Irving Howe interviews Abraham on politics in Eastern Europe

Howe, Irving

the following dialogue between Abraham Brumberg and Irving Howe took place in early October 1989. Abraham Brumberg is a widely published authority on Soviet and Eastern European affairs and...

...This means massive strikes and food riots and a social climate receptive to demands for "discipline, law and order...
...If this comparison strikes you as outlandish, let me point out that Hall believes that the "nation" is the highest social value, that a Pole is defined by his Catholicism, and that Poland must protect itself from Western "materialism," "atheism," "pragmatism," and other isms that threaten to sap its "national identity and energy...
...In time, the Communists themselves also turned against the Jews, but the shift did nothing to enhance the party's credibility in the eyes of a fiercely anti-Russian and largely anti-Semitic population...
...IH: And what about the Polish Communists...
...Could you say why the situation in Poland has moved in such a remarkable and largely unforeseen direction...
...I am convinced it was the fear of losing control rather than the threat of an outright Soviet invasion that forced Jaruzelski's hand in December 1981...
...Ergo, up with capitalism—from one extreme to the other...
...Second, about half of the party's members came from disaffected minorities, such as the Jews, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians, and the last two had their own—albeit small— communist parties...
...The Western governments should certainly lend Gorbachev a hand, and all that the rest of us can do is hope for the best...
...But let's keep things in proportion...
...The cry for a "free independent Ukraine," therefore, makes little sense...
...The danger comes not only from the economic "liberals," as they are known in Poland, but also from the traditional political right...
...It has refused to approve numerous ministerial appointments, it has forced Gorbachev to retreat from his plan of imposing a general moratorium on strikes, it has enacted important judicial reforms (for instance, by enshrining the principle of presumption of innocence), it is rewriting the Constitution as well as the electoral law, which has come in for a great deal of criticism...
...Of course not...
...Obviously, socialists believe in the right of national selfdetermination...
...But I have a suspicion that the phrase "free market" is often used without any specific content and that it is one of those umbrella phrases that allows people of very different views to use the same terminology, that is, people who really want the restoration of unadulterated capitalism and those who feel that in the Polish situation this is a utopian idea...
...Let me stress that I am not arguing that Poland is now in danger of turning right-wing and nationalistic...
...Don't forget that the situation varies from republic to republic...
...but the fact remains that more decisive measures might have had salutary effects...
...AB: That is one of the ironies of history...
...With help from abroad, they may shed their reluctance to assert these beliefs for fear of "antagonizing" the public or the church...
...And that is the phrase that one hears from and about Poland, a phrase without, I think, any very clear, specific content: "a free market...
...In the case of the Ukraine, you have a population of over fifty million people, ten million of them Russians, and half of the Ukrainian population quite thoroughly Russified...
...In the eyes of many Poles, everything connected with "socialism" is anathema, while "capitalism" is taken to mean instant prosperity and freedom...
...AB: The left in Poland—what's left of it—is in disarray...
...Which is rather like proclaiming one's faith in Catholicism without the Holy Trinity, but including the Inquisition...
...AB: Yes, the achievements of glasnost surpass those of perestroika...
...To say this is not to wring one's hands in despair...
...In prewar Poland, the Communist party enjoyed virtually no social support...
...The demise of the one-party state in 1989 was a direct result of the elite's insecurity, the gradual erosion of its legitimacy, of political paralysis, and of rising popular anger—all this plus, of course, the eclipse of the "Brezhnev doctrine...
...Within the Bush administration there clearly are influential people who feel nostalgic for the days of cold war and are not especially eager for perestroika to succeed...
...This may have been caused by shortsightedness, or by the fact that his intended reforms have run into a solid wall of opposition from the entrenched bureaucracy, or both...
...Do you agree that a coup against Gorbachev would, right now, be a disaster for the entire world, since it might restart the cold war and impose a new authoritarianism on the Russian people...
...Abraham Brumberg is a widely published authority on Soviet and Eastern European affairs and editor of the forthcoming Perestroika: Chronicle of a Revolution, published by Pantheon Books —Eds . IH: Some questions about the fate of perestroika: There is a general sense that, although the achievements of glasnost are remarkable, perestroika as a socioeconomic transformation is facing grave difficulties...
...Some republics, especially the Baltic ones, may even secede from the Union...
...Would any other leader have fared any better...
...I doubt it...
...q WINTER • 1990 • 7...
...The Supreme Soviet has already proved that it is far more sensitive to its constituents (the very term "constituents" is here mind-boggling, isn't it...
...I will come to some of his real achievements in a moment, but it is also true that he has been dragging his feet on fundamental economic reforms and that his handling of the nationalities problem has left much to be desired...
