Jerzy Maćków "Communism and its transformation in Europe and Russia"

Autor przypisuje elitom kluczowe, czy wręcz rozstrzygające znaczenie w tworzeniu demokratycznych instytucji i konsolidacji reguł funkcjonowania demokratycznych mechanizmów. Zwraca uwagę, że do udanej demokratyzacji przyczyniła się nie tyle wymiana elit (w niektórych państwach miała ona bardzo ograniczony charakter), ile przyjęcie przez nie zasady samoograniczenia, akceptacja pluralizmu politycznego i zasady zmiany władzy w wyniku w miarę uczciwej konkurencji wyborczej. Tam gdzie elitom takiej „chęci do demokratyzacji” zabrakło, a więc przede wszystkim w państwach postsowieckich, doszło do instytucjonalizacji rządów autorytarnych. Z drugiej strony wskazuje na szereg słabości właściwych elitom politycznych „nowych demokracji”, takich jak: oportunizm, uwikłanie w nieformalne układy i powiązania, brak profesjonalizmu i podatność na to co nazywa „popularnymi ideologiami”. Najgroźniejszy mankament „nowych demokracji” widzi jednak gdzie indziej – w niestabilności systemu partyjnego.

Dr Witold Rodkiewicz Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia (OSW) Studium Europy Wschodniej, Uniwersytet Warszawski

ISBN 978-83-61325-85-7

LAT

Jubileusz

Studium

Europy Wschodniej

9 788361 325857

Uniwersytet Warszawski

1990-2020

STUDIUM EUROPY WSCHODNIEJ

U N I W E R S Y T E T WA R S Z AW S K I

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B i b l i o t h e c a E u r o pa e O r i e n t a l i s

Jerzy Mackow has written a theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded study of communist totalitarianism and the changes it underwent to produce authoritarianism and democracy. In constructing a persuasive theory of post-communist transformation that is based on institutional, political, cultural, and historical factors, Mackow makes an important contribution to our understanding of communism and of the political systems that emerged from it.

Prof. Alexander Motyl professor of political science, Rutgers University-Newark

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COMMUNISM AND ITS TRANSFORMATION IN EUROPE AND RUSSIA

This is a masterful summary of the communist process and the transition. The summary of communism is remarkable as it lays out the basic theories and elements of communism and its development, each of which has been the topic of a number of significant theories and books. So, for students of this area, it is an accessible and masterful summary of the issues particularly of the communist era in this area of the world. The major problem is that it lays out the terms without dealing with cases. Obviously, this “comes with the territory” of doing a summary of the literature. In the initial chapters, I kept thinking “Wow, this really lays out all the theories.” As it went into issues of public opinion and responses as well as the economy, I had the feeling that I needed more empirical data on, for instance, how people saw communism and then the transition and how that differed from country to country.

Prof. Jane Curry Santa Clara University visiting professor at the Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw

BEO

Jerzy Maćków

•

B i b l i o t h e c a E u r o pa e O r i e n t a l i s

Jerzy Maćków (born 1961) studied Political Science, Philosophy and History in Poznań and Hamburg (there his teacher was Winfried Steffani). He worked at the University of the Federal Armed Forced in Hamburg and at the Viadrina-University in Frankfurt/ Oder. Since 2002 he holds a Chair for Comparative Politics at the Institute for Political Science of the University of Regensburg. His research focuses on nations, societies and political systems in East Central and Eastern Europe. Resent books: Autoritarismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa (2008, editor) and Ukraine-Krise als die Krise Europas (2016).

Jerzy Maćków

COMMUNISM AND ITS TRANSFORMATION IN EUROPE AND RUSSIA LX

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Communism and its Transformation in Europe and Russia

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Jerzy Maćków

COMMUNISM AND ITS TRANSFORMATION IN EUROPE AND RUSSIA WARSZAWA 2020

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Editorial Reviews/Recenzje wydawnicze Prof. Jane Curry Santa Clara University Prof. Alexander Motyl Rutgers University, Newark Dr Witold Rodkiewicz Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. M. Karpia/Studium Europy Wschodniej UW Editing of the series “30 volumes for the 30th anniversary of SEW”/ Redakcja językowa serii „30 tomów na 30-lecie SEW” Marek Gołkowski (Studium Europy Wschodniej UW) Secretariat of the series/Sekretariat serii Aleksander Skydan (Studium Europy Wschodniej UW) Proof-reading/Korekta językowa: Studium Europy Wschodniej UW (Rachel Moss) Cover and book design/Projekt okładki i książki Studium Europy Wschodniej UW (Hubert Karasiewicz) Cover photo/Foto na okładce Jerzy Maćków (Kiev, Andriivskyi uzviz, at he tourist shop) (Kijów, Andriivskyi uzviz, przed sklepem dla turystów) Indexes/Indeksy Autor/Denys Kutsenko Layout/Skład i łamanie „TYRSA” Sp. z o.o.

Concept of the publishing series „Bibliotheca Europae Orientalis”/ Koncepcja serii wydawniczej „Bibliotheca Europae Orientalis” Jan Malicki Printing & binding/Druk i oprawa Duo Studio Distribution/Kolportaż: tel. +48 22 55 27 990 e-mail: wydawnictwa.studium@uw.edu.pl © by Jerzy Maćków Warsaw 2020 UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI First edition ISBN 978-83-61325-85-7 W serii „30 tomów na 30-lecie Studium” – tom No 4/30

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W serii „30 tomów na 30-lecie Studium Europy Wschodniej” tom № 4

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Zadanie Publiczne współfinansowane przez Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych RP w konkursie „Dyplomacja Publiczna 2020 – nowy wymiar”

The publication expresses only the point of view of the author and cannot be equated to the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Poland

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Jubileusz. Studium Europy Wschodniej. 1990–2020 „30 tomów na 30-lecie”

C

ZAS BIEGNIE niezwykle szybko. Tym na pozór banalnym stwierdzeniem chciałbym opisać odczucia moje własne, jako osoby od lat kierującej Studium Europy Wschodniej, a także i moich kolegów, którzy stwierdziwszy fakt zbliżającego się Jubileuszu 30-lecia, przyjęli to z ogromnym zaskoczeniem.

To prawda, można się zastanawiać, jak to się stało, że 30 lat przebiegło tak szybko, ale ogromnie uspokaja nadzieja, wręcz przekonanie, że tego czasu nie zmarnowaliśmy.

Nasze 30-lecie to bowiem setki konferencji, to setki wydawnictw, to już tysiące absolwentów szkół i programów stypendialnych, to także rozległa współpraca międzynarodowa, która zaowocowała wręcz założeniem kilku Stacji SEW poza granicami. A wreszcie to przywrócenie, w 1998 r., po ponad półwieczu nieistnienia regularnych studiów wschodnich w Polsce (ostatni nabór studentów, w Wilnie i Warszawie, przeprowadzono latem 1939 r.). A dziś, w dniu Jubileuszu 30-lecia, Studium może się chlubić grupą już kilkuset absolwentów – młodych dobrze wykształconych specjalistów „od spraw wschodnich”, osiągających niekiedy już poważne kariery, pochodzących przy tym zarówno z Polski, jak i dzięki stypendiom rządowym, z całego regionu. Tu mogę jedynie potwierdzić – „kadry są najważniejsze”...

Zacząłem się zastanawiać, jak można i jak należy ten Jubileusz uczcić. Zbiegło się to z faktem, że rok 2020 jest naprawdę rokiem nadzwyczajnym. Rozwój epidemii koronawirusa przyniósł decyzję zamknięcia najpierw zajęć akademickich i przeniesienia ich do systemu on line, a następnie przejście całego Zespołu Studium

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na wiele tygodni do pracy zdalnej. To, wbrew pozorom, pomogło w decyzji o sposobach uczczenia Jubileuszu, albowiem pozwoliło zmienić bieżące obowiązki administracyjne na spisywanie, opracowywanie i korekty tekstów.

Postanowiliśmy bowiem uczcić Jubileusz jednostki dydaktyczno-naukowej w sposób wzorcowo naukowy – przez wydanie serii książek. Początkowy plan obejmował jedynie edycję kilku podręczników profesorów wizytujących, którzy wykładali dla studentów Studiów Wschodnich w ciągu ostatniego 10-lecia. Ale następnie plany i ambicje stawały się coraz większe i rozległe. W ich wyniku seria podręczników profesorów wizytujących zajmie jedynie pierwsze 10 pozycji. Jest to seria bardzo ważna, bardzo znacząca, a książki te latami będą służyć studentom Studiów Wschodnich i zapewne nie tylko. Ale ta sytuacja wirusowa oraz kierująca niżej podpisanym ambicja nadzwyczajnego uczczenia Jubileuszu doprowadziły do rezultatu, jestem przekonany, również nadzwyczajnego. Oto w roku, w którym wirus zablokował lub uniemożliwił większość prac na uczelniach, nam udało się przygotować 30 tomów w ogromnej większości całkowicie oryginalnych, bądź na nowo opracowanych. Tak właśnie zespół Studium Europy Wschodniej przygotował i uczcił Jubileusz swego 30-lecia – „30 tomów na 30-lecie Studium”.

Dziękuję Autorowi niniejszego Tomu, dziękuję Autorom artykułów, dziękuję wszystkim Autorom całej serii, dziękuję wszystkim osobom, dzięki którym ten wspaniały plan udało się w tak trudnym czasie zrealizować. Składam gratulacje obecnym i dawnym Wykładowcom, Pracownikom i Współpracownikom Studium, którzy mają prawo do słusznej dumy z Jubileuszu.

JAN MALICKI Studium Europy Wschodniej Uniwersytet Warszawski

Tom niniejszy nosi numer 4.

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30 years of Centre for East European Studies (1990–2020) „30 volumes for the 30th anniversary”

T

IME IS RUNNING very fast. With this seemingly banal statement, I would like to describe my own feelings as the person who has been in charge of the Centre for East European Studies for years, as well as my colleagues who, having discovered the upcoming Jubilee, received it with great surprise. True, you may wonder how it happened that the 30 years passed so quickly, but it is extremely reassuring to hope, even to the belief that we have not wasted this time.

Our 30th anniversary means hundreds of conferences, hundreds of books published, thousands of graduates of schools and scholarship programs, as well as extensive international cooperation, which has resulted in the establishment of several Centre for East European Studies abroad. Finally, in 1998, after more than half a century of non-existence, the regular Eastern studies were restored in Poland (the last recruitment of students, in Vilnius and Warsaw, was carried out in the summer of 1939). And today, on the 30th Jubilee, the Centre can be proud of a group of several hundred graduates – young, well-educated specialists in „Eastern affairs”, already achieving serious careers, both from Poland and, thanks to government scholarships, from all over the region. Here I can only confirm – „Cadres decide everything”...

I began to wonder how this Jubilee could be celebrated and how it should be celebrated. This coincided with the fact that 2020 is truly an extraordinary year. The development of the coronavirus epidemic has resulted in the decision to first close academic classes and transfer 9

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them to the Internet, and then move the entire Centre team to work remotely for many weeks. Contrary to appearances, this has helped in the decision to celebrate the Jubilee, as it has allowed us to change the current administrative duties into writing, editing and correcting texts.

We have decided to celebrate the Jubilee of the teaching and research unit in an exemplary scientific way – by publishing a series of books. The initial plan was only to edit a few handbooks of visiting professors who have taught to students of East European Studies over the past 10 years. Nevertheless, then the plans and ambitions grew larger and larger. As a result, the series of visiting professors’ textbooks will only take the top 10 positions. It is a very important, very significant series, and these books will serve students of East European Studies for years and probably not only them. But this viral situation and the ambition of the undersigned to celebrate the Jubilee in an extraordinary manner will also lead to, I am sure, an extraordinary result. Here is the year when the virus blocked or prevented so many activities in universities, we still managed to produce 30 volumes, the vast majority of them entirely original or reworked. This is how the team of East European Studies prepared and celebrated the Jubilee of its 30th anniversary – „30 volumes for the 30th anniversary of the Centre”.

I would like to thank the Author of this volume, and all the authors of the entire series, all the people who made this wonderful plan possible. I would like to congratulate the present and former Lecturers, Employees and Associates of the Centre who have the right to be justly proud of the Jubilee.

JAN MALICKI Centre for East European Studies University of Warsaw

This volume is numbered 4.

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Table of Contents I. Terms and concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 II. Ideological party state and “its� society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 III. Existential system crisis and the decline of totalitarianism from the periphery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 IV. T he institutional design of the governmental system (constitution). . 65 V. Economy and Justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 VI. Post-totalitarian authoritarianisms: developments, characteristics, and variants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

VII. Democracies with opportunistic elites and hardly institutionalised party systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

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I. Terms and concepts

I

T IS sufficient to take a careful glance at the world map to understand why the common usage of the term “Eastern Europe,” as the region where the post-communist system transformation continues to take place, is wrong. There never was, nor is there today an Eastern Europe, that stretches from the Elbe to Vladivostok. Those who pretend that such an Eastern Europe exists simply seek to avoid the differentiation of the affected regions, a task which is absolutely necessary and inevitably laborious in the analysis of the transformation of the post-communist system.

As a reminder, geographically two-thirds of Russia are located in Asia, while the last third is situated in Eastern Europe.

This undeniable fact, incidentally, is one of the most important reasons as to why Russians themselves often speak of “Eurasia” when (not only) geographically positioning their country. Poland, Eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, the successor states of communist Yugoslavia, Albania, and Hungary are not part of Eastern Europe. Geographically seen, they belong to either Central or South-Eastern Europe. Even Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as the Russian Kaliningrad region, cannot be assigned to Eastern Europe. They are located in Europe’s north-eastern part. Similarly, Belarus and Ukraine are also only partly in Eastern Europe, while being partly in Central Europe. Taking into account the prior mentioned fact that Russia, likewise, is by no means fully situated in Eastern Europe, it can be boldly asserted that most “Eastern European” states, as taken for granted in the West, cannot be found on any map of Eastern Europe.

In the early fifties, Oskar Halecki introduced the term “East Central Europe” regarding the aforementioned countries – in other words, the eastern portion of Central Europe.1 This term 1 Oskar Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History of East Central Europe, Safety Harbor 1993 (2nd Edition).

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Central, Eastern, NorthEastern and SouthEastern Europe

communism

“Eastern Bloc”

has found its way into Anglo-Saxon literature while it was subsequently introduced in Germany under confusing translations such as “Mittelosteuropa” or “Ostmitteleuropa.” Thus, some interpret its meaning in Germany as “Eastern Europe plus Central Europe” and others simply as “Eastern Central Europe.” Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the post-communist system transformation takes place in Central, Eastern, North-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe as well as in large parts of Asia.

The states that used to belong to the so-called Eastern Bloc, i.e. those states whose successors have been undergoing a system transformation, are usually defined as “communist.” This designation is correct, although these states were not communist in the original sense of the word. Initially, adopted from Marxism, “communism” essentially means “communal.” Marxism and Marxism-Leninism each specified in their unique way what they meant by this: namely, “classless and (consequently) stateless.” From the Marxist perspective, communism and the nation-state are to be regarded as contradicting. Moreover, Marxism claims that human development, or rather progress, by virtue of the universally applicable historical laws, will head towards the communist order in which human society will find its perfection.

Why is it still justified to call an imperfect state order, which has been overcome, “communism”? It is justified because it concerns states and systems that were undoubtedly dominated by political parties that defined themselves as “communist.” Parties that devoted themselves with the greatest, indeed with unbearable seriousness, to Marxist doctrines. Due to this seriousness, the legitimacy of their self-designation as “communists” was very rarely questioned. Hence, it is safe to label these countries as communist states and systems, solely due to the fact that communist parties dominated them.

Similarly, the use of the adjective “socialist” to designate the communist systems appears to be “ideologically unbiased.” The communists who ruled in the “Eastern Bloc” until 1989 considered themselves socialists in the sense that they only intended to establish communism – the ultimate goal of human history – after socialism had been successfully implemented. For them, it was beyond question that they were “in the socialist evolutionary phase” on the road to communism. Moreover, it cannot be denied that socialism as a social order had so far been attempted only

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in the countries governed by communists. This circumstance additionally justifies the interchangeable use of the terms communism and socialism for the analysis of the political systems of the “Eastern Bloc.”

To distinguish state socialism from socialist ideas or from other voluntarily practised forms of socialism (communes, kibbutzim movement), it is advisable to use the more definite term “Soviet socialism.” In this context, it must be emphasised that the soviets (councils), as organs of power, played a subordinate role in the exercise of rule in the communist states. However, they were crucial for the legitimacy of these states. For this reason, the most important communist state called itself “Soviet Union” (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – the USSR). Even before its dissolution, people had begun to talk about the end of communism and the transformation of this system.

To set the post-communist system transformation in motion, communism had to collapse. The “fall of communism” and the “collapse of communism” are certainly the most popular phrases used to describe the system change that was initiated in the communist world in the 1980s. However, these terminologies commonly lack critical reflection to the extent to which “communism” is related to these definitions.

But the fact, that only experts know about the aforementioned incompatibility between communism and the nation-state, facilitates the ill-considered use of the ordinary saying “fall” or “collapse of communism.”

In some cases, the collapse of communism is indirectly addressed by “the events of 1989.” It is prejudged that every individual knows about the meaning and the development these historical events; they are simply referred to as the time “before 1989” and the time “after 1989.” For those who know history – in the hedonistic society, this information already requires conveyance – this date implies the reference to the year of the French Revolution. This effectively allows fascinating reflections on the similarities of Western history on the one hand and the history of Central, North-Eastern and Eastern and South-Eastern Europe on the other.

The end of socialism seemed to signal the end of the dispute over concepts that had decisively shaped the political landscape – science and journalism – of the Western world throughout the previous decades. By 1989 thick volumes had been published and

“fall of communism”

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“fall of communism”

countless debates had been fought over which term should be used to describe the political and social systems of the communist-ruled states. In this context there were – roughly speaking – three disputing schools of thought.

The first school claimed the socialist idea exclusively for itself. Not only when analysing this school, it is helpful to describe the attitudes directed towards the political system which are based on the affirmation of the most important ideological foundations (i.e. the legitimacy) of the respective system as “immanent.” The members of the first school displayed this immanent approach towards the communist states.

This school consisted of (1) the ideologues and, in general, the functionaries of the communist parties in the “Eastern Bloc,” and, naturally, (2) the strongly indoctrinated social sciences of these states (the “functionaries of science”), which themselves had degenerated into a mechanism of state indoctrination, as well as (3) the authorized followers of the communist states in the non-communist world. The latter group included the communist parties of the West and their supporters.

This “official socialist” school respectively classified states and societies dominated by communist parties as “socialist.”

However, the semi-official term “real-existing socialism” originated from this school, a term which was originally intended for the West. This notion was used to indicate that Soviet socialism had been transplanted into a thoroughly imperfect, i.e. “real-existing” world, resulting in hard to solve problems. It is no coincidence that this term was first introduced at the time of the Prague Spring in 1968.

The term “real-existing socialism” has repeatedly been rephrased to “real socialism” and taken up by the other two schools, albeit each with their own interpretation. These two schools consisted of all those analysts of communism who did not belong to the communist propaganda machine and were not official (authorized) representatives of the communist states; meaning most Western social scientists and intellectuals, including those individuals who, in the communist-ruled countries, had maintained their independent judgement. At times both schools bitterly expressed mutually conflicting opinions.

The second school can be described as “socialist.” In this case, the affirmation of the ideas of socialism did not always go

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hand in hand with the confirmation of the communist systems.

Respectively, an immanent and a non-immanent attitude towards these systems was present in this school. A significant difference to the immanent-socialist functionaries was that the free socialists allowed themselves a greater deal of freedom in interpreting the communist ideology and contemporary political affairs. Thus, they occasionally spoke of a “bureaucratic socialism” or – for instance like sectarian Trotskyists or Maoists – considered the functionaries of the communist states as traitors to socialism when referring to “real-existing socialism” as “Stalinism” or – much less frequently – as “totalitarian socialism.”

Lastly, the third, “anti-socialist” school united all those who clearly rejected the socialist idea. This means that this school pooled those who had a non-immanent attitude towards socialism. They regarded socialism as a dangerous utopia that inevitably led to miserable results wherever and whenever attempts are made to realise it. It was the socialist idea that was ultimately responsible for a cleverly disguised enslavement of the subjects of the communist states. This line of argumentation was, among others, advocated by Friedrich August von Hayek, in his work “The Road to Serfdom” – already published in English in the 1940s – which he dedicated to “the socialists in all parties.”2 Although not all anti-socialists thought as unrelentingly consistently as von Hayek, all members of this school shared the opinion that the communist-ruled states were based on false ideas.

Consequently, in this school, the term socialism was most often used to describe the communist systems. In spite of this, the terms “real-existing socialism,” “real socialism,” “communism,” “Soviet socialism,” “communist totalitarianism,” “society of the Soviet type,” “communist dictatorship,” and “Bolshevism” were used as well (see Table 1).

“Stalinism”

“totalitarian socialism”

“communist totalitarianism,” “society of the Soviet type,” “communist dictatorship,” and “Bolshevism”

2 Friedrich A. Hayek, Der Weg zur Knechtschaft. Published and initiated by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Röpke, Erlenbach–Zürich 1969.

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Table 1: “Schools” in the dispute over communism

school

criterion of immanence

official-socialist socialist

attitude towards immanent basic principles of the official ideology those who officials of the belong to the systems school

immanent or nonimmanent

term describing the system

„real-existing socialism,”„real socialism,” but also „Stalinism,” „totalitarian socialism”

officially: “socialism”; unofficially (outwardly): “real-existing socialism”, „real Socialism”

anti-socialist non-immanent

all those who are not functionaries of the system „socialism,”„socialist totalitarianism,” „communism,” „communist dictatorship,” „bolshevism,”„Soviet socialism,”„society of the Soviet type.”

The dispute over the proper naming for the communist systems is only the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg itself is the dispute concerning the concepts, theories, models and approaches that were designed to analyse the communist system. For the sake of simplification, these are subsumed here as “analytical concepts,” although strictly speaking this term only applies to a few of them.

Altogether there are three analytical concepts that have been used repeatedly to explain the origins and functioning of the communist systems: the concept of class, the concept of modernization, and the concept of totalitarianism. It is almost redundant to emphasise that the respective supporters of the different concepts were in constant conflict with each other. An often-overlooked circumstance is that after 1989, the discussion about post-communist system transformation was not readjusted to meet the debate about the proper concept of communism.

The criterion of immanence is also helpful in the classification of analysis concepts. As explained above, a stance towards the analysed system is considered immanent if it is based on the affirmation of the ideological principles of this system. In the case of communist systems, the principle of historical determinism performs the decisive role. Hence, socialism must replace “capitalism” by the virtue of “historical laws.” In an increased normative

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version, this principle states that “capitalist injustices” must be corrected by establishing socialism. Of the three concepts mentioned here, only totalitarianism lacked an immanent variant. By means of the second criterion – critical distance – a spectrum of analytical attitudes against the communist system can be outlined, ranging from apologetic affirmation to resolute rejection. It should be mentioned in advance that among the concepts listed only totalitarianism does not know an apology of the communist system (see Table 2 below).

Table 2: Analysis concepts of the communist system

concepts

critical distance to the communist system

socialist (marxist)

not socialist (not marxist)

class struggle

modernisation

totalitarianism

immanent

immanent

nonimmanent

non-immanent

critical to apologetic

critical

rejecting

nonimmanent

apologetic critical to (Marxism- hostile Leninism)

The concept of class struggle (be it the socialist or Marxist concept) is fundamentally connected with socialist ideas. It is based on the central assumption of Marxism that – as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels expressed in 1848 in the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” – the “history of all previous societies … [is] the history of class struggle.” Social classes are large groups of people with a specific relationship to the means of production.

Class interests ultimately result from the relations of production, i.e. the dependence of each class to its capital. Thus, class struggles are based on economic inequalities. Economic determinism is one of the most striking weaknesses of the Marxist thought.

The official doctrine of the communist states – understood as a theory of the communist systems – had to be, obviously, immanent. Additionally, it set standards with regard to the apologetic attitude towards the scrutinized subject, which is why it can be considered an “immanent-apologetic” theory. This doctrine, in its unshakable principles, was developed during the reign of Joseph V. Stalin, codified and coined as

Economic determinism

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“dictatorship of the proletariat”

socialist theories of Soviet socialism

“Marxism-Leninism.” In Marxism-Leninism, socialism, as it had been established under Vladimir I. Lenin and Stalin, was praised as the first social order that would move beyond antagonistic class contradictions. In the era of socialism, a politically controlled transition from so-called capitalism to communism – understood as a completely classless and stateless social order – was to take place.

Marxism-Leninism described the development of socialism as follows: after the “revolutionary seizure of power” by the communist party, the socialist order was established during the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” For this purpose, private ownership of the means of production, including the “owning classes” were “eliminated.” This was done in order for the economic foundations – the “basis” – of a society without “antagonistic class contradictions” to emerge. Subsequently, the “socialist society” was increasingly “perfected” until it reached the stage of the “developed socialist society,” i.e. the direct precursor of communism.

At the time when the socialist systems gradually collapsed during the 1980s, the leadership of the communist states announced that they had long ago created a “developed socialist society.”

Such misjudgement teaches us how worthless it is to thoughtlessly believe state ideologies.

Admittedly, Marxism-Leninism was distinctly apologetic affirmative toward the communist system. However, it dawned on the state ideologists of communism, the latest during the socalled thaw of 1956, that it was not always politically convenient, at least vis-à-vis the outside world, to continuously praise the reality of the socialist order in the highest terms. After all, it was inevitable that a system that drew an arch between “capitalism” on one hand, that is private property and individualism, and communal, collective communism on the other, was to be burdened with many problems of the epoch. It is specifically the realisation that self-criticism increases one’s credibility that has, since 1968, led to the growing popularity of the term “real-existing socialism” among the Marxist-Leninist ideologists.

Slightly deviating from Marxism-Leninism the socialist theories of Soviet socialism were common among Western social scientists and so-called dissidents in the communist states. Within both groups, socialism was frequently not considered a dangerous utopia per se, but rather an interesting or even worthwhile

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“social project.” Ultimately, “capitalism” also had its shortcomings: above all structural unemployment and social inequality.3 Marxism does not by nature have to lead to the immanent analysis of real socialism. This is proven by those analysts who reject Marxist-Leninist determinism but use the analytical tools of Marxist class-struggle theory for an unbiased analysis of the communist systems (e.g. Milovan Djilas, Leszek Nowak, or Mikhail Voslensky). Interestingly enough, these Marxists did not shy away from the concept of totalitarianism when it came to be classifying the political system of communist-ruled societies.

Not far from critical Marxism lie the immanent concepts of modernisation, which with particular zeal underscored the modernisation intentions of the communists. The intersection of the immanent modernisation concepts with Marxist theories is inevitably broad, since combating illiteracy, urbanisation and industrialisation – which not only for Ernest Gellner make up modern society4 – were the crucial, major goals of the communist social transformation.

However, any reasonably attentive observer can assert that the communist rulers considered securing domestic power and the victory in the global competition of systems to be more important than the successful modernisation of their societies. In addition, it is difficult to use the concepts of modernisation for the analysis of those countries that have rightly been considered modern even before the communist takeover. Did Czechoslovakia, for example, which was well industrialised and hardly destroyed during the Second World War, need communist modernisation at all? Did former “Mitteldeutschland” (“Central Germany”) really require communist rule in order to modernise?

