Liberalization

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?