Kim Christiaens

From the East to the South, and back? International Solidarity Movements in Belgium and New Histories of the Cold War, 1950s-1970s

To date, accounts of international solidarity movements with an orientation towards the Third World have remained strongly embedded in 1968 historiography and largely unconnected to Cold War history. This article aims to position these solidarity movements within the broader history of the Cold War and to explore their relevance to efforts at globalizing and entangling the history of North-South and East-West relations. Building on arguments developed by Cold War historians, and examples drawn from Belgium, it identifies three themes which have been largely unexamined in mainstream accounts of international solidarity movements, yet serve as toeholds for challenging traditional premises of 1968 historiography. First, it argues that East-West networks and communist movements constituted a space for North-South encounters and campaigns. Second, it assesses the role of Third World agency, which reveals a little known side of international solidarity campaigns that brings us to sectors and ideas beyond the radical new left and to diplomacy, human rights, and North-South networks. Third, this article analyzes how solidarity with the Third World was a source of détente and East-West cooperation. What is revealed from this analysis is a Europeanization of the Third World that became a projection screen for ideas of Europe’s past and future and united East-West and North-South campaigns.

The Benelux and the Cold War: Re-interpreting West-West Relations

What is there new to say on the Low Countries and transatlantic relations during the Cold War? How do recent trends in Cold War research open up uncharted areas to explore these relations from new angles and perspectives? With attention shifting to cultural, global, transnational and multi-centric approaches to the international history of the twentieth century, it would seem that the transatlantic is long passé as a primary frame of reference. As the first special issue in this series claimed (The Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War), existing scholarship on the Benelux nations has tended to emphasise the ‘loyal ally’ thesis, the uniqueness of small states among larger powers and the importance of traditional diplomacy. With this special issue, a set of articles has been brought together that open up new ways to consider the changing relations both within and between the Benelux nations and their Western allies during the Cold War. As a starting point, it takes the dual approach of the Benelux nations as both actors in the Cold War and as sites where Cold War dynamics were played out and influenced local political and social outcomes. By applying such a structure-agency approach, new perspectives on the importance of the Cold War for Benelux history, and the relevance of the Benelux for Cold War history, can be mapped out.

Between diplomacy and solidarity: Western European support networks for Sandinista Nicaragua

Between the 1960s and 1980s, political crises in the Third World became a source of inspiration and action in Western European societies. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was one of the most famous instigators of transnational activism. All over Western Europe, locally organised committees staged public actions, collected funds and educated their societies about the plight of this Central American nation, whose Marxist government faced strong international opposition from the Reagan administration as well as domestic social, political and economic turbulence. This article looks at Third World solidarity activism from a new perspective, assessing the active role of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in the emergence and development of activism in Western Europe. It argues that FSLN diplomacy – initially by exiles and later by official diplomats – initiated the creation of transnational networks, driven by the quest for international support. They fuelled activism by providing activists with fresh information, contacts and avenues for action, but also cemented cross-border co-operation between activists and stimulated a ‘Europeanisation’ of local activism.

The Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War: Introduction

This introductory article critically assesses the main themes and issues that have dominated the historiography of the Low Countries and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. It reflects on the ways in which new archival sources and trends in international historical research can make the picture of East-West relations more diversified and complex in terms of actors, ideas, and directions. Rather than showing the importance and singularity of the Benelux countries as ‘small states among big powers’, it stresses transnational connections and perspectives, and dismantles some important premises with regards to these countries’ position within the Cold War. In sum, this article wants to make clear that the Low Countries certainly deserve their place in Cold War historiography, not as a primus inter pares, but as an integral part of a wider transnational phenomenon with global but also often very local aspirations and dimensions.