Spectator's Journal: Memory Lapse
Karatnycky, Adrian
by Adrian Karatnycky Memory Lapse Missing the meaning of the fall of Communism. T he tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall--the most dramatic symbol of the collapse of Communist...
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...At the same time, there was a strange amnesia about Communism's central role in creating the region's ongoing array of political and economic difficulties...
...It is clear that the effort to rebuild societies, communities, and economies ravaged by Communism is difficult, filled with uncertainty and full of economic suffering (particularly for pensioners, who saw the value of Communism's worthless scrip evaporate...
...If we take into account that the postCommunist societies have far higher rates of poverty and lower living standards than their Western counterparts, this is one of the most important indicators of successful transition and of the victory of democratic values...
...And citizens celebrated the affirmation of now deep-rooted freedoms...
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...It is the reformers who are being blamed for not bringing equity and prosperity to the vast majority...
...Nearly half of Ukraine's voters believe that participation in elections is a chance to have a real say in the fate of their struggling country...
...Indeed, recent polling suggests that while pluralities of Poles and East Germans, and large majorities of Russians and Hungarians, assert that their economies have worsened over the last ten years, in most of the region (Russia is the exception) the public doesn't believe there is less democracy than ten years ago or that democracy has taken a backward step...
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...Poland's GDP is 15o percent of what it was in 199o, Slovakia's and Hungary's GDP are up about lZO percent, and the Czech Republic is also better off...
...Indeed, the larger point that democratic citizenries are vocal and demanding critics was missing in the tenth anniversary retrospectives...
...Pointing blame at "Western politicians," Walesa said "they are responsible for our misfortunes...
...But such criticism is not entirely a bad sign...
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...On the news side, the paper ran an article pointing to the disillusionment and declining popularity of Czech President Vaclav Havel...
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...Yet to judge by the many reports and analyses in Western media (not a few of them spurred on by comments from Central and East European reformers), the countries of the region are characterized by corruption, economic decline, mounting poverty, wage inequality, xenophobia, weak rule of law, and rising political extremism...
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...Ignored was the possibility that Communism encouraged intolerant and absolutist views within society...
...Public consciousness continues to move in the direction of greater tolerance and reveals a high satisfaction with political and personal freedoms...
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...These are hardly the characteristics of societies that are in deep trouble or in danger of failing...
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...Even the Economist, whose coverage of the tenth anniversary was more balanced and nuanced than most, labeled these phenomena the "trauma of transition" and designated the last ten years the "rough decade...
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...And the public also rejects authoritarian solutions...
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...Implicit in anniversary analyses of the transition from Communism was the view that current public discontent is the result of the failure of the market economy and the mistakes of free-market advocates...
...Missing, too, was an understanding of the degree of destruction visited upon normal economic life by Communism's emphasis on armaments and heavy induslay, Or of the debilitating effects ofhyper-specialization that was central to Communism's "division of labor" among the socialist states...
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...Moreover, with the exception of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Communists have not held on to power in any East European state...
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...It suggests that the passivity and anomie that characterized the stiflingly oppressive and repressive culture of Communism has given way to democratic health and rising expectations...
...While analysts accurately noted the brutality of Communist rule, some also portrayed that system as a force that kept in check atavistic nationalist hatred and xenophobia...
...On the ADRIAN KARATNYCKY is president of Freedom House and co-editor of Nations in Transit 1998: Civil Society, Democracy and Markets in East Central Europe and the Newly Independent States...
...Similarly, economically ravaged Ukraine (where recorded GDP has fallen to under 5 ~ percent of that in 199o ) saw the defeat of the Communist presidential candidate and the re-election of the pro-Western incumbent Leonid Kuchma...
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...In both states, Communists suffered significant electoral setbacks and the electorates express a keen desire to continue along the path of market democracy that has been taken by such countries as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic...
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...Corruption and crony capitalism, too, are less the characteristics of ill-considered reform schemes and weak rule of law and more the outgrowths of the power of the networks that have survived the collapse of Communism...
