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PRESERVATION
*
DJK50
.G27
1989
WM
THE USES OF
ADVERSITY
ESSAYS on the FATE of
CENTRAL EUROPE
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
Random House New York
THE POPE IN POLAND
CZĘSTOCHOWA
They have come as pilgrims from all over Poland, marching softly
through the night. Now at last they are massed on the meadow
before the red-brick fortress walls of Jasna Góra monastery, which
is for the Poles at once Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle.
Amidst the religious insignia on the banners that flutter above their
heads you see everywhere the unmistakable red jumbly lettering of
Solidarność-not just the name of the outlawed movement, but a
whole anthology of variations on the theme: the papal motto Totus
Tuus with the Polish flag flying from the T; "You strengthen the
students of Gdańsk" (with "students" in Solidarity lettering); "We
greet the defender of human rights." This is a gathering of youth-
of the Solidarity generation-yet there is none of the relaxed festive
joyfulness of four years ago. Straining against the cold wind, their
faces are drawn, tense, nervously expectant.
Suddenly he is with them, high up on the huge white-and-gold
dais crected before the monastery battlements. For minutes they
drown him in wave after wave of emotional applause. Again and
again, now from one comer, now from another, you hear the
rhythmic chants: "Long live the pope, long live the pope"; "The
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
48
49 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
pope with us, the pope with us." The rhythms are those of a political
Of course there is an instant rally of applause. But it is not the
demonstration, not a religious chant, the rhythms we heard on the
thunderous chanting of an hour before-already it is something
first evening of the visit, when ten of thousands marched from
gentler, more mature. "It would be difficult," he goes on, "to cnu-
Warsaw Cathedral past the Communist party headquarters shouting,
merate here all the forms of solicitude that surrounded those who
"So-li-dar-ność, So-li-dar-ność," "Lech-Wa-lę-sa, Lech-Wa-le-sa,"
were interned, imprisoned, dismissed from work, and their fam-
"De-mo-kra-cja, De-mo-kra-cja," "In-de-pen-dence, In-de-pen-
ilies. You know better than I. I just received sporadic news about
dence
it.
" Finally, speaking as it were directly to the icon of the Black
Finally, his voice booms through the loudspeakers: "I want to ask
Madonna in the monastery behind him, he appeals, "Mother of Jasna
you if a certain person who came roday from Rome to Jasna Góra
Góra, you who have been given to us by Providence for the defense
may be allowed to speak." "Go-a-head, go-a-head," they chant; and
of the Polish nation, accept this call of Polish youth together with
then, "Clos-er-to-us, clos-er-to-us." "Do you hear me?" he replies
the Polish pope, and help us to persevere in hope."
above the tumult. "I'm coming closer." And the red figure marches
As he walks slowly off the dais, waving to left and to right, they
down the white steps toward them. A monk stumbles after the pope,
send up a last emotional message, "Stay with us, stay with us, stay
carrying the microphone. "Thank-you, Thank-you," chants the
with us
crowd, and then: "Chair for the pope, chair for the pope." Another
Later in the evening there is a small Solidarity demonstration in
monk stumbles down the steps behind him. When he stops, he is
the center of town, but virtually all that vast crowd disperses peace-
still fifty yards from the nearest pilgrim. But with this single theatrical
fully. He has worked the catharsis, turning thunder into hymns, and
gesture he has come closer to them. For the first time on this visit,
at the same time he has perhaps shown them the beginning of a
he has established that almost magical, spontaneous contact with a
"way out" from circumstances where many of them thought there
vast crowd that we saw four years ago. He is talking to them. They
was no way out.
are talking to him.
And then, as suddenly, the crowd is silent, reverent, half a million
KRAKÓW
people listening with such attention that you could hear a rosary
drop. It is a great and simple homily, not a political speech. He
"Stay with us, stay with us," they chant again, these vast, gentle
preaches a love that is "greater than all the experiences and disap-
crowds, in an outpouring of love, and the pope's every gesture says,
pointments that life can prepare for us." He shows them that he
If only I could, if only I could. The airplane that rose above the
knows and shares their disappointments, without needing to mention
meadows of his beloved Kraków last Thursday afternoon bore a
martial law directly. He tells them what they can do: to begin with
great and very homesick man back to Rome. But it left a society
the reformation of themselves, which must precede any social or
certain that Karol Wojtyla's second fantastic pilgrimage to his native
political reform; to listen to their consciences; to "call good and evil
land, which he described to close friends beforehand as the most
by name." "It is up to you," he says, "to put a firm barrier against
difficult of all his journeys (including Nicaragua), has been a triumph.
demoralization." Then and only then does he mention, for the first
As much Western news coverage has amply demonstrated, it is
time, the word solidarity, letting it drop very quietly into the silent
impossible to translate into foreign newsprint what he had to say.
crowd, not Solidarity the outlawed movement, but "fundamental
It is impossible because he speaks to the Poles through a tapestry of
solidarity between human beings."
symbols and allusions-historical, literary, philosophical, Mariol-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
so
"
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
ogical-each of which requires at least a paragraph of explanation.
told them, they are called to win a moral victory. In part this must
It is impossible because so much depends on a theatrical delivery
be an internal, spiritual victory: "Man is called to victory over
that John Giclgud once called "perfect." It is impossible because
himself," the victory of marryrdom, the victory of the cross. "It is
poetry is what gets lost in translation.
the saints and the beatified," he declared in Kraków, "who show us
Yet since the Poles have been doing the impossible ever since the
the path to the victory that God achieves in human history." As the
pope's first visit four years ago, we may at least attempt it, beginning
individual, so also the nation is called to the moral victory.
with what he did not say. In sharp contrast to his last visit, he said
nothing about one leitmotif of his pontificate: the future of the
This moral victory, however, is not to be won merely by patient
churches elsewhere in Eastern Europe and the special mission of the
suffering in faith. No, it demands "living in truth." "It means," as
Slav pope to reassert the unity of Christian Europe from the Atlantic
he explained at Jasna Góra, "that I make an effort to be a person
to the Urals. This was the Vatican's one major concession to Moscow.
with a conscience I call good and evil by name. "It means:
On the other hand, although he talked a lot about peace, he gave
love of neighbor; it means: fundamental solidarity between human
no gifts to the Soviet media. In his only major reference to nuclear
beings." It means fighting "demoralization"-both in the sense of
disarmament, he recalled a memorandum of the Pontifical Academy
declining morale and of decaying morals. Effortlessly recapturing the
of Sciences on the effects of nuclear war, sent to both the Soviet
word renewal (odnowa) from the communist dictionary, he preached
Union and the United States. But this was a cycle of homilies written
the imperative of "moral and social renewal." The nation must bear
by a Pole, for the Poles, about Poland.
witness to the truth as it did in August 1980, "that witness which
To the people of Poland he said, first of all, that he shares their
amazed the whole world, when the Polish worker stood up for
disappointment and their suffering since the imposition of martial
himself with the gospel in his hand and a prayer on his lips." Today,
law. He said this through his bowed head and somber mien from
too, the Poles must not cease to stand up for certain fundamental
the moment he stepped onto the tarmac at Warsaw airport. "He is
human and civil rights.
