from Ottoman Turkey (see turkey and EUROPE), Stambolov had become the natural leader of those who then succeeded in defying Russian and serbian opposition to this move. He acted as regent after the abdication of Alexander of Bat-tenberg, before being appointed premier by the successor whom he himself had recruited. Thereafter he became increasingly unpopular, not least with the new prince, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. This occurred not only because Stambolov sought friendlier relations with the Ottoman regime and resisted domestic pressures to seize MACEDONIA, but also due to his ever more dictatorial methods. in 1894 Ferdinand sacked his premier with a view to enlarging his own royal control. A year later Stambolov was murdered by Macedonian irredentists (see irredentism), who almost certainly acted with the prince’s connivance.
Stasi Abbreviation of the term Staatssicher-heitsdienst (State Security Service), the organization that assumed for the communist regime of the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC the kind of repressive policing function formerly carried out under Nazism by the gestapo. The full scale of Stasi activity became apparent only after the GDR’s fall in 1989-90 (see revolutions of 1989-91). It included keeping files on nearly a third of the population.
Stavisky affair (1934) Scandal that arose in France out of the dealings of a petty eastern European crook, Serge Stavisky, who was discovered to have issued bogus share certificates for a non-existent pawnbroking firm in Bayonne. it was further revealed that well-placed friends of his in the radical party had earlier protected his lifestyle. When he committed suicide there was inevitable speculation that he had been murdered to conceal his protectors’ identities. Coming amid GREAT depression[2], this scandal prompted rightwing leagues, most notably the croix de feu, to exploit it by mounting a massive Parisian demonstration on February 6, 1934. This was held in the Place de la Concorde, across from the National Assembly. There was fighting with police that left 15 dead and 1,435 wounded - the worst violence in the capital since the Paris commune. It is now known that the leagues had no clear plans to topple the third republic, but the government responded with a cabinet ofnational union under Gaston Doumergue, and the parties of the left hastened the negotiations that eventually led to
The POPULAR FRONT.
Stein, Karl, Baron vom (1757-1831), Prussian statesman and reformer. Born in the Rhineland, Stein entered the civil service in 1780. He was made chief minister by Frederick william iii in the aftermath of Prussia’s defeat by napoleon i at jena-auerstAdt, and embarked with hardenberg, gnei-SENAU, and scharnhorst on reform of the state. Here he drew lessons from the french revolution OF 1789, by seeking to widen public participation. He abolished serfdom in 1807, albeit on terms favorable to the land-owning nobility; ended the noble monopoly on military officerships; and established some measure of local self-government. Stein was driven from office in 1808 by pressure from Napoleon, but returned in 1813 after the retreat from Moscow, when he advocated a popular uprising in favor of german unification under Prussian leadership. Such ambitions were then frustrated by the opposition of the Austrian statesman, metternich. He retired from political life after the Vienna congress of 1814-15, and then devoted himself to establishing the documentary series, Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
Stolypin, Pyotr (1862-1911), Prime Minister of RUSSIA (1906-11). Born into the aristocracy, he entered state service in 1885 and became governor first of Grodno, and then of Saratov where he crushed the peasant unrest which accompanied the RUSSIAN revolution of 1905. He thus seemed a natural choice as premier when Nicholas ii attempted to restore order after the troubles. As a believer in tsarist autocracy, he had little time for the new duma and initiated thousands of arrests and executions: “Stolypin’s necktie” was how Russians referred to the hangman’s noose. In 1906-7 he began the efforts towards agrarian reform for which he is chiefly remembered (see also RURAL society). He aimed to free the peasants from the restrictions that had accompanied the Emancipation Edicts of 1861 concerning serfdom. His hope was to create a prosperous, land-owning peasantry, akin to that in France - one that craved social stability and shunned radicalism. His reforms were contested both by left and right, and he was assassinated in 1911.
