Ten Years After 1989
Heller, Agnès
I HAVE NEVER been a disinterested observer of Central and East European politics. I grew up in Hungary and lived there until I was almost fifty. In only two of those years was there a political...
...If by some miracle these dictatorships disintegrated, we thought radical changes would follow, in both economic and political spheres...
...This has now developed in much of Central and Eastern Europe...
...By normal I mean democratic, with political systems that rest on the rule of law, equality before the law, free parliamentary elections with multiparty competition, and the protection of human rights and the rights of citizens...
...Many years ago, Ferenc Feller and I carefully examined Soviet-type societies in our book Dictatorship over Needs, and became certain that they would collapse...
...And what is happening now...
...But this is just what I dreamed about for almost sixty years—to be able to voice dissent or consent in the media of my own country, as an independent intellectual...
...But there was no civil war of any magnitude...
...This was an extraordinary event in Russian quarters, and lends support to an optimistic scenario in the long run...
...Central European states have now functioned democratically for a decade, with all the attendant quarrels and conflicts...
...Some withered and some, unfortunately, moved to the extreme right...
...I never believed this, and expected difficulties instead...
...AGNES HELLER is Hannah Arendt professor of philosophy at the New School University Graduate Faculty...
...Even Slovakia and Romania have now taken a turn toward democracy...
...In the meantime, the most dangerous part of Europe became the country where no radical, systemic change occurred—Yugoslavia...
...In only two of those years was there a political order that resembled democracy...
...First there was Hitler's Germany, then Stalin's Soviet Union, followed by Brezhnev's...
...But they have entirely different implications...
...Conflicts, sometimes serious ones, are inevitable, as are disappointments...
...We had no confidence that radical change would happen in our lifetimes...
...It is easy for me to summarize my single greatest political desire: that Hungary and its neighbors finally become "normal" modern states...
...Some people swore that in one stroke Hungary would become as rich (and perhaps as boring) as Austria...
...What about Russia...
...Something similar happened to SolidarDISSENT / Fa111999...
...Often it is a voice of dissent...
...This didn't happen...
...Of course, my voice is just one among many...
...Now I finally have the opportunity both to speak and to act as a citizen of my country...
...In 1989 I hoped for the emergence of movements calling for self-management and self-determination, movements that made their strongest showing during the Hungarian revolution of 1956...
...Yet we had no idea when and how...
...Some of those difficulties have come about and are indeed intolerable, such as the impoverishment of the lower middle classes or the hopeless situation of men and women whose skills are no longer wanted...
...Mainly, I lived under semi-totalitarian and totalitarian political systems in a semiindependent country under the shadow and the command of mightier neighbors and occupiers...
...After a wedding day comes the marriage itself, and no marriage retains all the enchantment of the honeymoon...
...Those who promised a rose garden in 1989, and those who believed in such promises, are disappointed today...
...pOLITICALLY, however, my hopes have been realized...
...When it did, we rejoiced, as if it were a wedding day...
...I was also almost sure that Russia would not allow the Soviet Union to disband and that civil war would result...
...Contrary to many Western friends, we didn't believe Soviet systems could be reformed...
...And of course a "democratic" single-party state is like a square circle...
...But the marriage can still be good and, in the last instance, happy...
...I was almost certain that as communism collapsed, a "rightist" dictatorship would follow the "leftist" one...
...I had plenty of opportunities to see the dark side of modernity, including the dark sides of capitalist economies...
...But I still wanted my country and its neighbors to become "normal" —that is, to share the injustices of the modern world, and allow citizens the opportunity to oppose injustices overtly...
...I remain disappointed that such movements lacked popular support...
...As long as I lived in communist Hungary I could not voice my political ideas...
...Last spring, for the first time in Russian history, we watched an impeachment procedure against the head of state...
...After I left Hungary in 1977, I reached a conclusion like Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others...
...while living in Australia and in the United States I could speak out but I couldn't be a political participant...
...We concluded that the idea of a socialist market is humbug...
...My political ideas have not changed during these past ten years (some of them changed earlier...
...It is easy for me not to be disappointed...
...13 ity in Poland...
Vol. 46 • September 1999 • No. 4
