In the fall of the berlin wall im joined by my guest John Laughlin in paris he is a political scientist and historian in washington we have harold james hes a professor of history and International Affairs at Princeton University as well as author and editor of a number of books including when the wall came down reactions to german unification and in cork we cross to Geoffrey Roberts he is emeritus professor of history at University College cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy all right gentlemen cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciated let me go to john and paris 1st i mean 30 its been 30 years now believe it or not because i remember it so vividly when it happened a few months before i had been living in poland for a number of years and an avid student of Eastern European communist affairs at the time john 30 years on what is its meaning because i look at cursory reviews of you know that and commenting on it. It is the peoples power the rise of the spring of nations in Eastern Europe kind of a narrative that is very western i suppose but i lived there it was it i dont have that same kind of feel for it ok though having said that im very glad those communist regimes are gone and the war go ahead john. You know well like you peter i lived through those events very directly like you i was studying Eastern European studies at oxford at that point i spent that summer in 1909 in romania and in hungary and indeed in september 89 i was in west berlin and was there when the 1st east berlin as arrived in west berlin having driven through czechoslovakia hungry austria and and the whole of germany so i have a very strong memory of it as well i would make 2 points the 1st is that none of it would have happened without gorbachev decision to pull the rug on the Eastern European communist regimes that was decision he took in june and which he announced to the german chancellor helmut kohl at the time and all the events that we remember now the jangling of keys in Wenceslas Square in prague the the top is the candlelight the songs and so on all that was nothing but operetta it was political operetta it was froth on the on the on the tidal wave of history but it was not the cause of the tidal wave of history the cause im afraid was much more basic and much more realistic it was the decision as i say of the soviet union no longer to support. Those regimes and once the support of moscow had been withdrawn they collapsed so it was not the triumph of people in the streets of berlin or whatever it was instead of just 2 political decision taken by moscow which had the inevitable consequences that we know about ok like you only lighted. Ok i mean i did notice that harold was disagreeing with you go ahead errol then washington you know i really do think it has much deeper roots it has roots that go back into the 1950 s. And 1906. It is but for me that really transformational story was the papacy of john paul the 2nd and the mobilization you saw of the demonstration of millions of pows yet. People really united against the case against the regime and from that moment on the regime lacked any legitimacy in addition to that theres a systematic economic failure and its not that gorbachev is dealing with stuff that gorbachev has to respond to the the basic sentiment is there in the streets of force or its there in the streets of prague and its very very clear i think im ok i think its completely wrong i think of it as well how to roll hereto ok but harold i agree i spent a lot of time in poland and one thing on jang on jeff hang on one thing is that i would tend to agree that maybe kind of split the difference with john here is that i think and i know that there was a lot of people were disgruntled with the political and Economic System they had in poland many were that is true ok but with the pappas the of john paul the 2nd United People and what they didnt like it wasnt where they wanted to go that was very unclear that there wasnt even a glimmer in anyones eye of where they should go they just didnt know what they did they didnt know what they didnt like jeff uncork champion a lot a lot of Different Things he and again i think we got to we had a time delay go ahead jack i like to maybe maybe yes go ahead well i think greeks agree to certain extent with both john and with highroad yes i agree i agree with joe on the goal the child was a key factor in 1000 with the globe which of this is not peoples revolution in 1009 in the senate i dont agree with you on that goal which will pull the rug from under the east coast European Congress route regimes or at least that was the intention go to chelsea intention was to save the comic book to save comedies and to revitalize it and what he was trying to do was to recovery. Stripping Congress Leaders to actually to do the necessary reforms on the other hand its not just about gold which of the day was a kind of mass kind of Popular Uprising in various countries in Eastern Europe and that mass uprising that peoples revolution was critical in pushing events in the in a particular direction such likes and i agree. With highroads yes i was 2 factors is to go but the revolution from above is led by colwich off and is the revolution from below that comes from the street ok and you. Had. Thanks i mean obviously its difficult to discuss such big issues in the short term needed for television the reason why i said what i said is that on the 13th of june 1909 gorbachev effectively told helmut kohl that he the soviet union would not oppose german reunification that the communication of that information to coal in the gardens of the federal chancellor a says it all because once the soviet union let it be known to west germany that it would not oppose east german rain if occasion then the entire house of cards had only collapse of course they were popular discontent i would never dream of suggesting otherwise