Straits question Issues of access to, and control over, the maritime waterways that run through TURKEY and connect the Black Sea with the Aegean and Mediterranean. The Straits of the bosphorous and the Dardanelles (and the Sea of Marmara lying between them), which mark the geographical boundary between Europe and Asia Minor, have long held major strategic significance. The weakness of the Ottoman regime (which was also fundamental to the wider eastern question, where the Straits issue again played a vital role) made this route a constant focus for international rivalry. Tension existed especially between Britain and Russia (e. g. at the time of the Crimean war). The problem was addressed through a sequence of international agreements (the most important being the Straits Convention of 1841, which closed the route to all foreign warships while Turkey was at peace), but none of them was observed with complete consistency. (see also mediterranean agreements; lausanne treaty;
MONTREUX convention)
Stresa Front This was named after the conference of April 11-14, 1935 at Stresa (northern Italy) whereby the British, French, and Italian governments reaffirmed their support for the LOCARNO TREATIES and for Austrian independence in the face hitler’s designs upon Anschluss. prompted by the reintroduction of conscription in Germany, the three powers were never sure what they wanted to accomplish at stresa, and the conference revealed their different concerns. The proclamation on Austria was achieved by not confronting mussolini over the ambitions that soon led to the italo-ethiopian war, and Stresa did little to deter them. The Front was even more immediately weakened by the anglo-german NAVAL AGREEMENT of June 18 which permitted Germany to build up its fleet to 35 percent of the British one. Whereas London believed that German rearmament was inevitable and should now be condoned in some measure, paris regarded this as a flagrant breach of the Versailles TREATY. Thus France sought further reinsurance through an accord with Italy (June 27) which foresaw joint military commitments should Austria be threatened. ultimately stresa did not prevent Mussolini from allying with Hitler, while France and Britain increasingly sought to manage German ambitions through appeasement.
Stresemann, Gustav (1878-1929), German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor (1923) and Foreign Minister (1924-9) in the WEIMAR republic. The son of a Berlin restaurateur, stresemann undertook a doctorate on the bottled-beer trade before entering commerce and eventually politics. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1907, and from 1914 was a vigorous supporter of the German war effort and of unrestricted submarine activity (see world war i). In 1917 he became leader of the National Liberals, and re-titled them as the People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, or DVP) at the close of the war. One of the Weimar Republic’s founding fathers, he served briefly as chancellor from August to November 1923 and was appointed foreign minister the following year. In this capacity, he agreed the dawes plan, secured Germany’s admission into the LEAGUE OF NATIONS, and helped to negotiate the LOCARNO TREATIES (for which he received in 1926, jointly with briand, the Nobel Peace Prize) and the kellogg-briand pact. It is sometimes said that he was attempting to restore Germany’s greatness through a policy of reconciliation and acceptance of the VERSAILLES TREATY, but recent scholarship has stressed his determination to dissolve the terms of 1919, if necessary by a covert rebuilding of military resources. Had he lived, he might well have pursued a foreign policy not entirely dissimilar to that followed by hitler in the early years of the Nazi regime, albeit by using subtler methods.
