Introduction

Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. Th e invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'état was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affi nity be established between them?