The real problems of modernisation under communism have not been analysed yet: the catastrophic state of the infrastructure (such as the evident lack of high quality roads and the decay of buildings in the GDR), the archaic education system subjected to political guidelines, the endurance of the traditional or even archaic political culture in many regions of the communist-ruled world, etc.

immanent concepts of modernisation

3 Gerd Meyer, Bürokratischer Sozialismus. Eine Analyse des sowjetischen Herrschaftssystems. Stuttgart 1977.

4 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca/New York 1983.

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industrialisation

urbanisation

pathological path of modernization

Why has post-communist transformation research placed all these analytical concepts and theories that prevailed before the collapse of communism on hold?

As for Marxism-Leninism, the answer is simple. Such a dogmatic and authoritarian concept could, understandably, not gain a foothold in scientific discourse of the open Western societies.

Meanwhile, those in the West who, despite everything, were inclined to believe in or stand up for Marxism-Leninism until the late 1980s, were eventually disillusioned by the historical events that led to the collapse of communism.

The failure of politological research on communism is most evidently expressed in the popularity of the modernisation concept to date. Modernisation theorists consistently overlook the fact that the modernisation processes in communist-ruled territories have had a completely different quality than those in pluralistic societies.

Firstly, industrialisation under communism was technologically delayed because it was based on the imitation of Western inventions that were commonly outdated. As far as urbanisation is concerned, it undoubtedly progressed in those countries that had adopted the communist system as agricultural countries, whereupon satellite towns were built. The rural population that had resettled there had little chance of developing into an urban citizenship, given the rudimentary urban infrastructure. Finally, literacy, which had made great progress in the communist area, did not primarily serve the higher levels of education in a system of omnipresent censorship and state surveillance, but rather the indoctrination of the subjects. Thus, under communism, certain modernisation processes were carried out, but their shortcomings indicate a pathological path of modernization.

It was not until the political changes in the second half of the 1980s that doubts were finally sown in the West about the justness of the communist modernisation.

The departure of the critical Marxists from the socialist theories of communism has little to do with the fiasco of their own analysis, in particular since specifically some of those socialist theorists were part of the tiny minority that had predicted the collapse of the communist order. Milovan Djilas for example, wrote as early as 1956 that the “new class” would one day step down from the stage of history: “By suppressing everything that

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was not conducive to its selfishness, it has condemned itself to defeat and shameful ruin.”5 The critical Marxists experienced their ideological disillusionment as early as the 1970s and 1980s, with the result that the remnants of their ideological faith disappeared in 1989-91. The demand of the people for Western democracy, which they only superficially had knowledge about, and for the modern Western market economy, which was almost completely foreign to them, was an expression of their desire not to have to mess with an unfamiliar order for a brighter future, but to have a tested order in the present. This desire, which had always been at least latently present in every communist-ruled society, contributed decisively to the overthrow of the communist regimes, thus finally manifesting the absurdity of Marxist determinism.

Although, the concept of totalitarianism has neither failed, like the concept of modernisation, nor has it been challenged like Marxist theories due to their loss of their state infrastructure or their ideological foundation, its role is only marginal in the analysis of post-communist system transformation and has found almost no further theoretical development in the transformation research. Why is this the case? Here one must possibly resort to a psychological explanation. This curious circumstance can be explained by the fact that totalitarianism was not only the most controversial concept but also the most controversial term of the Cold War. Those who had fought it fiercely during the previous decades simply did not want to admit their mistakes.

Prior to the collapse of communism, the attempts to define totalitarianism itself created the greatest controversy. In the recent past, this term had been repeatedly belittled as a “political fighting word”, which in the West had been allegedly used to exclusively defame the communist states. Communist ideologists and scientists,6 as well as many Western political scientists, assumed – firstly – that the term had degenerated into an instrument of anti-communist propaganda.7 The accusation of the use of totalitarianism as a political fighting word was – secondly – linked to

concept of totalitarianism

5 Milovan Djilas, Die neue Klasse. Eine Analyse des kommunistischen Systems, München 1958, p. 102.

6 Gerhard Lozek, Die Totalitarismus-Doktrin im Antikommunismus. Kritik einer Grundkomponente bürgerlicher Ideologie, Berlin (East) 1985.

7 Gert-Joachim Glaeßner, Sozialistische Systeme. Einführung in die Kommunismus- und die DDR-Forschung, Opladen 1982, p. 47.

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the insinuation of a political bias, in the sense of partisanship for the “capitalist” position in the global competition of the systems.

Thirdly, the concept of totalitarianism was criticised for not taking into account the changes in the communist world after 1956, especially the “thaw” and the so-called de-Stalinisation.8 The hidden assumption behind this was that the communist systems had lost their totalitarian character after the death of Stalin in 1953.

The most frequent criticism – fourthly – referred to comparisons between National Socialism and communism often drawn by theorists of the totalitarianism concept. According to the critics, the fundamentally distinct ideological foundations of both systems hindered such comparisons, namely since National Socialism was based on a criminal racial ideology which called for the extermination of allegedly inferior races and peoples, whereas the socialist ideology called for a socially just order in which all people, regardless of race and ethnicity, should harmoniously live together.

Of a different kind was – fifthly – the accusation that those theorists of totalitarianism who drew comparisons between communism and National Socialism essentially aim to trivialise the Holocaust.

Such accusations and defamations did not fail to succeed to the extent that in the middle of the so-called era of the détente policy the definition and the concept of totalitarianism were virtually taboo in Western social sciences. Arguments refuting criticism on the concept of totalitarianism9 were hardly noticed. They are the following.

Concerning the first accusation of totalitarianism as a political fighting word: in principle, every political and politological concept can mutate into a political fighting word without the concept itself being to blame (terms are not known to be capable of bearing the blame) and without losing their analytical value. The list of analytically useful terms that are nonetheless used in political struggle are endless: “democracy,” “direct democracy,” “bourgeois democracy,” “socialism,” “authoritarianism” or “authoritarian,” “nationalist” and “nationalism,” “scandal,” “corruption,” etc.

8 Günter Trautmann, Die Sowjetunion im Wandel. Wirtschaft, Politik und Kultur seit 1985, Darmstadt 1989, p. 12.

9 Peter Graf Kielmansegg, „Krise der Totalitarismus-Theorie?”, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, No. 4:1974, pp. 311–328.

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Although the second accusation – concerned with the anti-communist bias – is not very substantial, it requires a detailed refutation because it idealizes the role of scientists. It is an acclaimed statement of critical rationalism that scientists cannot discard their political attitudes and value preferences with the aim of maintaining “pure objectivity.” Moreover, this objectivity expresses a value preference, which addresses why the demand to abandon all value preference is illogical. Hence, when evaluating social science theories or concepts, assessing whether they express political preferences or not is unimportant. They inevitably do so. If, nonetheless, one was to make a judgement about a theory, the validity, i.e. the degree to which this theory was to agree with reality should be the centre of interest.

However, if one intends to appraise the political disposition of scientists, it must be possible to assess their political and ideological preferences as socially legitimate or illegitimate. Thus, from this point of view, anti-communism represents a political attitude that is certainly more legitimate than an attitude that is benevolent or indifferent, which is very widespread. Anticommunism is based on intellectual and moral foundations which are to be found not only in the cultural context of the Occident, but in every major culture, namely the rejection of mass murder and genocide, as well as of militant atheism. In the West, this is characterised on one hand by the rejection of political collectivism, which is the willingness to sacrifice individual freedom and life on the altar of abstract ideological goals, and on the other by the scepticism towards historical determinism.

Scholars of totalitarianism have never made a secret of their preference for social and political pluralism over Soviet socialism’s monistic system of rule. One may certainly ask whether specifically this preference is actually detrimental to the results of social science research.

The third accusation, that theorists of totalitarianism rejected the change of the communist systems after 1956, cannot be refuted without referencing historical facts. The claim that the essence of the communist system changed fundamentally after the death of Stalin first appeared as a reaction to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956. The Soviet party leader, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev held his famous speech at that time, which was intended exclusively

the anticommunist bias

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for the delegates and leaders of the Communist parties in the Soviet satellite states.

In this so-called secret speech, he accused Stalin, who had died almost three years prior, of having perverted the basic features of the socialist system as it had been created by Lenin. Khrushchev attributed the horrid harassment of Soviet society under Stalin and many economic and military misdevelopments in the Stalin-era to Stalin’s weakness of character, whereby he bemoaned the loss of many innocent members of the communist party.

In his speech, Khrushchev was embarrassingly attentive not to address any structural problems of Soviet socialism, because he wished to avoid provoking a discussion about the communist system. Using the term “Stalinism,” he intended to distract from questions concerning the nature of the communist system.

According to Khrushchev the “Stalinist” system disappeared following the death of Stalin and the elimination of Lavrentij Berija, the last chief of the secret service under the autocrat from Georgia.

Theorists of totalitarianism did not adopt Khrushchev’s distinction between “evil Stalinism” and “good Leninism” because, in their assessment, the fundamental principles and basic structures of totalitarian socialism had not changed after 1956 either: the communist party’s unrestricted claim to power, the legitimation with Marxism-Leninism, the rejection of both political opposition and social pluralism, etc. At the same time, the adherents of the totalitarian concept did not question the alteration of most communist states in conformity with the system after 1956. This is plainly demonstrated in the renunciation of the permanent use of mass terror by the state which undoubtedly represented an extremely important adjustment of the system, at least from the point of view of the affected population. Nevertheless, it was not a change of system, as exemplified by later events which testified to the persistent unwillingness of the communist parties to fundamentally change the structures and legitimacy of their regimes, including to refrain from the massive use of force in times of crisis: the bloody crushing of the Hungarian Revolution particularly in 1956, the military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the forced strike settlement by the military and further unrest taking place at the Polish coast in December 1970 or the declaration of martial law in Poland in December 1981.

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Fourthly, with respect to the “reproach of comparability,” it must be mentioned that the prohibition of comparisons is detrimental to social sciences and to analytical thinking in general. Incidentally, it is particularly nonsensical to refrain from making comparisons precisely because the objects to be compared are not sufficiently similar to one another. The undoubtedly existing ideological differences of the regimes described as “totalitarian” should encourage comparisons, since one of the basic tasks of comparative studies is to investigate the question of why systems that use different legitimation can function in a similar way. The comparison between communism and National Socialism is therefore just as legitimate and useful as the comparison of fascism and democracy or of democracy and totalitarianism.

Finally – fifthly – with regard to the accusation of relativization, it should merely be noted here that the comparison between Auschwitz and the GULAG helps to recognise the singularity of the respective mass murder. Every mass murder is unique. It is true, nonetheless, that the comparison of Auschwitz and the GULAG is frequently made by some, usually by not very decent and/ or too prudent individuals, for the sake of relativizing the respective crime. However, the hope that the ostracism of comparison as a method of thinking will reveal the uniqueness of the National Socialist or Communist mass murders is incomprehensible.

The popular understanding of “totalitarianism theory” generally includes the assumption that National Socialism is a variety of fascism. It is advisable to briefly deal with the relationship between National Socialism and fascism, because the differences between these two are unfortunately often ignored, partially due to the fact that politicians of National Socialism explicitly referred to fascism and drew from its ideas. Furthermore, Italian fascism in particular was an important ally of National Socialism. However, the differences of the two systems outweigh their affinities.

The first difference is the ideology. Fascism is an ideology of the state, National Socialism – despite all fascist borrowings – is one of race. The second difference is the extent of state rule, which is much greater in National Socialism than in fascist systems. This is connected – thirdly – with the fact that fascism did not reach the same level as National Socialism with regard to the use of violence and mass murder.

extent of state rule

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theory of totalitarianism

Marxist scholars, in particular, were consistently inclined to overlook these differences, a practice which was not only factually wrong but also morally questionable. This is the case because the ill-considered equation of fascism with National Socialism undoubtedly amounts to a trivialization of National Socialism and its crimes; a trivialization which usually does not cause indignation. In general, Marxist theories on fascism contain numerous statements concerning fascism which scholars of totalitarianism have formulated about communism and National Socialism. Marxist concepts on fascism frequently serve as totalitarianism theories without using the respective term of totalitarianism. Like many critics of the totalitarianism concept, they equally subsume National Socialism and Mussolini-, Salazar- and Franco-fascism within their understanding/interpretation of fascism, i.e. all those authoritarian systems of the post-war period that were at least temporarily hostile to communism.

The aforementioned popular assumption about the existence of a theory of totalitarianism par excellence, according to which communism and fascism (including National Socialism) are equal, is wrong.

On the one hand, there does not exist one singular theory of totalitarianism in general, but rather numerous concepts, theories and models of totalitarianism, which may considerably differ in terms of their analytical fruitfulness and their research object. On the other hand, the theorists of totalitarianism by no means agree on the point that communism and National Socialism are identical. They do, however, consistently indicate the permissibility and the necessity of comparing these two systems. Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzeziński, probably the best-known analysts of totalitarianism in the fifties and sixties aside from Hannah Arendt, were frequently criticized for the alleged equation of communism and fascism. This occurred despite the fact that it was this very same academic team that published the statement that ultimately clarified the issue, albeit not too clearly formulated: fascist and communist regimes are in the sense of organization and functioning basically the same. What does this mean? It means ... that they are not the same [emphasis added

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by the authors]. The popular and journalistic interpretation have oscillated between two extremes.10

The theories of totalitarianism that most distinctively emphasise structural and functional similarities between fascism and National Socialism on the one hand and communism on the other hand are usually labelled as analogizing theories. The vast majority of theories concerned with totalitarianism, including those of Friedrich, Brzeziński, Hannah Arendt, and Raymond Aron, belong to this category. In contrast, only cheap journalism invokes the alleged equality of National Socialism, fascism, and communism, which is why it is sometimes possible to speak of the identifying concept of totalitarianism. Even in Hannah Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism”11 one can discover traces of such a relating identifiying understanding of totalitarianism.

In contrast, the communism-related (socialism-related) understanding of totalitarianism is very rarely adopted, i.e. the assumption that only the communist system of rule is totalitarian, whereas fascist states and National Socialism fall under the authoritarian type of rule. Since the term totalitarianism was used as a swearword rather than an analytical category in intellectual circles in the West until 1989, hardly anyone dared to defend this understanding. Most analysts were afraid to be labelled as profascist anti-communists as a result.

However, the crucial fact that the empirical basis for the comparisons between National Socialism and communism is extremely narrow speaks for the socialism-related concept of totalitarianism. As Hitler’s troops went to war in 1939, he had only been building his state for six and a half years. At the same time, Lenin’s successor could already look back on twenty years of successfully “building socialism” in the Soviet Union. Hence, from this perspective it is deceptive to eagerly equate twelve years of the Third Reich, a little more than a full decade, with seven decades of communism. The accelerated “totalitarianisation” of National Socialism took place during the war, although it should not be forgotten that even democratic states claim extraordinary powers during

identifying concept of totalitarianism

the socialism-related concept of totalitarianism

10 Carl J. Friedrich/Zbigniew Brzeziński, “Die allgemeinen Merkmale der totalitären Diktatur,” in: Bruno Seidel/ Siegfried Jenkner (ed.), Wege der Totalitarismus-Forschung, Darmstadt 1968, p. 606. Also, Aron, Raymond, Demokratie und Totalitarismus, Hamburg 1970, pp. 205f.

11 Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, New York 1951.

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war; essentially, becoming “more total” as their scope of rule increases while their respect for human and civil rights decreases.

Here, it is worth noting that during the Second World War the BBC deliberately broadcasted simple lies because the state considered this convenient.

Neither in times of peace nor in times of war did National Socialism reach the “totalitarian maturity” that characterised communism, which remarkably pushed back specifically the totalitarian ideology of all things during the war. The scope of National Socialist rule is similar to that of the Bolshevism of the New Economic Policy that Lenin had initiated in 1923, after the failure of “war communism.” While independent producers were (re) admitted, the state ruthlessly proceeded against political opposition. Since 1926, Stalin gradually abolished the relative autonomy of the economy once more. In 1931, Waldemar Gurian stated in the preface of his excellent analysis of Bolshevism that the

turn towards a total state, which no longer knows the old 19th century separation of state and society of the 19th century, (...) has been realised in the Bolshevik empire for years. There the state is indeed a total state, which in principle knows no area in which it cannot intervene decisively. Compared to this, how important is it then, that the term ‘total state’ comes from fascism?12

There are many reasons why fascism and National Socialism should not be lumped together. It would be wrong to attribute both systems to the totalitarian type. They are to be classified as authoritarian, although National Socialism in particular appeared to be on the path to totalitarianism. Totalitarianism must be clearly conceived as an ideal type, to which only institutionalised – not transforming – systems of rule can be assigned to.

Leszek Kołakowski formulated this in 1977: It must be said that an absolutely perfect totalitarian system never existed. However, we know societies with a strong, constantly effective, secure tendency to ‘nationalise’ all forms of human community and private life. Soviet and Chinese societies are or were in certain periods very close to this ideal. This was also the case in Nazi Germany, even if it did not last long enough to be fully realized and was content with

12 Waldemar Gurian, Der Bolschewismus. Einführung in Geschichte und Lehre, Freiburg im Breisgau 1932 (2. Edition), pp. 6f.

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economic activity being forcibly subordinated to the objectives of the State, instead of nationalising everything.13

Only institutionally completely nationalised societies, in which social pluralism has been abolished, have crossed the threshold from authoritarianism to totalitarianism. Thus, totalitarianism does not naturally mutate to authoritarianism as soon as, for example, social resistance or systemic crisis prevents the effortless governing of society by the communist authorities. This requires both the renunciation of totalitarian legitimation and the systematic dismantling of those state institutions that crush the autonomy of society. In fascist Italy, the latter was only limited, as is illustrated by this almost desperate statement by Mussolini in a conversation with an old friend, Alberto Acquarone, from the trade union movement: If you could only imagine the effort it took me to seek a possible balance and avoid the clash of those antagonistic forces that touch each other and jealously distrust each other: government, party, monarchy, Vatican, army, militia, prefects, provincial party leaders, ministers, the Confederazioni functionaries and the huge monopolistic interests, etc.

You would understand that these are the indigestible things for totalitarianism, the ‘inheritance’ that I had to accept without restrictions in 1922, which I could not achieve to melt down. It is an almost pathologically linked tissue, linked to the traditional and present-day shortcomings of these great little Italian people, where a persistent therapy lasting over 20 years has only managed to change something on the surface.14

Since totalitarianism can be understood in different ways, those assumptions regarding its concept which are shared by all of the theorists of totalitarianism will be formulated here first.

The first assumption is that totalitarianism is a type of rule sui generis and in this respect can be clearly distinguished from other basic types of modern rule – democracy and authoritarianism. Linz expressed this in one of the most influential books on 13 Leszek Kołakowski, “Marxistische Wurzeln des Stalinismus,” in: Leszek Kołakowski (ed.), Leben trotz Geschichte, München 1980, pp. 257–281, p. 260.

14 Juan J. Linz, Totalitäre und autoritäre Regime. Raimund Krämer (ed.), Berlin 2000, p. 137. Original: Juan J. Linz, “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes,” in: Fred I. Greenstein/ Nelson W. Polsby (ed.), Macropolitical Theory (Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3), Reading (Mass.) 1975, pp. 175–411.

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totalitarianism: “In my opinion, it is intellectually imperative to distinguish a certain historical form of a regime or society that is not democratic from other non-democratic forms of rule.”15 The second assumption of the concept of totalitarianism relates to the scope of rule and legitimacy; this problem is already indicated by the term “totalitarianism,” for this term expresses the absolute, the “related to the whole,” the complete, resulting in the fact that totalitarian rule knows no limitation.

Recommended literature

Arendt, Hannah, Origins of Totalitarianism, New York 1951.

Djilas, Milovan, Die neue Klasse. Eine Analyse des kommunistischen Systems, Munich 1958.

Friedrich, Carl J. and Zbigniew, Brzeziński, Die allgemeinen Merkmale der totalitären Diktatur, in: Bruno Seidel/ Siegfried Jenkner (ed.), Wege der Totalitarismus-Forschung, Darmstadt 1968.

Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism, Ihtaka/New York 1983.

Gurian, Waldemar, Der Bolschewismus. Einführung in Geschichte und Lehre, Freiburg im Breisgau 1932 (2. Edition).

Halecki, Oskar, Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History of East Central Europe, Safety Harbor 1993 (2. Edition).

Kielmansegg, Peter Graf, Krise der Totalitarismus-Theorie?, in: „Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft“, No. 4/1974, pp. 311–328.

Kołakowski, Leszek (ed.), Leben trotz Geschichte, München 1980.

Linz, Juan J., Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, in: Fred I. Greenstein/ Nelson W. Polsby (ed.), Macropolitical Theory (Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3), Reading (Mass.) 1975, pp. 175-411.

Lozek, Gerhard, Die Totalitarismus-Doktrin im Antikommunismus.

Kritik einer Grundkomponente bürgerlicher Ideologie, Berlin (East) 1985.

Raymond, Aron, Demokratie und Totalitarismus, Hamburg 1970.

15 Ibid., p. 6.

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II. Ideological party state and “its” society

T

he establishment of each totalitarian order in history follows a similar pattern. On the one hand, the new rulers rely on the massive use of terror, hence making the submission of society to the state possible in the first place. The usually peaceful post-totalitarian transformation of the system had thus been preceded by a violent totalitarian transformation a few decades earlier. On the other hand, all totalitarian systems are products of crisis situations, offering totalitarian political groupings the chance to seize power and subsequently implement their ideology.

Initially such a development could be observed in Russia. The Bolsheviks, a sectarian party of almost no social significance, profited from the crisis of the tsarist empire during the First World War. In 1917, Lenin’s party was the only one in Russia determined to seize power by all means available, taking advantage of the chaos that had broken out in the country. After the Bolsheviks had taken power, Russian society was cut off from its history.

Social groups and strata that clung to the values and traditions of pre-socialist society (not only of the old regime) – the aristocracy, the free peasantry, the weak bourgeoisie, most of the priesthood, and the parts of the Intelligentsia who were faithful to its ethos – were eliminated. The traditional culture was consistently destroyed or forcibly adapted to the new times. In the early 1930s this transformation was completed, and Soviet society was thoroughly subordinated to the state.

Prior to the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in 1941, Stalin had managed just in time to destroy the apparatus of the Communist Party, including the officer corps of the Red Army, hence getting rid of potential competitors in the power struggle. In the GULAG, which had already been established under Lenin, about a tenth of the population worked themselves to death.

all totalitarian systems are products of crisis situations

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“disruption of history”

the totalitarian states

Such a deliberate destruction of traditional society implies a historical break resulting in the acknowledgement of a “disruption of history” in all those places where totalitarian systems had been established. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the origins of Bolshevism were at least partially Russian. The known facts do not change this assessment, namely that: Marxism was imported from Germany to Russia; the Bolsheviks would hardly have come to power if Lenin had not been supported by Imperial Germany; and the most important Bolsheviks were dominated by non-Russians: Jews, Latvians, Germans, even Georgians and Poles sometimes played a crucial or at least important role.

Nonetheless, neither the crisis of the old regime and society, nor the establishment of a totalitarian order in Russia was due to the actions of external powers. The social and political crisis was homemade which is why the prominent Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdiajev had argued from exile in 1931 that the bourgeois Christians of Imperial Russia were mostly responsible for Bolshevism.16 Nor did the establishment of the totalitarian order meet with sufficient resistance on behalf of the elites and the Russian population in general. Moreover, it cannot be denied that the seemingly federal structure of the Soviet Union favoured the Russian people while encouraging the Russification of other nations in the Soviet Union. It is no coincidence that the first line of the Soviet anthem begins with the phrase: “The Great Rus’ brought together the indestructible union of free republics for centuries.”

The establishment of the totalitarian system in China, Vietnam, and Cuba followed the same pattern. Although the totalitarian ideology was imported to these countries from continental Europe, particularly from Germany and France, the crisis of the old order created opportunities for communist sectarians to take power and to build a totalitarian state in China, Vietnam, and Cuba as well. As in Russia, this profound crisis was rooted in social and cultural problems, the tradition of totalitarian reasoning was widespread among intellectuals, while the forces that could have resisted the communist takeover were weak. All these aforementioned facts suggest describing the totalitarian states in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba as endogenous (or of “internal origin”).

16 Nikolas Berdyaev, The Russian Revolution, University of Michigan Press 1961, pp. 89f.

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The establishment of the remaining totalitarian systems was different – for example in the Caucasus and Mongolia in the 1920s, in eastern Poland and the Baltic states after the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and in Central, North- and South-Eastern Europe after the Second World War. In these cases, the communist systems were established as a result of Soviet military interventions. Only the Communist parties in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Yugoslavia enjoyed a broad social base, comparable to those found in France and Italy, where the Communists participated in coalition governments in the first post-war years.

Those totalitarian states that owed their emergence to the totalitarian world power – the Soviet Union – can be described as exogenous totalitarian systems (or of “external origins”).

They, likewise, emerged under conditions of crisis. This fatal crisis, however, was not of a homemade nature. In Central, Northand South-Eastern Europe it was the result of actions initiated by external powers. These powers included Germany, which was primarily responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War, i.e. also for the Soviet Union’s ability to advance into the new regions of Europe. Neither should the victorious Western powers be forgotten, which short-sightedly and selfishly pursued a decidedly pro-Soviet policy during the war. This refers first and foremost to the USA and Great Britain, which even betrayed their Central European war allies, Poland and Czechoslovakia, in order to reach an agreement with the Soviets on the hegemonic zones of influence in Europe.

The populations of most exogenous totalitarian states developed an occupation syndrome, regarding the communist system as foreign. The feeling and conviction of living under an imposed system made any dissatisfaction with the political and social conditions appear as a national problem, which was the source of an ongoing latent crisis of legitimacy of the totalitarian empire.

Consequently, totalitarian states, which owed their existence to external interference, had to fear the threat to their stability or even their very existence more frequently than totalitarianisms of internal origin.

Mixed cases of endogenous and exogenous states occurred when the population of the totalitarian system of external origins did not develop an occupation syndrome. The Slavic Soviet Republics of Belarus and – largely – Ukraine were among them. Of

exogenous totalitarian systems

occupation syndrome

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the fifteen union republics in the Soviet Union only these two had their representatives at the United Nations, thus possessing the features of sovereign states. Communism was introduced in eastern Ukraine and eastern Belarus post-First World War. However, due to the outcome of the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, the western parts of these countries became part of the Second Polish Republic, which had been established in 1919. The national consciousness of Ukrainians, and in particular Belarusians, was generally weak, resulting in their failure to achieve state independence.

After the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact and following the Second World War, Poland lost its eastern territories (“kresy”). These territories were annexed to the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet Republics. Since within both countries the communists did not gain power through their own efforts, but benefited from wars and Soviet support, the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet Republics are considered to be of external origins. However, only the population in western Ukraine developed the occupation syndrome. The influences of western culture were strongly pronounced there: they dated back to the Noble Republic of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which had declined at the end of the 18th century and – in Galicia – to the later influence of the Habsburg monarchy.