Student revolts of 1968 Part of series of protests that troubled universities in Europe, the usA, and elsewhere between late 1967 and the spring of 1969. Though much of the causation was specifically localized, there were also shared factors. In response to the post-1945 “baby boom” governments had raised school-leaving ages and encouraged broader entry into higher education. Yet, despite creating some new universities, they had not overhauled their systems on a scale capable of coping with the additional numbers. The professoriate was frequently out of touch; lecture halls were close to bursting; libraries were inadequately stocked; and the new modernistic campuses were often soul-destroying and subject to petty restrictions. Though students were still a minority group, they considered themselves as being in the vanguard of social change, attuned to innovations in pop music, fashion, and the expression of sexuality. In this regard, it was significant that many were studying relatively new disciplines such as sociology and psychology. In Europe as well as the USA, student radicalism had been sharpened not only by support for the civil rights movement but also by opposition to the Vietnam War, which was denounced as imperialist aggression by a “New Left” that was often more Maoist than Marxist. Such ideas found greatest resonance among the student leaders, figures such as Rudi Dutschke and Daniel Cohn Bendit who were usually older than most of their campus followers. Beyond these generalized causes, the revolts took place within particular national contexts. Protests in Madrid that began in late December 1967 were directed at franco; those that followed in Warsaw and in the 1968 PRAGUE SPRING challenged the communist system; and the ones that developed in Italy focused on Vietnam and student freedoms, as did the disorders in London where 80,000 demonstrators clashed with police outside the US Embassy. Fights with the authorities also erupted in West Germany, where trouble had been brewing since 1966. The most dramatic events occurred, however, in Paris during the first fortnight of May 1968. Here, unlike elsewhere in Europe, the students were joined by the workers who brought France to a halt through a series of spontaneous strikes conducted outside of the trade unions. Though having little else in common, students and workers shared a mistrust of hierarchy and a desire for material security. Unrest lingered until late June, when concessions were made to the workers by prime minister pompidou - a response that ran counter to the inclinations of de gaulle, whose harder line concerning the disorders served only to hasten the waning of his previous popularity as president. Though calm had been generally restored to the European university scene by early 1969, something of the spirit of protest survived. For a tiny minority of activists, who in the 1970s gravitated towards terrorism through the RED BRIGADES and the baader-meinhoff group, “1968” had been a missed opportunity for fundamental and violent revolution. More typically, however, the “events” of that year came to be seen as a powerful generational movement in favor of “personal liberation” - one that would continue to inspire campaigns for environmentalism, feminism, and greater sexual freedoms.
Sturmabteilung German term, literally meaning “storm unit.” This label, abbreviated as SA, identified the mass paramilitary force first formed by the Nazis (see Nazism) in 1921 to protect their party gatherings and to provoke violent confrontation with their rivals. Much of its recruitment stemmed from the freikorps. Once hitler had attained power, rOhm as leader of these brown-shirted “stormtroops” (more than 4 million strong by 1934) advocated converting the SA into a people’s army that might even absorb the Wehrmacht. The Fuhrer chose instead to have Rohm and his senior associates murdered in the so-called night of the long knives. Any satisfaction that this gave to the regular army was tempered over the longer run by the fact that this purge also accelerated the rising influence of HiMMLER’s SS (see schutzstaffel) with its more carefully calculated system of terror (see terrorism). Conversely, the SA’s own influence now became increasingly eclipsed, even to the point where in 1946 the judgment given at the Nuremberg TRIALS excluded this organization from the list of those formally deemed criminal.
Suarez Gonzalez, Adolfo (1932-), Prime Minister of Spain (1976-81). A lawyer by training, this consummate technocrat was pivotal to the democratic transition of the later 1970s. During the final years of franco’s regime he had become governor of Segovia and director-general of radio and television. upon the dictator’s death in 1975, Suarez assumed headship of the falange. In June the following year he accepted an astute invitation from King juan carlos i to become premier, in which capacity he formed a new political party, the Union de Centro Democratico (UCD). Having been a loyal servant of Franco, Suarez was well placed to encourage supporters of the old regime to approve the introduction of universal suffrage and a two-chamber parliament. By 1977 he had facilitated the return of the Socialist and Communist parties, legalized trade unions, and dissolved the Falange itself. In the elections of that year (the first since 1936) the UCD emerged with most seats but had to work alongside left-wing deputies. Together they secured the formalization of a constitutional monarchy and a degree of regional autonomy. Though re-elected in 1979, the UCD still lacked an overall majority and seemed powerless to alleviate economic unrest and satisfy separatist demands. In 1981, shortly before military officers launched an unsuccessful coup, Suoarez was forced to resign by his own party which disliked his autocratic style. Though he proceeded to form a new grouping, his influence rapidly waned and he retired from politics in 1991.
