Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

The intellectual opposition in Central Europe had little immediate impact. This surprised no-one: the new realism of the Seventies-era dissidents encompassed not just a disabused grasp of Socialism’s failure but also a clear-sighted appreciation of the facts of power. There were limits, moreover, on what could be asked of people: in his ‘Essay on Bravery’ the Czechoslovak writer Ludvík Vaculík argued persuasively that one can ask only so much of ordinary people struggling to get through their daily lives. Most people lived in a sort of moral ‘grey zone’, a safe if stifling space in which enthusiasm was replaced by acceptance. Active, risk-laden resistance to authority was hard to justify because—again, for most ordinary people—it appeared unnecessary. ‘Un-heroic, realistic deeds’ were the most one could expect.