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...And the Times's Sunday magazine featured a number of jaundiced views from ex-dissidents, including a rubric the Times titled "Lech Walesa's Bad Dream," in which the former Solidarity leader and Polish president lamented not having done enough: "We have dreams, but when we make them reality, there is dissatisfaction at not having done more...
...But even somber statistics about economic performance mean something entirely different if we keep in mind that polling also finds a plurality of Italians and West Germans think their economies have worsened over the last ten years-a fact belied by economic statistics...
...Most of the region's countries recently suffered from the currency crises that hit the emerging markets of Brazil, Malaysia, and Russia, which even led to a downturn in the more stable economies of Central Europe...
...Election results in two of the most economically depressed post-Communist states--Russia (where elections for members of parliament were held in mid-December) and Ukraine (where a presidential election was held in late November)--make clear the depth of the transition...
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...Since the collapse of Communism, not only has economic decline been halted, but it has been reversed dramatically in the more reform-minded countries...
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...editorial side, it published an op-ed by a disgruntled Bulgarian denouncing her country's failure to build a market democracy...
...T he tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall--the most dramatic symbol of the collapse of Communist regimes--came and went on November 9. In Central and Eastern Europe the occasion was commemorated throughout the fall by conferences, symposia, and concerts...
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...The New York Times was least balanced in its coverage...
...It is this new-found economic and political maturity of voters that is the best reason for long-term optimism and the real reason why celebration of Communism's collapse deserves to be more spirited...
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...To be fair, the disappointment with reforms expressed by Walesa is widely felt in the post-Communist world...
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...In Russia, centrist and center-right political movements won a combined vote of 54 percent versus just a little over 25 percent for the Communist party and 6 percent for Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultra-nationalists...
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...While Kuchma's victory will not necessarily speed up reforms, a comprehensive and reliable poll showed that half of Ukraine's voters cited the importance of lowering of taxes on business, implementing deep market reforms, and ending bureaucratic interference in economic life...
...But it is equally true that while most people in the former Soviet bloc may still complain, they have made a clear choice to opt for the future and to stand with economic and political freedom...
...Richard Rose of Scotland's University of Strathclyde points out in the Journal of Democracy, among East Central European countries "only in Romania does the total vote for fragmented anti-democratic parties begin to approach the vote won in established democracies by Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France or Jorg Haider's Freedom Party in Austria...
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...Indeed, these characteristics are most pronounced in Russia and Ukraine, where anti-Communist democrats (Continued on page 74) The American Spectator - Fe b r u a r y 2 o o o 57 brilliantly in the Republicans' 19-1 smashing victory over the Democrats in the annual congressional game...
...Post-Communism's economic successes are exceeded by political gains...
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...While far from everyone was in a festive mood, the general tone of these commemorations was upbeat...
...While such results do not put an end to the brutal prosecution of the war against Chechnya, they show the maturity of an electorate that might have opted for political extremism amid a decline in GDP of over 4 ~ percent since 199o...
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...It's not the deficiencies of entrepreneurialism and the free market, but the damage caused to society and the economy by several generations of Communist rule that are primarily responsible for the difficulties of the transition to democracy and capitalism...
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...Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Poland are all expected to grow from 3 percent to 6 percent this year...
...The tenth anniversary reconsiderations paid scant attention to evidence that the countries in which reforms have been the most far-reaching have significantly expanded their gross domestic output...
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...n other words, don't let the carping and nit-picking that marked the anniversary of Communism's collapse lead you to lose your sense of perspective...
...But according to the European Bank for Recons~uction and Development, this year the average growth rate for Central and Eastern Europe (i.e., the ex-Communist countries that were not part of the USSR and the Baltic states) will range from a little over 1. 5 percent to well over 3 percent...
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...Such free-market aims outpaced by a two-to-one margin the desire to return the country to a cenlrally planned economy...
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...The tenth anniversary of Communism's collapse is the commemoration of one of the two central events of the twentieth century--the other being the defeat of Nazism and fascism in World War II...
Vol. 33 • February 2000 • No. 1