Subsidiarity Principle that decisions should be taken at the most local level consistent with effectiveness, and thus that central authority should fulfill only subsidiary functions. It derived largely from the social teachings of Catholicism, as developed for example in the papal encyclicals Rerum novarum (1891) and Quadragesima anno (1931). By championing subsidiarity, the church sought to promote human dignity, reinforce the family and the voluntary organizations of civil society, and steer a middle course between socialism and CAPITALISM. The concept was popular in CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY after 1945, and with respect to EUROPEAN INTEGRATION it became particularly significant as part of complex debates about the ambiguities of “federalist” rhetoric (see federal-ism[1]). As a potential check upon undue centralization of decision-making, subsidiarity was embedded into European law through the Maastricht TREATY of 1992, and further enshrined in the Treaties of Nice (2001) and Lisbon (2007).
Succession states This term refers to states created (or re-established) following the partition of other ones. such succession has been a recurring feature of modern European history, and has appeared most dramatically upon the dissolution of imperial systems. Outstanding cases include the new state-formations that followed the collapse of the HABSBURG EMPIRE in 1918 and that of the SOVIET UNION in the early 1990s. On a smaller scale, other recent examples include the peaceful two-state division of former Czechoslovakia in 1993 and, around the same epoch, the more complex and fragmented territorial outcome that resulted from Yugoslavia’s disintegration amidst civil war.
Sudetenland Mountainous area of northeast BOHEMIA and northern Moravia, adjoining the German border, which was allocated to the new state of CZECHOSLOVAKIA at the 1919 Paris peace SETTLEMENT. Formerlypart ofthe habsburg empire, this region contained 3 million ethnic Germans, nearly a quarter of Czechoslovakia’s overall population. Although this minority was treated relatively well by the Prague government, during the mid-1930s a Sudeten German party, led by Konrad Henlein, increasingly called on Nazi Germany for assistance. Following the Anschluss with Austria in March 1938, hitler deliberately precipitated a crisis by insisting on the incorporation of this territory into his new Reich. Unable to assuage Hitler’s demands, the British and French governments welcomed Mussolini’s proposal for a four-power conference to achieve a peaceful solution, even though there was to be no Czech representation. The subsequent Munich AGREEMENT of September 1938 transferred the sudetenland to Berlin’s control. This gesture did not prevent Hitler’s annexation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. At the potsdam CONFERENCE of 1945, the Allies restored this contested area to Czechoslovakia and its ethnic German population was forcibly expelled to the American and Soviet zones of occupied Germany.
Suez crisis Abortive Anglo-French invasion of the suez Canal Zone attempted in November 1956. it was a response to the nationalization of the waterway announced in july by President Nasser of Egypt. Desiring a pretext for military intervention, the British and French governments then colluded secretly with Israel, to the effect that this third partner would attack the Sinai peninsula. When this action began on October 30, the UK and France declared the canal to be endangered. They landed troops there on November 5. Faced with widespread international condemnation (and particularly the USA’s threat to cease propping up the value of sterling currency), the British settled only two days later for a ceasefire that their French allies viewed as betrayal. Evacuation of Suez and Sinai alike soon followed. This brief late flourish of Anglo-French imperialism confirmed the dwindling global status of the two powers. The crisis fueled existing campaigns for further European decolonization; ended the career of the UK premier, eden; hastened the demise of the fourth french republic; and revealed divisions in the transatlantic Western alliance that unintentionally facilitated Khrushchev’s simultaneous suppression of the HUNGARIAN RISING. Suez also promoted the development of divergent notions of how the relationship with the USA should proceed in the future. While Britain governments became all the more anxious to keep in step with the Americans, French ones were henceforth equally determined never to be again in thrall to Washington.
