[Preface] While such experience have been the driving force behind the book, I am also much indebted to my colleagues, Professor Jack Scarisbrick and Dr David Washbrook, for their valuable comments on different sections of the manuscript, and to my publishers for all their patient forbearance while the same was in gestation.

The way ahead is obscure. All that can presently be said is that the security of the Eastern European regimes still rests, not on a positively accepted general order, but on the authority of one of the neighbouring superpowers which have always claimed the right to preside over the destinies of 'the lands between'.

[Epilogue] The language is Djilas's own, fervent and highly coloured, but the sentiments his document expresses go to the heart of the modern East European experience.