sad," said the old woman standing next to me. "You see, he under-
And then he told them, with a clarity that thrilled his listeners and
stands." He said it in his first homily, in St. John's Cathedral in
dismayed the government, precisely what those rights are. First,
Warsaw: "Together with all my compatriots-especially with those
Poland has a right to independence, to national sovereignty, to take
who are most acutely tasting the bitterness of disappointment, hu-
"her proper place among the nations of Europe, between East and
miliation, suffering, of being deprived of their freedom, of being
West," as he put it to General Jaruzelski at the Belweder Palace, in
wronged, of having their dignity trampled on-I stand beneath the
a speech that, unlike most of his homilies, was televised nationwide.
cross
of Christ And again, referring to the late "primate of the
At the end of the open-air masses, he intoned the stirring hymn that
millennium," Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, "Divine Providence spared
has long been a second, unofficial national anthem. The original
him the painful events connected with the date 13 December 1981."
version of "God Who Protects Poland concludes, "Restore to
A chorus of applause rose from the tens of thousands massed in the
us, O Lord, a free fatherland." The Communist authorities, however,
streets of the old town around the cathedral. So far the censors have
have tried to encourage the version introduced when Poland regained
not allowed this sentence to appear anywhere, even in the small-
its independence in 1918, which concludes, "Bless for us, O Lord,
circulation Catholic press. But everyone has heard it.
the free fatherland"-thus implying that People's Poland is in fact a
His theme, however, was victory. Out of this political defeat, he
free fatherland. But the pope's huge congregation did not hesitate
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
52
$3
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
for a moment: It was the original version they sang. What is more,
the Polish people, To the Polish authorities he spoke no less clearly.
the pope himself quoted it, in the central religious celebration of his
He told Jaruzelski at the Belweder that the starting point for "social
pilgrimage: "Yes. Here at Jasna Góra there also rested the hope of
renewal" must be the "social accords" that concluded the strikes of
the nation and the persevering effort toward independence.
the summer of 1980-and gave birth to Solidarity. The authorities
'Restore to us, o Lord, a free fatherland
and society must find "means of dialogue that are truly effective."
In Katowice, the industrial capital of Upper Silesia, addressing an
Addressing more than a million people from the windy heights of
audience subdued by temperament, pouring rain, and strict Church
a Warsaw soccer stadium, he demanded "an order in which man's
discipline, he went on to spell out the specific rights of workers:
fundamental rights will be respected." He went on to say, "Such an
"The right to a just salary," "the right to security," "the right to a
order can be simultaneously a victory of the governed and a victory
day of rest" (work-free Sundays were only won after a long struggle
of those who govern. That point must be reached by way of dialogue
in the mines here). "Connected with the area of workers' rights is
and agreement, which is the only viable way for the nation to achieve
the question of trade unions," and the right of all professional groups,
the fullness of civil rights and the social structures that correspond to
including agricultural and white-collar workers, to form unions as
its just requirements and are capable of fostering the consensus
"a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice." He quoted a speech
needed by the state if it is to fulfill its role. Through this consensus
by Cardinal Wyszyński (which at the time referred specifically to
the nation expresses its sovereignty concretely."
Rural Solidarity) on "a people's right to free association." "The State
At Jasna Góra he returned to the theme of sovereignty: "The state
does not give us this right, it has only the obligation to protect and
is firmly sovereign when it governs society and also serves the common
guard it. This right is given us by the Creator who made man as a
good of society and allows the nation to realize its own subjectivity
social being." "It was in this spirit," the pope continued, "that I
(podmiotowość), its own identity." Later, turning again to the icon
spoke in January 1981 during an audience granted to the delegation
of the Black Madonna in the monastery behind him: "Queen of
of Solidarity"-and even the dour Silesians raised a cheer at his first
Poland, I also wish to entrust you with the difficult task of those
(and only) direct mention of the outlawed movement-accom-
who wield authority on Polish soil.
The state gains its strength
panied by"-they nudged each other and whispered, "Lech Wa-
first of all from the support of the people." In short, he said to the
tesa"-"the representative of the Polish government for permanent
authorities: You never tire of proclaiming your sovereignty-okay,
working contacts with the Holy See." This problem, he concluded,
then behave like a sovereign power.
can only be resolved through"a true dialogue between the authorities
His third audience was the Polish Church itself. This Church is
and society."
now stronger than it has been at any time since the war-spiritually,
However, in order to revive the dialogue that was severed on
institutionally, and politically. It is the only institution in Poland to
December 13, 1981, the Polish people must learn to forgive. For-
have been strengthened both by the rise of Solidarity and by the
giveness should liberate them from "the fetters of hatred-for hatred
state of war. On the one hand, since December 13, 1981, a great
is a destructive force, and we must neither destroy nor allow ourselves
charge of frustrated hopes, idealism, and energy has run from Sol-
to be destroyed by it." "Forgiveness is love's might, forgiveness is
idarity to the Church. According to surveys, in the last year the
not weakness. To forgive does not mean to resign from truth and
percentage of regular churchgoers has soared from an already high
justice."
60 to 65 percent to an astonishing 90 to 95 percent-especially in
This, in crude summary, was the burden of the pope's message to
working-class parishes. The badges and banners that one saw every-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
54
55
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
where with the papal motto Totus Tuus and slogans like "in Solidarity
occur so easily in the case of beatings, especially with young and
with the Pope" or even "juventus semper fidelis," all in the red Soli-
weak organizations"-a characteristic allusion to the recent case of
darnosć lettering, express this transference symbolically. On the other
a Warsaw schoolboy who died after police interrogation. Finally,
hand, the Jaruzelski government needs Church cooperation more
"the Christian doctrine of work demands both the solidarity of work-
than any of its predecessors, and has made more concessions to win
ers among themselves and the need for honest solidarity with
it. Never before has the Church had so much broadcasting time on
workers."
TV and radio (a right originally won for it by the workers in the
Whatever the immediate political effects of the pope's visit, it is a
summer of 1980), so many newspapers, seminaries, schools, and
fact of immense significance that thousands of priests all over Poland
permits for church-building. Two hundred churches are being built
will be preaching and ministering along the lines he set for years to
in the Kraków diocese alone.
come. In the Polish Church, as in economics, there is a "multiplier
In fact, the Church is frankly alarmed at its own strength-and
effect."
under the uncertain leadership of Cardinal Józef Glemp, it has been
Meanwhile, the government declares itself broadly satisfied with
divided about how to use that strength. How far should it cooperate
the visit, which it says both illustrated and facilitated the process of
with government at the highest level? How far should it help per-
"normalization." Spokesmen for the government hint broadly that
secuted workers and Solidarity activists at the parish level? In War-
perhaps on the Communist anniversary of July 22, it will lift martial
saw, one church in the working-class quarter of Zolibórz (once a
law, currently just "suspended." In sharp contrast to 1979, it has
Socialist stronghold) has a famous Solidarity altar. In Kraków, the
made this very much a state event, garlanding the pope with chains
bishop recently instructed a vicar to dismantle his Solidarity alwar
of police and security men, which angered and depressed the Poles:
and stop the worker education groups that were being held in the
"As if we would want to shoot him," they exclaimed as he was whisked
vestry. Parish priests have been outspoken in their criticism of the
away in his bulletproof box. The government tried, rather unsuc-
primate.