...AB: I think that economic successes—or at least a perceptible trend toward the better—will also help to defuse the nationalities problem, much of which is rooted in justifiable economic and ecological grievances...
...IH: What then are the prospects for a social democratic revival in Poland...
...IH: An especially troublesome problem in the Soviet Union is the nationalities question...
...All of which combined to endow the party with an "anti-Polish" odium...
...The nostalgia for a "strong hand" should not be underestimated...
...I might add that the appointment of Alexander Hall, a "neo-Endek" as Minister Without Portfolio in charge of political parties, is also a sign of which way the wind is blowing...
...By and large the government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki —himself a distinguished liberal Catholic without a single blemish on his record—is indeed conservative, but not reactionary...
...We are witnessing a great, historic occasion: the collapse of Stalinism as a politics and, in certain countries, as a power...
...I notice also among some commentators a kind of anticipatory glee at the difficulties of perestroika, as if the confirmation of conservative ideology is more important than the success of Gorbachev's effort...
...But so far, I'm afraid, the voice of Western social democracy has not been strong enough...
...Quite apart from its flagrant appeal to the coarsest sort of economic egoism and its contempt for fundamental social values, this kind of advice is simply preposterous on pragmatic grounds...
...I am merely pointing to the forces that push it in that direction...
...They are infatuated with the idea that capitalism is going to bring them salvation...
...For socialists, democrats, liberals, this can only be an occasion for rejoicing...
...By the same token, Gorbachev may talk tough, may condemn "irresponsible talk about secession," but the logic of his policies points toward a genuine multinational state...
...In turn, the overhauling of basic institutions encourages more free discussion and criticism...
...Armchair advice...
...To their credit, many serious Poles, including prominent economists, will have none of this...
...III: So we are still, though in a new way, paying for Stalinism...
...But I don't think this is likely to happen in the very near future...
...If it does, it may well be out of power in a few months, since it will then provoke enormous popular dissatisfaction...
...To separate one from the other strikes me as an academic exercise...
...In Bulgaria the old Stalinist hack Zhikov has been removed...
...All in all, as the Viennese would say, the situation is serious, but not necessarily hopeless...
...The Polish CP, too, has had its reformers or liberals, but they command little if any respect...
...AB: As Communists, they're as dead as a doornail...
...AB: Some, if not enough of them, have...
...Under Gorbachev, the old argument that "we can't do it because Moscow won't let us" could no longer work...
...Professor Richard Pipes, in a New York Times op-ed article under the characteristic title, "The Russians Are Still Coming" (October 9, 1989) blithely asserts that Soviet changes in foreign policy are phony, that their "less aggressive" statements are designed to fool the West and to obtain foreign loans, and that —I quote—"in fact, the soft-line policy has enabled Moscow to spread its influence and power abroad more effectively than when it had pursued an overtly hard line...
...Do the masses of Poles know about it, do they read what socialist critics of Stalinism have been saying for decades...
...Above all, it is a situation without precedents—and therefore without any models on which to base confident predictions...
...Apparently among some of the Polish intellectuals the idea of Thatcherism has become very popular...
...AB: Walesa uses it as, more or less, a euphemism for capitalism...
...IH: Is the Polish CP, therefore, doomed to oblivion...
...I am not saying, of course, that all Poles have bought this rubbish, but many of them, including the incurably romantic Adam Michnik, are lapping it up...
...1989 issue of Tikkun carries Gebert's long article on this subject...
...Hall says that he is for the National Democratic tradition cleansed of its unpleasant aspects, such as anti-Semitism, which was understandable before the war, but whose resurgence "would not be in the Polish interest...
...It would be, in effect, a party of protest...
...It remains to be seen to what extent the new government, which is generally quite conservative, will follow Sachs's advice...
...Especially when it becomes clear that the road advocated by the 6 • DISSENT Comments and Opinions reactionaries and "liberals" points to disaster, and that the average Pole, whatever his aversion to "socialism" (as he or she understands it), is not willing to give up full employment, free education, free health care, the absence of gross social inequality, and the notion that the state must play an active role in promoting and safeguarding these gains, however they may have been traduced in actual practice...
...The word refers not only to economic transformations...
...But this cannot take place overnight...
...There are many people in Solidarity who remain loyal to the basic principles of the left—social justice, separation of church and state, social organization, human solidarity, and so on...
...Pipes is not living in the past—he is trapped in his own obsessions...
...In one of his typically slick appearances on Polish television, Sachs said that if you are going to cut the tail of a cat, it's better to do it in one fell swoop, rather than in pieces...
...III: With some state ownership, some cooperative ownership, some individual, private ownership— and the individual, private ownership probably in the smaller industries and light industries in the small enterprises, and so on...
