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The Momentum of Transformation in Central Europe
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18673 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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8 / 1991 |
4,683 Words |
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Donald Jameson
Donald Jameson is a writer and consultant on Soviet and
Eastern European political and economic affairs. |
The political earthquake that hit the European colonies of the now shattered Soviet empire in 1989 left two fault lines in its wake. These lines roughly divide Eastern Europe into three parts, as it was in much of the nineteenth century: the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. In broad terms, what we are witnessing today is a reversion of the course of history to the era before World War I, the tragic conflict that gave birth to the twin monster offspring of European civilization--fascism and communism. With one monster long dead and the other near death, the old divisions have acquired new meaning.
East of the line from Ruthenia to Dalmatia, newly independent countries are engaged in building modern European societies almost from the beginning, a daunting, uncertain, but still hopeful process. To the west of that line, old Central Europe is emerging from roots long dormant but surprisingly vital. (Although sharing many of the problems and prospects with the rest of the area, Slovenia and Croatia are subsets of another problem. In this article we will deal only with their neighbors to the north.)
On the whole, these three nations, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, have made good beginnings in bridging the gap between World War II and today in two years. The imprint of the communist system is, of course, still there, primarily in two sectors: (a) the inefficient, obsolete, and environmentally destructive industrial plant and (b) the Soviet-trained executive and administrative cadre, left over from the colonial era. Unfortunately, the latter are still necessary for their know-how. Many of them are now busily making deals and converting their status to that of entrepreneurs and property owners. In fact, the social effects of this perpetuation of the old "new class" as a major part of the new managerial elite is becoming a political barrier to thoroughgoing capitalist reform. Workers see little difference between systems when the same old bosses show up in new suits.
In addition to these specifics, the general inertia that is characteristic of all communist-led societies provokes suspicion of anything new and spontaneous as well as contempt for conscientious labor, which is probably the worst aspect of the legacy from the communist period.
All three of these nations of revived Central Europe share these problems, but the particularities of each have led to different approaches in coping with them. Essentially, the economic circumstances they face are a product of the lack of rational
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