cessfully, to use the presence of some two thousand Western news-
One of the pope's main purposes in this pilgrimage was to give
men to put its political point across. Predictably, when the meadow
the Polish Church its instructions. Politely ignoring the dumpy figure
in front of the Jasna Góra monastery turned into a forest of hands
of Primate Glemp, he spoke, in effect, as the pope-primate. His
raised in the V-for-victory sign and half a million voices cried, "Re-
speech to the Episcopate, largely overlooked in media coverage, may
store to us, O Lord, a free fatherland," the state TV cameras were
in the long term prove to have been as important as any. In it he
flashing back to the Belweder meeting with General Jaruzelski.
singled out for special praise the communiqués of the plenary sessions
Like so much else in contemporary Poland, the position of the
of the Episcopate, which have spelled out the rights of society and
Jaruzelski government is paradoxical: It is both exceptionally strong
the conditions for dialogue most explicitly: "It seems to me that the
and very weak. Its strength derives from the simple fact that it has
communiqués of the Episcopate respond to the need to hear the
a monopoly of physical force, which it has shown inself prepared to
truth, which is so acute in society. The mith is the first and fun-
use and use again. (General Jaruzelski is the first Polish Party leader
damental condition of social renewal. Without it, one cannot speak
since 1956 to have shot Polish workers, breaking the first unwritten
of social dialogue, which the Episcopate so justly demands, and
commandment of the Polish national tradition-"Pole shall not kill
which society certainly expects." It is necessary, he went on, "ro
Pole"-and to have survived.) Its weakness is manifested in its in-
defend every citizen, to protect every life, to prevent injuries, which
ability to find any political way out of the continuing crisis.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
só
57
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
Surprisingly, even people who are active in the opposition concede
tempted economic reform since 1956. Industrial production fell last
that General Jaruzelski's personal intentions are different from-and
year by a further 2 percent. The government hopes that the pope's
in some senses, better than-those of his predecessors. In his Bel-
visit will help break its diplomatic quarantine, bringing Western
weder speech he spoke Polish-not translated Sovietese. His oblig-
statesmen and credits in his wake. While the primate and his advisers
atory reference to Soviet-Polish friendship was almost papal in its
discreetly let it be known that they do not favor the continuance of
allusiveness, quoting a famous poem, "To Muscovite Friends," by
sanctions, John Paul 11 made only one-delphic-public utterance
Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish Byron. He did not once mention the
on this subject. "I ardently desire," he told Jaruzelski at the Belweder,
Communist Party, but instead spoke emphatically about the necessity
"the re-creation of conditions of 'good cooperation' with all the
of a strong state, a state that implements reforms through the laws.
Western nations on our continent, as well as the Americas, above
Moreover, he said, "Our law does not punish for views: it only bans
all the United States of America, where so many millions of citizens
antistate actions incompatible with the constitution." It is possible,
are of Polish origin." Does that mean that Reagan should lift sanc-
even plausible, that this enigmatic man wishes to be an authoritarian
tions on Jaruzelski's terms? That Jaruzelski should lift martial law
rather than a totalitarian ruler of a state in which, as Frederick the
on Reagan's terms? That they should both come halfway, in the
Great used to put it, "the people say what they like and I do what
spirit of Christian "forgiveness" and "dialogue?" What Jaruzelski and
I like." Even now, articles are published in the official press that
the pope said in their subsequent private meeting, and in its even
could not have been published under Gierek or Gomulka.
more extraordinary, unscheduled "continuation" on the pope's last
But if these are his intentions, can he realize them? At the moment,
evening in Kraków, we do not know.
he still seems to be stymied on all sides. Within his own politburo
Yet one of their themes must have been the regime's crippling lack
he faces stiff opposition from a faction led by the wily Stefan Ol-
of popular support. If Jaruzelski is to begin to regain even a measure
szowski-a faction that opposed the pope's visit all along and will
of popular acceptance, he must, as the pope told him publicly, rein-
now be saying, after the accompanying Solidarity demonstrations
stigate a genuine dialogue. But dialogue with whom? The Patriotic
and Western news coverage, "We told you so." Behind that faction
Movement for National Salvation (PRON in its Polish acronym),
is the stubborn conservatism of the whole bureaucratic apparatus of
which the government has set up for this purpose, is still an un-
the Party-state, threatened by reforms and pressure from those "Mus-
popular joke. The new official trade unions do not represent the
covite friends." Against rumors of an imminent deposition of Ja-
workers. Independent professional associations like the Polish Jour-
ruzelski must be placed the weighty fact that he is backed by the
nalists' Association and the Polish Writers' Union have been or are
Soviet military, which was, after all, instrumental in the elevation of
being dissolved. The only institution with which there is still some-
Mr. Andropov. Nonethcless, pressure from the Polish and Soviet
thing that might be called "dialogue" is the Church. It seems that
Party apparatuses drastically reduces his room for maneuver.
this is the dialogue that the regime would most like to pursue today.
Moreover, he is stymied by the economic crisis. Although supplies
In return for the lifting of martial law and perhaps a partial amnesty
of basic foodstuffs have improved in recent months, Poland has not
for political prisoners, the Church should move into closer public
begun to sort out its basic problems of long-term neglect of agri-
cooperation with the authorities. In the medium term, Church
culture, catastrophic misinvestment, bureaucratic centralism, and for-
sources suggest, the regime might be prepared to enter into a kind
eign debt. By all accounts, the bloated bureaucracy is already "rolling
of "corporatist compromise" with the Church, conceding to it large
back" the vaunted economic reform, as it has rolled back every at-
areas of religious and cultural autonomy and perhaps even sharing
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
58
59
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
power with it over some areas of social and economic life. From the
they won't beat you," they chanted. The surrounding crowds seemed
Solidarity period there still survive two lay Catholic government
delighted to see them. Children danced along the verges and old
ministers-though their current lot is to hold responsibility without
women flashed V signs from rusty balconies. On Wednesday they
power. One Catholic intellectual even talks of a "Church PRON."
marched five long miles from the Kraków meadows to the model
Between them, these two vast authoritarian corporations would
workers' town of Nowa Huta, where the pope was to dedicate a
guarantee Poland's stability and internal peace to Moscow. It would
church in the afternoon. "So-li-dar-ność," they chanted. "End the
be as on the streets of Katowice last week, where order was kept by
war"; "Long live the pope"; "Lech Wa-lę-sa." Their chants were,
three-man patrols: one soldier, one policeman, and one priest.
however, somewhat indiscriminate: when they passed a van hired
Arguably, the Church is so strong that it could afford the loss of
by NBC, the cry of "Don't beat for money" (addressed to the police)
popularity that such a "corporatist compromise" would entail. There
suddenly changed to "N-B-C, N-B-C, N-B-C." I must truthfully
are ecclesiastical politicians close to Glemp who are obviously
report that they also got lost en route to Nowa Huta, but somehow
tempted by the prospect. But last week the pope said an unambiguous
they managed to wind their way back across dusty allotment gardens,
public no to this temptation. He spelled out to the people, the
making a superb entrance, banners Aving, just ten minutes before
authorities, and the Episcopate the conditions for a genuine "dia-
the pope. The concourse of workers roared its approval. It was pure
logue"-and those conditions included the participation of authentic
Polish theater.
trade unions. Does this mean the outlawed movement Solidarity?
