Political and Ideological Factors

INTRODUCTION

The socialist system cannot be understood unless we know its political structure. Since this book is intended to focus primarily on the economic causes of the breakdown of socialism, I only want to show some of the political aspects which were responsible for the failure of the socialist system.

In the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx-Engels Reader, 1978), which was first published in 1848, Marx and Engels assumed that in the fight with the bourgeoisie the proletariat might use force in order to establish itself as a ruling class. The purpose of this seizure of power was to bring about revolutionary changes in production relations. The seized political power would enable the proletariat ‘to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State’ (p. 490).

The authors also make it clear why they believe that the proletariat has a historical mission to destroy capitalism. To them the proletariat is the only revolutionary class. All other classes will disappear in the wake of modern industry. Shopkeepers, artisans, and peasants fight the bourgeoisie in order to maintain their existence as part of the bourgeoisie; thus they want to reverse development (Marx apparently assumed that they are doomed to proletarianisation) and therefore they should be regarded as reactionaries. Only proletarians, who do not own the means of production, can become masters of production by abolishing ‘their own previous mode of appropriation... and every other previous mode of appropriation’. In contrast to other move­ments, which were movements of minorities, the proletariat is an ‘immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority’ (p. 482).

To Marx the rule of the proletariat is supposed to be temporary only.

In his Anti-Duhring_i Engels (1969) echoed a similar sentiment to that of Marx, with the difference that he talked about the role of the state. According to him, with the disappearance of classes, ‘State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then withers away of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not “abolished”. It withers away' (p. 333).

In the Manifesto of the Communist Party the term ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ was not used. However, in his Critique of the Gotha Program, which was written 27 years later, Marx wrote ‘Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat' (Marx-Engels Reader, 1978, p. 538).

Since Marx was not specific about what he meant by the dictatorship of the proletariat, politicians and scholars have tried to interpret his view, mostly in a way that fitted in with their own ideas.

In his State and Revolution, Lenin (1967, vol. 2, p. 334) argued that, in the transitional period from capitalism, dictatorship was needed, ‘for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way’. In other words, he had in mind a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat and believed that it was in line with Marx’s and Engels’ ideas. He also argued that democracy in capitalist countries was ‘democracy for the minority, only for the property classes, only for the rich’ (p.

In 1918, after the Bolsheviks seized power, K. Kautsky (1964), one of the leading Marxists in Europe, published a pamphlet on the topic of dictatorship of the proletariat. It was on the one hand a plea for democracy and thus a censure of the methods used by the Bolsheviks in their fight for power. On the other, it was an attempt to show that Marx, when talking about dictatorship, did not really have in mind a system contrary to democracy. This view he tried to back up with Marx’s evaluation of the French Commune, which was the result of a general suffrage, and concluded ‘The dictatorship of the proletariat was for him a condition which necessarily arose in a real democracy, because of the overwhelming numbers of the proletariat* (p. 45). As is known, Marx believed that the socialist revolution would first triumph in highly developed countries, where the industrial proletariat was growing fast and probably assumed on the basis of his theory of concentration that the proletariat would achieve a majority.

Regardless of what Marx had in mind, his suggested idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was welcome to the Bolsheviks in Russia, where a long tradition of authoritarianism existed which also affected their thinking. Marx gave them the ideological tool for doing what they had an inclination to do anyhow.

All those who had in mind a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat did not mean that the proletariat itself would exercise the dictatorship. A class cannot govern, it can only rule, as Kautsky mentioned (p. 45). It was assumed that the dictatorship would be organised by a political party, as vanguard of the proletariat. As will be shown later, the political power in the Soviet Union was not concentrated in the hands of the Communist Party (henceforth CP or simply the Party); the latter served only as a well-thought-out instrument for the dictatorship of a small group of people.

For some time the socialist countries openly admitted that their system was a dictatorship of the proletariat.

THE ONE-PARTY STATE

The political system in the former socialist countries can be characterised briefly as a one-party system and thus a one-party state. In all these countries the political power was concentrated in the hands of the CP. True, the CP had a different name in some countries, ^, but this was done for political reasons. Regardless of the name all the parties behaved more or less the same way until the start of the reforms.

In some countries other parties existed besides the CP, for example, in Czechoslovakia and Poland. The existence of non-communist political parties did not turn the political system into a genuine multi-party system. The other parties were subordinated to the CP, were forced to recognise its leading role and accept socialism as their programme. They had a dual task: on the one hand, to act as veil to cover up the real face of the CP and thus lend some legitimacy to the socialist system and, on the other hand, to act as a mass organisation, namely, to be a transformation belt between the Party and the people who were associated with these non-communist parties.

CPs controlled all facets of political, social and economic life. This control was exercised indirectly, with the help of governments appointed by the CPs. In order to maintain tight control the governments imposed far-reaching limitations on human rights, such as freedom of expression, association, travel etc. And a powerful secret police, aided by a large net of informers, saw to it that the CP’s rule was not violated. In addition, a well-organised army in every socialist country, in alliance with the Soviet army, had to make sure that external intervention would not take place.

This tight control was possible because the CP itself was hierarchically organised and authoritarian. The underlying principle of the organisation of the CP was the so- called democratic centralism. According to it, all the CPs’ governing bodies were supposed to be elected democratically. The centralism was to mean that subordinated bodies in the hierarchy should obey the decisions of superior bodies. This principle, which seems logical and sound at first glance, was an important component of the party organisation concept. Its back­ground and purpose can be found in Lenin’s One Step Forward and Two Back (1967). When Lenin still headed the Bolshevik Party (as the CP was called up to 1922) the principle of democratic centralism was respected to a great degree. Once Stalin took over the leadership of the CP, internal democracy was gradually destroyed and democratic centralism was used as an instrument to bring about a dictatorship of one person. All the political power was concentrated in the hands of the Secretary General of the Party (or First Secretary as he was called in some periods and some countries), which in practice meant that Stalin, who was the Secretary General, was a dictator up to his death in 1953.