Svoboda, Ludvfk (1895-1979), President of Czechoslovakia (1968-75). Having fought with distinction in each of the world wars, he became minister of defense in 1945. His clandestine membership of the Communist Party (see communism) became an open allegiance after gottwald replaced beneS as national leader in 1948. At stalin’s behest Svoboda was removed from ministerial office in 1951, and thereafter briefly imprisoned. He was, however, eventually rehabilitated by KHRUSHCHEV and made commandant of a military academy. He retired in 1959, but early in the PRAGUE SPRING of 1968 this now venerated “hero of the Czechoslovak Republic” replaced novotny as president. Though he had some sympathy for the reformism of dubCek, Svoboda acquiesced in the Soviet-led invasion of czechoslovakia later that year and in Moscow’s continuing control over the processes of “normalization” that prevailed throughout the rest of his presidential tenure.
Sweden This country lies on the western side of the Baltic, and has land borders with Norway and FINLAND, as well as (since 2000) a road-and-rail bridge connecting with Denmark. Its population (currently estimated at around 9.3 million) is the largest in Scandinavia. Though the Swedish monarchy had accumulated a quite extensive empire in northern Europe during the seventeenth century, much of this was lost by the 1740s. During the NAPOLEONIC WARS, Sweden joined the Third Coalition against France. However, following his TILSIT TREATY of 1807 with Russia, napoleon i left the armies of Tsar Alexander i a free hand to end Sweden’s control over what still remained of its Finnish territory. In 1810 those in the Swedish Estates who wanted to enhance their country’s prospects within a Napoleonic Europe voted to confer the office of crown prince upon Marshal BERNADOTTE, one of the French emperor’s most notable soldiers. He promptly became the effective ruler, and soon subverted the expected policy by bringing Sweden into the final alliance against Napoleon. He then obtained from the Vienna congress of 1814-15 the reward of a crown union with Norway (which was now removed from Danish sovereignty). Bernadotte reigned as Charles XIV from 1818 to 1844, founding a royal dynasty that has survived in Sweden down to the present. The Norwegian link, on the other hand, became during the later nineteenth century increasingly vulnerable to the rising tide of nationalism, and was peacefully dissolved in 1905. By then Sweden was well on the way to developing a political culture of democratic parliamentarism, though it did not introduce universal manhood suffrage until 1917. When world war i began, the country managed to preserve the neutrality that had served it so well since 1814. A quarter-century later it continued this stance, even under the more threatening circumstances of world war ii. hitler certainly needed high-grade iron ore from northern Sweden, but he could afford not to invade so long as its mining firms remained willing to export these vital supplies to Germany along a relatively secure route of transportation. Once he had control over Norway (and most specifically the port of Narvik) in 1940, the Stockholm government yielded to German demands for an agreement on the transit of troops and ore that involved using parts of the national railway system. After withdrawing these facilities in August 1943, Sweden interpreted its continuing nonbelligerence in ways that increasingly accommodated the interests of the Allies. it emerged into the peacetime era largely unscathed, and in a position prosperous enough to support the rapid consolidation of an extensive social welfare system (see welfarism) reliant on high levels of taxation. The political ascendancy of erlander, premier from 1946 to 1968, reflected Sweden’s general inclination towards democratic socialism (already evident from the early 1930s onward) as well as its preference for the continuation of neutrality amidst the pressures of the cold war. In 1952 it became a founding member of the NORDIC COUNCIL, and in 1960 of the European free TRADE ASSOCIATION. In 1995 Sweden entered the European Union alongside Finland, but in 2003 decided through referendum not to join its neighbor in adopting the system of single currency represented by the euro (see European integration; economic and monetary union).