But when the chanting was over, many of them made a rather
Does this mean Lech Walęsa? Despite the authorities, glosses on a
sober assessment of their position. "That was our last day of free-
"strictly private meeting," and despite the strange affair of the Os.
dom," said one standard-bearer, and another: "Many of us feel it
servatore Romano article (which sheds light mainly on tensions within
was a kind of glorious funeral for Solidarity-as an organization."
the Vatican), what the Pope meant to say with this meeting is unclear.
Theirs is the traditional, superb Polish theater of defiance-and it
"There are no private meetings with the pope," declares his friend
has a huge and enthusiastic audience-but they do not see any pros-
the Kraków theologian Father Józef Tischner. Was he indicating
pects of converting the moral support into effective political action.
that Wałęsa is still a partner for the dialogue, the true representative
They cannot force the authorities to talk to them. I understand that
of the Polish working class, as many Poles believe? Or was he, as it
Solidarity's underground leadership is uncertain whether to call a
were, elevating Walęsa to the peerage of Polish martyrs-a symbol
demonstration at all for the anniversary of the Gdansk agreement
of the great ideals of August 1980, but no longer a political actor?
on August 31. For on that day the police will not make a U-turn
The authorities' position, by contrast, is already clear. "Lech Wa-
and speed away from the demonstrations, as I saw them do on the
tesa
will never again be a partner of the authorities," says gov-
road to Nowa Huta. On that day they will charge with batons raised,
emment spokesman Jerzy Urban. "There will be no dialogue
even though the crowd chants, as it did last week, "De-mon-stra-cja
with the former leadership of 'Solidarity.' To see the pope's visit
po-ko-jo-wa," Peace demo, peace demo!"
as one great boost for Solidarity, as some Western media have sug-
What does have a future, they argue, is the samizdat newspapers,
gested, is at best an oversimplification. The number of active, banner-
magazines, and factory bulletins that are still being produced on a
bearing Solidarity demonstrators was, in fact, relatively small: a hard
scale unmatched anywhere else in the Soviet bloc. In large factories
core of a few thousand, mostly young men, many of whom followed
too, Solidarity's clandestine factory commissions continue to collect
the pope from place to place, like pilgrims. "Come with us, today
regular union dues and pay out benefits to the sick and those sacked
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
60
for political reasons. Some of them discuss attempting to use the
limited pluralism of official unions for which the 1982 trades-union
act provided. Solidarity survives not only as a symbol and a myth
but as a world of diverse local initiatives, of social self-organization,
a habit of behavior, and a set of values that the pope preached and
blessed. But Solidarity the nationwide social movement-not even
the activists can envisage the conditions in which it could be restored.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA UNDER ICE
As everyone says, we had to wait a year before we saw the effects
of the Pope's last visit and we will probably have to wait another
year to discern the effects of this one. "The first visit broke through
a barrier of fear," a senior Catholic intellectual speculated beforehand.
"Perhaps this one can break through the barrier of hopelessness."
This time, however, the effects are unlikely to be seen in any single
political breakthrough but rather in countless small ways, in the
strengthening of habits of solidarity, dignity, and honesty that is
already visible. A university lecturer comments that although few of
Every day last month young Czechs lit candles and laid wreaths with
his students are active in the underground, almost all of them are
the simple message "We Remember" on the grave of Marie Jedlic-
prepared to say exactly what they think, even about the most sensitive
kova, in Prague's main cemetery. Every night the candles and flowers
political subjects. The students "call good and evil by name," as the
were removed by "persons unknown."
pope exhorted. Solidarity, says Father Tischner, "was a forest of
Who was Marie Jedličkova? I don't know. None of her mourners
awakened consciences." The forest is growing. It is not for the forest
could tell me. All they knew was that fifteen years ago, a young man
to go to the government. The government must come to the forest.
was buried in this same grave. His name was Jan Palach and he set
In this sense, for all the depression and repression, Poland may be
fire to himself to bear witness against the Soviet occupation, To
said to be in a better condition than any of its neighbors-including
extinguish his memory, the Husák regime subsequently had his re-
even Hungary. This transformation of consciousness, this moral rev-
mains removed to a country graveyard and put the unknown Marie
olution, is a lasting achievement of the pope and Solidarity.
j. in his place. But Palach's mourners will not be cheated, So every
Whatever develops in Poland over the next few years, it will be
year, Oii the anniversary of his self-immolation in January 1969, they
different from anything we have seen before. Though the police rule
light candles before the tombstone of the unknown stranger,
the streets, this country cannot be "normalized"-i.e,, returned to
Across the road, I made my way through the ivy-covered Jewish
Soviet norms. Though the totalitarian Communist system remains
cemetery to the tomb of Franz Kafka, whose fiction has become a
in outward form, in reality it is still being dismantled from within.
reality at the grave of Marie J. But the Husik regime tries to forget
(June 1983)
Kafka, too, His hundredth birthday last year was commemorated
only unofficially, by the country's best, and therefore banned. writers.
As Ojic of them has observed, Gustav Husák is the "President of
Forgetting." And how much he has to forget! Prague cinemagoers
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
62
63 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
were recently treated to an official film biography of that broken old
passively while the regime has systematically purged the Party and
communist. After skimming lightly over Husák's wartime collabo-
state, the economy, the arts, the universities, and the media of anyone
ration with the Nazis, the film leaped at one bound from 1948 to
who dares to speak critically, independently, or even intelligently
1968. The appalling Stalinist trials, in which he was one of the
about what the regime defines as politics-an infinitely elastic cat-
accused; his long imprisonment; his rehabilitation and crawl back
egory. The scale of the purges is breathtaking. Roughly half a million
up the greasy pole: All this had just disappeared down the memory
people resigned or were expelled from the Party after 1968: one in
hole.
every three Party members. If one assumes they each have two de-
Forgetting is the key to the so-called normalization of Czechoslo-
pendents, then they make up 10 percent of the whole population.
vakia. In effect, the regime has said to the people: Forget 1968.
Philosophers, lawyers, journalists became bricklayers, waiters, clerks.