Second, the Politburo presented only the proposals of the majority for approval by the CC. The Politburo members were not allowed to defend their minority view in the session of the CC. Not only this, members of the CC usually did not know what the minority view in the Politburo was.

In addition, members of the CC did not dare criticise the Politburo for fear of retribution. Only if there was a rift in the Politburo could the CC become active.

The Congress, which was formally the highest governing body of the Party and elected the CC, was also manipulated by the Politburo. The latter, with the help of the party apparatus, saw to it that only ‘reliable’ (meaning faithful to the leadership) members of the CP were delegated to the Congress. The members of the CC were in fact selected by the Politburo and rubber stamped by the Congress.

This system, which was established in the USSR, was embraced at the end of the 1940s, after the CPs seized power, in all East European countries. After the twentieth Congress of the Soviet CP in 1956, at which Stalin was subjected to sharp criticism, the internal working of the Party was to some extent democratised. The Politburo became largely a collective body and the role of the CC was increased somewhat. This trend to dcmocratisation within the Party was strengthened by the reforms of the 1960s and even more by the reforms of the 1980s.

Formal pressure groups, or even organisations which might develop into pressure groups, were not allowed. This does not mean that no pressure group existed, in reality there were some and very powerful, but they could not signal their existence by public presentations of their interests. It has already been mentioned that the managers of heavy industry were a powerful pressure group. One should also regard the local party organisations, which intervened with ministries in favour of the interests of enterprises located in their territory, as some kind of pressure groups. The objection by the CPs to formal pressure groups was motivated by the fear that they might develop into centres of opposition to the CP and thus erode the leading role of the Party.

In all the socialist countries there were so-called mass organisations, such as women and youth organisations whose purpose was to serve as a transmission belt between the CP and the masses. Mass organisations were fully subordinated to the political leadership of the Party. Trade Unions were also treated as a mass organisation, and their main task was to mobilise workers for the fulfilment of the economic plan. Protection of workers’ interests was a secondary task.

I agree with A. Meyer (1965) who believed that the structure and functioning of the Soviet CP was very similar to that of giant corporations. ‘It has [the Soviet CP] in common with them a thoroughly authoritarian political structure, in which the elite is independent of control by the lower-ranking members of the organisation, even though all or most giant bureaucracies in the modern world insist that their rank-and-file constituents participate in the organisation’s public life’ writes Meyer (quoted according to White, Gardner and Schopflin, 1987, p. 21).

The political power of the CP was so all-embracing not only because the government, including local authorities, was appointed by the governing bodies of the CP, but also because the CP controlled the economy as caretaker of the nationalised and collectivised means of production.

At the head of a huge bureaucracy the communist leaders determined the structure and direction of the economy and the economic mechanism. In the final analysis they determined the main objectives of the five-year and annual plans, the expected pace of economic growth, the distribution of income, the rate of accumulation, etc. They thus determined which social goals would get priority and which would be put aside.

They controlled not only the macroeconomic sphere, but also the microeconomic sphere, on the one hand through top managers whose nomination depended on the approval of the CP, and on the other hand through territorial CP organisations and CP organisations at the work place. The tight CP control over the economy seemed to the leaders to be not only convenient, but also advantageous. It made it possible for them to dispose of resources almost according to their will, constrained, of course, by economic realities. Control over the economy, combined with the enforced absence of any kind of public control, at least in the form of a liberal press, gave the leaders almost a feeling of omnipotence. And this really hid many dangers for the economy, and also for the leaders themselves in the final analysis. In such an environment, where reliable signals about the performance of the economy did not function well and a self-correcting mechanism like the market did not exist, enormous mistakes could easily be made and, once made, they were very difficult to correct. Since all the levers of control over the economy were in the hands of the CP, the public credited the CP with all the successes, but also blamed it for the failures. Because there were more of the latter, mainly in the 1980s, the CP lost credibility.

During the economic reforms there was some attempt to put a part of the responsibility for the well-being of workers on enterprises. For example, in the Hungarian economic reform of 1968, but even more in the reform of 1987, enterprises were given quite a lot of input into the decisions about the evolution of wages and the distribution of the gross profit. Of course, the main reason for the changes in the regulation of wages had to do with the desire to give enterprises greater autonomy in the hope that this would generate economic efficiency. No doubt, this change was also aimed at making enterprises responsible in the eyes of workers, or at least co-responsible for their material well-being. Needless to say, this attempt was not successful.

LEGITIMACY OF THE REGIME

The one-party system was not the result of the free will of the people: in some countries, such as in the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cuba, it was the result of a civil war and in the countries under review it was imposed by the USSR. The CPs did not seek genuine popular approval of their rule, even after consolidating their power. Any parliamentary elections they held were a farce; every constituency had only one candidate who was formally selected by the National Front (which grouped all political parties and mass organisations and was dominated by the CP), but was in reality more or less the choice of the CP. To the extent that other political parties existed and had representation in the government, they could not contest their strength in parliamentary elections on a separate slate. The CPs saw to it that their candidates received at least 95 per cent of the poular vote. To achieve this figure the Party apparatus used pressure, intimidation and propaganda and it probably rigged the results in some cases.

