E P Thompson, Beyond The Cold War (1981)
In 1981 E P Thompson was invited to give the Dimbleby Lecture but was then disinvited by the BBC . The lecture went ahead unofficially however at Worcester Guildhall and was published as a pamphlet, Beyond the Cold War.
Below is a brief extract (and a link to the full document)which might well sum up the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years on
History never happens as the actors plan or expect. It is the record of unintended consequences. Revolutions are made, manifestoes are issued, battles are won: but the outcome, twenty or thirty years on is always something that no-one willed and no-one expected. Boris Pasternak, the great Russian poet, reflected in Dr Zhivago on the ‘indirect results’ of the Russian Revolution, ‘which have begun to make themselves felt, the fruits of fruits, the consequences of consequences’
https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113717.pdf?v=ab87222b5505d946095b42b5abf757ce
Leave a Reply