Forget your democratic traditions. Forget that you were once citizens
They joined an existing circle of the damned: Christians and non-
with rights and duties. Forget politics. In return we will give you a
communists whose degradation began with the Communist coup in
comfortable, safe life. There'll be plenty of food in the shops and
1948. And they are still being joined by others. That window cleaner
cheap beer in the pubs. You may afford a car and even a little country
over there: His thesis was on Wittgenstein. Ask your waiter about
cottage-and you won't have to work competitively. We don't ask
Kafka: Before his trial, he lectured on The Trial. Yes, the night-
you to believe in us or our fatuous ideology. By all means listen to
watchman is reading Aristotle. Your coal will be delivered by an
the Voice of America and watch Austrian television (sotto voce: So
ordained priest of the Czech brethren. Kiss the milkman's ring: He
do we). All we ask is that you will outwardly and publicly conform:
is your bishop.
join in the ritual "elections," vote the prescribed way in the "trade
The Czech nation has been stood on its head. (In Slovakia, con-
union" meetings, enroll your children in the "socialist" youth or-
ditions are rather different and easier; I confine myself to the Czech
ganization. Keep your mind to yourself.
lands.) The most independent, intelligent, and best are at the bottom;
One can describe this unwritten deal in different ways. A Western
the worst, stupidest, and most servile, at the top. The Party is little
observer might describe it as a retreat from totalitarianism. An angry
more than a union for self-advancement. A director will tell an am-
young Czech describes it as the perfection of totalitarianism. Czech
bitious young man, "Well, of course you must join the Party," and
ex-communists describe it as Husák's social contract. But all agree
many do so quite cynically. The country's politics are frozen into
that in the last decade, the deal has more or less worked for the
immobility-a fifteen years' winter after one Prague Spring. Husák
regime. By comparison with Warsaw, Bucharest, and even East Ber-
and his politburo fear that even their timid, tinkering economic
lin, the streets of Prague look prosperous. Butchers' windows display
reforms could have untoward political consequences. No impulses
a rich variety of sausage and meat. Of course there are shortages,
for reform come from the purged, cowed, and corrupt apparat.
but several housewives told me that supplies slightly improved last
Younger Party members are devastatingly critical-but cynically and
year. They had even seen fresh lettuce in the greengrocer's. They have
in private; while most Czechs do not look to the Party for anything
been hit by price increases-for example, on petrol, oil, and elec-
at all. I have never been in a country where politics, and indeed the
tricity-without compensatory wage rises. Workers have been offi-
whole of public life, is a matter of such supreme indifference.
cially threatened with wage cuts. Consumer durables are scarce and
Czechoslovakia today can be compared to a lake permanently cov-
expensive. But they still have much to lose.
ered by a thick layer of ice. On the surface nothing moves. But under
In return for this relative prosperity, most Czechs have watched
the ice, among the philosopher-laborers, the window-cleaning jour-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
04
65 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
nalists, and nightwatchman-monks-here. things are on the move.
they'd sentence an innocent man to ten years
sentencing
an
In the West this subglacial movement is known, if at all, by the
innocent man to five years, that's something I've heard of, but ten,
label Charter 77. Charter 77 is often thought of as a dissident political
that's a bit too much."
organization. This it is not, and cannot be. The original Charter
Wolf's fellow workers react in a similar vein. "Why bother to
declaration on January 1, 1977, proclaimed a "free, informal, open
make trouble for yourself by saying these things out loud?" the
community of people of different convictions, different faiths, and
philosopher and former Charter spokesman Ladislav Hejdánek was
different professions" united to work for the respect of human and
asked by his factory workmates. "We all know them anyway." This
civil rights. It emphasized that "Charter 77 is not an organization"
lack of active support from the industrial working class-not to
and "does not form the basis of any oppositional political activity."
mention the prosperous agricultural workers-is the second main
Of course these disclaimers were partly tactical, since to form any
reason why Charter cannot follow the path of KOR.
independent organization ("political" or not) is a crime in Czech-
A third, grave, disability is the lack of support or protection from
oslovakia's totalitarian law book. But there are more than sufficient
the Church. The majority Catholic Church has, since the Stalinist
reasons why Charter 77 has not in practice built the kind of orga-
period, been persecuted, broken, and corrupted to an appalling de-
nization that its Polish cousin, KOR, developed before August 1980.
gree. Historically identified with Habsburg domination over the
"KOR began where the Charter leaves off," one Chartist told me.
Czech lands, it lacked that massive popularity that alone enabled the
From the start, the Chartists were fiercely and systematically per-
Polish Church to resist Communist Gleichschaltung. In the early fif-
secuted. Détente did not help protect them as it helped protect
ties, all its monastic orders were simply dissolved; some 8,000 of
leading KOR members until 1980. Czechoslovakia's hard-currency
the country's 12,000 monks disappeared into labor camps. Bishops,
debt had never been so large as to provide a significant "lever" for
priests, and theologians were imprisoned for up to fifteen years. The
the West. In autumn 1979 the playwright Václav Havel and four
minority Protestant churches were coopted or coerced.
other members of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly
Since then, all the clergy in Czechoslovakia have been, in effect,
Prosecuted (VONS) were themselves unjustly prosecuted and sum-
employees of the Communist state. Their salaries are paid by the
marily convicted, despite worldwide protests. Havel was released
government, which has a veto on all church appointments. If a priest
from prison only last year, seriously ill. He described to me the
displeases the state by preaching "political" sermons, or simply by
oppressive police surveillance under which he now lives: the threat
attracting too many young people to church, he is forbidden to
of a house search hanging over him whenever he sits down at the
practice his vocation. That is why the man the Vatican appointed as
typewriter; the knowledge that every visitor is photographed and
bishop of Hradec Králové had to work as a milkman. So whereas
every conversation bugged; police narks following him wherever he
in Poland the Catholic Church plays a great, independent role,
goes-even into the sauna.
whereas in East Germany the Protestant hierarchy can do something
In the most recent example of Husák's justice, a thirty-one-year-
to shield peace activists, in Czechoslovakia, the official churches are
old worker, Jiří Wolf, was condemned to six years' imprisonment
crippled and corrupted and the most courageous priests banned from
for "subversion." His offense: writing a letter to the Austrian embassy
the pulpit.
about prison conditions. This is the longest sentence yet given to a
In these conditions it is a miracle that Charter has survived at all-
Chartist, and follows a previous sentence of three and a half years.
like a candle burning under water. It has done so thanks to the
As the Good Soldier Schweik once commented: "I never imagined
extraordinary fortitude of people like Václav Benda, a Catholic in-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
66
67
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
tellectual who, emerging from four years' imprisonment, has once
Tomáš Masaryk. For the Czechs, as Kundera has written, ("the strug-
again taken up the job of Charter spokesperson (one of three), de-
gle of man against power is the struggle of memory against
spite illness and reprisals against himself and his children. (The pun-
forgetting.")
ishment of children for the conduct of their parents-the Nazis'
Sippenhaft-is one of the most revolting regular practices of the
The Czechs are intensely proud of their interwar democracy, which
Communist state.) Benda, a stout, bearded man in his mid-thirties,
they justly claim was unique in Central and Eastern Europe. Yet the
admits that the ranks of the thousand-odd signatories of the Charter
counterculture is distinguished by a fiercely self-critical approach to
have been depleted by emigration, imprisonment and, sometimes,
the history. "We regard the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in
resignation. Nonetheless, the eight-year-old Charter can claim to be
1945 as the first act of totalitarianism in our country," one passionate
the longest-lived human rights movement in Eastern Europe, and
Czech patriot told me. To most British observers, the three national
Benda quotes its first spokesman, Jan Patočka: "This is not a battle
tragedies of Czechoslovakia-1938 (Munich), 1948 (Communist
but a war." The Chartists, he says, have served as the "front line,"
coup), and 1968 (Warsaw Pact invasion)-would seem to have been
behind which hundreds of newcomers have quietly joined the ranks
events beyond the Czechs' control: our fault in 1938, the Russians'
of nonconformity.