The Hungarian CP was the only one of those under review that tried (in 1985), when the regime still seemed to be stable, to depart from traditional elections. It did not allow a multi-party system, but it allowed the public to nominate more than one candidate for each election constituency. However, to make sure that the top leadership was elected, the CP ran a country slate which made the election of its candidates a sure thing. This experiment was quite successful: none of the active high functionaries was defeated, more communists were elected than in previous elections and many independent candidates were elected (see Pozsgay, 1989, pp. 75-9). There was no further occasion to expand the experiment because in 1989 the socialist system collapsed. Considering that the elections took place at a time when the economic situation was bad, one may speculate that in the 1960s, when the reforms started, the CPs in both Czechoslovakia and Hungary, but mainly in the former, had a good chance to gain legitimacy through free elections, particularly if they took lessons from the West about campaign techniques aimed at influencing the voters.

True, not only supporters of the regime, but also a large proportion of the population did not care about legitimacy as long as the regime was able to ensure a decent standard of living. People accepted the argument of the communist leaders that their legitimacy lay in solving problems which the capitalist system was not able to, such as full employment, a more equal distribution of income, an extensive social net etc. Once the regime found itself in an economic and political crisis, the situation changed and, legitimacy became an issue. The opposition could and did use lack of legitimacy as an important instrument in its fight against the regime. And it turned out to be a powerful instrument.

POLITICAL FACTIONS

The so-called democratic centralism, the basic organisational structure of the CP, did not allow any formal factions³ in the Party in order to prevent the creation of oppositional political parties. This was, no doubt, important in the initial period of building the socialist system. But later it turned out to be a tremendous shortcoming of the system. True, factions came into being in Poland as well as in Hungary in the second half of the 1980s, but they could not establish themselves as quasi political parties. Anyhow, it was too late, because the countries were already in the grip of a deep economic and political crisis.

Allowing factions might have prevented the socialist system from making many wrong decisions which hurt the economy. Because the factions would have had to contend for the support of members of the Party or voters, the economy would have been pushed more in the direction of being consumption oriented. The factions would have also prevented gross violations of human rights. The system would have received a democratic appearance.

What is more important is that factions might perhaps have rescued the system. In a capitalist system, the fact that an unlimited number of political parties can contest political power is an important protection of the system. If the public is dissatisfied with the ruling party, it can get rid of it in the next election by voting for a rival party. The latter may not be much different in its world view than the ruling party of the day was; however, the public finds some satisfaction in feeling able to punish those who caused its frustration. Usually all the important parties profess an ideology of free enterprise, though in details they differ. Thus the system is safe, even if the country is exposed to a deep recession.

The media which are mostly in the hands of big corporations make sure that the capitalist ideology is the ruling ideology. Usually the owners (big corporations) do not interfere in the daily activities of the media: editors, anchormen and reporters have a considerable amount of freedom of expression. Broadcasting networks, daily papers, magazines and journals differ in their positions on vital problems of the economy, political and social life. This plurality of views gives the impression that it reflects the thinking of the people. However, the opposite is true; people mostly accept what the media tell them is right. Unfortunately, most people are not politically educated enough to understand what is really going on in the economy, and therefore they can be easily manipulated if the proper language and reasoning, close to their values, is used.

The impression that the media serve the people is strengthened by the fact that there are no legal restrictions in advanced capitalist countries on what can be published. Anti-capitalist daily papers and magazines can be freely published. This is so in theory; in practice it is difficult to take advantage of such a possibility. To publish a daily paper costs a lot of money, and big corporations would be unlikely to finance such a venture. In addition, such a paper would surely not get business advertisements. And even if there are several anti-capitalist papers, how big can their influence be in competition with the powerful media supporting the capitalist system?

It was mentioned that the media personnel have freedom of expression. It is necessary to add that they know very well that their freedom of expression has certain limits with regard to criticism of the capitalist system. If they cross this red line frequently, their jobs will be in serious danger.

The existence of factions in the Party which could have become political parties might perhaps have allowed the political tensions of an economic crisis to be defused by the transfer of power from one faction to another. Such an outcome could have had a chance if the factions had come into being when the Party’s standing was relatively strong, and if, in the course of time, the new structure had become entrenched and certain temporary restrictions on freedom of creation of political parties had been imposed. In addition, what was needed was a media with pluralistic views, but which supported a restructured socialist system. Of course, without restructuring the economy in the direction of a market economy, even with some limitations, the chances for the survival of such a system in the long run were small. Limitations should also have been set for the private sector. The constitution could have contained a limit on the number of people who could be employed by a private company.

Needless to say, small countries alone could hardly sustain such a system. Multinational corporations would regard it as a threat to their interests and would try to undermine it and, considering their economic power and solidarity, they would be bound to succeed.

CHANGES IN THE PARTY AND STATE APPARATUS

Changes within the Party and state apparatus, primarily the former, were an important factor in the collapse of the socialist system. After World War II the Party and state apparatus was mostly headed by people who were ideologically committed to the ideas of socialism and communism. In Czechoslovakia these were people whose faith in the ideals of the CP was hardened in the struggle of the Party for its goals and in opposition to the governments of the day between the two wars. Their commitment to socialism was strengthened because socialism as an applied system had its origin in the Soviet Union, which had freed their country from German Nazism. In addition, these people still remembered the Great Depression and its tragic effect on employment and the standard of living. Between the two world wars in Poland, where the CP was mostly illegal and in Hungary where it was always illegal, many of the leading functionaries of the Party apparatus came from people who worked in the illegal Party, in other words, people who were emotionally and ideologically linked to the CP. In all three countries factory workers were promoted to important functions in the Party, the state and the economy in the hope that their elevation to positions of responsibility would be reciprocated by faithfulness to the Party line. In most cases this happened.