...I can understand that if you lived under a Stalinist command economy that has dragged the country down into a kind of hell, Thatcherism should, by contrast, seem attractive...
...AB: The party will no doubt split, and the reformists will take a leaf from the Hungarians...
...But neither must he be provoked by maximalist demands...
...IH: Yes, Walesa uses it...
...The sensible WINTER • 1990 • 5 Comments and Opinions solution would seem to be to move to some version of a mixed economy...
...IH: Let's stop here for a minute because you are touching on one of the things that I want to ask you...
...The Berlin Wall has fallen...
...but right now, an excessively impetuous drive for independence among the various nationalities that make up the Soviet Union might lead to violent conflicts and an extreme reaction from the Moscow authorities...
...Incidentally, the Nov...
...Gorbachev is not about to send tanks to Vilnius or Tallin —this would be the end of him and his policies...
...III: I would think that the West European social democrats—if they have any political imagination at all—would see here a tremendous opportunity to intervene in the discussion now raging in Poland and other east European countries—to intervene in a friendly and helpful way...
...The Ligachevs and others like him, though now removed from power, as well as chauvinist and anti-Semitic organizations like Pamyat, openly looking for scapegoats—Jews, liberals, "Westerners," and the like—are waiting for this to happen...
...AB: Yes, certainly...
...NOVEMBER 15, 1989: Tremendous events have taken place in Eastern Europe since this discussion was taped...
...can you...
...So I raise these questions: What in general is the situation today with regard to perestroika...
...Given the crisis he inherited in every area of Soviet life, from the economy to public health, from political corruption to social apathy, his overall record has been extraordinarily impressive...
...When the prominent Polish-Jewish writer Dawid Warszawski (the penname of Konstanty Gebert) wrote a scathing criticism of Glemp, the editors of Solidarity Weekly, to their everlasting shame, refused to accept it, arguing that it would antagonize their readers...
...So there is a great danger of embracing capitalism and the free-market economy uncritically...
...I think John le Cane, in his piece in the New York Times, (September 29, 1989) offers a brilliant commentary on the kind of Schadenfreude displayed by some of our, God help us, political leaders...
...The Hungarian CP, as you know, having realized that the word "communist" has become a term of abuse, recently reconstituted itself as the "Hungarian Socialist party...
...If there are no significant improvements, there could follow serious dislocations...
...During the martial law period, Jaruzelski was far more preoccupied with eliminating every vestige of autonomous activity than with the country's economy, which was clearly heading towards catastrophe...
...We Turn to Poland IH: All the Eastern European countries are, of course, different from one another, but Poland seems, so to say, "more different...
...Why is the situation so grave...
...You will find the same attitude among some Sovietologists...
...I know quite a few people in Poland who still believe in these principles...
...In the end, nothing short of a federation with genuine political, cultural, and economic autonomy for the republics will resolve it...
...As to what will come next—that remains a question to be decided by the people of these countries themselves...
...AB: Correct...
...But in other areas the achievements have been quite remarkable...
...Is it impossible to find viable compromises on this matter...
...Or are there any...
...I already mentioned a few reasons, but here is one more: Gorbachev's mistakes and miscalculations...
...It had hardly any adherents among the peasants, it controlled only a few trade unions, and the bulk of the left-wing intelligentsia was far more sympathetic to the Polish Socialist party (PPS) than to the CP...
...III: Even though the irony is that it has been precisely the socialists, the western socialists, anyway, and the Polish and Russian socialists, too, who over the decades have made the criticisms of the Stalinist economic regime that now are being vindicated...
...Second, what do we mean by perestroika...
...I am referring to the growth of a real parliamentary system...
...AB: The word "socialism," the system in Poland that they perceive to be socialism, has become discredited...
...IH: And the attitudes in the West...
...To be sure...
...Look, for instance, at the popularity of Whiz Kid Harvard professor Jeffrey Sachs who has been telling the Poles that if they act swiftly and decisively, put an end to all subsidies, turn the factories over to private owners, close all unprofitable enterprises, eliminate all price controls and, believe it or not, refuse to pay its 40 billion dollar debt—that is, in his words, if the Poles take a "giant leap into a full market economy," all their problems will be solved, without any suffering and hardships...
...Having renounced doctrinaire Marxism and much of its own political legacy, the Hungarian party may yet succeed in turning to a new path...
...If social discontent grows, if Solidarity's credibility as a political party and as a trade union movement—after all, the two are in serious conflict—collapses, then a new political movement comprising the Communist reformers and possibly leaders of the new trade unions may come into being...
...I think he is capable of turning the situation around in the near future, however bad it is now, and however much his image has suffered in the eyes of many Russians, including the increasingly radicalized liberal intelligentsia...
