This comparative history of the higher education systems in Poland,
East Germany, and the Czech lands reveals an unexpected diversity
within East European stalinism. With information gleaned from
archives in each of these places, John Connelly offers a valuable
case study showing how totalitarian states adapt their policies to
the contours of the societies they rule.
The Communist dictum that universities be purged of "bourgeois
elements" was accomplished most fully in East Germany, where more
and more students came from worker and peasant backgrounds. But the
Polish Party kept potentially disloyal professors on the job in the
futile hope that they would train a new intelligentsia, and Czech
stalinists failed to make worker and peasant students a majority at
Czech universities.
Connelly accounts for these differences by exploring the
prestalinist heritage of these countries, and particularly their
experiences in World War II. The failure of Polish and Czech
leaders to transform their universities became particularly evident
during the crises of 1968 and 1989, when university students
spearheaded reform movements. In East Germany, by contrast,
universities remained true to the state to the end, and students
were notably absent from the revolution of 1989.