In western Ukraine, for instance, despite the communist ban, the Greek-Catholic (“uniate”) Church continued to exist, which was Greek-Orthodox in rite, but de facto subordinate to the Pope. This church had been founded in the Commonwealth in 1596 for the purpose of integrating Orthodox Christians into the state affairs.

The occupation syndrome was weak in Belarus and communist Ukraine because those peoples had not grown into mature nations at the time of the establishment of the communist systems. Since the majority of the population did not long for their own nation state, they accepted forming union republics of the formally-federal Soviet Union.

Another country that did not show any occupation syndrome despite an exogenous totalitarian system was Bulgaria. The traditionally pro-Russian sentiments were so strong there that the Bulgarian party leader Todor Shivkov actually intended for his country to merge with the Soviet Union at the end of the 1970s.

However, the Soviet leadership rejected his idea, because they did not want to take responsibility for all the problems of their satellite, nor give the impression that the development of the so-called

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community of socialist states was evolving towards the incorporation of formally sovereign people’s democracies into the Soviet Union.

Similar to Bulgaria, Romania would probably have remained a monarchy if not for the Second World War and Soviet interference, thus socialist Romania also counts to the totalitarian states of external origins. However, unlike in Bulgaria, Belarus, and Ukraine, the absence of a strong occupation syndrome was due to the “nationalisation” of the communist leadership. Consistently since the late 1950s, the Romanian party top circle distanced themselves from the Soviet Union in matters of foreign policy and maintained particularly close relations with the People’s Republic of China. Subsequently the Romanian population could receive the impression that Romania had developed into a sovereign state governed by a national-communist leadership. All these instances and examples allow the conclusion that nationalism has to be considered in the analysis of totalitarian systems.

The party leadership of the centre of the totalitarian empire – the Soviet Union – was involved in the most important decisions of the exogenous totalitarian states. Moscow, for example, was granted the unwritten right to confirm the new party leader in a satellite state. Moreover, the Kremlin decided on the most important military affairs of its colonies and interfered in domestic incidents during systemic crises. The Kremlin openly claimed the right to intervene militarily whenever it felt the foundations of the totalitarian order in the colonies of the communist empire were under threat.

The latter right is usually known as the so-called Breshnev-Doctrine. According to this axiom, the “community of socialist states” were granted the right to intervene militarily in each “brother country” if the danger of an anti-socialist “counterrevolution” existed. Like many other phrases that are used in the media of the free world, the term “Breshnev-Doctrine” is wrong.

Since this axiom had already been implemented by Khrushchev in Hungary in 1956. Moreover, the uprising in the GDR was crushed in 1953, and it could not have had occurred to any contemporary at that time to speak of the “Breshnev-Doctrine.” It was only in 1968, after the military intervention in Czechoslovakia, that this phrase was introduced. Incidentally, it was not Breshnev who formulated this “doctrine” at the time, but Władysław Gomułka, who

totalitarian empire

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state terror

in 1968 feared that the Prague Spring could spill over to Poland and lead Czechoslovakia into the arms of “capitalist Germany.”

Hence, the influence of the Soviet party leadership did not end with the installation of the totalitarian satellite states. Even after the establishment of these states, the “mother party” – the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – remained their highest informal decision-making body.

It is not surprising that the notion of the “total” or totalitarian state, popular in the West in the 1920s, had already found its way into academic analysis before the Second World War. The ideologisation and violence of public life in particular frightened and at the same time fascinated contemporaries in the West, who feared that the conditions in the Soviet Union could foreshadow their society’s future. Therefore, and because of the significance of communism in the international system, the search for the “nature” (“essence”) of totalitarian rule became the central concern of the decades-long discourse about totalitarianism. In the course of this, classic conceptions of totalitarianism were not only influenced by “Stalinism” and National Socialism, but they could not help but also include considerations of state mass terror as the crucial, and even, as in Hannah Arendt’s case, the defining characteristic of totalitarianism.17 Following the “de-Stalinisation” after 1956 at the latest, it became apparent that the intensity of state terror can certainly decrease without the totalitarian system mutating into authoritarianism or democracy. It is known that mass terror emanating from the state does not represent a specifically totalitarian phenomenon, although, in this respect, totalitarianism undoubtedly set new standards. Since the earliest recordings of human history, persecutions and massacres have been organised and carried out by states or state-like entities. The originality of totalitarian crimes “merely” consists in the fact that it would not have been possible without modern technology and state bureaucracy as well as the support of scientists.

Although there are valid reasons for not declaring mass terror the “essence” of totalitarian rule, its potential omnipresence in totalitarianism must not be overlooked. For the totalitarian state must constantly be capable of employing its apparatus of violence against society. Although after 1956 mass terror in most 17 Hannah Arendt, op. cit.

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communist states subsided, it continued to play a key role in stabilising the system, especially in times of crisis. This is clearly demonstrated by the events in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in Poland in 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, and in the 1980s. Admittedly, totalitarianism showed that ideas and technical possibilities coupled with bureaucratic efficiency of the modern age lead to the murder of millions when deprived of traditional morals. Even for totalitarianism, state terror was never an end in itself, which some analysts have alleged in relation to the “Stalinism” of the 1930s. Mass terror at that time was “solely” the instrument for perfecting the totalitarian rule, similar, for example, to the repressiveness of the People’s Republic of Poland under communist party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, although the extent of violence and its results were different in each case.

In contrast to the literary utopias of totalitarianism (such as those penned by George Orwell or Arthur Koestler), the real totalitarian systems always left much to be desired. This even applied to the terrorist rule of Stalin.

It is observable from the numerous lives of people under communist rule that individuals, if courageous and lucky, have managed to escape the pressure and guarding of the seemingly omnipresent state. These individuals could even “defeat” the supposedly omnipotent state. Even if the reality of the communist states occasionally came close to George Orwell’s utopian vision, Soviet communism did not represent a perfect totalitarian rule in the sense of literary utopias. Nevertheless, the comparative theory of political systems requires both the ideal type of totalitarian rule and the term of totalitarianism. No one would consider abandoning the notion of democracy just because it is recognised that there are no perfect democracies. Nor would it make sense to reject the concept of the per se imperfect system of authoritarianism, because there can be no such thing as a perfect imperfection.

Although the perfect totalitarian rule fails to exist, some states do assert an unrestricted claim to power, which is formulated and justified by means of a special ideology. Hence, totalitarian states are to be regarded as ideological states. The terms “ideocracy” or “logocracy” or – in the case of Ernest Gellner – the “secular Umma”18 are used in this context. Whether one speaks

unrestricted claim to power

18 Ernest Gellner, Bedingungen der Freiheit. Die Zivilgesellschaft und ihre Rivalen, Stuttgart 1995, p. 35.

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of ideocracy or logocracy, of the secular Umma or of totalitarianism – in any case – this always refers to a system in which an ideology plays a determining role. Against the understanding of totalitarianism as an ideological system, a seemingly plausible objection repeatedly states that all states need ideological legitimation. However, this objection ignores the fact that not every ideology is suitable for legitimising totalitarianism.

Four characteristics make up the totalitarian ideology.

Firstly, it must be all-encompassing, i.e. it must be able to express itself on all problems of man, nature and history. Secondly, it must make an absolute claim to truth by not only answering every question, but by also answering it correctly! As the only authentic doctrine, it must – thirdly – be dogmatic, i.e. contain a series of statements or premises that are undisputable because they form its unshakable core. In the case of Marxism (and Marxism-Leninism), this is the aforementioned deterministic principle, according to which the progress of all societies follows from universally valid laws. Fourthly, totalitarian ideology is chiliastic, i.e. it is directed towards an ideal final state of humanity, which in Marxism-Leninism is known to be (post-socialist) communism.

The ideology thus declares the present existence to a provisional arrangement, which is a necessary preliminary stage of the much-conjured final state. The life of the present generations is sacrificed to the idyllic future or at least subjected to it.

Considering these four characteristics, it must be noted that there are numerous totalitarian ideologies and philosophical systems. All philosophers who claim with absolute certainty to have answered the most important ontological and social questions have at least tinkered with totalitarian ideologies. Moreover, a great number of individuals think at least partially in totalitarian categories. Incidentally, this does not just primarily include religious people, since they are now able to distinguish clearly between the dogmas of religious and non-religious thinking. In contrast, all individuals, who are convinced to know everything, or “at the very least” think to know what this world is like and what is important in this world, may be considered “potential totalitarians”. As long as their convictions do not become a state ideology these individuals need not be treated as too dangerous.

However, when this occurs, the ideology gains a number of additional characteristics.

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At first the ideology becomes interchangeable despite its dogmatism. A democratic politician may change or deny his opinion without having to question his principles. The situation is different with totalitarian rulers, who are forced to reconcile every statement and every political decision with the all-encompassing and dogmatised ideology. This cannot be achieved given the dynamics of social and political development. How, for instance, could the assassination of Lenin’s closest companions by Stalin be ideologically justified after these early Bolsheviks had been incorporated into the sacred doctrine of Marxism-Leninism? How could the Soviet Union, Hitler’s greatest ally from 1938-41, condemn Hitler to the Devil on Earth after the German invasion in June 1941? How could Stalin, who had been praised to the skies in the Soviet Union for almost three decades, be mainly blamed for all the evils of the Communist world after his death?

The totalitarian state ideology is not only absurd, it is also omnipresent. Its contents are conveyed in all media, whereby the public and occasionally also the private sphere becomes the medium of the state: radio, television, print media, streets “decorated” with slogans and portraits of the leaders, factories, and sometimes even apartments. All the questions concerning man, society, history, science and nature are then interpreted in terms of an absurd ideology, subjecting the whole of society to indoctrination aimed at blurring the distinction between true and false. The respective subjects simply have to accept the current version of the ideology. George Orwell hardly exaggerated when formulating the totalitarian slogans as follows: “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”19 Without a specific ideology with its dogmatic theorems, the totalitarian state would not be considered totalitarian. However, it must also be institutionally structured in such a way that it can direct and control the whole of society. This principally requires a centre from which this guidance and control can be managed.

The two-part state party forms this centre. On the one hand, it consists of the so-called inner party (cadre), to which the decision-makers, i.e. the party functionaries (also called “apparatchiks”), belong. The other part is formed by the “outer party,” to which the broad membership masses belong. The “outer party” acts as a pool for the cadre, i.e. the “inner party.” The cadre enjoys 19 Georg Orwell, 1984, Zürich 1950, p. 27.

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top party circle

apparatus of state power

privileges that are not accessible for the ordinary party members, let alone to the rest of the population. For example, party officials are allowed to travel abroad, they have better housing, and they have the opportunity to buy goods that are inaccessible to ordinary mortals, etc.

Decisions are not made in official party bodies and state organs, but within the informal structures of the “inner party,” which can be imagined as a number of concentric circles.

In the middle is the first and smallest circle – top party circle – which consists of the party leader, some members of the Politburo and secretaries of the Central Committee. The top circle is in turn surrounded by the party leadership, which includes the leaders of both the central and the important regional party bodies. The next, and largest circle is the central power apparatus, which is essentially composed of the functionaries of the party leadership living and working in the capital as well as the state’s central organs. This also includes the functionaries of the so-called social organisations together with the “allied parties” of the communist party, that is if they happened to exist in the respective totalitarian state.

The “nomenklatura,” which originally implied a list of posts and offices that could only be occupied by the party or in its name, is used for the staffing of the entire state apparatus. The “nomenklatura” also includes the class of functionaries. Although this class reaches well beyond the “inner party,” its decisive posts and offices are naturally reserved for the apparatchiks of the “inner party.” In contrast, the great mass of the members of the nomenklatura executes decisions, although they enjoy privileges of the rulers.

In totalitarianism, the central, middle (regional) and lower (local) executive organs represent the apparatus of state power.

The hierarchical, bureaucratic and functionally structured state power apparatus consists of (1) party, (2) state, (3) economic, (4) police, and (5) military institutional units. Wolfgang Leonhard was perhaps the first to refer to the “pillars of power” in this context.20 The party pillar forms both the decision-making centre as well as the reservoir of the state cadre and is used for the staffing of state power apparatus. Institutions of state administration, the courts and the public prosecutor’s office as well as the 20 Wolfgang Leonhard, Kreml ohne Stalin, Köln 1959.

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indoctrination and propaganda apparatus (including schools) are attributed to the state pillar. The economic pillar encompasses the attempt to fulfil the planned production target. Within the police pillar, the security apparatus – as the “protective shield of the party” – is the most relevant. Finally, the military forces of most communist states were fully integrated into the Kremlin-led structures of the Warsaw Pact.

The blending of party and state – together with the totalitarian ideology – constitutes the totalitarian system. The prerogative to decide on the appointment of offices and posts converts the party into a component of the state. However, this also applies vice versa: the state degenerates into the performing organ of the party. Overall, the totalitarian state is to be considered an ideological party state. The totalitarian ideology legitimises the unrestricted claim to power of the state and the party. The party in turn – the decision-making pillar of the state power apparatus – acts, so to speak, on behalf of the ideology. In doing so, the party takes possession of the state, and in time merges with it.

If totalitarianism is regarded as a political system, its legitimacy and structures must be the focus of interest. However, the unrestricted claim to power expands these structures to such an extraordinary degree that society can degenerate into an instrument of the ideological party state. Such a transformation of society into a will-less component of the omnipotent political system results in a unique atomisation and depoliticisation of the subjects. While the atomisation originates from attempts to direct interpersonal relations into state channels, the depoliticisation results from state action against all autonomous social actors. Nonetheless, society may oppose these phenomena and thus put its mark on totalitarianism, as well as decide about its alteration and chances of survival. This is the reason why totalitarian societies differ considerably in terms of atomisation and depoliticisation. Concepts of totalitarianism that ignore societal aspects of power and exclusively reflect the legitimation and structures of totalitarian rule are not suitable for analysing the alteration and the different manifestations of communist systems.

The extension of state control to ever new areas of society, however, ensues not only in totalitarian systems. Authoritarianism frequently employs a massive use of force, in order to

an ideological party state

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submission of society to the state

suffocate and paralyse social resistance against those measures to be enforced by the rulers. It may also occur that the population of an authoritarian state desires the omnipotence of the political system (as observed, for example, in the Third Reich).

Finally, those authoritarianisms which respect the law can enforce an extraordinary expansion on a legitimate legal basis (e.g. the Kulturkampf under Otto von Bismarck). Only this last path is available for a democracy, although the purpose of such measures will remain disputed. The internment of Americans of Japanese origin during the Second World War, which was backed by the law, or the suspension of a number of civil rights in the fight against terrorism in the 1970s in the Federal Republic of Germany or in the United States of America after 9/11 may be taken as symptomatic examples.

Nonetheless, the phenomenon of the extension of state power familiar from many other systems must not lead to the blurring of the differences between totalitarianism on the one hand, and democracy and authoritarianism on the other. This danger exists in cases where totalitarianism is understood as a single political system among others. However, unlike democracy and authoritarianism, totalitarianism is not just a society’s subsystem in which binding decisions are made; since in totalitarianism the whole of society is in principle at the disposal of and – to a certain extent – a component of the political system, it goes beyond the usual ideas of a political system.

The unrestricted claim to guidance and control of the party and the state requires a prepared society. To this end, it is necessary to transform or destroy autonomous institutions and actors, essentially transforming them into the state’s henchmen, i.e. annihilate them. After society has been seized by the state structures or pressed into them, any autonomous action, let alone the attempt to establish an autonomous organization, must be regarded as suspicious and must be prevented.

As a result of this submission of society to the state, the boundary between the political system and the social order disappears.

The totalitarian-prepared society is neither pluralistically constituted, nor is it to be regarded as a civil society. Depending on the country, communist rule produced a more or less homogeneous society, which was based on the destruction of “bourgeois

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and private economic elements.”21 In this respect it was quite successful. Authors who thought they had discovered a “socialist civil society” in Poland since 1980 have overlooked the obvious fact that in that country – despite the existence of “Solidarność” – the state controlled and took possession of almost the entire economy. Without economically independent actors there can exist neither civil society nor social pluralism.

The concept of civil society reflects the particularities of Western societies, which, as is commonly acknowledged, are familiar with the constitutional state and the rule of law, and do not grant predominance to any ideology or religion. In contrast, the concept of pluralism (similar to that of the market) is universal, for, in many cultures, there is a diversity of actors pursuing their interests. Since totalitarianism is directed against all pluralism, and not just exclusively against Western civil society, pluralism should be considered the counter-model of the totalitarian order. Civil society plays an increasing role in the post-totalitarian transformation, since the construction of Western systems is the declared goal of this transformation.

It is beyond question that the totalitarian system required a specific political culture of its subjects. These subjects were supposed to be available and docile while not expressing any desire to participate. It is indisputable that socialisation in a society dominated by an omnipresent state could not remain without effecting its subjects. Thus, the assumption that the economic and political incapacitation had an effect on the dominant personality structure in society cannot be dismissed. It may be assumed that the self-declared goal of the totalitarian state to create the “new man” was at least partially realised – but in a different way than described by the literature of “socialist realism.”

The Russian writer Aleksandr Zinovjev has popularised the term “homo sovieticus” (“homosos”). Homosos is a product of socialist education and is characterised by serfdom, modesty, social envy, collectivist instinct, denunciation, and willingness to make sacrifices.22 Considering that empirical-sociological studies were rarely carried out under communist rule, Zinovjev’s theses

civil society

“homo sovieticus”

21 Andrew Arato, “‘Civil society’ gegen den Staat. Der Fall Polen 1980/81,” in: Reinhard Fenchel/ Anna-Jutta Pietsch (ed.), Polen 1980–82. Gesellschaft gegen den Staat, Hannover 1982, p. 46–87.

22 Alexander Sinowjew, Homo sovieticus. Roman, Zürich 1984, p. 362–368.

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could hardly be verified at that time. Nevertheless, the studies conducted at Harvard University in the 1950s showed that emigrants from the Soviet Union were strongly influenced by Communist indoctrination.23 However, to what extent the emigrants interviewed were representative of the “Soviet citizens” as such may only be speculated about.

Recommended literature

Arato, Andrew, “Civil society” gegen den Staat. Der Fall Polen 1980/81, in: Reinhard Fenchel/ Anna-Jutta Pietsch (ed.), Polen 1980–82. Gesellschaft gegen den Staat, Hannover 1982.

Gellner, Ernest, Bedingungen der Freiheit. Die Zivilgesellschaft und ihre Rivalen, Stuttgart 1995.

Inkeless, Alex/ Gleicher, David/ Rosow, Irving (ed.), The Soviet Citizen. Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, Cambridge (Mass.) 1961.

Orwell, Georg, 1984, Zürich 1950.

23 Alex Inkeless/ David Gleicher/ Irving Rosow (ed.), The Soviet Citizen. Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, Cambridge (Mass.) 1961.

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III. Existential system crisis and the decline of totalitarianism from the periphery

T

he compliant socialist subject does not need to be satisfied with the system. The history of communism after 1956 provides numerous outbreaks of social dissatisfaction. In a totalitarian state, the party can use violence against rebellions in the form of protests, demonstrations, or strikes. However, it becomes increasingly difficult for the party to handle a protest if it is well organised and has a determined leadership, as in such a case the protest cannot be easily presented as the work of “counter-revolutionaries” or “hooligans.” Moreover, the protest produces new political forces that may establish themselves as a political entity in the system.

To label these forces as “opposition” – as it occurs frequently – is wrong, because the banning of political opposition under communism cannot be disputed. Their recognition would entail political pluralism, i.e. an untenable situation for totalitarianism.

Therefore, if the non-communist political forces are not agents of the party-state, they should be regarded as resistance and not as opposition, even if they aim for the status of political opposition and at times refer to themselves as “democratic opposition” for tactical reasons.

The non-communist political forces can only be legally active in socialism if they unconditionally recognise the leading role of the party in the state and society. However, since only those activities are considered legal that are deemed lawful by the state party at the given time, the apparently unsteady criterion of legality is not sufficient for a satisfactory classification of political forces in totalitarianism. Thus, it is useful to additionally differentiate between autonomous and heteronomous political forces.

The criterion of autonomy makes it possible to take into account the degree to which the state party’s unrestricted claim to power

non-communist political forces

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is realised. Hence, the political forces that do not act as executive organs of the communist party can be considered autonomous. In contrast, the heteronomous political forces are supported by the ideological party state. Based on both criteria – legality vs. illegality on the one hand, and autonomy vs. heteronomy on the other – three groups of non-communist political forces (“actors”) can be identified.

The first group of actors is illegal and acts autonomously, which justifies their description as “heroic.” The so-called dissidents can be classified as “the Heroics.” The opposite group is guided in its actions by the communist party and enjoys legality. These are the “Conformists,” they include, for example, the “allied parties.”

From an analytical point of view, however, the third group is the most interesting, as it combines autonomous action with legality: the “Uprights” (see Table 3 below).

Table 3: Non-communist political forces in totalitarianism

political forces

legal

illegal

autonomous

the „Uprights”

the „Heroics”

heteronomous

the „Conformists”

does not apply

In the communist party-state, there were indeed individuals who, especially after 1956, succeeded in being recognised by the party as legal and in acting autonomously at the same time. Of course, these people had to endure the restrictions on autonomous action in the totalitarian state, but they were autonomous at least in the sense that they did not have to continuously affirm the totalitarian claim to power of the party, nor did they have to recognise the communist ideology as their own. Of all communist states, the “Uprights” were most widespread in Poland, where they were usually associated with or protected by the Catholic Church. The special status of the “Uprights” was expressed in the fact that they were allowed to distance themselves from the communist party’s unrestricted claim to power. From the perspective of those in power, they often served as a “safety valve” for social dissatisfaction with the system. Although they were not allowed

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to openly question the system, their very existence indicated that there was a potential for change. The “Uprights” were not allowed to openly criticise those in power (let alone the system), which was what distinguished them most from the political opposition in authoritarian systems.

The objectives of the non-communist actors can be divided into system-conformist and system-subversive ones. Objectives that conform to the system do not question the existing social order, while those which amount to the deliberate undermining of socialism are to be regarded as system-subversive. Political objectives can – in any given system – be covertly or openly pursued. In totalitarian and authoritarian systems, it is particularly common for political actors to not openly state their real objectives, as this would be counterproductive.

The criteria of openness and conformity to the system indicate three types of political objectives: the covertly system-subversive, the openly system-subversive and the system-conformist ones. These objectives can in turn be assigned to political forces, as Table 4 shows.

Table 4: Objectives of the non-communist political forces vis-á-vis the totalitarian system

political objectives

system-compliant

system-subversive

hidden

does not apply

hidden-system subversive (the “Uprights”, the “Conformists”)

open

open-system compliant (the “Conformists”)

offensive-subversive (the “Heroics”)

Hidden subversive objectives are pursued by “upright” and “conformist” individuals. Although the two groups differ significantly in terms of autonomy, the conformist politicians in totalitarianism sometimes believe that with their activities they are pursuing system-subversive objectives. By contrast, “heroic dissidents” in particular openly advocate system-subversive objectives, which is why they must expect persecution and even state-sanctioned murder. The situation is quite different for those “Conformists” who confine themselves to pursuing

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“totalitarian syndrome”

system-compliant goals. For this, they are rewarded by the state party and sometimes despised by the population.

Apart from Poland, where the autonomous and legal Catholic Church was sometimes able to meet as equals with the communist party and to advocate for other autonomous forces, communist-ruled societies were, in general, politically extremely passive.

The election of the Kraków Cardinal Karol Wojtyła as Pope in 1978 and the emergence of the “Solidarność” movement in 1980 emphasised this special position of Poland.

In Czechoslovakia, whose society was pacified after 1968, only small groups of dissidents who criticised the communist system emerged. Most dissidents in Czechoslovakia belonged to the most famous Charter 77. In the GDR, the dissident circles were even more manageable and were – as is well known – completely controlled by the Stasi.

The new political forces could thus become stronger or weaker over time in the totalitarian states of external origin. The theory of totalitarianism, drafted in the 1950s by Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzeziński, hardly helps to adequately assess this change. According to their theory, the “totalitarian syndrome” is composed of the following “symptoms”: the official ideology, the mass party, the terrorist secret police, the party’s almost complete monopoly of all means of communication, and the state’s monopoly of weapons as well as central control and domination of the entire economy.24 With the memories of the Third Reich and Fascist Italy still present in the 1950s, both of which Friedrich and Brzeziński considered totalitarian (their “syndrome” belongs to analogising concepts), the analysts considered war to be the most effective means of destroying “totalitarian dictatorships.” Their vision of the future is therefore not too optimistic, even though in his main work “Totalitarian Dictatorship,” written in collaboration with Brzeziński, Friedrich expressed the conviction that totalitarianism was a system incapable of surviving in the long term.25 The book includes a small chapter on resistance, however, Friedrich considered the chances of resistance as 24 Carl J. Friedrich, Totalitäre Diktatur. In Zusammenarbeit mit Professor Zbig­ niew K. Brzeziński, Stuttgart 1957, pp. 19 f.

25 Ibid. p. 258.

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being very small.26 This misjudgement can, at least partly, be traced back to the fact that both Friedrich and Brzeziński interpreted totalitarianism in a narrow way, merely as a political system. Thus, neither of them were able to properly recognise or analyse the social forces that could have brought about or promoted its disintegration.

The change of Soviet socialist totalitarianism, usually associated with the so-called de-Stalinisation after 1956, had several causes. Although the Soviet economy, which was largely based on forced labour during the Stalin era, had long since proved its inefficiency, “de-Stalinisation” was not a simple consequence of economic mistakes. For the Soviet leadership, uprisings in the GULAG in the early 1950s probably had a greater significance in this context. Most important, however, was the desire of the party and state apparatus to achieve greater security.

It is evident from Khrushchev’s memoirs and beyond, that the highest apparatchiks in Stalin’s reign lived in constant fear of death, which affected not only the highest political leaders but all other levels of the ruling apparatus.27 As the new head of the CPSU, Khrushchev set himself apart from Stalin by offering the functionaries more security, for which the totalitarian system certainly had to pay a high price. With the criticism of Stalin, the system was at least partially delegitimised, although Khrushchev left no doubt that the communist party’s unrestricted claim to power was to remain unquestioned.

Nevertheless, the new security that the party officials enjoyed from that point on changed the face of the system, which lost its “revolutionary” dynamics based on orgies of violence. Although the upper entities of the party-state still had effective sanction mechanisms in place after 1956, the use of power for private purposes became increasingly shameless. It would be wrong, however, to speak of corruption in this context, since corruption only occurs where the otherwise applicable legal rules are broken or circumvented, whereas in totalitarianism only fear or moral strength represent the barriers to selfish action.

In the apparatus of state and party, the central officials retained their key positions, but two phenomena reshaped

the new security

26 Ibid. p. 255.

27 Khrushchev, Nikita S./ Talbott Strobe (ed.), Khrushchev remembers: The Last Testament, London 1974.

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the balance of power. On the one hand, differences of opinion which had previously been kept secret were at times brought forward in the party leadership, yet full openness continued not to be an option. On the other hand, the central power apparatus was strengthened because the party leadership and the party top circle were increasingly depending on its support. These developments involved a certain deconcentration of power. As a result, a sort of “principalities” emerged in the Soviet Union republics with which the Kremlin “emperor” came to terms.

In terms of foreign policy, the Soviet Union and its colonies officially declared their support for the strategy of peaceful coexistence with “capitalism,” however not renouncing confrontation with the West in practice. The Cuban crisis of 1962 vividly demonstrated the Soviet will to expand.