In the 1960s and 1970s the Party and state apparatus structure started to change. Particularly in Poland and Hungary this process was considerably accelerated in the 1980s. The new people recruited for the apparatus were different from the old generation. They were better educated, many of them had a university education. In his paper F. Gazs6 (1993) indicates figures for Hungary which confirm this. In 1981, 50.5 per cent of the CP elite (politburo members, central committee members, secretaries and department heads of CC) had a university background; in 1989 this number had increased to 75. 2 per cent. A similar development occurred among the state and economic elite, with the difference that there the percentage of people with a university education was much higher. What is also of importance is that in the 1980s in the state and managerial apparatus there was a 70 per cent turnover of cadres against 9. 3 per cent in 1970s. In addition, in the 1980s many technocrats got in positions in the state and managerial apparatus which (positions) were before reserved for members of the party apparatus. Probably a similar situation occurred in Poland.

In Czechoslovakia, the politicians stuck more to the old ‘cadre’ policy, but even here the percentage of people with a university education in the Party apparatus, let alone the state apparatus and economic management, grew fast.

This change in ‘cadre’ policy was the result of several factors. It was a response to the increasing sophistication of the economy and the need for greater expertise to handle economic problems. Educated people were also needed in order to copc with the non-economic problems faced by the CPs. Last but not least, communist leaders wanted to believe that people educated under the socialist system would be at least loyal to the system.

Most of these newcomers to positions of responsibility in the 1980s were not very emotionally connected with the Party; they were not part of the experience that the older generation had gone through. They were less ideologically oriented, more critical and independent in their thinking, and pragmatic. They were no longer as committed to the ideals of the CP and socialism as their predecessors had been. They were in a sense the product of the changes which had occurred in society: the revolutionary fervour, which dominated a proportion of the population, had evaporated long before, because this normally survives the revolution only for a short time and because great disappointment set in due to unfulfilled expectations.

Many of the newcomers were cynics who were willing to feign certain stands in order to acquire positions of power. Political power was more important to them than the ideals of socialism. They were willing to work in the Party and state apparatus because they were interested in having political power and influence and because these positions were better paid. Because of their superior knowledge such people can be good servants of a cause, even better in some cases than the previous ones, as long as the regime functions well. Once a political and economic crisis starts to develop and doubts arise about the stability and survivability of the regime, their loyalty to the cause, which was insignificant in any case, diminishes quickly, and they turn into real bureaucrats who are willing to serve any regime. At any rate such people would not stick their necks out for the regime; on the contrary, they might even accelerate its demise if their interests were served by doing so. ⁴ It is no accident that many members of the former nomenclature, including members of the state and Party apparatus, used their positions of power for various acts of legal or illegal privatisation which enriched them. In her book J. Staniszkis (1991) mentions a whole scries of methods used in Poland for this purpose. She maintains that nomenclature companies control 10-20 per cent of state assets (p. 68). A similar situation occurred in Hungary.

When the economic situation began to worsen in the second half of the 1980s and when various attempts, undertaken to salvage the situation, turned out to be unsuccessful, a political crisis started to develop in Hungary (Poland was affected by it even earlier) which afflicted the CP itself. The cohesion of the CPs started to loosen and the ability to control events slowly slipped from their hands.

THE EROSION OF THE IDEOLOGY

The ‘Marxist’ ideology was the glue which held together the CPs, which played the leading role in the countries. The quotation marks around ‘Marxism’ are to indicate that what was put forward as Marxism by the regime was in reality a twisted and distorted Marxism: elements of Marxism which fitted in with the Stalinist system were taken over; on the other hand, other elements, for example those that had to do with humanism and self-fulfilment, were dropped. Marxism, even in its twisted form, was still a powerful force which united believers in socialism. ⁵ In Czechoslovakia, ideas associated with Marxism and socialism - like full employment, development of the economy without recessions, more equal distribution of income and an extensive social safety net - were mostly accepted with satisfaction and in many circles with enthusiasm. In 1946, the Czechoslovak CP got more than 40 per cent of the popular vote in free elections. It is necessary to state that the CP did not lose its support when it seized power in February 1948 through pressure, intimidation and propaganda. The masses were willing to believe that this was necessary in order to build a more just system.

In Poland and Hungary, where the Communists had little backing before the war, the new regime was also able to attract support. Brzezinski (1989, p. 108) writes that both countries had

large numbers of rural poor, as well as some highly radicalised industrial workers, who were willing and even eager to identify with the new regime. For them, the onset of the Communist rule opened the doors to rapid advancement through greater educational opportunities, as well as in the new institutions of power, notably the police and the military... The new order also mobilized in the early years the support of many of the young, drawn by the vision of a new age, by grandiose urban and industrial projects, and by humanitarian goals of social reform.

The ideology used by the CPs was not made up solely of ideas about how future society and the economy should be organised, how the diseases of capitalism would be cured and thus how socialism would differ from capitalism. It also included a code of behaviour to which great importance was attributed in the struggle to build socialism. The most important elements of this code were: discipline, the obeying of the orders of higher decision-making bodies in the hierarchy without hesitancy, a willingness to sacrifice one’s own interests for the sake of the collective, and vigilance against the real and potential enemies of socialism (see Kornai, 1992 p. 57). The principle of discipline is applied in every hierarchical society, including a democracy. But it played a specially important role in the organisational structure of the CP as well as in the structure of the economic mechanism. Without discipline the traditional economic mechanism could not have worked. If several enterprises did not fulfil the assigned output targets, other enterprises could not either, and a chain reaction might arise with shortages as a consequence. If discipline is increasingly ignored, the regime must necessarily be weakened.

Of course, socialist countries relied not only on ideology to ensure that discipline would be followed: they backed up ideology with a stick and carrot approach. Under Stalin’s rule there was more stick than carrot: violations of discipline were treated with a heavy hand, often with prison. Later the stick was less oppressive and was replaced with more of a carrot.