and i certainly didnt suggest otherwise what i would say though to harold james is that those previous expressions of popular discontent including in poland was suppressed by force they were suppressed by force in berlin in 1953 in prague in 1968 in budapest in 956 and in poland in 1901 we all know that the decision was taken by gorbachev to stop that policy to abandon the doctrine and once he did that the whole thing unraveled and that seems to me to be the cause of everything harold you want to respond to there go ahead. Yes i mean i do think that is right there was a moment we know now when the east german regime was considering using force and they had after all the example of key elements square behind them and they were explicitly prohibited from doing by the by the soviet union by gorbachev and so that is indeed important but i do think you really have to think that by that stage its really too late there is an enormous amount thats just going on on the street and actually i wanted to disagree a little bit peter with what you said before that there wasnt a plan for what to do in the middle of the 1980 s. And 185 Solidarity Office in brussels the Summit Office in brussels. I wrote to the International Monetary fund that they wanted to run for the reconstruction of programs along the lines proposed by the rovers so the discussion of the reform was. Welcome and to after 998 it was already being discussed well ok well what i mean very important given harold with all due respect i mean solidarity wasnt a monolithic thing even in the 1980 s. There were a lot of different solidaritys for sure are ok absolutely ok absolutely of course i mean any Political Party any Political Movement is a coalition of Different Things and you know there was a catholic element to it a very very strong effort at an absolutely liberal and im into that ok with this kind of easily dovetail so my question for jeff uncork i mean if given. A mindset in 1909 i think all of us probably at the time thought there would be some kind of reform communism because thats what got to chop was talking about for the soviet union itself and i think thats what really caught all of us every single one of us off guard because you cant have a little bit of this a little bit of bad and its either one or the other jeff. Yeah i mean that was very much that was intention was Reform Congress and also it was the intention that a lot of the activists who were leading these mr must demonstrations in the g. D. R. In prague and other places thats the way they saw the future as well and its where a lot of outside observers saw the future now we know what happened that you did there was no reform comes and communism collapsed but you know because that happened to me to say that it was inevitable at the time there were lots of all kinds of different possible political futures and so on and i dont accept that you know once you once resolved the same motion once go back up to get it the only outcome was the outcome of that happened which is a complete collapse and the introduction of this neoliberal. I dont believe the whole of it or all kinds of possibilities that what happened was amount of political choices lots of different political choices including choices to a might by gorbachev by western leaders but you know the people on the ground in central Eastern Europe as well ok well johnny made but then again the actual existing socialism our going back to graduate school here i mean it was very totalistic its either one thing or another its not like how do we you know its like the further perfecting of communism all that kind of. Language which has it really make any sense ok and i didnt believe in breaking it through a reform reforming actual existing socialism was possible if you can you cant you cant reform it it has to go down. Yes i think thats right i think that you can be any more half communist than you can be pregnant and the subsequent history of the soviet union itself of course because as we know the forces which go but you often least ended up destroying the soviet the communist party of the soviet union in the soviet union itself so i agree with that i also think that today just as in a comment about russia in the today common to present day russia western commentators focus only on the liberal opposition they never focus on the nationalist opposition or of the communist opposition so they have a totally liberal interpretation of the coming down of the berlin wall the coming down of the berlin wall was of course the physical barrier which divided the german capital and therefore the german nation and so it did have an Important National content and the same applied to some extent for the other countries of Eastern Europe although of course as we know the iron curtain itself came in june john really john crash. Hold that thought were going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue our discussion on the fall of the berlin wall stay with me. When i was still seemed wrong but all wrong just dont call. Me. Yet to stamp out this day become active. And engaged because betrayal. When somebody find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. Lets see i guess. I was on the floor some days in my bathroom you know trying praying. It was just my meeting so. I want to. Say as time progressed to the words i was having children fever i didnt have any sense of say so smell from the most you. Would you. Recently she goes on the old p. C. To. My mum simon has gone down to the rovers and sir. I have heard an. Illusion myself oh bugger they fill me in the bible im going to. Go. Time after time corporations repeat the same mantra sustainability. Order to excel or transition to sustainable transport sustainability. In more equitable and sustainable world. They claim their production is completely harmless. The big. Companies want us to feel good about products while the damage is being done