Especially in the work of the intelligence services, which were still more successful than the Western ones, hardly anything changed after 1956. Their central fields of activity were military and, increasingly, industrial espionage and the promotion of communist parties loyal to Moscow and other allies in the West. They also attempted to exert a direct influence on the political events of democratic states, sometimes with success, as the history of the Federal Republic of Germany shows. The military competition between systems continued after 1956.

Despite all the systemic continuity, “de-Stalinisation” significantly changed the communist societies. After 1956, except for the communist states not belonging to the Warsaw Pact – such as Albania, China or North Korea which did not experience “de-Stalinisation” – most of the other communist party states limited themselves to the ritualised mobilisation of the population on the occasion of important holidays or the “fulfilment of the planned production target.” The terror directed against society diminished. The most spectacular measure in this context was the release of millions of prisoners from Soviet GULAG, which changed Soviet society. Also, most people who had been exiled

by Stalin during the war from the North Caucasus to Siberia and Central Asia returned to their homeland.

None of these developments, of course, meant that the security apparatus had stopped controlling the society. Rather, it was adapted to the new situation and the new requirements by

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increasingly concentrating on the prevention and infiltration of autonomous social activities.

Significant empirical studies of socialist subjects were conducted in the eighties and nineties. The research from the eighties originated mainly from Poland. These studies prove that the values of socialist ideology, especially egalitarianism, were highly popular. Poles judged the state by the extent to which it implemented these values. The disappointment that the political system always fell short of ideological promises led to a suspicious and critical attitude towards it.28 These research findings lead to the conclusion that the rebellious spirit of the Poles was partly due to successful socialist indoctrination.

Since the end of the eighties, Polish studies have been supplemented by research from other countries. According to Russian research from 1989-91, the homo sovieticus (official name: the “simple Soviet man”) socialised by the communist state actually existed. He was characterised by antagonisms and contradictions.

On the one hand, these individuals were convinced of their historical uniqueness and on the other hand, they were inclined to value strangers more highly than themselves. They combined the hope for state care with a hidden distrust towards the state. They recognised the state hierarchy and at the same time thought in extreme egalitarian categories. Eventually, they exhibited imperial posturing and yet were frustrated by the suppression of their national feelings. After the Stalin era, the “deconstruction of the Soviet man” had been initiated, whereby the negative characteristics of the homosos – i.e. their complexes, frustrations, distrust, and desire for egalitarianism – had prevailed over the positive ones. In the eighties, this change was accompanied by the proceeding dissolution of the system.29 The periodisation of the communist era into the time before and after 1956 is plausible. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the communist system went through several phases of development, depending on the problems faced and the goals pursued by the party. After (1) the conquest of power followed (2) the construction of the totalitarian system. (3) The

periodisation of the communist era

28 See Władysław Adamski/ Krzysztof Jasiewicz/Andrzej Rychard (ed.), Raport z badania „Polacy 1984”. Dynamika konfliktu i konsensusu, Warszawa (Uniwersytet) 1986.

29 Juri Lewada, Die Sowjetmenschen 1989–1992, Stenogramm eines Zerfalls, München 1993.

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consolidation of the system’s structures was followed by (4) attempting efficiency gains. In the 1980s, (5) the system was in open crisis, followed by (6) its dissolution.

This development pattern cannot be applied to all totalitarian regimes without further adjustment, because some countries had experienced serious crises before 1989: the GDR in 1953, Poland in 1956, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980–1981, and 1988–1989. All these crises not only put the political leadership under pressure to make decisions but also shook the very existence of the system. The communist parties affected by these crises were forced to push through decisions of great significance, such as the replacement of the entire party top circle. These crises, however, revealed the serious weaknesses in the legitimacy of communist totalitarianism.

In Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Soviet socialism could only be re-stabilised by the use of force. However, the Soviet military interventions that followed the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring led to the disappearance of the “Uprights” and “Heroics” from the political stage of both countries. The situation was different during the numerous systemic crises in Poland. Crises recurred periodically in this country because it had always proved to be possible to avert Soviet military intervention through an internal Polish solution of the previous crisis. This saved Poland from pacification following Soviet military intervention. It is noticeable that in particular the totalitarian states of external origins repeatedly entered states of crisis, which confirms the known thesis that the decline of empires starts at the periphery.

In the eighties, the “community of socialist states” was confronted with economic, political, social, and military problems that could no longer be solved. If a political system encounters unsolvable problems, it lapses into an existential systemic crisis. This crisis can only be overcome with by means of a system change.

In answering the general question of whether a system is in crisis, the criteria by which its stability and performance are measured play a decisive role, although in a totalitarian system obviously only the rulers determine these criteria. However, since communism was in competition with “capitalism,” it had to

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compete at least in part with its performance. Whereas the “capitalist” system had been in the middle of a technological revolution from the industrial to the information society since the 1970s, the communists continued to insist on the forced expansion of the heavy industry. The socialist economies were at best only capable of adapting new Western technologies; even technologies for their new weapons had to be bought in the West or obtained by industrial espionage.

Looking beyond weapons and raw materials, the centrally planned economies hardly produced any goods that could have been sold on the international markets. However, the Soviet Union was extremely well endowed with natural resources and was able to avert an economic catastrophe for decades by selling oil, gas and precious metals. The situation was different with the satellite states such as Czechoslovakia, the GDR, the Hungarian Socialist Republic and the People’s Republic of Poland. At the beginning of the 1970s, these countries engaged in a dangerous experiment of “consum socialism,” from which they hoped for both positive economic impulses and greater legitimacy. Accordingly, the higher standard of living was supposed to increase work motivation and thus economic system efficiency.

At the same time, these states were aiming for ever-closer economic cooperation with the West, which consisted primarily in taking out large foreign currency loans in “capitalist countries.”

This way they financed not only new production facilities but also the rising consumption, which initially lead to high economic growth, but in the interim caused a mountain of foreign debt. At the beginning of the 1980s, at least three communist states were effectively bankrupt: the German Democratic Republic, the Hungarian Socialist Republic and the People’s Republic of Poland. In Hungary, where the per capita debt to the West was the highest, even within the communist leadership, there was an increasing belief that the country could not escape the economic catastrophe without changing the economic system. However, nothing was done about it.

By contrast, the Romanian party top circle under Nicolae Ceauşescu decided to consistently reduce the debts that had grown in the 1970s with cuts in energy supplies, drastic restrictions on consumption, and by massively resorting to coercive measures.

This obstinate policy, however, did not exactly encourage other

“consum socialism”

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military weakness

states to follow suit, especially as it did not remedy the fundamental weaknesses of the centrally planned economy – hostility to innovation, waste of resources and labour, technological backwardness, and low productivity.

In the 1980s at the latest, the ecological consequences of the centrally planned economy became apparent. After having been pursued for decades without any consideration for the environment, industrialisation had turned almost all industrial centres of the Eastern Bloc into areas of ecological catastrophe. The communist economies had no means available to counteract this development.

The catastrophe of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl in April 1986 revealed, on the one hand, the link between technological backwardness and ecological destruction, and on the other hand both the inability and unwillingness of the political leaders to take appropriate care for the victims.

The military weakness of the Soviet Union was crucial, as was exemplified by the Red Army’s inability to bring Afghanistan under control after the 1979 invasion.

The existential system crisis also had two closely interwoven dimensions: a cultural and a demographic one. In all communist states, a new generation had grown up that did not remember the terror of the Stalin era, nor the years of war, and out of carefree naïveté, this generation had expectations of the state that the latter could not fulfil, thereby spreading disillusionment among the youth. It was specifically this generation that came under the constant influence of the new Western technologies and media – such as tape recorders and fax machines, video recorders, satellite dishes, photocopiers, etc. – which were gradually introduced into communist countries, making it easier to escape indoctrination by the state.

All these problems faced by the communist states would not have been enough to create an existential crisis if they had not been accompanied by a long-overdue activation of society by a kind of rebellion. This rebellion took on different dimensions and forms: protests, strikes, demonstrations, appeals by intellectuals, open criticism of the rulers and the system, free economic activities, illegal reproduction of forbidden books and magazines, the formation of associations without state permission, etc. The spontaneous appearance of society for the common good gave

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meaning to the rebellion and added a genuine political dimension to the existential system crisis.

Such a crisis carried the danger of the massive use of force, both domestically and regarding foreign policy, and even threat of a world war. These dangers could only be avoided because the Soviet leadership diagnosed the crisis in time and – albeit awkwardly – actually sought to resolve it. The situation was different in many other communist states. There, the original dogmatic state parties denied the crisis and monitored the developments in Poland, the Soviet Union, and Hungary with suspicion.

In terms of foreign policy, the main adversary of the Soviet Union, the United States of America, pursued an extraordinarily successful policy and exerted pressure. Under the leadership of Ronald Reagan (and since 1989, George Bush), the US demonstrated both the determination and strength to resist the “empire of evil” and the willingness to cooperatively assist the Soviet Union in its struggle with reforms.

As soon as the symptoms of the existential systemic crisis became obvious to the political actors in the respective communist country, the path to political upheaval was paved. This interpretation contradicts the opinion repeatedly expressed in analyses that dissatisfaction with material living conditions was the most decisive cause of the system change. This usually ignores the aforementioned fact that the crises mainly affected Central European states where the standard of living was highest. It is true, however, that the economic problems favoured the existential crisis, because in those countries the demands for an even better standard of living had to be higher, too. Moreover, it is undeniable that a decline in the standard of living often trigger protests and rebellions. Nonetheless, the Central European crises never had a primarily economic character, because in countries with a nationalised economy the desire for sausage had to be of a political nature.

As far as the end of communism is concerned, it has, up to this point, been explained and interpreted in two different ways.

While one explanation is actually intended for children, the other one dominates political science analysis. The first interpretation deals with the good communist party leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who one day appeared under the nickname Gorbi and did good to the world by giving the subjugated peoples back their freedom.

This fairy tale is extremely popular among adults in Germany.

material living conditions

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The common celebration of reunification in Germany, to which a few selected foreign politicians are repeatedly invited, confirms the public opinion in the wrong assumption that Gorbachev and a handful of Western politicians were responsible for the world-historical upheaval of 1989. In reality, however, the Western politicians were merely skilful administrators of this upheaval. Of course, this judgement does not apply to Gorbachev, who was in the midst of a permanent political storm during the 1980s and early 1990s and, despite all his efforts, was unable to keep up with the event dynamics in his country.

A number of political scientists also enjoy reciting the fairy tale of the good Gorbi. Of course, the majority of serious political analysts of communism assume that it was the death of the Marxist-Leninist ideology which lead to the death of totalitarianism. An ideology disappears or dies when its followers decline in numbers. According to Juan J. Linz, it was precisely for this reason that the elites of the communist regime lost their ability to mobilise the party and its organisations:

the lost faith in ideology

The fall of the ideology, its ossification and ritualisation, and the loss of any mobilising utopia ultimately meant that the cadres, especially the middle and lower levels, did not feel legitimised to deploy the intact and still large coercive apparatus in crisis situations. This resulted in negotiations with demonstrators and round tables [emphasis in original].30

Was the lost faith in ideology indeed the cause for the end of communism? Did this loss trigger the crisis of legitimacy of totalitarianism and deprive totalitarian mass mobilisation of its ground? This is contradicted by the indisputable fact that the ideology did not stop moving spirits only in the 1980s. Rather, it has always been popular almost exclusively among some – predominantly Western – intellectuals. As for the people living in totalitarianism, including the party cadre, most of them conformed to the ruling system not because they believed in Marxism-Leninism, but because they saw no other way out. Incidentally, in the totalitarian states with occupation syndrome, ideology was generally regarded from the outset as the indoctrination instrument of the “occupier.”

30 Linz, p. 35.

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Anyone who claims that communism collapsed because of the ideology’s death also says that ideology kept the totalitarian state alive. However, this assertion is wrong. The totalitarian state indeed needs an ideology that legitimises it. But for its existence – as in the case of other systems – the widespread conviction that the “real-existing” nation-state is permanent, even unshakeable, is much more important. In totalitarianism, of all systems, this conviction is generated despite the unpopular state ideology. The fear of state oppression contributes most to this.

Whether the people under socialism are inclined towards the ideas of justice and equality propagated by Marxism-Leninism does not play a decisive role in the communist state. After all, the proven popularity of these ideas nevertheless failed to save the totalitarian system overall.

The references to the death of the ideology and Mikhail, who wanted and did good, have a common denominator regarding their attempt to explain the collapse of communism. However, both ignore the dynamics of the events that led to this collapse, which follows the pattern of dissolving an empire and must be examined empirically.

The following frequency of events caused communism to fail.

The final parting from this system began on the periphery of the empire, specifically on the Baltic Sea coast in the Polish Summer of 1980. Those events were preceded by the visit of John Paul II to his homeland in 1979, which had strengthened the identity and, in particular, the organisational capacity of the Polish nation. The gathering of three million pilgrims in Częstochowa, probably the largest gathering in history, went smoothly, although it was predominantly organised by Church volunteers.

The largest wave of strikes in post-war Europe, which had been rolling over Poland since June 1980, forced the communist rulers to recognise the free trade union movement “Solidarity” – “Solidarność.” Within a few weeks, 80% of all employees in the country had joined this trade union, i.e. a good nine million people. A couple of months later, a free trade union of private peasants was formed with three million farmers. The legalisation of “Solidarność” was followed by a wave of countless smaller autonomous organisations. At about the same time, the Polish United Workers’ Party lost its “outer party”: the number of its members decreased

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perestroika

from three to two million. The party-state – the People’s Republic of Poland – was only able to meet this challenge because the validity of the “Breshnev Doctrine” was undisputed at the time.

The autonomous political actors at the head of “Solidarność” strove for legal status in 1980-81 with their partly hidden anti-communist programmatic. The declaration of martial law in December 1981 by the party leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski had aimed at destroying the free trade union movement and the other autonomous organisations in Poland. This, however, resulted in the emergence of the largest underground movement in post-war European history; one that can be classified as the “heroic” type.

The People’s Republic of Poland in the eighties was a totalitarian state of external origins with its state society devoting most of its energy to enforcing its unrestricted claim to power. This state was opposed by a society that was in many ways beyond the state’s influence.

To prevent a systemic crisis in the Soviet Union, like the one in Poland since 1980, the Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev had initiated the perestroika in 1986.31 Gorbachev did not aim at the abolition of socialism but assumed that a new policy promoting the activity of the subjects would result in a considerable increase in the system’s efficiency. Not for the first time in the history of Soviet socialism, however, the assumption that the communist system was capable of reform proved naïve. In the years of the perestroika, the Soviet economy developed even worse than in the preceding period of the strictly centralised system. The economic failure of Gorbachev resulted in the population increasingly turning away from socialism, with the result that more and more autonomous social structures developed in the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev also introduced the policy of glasnost’ – transparency. Hoping that a free discussion would help renew society, he loosened up censorship. Like perestroika, glasnost’ was not directed against the socialist state, and, also as with perestroika, glasnost’ developed a system-subversive momentum of its own, which its creator had not intended. If, for instance, free discussions about reforms in the state media were not possible because 31 Anatoli Tschernajew, Die letzten Tage einer Weltmacht. Der Kreml von innen, Stuttgart 1993, p. 62.

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of censorship, the new autonomous actors switched to the socalled samizdat, i.e. to the underground publishers.

By 1989 at the latest, the Soviet party top circle had lost control of the developments in many Union republics. It was confronted with the unintended consequences of the perestroika and glasnost’ initiated by Gorbachev: the catastrophic economic situation, social protests, new political forces as well as signs of decay within its ranks (open factionalism). The decisive factor, however, was the national movement in the Soviet republics, of which the Lithuanian “Sąjūdis” had become a model. Together with Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia likewise became the pioneers of structural change in the Soviet Union. Amongst the largest population-wise and most economically significant Slavic republics of the Soviet Union, Ukraine (especially its Western part) was the most politically active. A similar development was gradually taking place in the Caucasus and other republics. The activation of the Soviet nations since 1988 set the long-overdue system change in motion. The rebellious spirit finally reached Russia, where the Moscow party leader Boris Yeltsin even more unabashedly took advantage of nationalist and anti-communist sentiments in the power struggle against his political enemy Gorbachev. In the centre of the communist empire, the previously only latent tension between state society and society became manifest.

In the end, the Soviet Union too was confronted with a crisis similar to the Polish one, although both the extent and the degree of organisation of autonomous activities were smaller than those of its Western neighbour. As for the historical significance of Gorbachev in this context, his greatest merit is that he apparently rejected the reuse of the Stalinist methods of rule. He did not give up hope of being able to combine the spontaneous activities of society with the principles of the totalitarian state. Like most communist reformers, and unlike the reactionary communists, Gorbachev did not understand the naivety of this hope.

The development at the empire’s centre had an immense impact on foreign policy. As soon as the totalitarian system in the Soviet Union staggered, its satellites were presented with new opportunities for overcoming it. These opportunities were immediately exploited in Poland and Hungary, which in turn strengthened the system-subversive forces in the Soviet Union.

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Round Table

With some setbacks, the Polish departure from totalitarianism took until the peaceful change of system in the spring of 1989. In February 1989, after a few months of preliminary discussions, the first Round Table in the communist sphere of power was set up in Poland. There, representatives of the party-state, the hitherto prohibited “Solidarność,” and the state trade unions officially and media-effectively determined important modalities of the system change which had been negotiated in parallel secret talks between the communist party and “Solidarność” (with the Catholic Church as mediator). This was followed by the formation of the first government in Central Europe, whose prime minister – a Catholic “Solidarność” activist, Tadeusz Mazowiecki – was an anti-communist.

Parallel to the Polish and Soviet developments, the situation in Hungary changed dramatically, where the reformer took power within the communist party in May 1988. At about the same time as the Polish United Workers’ Party, the Hungarian Communist Party renounced its totalitarian claim to power at the turn of the years 1988–1989 by officially declaring its support for social pluralism. Therefore, at the beginning of 1989, the ideological party states in Poland and Hungary, and thus, totalitarianism, no longer existed. In both countries, it was now important to master the political and economic system change.

Only after a Round Table had also been set up in Hungary in June 1989 and the formation of the Mazowiecki government in Poland had been completed in September of the same year, did the first official signals come from Moscow that the Soviet Union would accept the system change of its satellites. In October 1989, at a press conference held in the United States, Gennady Gerasimov, the head of the Information Department at the Soviet Foreign Ministry, announced that the Breshnev Doctrine had been replaced by the Sinatra Doctrine, which read: “I will do it my way.” This joke put an end to the history of several decades of Soviet rule in Central Europe, which had cost millions of lives and ruined the countries concerned.

But even after that, in the autumn of 1989, the Soviet Union was not prepared to release its satellites from the Warsaw Pact for strategic reasons, particularly concerning Poland, as the following statement by Vitalij Svetlov, the long-standing head of the Polish department in the foreign policy department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in December 1992, shows:

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Poland was especially important to us. Hypothetically, we could have come to terms with the loss of Hungary or Czechoslovakia – they were remote, they were not so important to us. The loss of Poland would have been a catastrophe, it would have blocked our path to the West. Everyone thought at the time (autumn 1989) [emphasis in original] that the whole system of socialism in Europe and the world was threatened. If it had been overthrown in Poland, it would have led to the downfall of socialism on a global scale.32

It was only long after the events in the GDR (the opening of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and its consequences), Bulgaria (the fall of party leader Shivkov in November 1989), Czechoslovakia (the so-called Velvet Revolution in November 1989), and Romania (the “fake revolution” against Ceauşescu in December 1989) that the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. The last meeting of its Political Advisory Committee took place in June 1990, and at the end of March 1991, it disappeared for good.

In the course of 1990, the signs of the dissolution in the Soviet Union became obvious. It was primarily due to the desire for independence of many Soviet republics, including Russia, which was of decisive importance. It was accelerated by the failed coup of August 1991 and sealed in December of the same year by the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravtchuk, and the Chairman of the Belarusian Parliament Stanislav Shushkevitch.

Leszek Kołakowski strongly advocates the thesis that only pressure from society can cause the downfall of totalitarianism. Already in 1981, he wrote:

History leaves no doubt. Whatever has happened in any country to mitigate totalitarian dictatorships has come from the pressure of society, from resistance and struggle, never from self-correcting mechanisms of the state. Inevitably, the state and the ruling party showed a tendency to overrule such changes as soon as they felt strong enough again. And if it is true that almost everywhere – even in the Soviet Union – we can see cracks in the state’s all-encompassing control of social

32 Artur Hajnicz, Polens Wende und Deutschlands Vereinigung. Die Öffnung zur Normalität 1989–1992, Paderborn 1995, p. 57.

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life, this is not a symptom of the ‘democratisation’ of communism, but of its decay and decline.33

Recommended literature Friedrich, Carl J., Totalitäre Diktatur. In Zusammenarbeit mit Professor Zbigniew K. Brzeziński, Stuttgart 1957.

Hajnicz, Artur, Polens Wende und Deutschlands Vereinigung. Die Öffnung zur Normalität 1989–1992, Paderborn 1995.

Inkeless, Alex/ Gleicher, David/ Rosow, Irving (ed.), The Soviet Citizen. Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, Cambridge (Mass.) 1961.

Lewada, Juri, Die Sowjetmenschen 1989–1992, Stenogramm eines Zerfalls, München 1993.

Frank Grube und Gerhard Richter (ed.), Der Freiheitskampf der Polen.

Geschichte. Dokumentation. Analyse, Hamburg 1981.

Sinowjew, Alexander, Homo sovieticus. Roman, Zürich 1984.

Tschernajew, Anatoli, Die letzten Tage einer Weltmacht. Der Kreml von innen, Stuttgart 1993.

33 Leszek Kołakowski, “Die polnische Lektion,” in: Frank Grube /Gerhard Richter (ed.), Der Freiheitskampf der Polen. Geschichte. Dokumentation. Analyse, Hamburg 1981, p. 239–249, p. 243.

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IV. The institutional design of governmental system (constitution)

T

he reorganisation of the governmental systems began in many countries during the communist era with the introduction of the presidential office. Among the communist states, only Czechoslovakia retained the office it knew from the interwar period. In the other countries of the “Eastern Bloc,” it had been abolished. Before the existential system crisis of socialism, it had only been created in Romania for Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1974.

During the existential system crisis at the end of the 1980s, the presidential office was first reinstated in Poland. During secret negotiations (February–April 1989) it was implicitly agreed that Wojciech Jaruzelski, who had been responsible for the martial law in the 1980s, would be elected as the new head of state. At that time, the Breshnev Doctrine was still valid and the general was to guarantee that Poland would remain in the Warsaw Pact. One year later, the Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev also became state President. The final establishment of the office, however, was only achieved through constitution-making (the constitutional process) in the post-communist era.

In this process, which some political scientists term “institutional engineering,” the following factors have always played a significant role: 1. the constitutional tradition of the country concerned and (if no such tradition exists, or) the example of other countries, 2. the institutions of the regime to be overcome, 3. the daily political life of the period of constitution-making.

“Daily political life” can be understood as all political processes, developments, and actions that result from the assertion of current interests and procedures by political actors.

In this context both the duration of constitution-making and the constellation of political forces that influence this process plays an important role.

“institutional engineering”

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It is a known fact from history that the shorter the process of constitution-making and the less involved the authors of the constitution are in political struggles, the smoother the process is.

As early as 1959, Herbert J. Spiro recommended that a constitution be created by as small a group of experienced politicians as possible, who should not be obliged to make any other political decisions while working on the draft constitution.34 Previous processes of constitution-making often succeeded in fulfilling this postulate. After the constitutional process, however, it often turned out that the new constitution was inoperative.

In the 19th century, for instance, monarchs were often reluctant to respect the constitutional limitations of their power. Hence, a rapid constitution-making was no guarantee of a functioning constitutional regime.

It is noticeable that the democratisation of post-totalitarian states that failed to quickly complete the constitutional process often stalled. For example, Russia’s post-communist constitution was not adopted until December 1993 and was created under the circumstances of the violation of the constitution and the use of force. The constitution-making took even longer in Ukraine, which did not adopt a new basic law until June 1996, although in this case, the tanks did not open fire on the parliament. In Belarus, finally in November 1996, in the course of a peculiar coup d’état by President Aleksandr Lukashenka, an acceptable constitution dating from 1994 was transformed into a document that became the instrument by which the President has exercised his omnipotent power to this day.

These three examples could be an argument in favour of for the democratising effect of quick constitution-making if it were not for the example of Poland (see Table 5).

34 Herbert J. Spiro, Government by Constitution; the Political System of Democracy, New York 1959, p. 472.

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Table 5: Sequence of events in the countries studied until the adoption of the constitution

country Poland

Hungary

Bulgaria

Czechoslovakia

time and mode of political upheaval Round Table negotiations under “bottom-up” pressure (FebruaryApril 1989) Round Table (June-September 1989) to prevent „bottom-up“ pressure post-communist dominated Round Table (January–March 1990) rapid system changes without a Round Table (NovemberDecember 1989)

Slovakia

Czech Republic Romania

Russia

“fake revolution” in December 1989; afterwards postcommunist dominated Round Table (February–May 1989) failed coup in August 1991, followed by the dominance of Boris Yeltsin – including the violent dissolution of parliament in September/October 1993

adoption of the constitution 2 April 1997 – by the National Assembly; 25 May 1997 by referendum 18 October 1989 – constitutional amendment 12 July 1990 – by parliament

November 25, 1992 – The Federal Assembly adopts the constitutional law on the dissolution of the federation as of December 31, 1992 1 September 1992 – by the Slovak National Council (valid since 1 October 1992) 16 December 1992 – by the Czech National Council (valid since 1 January 1993) 21 November 1990 – by the Constituent Assembly; 8 December 1990 – by referendum 12 December 1993 – by referendum

Although Poland country took a full eight years for the final adoption of its new constitution, marked by political struggles within the institutional triangle of the head of state, government, and parliament, it nevertheless built up a democracy.

Moreover, taking into account that the Polish provisional constitution (the so-called Small Constitution of 1992) has been amended several times, one has to conclude that also in post-communist countries, the skilfully conducted constitution-making process has at best increased the chances of democratisation.35 35 Jerzy Maćków, Parlamentarische Demokratie und Autoritarismus. Erfolge und Misserfolge der postkommunistischen Verfassunggebung, Hamburg 1998.

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“nominalism” of the constitutional norm

The question of whether institutional engineering was a decisive factor for the democratisation of the post-communist countries does not need to be examined here. Rather, in the context of post-communist systems, it is more important to ask which institutional design these countries adopted as a result of integrating the head of state into inherited institutions.

The emergence and constitutional characteristics of post-communist governmental systems in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia are analysed here.36 Except for Russia, these are the former socialist countries that were not part of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia during the communist era. They represented totalitarian states of external origin that claimed to be sovereign “people’s democracies.” Since 1989/1990, they were able to independently shape their political systems. Russia is of interest here as the legal successor of the former centre in the communist empire and as the largest post-Soviet state.

Before the country analysis, it is essential to define the notion of constitution in terms of political science and to introduce the criteria by which the governmental systems are distinguished from one another.