Switzerland This landlocked Alpine country is bordered by Germany, France, italy, Austria, and Liechtenstein. it has a current population of around 7.7 million, divided fairly equally along religious or simply cultural lines between Catholicism and PROTESTANTISM. The nation possesses four official languages: German (the most widely used), French, Italian, and Romansh - the last of which is spoken by only 1 percent of the Swiss. Officially known as the Helvetic Confederation, the state today comprises 26 cantons operating on the basis of a federalism rooted in an agreement of 1291 made between the communes of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden. Membership was subsequently expanded, and in 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia confirmed Switzerland’s independence from the holy roman empire. The confederal tradition was briefly ruptured when French forces invaded in 1798 and created the so-called Helvetic Republic as a more centralized puppet-state. in 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte (see napoleon i), faced by the deep unpopularity of this imposition, conceded the restoration of a large measure of cantonal authority. This was further reinforced at the VIENNA congress of 1814-15, when the powers also determined that Switzerland should adopt a stance of “perpetual neutrality” in international affairs. The issue of greater centralization flared up again in the 1840s, when the very extensive authority retained by each of the cantons came under challenge from radical (and largely Protestant) members of the federal assembly. Seven of the chiefly Catholic cantons responded by forming a separatist league (or Sonderbund), which the majority of parliamentarians resolved to disband in 1847. A brief civil war erupted in November of that year, when the Sonderbund was swiftly defeated before its appeals for potential French and Austrian help could have any effect. A new constitution was then inaugurated in September 1848, increasing central authority even while also respecting cantonal autonomy in a wide range of local affairs. Though subsequently revised on a number ofoccasions, that settlement set much of the future framework for a delicate balance ofpower between national and provincial functions. This became reflected in a bicameral legislature involving, on one hand, a National Council elected by proportional representation and, on the other, a Council of States. Aided by resort to referenda and by a collective federal executive, such balance has persisted since the mid-nineteenth century within a highly participatory system of democracy (albeit one notorious for its failure to enfranchise women at the national level until as late as 1971).
Such was the basis on which Switzerland largely escaped the turmoil of the European revolutions OF 1848-9. Both its severely mountainous geography and its (far from unarmed) neutrality also served largely to insulate it from the various wars, including the two global ones, in which its neighbors became embroiled over the following century. WORLD WAR II in particular meant that for a time Switzerland became a vulnerable and anomalous enclave within an AXis-controlled Europe, and (as the Bergier Report of 2002 amply confirmed) its authorities regularly yielded economic and other concessions to Nazi pressure. During most ofthe twentieth century, however, the country was left to develop more peacefully under various mixtures of coalition rule, to consolidate its reputation as a crossroads of commerce and manufacture (e. g. in watchmaking and latterly in pharmaceutical production), and to prosper particularly as a major center for international banking. Having long provided a similarly secure base for such organizations as the International Committee of the RED CROSS (see also geneva conventions), Switzerland later became host first to the LEAGUE OF NATIONS and then to certain agencies of the post-1945 united nations. Even so, while the Swiss had been founder members of the League, they refrained from full entry into the UN until 2002. The nation has proved similarly cautious over EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, showing itself to be generally unenthusiastic about full participation in the European Union. Having settled instead for the looser arrangements of the European free TRADE ASSOCIATION, Switzerland nonetheless also endorsed the schengen agreement with effect from 2008. Since more than one-fifth of the country’s inhabitants were already foreign residents or temporary workers from abroad, the downside to this relaxation of border controls was the reinforcement of a certain grassroots xenophobia, particularly apparent since the 1990s in the rising stock of the Swiss People’s Party. The growing appeal of its policies served to underline the continuing relevance of those tensions between isolationism and internationalism that have characterized so much of Switzerland’s modern history.
Sykes-Picot agreement Secret pact between Britain and France, concluded in May 1916 during world war i, which looked ahead to the break-up of the Ottoman empire (see turkey and Europe). Following negotiations led by Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot, it was decided that France would be dominant in a zone roughly comprising Syria, Lebanon, northern Iraq, and Turkish Cilicia. British influence would extend to Jordan, southern Iraq, and parts of Palestine (the remainder of which would be considered by an international commission). The two sides also reached agreement about accepting Russia’s claims upon the Turkish provinces along its own borders. The Sykes-Picot agreement effectively reneged on promises made to the Arab leaders who were about to begin a revolt against their Ottoman masters. It also stiffened Turkish resistance when its clauses were revealed by the bolsheviks in 1917. Nonetheless, the agreement largely informed the division of the Middle East between France and Britain that was confirmed by
The PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT.
