The Boomerang

...The greatest danger which the Soviet system ean face is that people may overcome the divisions of class and nationality...

...The Soviets posed as friends of all those who considered themselves, in one way or another, part of an underprivileged and oppressed class...

...What is more, as a result of this solidarity they are willing and able to challenge Soviet policies...

...The horizontal unity of a nation rests on its geographical compactness...

...The solidarity that has developed recently between workers and students is due to the fact that, under the new regimes, the universities admit primarily "worker and peasant youth...

...Free intercourse among people of different social, ethnic or religious background is taken for granted...

...But they have been well aware that trans-national class solidarity develops only where a deeply divisive social structure has, in fact, destroyed the fundamental consensus on which the web of nationhood has been woven...

...The closer the alignment along national lines became, the less natural seemed the alignment with the Soviets...

...True, the Soviets have tried to justify perpetuation of the old relationship within the Eastern bloc by pointing out that the elimination of internal class enemies was only half the task—there were still class enemies organized on the international scene In the American bloc...

...Consequently, the society as a whole drew closer together and feelings of national solidarity began to outweigh feelings based on class stratification and animosity...

...In fact, the Soviet Communist party, in its attempt to minimize nationalist forces, promotes the idea that there is a Soviet man and a Soviet nation...

...It struggles to assimilate the interspersed foreign elements or, alternatively, to combat the clanger of being assimilated...

...For the strength and potential capacity for resistance generated by the vertical unification of the non-Russian nations within the Soviet Union is counteracted by Moscow's consistent policy of geographical dispersion of ethnic minorities...

...Then, even if it is the ruling and dominant nation in a multi-national state, it is often frustrated politically and economically in the attempt to execute its national policies...

...In other words, the spread of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe was facilitated by the existence of basically undemocratic social orders, the Soviets (exploiting social strife for their own purposes) made use of an equalitarian ideology which ultimately helped to bring about a genuine democratization of society in the satellite countries, and this democratization has increased internal solidarity, which in turn prompts bold demands for the democratization of international relations within the Eastern bloc...

...In the case of Poland, a state torn by separatist movements before the war, the Soviets have even contributed decisively to the horizontal unification of the nation...

...Since the old classes had disappeared, no alliance could be based on class solidarity...

...In eradicating class antagonisms in the satellites, the Communists united the masses against them By Ladis K. Kristof The Boomerang Recent events in Poland and Hungary have revealed some striking facts about those two nations...

...Whereas before the war equality among citizens was officially guaranteed but socially unenforceable, today inequalities are imposed by the official order but resisted socially...

...On the one hand, they exacted the cession of the multi-national eastern provinces and the evacuation of the Polish population inhabiting them, and, on the other hand, they insisted on the removal of all Germans from the Silesian territories allotted to Poland...

...Both today display an amazing degree of internal cohesiveness and unity...

...The role which students have been playing as leaders of the liberation movements in Poland and Hungary is striking evidence of the social transformation in those countries...

...The concerted will to resist dictation from Moscow gains impetus in direct proportion as the basic social transformations are accepted...

...The Communist credo and the democratic credo have many elements in common, and the democratic elements of the Communist credo are fundamentally opposed to the national and international political systems which sustain the Communist regimes...

...and since the disappearance of classes strengthened the bonds of national solidarity, the new relationship with Moscow had to be based on whatever were the common, or inimical, interests of the Poles...

...In the satellite countries, there have been no comparable mass deportations across national borders...

...In short, Moscow's successful insistence on the Communist idea of building a new classless society undermines the basis on which Soviet influence and rule rests in the satellite countries...

...Hungarians...

...We thus see that a political ideology which seemed an admirable ally of an imperialistic policy proved truer to itself than its preachers expected—and boomeranged...

...It was not merely class stratification in the American sense of inLadis k. Kristof, born in Rumania, mas educated in Poland., managed a Soviet-Romanian lumber company after the war, and is now doing graduate irork at Chicago U. come differentiation but class hierarchy in the Marxian sense, i.e., based on birth and inherited wealth which made all social mobility difficult if not impossible...

...Vertical unity means that the social stratification does not generate disruptive forces which are more powerful than the existing national unity...