Political scientists understand the constitution in the sense of the state constitution as the “nature, origin and mode of expression of the functions and institutions leading the state.”37 This understanding goes back to Aristotle’s politeia, which refers to the entire order existing in the polis. Following this term, Giovanni Sartori claims that constitutions are first and foremost instruments of government that limit and slow down political power and enable the exercise of political power to be controlled. Accordingly, constitutions determine “how norms are to be created; they do not, and should not, decide what is to be established by the norms.”38 Authoritarian and democratic regimes have either a “nominalist” or “normative” constitution. Karl Loewenstein explains the “nominalism” of the constitutional norm with the allegory of a suit that does not fit the owner. This is the case when the “actual 36 Ibid.

37 Hans Boldt, Einführung in die Verfassungsgeschichte, Düsseldorf 1984, pp. 174f.

38 Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering, Houndmills et. al. 1997 (2nd Edition), p. 200.

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state of affairs ... does not or not yet allow for the full integration of the constitutional norms into the dynamics of political life.”39 It is evident that in authoritarian political systems, the temptation to consider the constitution as nominalistic has at times to be strong. On the contrary, in constitutional democracies, where the limitation and control of state power require the de facto applicable constitutional norm, “the suit must fit well.” Hence, democracies promote the “normative” character of the constitution.40 Only in totalitarianism does state power claim to treat the law as a mere instrument of power. Here the constitution takes on a “semantic” character (Loewenstein uses the term “masquerade” in this context).41 During the post-communist constitutional process, the main concern was to design a system of institutions with an effective executive branch capable of dealing with the crisis-ridden legacy of state-subjugated society. The political upheaval and the constitution-making differed from country to country.

In political science, despite endless disputes over presidentialism and parliamentarism, the majority of scholars still hold the intuitive opinion, even popular among laymen, that the presidential system of government is characterised by a President who wields great powers and the parliamentary system of government by a “strong Prime Minister.” The idea of presidentialism as a regime of the “strong hand of the President,” which is capable of solving problems through dictatorial decision-making, is also popular in post-communist countries. This vision is contrasted with an equally widespread “lyrical model” of parliamentarism, in which the government is held in check by the parliament. According to this model, presidentialism meant a strong executive that dominated the parliament, while parliamentarism produced a parliament that was strong when compared to the executive. In reality, the opposite is the case, as is apparent in the still best typology drafted by Winfried Steffani.42 Steffani classifies the existing systems into the categories “parliamentary” or “presidential” based on the “primary” criterion 39 Ibid. p. 153.

40 Ibid. p. 196.

41 Karl Loewenstein, Verfassungslehre, Tübingen 1969 (2. Edition), pp. 154f.

42 Winfried Steffani, Gewaltenteilung im demokratisch-pluralistischen Rechtsstaat, in: „Politische Vierteljahreszeitschrift”, No. 3/1962, pp. 256–282.

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of the removal of the government.43 Where the parliament has the right to remove the government, one can speak of a parliamentary system. If, in turn, the head of state is also head of government in personal union, or the head of government depends exclusively on the head of state, the system is to be classified as presidential. The answer to the question of who may remove the government is to be found at the level of the constitutional organs: “that is the constitution itself (as soon as a written constitution is presented) and relevant laws, ordinances, rules of procedure as well as their technical commentary and, above all, their legally binding interpretations.”44 Steffani adds “supplementary” criteria to his typology, which make it possible to subdivide and analyse the basic types. These supplementary criteria can, in turn, be divided into secondary (almost always present in one of the two main types of government) and tertiary (occurring in both main types) distinguishing characteristics. Since parliamentary systems, as opposed to the “closed executive” of presidentialism, have a “dual” (“divided”) executive, supplementary criteria can be used to decide whether the parliamentary system under examination is characterised by presidential or Prime Ministerial dominance.

According to Steffani, the tertiary characteristics include bicameral systems, constitutional jurisdiction, unitary or federal statehood, direct election of both the parliament and the head of state, and referendums.45 In this context, it is worth mentioning the legislative initiative and the legislative veto of the head of state, which is often crucial in the political process. Tertiary characteristics are neither typical for parliamentary systems nor for presidential ones which is why they are not listed in the Table 6.

43 Winfried Steffani, Gewaltenteilung und Parteien im Wandel, Opladen 1997, p. 113.

44 Ibid., p. 135.

45 Ibid., pp. 117f.

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Table 6: Parliamentarianism and presidentialism according to Winfried Steffani (1962, 1997)*

government system

parliamentary (dual executive)

presidential (closed executive)

criteria

examples

– the primary criterion: parliament can remove the government (“removal”) – secondary criteria: government majority and party discipline in parliament necessary, opposition present, power to dissolve parliament, compatibility of the electoral mandate and the ministerial office

– in monarchies: England (prime minister or cabinet dominance) – in republics: France 1793 (dominance of assemblies), France of the III. and IV. Republic (executive cooperation), Federal Republic of Germany (chancellor dominance), Weimar Republic, Finland, France of the V. Republic (presidential dominance) – the primary criterion: head of – in monarchies: state is the chief executive in German Empire personal union, or the chief 1871 (constitutional executive can be removed by monarchy) the head of state – in republics: USA – secondary criteria: frequently (President is changing voting majorities, government), Latin fixed term of office for the America (President legislative and executive as chief executive branch, no right of removal, with a council of incompatibility of the electoral ministers), Switzerland mandate and the ministerial (President integrated office into government as its chairman)

* Other typologies can be found in Table 8, 9, 10, 11 in the appendix.

As mentioned, all communist constitutions were “semantic” in character. If they had not resembled a masquerade, the core of the political system would have been the government by assembly with parliament as the highest organ of the state. Since such a system does not need a head of state, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (in the Soviet Union) or the Council of State (in the GDR and the People’s Republic of Poland), which originates from parliament, would have represented the state. In reality, the party leader was the de facto all-powerful head of state, allowed even to disregard the constitutional norms.

Every effort to bring constitutional practice closer to the constitutional norm had to lead to the strengthening of popular

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representation. This is what happened at the end of Soviet socialism. However, even then, the normative constitution with government by assembly was not imaginable, for three reasons. First, there was a strengthening of the government, which replaced the increasingly weakened communist party. Second, the communists hoped to use the presidential office that was to be created to secure their power. Third, in the existential crisis of the communist system, an integrative office of the state President seemed necessary.

The institutional legacy of the government by assembly and the new office of the head of state forced all post-communist systems onto the path of dual executive power. This predetermined the decision for the parliamentary system of government. This fact is confirmed by the compilation of the selected constitutional provisions in table “selected constitutional provisions of the examined states”.

A look at the new systems shows that the authoritarian constitutional practice of several post-communist regimes does not arise from constitutional norms. The differences in the country-specific arrangements within a divided executive order are not significant enough for this. Even in Russia, where the powers of the President are exceptional, the Duma can remove the government that is close to the President.

Studying the lengthy Polish constitution-making allows for the analytical opportunity to include the influence of daily political life. Poland was the only communist country to enter the political transition with a large number of anti-communist political forces that were well organised and brought with them years of political experience from the underground. The most important of these structures was, of course, the trade union movement “Solidarność.” All these organisations have legally participated in the political process since 1989, facing the challenge of adapting their identity to the conditions of a radical economic and social transformation. The joint fighters against communism were to become representatives of different interests. The brief constitutional process of the other post-communist countries, on the other hand, is paradigmatic for the transformation of communist regimes in an environment of few organised political and economic interests.

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The social and economic reforms were initiated in Poland before the adoption of the new and final basic law. Thereafter, Poland took the risk of first constructing the constitutional reality and only then the constitutional norm. Less important in this context was the choice of the economic shock therapy as the path of economic transformation. During this turbulent period of constitution-making, which lasted more than eight years, majorities in parliament were lost several times. The formation of the government therefore repeatedly resembled a tightrope act. The reserve power of the President was often strained. The greater his role in forming the government and determining policies as a whole, the more likely it seemed that a constitution would be adopted that would result in presidential dominance. The more likely this again seemed, the greater the efforts of political opponents to prevent such a constitution. And finally: the more frequently and clearly the constitution-making process was influenced by the problems of daily political life, the less Poland’s long constitutional tradition seemed to be useful. The large number of pre-communist constitutions chosen as models complicated the constitution-making. Considering the multiple ruptures in the history of Polish constitutionalism, too much reflection on the past was of no use when creating a constitution. This reflection threatened to shift the discussion of the constitution to the historical level.

The constitution-making in Poland since 1989 was tied to the terms of office of four parliaments. The first stage of the constitution-making process started, as the communist-implemented parliament carried out a constitutional amendment on 7 April 1989, which was a result of the secret negotiations between “Solidarność” and the communist leadership that were held in parallel with the Round Table. For “Solidarność,” the new constitutional provisions that paved the way for the independence of judges (article 60) were among the most significant. However, the most spectacular was the creation of two state organs: the Senate and the President elected by the National Assembly (consisting of the deputies of the Sejm and the Senate). The second chamber of parliament was necessary so that the only “semi-democratic” elections to the Sejm, negotiated at the Round Table, could be accompanied by fully democratic elections to the Senate. The Senate, elected on the basis of majority voting, was granted the power to intervene in legislation. Should the Senate reject a bill,

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Contract Sejm

the Sejm would need a two–thirds majority to overrule its veto (art. 27.1 and 2). The President, who de facto presided over the coercive branches of the state, was needed to signal to Poland’s communist neighbours the predictability of Poland’s transformation and to protect the interests of the nomenklatura.

The head of state had the sole right to propose the Prime Minister to parliament (art. 32.f1.6). When forming a government, the Prime Minister was dependent on the approval of the President.

The head of state could also use his veto against a law passed by the Sejm, which the Sejm could only overrule by a two-thirds majority. At that time, legal experts associated with “Solidarność” criticised this hurdle, which was higher than in France (requiring absolute majority of votes). Equally controversial were the regulations that defined the powers of the head of state in crises.

The President was given the right to declare a state of emergency lasting three months. However, during the period of the state of emergency, neither could the Sejm be dissolved nor could the Constitution and electoral law be changed (art. 32.i.4 and 5). Similarly, the Spanish Constitution of December 1978, for instance, explicitly excludes any constitutional amendment during a state of war, alert, emergency or siege (art. 169). The Constitution of the French Republic (art. 89) or the German Grundgesetz (art. 79 (3)) prohibit any amendment of the constitution that alters the foundations of the state.

The second stage of the constitution-making was associated with the Sejm of the tenth parliamentary term of the People’s Republic and (since the end of 1989) the Republic of Poland (19891991). This so-called Contract Sejm did not achieve the noble objective of adopting a new Constitution on 3 May 1991. The Constitutional Committee of the Sejm and the Senate worked out their respective projects between December 1989 and summer 1991. There also existed some party and expert projects. But the two-thirds majority required for the adoption of the Constitution, which was conceivable at the beginning of the Contract Sejm, decreased over time. The political camp of “Solidarność,” which dominated the two chambers of parliament despite the “negotiated majority” of post-communists in the Sejm (in the democratically elected Senate, it held 99 of the total 100 seats), broke up into several factions throughout 1990, some of which developed into new political parties. The prepared constitutional projects

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were therefore bequeathed to the Parliament, this time already democratically elected in October 1991.

The third stage of the constitution-making was initiated with the “second founding election” on 27 October 1991. The Sejm of the Republic of Poland, freely and democratically elected for the first time, suffered from the fragmentation of the political forces.

Under these conditions, President Wałęsa managed to establish a constitutional practise that gave him the right to participate in the decision-making process not only concerning the appointment but also on the composition of the government. The appointment of ministers of the interior, exterior, and defence was ceded to him. The expanding power of the presidential office was propagated by Wałęsa as a means of political stabilisation.

Only amidst the context of this constitutional practice can it be understood that a parliament that had not been able to support any government for more than ten months could prove willing and able to achieve a two-thirds majority for a comprehensive constitutional amendment. The Amendment of 17 October 1992 (“Constitutional Law on the Mutual Relations between the Legislative and Executive Powers and on Territorial Administration”), usually referred to as the “Small Constitution,” left no doubt that the government could only be removed by Parliament.

The amendment indicated that the President has a say in the appointment of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defence (art. 61). It also certified the President’s “general leadership” in the field of foreign policy [art. 32(1)] as well as internal and external security of the State (art. 34). These were all “stronger” powers than those of the Constitution of the Fifth French Republic (articles 15, 20, 21 and 52).

However, as they were still vaguely formulated, they could not be undisputed in constitutional practice, unlike the usual practise in France.

All in all, the Small Constitution written by a group of deputies was a hard-fought compromise with the President, although in the end, it limited the powers of the head of state. In parallel with the adoption of this constitutional law, the Constitutional Committee of the National Assembly continued its work on the new constitution.

The parliamentary elections of 19 October 1993 introduced the fourth and final stage of the Polish constitutional process.

“Small Constitution”

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victory of the postcommunist alliance

They brought the victory of the post-communist alliance. The smaller factions, mostly originating from the former “Solidarność” camp, which together received about 30% of the votes, did not move into Parliament. Cohabitation between the President from the “Solidarność” camp and a post-communist government began, which lasted until Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s victory over Lech Wałęsa in the presidential race of November 1995. Until then, Wałęsa had led a fight “on the edge of the law” against the parliament in 1994.

The permanent dispute between the President and the parliamentary majority did not stop at the Constitutional Commission of the National Assembly. The Commission was often accused of being unrepresentative. Thus, a discussion on the mode of writing and adopting the Constitution, accompanied by conflicts between the parliamentary majority and the head of state, arose. These conflicts heated up the political climate. In April 1994, Wałęsa threatened to dissolve Parliament “even if there [was] no legal basis for it.” As a result, a compromise was reached. The constitutional law on the preparation and adoption of the constitution of 23 April 1992 was finally amended in favour of the President.

The extremely narrow victory of the post-communist presidential candidate Kwaśniewski over Wałęsa in November 1995 did indeed remove the tensions from the dual executive. However, this meant that the decision between the model of majority and consensus democracy had not been taken. The absolute dominance of the ruling coalition with its radical reform programme, which is typical of a consensus democracy, remained undisputed in 1989–1990. This dominance was initially backed by the overwhelming popular support for the Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. However, the speed at which this support declined, and the formerly united camp of “Solidarność” disintegrated, shook the consensus model.

The fluidity of the nascent organisations and the party system further complicated the development of a majority or consensus democracy. The presidential elections in November 1995 showed that two major camps had now established themselves in Poland: the post-communists and the many post-”Solidarność” parties. The success of the constitution-making depended on the achievement of a large parliamentary majority. The Constitutional Committee had an easier time with the President, although

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Kwaśniewski, who had previously advocated a weak presidential office, began to praise the provisions of the Small Constitution that strengthened the office of head of state, shortly before the presidential elections.

The most important and controversial constitutional debate in the National Assembly took place on 24–28 February 1997.

Both the President and most of the members of parliament were interested in a quick closure of the constitution-making process so that several compromises were reached. On 2 April, the National Assembly adopted the constitution by a large majority.

The constitutional referendum took place on 25 May 1997.

The result was not overwhelming. With a voter turnout of about 43%, about 53% supported the new Basic Law. About 46% of the participants voted against it.

The constitutional design of the Third Polish Republic is characterised by the dominance of the Prime Minister. The Table 7 below shows the evolution of the Polish constitutional norm since 1989.

Table 7: Change and continuity of the constitutional norms during the Polish constitution-making

constitutions norms removal of the government right of the President to dissolve parliament compatibility of the ministerial office with the mandate of the deputy countersignature of the presidential acts by the government election of the President

Constitution of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland People’s Republic and the „Small of Poland (as of constitution” (as of 7 April 1989) 17 October 1992)

Constitution of the Republic of Poland (as of 25 April 1997)

by Sejm (art. 37.1.)

by Sejm (art. 66)

by Sejm (art. 158)

yes (art. 30.1.)

yes [art 4(4), art 98(4) and (5)]

yes (art. 98.4. and 5.)

yes

yes (article 8)

yes [art. 103(1)]

yes (art. 32f.2.)

yes (art. 46 and 47)

yes [art. 144(2)]

by the National Assembly, consisting of the Sejm and Senate (art. 32a.1.)

popular election (art. 29)

popular election [art. 127(1)]

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constitutions norms

Constitution of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland People’s Republic and the „Small of Poland (as of constitution” (as of 7 April 1989) 17 October 1992)

President vis-à-vis the government

can chair the government [art. 32f. 1.8]

can chair the government [art. 38 (2)]

legislative initiative of the head of state

yes, by a two-third majority vote of the Sejm (art. 27.5.) yes (art. 20.4.)

yes, by a two-third majority vote of the Sejm [art 18(3)] yes [art. 15(1)]

decision on state of war and emergency

by the President (art. 32.i.1.2.)

by the President (art. 36, 37)

veto right of the President

Constitution of the Republic of Poland (as of 25 April 1997) can chair the Cabinet Council (not the government) (art. 141) yes, by a three-fifth majority vote of the Sejm [art. 122(5)] yes (art. 118) by the President, but at the request of the government; confirmation by the Sejm also required (art. 230, 231)

The findings of the constitution-making in Poland were correctly summarised by Wiktor Osiatyński: 1. The constitution-making was primarily shaped by political leaders and already “institutionalised elements of the power structure”: parliament, government, and head of state.

2. The formation of a large number of political parties called for the inconsistency of Polish politics, while the constitution-making required a high degree of uniformity.

3. The political parties did not do justice to the problems of the constitution-making because they were primarily interested in gaining support from the electorate.

4. The requirements of the constitution-making contradicted the requirements of governability. For the sake of governability, the Polish electoral law was supplemented by a high threshold clause, which called into question the representativeness of the constituent.

Also, in Russia, economic reforms were initiated before the adoption of the new constitution. However, the resulting delay in the adoption of the constitution was handled differently than it was in Poland. In autumn 1993, President Boris Yeltsin had the

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unmanageable parliament bombarded by tanks. This enabled the constitution-making to be completed quicker than in Poland (in December 1993), but at the price of dubious legitimacy and institutional design, according to the ideas of a President who disregarded the constitution.

“Keeping open” the constitutional question for such a long time disallowed both Poland and Russia the opportunity to shape the government institutions in such a way that they could have responded better than other countries to the challenges of the post-communist system transformation. Rather, the delay tempted political actors to design their constitutional norms in such a way that they could seize as much power as possible. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin proved to be the illegal winner of this power struggle. In Poland, on the other hand, a constitutional compromise was reached.

The emergence of post-communist systems decisively contributed to the fact that in the literature of the 1980s and 1990s, the “institutionalism” seemed to supplant the sometimes prevailing “paradigm of behaviouralism.” It is significant that most authors, regardless of their respective concepts of presidentialism and parliamentarianism, emphasised the strengths of the latter.

Guillermo O’Donnell warned that presidentialism is more likely to foster delegative democracy than parliamentarianism. Juan Linz, in his highly acclaimed essay on the dangers of presidentialism, pointed to the rigidity of presidential regimes and the elasticity of parliamentary regimes, which would make the latter a better “fit for transition.” Giovanni Sartori criticised American presidentialism as a system of weak executive power that can only become efficient if the separation of executive and legislative powers prescribed by the constitution is disregarded – not a good recommendation for new democracies. Alfred Stepan and Cindy Skach also praised the “purely” parliamentary system.

It would be better suited for post-communist states, not least because it tended to seek majorities for government programmes and was without the tendency to govern on the fringes of the constitutional norm.

It is doubtful whether this discussion brought any new insights. Walter Bagehot already valued the parliamentary system more highly than the presidential one because the separation of powers in the American system produces a weak, ineffective

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executive. Hence, in legislative processes in the United States a semi-connection … “between the legislative and the executive” is inevitable. Harold J. Laski stated in another classic work already in 1940 that the presidential regime contains a weak executive that usually has a chance to prevail against Congress only in times of crisis.

Juan Linz named two main dangers that the “systems of dual executive power” (by which he meant more or less parliamentary systems with presidential dominance) would entail. On the one hand, such systems are often introduced where there is a strong distrust towards political parties, even though these systems are particularly dependent on political parties. On the other hand, with a dual executive, the probability of the army being involved in politics be relatively high. The president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces could beguile either the army (its chief of staff) or the minister of defence into arranging with the head of state, thus bypassing the Prime Minister. Arend Lijphart, on the other hand, spoke out against strengthening the presidential office, arguing that this would lead to the abolition of majoritarian democracy, although consensus democracy is considered appropriate for countries with deep cleavages.

In contrast, Shugart and Carey advocated strengthening the position of the head of state in post-communist states, which included, in their opinion, the general election of the president: “Only with a directly elected president do [the new democracies] have potential advantages in conflict resolution.” These authors thus supported the use of the political reserve power of the President in post-communist states. Shugart stressed that a strong President would minimise the risk of an unstable government. Similarly, Stephen Holmes pointed out the advantages of a strong President in an institutional system that does not know disciplined and well-organised parties and faces extraordinary challenges.

All these warnings and advice had an abstract character. The post-communist states were almost perceived as a single entity, thus ignoring the differences, which may have been decisive for the success of democratic institutionalisation. It is true that in the 1990s, all the countries concerned had very few political parties, which are central to the functioning of the parliamentary systems in particular, Moreover, there were hardly any genuine lobby groups, but there was the corrupt activity of the nomenklatura

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cliques in the state apparatus and society. Given the broad social crisis and the social change that was taking place, it was not unusual for volatile cleavages to be a common phenomenon. However, such descriptions of the initial situation are not sufficient to speculate on the chances of development towards democracy or authoritarianism in a particular country. It requires a more differentiated view. This was indicated by Giovanni Sartori when he reiterated the platitude that the best form of government is the one that can be best adopted in a specific country.

Recommended literature

Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution. With an Introduction by R.H.S. Crossman, Ithaka/New York 1995.

Baylis, Thomas A., Presidents Versus Prime Ministers. Shaping Executive Authority in Eastern Europe, in: “World Politics”, No. 48/April 1996, pp. 297-323.

Lijphart, Arend, Presidentialism and Majoritarian Democracy: Theoretical Observations, in: Juan J. Linz/ Arturo Valenzuela (ed.), The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Baltimore/London 1994, pp. 91–105.

Linz, Juan J., Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?, in: Juan J. Linz/Arturo Valenzuela (ed.), The Failure of Presidential Democracy, Baltimore/London 1994, pp. 91–105.

Ludwikowski, Rett R., Constitution-making in the Region of Former Soviet Dominance. With Full Texts of All New Constitutions Ratified through June 1995, Durham/London 1996.

Maćków, Jerzy, Parlamentarische Demokratie und Autoritarismus. Erfolge und Misserfolge der postkommunistischen Verfassunggebung, Hamburg 1998.

Sartori, Giovanni, Comparative Constitutional Engineering, Houndmills et. al. 1997 (2. Edition).

Spiro, Herbert J., Government by Constitution; the Political System of Democracy, New York 1959.

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V. Economy and Justice

C

ommunists aim for the realisation of an Umma, i.e. a “community based on the shared faith and the implementation of its law” (Ernest Gellner). Unlike Islam and the other Abrahamic religions, the communist faith is based on a secular scripture. The works of Karl Marx and other Marxist “classics” (Lenin among them) are to bring man not closer to God but to a just society.

The writings of Marxism-Leninism contain several dogmas, which are all based on the rejection of the market. Those who consider the voluntary exchange of goods as the cause of all injustice theoretically advocate for the utopia of communism, which is free of exploitation and therefore just; in reality, however, they advocate for a society in which the management of scarcity replaces economic activity.

Nonetheless the historical success or failure of the communist states can and should be disputed. If one asks about the implementation of the socialist idea under Soviet socialism, this success must be considered immense, especially in the economic field. The communists indeed replaced the market with a new economic order which, according to the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, did not know private ownership over the means of production.

Since 1989, reversing this “fatal success” has meant no less than the destruction of the structure of the socialist economies. Although what must be kept in mind, of course, is that for the economic basis of the transformation countries to survive the system change, the destruction could not happen in one fell swoop. The general public in the countries concerned grasped this fact more accurately than the majority of Western analysts because people in the post-communist countries had themselves experienced the dark absurdity of the socialist project: Socialism would represent the “longest and most difficult path

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from capitalism to capitalism.” The forthcoming transformation would resemble “the transformation of a fish soup into an aquarium.” The “transformation of the aquarium into a soup pot” that preceded it an eternity ago would have been easier. The economic system change could be compared to the conversion of road traffic from left to right while traffic is moving.

Those who could not come up with better metaphors conjured up “normality” or “life in a normal country,” which they opposed to the “anomie” of communist everyday life. After decades of socialism, the economic transformation therefore proceeded under the slogan “no experiments.” It was a matter of imitation of the Western economic model that was associated with modernity and prosperity, which were considered the foundations of a just society. The hope that the “return to normality” would be painless or at least short, arose from the conviction that under the surface of socialism the pre-totalitarian capacities of society had survived.

The uncertainties at the beginning of the system change were reinforced by the fact that hardly anyone was able to give an accurate assessment of the condition of totalitarian economies. Although, for example, the GDR economy had been researched by economic institutes of the Federal Republic for decades, the absurd assumption that it was one of the best in the “Eastern Bloc” was widespread among German experts. This ignorance, caused by national self-complacency, later contributed to wrong decisions in the process of German reunification.

Similarly unjustified were the judgments made in the West about the other post-totalitarian economies, because the macroeconomic indicators and other data provided by the socialist institutes had hidden the real conditions for decades. The centrally planned economy had known neither economic accounting nor normal money, nor autonomy from politics. Only the confrontation with the market brought serious conclusions about the actual strength of the centrally planned economy. The result was devastating: in the post-communist countries, virtually no internationally competitive consumer goods were produced, their industrial parks were archaic, and their infrastructure was in a deplorable state. In order to get rid of this legacy, huge efforts were needed.

Transforming the socialist economy into a market economy meant liberalising, stabilising, and privatising it.

liberalising, stabilising, and privatising

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Liberalisation included allowing free economic activity, releasing prices that had previously been set by the state, and opening national borders for the import and export of goods, services, and capital. However, liberalisation was not allowed to enable free wage-setting in state-owned enterprises, as even economically justifiable rapid wage increases in a few profitable enterprises would have undermined the fight against the inflation that had been an inevitable consequence of the price of liberalisation. In other words: in the initial phase of the transformation, the simultaneous liberalisation and stabilisation of the post-totalitarian economy was only possible at the expense of the employees. Stabilisation was also served by the reduction in government spending, which had both negative social and political effects, because, for the economically weak – and in a society without private ownership, they represented the overwhelming majority – it was difficult to cope with a strict financial policy.

Under these conditions, the aforementioned hope for early normality in the market economy became the important political capital of the transformation. The stronger the “legitimacy advance” of the market economy (the “legitimacy in anticipation”), the more consistently the painful reforms could be carried out, and the more prolonged the time frame became in the first period of the economic transformation.

In this time window of reform, the invisible hand of the market acted far from any notion of justice, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but always ruthlessly consistent: those who had nothing to offer received nothing. It was at least a two-year period of extreme price increases, sharply falling real wages, mass unemployment, numerous insolvencies and a dramatic fall in gross domestic product. Broad levels of the population, such as the employees of state farms, lost their jobs permanently, which is why entire regions began to depend on lousy support provided by the state. In these regions, the homo sovieticus had no chance at all to transform into a citizen.