The ideology was also backed up by propaganda which, mainly in the first years of the new regime, was coarse and clumsy. The propagandists had little experience in knowing how to make their explanations of government policies believable and how to explain the contradictions between the ideology and reality. They believed that, if they denied the self evident, spread half-truths and repeated them frequently, people would be willing to accept them. They believed Goebbels, the propaganda minister of the German Nazi government, who maintained that if you repeat a lie many times, people will believe it. In brief, the propaganda was not very convincing and often had the opposite effect to what was desired. It negatively affected in particular the attitude of the intelligentsia to the socialist regime.

The propagandists had a hard time defending government policies, mainly those at the beginning of the 1950s, which caused great hardship to the population. The burden which the first medium-term plans imposed on the working people did not square with the CPs’ claim that their policies were dictated by the interests of the working people. The communist leaders tried to blame the shortages and the decline in the standard of living on ‘plotters and traitors’. Show trials at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, a product of Stalin’s method of scaring off potential opposition, were used by the propagandists as proof that the decline in the standard of living was really the work of traitors and agents of the West (cf. Fejtδ, 1974, pp. 14-25).

The propaganda about the USSR was especially awkward and crude, and frequently insulted national feelings. The attempts to portray the USSR as the best country in all respects including the standard of living, a kind of role model for other countries, were the best proof that propagandists did not understand how mass psychology works. In the beginning many people believed in the lie, mainly those who favoured the regime or those who lacked information to the contrary. There were also people who had doubts about the truthfulness of the propaganda about the USSR, but did not object to it, believing that it served a good cause. Despite the Iron Curtain the truth slowly worked its way through and the propaganda about the USSR had the opposite effect: people ceased to believe positive reports about the USSR even if they were true.

The effect of the propaganda was also diminished by the communist leaders’ preaching water and drinking wine, to use a Hungarian proverb. In capitalist countries people accept as natural that the elite lives in abundance and luxury. They believe in ‘filter-down economics’, understood in a non-pejorative manner. In the socialist countries egalitarianism hit deep roots, and the public expected the communist leaders and their subordinates to endure at least some of the hardship as they did. They resented the fact that there were special stores for the elite, stocked with goods which were not available in ordinary shops. They believed, rightly, that if the wives (or husbands) of the members of the elite had to line up for consumer goods in times of shortages and spend several hours in queues during the week, the elite would have a better understanding of the importance of a smooth supply of consumer goods. Special hospitals for the elite, where better service and foreign drugs were available, were also resented. It is also known that in Czechoslovakia members of the central Party apparatus used to get untaxed and therefore illegal supplementary payments. There were various other privileges which the elite enjoyed. They had easier access to housing, travel etc. For completeness, it should be said that their legal incomes were quite modest compared to the incomes of the elites in capitalist countries. What is also important is that they could make decisions about the use of capital assets, but they could not own them or bequeath them to their children.

The gross violation of human rights, which was typical of the first decade of the communist regime, also made the work of propagandists more difficult, mainly among the intelligentsia. The communist leaders tried to scare off real and potential opposition to their regime. To this end they made judges sentence people to arduous physical labour and even resorted to judicial killing on trumped-up charges. They also used less harsh methods. Some of the methods had the character of ‘overkill’ (e.g., the expulsion of certain types of students from universities in Czechoslovakia (see p. 63) or the deportation of the ‘exponents of the capitalist regime’ from Budapest (see p. 55) and resulted from paranoia.

In the course of 40 years the socialist ideology changed very much and its influence fluctuated, but in the long run it diminished greatly so that in the second half of the 1980s it was discredited to such an extent that in the power struggle between the CP and its opposition it ceased to be an important factor. It would exceed the scope of this study to engage in a detailed analysis of the changes in the ideology and in the propaganda used to back it up; therefore 1 will mention only some of the important changes.

After Stalin’s death in 1953 the countries under review gradually started to use more subtle methods in propaganda. This change in propaganda helped for a while because it was coupled with changes in economic policy. The hardships of the first middle-term plans were eased by slowing down the investment drive and paying greater attention to consumption.

The Twentieth Congress of the Soviet CP in 1956, in which Khrushchev revealed Stalin’s gross abuses of power and crimes, became an important milestone in the erosion of the ruling ideology. Many assertions about the superiority of the socialist system turned out to be lies. Many dogmas which were presented to the people as undisputable truths (among them that economic growth is possible only if production of producer goods grows faster than production of consumer goods, a principle which was supposed to back up the industrialisation drive) collapsed and undermined the system. In Hungary, the verbal attack on the CP started with attacking and ridiculing the Stalinist dogmas, and this in turn helped to mobilise people for the 1956 uprising in Hungary.

In the middle of the 1960s political relaxation, which had already started with, inter alia, the idea of the CPs that the dictatorship of the proletariat came to an end, was accelerated by the economic reforms in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Writers, playwrights, artists and social scientists should be given some credit for the political relaxation. In particular writers fought for the expansion of human rights, freedom of expression and for non-interference by the government in artistic creation. They were in a sense the spokesmen of the opposition.

The political relaxation was manifested in the greater role of parliament in legislative activity, more independence for the judicial system, a greater consideration to human rights and a greater role to the trade unions: all this under the catch phrase ‘socialist democracy*. In Czechoslovakia, where the political relaxation went beyond Hungary’s, the Action Programme of the CP (Rok..., 1969, pp. 112-18) redefined the leading role of the Party in the sense that it wanted to be an initiator of changes and a creator of consensus by persuasion and example. It also promised to make sure that human rights were respected and to give interest groups the right to organise themselves.

The political relaxation on the one hand strengthened the regime, mainly in Czechoslovakia, but on the other hand it slowly opened the door to ideologies which opposed socialism. Nevertheless in Hungary and Poland (with the exception of the period of martial law) political relaxation continued to expand so that in the second half of the 1980s gross violation of human rights was the exception. In Czechoslovakia, after the Soviet-led invasion, a period of human rights repression followed.