(and ours) in 1948, the Russians' in 1968. But they ask: What could
Who knows how many people are seated at their typewriters every
Masaryk, Benes, or Dubček have done to prevent it?
evening typing out a manuscript with ten carbon copies for samizdat
Predictably, the closer the event the fiercer the controversy, so
distribution? Judging by the quantity of samizdat I saw in a short
1968 is the subject of fierce polemics among Chartists. Ex-Party
visit, it must be hundreds if not thousands. Besides the samizdat,
members are still the tightest single group within the Charter, and
there are unofficial seminars and discussion groups. For obvious
many of them still cherish the hope of 1968: that change will come
reasons of secrecy, no one person can know all about this miniature
through the Party. Consequently, these self-styled "Eurocommu-
counterculture; but its main concerns are visible. After 1968 the
nists" insist on the necessity of "dialogue" with the Communists in
Czech lands became what Louis Aragon called a "literary Biafra."
power-their former comrades. I was told that a group of them even
Virtually all the best contemporary Czech writers are published only
addressed a letter to Andropov on his accession, virtually offering
in samizdat.
their services as an alternative politburo. However, as one ex-
Secondly, they try to salvage Czech history from the regime of
Communist wryly remarked, "The only 'dialogue' I have is with my
forgetting) In the study of a former professor of literature I noticed
interrogator." "Please don't imagine I have any illusions about the
a fine bust of Tomás Garrigue Masaryk, president of the prewar
'dialogue,'' Dr. Jiří Hájek, Dubček's foreign minister in 1968, has-
Czechoslovakian Republic. He explained that the bust was com-
tened to assure me. He no longer expects any major political results
missioned for his university in 1947. After the Communist takeover
from talking to the Party; but this "dialogue" would be a stimulus
in 1948, it could not be exhibited. "So I am keeping it in trust until
and example to society at large.
it can be returned to its proper place." Only recently, he told me,
Non- and anticommunist Chartists call these residual hopes resid-
the citizens of Nové Mesto (in Moravia) woke up one morning to
ual illusions. But they do not yet have any alternative political strat-
find their statue of Masaryk gone from the main square-"the spot
egy. Where the Eurocommunists think in terms of power and
was already half paved over." Another blow for the President of
diplomacy, they think in terms of metaphysics and theology. The
Forgetting. But wherever I went, in private flats I found busts of
difference is nicely illustrated by the underground (or subglacial)
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
68
69 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
debate about peace. On this issue the range of opinion among Char-
years they were inundated with diatribes against Pershing and Cruise.
tists is as wide as in the West. I met passionate Reaganauts and
Any new missiles will increase the danger to the country in which
supporters of Western "peace movements." But whereas the Euro-
they are stationed, said the propagandists. In the town of Pardubice,
communists, like Western peaceniks, pose direct political questions-
a mass meeting was held under the banner of "No New Missiles in
What is to be done? Which argument will persuade whom?-the
Europe." Next day, the government announced that new Soviet
noncommunists argue at a deeper level. Western peace activists who
missiles would be stationed in Czechoslovakia. People returned to
come to Prague seeking allies (or alibis?) are confronted with phi-
photograph the banner, which was hastily removed. The authorities
losophers like Ladislav Hejdánek, asking, "But what is 'peace?'
displayed their anxiety by threatening leading Chartists with pros-
and reaching back to Spinoza and St. Luke for the answer. Václav
ecution for "undermining the national defense capability" if they
Havel describes the arms race as merely part of a "worldwide crisis
criticized the deployment. In spite of this, a petition against the
of human responsibility." "Western governments overestimate the
missiles has collected some thousand signatures in Prague. In the
power of missiles." However, all the Chartists I spoke to stressed
Moravian capital, Brno, a similar petition was apparently started
one point: What they have in Eastern Europe is not the peace that
spontaneously by apprentices and Christian students; it is said to
we enjoy in Western Europe. Peace is not just the absence of war.
have collected more than a thousand signatures, and baffled the
A lasting, full peace can only be achieved with and within countries
police. An "unofficial peace movement" like that in neighboring East
whose governments respect human rights and are democratically
Germany (with Church protection) is not possible here. But the
controlled.
anger of private opinion is unmistakable.
Do they envisage their philosophical ideas ever being translated
The same is true of one other issue: pollution. "Golden Prague"
into political realities in Czechoslovakia? For Havel there are "two
is a dirty rust-color these days, with accumulated grime from low-
crucial questions: Does the Charter speak the truth? And if it does
grade brown coal, petrol fumes, and industrial smog. A friend drove
speak the truth, has this truth reached wider circles of society?"
me through devastated parts of northwestern Bohemia-what was
Of course in a Communist state there cannot be public opinion.
once the Sudetenland. Near the town of Most, we stopped before
But there is something that we might call private opinion. There are
the huge, belching Chemical Works of Czech-Soviet Friendship.
issues on which large numbers of people think and speak alike in
Through choking acid fog we could just read the banner on the
private, although they dare not in public. The Charter, and its sur-
façade: "Together with the Soviet Union for Peace and Future Hap-
rounding counterculture, have had a considerable impact on this
piness for Our People." In the mountains I saw whole forests de-
private opinion, Havel argues. After four years in prison, he finds
stroyed by acid rain-a landscape by a war artist. On our way home
that the gulf between public life and private opinion has shrunk.
we passed another building with a banner proclaiming "The Leninist
People are complaining more openly-in pubs and trams as well as
Way for the Development of Our Country." "Yes, that building
in the privacy of their homes. Compared with what happened in
is the Leninist way," snorted my companion. It was the prison
Poland, the change is imperceptible; compared with Czechoslovakia
where the Husák regime incarcerated Václav Benda. The Leninist
when he went to prison, it is substantial.
way
Private opinion has been particularly incensed by the deployment
Unlike the Chartists' philosophical, literary, and historical con-
of new Soviet missiles, announced last November. What infuriated
cerns, the issues of peace and pollution have an immediate popular
the Czechs was the absurd volte-face of official propaganda. For three
appeal. You do not need to be an intellectual to feel threatened by
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
70
missiles and acid rain. Nor can one assume that Czech workers have
been wholly pacified by Husák's "social contract." On the wall of
one Prague factory there recently appeared a large graffito: "We envy
the people of Grenada!" When a Party official tried to collect sig-
natures in support of the new Soviet missiles at an official trade-
union meeting, the workers sent him packing. Now and then they
like to frighten the managers by muttering: "Solidarność."
Of course the Chartists see that a Czech Solidarity is as likely as
fire under ice. But they also see that the development of the samizdat
counterculture, and the growing alienation of private opinion, com-
bined with economic and political stagnation, have begun at least
to make the ice mushy on the underside. If ever a real thaw comes-
from above? after change in Moscow?-they will be ready with their
busts of Tomás Masaryk, their editions of Franz Kafka, and their
memorials to Jan Palach. They know from their own experience in
1968, and from the Polish experience in 1980-81, how suddenly a
society that seems atomized, apathetic, and broken can be trans-
formed into an articulate, united civil society. How private opinion
can become public opinion. How a nation can stand on its feet again.