...It was reported recently that Kazakhstan, four times the size of Texas, has been so heavily colonized by other nationalities that the Kazakhs are in a minority...

...Thus, Poland has become, for the first time, a homogeneously Polish state...

...Consequently, workers regarded students primarily as representatives of a privileged class and as future bosses, and looked upon their political activities as playboys' recreation...

...A national group which is geographically dispersed spends an enormous amount of energy merely to remain alive...

...Almost everyone, regardless of previous social position, admits that rank in society ought to be based solely on individual achievement...

...In other words, the less substantial are the class antagonisms which divide a nation, the greater is the emotional affinity, cultural unity and community of interest among the members of that nation...

...It may be that some day the entire Soviet population will coalesce into one nation and thus be ipso facto united horizontally within the frontiers of the USSR...

...The democratic-equalitarian spirit has spread surprisingly fast...

...To use Marx's own dialectical vocabulary, inherent internal contradictions are the seeds of Communism's self-destruction...

...Needless to say, this political alliance between students and workers was hardly the original intention of the Communist party...

...A nation, in order to act with full strength, must be united both vertically and horizontally...

...Prior to 1939, students in Poland and Hungary were often busy politicking, but their influence on the working class was nil...

...Thus, the image of students as members of a privileged class has been replaced by the image of students who share the hardships and hopes of the large masses...

...The barriers erected along class or racial lines— strictly enforced by pre-1939 society—have broken down...

...Even Party members began to view the Soviets not so much as comrades and political allies, but as members of a foreign nation...

...It would be a mistake, however, to draw a parallel between the satellite countries and the various Soviet republics which surround Russia proper, like a protective belt, from the Baltic to the Himalayas...

...The student and the manual worker belonged to a different class...

...But America—for better or for worse—has consistently failed to exercise a decisive influence in Eastern Europe, and consequently the vision of a threatening American bloc lacked reality even in the eyes of Party members...

...It is my belief that there is a direct causal relationship between the social revolution to which the Eastern European satellites have been subjected and their present capacity to revolt against Soviet domination...

...In this respect, the sovereign status of these countries has been preserved...

...When this idea becomes a reality, i.e., when the entire Soviet population is united into one nation undivided either by social classes or by linguistic and cultural barrers, then the Soviet regime will have created all the conditions for its own demise...

...The societies in Eastern Europe are today much more democratic than they were before the war...

...In France, almost the same situation exists even today...

...on the one hand, and of the Russians on the other...

...Marxist theorists have tended to overestimate class struggle and underestimate national cohesion...

...The whole relationship with Moscow, based on the Marxist principle of trans-national class alliances, was undergoing re-evaluation...

...Although oppression and tyranny prevail in the Soviet satellite countries, one must distinguish between society and government...

...In Poland and Hungary particularly, class stratification was very rigid...

...Students with a proletarian family background were an exception...

...The dichotomies of Communism —the marriage of a humanitarian ideology to authoritarian practice—are its curse...

...When the Soviets entered Eastern Europe in 1944-45, they made full use of the existing social divisions...

...In the Soviet republics, on the contrary, national unification has been effectively checked by large-scale forcible migration...

...For the first time in history, the democratic creed has taken root in this part of the world...

...But acceptance of Soviet leadership and protection depended on the reality of the class struggle...

...Once the old economic and social hierarchy was destroyed and the members of the former privileged elite were reduced to pitiful beings whom no one could seriously consider as dangerous any longer, the nation became more united...

...Lack of cohesion has in the past been a characteristic feature of the Eastern European nations...

...only 4 per cent of students are from workers' families...

...only the regimes by which they are ruled are oppressive...

...Although social structure varied markedly in the different countries, class distinctions were deeply rooted...

...Once the ideals of equality and social justice take root, the rigid authoritarian structure becomes historically obsolete and is doomed to be cast aside by the democratized society...

...It was not difficult to convince at least some representatives of the formerly oppressed groups that they ought to follow Marx's teachings, extend their hands across the national borders, and unite along class lines...

...The intra-national divisions, caused by caste-like stratification of the society into classes with inimical interests, faded away...