In the beginning of the 1950s the communist ideologues professed the idea that socialism was different from capitalism in almost all aspects, and therefore everything should be eliminated which was a reminder of capitalism. The market was regarded as an integral part of capitalism and its elimination from parts of the economy where it still survived (as in agriculture) was assumed to be only a matter of time. The economic reforms brought about a change in viewing the market. The old view that the market was an integral part of capitalism was untenable when the reforms used the market, though in the 1960s only as a supplementary coordinating mechanism to planning. Therefore the idea that the market was neutral from a systemic viewpoint, that it could be used by both systems, socialist and capitalist, found its way into the ideology.

In the second half of the 1950s Khrushchev challenged the West to a peaceful competition between socialism and capitalism. This idea was also included in the Soviet CP’s programme (Essential..., 1965, p. 418). The challenge to a competition opened the door to comparisons of the economic performance of the two systems. In the beginning, when the Soviet economy and the economies of the smaller countries were growing faster than the economies of the West, the comparisons worked in favour of socialist countries, all the more because they had control over what kind of comparisons were published. Even during the economic reform of the 1960s in Czechoslovakia, when censorship was almost removed, the comparisons hurt the socialist system though socialist ideology had still a sway over a great proportion of the intelligentsia. In the 1980s the comparisons undermined the credibility of the socialist system and served as proof of its inferiority.

In the second half of the 1980s, the socialist ideology increasingly lost ground to capitalist ideology. This was especially true when the CPs in Poland and Hungary started to embrace the idea of market socialism under pressure from radical reformers. In wide circles of social scientists the market was becoming more and more accepted as the only efficient economic coordinating mechanism and the privatisa­tion of state-owned enterprises was seen as a precondition for the working of the market.⁶

This new thinking was to a great degree reflected in the Hungarian study Turning Point and Reform (1987), which was worked out by a relatively large collective of researchers. The study called for a radical economic and political reform. In the economic sphere the writers of the study demanded monetary policy to be made a paramount instrument for managing the economy. Planning was supposed to be reduced to a tool in the services of monetary policy and the market mechanism had to become the coordinating mechanism of the economy. The study urged the opening of the door to all forms of ownership (for more, see Adam, 1993, pp. 136-7).

Calls for the introduction of a market were also heard in Poland, as the debate on the columns of Zycie Gospodarcze in 1988 showed. The debate was initiated by an editor of the weekly, M. Mieszczankowski (1988), who argued that capitalist relations cannot be transplanted into a socialist economy. The debate lasted more than a year and all the participants in it favoured the expansion of the role of market forces in the economy.

In the course of time, the socialist ideology abandoned more and more the components which made it different from capitalism.⁷ A contributing factor to this, besides the factors already mentioned, was also the fact that planners in socialist countries relied on trends in economic development in capitalist countries when designing long-term plans. With this the planners admitted indirectly that socialism was in some respects similar to capitalism.

The advantages which the socialist system offered were shrinking; even full employment, which was regarded by socialist countries as their greatest achievement, was de-emphasised, that is, it became only the concern of the government. On the other hand, the advantages of capitalism - steady availability of consumer goods in great variety, democracy, human rights, no restriction on travel, etc. - were very much emphasised in the anti-socialist propaganda. In a situation in which socialism was portrayed by the anti-socialist propaganda more as capitalism without the advantages of capitalism and in which, on top of that, promises were made that once a genuine market economy was established - and its establishment was presented as a not very painful operation - prosperity would be within reach, it was no wonder that people opted for capitalism.

It is interesting that some of the propagandists themselves became victims of this propaganda. In 1987 I had a consultation with a well- known political scientist who seriously argued that in five years his country would be independent and as prosperous as Switzerland. His assertion about independence was really prophetic, but his assertion about the economy belonged to the sphere of utopia.

In talking about the erosion of the socialist ideology the picture would not be complete if no mention were made of the anti-socialist propaganda. The socialist system was brought down primarily by internal forces; however the West, mainly through its propaganda, also played an important role. The USA built up powerful propaganda machinery in Munich which beamed anti-socialist propaganda incessantly into Soviet and East European households. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty performed a good job in undermining the credibility of the socialist system. Their propaganda was subtle and administered within news, reports and plays. The broadcasters, writers and researchers working there had a very good knowledge of what was going on in socialist countries and what were the problems on people’s minds. The broadcasts focused, to put it generally, on three groups of topics. They dealt with the acute problems which annoyed people and linked them indirectly to the shortcomings of the system. They discussed events and problems which were interesting news for East European listeners because the socialist media did not report them. As is known the socialist media were selective in their reporting; the censoring authorities decided what the media should and should not report. And finally, the broadcasts reported on events in the world, mainly in the West, with the understandable aim of showing how people in the West lived prosperously and enjoyed the advantages of democracy and human rights. In his book Z. Brzezinski (1989) stressed the importance of human rights in the fight against communism. He writes, ‘Human rights is the single most magnetic political idea of the contemporary time. Its evocation by the West has already placed all the Communist regimes on the defensive’ (p. 256). The impact of the human-rights weapon was enhanced by the 1975 Helsinki accord in which the West recognised the status quo of a divided Europe and in return the Soviet Union and East European countries vowed to respect human rights.⁸

The West waged an ideological struggle not only with the help of the media, but also by using much more subtle methods which were primarily directed to winning over leading social scientists to a market economy and democracy. The award of scholarships for the purpose of enabling the East European awardees to conduct research at universities or in research institutes and invitations to conferences were perhaps the most effective. There were many applicants who wanted to see the West and to work there. And this was the best way to expose them to the doctrines of free enterprise. It is not clear whether these actions were initiated by government agencies or came about through the initiative of universities and research institutes themselves, or through the initiative of individuals. At any rate it seems that they had the blessing of the authorities.