Admittedly, the market economy also brought normal money and consumer goods for the first time in decades. Meanwhile, however, the store shelves that filled up at breath-taking speed did not create the desired prosperity, but rather the appalling realisation that in a poor country, poor people had been released into freedom.

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Before a modern market economy could have been established, the legitimacy advance for a new system had disappeared.

This closed the first and opened the second window of the transformation: that of market balance. However, even this success, which in historical terms was tremendous, did not create a spirit of optimism. Most people simply had no reason to be satisfied, even though inflation was under control, the increase in unemployment as well as the decline of the gross domestic product were halted, and the economy began to grow. In spite of the dissatisfaction of the people, however, the new, fragile balance stabilised at a low level; there was no question of prosperity.

Meanwhile, society, at a breathtaking pace, split up into economic winners and losers of the system change. The middle class, which forms the social basis of civil society and democracy, only emerged in the medium and long term. In contrast, the class of the nouveau riche, who were often mentally overwhelmed by the moral imperative of leading a modest or at least inconspicuous lifestyle, consisted of those who profited most quickly from the gradual solution of the third task of the economic system change – privatisation.

The privatisation had two dimensions. The so-called small one was mainly concerned with small businesses in the service sector and could be completed within a few months or years as there were relatively many people who could buy a small shop or company from the state. This is where the bases of the future middle class took shape.

The so-called large privatisation, in contrast, concerned on the one hand a few “prime cuts” of the socialist economy, which were usually distributed among the new entrepreneurs who were once part of the communist state apparatus. On the other hand, the heavy industry, which the communist state had been most proud of, was to be privatised. After about a decade, this privatisation of technologically backward companies, plagued by hidden unemployment and the inability to compete on the international market, resulted in a share of state ownership typical of modern market economies.

The great hopes that were associated with the so-called popular privatisation remained unfulfilled. The state did indeed sell off the shares of its companies. The experiment of “just privatisation,” however, benefited only those who, thanks to their

large privatisation

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networks within the state apparatus, were able to raise the capital with which they could purchase shares cheaply.

In the 1990s, it was still often assumed that the spectacular de-industrialisation of Eastern Germany was unique and had been caused by the sudden West German competition and by the conversion from the GDR currency to the DM at a one-to-one ratio, which could not be justified economically. In the meantime, however, it has become evident that other post-socialist economies, which had low labour costs, rarely managed to maintain their industries in the market economy, too. In principle, this only succeeded when large foreign corporations took over the ailing companies and invested in them.

However, foreign investment prevented the development of domestic companies, which, after decades, proved to be problematic. Indeed, the economies of Central, Northeast, and Southeast Europe have partly developed into the extended work bench of large foreign groups and companies. Despite their now often flourishing economies, they may fall into the trap of moderate development once their previous growth promoters – low labour costs and EU subsidies – have been exhausted.

The economic reform measures initially caused the gross domestic product to decrease by at least 20 per cent; in some post-Soviet states, where the transformation of the economic system had not been carried out consistently, this slump reached even more than half of their previous economic output.

It was clear from the very start that for people who lost their jobs and had no prospect of new employment as a result of privatisation, the successful recovery of their company was no consolation. Nor could they be impressed by the argument that without privatisation it would not only have been them but all employees to lose their jobs. The revolutionary aim to move from a centrally-planned to a market economy was hence associated with extremely high social costs and major political risks. The politicians who faced this task had to expect that economic reforms would cost them votes. The question of how to approach these reforms was therefore of great political relevance and was answered in two ways.

The first answer was provided by the so-called gradualists, according to whom the necessary economic reform measures were to be taken in small steps, always taking care that the weak

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society would not be burdened with the costs of the reforms. In contrast, the supporters of the so-called shock therapy – sometimes referred to as “big bang” or “jump into the market economy” – advocated a more aggressive and determined approach.

These experts recommended that price liberalisation, the opening of borders to foreign trade, and currency convertibility, coupled with painful stabilisation measures, be carried out in one fell swoop. The supporters of “shock therapy” argued with the logic of the political mood, according to which the legitimacy in anticipation at the beginning of the transformation should have been used politically.

Those countries that chose “shock therapy” seemed to have proved to be the winners of the economic transformation. Even if the governments of those countries, such as that of Václav Klaus in the Czech Republic in 1992-97, had initially succeeded in keeping the social costs of the reforms low, the pain of transformation ultimately caught up with them too. As a result, the societies whose political leaders took the “gradual” path were also confronted with the negative social consequences of transformation.

The bulk of the painful reforms then came at a time when legitimacy in advance disappeared, thus paralysing the government’s willingness to reform.

The frequently voiced criticism of the “big bang” strategy – the argument that it provoked social protests that in turn threatened to destroy political stability – also fell short. Of all countries, it was in some of those which had already explicitly spoken out against “shock therapy” at the beginning of the 1990s, that social protests took on the most dangerous dimensions and forms.

In this context, one should remember the strikes in Ukraine in 1993 or the miners’ marches to Bucharest at the end of the 1990s, which brought Romania to the brink of political chaos.

Yet in the end, it was neither the choice of “shock therapy” nor of gradualist strategy that decided the economic success of the post-communist system transformation. Rather, it depended on the consistency and skill of those in power to maintain the market-economy transformation even when resistance to these reforms grew among the population. The decisive factor was the determination of the politicians. The chosen reform strategy was right if it was adapted to the conditions of the respective country.

Notably, the post-Soviet states often did not have a legitimacy in

shock therapy

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functioning market economy

advance for the new system that would have provided the governments with the opportunity to widely open the reform period.

The establishment of a modern market economy takes decades, almost as long as the planned economy itself has existed.

Even the development in the lucky new German “Länder” shows that this assessment is not too pessimistic; even there, despite outside support that unique to economic history, it has not been possible, after three decades, to raise its economic performance to the level of West Germany.

Nonetheless, a clear distinction can be drawn between the success and failure of economic transformation. There are two criteria for this. In the first years of the transformation, a country could be considered economically successful if it managed to establish a functioning market economy. In this sense, there is unanimous agreement that the Central and North-Eastern European states are successful, unlike most of the South-Eastern and Eastern Europe states. The criterion of prosperity again is important for fundamental success. Prosperity should increase so that no mass emigration is necessary for economic reasons. This level of prosperity has not been achieved anywhere, not even in the new German “Länder.” The criterion of rapid growth (where Poland scores best: growth in this country averaged four percent per year after communism) is important and meaningful, but it does not meet society’s justified demands on transformation.

It was at least the time window of prosperity that was slowly opening in the young post-communist democracies. This third period of economic transformation began around the same time as the accession to the European Union became possible. The basis for this was provided by the constant high growth rates and the subsidies from the EU budget, which were quite modest, at least in comparison with the new German “Länder.” The high unemployment rate reduced massively, unfortunately also because of the migration of millions of workers to the rich EU countries; a process which has increased rapidly since 2004. Due to the Union’s regional funding, the public infrastructure improved continuously and rapidly.

As some post-communist countries – the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Estonia – got closer to the level of prosperity of the poorest old EU members at the end of the second decade of the new century, it became clear that the transformation would take

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an almost endless amount of time. Their fourth time window – that of justice – was opened. In Poland, the government of the Law and Justice (PiS), elected in 2015, declared unequivocally that it wants to finally put an end to “post-communism” – understood as a system in which structures still deriving from communism prevail. Due to the biologically determined “departure” of the generations socialised under communism and the widespread experience with the western EU countries, self-criticism of the state is on the rise. The deficits of the judiciary and the health care system are of great importance for citizens and the political parties promise reforms.

The road to justice has proved to be of varying lengths, which should not be surprising considering the different economic starting situations of the post-communist countries. In particular, a distinction between the former people’s republics and the former republics of the Soviet Union must be made. The economies of the latter were dependent on cooperation with the other Soviet republics to a far greater extent than was the case with the colonies of Soviet Union. For the Soviet republics, the collapse of the communist system came along with the end of their pseudo-federal state, hence they had to redefine their new economic space in the course of the transformation.

Belarus is one of the exemplary countries that failed in this task at the beginning of the 1990s. This country, which was one of the most economically developed Soviet republics of the Soviet Union, has suffered from sales difficulties after the dissolution of the USSR due to the opening of the borders of the former Soviet republics to foreign goods. However paradoxical it may sound, the most effective “domestic exporter” of the Soviet Union got into the greatest economic difficulty precisely because it had been able to produce desired goods under the old system.

Compared to the post-Soviet states, the former “people’s democracies” have much smaller problems to overcome. They “merely” have to completely restructure their economies. What made it easier for the Central European economies was that they had been more oriented towards trade with the West than the Soviet republics. Their geographical locations also puts them in a better position because it is easier to integrate the Polish, Eastern German, or Hungarian economies into the Western markets than the Ukrainian or Kazakh ones.

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Another difference between the post-totalitarian economies at the beginning of the transformation was that some were bankrupt while others showed a balanced macroeconomic development. The economies of the GDR, the People’s Republic of Poland, and Hungary were bankrupt, and by 1989 had long been unable to service their foreign debts. In contrast, Czechoslovakia was, from a macroeconomic point of view, in fairly good condition: its inflation rate was low and foreign debt was almost non-existent. Furthermore, the post-Soviet republics were by no means considered bankrupt at the beginning of their existence.

In addition to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia, as well as the three former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, of all countries, those that went de facto bankrupt under communism became new EU members on 1 May 2004, certainly in some recognition of their good economic performance. These examples show that ultimately, the quality of economic policy is more decisive for the success of the economic system change than the macroeconomic starting position of the respective country. It is obvious that this success is almost exclusively evident in those countries that belong to the Western cultural world. The countries of Central and North-Eastern Europe seem to have the ability to correct the mistakes made during the transformation. They adapt their economic policies to the demands of everyday life without losing sight of the strategic goal, which is to build a modern economy. By contrast, most Eastern European countries, where governments tend to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors, are less capable of such a balancing act. Thus, it seems that economic success, in addition to good economic policy, also has a cultural background. The fact that the quality of economic policy in the same cultural area can vary does not change this perception.

Perhaps the clearest manifestation of this situation is the economic development of the new German “Länder.” In 1990, they seemed to have found the best conditions for a successful economic transformation in reunified Germany. In 2020, however, their economic situation can be assessed only as “fair to middling.”

In the GDR, the Kremlin at times massively supported the so-called reformers in the Communist Party. The conspirators around Egon Krenz and the head of the state security service Erich Mielke secured Gorbachev’s approval before they overthrew

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Erich Honecker from the position of the leader of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in October 1989. From then on, the GDR had to go down the road of reforms doomed to fail in the manner of perestroika.

The renewed leadership of the GDR must have considered that such a development of the “community of socialist states” might have meant the loss of its right to exist. This resulted in the necessity of a cautious policy, especially in the field of the national question. Only a few weeks after Honecker’s deposition, however, the necessary caution was thwarted by an accidental event: on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. In the GDR, the national question became acute.

All historical experience with the previous systemic crises indicated that window of opportunity for the German colony of the Soviet Union would not last long. The fall of Gorbachev was considered very likely. Everywhere in the peripheries of the communist empire, where the sense of national interest was strongly developed, democratically legitimate governments were formed in a rush to initiate the system change. In this context, the GDR was a special case, because the system changes and the national sovereignty diverged. A minority of the resolute supporters of German unification feared that the reform process might push reunification into the distant future. They asked why the GDR should be transformed into a better state, when that part of the German people that had been neglected after the Second World War, had democracy, the so-called “social market economy” and prosperity waiting for them west of the Elbe River? They argued that the window of opportunity in foreign policy, which would perhaps soon be closed again, should not be used for the transformation but for the reunification of Germany.

Only after the fall of the Wall did this minority gradually become a majority. While the government of Hans Modrow asked the Federal Republic for credits his state needed to survive, the Round Table prepared reform proposals, and the first institutions of the now truly democratic GDR were established, more and more politically active Eastern Germans demanded reunification under the leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Even his proposal at the end of November 1989 to complete German unity after the accession of the democratised Eastern Bloc states to

the Berlin Wall fell

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dissolution of the GDR

the European Community was overtaken by pressure from the streets. Instead of fundamentally reforming the GDR, the government of prime minister Lothar de Maizière agreed with the government of Chancellor Kohl on the conditions of reunification.

Only a small minority of Western Germans were resolutely opposed to reunification. In a television discussion, Rudolf Augstein, the editor-in-chief of the news magazine “Der Spiegel,” admonished their representative – writer Grass – with the words: “Günter, that train has left the station.”

The dissolution of the GDR on 3 October 1990 opened up the reform window throughout Germany, during which the status of the new “Länder” in the Federal Republic was permanently determined. In contrast to the other peoples, the historically moving naivety of the East Germans was not revealed in their belief in the rapid emergence of “normality” and prosperity, but rather in the hope that they would master the system change in a united Germany. This hope proved to be historically moving insofar as it had made German unity possible. After 3 October, however, the Eastern Germans had no opportunity to exert any decisive influence on the organisation of their “Länder,” let alone the federal government. When the weak and the strong “merge,” the latter determines the horizon of the necessary decisions. The fact that the two may belong together in one way or another does not change this.

The legal system of the Federal Republic of Germany was adopted, and the massive import of elites from the old German “Länder” was set in motion. This stabilised the unified country, which is why only the economic transformation still held real uncertainties.

In the new German “Länder,” the transformation brought an exorbitant increase of unemployed people and countless insolvencies, but due to the adoption of the stable DM, this development was not accompanied by any remarkable inflation. In the first years the Eastern German economy shrank by more than a third, industrial production by two thirds, and three-quarters of industrial jobs disappeared.

The social hardships were mitigated by the welfare state, huge transfer payments, and the migration of about 800,000 people to West Germany (only within the first two years after reunification). As a result of the currency conversion the time

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of prosperity began. The Eastern Germans could afford Western clothing and household equipment and, in this respect, resembled the citizens of the old Federal Republic. At times, it seemed as if they had themselves hit the jackpot by renouncing a transformation. Despite migration, unemployment, and de-industrialisation, a spirit of optimism spread, which gave the impression that the currency change, which was disastrous from an economic point of view but seemed politically necessary, would not cloud the views of the “flourishing landscapes” announced by Helmut Kohl. The “social market economy,” conjured for decades in the old German “Länder,” also seemed to hold the right answer in the German East to the central question of modern societies in the West: that of justice.

As a reminder, at about the same time, the window of market balance opened up in the other countries, which often meant for those concerned the petrification of their social decline and the farewell to the hopes for rapid prosperity and growth. However, people in the New German “Länder” soon realised that their situation would not improve in the foreseeable future. As a result, a second wave of young, well-educated and mostly female workers, who saw no prospects at home and did not want to be a burden on the welfare state (this is a key indicator of citizenship), moved to Western Germany. All in all, more people left the New German “Länder” than left the GDR before the construction of the wall in 1961.

Altogether, the special path of the new German “Länder” meant that the windows of reform, of balance, and of prosperity were opened simultaneously in 1990. From today’s perspective, “simultaneous” means “economically unfounded.” The first window was closed in the mid-1990s, which can be regarded as “premature.” In doing so, the question of justice was reduced to the equalisation of wage and pension levels in both parts of Germany as well as to the immense transfers of money to the East. The pecuniary understanding of justice, which is widespread in the “old German Länder,” does not necessarily apply to other countries.

However, the German economic transformation did not consider the fact that no country has ever simply become the “extension” of another one, nor did it reveal a realistic perspective for when the transfers should end. To this day, Germany’s inner unity has not been achieved, despite the fact that the country

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had an almost infinite amount of time and resources for a careful, rational transformation.

Recommended literature

Sachs, Jeffrey, Poland’s Jump to the Market Economy, Cambridge (MA)/ London 1993.

Balcerowicz, Leszek, Socialism, Capitalism, Transformation, Central European University Press, 1995.

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VI. Post-totalitarian authoritarianisms: developments, characteristics and variants

F

or transformation research, the question regarding the point in time at which institutionalised political systems emerge is of particular importance. If the transformation of Soviet socialism into something else can be structured in the phases of existential systemic crisis, political upheaval, and the actual reforms, the emergence of new political systems do not fall into the same phase in all countries.

With the renunciation of totalitarian ideology, the already observable or in some countries even “exploding” pluralisation was stripped of its subversiveness. Thus, both totalitarianism and possible attempts to save it with the use of state violence were deprived of their legitimacy. This process contributed not least to the failure of the strangely indecisive coup that was carried out in the Soviet Union in August 1991. In a figurative sense, with the “writing off” of totalitarian ideology, “real reality” was finally politically accepted.

Although it could be assumed that in the peripheral countries of the communist empire at the end of the 1980s, tinkering with the communist system would no longer automatically provoke military intervention by the Soviet Union, the communist rulers had a violence apparatus that was still operational. Due to this reason, it was advisable, especially in the geopolitically important states of the Eastern Bloc, to persuade them to voluntarily abandon ideology and thus seal the institutionalisation of the system.

Even if the assertion is true that no post-communist democracy could be considered institutionalised before free and democratic elections are held, this does not mean, conversely, that it indicates the institutionalisation of democracy.

The establishment of post-communist democracy or post-communist authoritarianism took more time in some countries and less time in others because the historical and systemic

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Transitional authoritarianism

Nationalist legitimacy

preconditions for the system change were different in the respective societies (see Figure 1: Social preconditions of post-communist transformation in the appendix). Also, the political elites of respective countries acted differently. If one takes these factor complexes into account – the broad historical (pre-communist) heritage, the formative systemic heritage of the old regime, and the politics of system transformation – it becomes clear why one cannot easily name universal indicators of the institutionalisation of a new political system.

It is appropriate to take the status of the political opposition, rather than the elections, as an important indicator. If the opposition is so weak that it fulfils at best a function of criticism and has no chance of taking power in elections, authoritarianism must be considered institutionalised. This, of course, has consequences for elections: in institutionalised authoritarianism, elections are usually “won” by those in power even if they are unpopular.

Transitional authoritarianism existed in all post-communist countries in the period between the abandonment of totalitarian ideology and the institutionalisation of a new system. During this period, effective democratic legitimation was sought. However, another strand of legitimacy proved to be perhaps even more significant: the desire for political sovereignty for the nation, in other words, nationalism. Nationalist legitimacy helped to forge compromises between the political camps, which otherwise had little in common. In particular, the nationalism of the transitional system proved capable of improving the dreary reality by raising the hope for a better future in their own nation-state.

Nationalism can thus certainly be a constructive force for a promising political compromise. However, if such a consensus is not reached, nationalism represents a great danger. In countries such as the German Democratic Republic, where the political elites were too far removed from the national movement, the political process was shifted to the streets. The slogan “We are the people,” known from demonstrations in the GDR, was not unproblematic. As Ralf Dahrendorf warned: “’We are the people’ is a fine slogan, however, as a constitutional maxim, it is a reflection of the total state that has just been eliminated. If the party’s monopoly is replaced only by the victory of the masses, everything will be lost in a short time, because the masses have neither structure nor duration.” It is difficult to believe, however, that

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this was a movement that was more democratic than the country’s political elite with its few “democratic socialists” and the even rarer democrats. The democratic and nationalist politicians of the Federal Republic of Germany came at just the right time moment, in March 1990, when they gradually assumed de facto political responsibility for both the national movement (“We are one people”) and the orderly dissolution of the GDR. Whether the transitional authoritarianism in the GDR would have led to a democracy without this patronage of the Western part of Germany may at least be open to doubt, especially since Eastern Germany was economically ruined.

Where, in turn, nationalism could not be used to successfully legitimise the sovereign democratic state, the transitional system suffered from a serious lack of legitimacy. In Belarus, which was nationally largely indifferent, Aleksandr Lukashenka was able to gain autocratic power relatively easily, because his explicit distancing from the Belarusian National Front, which itself was only partially democratic, certainly did not harm him.

In Russia, both Boris Yeltsin and Wladimir Putin were desperately trying to mix a legitimacy “mash,” using ingredients such as Alexander I., Nikolai I., the Soviet anthem, the Lenin mummy, the Red Flag and the Russian tricolour. Putin and his “political technologists” came up with the idea of adding to this the thought that the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, the period of the greatest freedom in Russian history, had actually been the “smuta” (“period of turmoil”) which has now been happily overcome.

As far as Czechoslovak transitional authoritarianism is concerned, it did not survive the probationary period because there simply could be no Czechoslovak nationalism.

Finally, in Ukraine, the different national identities have continued to hamper the legitimacy of the post-communist system, even as recently as the Russian aggression in Crimea and Donbass in 2014.

And yet it must be repeated: the fact that nationalism may serve democracy well does not mean that this ideology cannot be a good servant of authoritarianism.

Since transitional authoritarianism per se cannot be democratic, whether the election campaigns are conducted according to the standard norms is of particular importance. There is an insurmountable gap between the transitional authoritarianisms of

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institutionalised authoritarianisms

Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Slovakia, on the one hand, and Russia and Ukraine before the Orange Revolution in 2004 and Georgia before the Rose Revolution in 2003, on the other.

As far as institutionalised authoritarianisms are concerned, they hardly know a fair election process. The claim of a democratic ethos by those in power are merely feigned and democratic procedures degenerate into – admittedly – indispensable instruments for gaining legitimacy and securing power. Since the rulers themselves decisively determine the outcome of the elections, the democratic character of the elections is undermined, which is why the system merely deserves the predicate “quasi-democratic.”

Transitional authoritarianism could not be a democracy, but the elites in this system were in general able both to practise political competition and to act by the constitution and laws. Care should have been taken not to turn such competition into a power struggle that layers the political process, in order to be able to cautiously change the law that has its roots in the communist era and to adapt the behaviour of political actors to it. The golden formula said that the new constitutionalism should be strengthened at the expense of the new competition. This “optimal imbalance” for the transitional system could be brought about by a particular political constellation: the chances for democracy were quite good in situations where a national-democratic consensus prevailed within the political elite, renewed by the legalisation of political opposition. In Poland, Hungary and the GDR, the round tables served to limit political competition and strengthen the rules of the pluralist system.

In Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, the non-institutionalised round table and, above all, informal agreements among the elites even decided to renounce competition by laying down the modalities for the smoothest possible transfer of power to the opposition.

For in both (constituent) states of Czechoslovakia, the resignation of the communist government was considered necessary. Finally, in Lithuania, the almost untamed desire for a democratic nation-state united the rulers and the opposition and helped to restrict political competition in such a way that the open political struggle did not threaten the democratic system change.

In all these countries, a political consensus has contributed significantly to the fact that communist legal nihilists sought

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protection from spontaneous punishment in a functioning constitutional state. From this perspective, constitutional democracy, whose procedures they were already able to try out in their negotiations with the opposition, now appeared to them to be an acceptable system. Remarkably, the convinced or cynical communist anti-democrats from very different countries showed the same attitude: in Poland, where there was a comparatively strong and very well organised opposition, in Lithuania with its large Sąjūdis movement and the threatening Kremlin, and in Hungary, with its ultimately very weak opposition that nevertheless was much stronger than the tiny “civic” forums in Czechoslovakia and the GDR. The power vacuum created by the rapid collapse of totalitarianism cannot, of course, be measured. However, it must have resembled a black hole if small groups of the new opposition had to be accepted as negotiating partners – or even as new authorities – by the communists. The communists in Czechoslovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus, for example, experienced just such an unexpectedly rapid and complete decline of their power.

Boris Yeltsin had the recalcitrant insubordinate Parliament bombarded during the crisis of September and October 1993, thus accepting responsibility for the deaths of several people, mainly members of Parliament. This prevented the development of a political consensus (which Yeltsin never sought anyway), which is why in December of the same year, the adoption of the constitution had to be pushed through. However, doubts as to whether the official results of the constitutional referendum reflected reality could never be completely dispelled. In November 1996, Aleksandr Lukashenka took action against the Belarusian Parliament, which he did not approve of, in a less brutal but by no means softer manner, and in an equally unconstitutional way.

If the power vacuum results from the conflict between the executive and the parliament, then the chances of victory for a parliamentary assembly, which has little opportunity to turn off electricity and water to the enemy, or to move in with tanks and deploy hundreds of police forces, are rather limited. And a victory of the executive over the parliament achieved by force, especially in a life-and-death struggle (even if deadly only for one of the conflict parties), always means a victory over the political

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Ukraine’s transitional system

opposition, political pluralism, and democracy. Political pluralism and the political opposition were objectively weak in both Russia and Belarus, but with their relatively long history at the end of the old system, they were better developed and organised than in the GDR or Czechoslovakia. However, since there was no national consensus, the gaining and securing of power almost exclusively constituted the content of the political process. Under such conditions, the rampant political competition could not be brought onto the constitutional track nor could it be controlled.

This development, which in fact took on an anarchic character, was therefore prevented in a blatantly unconstitutional way by the post-communist leadership. The power vacuum, along with the prospect for democracy in the foreseeable future, thus disappeared.

The situation was different in Ukraine’s transitional system.

There, too, the power vacuum and the difficulties of achieving a promising political consensus on a nation-state basis specific to post-totalitarianism were well known. There, too, the conflict between the presidential chief executive and Parliament raged at times. The power vacuum was initially filled by the “technocratic” of the nomenklatura, who, with the explicit approval of President Leonid Kravtchuk, had taken root in the government executive.

However, Kravtchuk, unlike Yeltsin and Lukashenka, did not necessarily want to prevent the constitutionalisation of the system.

In view of his progressive loss of power, he indeed seized total executive power in September 1993 by decree. However, he then accepted the early presidential election the following year, in which he promptly lost against Leonid Kutchma. By resisting the temptation to defend his power by unconstitutional means, he earned the well-meant title of “almost a real democrat.”

Not all authoritarian leaders in the first post-communist period were so ready or willing to literally walk over dead bodies in the political struggle: Kravtchuk and Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia were among them. They simply resigned after losing the political struggle. The pluralistic and democratic traits of the new systems could be institutionalised in their countries spontaneously, so to speak, when the authoritarian rulers succumbed. The pluralisation of the communist system could then take place “by default.”

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On the other hand, flawless democrats who worked hard to build democracy and failed because their people were not prepared for democracy are virtually unknown.

Boris Yeltsin was not such an unfortunate democrat. He systematically subordinated the Presidential Administration, the government, the Security Council, the army and the secret services. The clientelism of the new system also helped him to secure – if and when necessary – support in parliament, in the courts, or of administrative authorities. President Putin, who had been declared a “flawless democrat” by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, sought to strengthen the “power vertical” inherited from Yeltsin by means of the subjugation of regions, the mass media, and the party system (keyword: “controlled party pluralism”). Even Boris Yeltsin had eagerly pursued the parliamentarisation of the political system, with the obvious intention of strengthening the president’s position in a country where hardly any political party remained that had not already been more or less subordinated beneath him. He also ensured that the head of state’s influence – albeit limited – on the judiciary (Constitutional Court) was institutionally strengthened.

These examples confirm the assumption that authoritarianism has been built deliberately. It does not emerge by default, even if a bought German politician suggests the opposite.

During “difficult times,” an executive that is capable of taking action is of great benefit and need not be detrimental to democratic development, even if, when measured against the standards of Western democracies, it is given asymmetrical power. The same can confidently be said about the informal decision-making structures, which, also in the West, are not only a kind of inevitable supplement to the prescribed decision-making channels but can also take on quite repulsive forms in the long term; for example, in the elimination of inner-party democracy or the artificial marginalisation of the political opposition by permanent coalitions of the major parties, which merely pretend to compete with each other. However, when the institutional dominance of the executive and the non-transparent decision-making channels coincide with limiting restraint or persecution of the opposition by illegal uses of the state power apparatus, democratic legitimation is no longer sufficient to conceal the authoritarian character of the system.

