Europe in the Short Twentieth Century: Conflicting Projects of Modernity

Abstract

The year 1945 did not mark the end of an era for much of Europe. An alternative perspective would give more weight to revolutions in defining the shape and identity of Europe, for revolutions were sites of contestation over modernity and the implementation of its basic programmes. They articulated new societal models and were rooted in cultural models that sought the transformation of state, society and the very conception of the individual. The Russian Revolution of 1917, the revolts of 1968 and the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989–1990 can now be seen as the formative events that shaped Europe in the twentieth century in much the same way as 1789 did two centuries earlier. In addition to bringing into the picture the Russian dimension of a wider Europe, as opposed to a narrow conception of Europe based largely on the North-west, such a perspective has the advantage of placing modernity at the centre of the analysis, since what was at stake for much of the previous century can now be seen to be rival projects of modernity with entirely different visions of how state and society should be organized. There were essentially four such programmatic models of modernity experimented between 1917 and 1989: state socialism or communism, fascism, liberal democracy and European transnational governance. Of these, the first two failed and the second two succeeded with varying degrees of success. All four were products of Europe and to varying degrees appealed to the idea of Europe for legitimation; they were also quintessentially products of political modernity insofar as they articulated a social imaginary for the creation of political community on new foundations and the reconfiguration of the relationship between the individual, the state and society. The pursuit of these projects was decisive in shaping the course of European history in the twentieth century. These projects of modernity will be discussed as follows: beginning with an account of the background fin-de-siècle—c.1890s to 1918—period of crisis, the four main projects of modernity will be discussed, namely Western liberal democracy, communism, fascism and European transnational governance.