And for this they are working and waiting, under the ice.
(February 1984)
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
"I think it very encouraging that it's here that Marx's dream is being
fulfilled," Kurt Vonnegut told the leading underground weekly Ty-
godnik Mazowsze on his recent visit to Poland. He meant Marx's
"dream of the withering, or rather ignored, state." Vonnegut's nice
conceit captures the extraordinary quality of Polish intellectual life
today. For here is a Communist state in which the best writers are
published by underground publishers, the best journalists write for
underground papers, the best teachers work out of school; in which
banned theater companies just carry on performing, in monasteries,
while sacked professors carry on lecturing as "private guests" at their
own seminars; in which churches are also schools, concert halls, and
art galleries. An entire world of learning and culture exists quite
independent of the state that claims to control it-a real world of
consciousness floating high and free, like Mohammed's coffin, above
the false world of being.
Of course, every Polish schoolboy knows that since the time of
the partitions, the inteligencja has had a mission to uphold the spirit
and culture of the nation against the political powers that be. This
romantic version of noblesse oblige is at the heart of the traditional
Polish definition of what it is to be an intellectual or, more broadly,
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
106
107 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
a member of the educated class-an inteligent. It is a subjective,
relations with the Soviet Union; and they experienced, for the first
idealistic self-definition in which the idea takes absolute precedence
time, free speech, free assembly, democratic elections, and the taste
over reality and consciousness determines being. In the condition of
of self-government. For a few months it really was as if they lived
unfreedom, it proclaims the principle of As If. Try to live as if you
in a free country. As a rule the younger you were, the more intense
live in a free country, it says, though today your study is a prison
was the experience-students and schoolchildren were among the
cell. Or, as the contemporary Polish poet Ryszard Krynicki puts it,
most active and radical of all. At the same time, in a collapsing
in a poem dedicated to Adam Michnik:
economy, the state had fewer and fewer material goods with which
to lure the young generation back to outward conformity.
living here and now
After General Jaruzelski's declaration of the "state of war" in De-
you must pretend
cember 1981, this transformed and galvanized young intelligentsia
that you live elsewhere and in other
threw itself, passionately, into the business of resistance-conspira-
times
and, at best, fight with the dead
torial and open, passive and active. Many saw themselves as the
through the iron curtain of clouds.
(nonviolent) heirs of the wartime Home Army (AK), in which the
young intelligentsia also predominated. Some went into hiding, "un-
derground," reading books about the AK for practical advice on the
But when Krynicki wrote these lines, in the mid-1970s, the number
organization of conspiracy. Others began to live in "semiconspiracy,"
of intellectuals who actually tried to live by the principle of As If
slipping away of an evening (check behind you for the telltale white
was still tiny. Indeed, the typical student or academic of the Gierek
Fiat used by the secret police) to service a carefully hidden offset
years was cynical about all ideas and ideals, almost unthinkingly
machine and run off a few hundred copies of the latest unofficial
paying lip service to the ruling ideology, inasmuch as this served
journal, or book about the AK. More still, thousands more, helped
life's real purpose: the serious pursuit of material betterment and
distribute and avidly consumed this unofficial literature. Nobody
private happiness.
knows how much of it has been produced: In Warsaw I was given
What transformed the "dissident" minority into a "dissident" ma-
an estimate of 1,600 periodical titles, with the important caveat that
jority was the Solidarity revolution of 1980 and 1981. The Solidarity
many titles only lasted for an issue or two.
revolution was a revolution of consciousness. What it changed, last-
Today this world of independent culture-culture understood in
ingly, was not institutions or property relations or material circum-
the broadest sense-is probably the most extensive field of opposition
stances, but people's minds and attitudes. "Solidarity," said the
in Poland. For the workers' Solidarity, which originally created the
Kraków theologian Józef Tischner, "is a huge forest planted by
space for this cultural revolution, has itself been ground down and
awakened consciences." Behind the front line of confrontation be-
fragmented. Of course the national leadership still exists, under-
tween Solidarity's national leadership and the Communist authori-
ground and aboveground; its statements still have great symbolic
ties, millions of people across the country-in factories, offices,
importance; but it no longer has the capacity to organize effective
universities, schools-suddenly found that they no longer needed to
nationwide industrial action. For one thing, the government has
live the double life, that they could say in public what they thought
again been jailing Solidarity leaders. After the amnesty last July, there
in private. They began to discover the true facts about their country,
were probably fewer than forty political prisoners left in Poland's
its history, its economy, the privileges of its governing class, its
jails; now there are at least 160, and the regime is pushing ahead
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
108
109 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
with the trial of Adam Michnik, Bogdan Lis, and Władysław Fra-
claw, Poznan, or Gdansk. (Things may be somewhat different in the
syniuk in Gdansk. Solidarity's basic units, the factory committees,
smaller towns.) If he is lucky, his schoolteacher will have taught him
where they exist, cannot operate on a day-to-day basis as trade
using syllabuses largely agreed on during the Solidarity period. In
unions, representing the real interests of the work force-which is,
addition, he may already have used one or another of the National
after all, their raison d'être. (This is not to suggest that the workers
Education Booklets (known by their Polish acronym as ZEN), giv-
are satisfied or that another round of meat-price rises this summer
ing, for example, a true account of Poland's part in the Second World
will not provoke strikes and protests. Far from it. But the strikes are
War. The ZENs are produced by the Committee for Independent
likely to be sporadic, spontaneous, and uncontrolled-more like pre-
Education-one of three linked unofficial committees (the other two
Solidarity forms of industrial action-and one thing this state cer-
are called the Social Committee for Scholarship and the Committee
tainly can do is break strikes.)
for Independent Culture) whose anonymous members are, besides
It would obviously be wrong to draw too clear a line between
the Church, responsible for coordinating much of Poland's inde-
workers and intelligentsia. One of the hallmarks of Solidarity in
pendent cultural life.
