Political Liberalization

Monopoly of the
Communist Party
• During the reform period, the Party
maintains its monopoly
– continues to control appointments to
important posts
• nomenklatura system remains
– in some countries, some relaxation of
control over parliamentary elections
occurs
• opposing candidates who are not
members of the Party get elected
– Party maintains firm majority
– government by decree continues
• no separation of powers
• Party and bureaucracy continue to
operate above the law
– Party-state apparatus continues to
have absolute control over the
military, police, and other security
forces
• lots of examples of the military or
police being used to suppress dissent
during the reform period
– Poland in 1981
– China in 1989
 Easing of Repression
• Compared to the classical period,
there is noticeably less repression
– those who support the system need not
fear the purges and persecutions that
were so common
• excesses of the former period condemned
• creates moral crisis in the bureaucracy
– feel shamed about having participated
– want to turn over a new leaf
» important element in the reform process
 Official Ideology
• Certain elements remain
– leading role of the Party
– validity of Marxist-Leninist
theory
• if Stalin or Mao were wrong, it
was because they misunderstood
Marx and Lenin
 – superiority of public ownership
– for certain countries, the leadership
position of the Soviet Union
• While these elements cannot be
criticized, it becomes no longer
necessary to kowtow to them all
the time
– writers learn to criticize between the
lines and readers learn to read
between the lines
• Dissident underground material
appears that do criticize these
taboo elements of the ideology
• When such criticism goes above
ground and is heard in the
media and at public meetings,
the reform process becomes a
revolutionary process
• Some elements undergo
revision
– superiority over capitalism
• no longer superior by definition
• becomes hard to deny that the gap
is increasing
– official media and public
discussions begin to consider
advantages of market mechanisms
heroic sacrifice replaced by need
to provide the people with
material incentives
– sacrifice for the next generation
during forced industrialization
replaced with focus on
improving consumption growth
• at least until economic turmoil
strikes and then focus on
consumption is the first to go
– state paternalism and
socialization of consumption
reverses course
• state responsibility to provide
housing, education, public
services, subsidized food, etc.
replaced by individual
responsibility
– all this happens as a process of
disintegration of ideological
discipline
– control over press and public
discourse loosens
• not a free press, but what gets said
and reported would not have been
said or reported during the
classical period
Beginnings of Pluralism
• Sectoral lobbies grow in
strength
– always part of the system but
influence strengthens as center
weakens
• Regional and ethnic interests grow
– becomes a particular problem in
ethnically diverse countries like
Soviet Union
– power of regional administrative
authority grows relative to the center
• great concern about regional issues
such as power relationships, tax
sharing, etc.
• becomes a major power struggle
• The power of organized religion
grows
– state repression of religion relaxes
– moral authority of religion grows as
moral authority of the state weakens
– increasing strength of religion, in
turn, becomes a force in opposition
to the state
• Poland
• Union begins to act less as a
unit of the bureaucracy and
more as representative of the
workers
– real workers’ movements appear,
either union organized or
organized by some informal
workers’ group
• strikes tolerated
– Donbas coal miners in Ukraine
• New associations appear that
are not controlled by the center
– environmental movements
– tenants’ associations
– pensioners’ association
– professional associations
– the seeds of a civil society never
before tolerated
• Party factions become more open
and more influential
– seeds of a multi-party system
– clearly happening in Cuba today
• old-liners versus reformists
• Alternative political movements
appear
– rallies
– petition drives
• Varela project in Cuba
– such dissident activities can
always be repressed
• tolerated because of divisions
within the power structure of the
state
– why has Oswaldo Paya Sardinas,
organizer of the Varela Project, not
been jailed in the current dissident
crackdown?
» in part because it’s too late – the
international community watches
• Dissident activity accelerates
– causes panic in the state and
Party leadership
• may react to growing influence of
the dissidents by lashing out
– current crackdown in Cuba is a
perfect example
– Sakharov in the Soviet union
– Havel in Czechoslovakia
 Opening Up to the
Capitalist World
• Began in China in early ’70s
– Nixon travels to China in 1971
• Foreign policy directed at
reducing tensions
– disarmament
• Anti-western propaganda subsides
– replaced by calls for peaceful
coexistence
• All sorts of communications
increase
– including official travel and even
tourism
• students travel abroad to study and
even work
– China
• Opening to the capitalist world
does not always go smoothly
– China in the Hainan Island incident
– Cuba’s current snit with Europe at
the same time it holds trade fairs for
American firms
• Opening comes at great peril to
socialist system
– individuals get to do their own
comparative studies
 Political Opening
• Glasnost was the term Gorbachev
used to label this process
• Two elements:
– less secretiveness
• the people are informed of the
decisions that affect them and how
those decisions are reached
– the truth must be told
• no more publication of falsehoods
• Secretiveness was a virtue in the
classical system
– part of the vigilance required against
the enemies from within and without
• Lying was never officially
considered a virtue but specific lies
could always be justified on the
grounds that the ends justify the
means
– whatever is in the interest of the state
can be justified
• Falsehood was not necessarily a
product of lying
– ideological brainwashing resulted in
denial of reality
• individuals mentally discard facts not
consistent with the ideology or their belief
in the infallibility of the leadership
– “Cuba does not have a drug problem”
» an obvious falsehood that is firmly
believed by the bureaucracy
– contributes to the moral crisis of the
bureaucracy
• Secretiveness a tough habit to break
– the initial reaction after Chernobyl
was to deny and lie in spite of
glasnost
• public reaction and international
pressure forced the leadership to admit
what happened
– unlike the case when a similar accident
occurred in the mid ’50s
» still have not been completely truthful
about impact on Kiev
» still shipping young cancer victims to
Cuba for treatment
• Glasnost is a loose tiger
– creates its own dynamic
– does nothing to solve the economic
ills of the socialist system
• the shortages
• the sellers’ market
• the poor quality of consumption goods
– repression kept the lid on discontent
• with repression loosening up, the
discontent rises to the surface and turns
on the system
– thus, liberalization creates the conditions
for revolution
– in the case of East Europe, that revolution
spread even to those countries in which
there had been no such liberalization
• East Germany
• Czechoslovakia
• Bulgaria
• Romania
– once these people there saw what was
happening in China, Hungary and
Poland, the lid blew off
 Limits of Reform
• Reform can last a long time
– it achieves a sort of equilibrium
– but the equilibrium is unstable
– the dynamic of reform leads
ultimately to its own end
• Poland a good example of a lengthy
and highly tumultuous reform period
• The limit of reform is reached at
the point at which the leadership
admits the principle of political
competition
– the end of the Party monopoly
• China has had an extremely long
reform by this definition
– the Chinese Communist Party still has
a monopoly at the national level
– but free elections have been held at
the village level
– slowly, the end will come when the
Part will finally give up its monopoly
even at the national level
• when should we date the end of reform?