Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:23:54.929Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The End of Communist Rule in East-Central Europe: A Four-Country Comparison*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Judy Batt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article compares the patterns of breakdown of communist rule and the processes by which power was transferred to new ruling groups in four countries: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the GDR. In the countries covered in this paper, two paths to systemic crisis and breakdown are identified: the path of failed reform in Hungary and Poland, and the path of intransigent resistance to reform in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic. The lesson of the Czechoslovak and East German experience was clearly that those regimes which totally rejected reform, because they saw it as incompatible with communist power, faced total and rapid collapse when confronted with the challenge of Gorbachev's perestroika and when deprived of the support of the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’; but the experience of Poland and Hungary suggests that those regimes which embarked on reform were no more successful in preserving communist power — half-way reform turned out in many ways to be even worse than no reform at all, while radical reform, that is, reform which would bring about the intended economic results, in the end could not be achieved without sweeping away communist power. Gorbachev himself now seems to be impaled on the horns of this same dilemma in the Soviet Union.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1991 , pp. 368 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Michnik, Adam, ‘Towards a New Democratic Compromise’, East European Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 2, 03 1988, p. 27.Google Scholar

2 See for definitions Schmitter, P., ‘Still the Century of Corporatism?’ in Schmitter, and Lehmbruch, G. (eds), Trends towards Corporatist Intermdiation, Beverly Hills and London, Sage Publications, 1979 Google Scholar; and, applied to the Soviet Union, Bunce, V. ‘The Political Economy of the Brezhnev Era: the Rise and Fall of Corporatism’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 13, 04 1983.Google Scholar

3 Skilling, H. G., ‘Group Conflict and Political Change’ in Johnson, Ch. (ed.) Change in Communist Systems, Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1970.Google Scholar

4 G. Blazyca, ‘The Degeneration of Central Planning in Poland’ in J. Woodall (ed.) Policy and Politics in Contemporary Poland, Longon, Francis Pinter; K. Poznanski, ‘Economic Adjustment and Political Forces: Poland since 1970’ in Comisso, E. and Tyson, L. (eds), Power, Purpose and Collective Choice: Economic Strategy in Socialist States, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1986 Google Scholar; Batt, op. cit., Ch. 7, ‘The Political Limits to Economic Reform in Hungary 1968–78’.

5 Poznanski, op. cit.

6 Batt, op. cit.

7 Kerpel, E. and Young, D., Hungay to 1993: Risks and Rewards of Reform, London, Economist Intelligence Unit Special Report No. 1153, 11 1988, p. 106.Google Scholar

8 A stimulating but ultimately inconclusive discussion of the concept of ‘leadership drift’ and its applicability to different communist regimes can be found in a special issue of Studies in Comparatism Communism, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Spring 1989.

9 See Kolankiewicz, G., ‘Poland and the Politics of Permissible Pluralism’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 2, No. 1, Winter 1988.Google Scholar

10 Poznanski, op. cit., p. 287.

11 Lewis, P., Political Authority and Party Secretaries in Poland, Cambridge, 1989, Cambridge University Press, p. 299.Google Scholar

12 See Kolankiewicz, op. cit.

13 See Csanadi, M., ‘Beyond the Image: the Case of Hungary’, Social Research, Vol. 57, No. 2, Summer 1990.Google Scholar

14 See Lewis, op. cit., ‘The Long Good-Bye’, p. 36.

15 The term is elaborated Fully by Hankiss, E. in ‘Demobilization, Self-Mobilization and Quasi-Mobilization in Hungary, 1948–1987’ East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 3, No. 1, Winter 1989.Google Scholar

16 Husak to the XIV Congress of the CPCS: see XIV. sjezd KSC, Prague, Svoboda, 1971, p. 153.

17 See Kusin, V., From Dubcek to Charter 77, Q Press, Edinburgh, 1978, pp. 69–89.Google Scholar

18 Quoted by Donovan, B., ‘Reform and the Existence of the GDR’, Radio Free Europe Background Report, No. 158, 25 08 1989 Google Scholar. See also Rheinhold, O., ‘Das Programm unserer Partei hat sich in Leben bewahrt’, Neues Deutschland, 3–4, 12 1988, p. 5.Google Scholar

19 See Dyba, K., ‘Adjustment to International Disturbances: Czechoslovakia and Hungary’, Acta Oeconomica, Vol. 34, No. 3–4, 1985.Google Scholar

20 Garland, J., ‘FRG-GDR Economic Relations’ in East European Economies: Slow Growth in the 1980s, Vol. 111, US Congress Joint Economic Committee Washington DC, 1985.Google Scholar

21 See Dyba, K., ‘Dve Desetileti Dvou Ekonomik’ (a comparison of Hungary and Czechoslovakia), Hospodarske Noviny, No. 29, 1988, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

22 The concept was elaborated by T. H. Rigby with respect to the Brezhnev regime in the early 1970s: see ‘The Soviet Leadership: Towards a Self-Stabilising Oligarchy?’, Seviet Studies, Vol. XXII, No. 2, Oct. 1970.

23 O’Donnell, G. and Schmitter, P., ‘Negotiating (and Renegotiating) Pacts’ in O’Donnell, and Schmitter, (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, Part IV, ‘Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies’, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, p. 38.Google Scholar

24 These concepts are derived from Bruszt, L., ‘1989: the Negotiated Revolution in Hungary’, Social Research, Vol. 57, No. 2, Summer 1990.Google Scholar

25 See Michnik, A., ‘The New Evolutionism’ in Letters from Prison and Other Essays, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1985.Google Scholar

26 A discussion of these issues is provided by Judt, T., ‘The Dilemmas of Dissidence: the Politics of Opposition in East-Central Europe’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring 1988, esp, pp. 225–31.Google Scholar

27 O’Donnell and Schmitter, op. cit., p. 38.

28 A sample of this approach is Siedlecki, M., ‘Time for Positive Action’, East European Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 4, Spring/Summer 1989, p. 35.Google Scholar

29 See Kusin, V., ‘Mikhail Gorbachev’s Evolving Attitude to Eastern Europe’, RFE Background Report, No. 128, 20 07 1989 Google Scholar; Shafir, M., ‘Soviet Reactions to Polish Developments: Widened Limits of Tolerated Change’, RFE Background Report, No. 179, 20 09 1989 Google Scholar; Asmus, R., ‘Evolution of Soviet-East European Relations under Mikhail Gorbachev’, RFE Background Report, No. 153, 22 08 1989.Google Scholar

30 For a more detailed account of the Polish elections, see Lewis, P., ‘Non-Competitive Elections and Regime Change: Poland 1989’, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 43, No. 1, 01 1990.Google Scholar

31 On the electoral system and the results in detail, see Batt, J., ‘The Hungarian General Election’, Representation, Summer 1990.Google Scholar

32 On the GDR elections in detail see Hyde-Price, A., ‘The Volkskammer Elections in the GDR, 18 March 1990’, Representation, Summer 1990.Google Scholar

33 See the report of the Commission of inquiry set up by the Federal Parliament to investigate the origins of and responsibility for the events of 17 November, reproduced in translation in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts: Eastern Europe, No. 0763 B/3–4.

34 See Martin, P., ‘The New Czechoslovak “Government of National Understanding” and Biographics of Members of the Federal Government’, RFE Report on Eastern Europe, Vol. 1, No. 2, 12 01 1990.Google Scholar

35 See Batt, J., ‘After Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Poll’, The World Today, Vol. 46, Nos 8–9, 08–09 1990.Google Scholar