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For example, there can be no doubt about the non-legal character of Belarusian authoritarianism; it can also be highly repressive as it did not shy away even from political murder. Putin’s authoritarianism has similarly repressive traits, whereby the worst persecution offences occur selectively. In everyday life, however, the suppression of the opposition relies on the compliance of the executive, administration, and the judiciary. Under Yeltsin, the opposition found itself in better circumstances, which, according to Lilia Shevtsova, was in large part due to the character traits of the President: Yeltsin showed a feeling for democracy. He understood the significance of basic civil liberties and did not attack them. He could tolerate criticism, albeit with difficulty, even when it was ruthless. For instance, he never touched journalists, even those who made it their business to attack him. He knew how to appeal directly to the people in his struggle with the state apparatus and his opponents, and he understood the power of the people.

Already in the nineties, the presidential centre of power was above the law in Russia. However, the enforced conformity of the party system, society (pluralism of associations and media), and the regions was ruled out by the President, which benefited the political scope of the opposition. It should also not be forgotten that under Yeltsin, the “parties of power” loyal to him could not be guaranteed any election victories. However, the presidential elections were far more important in the Russian system and Yeltsin used all available state means to guarantee the election outcome in 1996, and for a smooth transition to his successor.

A similar situation occurred in Ukraine under early Kutchma and in Georgia under President Eduard Shevardnadze.

Political leadership in institutionalised authoritarianism is based on selective law enforcement and nihilistic legal culture. They correspond roughly to the nominalistic validity of the constitution, in the Karl Loewenstein sense. The authoritarian rulers in post-communism are interested in creating and maintaining the impression of the rule of law. For this purpose, it is necessary to have the infrastructure of a constitutional state – court buildings with equipment, judges, lawyers, legislative texts – which can function better or worse in the everyday life of the given legal culture. At the same time, attempts are made to

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design the constitution and laws in such a way that they can be used against political opponents. From a political point of view, however, it is equally important that in the judiciary, certain decisions can be made according to political needs. Whether this involves the separation of powers, the independence of judges, the effective recognition of fundamental rights, the legality of the administration, legal security, or the guarantee of rights in criminal proceedings, these elements of the constitutional state can easily be overridden in institutionalized post-totalitarian authoritarianism.

In this system, the opposition does not need to make any major mistakes in order to provide advantages for those in power. The opposition is simply weak because it has emerged from a poorly organised and politically inactive society. The political leadership merely exploits the underdevelopment of pluralism. The few new actors from the society, who usually owe their political significance to wealth (“oligarchs”), usually come to terms with politics in order to run their business, often with the help of corrupt authorities. Despite this, those in power are afraid of the political opposition, which is why they set examples by repressing political opponents, rewriting electoral laws to the disadvantage of the opposition, and literally scattering demonstrations against the government.

Not least, the experience with Soviet socialism speaks for the fact that all power is transitory. The passivity and organisational weakness of society are not connected to the fundamental inability to mobilise it against the ruling class. Political mobilisation, which often seems astonishing in terms of its scale, can still be observed in authoritarianism. Even in the “classic” post-Soviet, non-civil-societies such as Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, large crowds of people can sometimes be mobilised for political objectives. Authorities must, therefore, be able to win over the weakly organised and passive population. However, this requires at least a rudimentary level of efficiency on the part of the state.

Great hopes for the democratisation of post-communist authoritarianism are tied to the commitment of the West. The collaboration of the “international civil society” with the organised domestic opposition, such as what occurred in Ukraine during the “Orange Revolution” in 2003–2004 (and the Maidan movement in 2013–2014), as well as in Georgia during the “Rose Revolution,”

“international civil society”

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has certainly had an effect. However, the precondition for this success was the mobilisation of the population, which can only be achieved by a sufficiently strong domestic opposition (including oligarchs).

Significantly, it is not possible to say clearly what the anti-systemic nature of the opposition responsible for the “revolutions” refers to. Quite a few of its actors ultimately understood their fight against “the Kutchma system” and “the Shevardnadze system” as a fight for “the system without Kutchma” or “without Shevardnadze.” This is not surprising since in both countries the opposition came out of the system, which broke the oligarchy. Also in both countries, the opposition was able to mobilise an astonishing number of people for, in both specific cases, greatly democratic popular movements. In both countries, this movement and the opposition that led it expressed the expectations of national independence in a very credible way, whereby pro-Western attitudes were not mere rhetoric. Ultimately, however, the hopes of people in both countries have gone unfulfilled. Have the democratic expectations associated with Ukraine and Georgia, as well as the main new hopes of democracy in the large geographical area of Eastern Europe, really been completely disappointed?

One thing is certain: in these countries, it is no longer known before the elections who will win – so their political systems are undoubtedly now decisively different from their predecessor systems, as well as from Russia and Belarus. Moreover, there can be no doubt that Georgia and Ukraine have political and social pluralism that, although objectively weak, is still the best developed among the institutionalised post-Soviet authoritarian regimes.

Its limitations are not necessarily due to politically intended violations of the constitutional state and the rule of law, although the condition of the legal system in the Ukraine is still miserable.

Rather, the quality of political competition is the biggest problem for democracy in both countries.

In 1991, Adam Przeworski wrote in his highly acclaimed book about democracy and the market, that Spain – which in just 15 years had achieved the “consolidation” of democratic institutions and left behind the economy, politics, and culture of “poor capitalism” – was a miracle.

In contrast, the systems in Ukraine and Georgia are certainly not “picture-book” democracies. However, one would have to look

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for such democracies in the West with a magnifier, not to mention amongst post-communist EU members. Corruption, self-satisfied simplicity of the political elite, incompetence, and inefficiency of the administration, bad laws, judges and courts, lack of resources – it is by no means difficult to find numerous examples of these phenomena in Poland, the Czech Republic, or Bulgaria, for example. However, all these post-communist systems are democracies that by no means function satisfactorily. The fact that Georgia and Ukraine, after a long period of Russian rule and several decades of communist barbarism, have almost reached this point within twenty years is a true miracle.

It shows that it is apparently possible to achieve democracy without looking back upon a long tradition of a normative constitution. It seems sufficient for liberal constitutionalism to be practised at a fairly low level: with a constitutional state and rule of law that do not function satisfactorily, but with the constitution entirely accepted as the central rulebook of politics by political actors. The change in the mentality of the political elites is also very important. If in Eastern Europe, of all places, decision-makers are moving away from the mindset according to which the political opponent is an enemy and must be destroyed, the political culture will be revolutionised. There is no reason for historical fatalism. This applies even to Belarus and Russia if they succeed in getting rid of the respective fate of thoroughly undemocratic state leadership. In today’s (June 2020) Belarus, the hopes for such change are considerable.

External actors from the West can do more than usual for both countries in these difficult times, in which institutionalized democracy is nevertheless within reach in Georgia and Ukraine, especially since the Kremlin still leaves no doubt that Western democracy in its neighboring countries is a thorn in its side. Not only the European Union, but also the European nation-states, including the Federal Republic of Germany, which unfortunately has so far acted merely out of pecuniary motivation (keyword: Nord Stream) and apparently without any European vision in its “Ostpolitik,” could, through consistent political support of both states, make a significant contribution to ensuring that no new authoritarianism is established there and that democracies become institutionalised. The EU is still unable to show the Ukraine any prospect of accession because of its dividing nationalisms.

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Things look a little better with Georgia, especially since the USA is also strongly involved there.

Post-totalitarian authoritarianisms have not yet stepped out of the shadow of the totalitarian system, nor out of the long shadow of the Tsarist Empire. On the other hand, some of them practise political pluralism in the only way possible for them to take into account all their unfavourable preconditions. They have opted for freedom so that with new pluralism, civic culture has also moved into Soviet towns, and free public discourse has flourished. Moreover, following the introduction of the market economy, outdated technologies are gradually being replaced by current ones.

Even if all of these processes pass off with difficulty and cause numerous conflicts, they are changing the social consciousness in such a way that more and more people recognize the problems to be solved. Against this background, in Georgia and Ukraine, not to mention the post-communist democracies, the totalitarian system has long since become a thing of the past, despite the communist legacy.

All the more depressing, however, is the partial institutional and ideological continuity with totalitarianism, which Lukashenka and Putin are deliberately creating. This continuity not only clouds the joy of new freedom, because it cannot be expressed.

Moreover, it makes it more difficult to modernise post-communist societies by at least partially preserving the pathological states that have emerged from the old system. For instance, market mechanisms are practiced without aiming at the autonomy of the economy from politics. Furthermore, the ultimately modern and educated societies cannot get rid of their political culture as subjects of the state; they also have to accept dramatic restrictions on freedom of expression.

It has been suggested several times that transitional authoritarianisms can in principle be divided into systems based on consensus and systems lacking consensus. Consensus contributes to a norm-oriented interaction between government and the opposition, thus strengthening the constitutional dimension of the system and increasing the chances of democracy. The example of Slovakia in the state-building phase under Mečiar showed that this consensus is fragile and can crumble, allowing transitional authoritarianism to “slip into” a less promising variant.

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Authoritarianisms that lack consensus are dominated by a rampant executive. This dominance can intensify political competition and cause a permanent conflict between the executive and the (parliamentary) opposition. If in this conflict, the executive weakens the opposition by unconstitutional means to such an extent that the latter becomes incapable of presenting an alternative to the government, authoritarianism is institutionalised.

The institutionalised post-totalitarian authoritarianisms are all quasi-democratic and non-constitutional systems. As such they appear in a few variants or subtypes.

When creating variants of institutionalised authoritarianism, it is especially important to consider the role of the real opposition in the system. True (real) opposition is understood to be the force that actually strives for power, as opposed to the “controlled” or “virtual” opposition, which – possibly founded and always promoted by those in power – is used to prevent political pluralism. Of the systems examined here, Belarus after 1996, Russia after 2000, and Ukraine under the late President Kutchma, stand for such an “authoritarianism without alternatives,” in which the weak real opposition is marginalised by the state and, therefore, acts outside the system oligarchy (like in Russia and the Ukraine) or the autocratic networks (like in Belarus).

The political leadership in the “authoritarianisms without alternatives” may allow the controlled opposition to participate in the system by ensuring that only the “party of power” linked to the executive centre and the (virtual) parties of the controlled opposition are elected to parliament. This is also the situation in Central Asia, which could not be considered in this book. “Authoritarianisms without alternatives” (with a marginalized real opposition) bear most similarities to the totalitarian predecessor system and can, therefore, be described as genuinely post-totalitarian.

These systems are contrasted with the competitive authoritarianisms as in Georgia under Eduard Shevardnadze, Ukraine under the early Kutchma, and possibly Russia under Boris Yeltsin.

The competitive authoritarianisms do not know the open outcome of (fair) elections, but they do know the real opposition in the system. They are very far removed from totalitarianism and are basically no different from similar authoritarianisms in other parts of the world.

quasi-democratic and non-constitutional systems

competitive authoritarianisms

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In these systems, the opposition is striving for power, and can either be system-compliant or system-subversive. The latter wants system change, i.e. it aspires for power not exclusively for the sake of getting it. If this opposition comes to power in forcedly free, democratic, and fair elections, competitive authoritarianism can indeed be successfully put on the democratisation path (Georgia and Ukraine). If this scenario is unlikely, then – as in the transition from Yeltsin to Putin – a development towards genuinely post-totalitarian authoritarianism is also possible.

In both variants of quasi-democratic authoritarianism, the political process takes place out of public view, beneath the surface of formal institutions, including political parties. This is most clearly illustrated by the phenomenon of the “party of power.”

“Party of power” is understood to mean two things. On the one hand, it is the so-called hidden party of power, i.e. an informal network of relations between state institutions (media, business enterprises, secret services, the judicial system, and administration) and private business, which gather around the (usually presidential) executive branch. The people involved form the oligarchy of the authoritarian system. The oligarchy brands itself a face by formally founding a political party. The work of this “virtual” political party creation is supported by the resources of the “hidden party of power”: money from the private and state economy, state and private media, public authorities, secret services, the public prosecutor’s office, and the like. This party creation is also often called the “party of power,” although in this context the term “shield of the (hidden) party of power” would certainly be more appropriate.

The peculiarity of the authoritarian “parties of power” is that they can disregard the laws. Consequently, they do not act exclusively in those spaces that are destined for informal bargaining, but rather ensure that the boundaries between formal and informal decision-making channels are completely removed.

In addition to the shield of the party of power, numerous other “virtual parties” (“phantom parties”) are founded by those in power, especially during election periods. These can serve different purposes. For example, they can be used to ensure that an economic network (“clan”) is represented in parliament. Or they try to take away electoral votes of an opposing political party and

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establish an “imitation” of this party, which is then lavishly provided with election campaign resources.

The programmes of phantom parties have nothing to do with the search for solutions to problems. They usually do not bother to bundle and articulate social interests at all and are almost afraid of the idea that their supporters and members could be socialised into politically active citizens. They rarely even fulfil the recruitment function, because party careers only play a minor role in the recruitment of political elites. Moreover, the names and political programmes of the parties usually say little or nothing about their actual ideological preferences, and it even happens that these are intended to be concealed. Even some party names – “Right Forces,” “Directors of Industrial Enterprises,” “Women,” and the like – are downright treacherous in this context, because they exclusively address certain social groups, which especially in election periods must feed the usually justified suspicion that they are supposed to collect votes for someone. Even the sometimes-noble titles that join the ranks of European party families have been given to party names – “liberal,” “national,” “Christian-democratic,” “conservative,” etc. – which often serve the purpose of concealing the powerful backers of the phantom party.

Finally, here are a few short theses on the variants and characteristics of the authoritarian systems in post-communism:  All post-totalitarian societies had a transitional authoritarianism, which was either authoritarianism based on consensus or authoritarianism lacking consensus.  The institutionalised, post-totalitarian authoritarianism develops from the consensus-free transitional authoritarianism. It is always quasi-democratic and non-constitutional.  The first subtype of institutionalised post-totalitarian authoritarianism is competitive authoritarianism (with a real opposition). It appears as an oligarchic system (Yeltsin’s Russia, Ukraine). Democracy can develop out of it if the system-subversive opposition wins power by legal means and constitutionalism is strengthened.  The second subtype of institutionalised post-totalitarian authoritarianism is the authoritarianism without alternatives (without true opposition integrated into the system). It is extraordinarily strongly influenced by the totalitarian system (genuinely post-totalitarian). It appears as an autocratic

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system (Putin’s Russia, Lukashenka’s Belarus). It can be externally supported (Belarus).  Party systems in all post-communist authoritarianisms are extremely underdeveloped.

Both the types of post-totalitarian authoritarianism and the pathways of post-communist system change are illustrated in the Figure 2. The pillars indicate the direction of possible system change.

Figure 2: Developments and variants of post-totalitarian authoritarianism

communist totalitarianism

transitional authoritarianism based on consensus

lacking consensus institutionalized authoritarianism

institutionalized democracy

competitive

without alternatives (genuinely posttotalitarian)

institutionalized democracy

Recommended literature Dahrendorf, Ralf, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Warsaw, New York 1990.

Levitsky, Steven/ Way, Lucan A., Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regime Change in Peru and Ukraine in Comparative Perspective, “Studies in Public Policy”, No. 355, Glasgow 2001.

Maćków, Jerzy (ed.), Autoritarismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa, Wiesbaden 2009.

Maćków, Jerzy, Russian legal Culture, Civil Society, and Chances for Westernization, in: Alexander J. Motyl / Blair A. Ruble / Lilia Shevtsova (ed.), Russia’s Engagement with the West. Transformation and Integration in the Twenty-First Century, New York/London 2004.

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Way, Lucan A., Kuchma’s Failed Authoritarianism, in: “Journal of Democracy”, No. 2/2005, pp. 131-145.

Wilson, Andrew, Virtual Politics. Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World, New Haven / London 2005.

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VII. Democracies with opportunistic elites and hardly institutionalised party systems

post-communist democracies

P

olitical elites can be understood to be either the holders of the posts and offices defined as “political� or people to whom political influence is attributed. Although both groups have little or nothing to do with elites in the true sense of the word, i.e. with those people who are particularly efficient in their field or have other exceptional qualities, they are, in contrast to true elites, relatively easy to identify and measure empirically.

The post-communist democracies were established in a non-civil society, which could have facilitated the institutionalisation of democracies. Since a weakly structured and differentiated society was neither able to permanently generate impulses for democratisation nor to organise itself against democracy, the behaviour of the elites played a decisive role in the democratisation processes. Where the elites were democratically minded, it had to be assumed that democracy had a future, especially since history has shown profoundly undemocratic societies that have reconciled with democracy. For such a reconciliation to be possible, however, there must be a sufficient number of politically-influential, convinced democrats. In this respect, the question of how many democrats a young democracy actually needs is quite justified.

Until democracy is firmly institutionalised, the political elite bears the main responsibility for the success of the system transformation. Those in power need a strong ethos of self-restraint because, by respecting the constitutional rights of the political opposition, they could help the opposition to seize power. It is obvious that the post-communist elites under authoritarianism do not fulfil their responsibility as the democratic consensus.

In post-totalitarianism, the parliament can assume great political significance if the political elite proves itself in a way similar

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to the members of the honorary parliament in the 19th century.

At the beginning of the 1990s, it had to be assumed that the former decision-makers of the socialist party states could hardly be characterised by exceptional qualities. So, was a complete change of elite necessary?

In the 1980s, Stefan Kisielewski, a Polish publicist who has since died, used to provocatively ask his friends from the anti-communist resistance who they thought should occupy the elite positions after communism in order to introduce democracy: after all, doesn’t anyone who has deliberately destroyed a watch know best how to repair its clockwork? Surely it would be inappropriate to assume that only the communists were capable of democratising the Soviet socialist system. Moreover, if they really had the necessary knowledge, this important task should not be left to them alone. However, the opposite assumption, in which only a complete change of elites would guarantee the success of the system transformation, is as wrong as it is naive.

The extent of the necessary change of elites cannot be determined in percentage terms. The communist cadres of Poland and Hungary were, for example, much more open to democracy than the ideologically narrow-minded Czech, Slovak, Soviet, or German party functionaries because of the experiences they had gained with a society critical of the system. Although seized by the “ethos of opportunism” and for the most part morally corrupt, it was precisely these leadership cadres in Poland and Hungary who agreed to peacefully bid farewell to communism.

From a pragmatic point of view alone, it would have been a pity to simply get rid of such an - at least partially - competent and adaptable personnel.

However, these were not the considerations that decided whether the (post-) communists were allowed to help replace the broken clockwork. Rather, the profiteers of the old regime simply proved to be indispensable for the system change, thus once again confirming the insight known since Max Weber, that a new system could not manage without the personnel of its predecessor. There simply was no elite that could have replaced the vacant posts that had become available in case of a complete purge of the state apparatus. Even in the new German “Länder,” where the import of elites has reached unprecedented dimensions, the

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lack of qualified democratic personnel was obvious.46 The scathing judgement of the “imported” West German experts concerning the competence of their new colleagues in schools, public authorities, at the universities, etc., can be boldly transferred to the elites in the other post-communist countries. Even when it was recognised, the indispensable depoliticisation of the civil service forced its protection from dismissal on political grounds. As a result, whole swarms of former communist bureaucrats were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

The post-communist elite change followed the typical pattern of a system change. In the beginning – in the period of upheaval – the impression was created or deliberately conveyed that a huge wave of elite change (the “elite rotation” or “elite circulation”) would sweep over the respective country. The best-known representatives of the old system had to leave: the party top circle, parts of the party leadership, and the government. However, as soon as the new people had gotten to the top of the executive and other state apparatuses, they wanted to restore calm in their area of responsibility, and they were prepared to come to terms with both the opponents of the old regime and the back ranks of the communist establishment. The new leaders were usually able to bring their – seldom truly professional – staff with them, while the lower ranks of the bureaucrats had to be completely taken over.

In addition to the “twilight of the gods” at the head of the communist party-state, it was, above all, the founding elections to parliament that helped to create the impression of an enormous elite circulation. The rotation of elites in the executive and the legislatures was indeed extensive, whereby it was almost exclusively people who had not attracted attention politically during the communist era who were accepted into the new governments and elected to the parliaments.

The composition of all freely elected post-communist parliaments indicates that voters were certainly looking for wellknown candidates. However, since they honoured the – albeit often only seeming (Romania, Bulgaria) – distance of the candidates from the old regime, they preferred actors, sportsmen, and 46 See “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, 6.5.1991. Quoted by Hans-Ulrich Derlien, Regime Change and Personnel Policy. Observations on Political Cleansing and the Integration of State Functionaries of the GDR into the Civil Service, London, June 1991, p. 54.

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– for any change of political system particularly dangerous! – intellectuals over established functionaries.

An important elite segment in the communist party-state was the personnel of the security services. In fact, the only acceptable solution would have been the complete dissolution of these services, which, however, could only be carried out in Germany where the state behind them was also dissolved. Elsewhere, by contrast, attempts were made with varying degrees of zeal to combine structural reform with purges, without sacrificing all the personnel “of security.” Significantly, the post-communist security services were usually more willing to take over the functionaries of communist espionage abroad than those of the former domestic security organs.

When it comes to implemented political programs of a comprehensive “decommunisation” of the elites under post-socialism, Spanish political scientist Carmen González Enriquez rightly distinguishes between the countries that would never have dared a serious decommunization (such as Poland and Hungary), those that would have done just that (the Czech Republic complying with the rule of law and Albania bypassing the law), and those like Romania and Bulgaria, which restricted themselves to spectacular measures of deceiving the public – such as the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu, or the trial against former party leader, Todor Shivkov. If one takes into account the minor impact of Czech decommunisation and the serious legal criticism it has attracted, it must be generalised that nowhere in post-communism has there been a political purge of the communist elites that could be described as systematic and comprehensive.

It is no coincidence that the most important studies on post-communist elite change were published just a few years after the system upheaval. In the Central European countries in which the national consensus about the new system had been achieved, about half of the members of the nomenklatura from 1988 retained their elite status in 1993, although the former members of the nomenklatura usually changed their posts and offices within these five years. They preferred to move to the private economy sector, regardless of which subgroup of the nomenklatura – party, state, mass organisations, state economy, media, or culture – they originally came from. In elite research, this migration is referred to as the “transformation of political

“decommunisation” of the elites

former members of the nomenklatura

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capital into economic capital” or the “granting of ownership to the nomenklatura.”

Approximately one-quarter of the nomenklatura of the state pillar in Poland and Hungary maintained its posts until 1993. After all, three other subgroups – the apparatus of the communist party, the economic nomenklatura, and the cultural nomenklatura – have completely disappeared from the highest political positions. Overall, therefore, the elite circulation in both countries was relatively high.

Regardless of the research methodology used, empirical research on elite change in post-communism shows that the reproduction rate of the nomenklatura and nepotism is much higher in post-communist authoritarianisms than in post-totalitarian democracies. However, the figures obtained by empirical social research do not say much more about the degree of elite circulation or reproduction.

The success of democratisation does not depend on the social composition or the discontinuity of the elites, but rather on their willingness to democratise. John Higley and Győrgy Lengyel justifiably spoke in this context of the “ethos of unity in diversity” that underlies the success of the democratic transformation.47 They rightly noted that such an ethos developed in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary; meanwhile, Slovakia (under Vladimir Mečiar), Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia, and Croatia were far removed from it.

In all post-communist authoritarianisms, the effort to oust the political opposition from the political game could be observed from the beginning. Whether it was the (possibly transformed) communists, the “party of power,” or the nationalist and populist forces that did not originate from the communist establishment, those in power always violated the principles of democracy when they used the resources of the state available to them and the weakness of their political opponents to neutralise or even eliminate the political opposition.

The problem of all post-communist elites was their lack of professionalism. This deficit should not be misunderstood as meaning that the functionaries did not have a high standard of 47 John Higley/ Győrgy Lengyel, Elite Configurations after State Socialism, in: John Higley/ Győrgy Lengyel (ed.), Elites after State Socialism. Theories and Analysis, Lanham/Boulder/New York/Oxford 2000, pp. 1–21, p. 19.

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education. On the contrary, the post-communist elites are – statistically speaking – no less educated than those in the established Western democracies, which can be most clearly seen from the figures for West and East Germany.

The incompetence of the elites, which was striking at the beginning of the transformation processes, rather arose from the fact that they were operating in a political system they were unfamiliar with and that was still in the development stage. The first years of the system change were, therefore, marked by learning-by-doing that demanded extraordinary adaptability from those affected.

A good decade after the system change, in the post-communist democracies, the elites had proved loyal to the new system throughout. However, despite all the professionalisation, they still showed great competence deficits and susceptibility to corruption. In fact, it is easier for both the new-old political elite and the old-new administrative elite to show loyalty to democracy than to raise their own standards.

The “professionalism” of the communist cadre administration was based on quite different conditions and knowledge than those that guaranteed the reasonably smooth functioning of the constitutional state. This can be best seen in the course of reunification in the former German Democratic Republic. In several circumstances, it became obvious that its administrators were characterised by nothing other than “politicised incompetence.”48 In the new German “Länder,” it was at least possible to start the training courses for GDR staff to be held in West Germany as late as May 1990. “The judgement on the level of qualification of East German personnel ... [was] devastating and ... [ranged] from 0 to minus 10 on the qualification scale, as one practitioner put it.”49 On the other hand, financial incentives were used to persuade a veritable army of Western professionals to take over the leading positions in East Germany. These measures have contributed significantly to the professionalisation of those areas of the public service and the economy most affected by incompetence, although they have undoubtedly contributed to the further incapacitation of the population in the new German “Länder.” The following lamentation expresses both of these facts: 48 Derlien, op. cit., pp. 42 ff.

49 Ibid. p. 48.

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Only 20% of the management personnel in the companies privatised by the Treuhand [office tasked with privatisation of state-owned companies] come from East Germany... The reason for this is that the possibility of accumulating financial capital, which is differentiated between East and West, has not been sufficient in the past... There are only a few East German politicians in top positions of the parties... The evaluation of academic personnel has drastically reduced the number of qualified personnel available for new appointments in East Germany. West German scientists, in particular, benefited from new appointments and the additional establishment of chairs at universities and colleges. The [following] example should be mentioned here...: Of the 38 chairs … in sociology which were filled at the end of 1993, 33 professors came from West Germany and only five from East Germany, whereby the latter were all appointed to C-3 professorships only... The same phenomena can be found in the administrative area. For example, in January 1993, of the 258 judges at the labour courts, 143 were from West Germany and only 72 from East Germany, 43 were so-called loan officers from West Germany.50

massive import of West German elites

“You don’t pour the dirty water out of the bucket if you don’t have clean water,” Konrad Adenauer is said to have stated this in reference to the many former National Socialists and followers of the Nazi regime in the political class of the young Federal Republic. The new German “Länder” have been supplied with entire cisterns of clean water, which the population often complained about as flooding. Apparently, the massive import of West German elites facilitated the rise of newcomers in East Germany, because, as studies have shown, the rotation of elites in the new German “Länder” was quite large compared to the other post-communist democracies.