East European countries had an increasingly hard time countering the anti-socialist propaganda. With the continuing erosion of the authority of socialist ideology in the 1980s, the Western propaganda managed to influence more and more the thinking of the East European public.⁹

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

The scope of the study allows me to focus on only the most important political events in the last forty years of the socialist regime and their impact on the socialist system. In my opinion these were: the twentieth Congress of the Soviet CP, the Hungarian uprising and the riots in Poland in 1956, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the rise of Solidarity in the 1980s.

All over the countries under review in the first decade of the new regime even ordinary supporters of the CPs felt that gross violations of human rights were occurring and that the promises about the well­being of the population were disregarded. The twentieth Congress of the Soviet CP confirmed this and condemned the policy. And this opened the gates to previously held-back indignation and rage, which became an important driving force in resistance to the regime (for more, see Fejtδ, 1974, pp. 64-8). In Poland this took the form of riots in Poznan, whereas in Hungary it led to an uprising. In Poland the authorities managed to stave off the spread of riots by promising to change the system. And indeed a new leadership, headed by W. Gomulka, came to power with the promise of far-reaching changes in the management of the economy and in the political system. In Hungary the Russian tanks brought the uprising to an end. Though in Hungary the uprising was suppressed with tanks, the new Hungarian leadership, headed by J. Kadar, managed after some time to bring about political stability. However, the use of violence to suppress the uprising left a deep scar on the psyche of most Hungarians and its influence was not negligible when the socialist system found itself in crisis. In Poland, though the friction was solved peacefully, full stability was never reached. The reasons for this different development will become clear in the text which follows.

In Hungary, J. Kadar managed to achieve the unthinkable: he became the most popular leader in the socialist countries, mainly in the 1970s. This he achieved despite the fact that in the 1956 uprising he stood on the side of the Soviet suppressors and became the leader of the CP and the country through their will. He managed to assemble around him a CP leadership which took a centrist position, and focused his efforts on a reconciliation with his countrymen. He gained the trust of the people by coining the slogan ‘who is not against us, is with us^,, followed up by various liberal measures, such as allowing people who left the country in 1956 to return home for good or for a visit and raising the Iron Curtain to some extent for travel abroad. Collectivisation of agriculture was reintroduced, but in a way which did not antagonise the peasants to a great extent and which in the long run turned out to be the path to relative prosperity. The Hungarians reacted positively to his reconciliation efforts and came increasingly to accept Kadar’s regime as the best possible under the existing geopolitical conditions. What also contributed to Kadar’s popularity was that in his conduct of affairs he paid attention to the most fundamental principles of socialism; otherwise he exhibited an increasing understanding for pragmatism. Under his leadership Marx­ist ideology, purified of its dogmatic elements with the passage of time, became less and less important as time went on and had increasingly to compete with ideologies hostile to Marxism.¹⁰

In Poland Gomulka and his associates, who came to power after the 1956 riots against the regime and were welcomed with great hopes, soon lost their popularity because they gradually turned their backs on the policies and ideas which they had promised to nurture, and increasingly embraced a conservative-communist agenda. Their turn­around was also reflected in the dismissal from positions of responsibility of people who had helped Gomulka to power in 1956 (cf. Bielasiak, 1983, pp. 13-15). The best evidence of their moral decline was that the Polish Communist leaders, along with the East German leaders, pushed the most for the 1968 intervention in Czechoslovakia. In order to take the wind out of the sails of one Party faction which used anti-Semitism as ammunition in its fight with the Communist leadership, Gomulka himself started an anti-Semitic campaign which led to the mass dismissal of Jews from universities, research institutes and other institutions and their migration to other countries (see Fejtδ, 1974, pp. 295-9). Gomulka’s intolerant attitude to cultural perfor­mances which did not square with his ideas brought about student demonstrations. On top of all this, the Polish economy was in poor shape. The effort to bring about a minor reform, which would improve the working of the economy, failed. An integral part of this reform was to be a large increase in prices, which provoked demonstrations and clashes with the police and exacted a toll of 70 deaths among the demonstrators. The demonstrations and their consequences led to the ousting of Gomulka. The new CP leadership tried to regain the trust of the population by attempting at the same time to boost the growth of the economy and increase the standard of living. Its success was brief.

In the 1960s the CPs in Czechoslovakia and Hungary managed to renew the credibility of the system through economic reforms. In Czechoslovakia, it was a short-lived event. Because the Soviets and some of their allies regarded the Czechoslovak economic reform as too radical and some political changes as a threat to the leading role of the CP, they occupied Czechoslovakia.^,, This brought the reforms to an end and had a far-reaching negative effect on the further fortunes of socialism. The reform was a good opportunity to give socialism a new direction: on the one hand, by allowing the market to play an important role in coordinating economic activities by limiting planning to a macroeconomic role, and on the other, by giving socialism a human and democratic face. At that time the socialist ideology still held sway over a great number of intellectuals and ordinary people. The modifications in the ideology did not bother the believers in socialism; on the contrary, they welcomed them. They saw the changes as a sign that the leaders were freeing themselves of dreams and illusions and coming closer to reality on the one hand, and, on the other, were willing to apply less authoritarian methods and coercion. Most intellectuals resented the talks about communism; they regarded communism as a utopia or at best something which might or might not be in the very remote future. They wanted the authorities to make good on the slogan ‘socialism with a human face’.