Should begin afresh, and that the syndicat, or trade union, should be its basic building block. The future they envisaged was one involving small-scale factories, owned and controlled by the workforce. It was an idea that had particular appeal in France where the Marxist tradition was not especially strong and where in the late-nine-teenth century leftists were struggling to discover new forms of direct action following the failure of the PARIS COMMUNE. The French syndicats also maintained longstanding traditions of mutual self-support and a proud independence of political parties. So it was that in 1906 the confedEraTION generale DU TRAVAIL acknowledged its belief that deliverance of the workers lay through direct action, and not through participation in liberal democracy which it denounced as a bourgeois sham. Syndicalists, however, were always a minority among French trade unionists, forming no more than 10 percent of the membership. This pattern was repeated elsewhere. In Britain, syndicalism had particular appeal to militant areas, such as the South wales coalfields, but did not win over trade unionists generally. In Germany it suffered from the strength of the social democratic PARTY which was an unwelcoming home for anarchists. This SDP regularly debated whether to use strikes as a form of political influence, but doubted their capacity for success, something also acknowledged by Rosa Luxemburg, one of the principal champions of a greater stress on extra-parliamentary direct action. Across Europe at large, syndicalism did not gain sufficient support among trade union leaders, who feared losing control of their memberships, and it largely disappeared as a movement after world war I. It persisted, however, to the extent of becoming one notable element within the Republican resistance to the Nationalists during the
SPANISH CIVIL WAR.
SzElasi, Ferenc (see under arrow cross)
Syndicalism Theory of direct political action which advocates the seizure of industry by trade unions (see trade unionism) through the medium of strikes, and general strikes in particular. Its origins may be traced back to ideas of anarchism as found in the writings of proudhon, sorel, and Fernand Pelloutier, who argued that that the state apparatus should be overthrown, that society
Szechenyi, Count IstvEn (1791-1860), Hungarian writer and reformer. Born at Vienna into an aristocratic family, he initially pursued a traditional military career, fighting in the Napoleonic WARS before entering public life. His tracts advocated wide-ranging changes to Hungary’s economy, society, and politics. Szechenyi was also a practical reformer. He founded the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences in 1825; established the “National Casino,” a debating forum for the aristocracy; and helped to improve his country’s transport system. Passionate in his desire for reform, he nevertheless sought to avoid the extremism and NATIONALISM that had marred the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 and that would be potentially fatal if unleashed across the multiethnic habsburg empire. His liberal and gradualist approach put him at odds with such radical nationalists as kossuth. Shaken by the revolutions OF 1848-9, Szechenyi served only briefly as minister of transport in the government formed in April 1849 before suffering a breakdown. He later committed suicide.
Szlachta Nobility or gentry of Poland. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this was, by most European standards, exceptional both for its sheer size (some 10 percent of the overall population) and for the proportion of its members (more than half) owning little or no land. Until the 1790s this nobility also controlled the country’s elective monarchy, generally preferring weak candidates who were unlikely to challenge its own dominance over affairs of state. Even after the ending of Polish independence in 1795, the richer and poorer szlachta alike continued - now under Russian, Austrian, or Prussian rule - their long tradition of military or bureaucratic state service. However, in so far as this nobility also persisted in regarding itself as the essence of “the Polish nation” (see nationalism), it remained simultaneously a potential focal point for resistance to foreign control. With respect to Russian Poland at any rate, Tsar Alexander ii quite deliberately used the 1861 act of peasant emancipation in order to weaken the social and political influence that many of the szlachta had still been deriving from their ownership of serfs (see serfdom). When Poland recovered its sovereignty at the end of World War I, noble landholding was already in decline - a process that accelerated during the early 1930s with the onset of the great depression[2]. (See also aristocracy; rural society)
World History