In the other post-communist states, the best that could be hoped for regarding elite imports was the return of emigrants from the West. Although there are isolated spectacular careers of re-emigrants in every post-communist country (had it been imaginable that Bulgaria’s tsar, who had been in exile for decades, would resurrect as Prime Minister Simeon Sakskoburggotski?), no cartels of re-emigrants were formed among the elites of the post-communist countries.

50 Heike Solga, Der Elitenimport nach Ostdeutschland. Transformationstypen und Veränderungen in der Elitenrekrutierung, in: Martin Diewald/ Karl Ulrich Meier (ed.), Zwischenbilanz der Wiedervereinigung. Strukturwandel und Mobilität im Transformationsprozess, Opladen 1996, pp. 89–109, p. 104.

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During the first transformation years the (post-)communists are massively represented in the informal decision-making structures of the state and the society, which gives rise to the fact that they are repeatedly equated with the “power of the old nomenklatura.” In fact, however, one can only speak of affinity in this context. As mentioned above, considerable segments of the nomenklatura went to the economic sector. Unlike under communism, who the members of the former nomenklatura support depends not on ideological sentiment but on the current constellation of interests. This emancipation from the party of a nomenklatura that has transformed itself into either proprietors or the administrative staff of the post-communist state represents one of the most important developments that has often been overlooked but decisively marks the dismantling of totalitarian structures.

As far as professionalisation is concerned, it is only taking place slowly. Institutional measures force a gradual change in attitudes and patterns of behaviour within the bureaucracy, most of which originated under communism. “Pragmatism” and “professionalism” are keywords with which the members of the post-communist elite prefer to characterise themselves. Although “opportunism” and “adaptation” reflect the facts more accurately, there is no reason to question the undoubtedly progressive professionalisation of the elites. In post-totalitarian democracies, where the new legal norms have to be learned and applied, this professionalisation accompanies the process of getting used to the rules of the constitutional state.

The political elites, in particular, have learned very quickly to base their decisions on current opinion polls, which is why they usually get along very well with the current generation of politicians in the established democracies. The ease with which formerly fighting atheists can pretend to be believers, etatists can appear as liberals, and populists can pretend to be statesmen, is a result of hard work. The new professionalism, however, is also expressed in a less spectacular way in the newly acquired ability to deal objectively with complex issues. The salutary ideas that “everything will be better” are laboriously but consistently pushed to the – broad – edge of populism.

Although the elites bear the responsibility for the transformation, they also represent a product of their societies. For

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mixture of popular ideologies

understandable reasons, it is especially the political class that finds it difficult to stand out completely from the standards of dominating political culture. Even if there are politicians who attach more importance to democracy and the rule of law than is common in their society, they very rarely take action against dominant attitudes if it seems risky for their careers.

From their totalitarian past, parts of the elite brought with them a fondness for ideologies, so that many former communist functionaries mutated into aggressive nationalists after the collapse of their system. This was often welcomed with enthusiasm by the former subjects of the socialist state, whose national feelings had always been hurt in the old system.

The mixture of popular ideologies – harsh nationalist rhetoric, shallow opportunist liberalism, nostalgic socialism – and opportunism of the elites is dangerous. Where it dominates the political elite, the transformation gets into the greatest difficulties, which is compounded by the fact that national history is of great political importance in the first years of the system transformation. The dangers related to the deficits of the elites are minimised or put into perspective if political parties can be built up that decently fulfil the function of recruiting elites. However, the establishment of such parties has proven to be perhaps the most difficult task of post-communist democratisation. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, the post-communist geographical area is huge, culturally heterogeneous, and developed differently both economically and socially. It, therefore, contains different traditions of parties and party systems. The first parties in Central and North-Eastern Europe were founded as early as the 19th century, and before the Second World War, there was both universal suffrage as well as party systems operating in pluralistic societies.

These Western traditions are contrasted with the majority of South-Eastern Europe and – above all – Eastern Europe, where the era of pluralistic party systems and democratic elections only began with the collapse of communism.

Secondly, the mental consequences of decades of living under a communist system that continuously undermined the political organisation of society make it difficult to form parties.

Thirdly, new cleavages (dividing lines) are constantly emerging in the social sphere, which political parties may

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position themselves along. At the beginning of the transformation processes, these lines were based on axiological opposites (e.g. communists versus anti-communists) rather than “materially dominated” conflicts of interest. This has changed with the increasingly complex stratification of society.

Fourthly, the legacy of the communist party system is receding in so far as the question of the origin of the respective party hardly plays a role in politics anymore.

Three decades after the fall of communism, however, the difficulties have diminished. The behaviour, tactics and strategy of political actors have always been the factors that influence parties and party systems. While the political process was unpredictable at the beginning of the system transformation, the political actors have meanwhile accumulated knowledge about their society that they can use to specifically solicit support.

At the beginning of the 1990s, it was understandable that the political parties in post-communism were called “protoparties,” “pseudo-parties,” or “quasi-parties.”51 Given the breath-taking pace of post-totalitarian party formation, it was difficult to speak of “party systems” at that time. Thus, it was more than justified to use terms like “party situation” or “floating party systems.”52 Even today, party systems are often only weakly anchored in post-communist societies. Over the years, the parties have become more or less institutionalised and “unsteady” party systems have established.

The scheme “new political forces  protoparties  young political parties  floating party systems  unsteady party systems” is, however, only transferable to those states that were not dissolved but rather reorganised as a result of the collapse of communism, such as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.

Where, in turn, states disappeared, such as the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the GDR, the already legalised parties had to embark on a second attempt to establish themselves in the framework of the new state structure. In the Federal Republic of Germany that was expanded by the dissolved GDR, for 51 Klaus von Beyme, Systemwechsel in Osteuropa, Frankfurt am Main 1994 (2. Edition), p. 279.

52 Gert-Joachim Glaeßner, Demokratie nach dem Ende des Kommunismus. Regimewechsel, Transition und Demokratisierung im Postkommunismus, Opladen 1994, p. 252, and n.A., “Partii v social’no-političeskom prostranstve sovremennoj Rossii,”, Analyze of the Council of Foreign and Defence Policy, Moskva 1993, p. 6.

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example, the youngest parties of the GDR did not survive. The situation was similar in the post-Soviet states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and the successor states of communist Yugoslavia.

At the beginning of every system transformation, there were: the executive, the communist party, parliament, ideologies, and the omnipresent weak state. The executive branch decided on political measures. The parliamentary factions, and the governing parties in general, served as an extension of the executive everywhere. In the systems developing into democracies, parliaments have nevertheless been able to assert themselves.

Most communist parties indeed went through a difficult time in the first years after the system change. They lost most of their members at that time and had to cope with the justified accusations that they bore the main responsibility for the state of their countries. It is well known that they renounced their absolute claim to power for the sake of survival and suffered, in part, humiliating defeats in the founding elections. Some communist parties were even banned or declared criminal organisations, which in some cases meant the loss of their immense party assets. However, this “gloomy” picture is far from complete.

The almost unimaginable loss of members of the communist or post-communist parties did not change the fact that their competitors had even fewer members. After all, the former state parties only lost their “outer parties,” i.e. those members who had mostly possessed the party book solely for pragmatic reasons anyway.

Even the loss of Marxist doctrine was usually coped with quite well, because what is called “party ethos” in party research (its traditions, habits, and feelings) is at least as important for any party ideology as the official doctrine. The “ethos of opportunism” inherent in most members of the communist parties could easily be transferred to the new system.

The communist and post-communist parties lost neither their organisation nor their ability to mobilise, which they had acquired during the decades of Soviet socialism. Moreover, valuable relations with the state administration and the economy have not disappeared. In most cases, it was also possible to save party assets. All in all, the communists and their successors have little reason to complain when they compare their situation with that of their competitors.

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In no post-totalitarian democracy are the successor parties to the communists generally excluded from forming a government.

Ironically, it was the Lithuanians and Poles, the main destroyers of communism in the Soviet Union and Central Europe, who in 1992 and 1993 were the first ones to bring the former communists (who had been transformed into a social democratic party) back to power through democratic elections. Other post-communist democracies repeated this process, albeit with country-specific modifications. In the Czech Republic, for example, the long absence of the Czech and Moravian Communist Party from the government contributed to the popularity and dogmatisation of the party. The new social democratic party then opened up to the former communists, which contributed significantly to its election success in 1998.

In principle, the communist parties and their successors were in a better position than the political movements that had challenged the communist state parties in the last years of the ancien régime. Even if these challengers – e.g. the Ukrainian “Rukh,” the Lithuanian “Sąjūdis,” the “New Forum” in the GDR, and the “Movement for Civic Freedom” in Czechoslovakia – had at times possessed an astonishing power of mobilisation, they drowned in the political waters. In the history of their countries, they held their ground as temporary movements whose emergence and decline can only be explained by the collapse of the communist regime.

The only exception in this context is the giant “Solidarność,” however, which could have been expected to become the strongest political party in its country. No sooner had communism disappeared than “Solidarność” turned out to be what it was: a “multi-point movement” – national, political, religious, trade union, and cultural – of astonishing diversity. It at least proved possible to transfer its trade union organisation into the new pluralist system. As a political movement, though, the “Election Union Solidarność” failed in the election disaster of 2001.

The leaders of the new parties tried to impose ideologies on their creations that were not allowed or could not have a social anchorage in both the totalitarian and the young post-totalitarian reality. It was often assumed with a boldness bordering on naivety that there was a social need for conservative, Christian democratic, liberal, nationalist, fascist, and social democratic parties everywhere. Because of their ideological character, most of

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the parties that emerged “out of their minds “ at the time met the famous definition formulated by Edmund Burke: “[a] party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they all agreed.”53 The topicality of this quotation from 1770 in the 1990s once again illustrated how far totalitarianism has set back the political organisation of society.

However, most ideological parties have not been able to survive an election period, although some of them have been successful. With their entry into parliament, even those party politicians who had until then been less well known were able to distinguish themselves, receiving diets, subsidies for election campaign costs, and paid offices for members of parliament from the state. These funds could now be used for party work – in part misused – because most parties were so poor that only entering into parliament meant the temporary end of existential concerns about the livelihood of their most important functionaries and activists.

It is particularly important for the party’s success to identify its electoral clientele and to win their loyalty across the country if possible – a difficult task that cannot be accomplished with good organisation at the local level alone. A little bit of luck that helps the party to reach the voters seems indispensable. However, if one looks at the variable careers of politicians in post-communism, it becomes clear that this luck had to be earned in the parliamentary opposition as well, since oppositional work offers the opportunity to cultivate the party’s image. The fact that this opportunity was sometimes not taken advantage of is evidence of the lack of professionalism of many political newcomers. Instead, they continue to make irresponsible promises to win votes. Once in power, they tend to form alliances with informal networks and replace their former ideological orientation with the ethos of opportunism. If they manage to persevere in the opposition for a long time, they have the chance – like the Hungarian FIDESZ (Hungarian Citizen’s Association) and the Polish PiS (Right and Justice) – to transform themselves into parties with a party spirit, whose members or supporters represent a solid and 53 Edmund Burke, On Government, Politics and Society, B.W. Hill (ed.), Fontana 1975, p. 113.

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relatively stable cross-section of the population; in other words, into catch-all parties.

Every voter knows that the political signs (names and programmes) of the parties may vary, while the politicians remain the same. The general frustration with the unfulfilled electoral promises is little affected as most of the promises are so unreal that they simply could not be kept. This frustration makes the losers of the transformation, in particular, especially receptive to populist slogans. The circle is complete when opportunists who claim to be “liberal” or “social democratic” or “European” exploit this receptiveness politically.

Finally, for the sake of order, the types of parties in post-communist democracies mentioned above are listed here:  The successor parties to the communist party and the bloc parties. The successors of the communists can either be parties that have shed the legacy of the communist ideology or parties that continue to cultivate it.  The parties that emerged from the anti-communist movements at the end of the socialist system. They now exist only sporadically, and only where the role of these collective movements in the destruction of totalitarianism was so significant that their myth was able to make its mark on social consciousness. Although these parties still have a certain mobilising power, it was not possible to transform them into catch-all parties.  Ideological parties. Their founders wanted to enforce certain ideologies and political programs that were forbidden in the communist era. Ideological parties emerged either from the protoparties of the communist era, as “historical” parties (forbidden under communist rule), or as newly created ones. If they remained in power for a long time, they transformed into components of cartels inspired by the ethos of opportunism. If they managed to endure in opposition for a long time, they could turn into catch-all parties.  The populist protest parties. They establish themselves “thanks” to the social problems of the system transformation. The critique of elites, blanket questioning of the transformation process, and unconventional methods of political debate are inherent in their agenda. They are ephemerides.

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The obvious unsteady institutionalisation of party systems weakens post-communist democracies, which were once welded together by a practised democratic consensus. This consensus began to crumble after the implementation of reforms. The artificial marginalisation of the political opposition by the ruling parties and their associated civil servants and media cartels reached dangerous levels. The new political parties that were constantly emerging did not always seek support in society, but rather within the aforementioned networks, which made it extremely difficult to firmly institutionalise the party systems.

In addition, the weak traditions of their own statehood and the rule of law favoured an opportunistic and “pally” understanding of politics on the part of the party elites that hardly goes beyond private interests and delays the development of a participatory political culture. Unfortunately, many politicians among the former reformers turned out to be representatives of this spirit which in the long run may undermine the foundations of a representative democracy.

The stratification of post-totalitarian society changed dramatically over the decades and the formation of a middle class was awaited for a long time. Thus, the conditions of the emergence of new catch-all parties in post-totalitarian democracies were bad for a long time as well.

Where there are free elections, the stability of the party systems depends on election results, because, above all, the presence in parliament secures the financial conditions for political work.

The parties begin to fulfil the functions typical of constitutional democracies: determination of objectives, articulation and aggregation of interests, political mobilisation, and socialisation of citizens, as well as recruitment of the political elite. However, everywhere in communism, the miserable condition of the of the party’s spirit and the ideational state of the parties that hardly do any ideological work, jeopardise the consolidation of the party systems.

Recommended literature

Derlien, Hans-Ulrich, Regime Change and Personnel Policy. Observations on Political Cleansing and the Integration of State Functionaries of the GDR into the Civil Service, London, June 1991.

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Higley, John/ Győrgy Lengyel (ed.), Elites after State Socialism. Theories and Analysis, Lanham/Boulder/New York/Oxford 2000.

Solga, Heike, Der Elitenimport nach Ostdeutschland. Transformationstypen und Veränderungen in der Elitenrekrutierung, in: Martin Diewald/ Karl Ulrich Meier (ed.), Zwischenbilanz der Wiedervereinigung. Strukturwandel und Mobilität im Transformationsprozess, Opladen 1996, pp. 89– 109.

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Appendix

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Tables and figures Table 8: System of governments according to Matthew Soberg Shugart/ John M. Carey (1992)

government system

criteria

examples

„pure” presidential

the popular election of the president the president appoints (or nominates) the government subject to the approval of the assembly the president cannot dissolve the assembly the assembly can remove the executive the popular election of the president the prime minister can be removed by the Assembly the president „usually” nominates the prime minister the president can „usually” dissolve parliament the president can „usually” call early elections the president has „less often” a legislative veto Either “pure” presidential with the following additions: the popular election of the president the president appoints (or nominates) the government subject to the approval of the assembly the president must not dissolve the assembly the assembly can remove the government Or premier-presidential with additions: the popular election of the president the prime minister can be removed by the assembly the president „usually” nominates the prime minister the president „usually” can dissolve parliament the president „usually” can call early elections the president has „less often” a legislative veto the president can remove the government or individual members of the government

USA

premierpresidential

presidentparliamentary

France of the 5th Republic

Weimar Republic, Sri Lanka since 1977

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Tables and figures

pure parliamentary

parliamentary „with president”

the parliament majority determines the government and legislation the head of state cannot influence the composition of the government the head of state cannot dissolve parliament [sic! – J.M.] the head of state cannot influence legislation as the purely parliamentary system, but the head of state is elected by the people

England

Ireland, some postcommunist systems

Table 9: Systems of government according to Arend Lijphard (1984)

government system parliamentary

criteria

examples

chief executive (e.g. Prime Minister, Premier, Chancellor, Ministerpräsident, Taoiseach) is appointed by the legislative chief executive depends on the confidence of the legislative

presidential

chief executive (President) is appointed by popular vote (directly or via electoral colleague) chief executive is not dependent on the confidence of the legislative the executive is appointed by the parliament the executive branch is not dependent on the confidence of the parliament

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Federal Republic of Germany, Denmark, France (IV), Great Britain, Holland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden Finland, France (5th), USA

hybrid

Switzerland

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Table 10: System of governments according to Arend Lijphart (1994)

government system pure parliamentarism

criteria

examples

the collegial executive is appointed by the legislative, and depends on the confidence of the legislative

pure presidentialism

the one-person executive is appointed by voters, and is independent of the confidence of the legislative

the majority of Western European democracies (including France 1986– 1988), Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Turkey, Nigeria (1960–1966) most Latin American democracies, France (5th Republic except 1986– 1988), Nigeria (1979–1983), Philippines, South Korea, USA, Cyprus

mixed forms of democracy

(a) the collegial executive is appointed by the legislative, and is independent of the confidence of the legislative (b) the one-person executive is appointed by the legislative, and is independent of the confidence of the legislative (c) the collegial executive is appointed by voters, and is independent of the confidence of the legislative (d) the one-person executive is appointed by the legislative, and depends on the confidence of the legislative (e) the collegial executive is appointed by voters, and depends on the confidence of the legislative

Switzerland

Lebanon

Cyprus 1960–1963; Uruguay 1952–1967 no empirical example no empirical example

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Tables and figures

Table 11: System of governments according to Alfred Stepan/ Cindy Skach (1993)

government system pure parliamentary

pure presidential

semipresidentialhybrid

mixed cases of democracy

criteria

examples

the chief executive is dependent on the confidence of the majority of the legislative the executive can, usually in conjunction with the head of state, dissolve the legislative the legislative has a specific electoral mandate, which is the source of its legitimacy the chief executive has a specific electoral mandate, which is the source of its legitimacy the chief executive is directly elected by the people the chief executive „must� have a majority in the legislative No criteria mentioned, apparently these are the countries that do not fit into the threefold division. Switzerland has an executive appointed by parliament, which is then independent of parliament. As far as Finland is concerned, it is only implied that the President, who is independent of parliamentary confidence, is de facto not elected by the people but by parties in parliament.

democratic countries after the Second World War

USA

France (5th Republic), Portugal Switzerland, Finland (1925– 1988)

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Figure 1: Social preconditions of the post-communist transformation

post-communist authoritarianisms non-Western societies in Eastern Europe the political system of arbitrary rule (no legal limitation of power) and traditional (pre-modern) societies

transitional authoritarianism

no division of economy and politics, otherwise partly autonomous

facade character of political institutions, no rule of law, omnipresence of the state subject political culture, striving for democratic legitimacy

totalitarian ideology, “pathological modernisation”: no autonomy of social subsystems, no political and social pluralism, centrally planned economy

communist totalitarianism Western-influenced societies in Central-, South-Eastern- and North-Eastern Europe before installation of communist states of external origins partial experience with constitutional state (power limited by law) and modern society: autonomy of the economy and politics (autonomy of social subsystems in general), autonomous forces of society

advancing autonomy of social subsystems, weak, but functioning constitutional state, developing middle class and emerging civil political culture

post-communist democracies

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Name index Acquarone, Alberto 19 Adenauer, Konrad 94 Arendt, Hannah 17, 25 Aron, Raymond 17 Augstein, Rudolf 71 Bagehot, Walter 60 Berdiajev, Nikolai 22 Berija, Lavrentij 15 Bismarck, Otto von 30 Breshnev, Leonid 25 Brzeziński, Zbigniew 17, 35, 36 Burke, Edmund 99 Bush, George 41 Carey, John M. 61 Ceauşescu, Nicolae 40, 46, 48, 91 Djilas, Milovan 10, 12 Engels, Friedrich 9, 63 Friedrich, Carl Joachim 17, 35, 36 Gellner, Ernest 11, 26, 63 Gerasimov, Gennady 46 Gomułka, Władysław 25 González Enriquez, Carmen 91 Gorbachev, Mikhail 42, 44, 45, 48, 70 Grass, Günter 71 Gurian, Waldemar 18 Halecki, Oskar 4 Hayek, Friedrich August von 7 Higley, John 92 Hitler, Adolf 18, 27 Holmes, Stephen 61 Honecker, Erich 70 Jaruzelski, Wojciech 26, 44, 48 John, Paul II 43 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich 14, 15, 24, 25, 36 Kisielewski, Stefan 89

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Klaus, Václav 67 Koestler, Arthur 26 Kohl, Helmut 71, 72 Kołakowski, Leszek 18, 47 Kravtchuk, Leonid 47, 78, 79 Krenz, Egon 70 Kutchma, Leonid 78, 80, 82, 85 Kwaśniewski, Aleksander 57, 58 Laski, Harold J. 60 Lengyel, Győrgy 92 Lenin, Vladimir I. 9, 15, 18, 21, 27, 63, 76 Leonhard, Wolfgang 29 Lijphart, Arend 61 Linz, Juan J. 19, 42, 60, 61 Loewenstein, Karl 50, 51, 81 Lukashenka, Aleksandr 49, 76, 78, 84, 87 Maizière de, Lothar 71 Marx, Karl 9, 63 Mazowiecki, Tadeusz 45, 46, 58 Mečiar, Vladimir 84, 92 Mielke, Erich 70 Modrow, Hans 71 Mussolini, Benito 15, 19 Nowak, Leszek 10 O’Donnell, Guillermo 60 Orwell, George 26, 28 Osiatyński, Wiktor 59 Przeworski, Adam 82 Putin, Wladimir 76, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87 Reagan, Ronald 41 Sakskoburggotski, Simeon 94 Sartori, Giovanni 50, 60, 62 Schröder, Gerhard 79 Shevardnadze, Eduard 79, 80, 82, 85 Shevtsova, Lilia 80 Shivkov, Todor 24, 46, 91 Shugart, Matthew S. 61 Shushkevitch, Stanislav 47 Skach, Cindy 60 Spiro, Herbert J. 48 Stalin, Joseph V. 9, 13, 14, 15, 18, 21, 26, 27, 36, 37, 38 Steffani, Winfried 51, 52 Stepan, Alfred 60 Svetlov, Vitalij 46

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Name index

Voslensky, Mikhail 10 Wałęsa, Lech 56, 57 Weber, Max 90 Wojtyła, Karol 35 Yeltsin, Boris 45, 47, 49, 59, 60, 76-80, 85, 87 Zinovjev, Aleksandr 31

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Geographical index Afganistan 56 Albania 13, 52, 115 Asia 13, 14 Auschwitz 27 Australia 137, 138 Austria 137 Baltic Sea 59 Baltic states 35 Belarus, Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic 13, 35, 36, 37, 66, 89, 99–100, 103, 104, 105, 106, 110 Belgium 137 Berlin 63 Bucharest 87 Bulgaria 13, 36, 37, 63, 67, 68, 91, 105, 114, 115, 116, 118, 121 Canada 137, 138 Caucasus 35, 61 Central Asia 52, 107 Central Europe 13, 14, 15, 34, 35, 62, 86, 88, 90, 120, 123, 140 Central European states 57, 89, 115 Central Germany (Mitteldeautschland) 21 Chernobyl 56 China, People’s Republic of China 34, 37, 52 Crimea 97 Croatia 116 Cuba 34 Cyprus 138 Czech Republic 13, 67, 68, 87, 88, 90, 105, 115, 116, 122, 123 Czechoslovakia 21, 26, 35, 37, 38, 39, 50, 54, 55, 63, 65, 67, 90, 98, 99, 100, 121, 123 Częstochowa 59 Denmark 137 Donbass 97 East Central Europe 13 Eastern Belarus 36 Eastern Bloc 14–16, 56, 65, 83, 91, 95

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Geographical index

Eastern Europe 13–15, 88, 104, 105, 120, 140 Eastern Ukraine 36 Elbe 13, 91 England 71, 137 Estonia 13, 61, 88, 90 Eurasia 13 Europe 13, 34, 35, 59, 63 European Community 92 European Union, EU 88, 89, 90, 105 Federal Republic of Germany 44, 52, 71, 83, 91–93, 97, 105, 118, 121, 137 Finland 71, 137, 139 France 34, 35, 71, 74, 75, 136, 137, 138, 139 Galicia 36 Georgia 26, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108 German Democratic Republic, GDR, Eastern Germany 13, 21, 50, 54, 55, 63, 71, 83, 86, 90–93, 96–97, 98, 99, 100, 117–118, 121, 122, 123 German Empire 71 Germany 14, 30, 34, 35, 38, 58, 90–92, 94, 114 Great Britain 35, 137 Harvard University 46 Holland 137 Hungary, Hungarian Socialist Republic 13, 37, 39, 54, 55, 57, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 88, 90, 98, 99, 113, 115, 116, 121 Iceland 137 Imperial Russia 34 India 138 Ireland 137 Israel 137, 138 Italy 31, 50, 137 Jamaica 138 Japan 137, 138 Kaliningrad 13 Kraków 50 Kremlin 37, 43, 52, 90, 99, 105 Latin America 71 Latvia 13, 61, 90 Lebanon 138 Lithuania 13, 61, 90, 98, 99 Luxembourg 137 Malaysia 138 Mittelosteuropa 14 Moldova 13 Mongolia 35 Moscow 37, 52, 61, 62

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New Zealand 137, 138 Nigeria 138 Nord Stream 105 North Caucasus 52 North Korea 52 North-Eastern Europe 14, 15, 34, 35, 86, 88, 90, 120, 140 Norway 137 Occident 25 Ostmitteleuropa 14 Philippines 138 Poland, People’s Republic of Poland 13, 26, 35, 36, 38, 39, 45, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, 57, 59–60, 61, 62–63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71–79, 88, 89, 90, 98, 99, 105, 113, 115, 116, 121 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 36 Portugal 139 Prague 16, 38, 54 Romania 13, 37, 63, 65, 67, 68, 87, 114, 115, 121 Rus’ 34 Russia, Russian Federation 13, 33, 34, 61, 63, 66, 67, 68, 72, 78, 98, 99–100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 116 Serbia 116 Siberia 52 Slovakia 13, 67, 68, 90, 98, 106, 116, 122 Slovenia 90 South Korea 138 South-Eastern Europe 13–15, 35, 86, 88, 120, 140 Soviet Union, USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 15, 25, 29, 34–38, 41, 46, 52, 55–57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 68, 71, 89, 91, 95, 121, 123 Spain 104 Sri Lanka 136 Sweden 137 Switzerland 71, 137, 138, 139 Third Reich 29, 44, 50 Turkey 138 Ukraine, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 13, 35, 36, 37, 61, 63, 87, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102–104, 105, 106, 108, 109 United States of America, USA 35, 44, 57, 62, 71, 80, 106, 136, 137, 138, 139 Uruguay 138 Vatican 31 Vietnam 34 Vladivostok 13 Warsaw 43, 52, 62, 63 Weimar Republic 71, 136 West Germany 88, 92, 93, 117, 118

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Geographical index

West 16, 22, 23, 25, 29, 38, 52, 55, 63, 83, 89, 93, 105, 118 Western Ukraine 36 Yugoslavia 13, 35, 68, 121, 122

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