This great opportunity for reforms was missed. Not only this, but the use of force against a member of the socialist camp, Czechoslovakia, only because it wanted to reform the system and make it more efficient and human, sent negative signals abroad and within the camp. It alienated many friends of socialism in the socialist camp and abroad. It signalled that there were limits to reforms, and that those limits were determined by the USSR in the first place. Reforms which exceeded these limits might be a source of internal instability and a threat to the limited national sovereignty, and therefore should be shunned. It also signalled that in a conflict with the USSR the small countries were on their own: they could not expect help from the West.

The large dismantlement of the economic reform in Czechoslovakia which followed the invasion and huge purge in the ranks of reformists, undermined the credibility of the CP. Attempts to put the blame for the invasion on foreign and domestic enemies had little success?² The Czechoslovak CP had to buy tranquillity by increasing the standard of living for some time and by resorting to more suppressive measures against the real and assumed opposition.

In 1980 the Polish government for the third time tried to reduce market disequilibrium by bringing in huge price increases. This time the government encountered opposition which had learned from the previous clashes. The workers of the Gdansk shipyard where the opposition was initially concentrated did not go into the streets to demonstrate and riot, but stayed inactive in the shipyard, declaring they would not return to work as long as their demands were not met. The strike spread and the Polish leadership was forced to negotiate with a new trade union in the making, which soon was known by the name of Solidarity. The demands for economic reform did not exceed the framework of socialism; they were similar to what O. Lange and W. Brus had called for. Solidarity was recognised as a trade union, a phenomenon unprecedented in the socialist camp. In addition, the government promised to consult the unions in matters of economic reform and the standard of living.

In 1980 the unheard-of happened in Poland: workers who were regarded as the pillar of the communist regime turned against it and demanded, inter alia, the recognition of a new trade union which they had created. In other words, they expressed non-confidcnce in the official trade unions, which turned out to be powerless when it came to defending the material interests of the workers. The CP leaders who determined the leadership of the trade unions did not care enough to listen to the interests of the workers and in this way discredited the trade union leadership (cf. Korbonski, 1989).

This new development was, of course, primarily the result of the government’s insensitive wage and price policy applied throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and the government’s violent reaction to the protests of the workers in 1970. A great proportion of the workers had never embraced the regime; the Communists’ anti-religious stand and the fact that the supervisor and guarantor of the regime were in essence the Russians who, in the past, together with Germany and Austria, had brought Polish independence to an end, were anathema to them.

The successful negotiation with the government swelled the ranks of Solidarity to nine million (it managed to gain the support not only of the non-Communist intelligentsia, but also of many members of the CP) and increased its popularity tremendously among the public. In cooperation with the intelligentsia it managed to forge a powerful opposition to the regime. Aware of its power, many in Solidarity were no longer satisfied with its position as a trade union and wanted to challenge the authority of the CP.

The political aspirations of Solidarity very soon had an international effect. Needless to say, the Soviet Union watched with great displeasure Solidarity’s rise as an independent trade union, fearing that such a development might spread to other CMEA countries and undermine the leading role of the CP, the guarantor of Soviet interests in the socialist camp. Therefore it exerted pressure on the Polish CP, by economic means among others, to restrain Solidarity; thus a clash between the government and Solidarity was inevitable. And indeed, in December 1981, as mentioned, martial law was declared, Solidarity was outlawed and its leaders arrested, an event which shocked Poland and the world and was condemned by the international community (Rakowski, 1991, pp. 15-41). (For more, sec Chapters 7 and 8.)

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The greatest weakness of the socialist system was that it was a system which did not originate in the will of the people, and the communist elites did not even seriously try to make the system legitimate. They did not want to take any risks, perhaps because they underestimated the importance of legitimacy. Russian authoritarian traditions had, no doubt, an impact on the thinking of the Soviet CP and therefore also on the behaviour of the CPs in the small countries, all the more because most of the latter had no democratic traditions. Perhaps they also believed that they did not have a chance in democratic elections. In really free, non-manipulated elections the CPs had no chance. But in manipulated elections like the 1985 Hungarian elections, and the same is true of the 1990 elections in the USSR, their chances were not so bad.

Gross suppression of human rights and injustices committed against many people, though mostly in the first decade of the Communist rule, also worked against the regime. Usually people have a tendency to forget and forgive injustices if they get a redress or even if they feel that the injustices can never be redressed. For more than three decades the socialist system seemed to be eternal. Once the system started to crumble, people began to recall the injustices they had suffered, partly because they expected some compensation.

The structural changes in the Party and state apparatus, which brought about the rise of a bureaucracy which was little committed to socialism, was one of the reasons for the collapse of the system. The same is true of politicians to a great degree. The behaviour of bureaucrats and politicians was in a sense normal: they were not immune to anti-socialist propaganda and were influenced by changes in society. Last but not least, they pursued their own interests primarily.

Another shortcoming of the system was that it started out with a dogmatic ideology which could not withstand the pressure of economic realities. As a result the ideology often changed and in the long run was discredited. In the critical period for the socialist system the remains of the original socialist ideology, though more human and realistic, could no longer play an important role.

The heavy-handed and clumsy propaganda made matters worse. The slavish imitation of the Soviet Union and the uncritical treatment of its activities, phenomena not seen in Poland and Hungary since the second half of the 1960s, were received with displeasure and were subject to many jokes which hurt the system.

The four above-mentioned events (see pp. 108-12) undermined the credibility of the system inside the countries under review and outside. Disregarding the Soviet factor, the survivability of the socialist system depended primarily on internal forces, but moral support of some of the Western leftist forces was also of importance. The latter was no negligible shield against anti-socialist propaganda in the West and had a slight positive effect on the public perception of socialism inside the small countries. After World War II a large number of people in the West supported socialist changes in the East. Each of the political events mentioned reduced the support for socialism in the West so that, when socialism collapsed, there were few mourners. The support was also lacking because East European socialism hurt the cause of socialism all over the world.