far away this is Something Else this is the point in even a. New business we didnt. Understand it would soon. Welcome back to crossfire were all things are considered im Peter Lavelle to remind you were discussing the fall of the berlin wall 30 years ago. Ok john i had to go to a hard break there. Would you like to finish your point go ahead so what i was saying was that the fall of the berlin wall obviously physically symbolized the reunification of germany and the liberation of the nations of Central Europe but what it really was if you like even more so than the collapse of a physical barrier was the collapse of communism itself as a governing ideology and as i said earlier we know that the collapse of that ideology ended up in golf in the soviet union itself what this collapse allowed western liberals to do is to do what trotsky originally did back in the in 1920 s. Which was to prevent soviet communism as purely an expression of russian imperialism and nothing else and to make an obstruction if you like of the whole communist ideology the whole marxist ideology which they the todays liberals the intellectuals who in the in the cold war in western europe and the. 19 states had supported lets never forget that marxism was extremely alive and well in western universities throughout the entire period of the cold war still in with a sort of revisionist leisure demo its now presented it still is its now pretty the berlin wall collapsed the berlin wall is now presented as nothing but the collapse of a russian empire when in fact it was the collapse of a marxist ideological empire and that to me is the is the most important thing that we must remember i think the question is late harold to our reflect upon that thats very interesting. Id like to. Go ahead and i agree. John i agree that it was the collapse of the communist idea and thats absolutely right i remember these discussions in east berlin in 199991 people discuss the 3rd way and whether the world turned and there were formal tentative and then there was a very powerful mind the 3rd way is just a way into the 3rd world its a way to backwardness and you had a moderate of yugoslavia which was obviously not soviet style of communism and in some ways it was held up as an example of how you can do reform yugoslavia failed us miserably is the soviet experiment failed but then it also was i think you have to think of that also historically that this is the result of 145. 00 and so if you think of what happens in poland what happens in hungary what happens Interest Rate here its the result of soviet power and the story of communism in poland or hungary is not simply the nature of movement versus taken over. Because of the military presence of the soviet union jeff jeff we have a time delay im sorry for that let me lets go to jeff now we have to go to jeff. You know. Peter im a bit surprised the extent to which you buy into the western liberal triumphalist narrative is im not im a player play im not used all that is no no no no theres actually existing social well let me finish my but thats actually existing socialism its either one thing or the other then you actually cant explain what happened in 1909 because the reform the impetus which i each kind from weaving coalminers miss south. From from from some from google you know you talk about you know the end of the communist idea well people said that in relation to china i mean what they were all society in 1990 was that china will be next chinese commies and willful was not the case we still have a communist regime in china dont we and we have a situation where the people are talking about china becoming the most powerful actor in the little so how does that fit in with this kind of lie triumphalist you know to trump the west and i listen and i let you comment i think ok i did i really thought i would like i would laurie answer that i have to tell you how many i hang out here id love to answer that but i want to hear my guests 1st because i have a bone to pick with you jeff but im going to go to harold 1st go ahead. So i mean i think if you think of what to what happened in china of course its its a communist party in china but whats happened is a completely different kind of evolution than the evolution of the soviet union and an adoption since the early 1980 s. Of market principles. And so the really the creation of a tremendous dynamism that comes from the. Liberation of people in the economic sphere so theres a lot of Economic Freedom obviously on the political side as a one party state but in in terms of economic dynamism thats where it comes from it doesnt come from old style Central Planning and in the soviet model ok well let me go to john here and i kind of want to address what jeff had to say here because i hate you could just get very quick just get in here very quickly can i just get it very quickly peter one quick point one quick point yes what im trying to get away from here is just kind of what i can essentially is kind of feel of history what happened was a matter of contingency more than me so all kinds of different outcomes are possible and we can see that not because of the time everyones saying of strength of the west trying to liberalism democracy would we say thats the case now be i do not i am not i say me and i just i am not i didnt put democrat you know what he was i saying history into the year ok let me go to john here and i think it will answer jeffs concerns with my questions now with look at 30 years later in Eastern Europe and you have a lot of people in these former communist countries that are not very happy with neo liberalism you can look in poland you can look at hungry you can look elsewhere all through the former eastern bloc im directing this question to jaf but i want John Chancellor it. Jeff i think youre slightly tilting at windmills because in other peter ryan also the herald defenders of western liberalism