...The church, under Primate Glemp, is keen on proceeding with its usual agendas—ban on divorce, penalties for women undergoing abortions (but not for men who made them pregnant), removing "atheism" from school premises, and so on...
...At any rate, I do...
...When President Mitterand of France was in Poland several months ago and lectured in Cracow, he told his Polish audience something to this effect: "You are understandably disenchanted with the Stalinist type of 'socialism,' which I do not consider socialism at all, but that does not mean that socialism, the kind for which I speak, has been discredited...
...and in Czechoslovakia there is now an enormous popular uprising...
...It was the party's weakness, during the entire postwar period, which explains why on the one hand it made so many concessions, earning the reputation as the most "liberal" regime in the bloc, and why on the other it was fearful of promoting serious reforms, especially in the economic area...
...These are enormous achievements...
...Boris Yeltsin recently said that he gives Gorbachev a year...
...Who would want to buy some of those obsolete factories...
...But it's not only Kissinger's friend Lawrence Eagleburger or Bush's Secretary of Defense Cheney who don't want to believe that perestroika is "for real," and who hanker for the good old days of the "evil empire...
...This led one journalist, Daniel Passent, to observe that Sachs must have a peculiar breed of cats in mind—quite unlike the Polish kind, which don't like to have their tails cut off either piecemeal or at once, especially if the "cutting starts right below the neck...
...Don't forget that about onethird of Poland's prewar population was non-Polish, almost all of whom had been subject to persecution in one form or another...
...AB: Poland has always been something of a maverick in the "socialist bloc...
...First, the two are interrelated—you can't have restructuring without the right to expose all the evils of the system, past and present, and to advocate alternatives...
...Two other factors must also be kept in mind: First, the party was slavishly loyal to Moscow (for 4 • DISSENT Comments and Opinions which the latter reciprocated, in its usual fashion, by excommunicating the Polish CP in 1938 and arresting those of its leaders who were in Russia at that time...
...than to party diktat...
...At its height it numbered about ten thousand members...
...I suspect that if they were really ready to turn to laissez-faire capitalism they would discover its disadvantages, to put it mildly...
...Add to this the rapidly dwindling supply of basic food and consumer goods, rising expectations, and a frightful inflation, and you have a recipe for disaster...
...Distinctions have to be made, and there are people willing to listen, who look, say, to Sweden as a possible model rather than to Thatcherite England...
...Sachs claims that he single-handedly solved the staggering inflation in Bolivia, conveniently forgetting that this entailed martial law, closing down trade unions, deportation of hundreds of labor leaders, and mass unemployment...
...Glemp's profoundly antiSemitic homily last autumn was no surprise: Glemp is a self-declared admirer of Roman Dmowski, head of the prewar, virulently nationalistic and antiSemitic National Democrats, or Endeks, and he has come out openly for the creation of a "Christian Democratic" party that would carry on the traditions of that movement...
...Gorbachev is a consummate politician, still possessed of enormous appeal, a man who has shown repeatedly that he is not loath to admit his errors and WINTER • 1990 • 3 Comments and Opinions to learn from experience...
...Gebert was then forced to publish his piece in the weekly Poliryka, nominally a party paper, but increasingly now a spokesman of what might be called the genuine left...
...Not only Boris Yeltsin, but serious economists like Leonid Abalkin and Nikolai Shmelev say that unless there is significant improvement within a year, the whole program of glasnost and perestroika may be put in jeopardy...
...Any loosening of a centralized command economy must lead to political reforms, and this was something that the party apparat could not tolerate...
...I am convinced, however, from talks I have had with Baltic representatives, that they are ready to be both firm and flexible—firm in their ultimate goals, flexible in their tactics...
...It has a strong and genuine reformist wing bent on purging the party of its unreconstructed hard liners and on pursuing moderate socialist policies...
...Economic restructuring has thus far not been, to put it mildly, a huge success...
...The Soviet economy, of course, is in terrible shape, what with most of the old structures still intact, the new ones weak, incomplete, lacking in legal guarantees, and unable to function properly...
...A quarterly just can't keep up—but we try...
...You can't win...
...Not all the economists in Poland think in those terms, but there are many politicians, including quite a few on the Solidarity side, who do...
...I.H...
...East Germany has been swept by enormous popular demonstrations against the Communist dictatorship: the main opposition group, Neue Forum, has been growing rapidly...
...Now about his achievements...
...In the case of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, which I think Gorbachev could have avoided by drastic action over a year ago, the Russians find themselves in a position similar to Great Britain's in Northern Ireland...

Vol. 37 • January 1990 • No. 1


 
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