1980-1981 was the close links it established between intellectuals
Arriving at the university, he will find almost complete freedom
and workers, and many of these links have been preserved. They are
of speech in the classroom. One of his first-term seminars may be
symbolized at the highest level by the relationship between Walesa
on "critics of totalitarianism-Arendt, Orwell, Hayek. The basic
and his advisers. Moreover, most people involved in producing this
texts-1984, The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Constitution of Lib-
independent culture are at pains to make it available to workers as
crty, and so forth-are published underground, naturally, and can
well.
be purchased from vendors among his fellow students. Indeed, I was
In the steel town of Nowa Huta near Kraków, for example, there
told by one lecturer that her students can more easily obtain books
is a "Christian University of the Workers" based at the huge new
produced unofficially than those from state publishers. In addition,
church in Mistrzejowice, which the Pope dedicated on his last visit.
he will have on his shelves at home a random selection of under-
Here Father Jancarz, who is to the Nowa Huta steelworkers what
ground papers: for hard news, the two closely printed sheets of
Father Popiehuszko was to the steelworkers of Huta Warszawa, has
Tygodnik Mazowsze (the Newsweek of the underground); for opinions,
organized regular lecture courses, films, concerts, a permanent ex-
one of the many "irregular monthlies" (a distinct category)-perhaps
hibition of photographs, and what he grandly calls an "independent
the Orwell number of the Kraków-based Arka, including Norman
television service"-meaning videocassette recordings, mostly of in-
Podhoretz's piece in Harper's, or Bez Dekretu, with a contentious
terviews with famous Poles. At the regular weekly "mass for the
essay about Central America reprinted from the New York Review,
fatherland" (a tradition begun in Warsaw by Father Popiehuszko),
or the organ of the Catholic nationalist Young Poland movement,
on the evening I attended, the Kraków philharmonic orchestra and
Polityka Polska, with articles about Poland's need for a new right
choir sang the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiab, and a buxom
wing. In the Catholic chaplaincy attached to the university, and in
prima donna sang arias from the organ loft. But Mistrzejowice is
the city's Club of Catholic Intelligentsia, he will be able to hear
exceptional. As a rule, the people who benefit most from the world
leading independent intellectuals-former Solidarity advisers like
of independent culture are, inevitably, those whose trade is thinking
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, for example, or the historian of Solidarity,
and whose tools are words.
Jerzy Holzer-giving talks on a very catholic range of topics. If he
Take a first-year university student from Warsaw, Kraków, Wro-
is lucky, he may get tickets for a play about Osip Mandelstam per-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
no
III
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
formed (beautifully) by the Poznań-based Theater of the Eighth Day.
himself no longer. "How on earth is all this possible in the fourth
The Theater of the Eighth Day has been officially banned-so this
year of so-called normalization?" he will ask. "If Husák could silence
performance will take place in a Dominican monastery.
his intellectuals, why can't Jaruzelski?" (That from the Soviet visitor.)
Back on the campus, our first-year student will also find a very
Where is the state? Where, indeed, is the Party? Just recently, the
active students' self-government committee (its identity proclaimed
state and the Party seem to have been asking themselves these ques-
in the unmistakable Solidarność lettering), which represents the stu-
tions as well. One obvious answer is that the Polish regime has had
dents' interests and distributes all the funds for social activities-
much more to "normalize." Its first aim was to crush the workers'
student clubs, sports, excursions, and so forth. Indeed, one of the
Solidarity, and this has absorbed most of its political skills and police
most remarkable features of contemporary Polish university life is a
energies. So the pessimist could say: "It's just the old familiar salami
degree of internal democracy that at moments recalls the more mod-
tactics-when they've finished slicing off the workers, they'll move
erate demands of 1968 in the Sorbonne or even Berkeley. Student
on to the intellectuals. You wait and see."
representatives are elected (by secret ballot, supervised by the stu-
A second speculative answer is that in this initial phase of rees-
dents' self-government committee) onto the university governing
tablishing a minimum of political control, with on the whole (it must
bodies. In some faculties at Warsaw University the students not only
be said) a minimum of physical terror, the cooperation of the Cath-
have a say in their plan of studies but also mark their professor's
olic Church was (and is?) a tactical necessity for the Jaruzelski gov-
performance. "I got 4.7," the newly elected rector, Professor Bial-
ernment. And if this greatly expanded world of spiritual, educational,
kowski, told me with a satisfied smile. (In Poland, marks go from
and cultural activity, in which the values of solidarity, with a small
2.0-disgraceful-to 5.0-excellent.) "One of my colleagues got 3.1
s (as preached by the pope), are preserved and carried forward-if
last year," Rector Bialkowski added. This year his colleague had
this is part of the price that Church leaders exact for their cooper-
prepared his lectures better-and jumped to 4.5.
ation, well, the regime must pay the price, for as long as the tactical
Both the elected rector and the elected students' representatives
necessity exists.
are warm in praise of each other-"I have learned a lot from them,"
Yet these two reasons together still do not quite suffice to explain
Bialkowski says-and there seems to be excellent cooperation be-
why the Jaruzelski government passed such a charter of academic
tween them. "You see, many of us were interned together in 1982,"
liberties in the first year of martial law and why, while dissolving the
one student activist explained. "Sharing a prison cell does help bridge
writers', artists', actors', and journalists' unions in sound Husák style,
the gap between student and professor." And both sides underline
it has yet been quirkily tolerant in allowing quite outspoken criticism
what is perhaps the most remarkable fact of all: that the autonomy
in the official and (censored) Catholic press and permitting the official
and internal democracy of the universities is based on the letter of
publication of books by authors who are otherwise published in
the Higher Education Act, which was passed during the "state of
samizdat or in the West.
war"-in May 1982-a law which, although it did not go quite as
Some have plausibly suggested that in the first year of martial law,
far as the draft worked out when Solidarity was still a legal orga-
officials hoped-and may still hope-to win over parts of the intel-
nization, is nonetheless the most liberal that Communist Poland has
ligentsia to their side by demonstrative tolerance, following the
seen.
motto of János Kádár in Hungary: "He who is not against us is
At this point the Western visitor, if he has any knowledge of the
with us." It is wryly noted that if they did not publish some writers
Soviet bloc, and even more the Eastern visitor, will be able to restrain
who publish unofficially, they would have no writers of repute to
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
112
113 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
publish at all. There is also what I might call the prosopographical
pope that could have come from the pages of the Russian or Slovak
theory. Several of General Jaruzelski's closet political advisers-Dep-
Pravda. A "reader's letter" in the Warsaw evening paper suggests
uty Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski, for example, and govern-
that, as in Polish law the instrument of a crime is confiscated, so the
ment spokesman Jerzy Urban-themselves come from the Warsaw
pulpit of Lech Walesa's parish church in Gdansk should be confis-
intellectual milieu. (The general himself, incidentally, must have a
cated too. The ministry for culture and arts has collected detailed
fairly good idea of the atmosphere at Warsaw University: his wife
reports on Church-protected cultural activity from all the provinces.
lectures and his daughter is a student there.) These advisers are still,
Characteristically, these confidential reports have been "leaked" to
at least notionally, on first-name terms with leaders of the intellectual
the Church, probably by Church sympathizers inside the ministry.
opposition who are their former comrades from the bygone golden
Another "leaked" document (the frequency of "leaks" is one small
days of the "Polish October" of 1956. They cannot (one perhaps
way in which Warsaw has become more like a Western capital since
sentimentally hopes) altogether enjoy the contempt of former
1980) suggests very strongly that the sustained attack on the entire
friends. They cannot (one perhaps naïvely feels) entirely have aban-
world of independent spiritual and cultural life springs quite as much
doned that commitment to free debate that was so much a part of
from the government's own domestic fears as from the putative
the Polish October. Somewhere inside them still lurks, perhaps, the
concerns of its "Muscovite friends."
shadow of an inteligent.¹
This twenty-five-page document, marked "Confidential-material
Yet the political auguries are bad. Since the autumn of 1984, the
for pt. 2.b. of the meeting of the Council of Ministers, 1985-03-
pressure on the academic community and the world of Church-
22," is entitled "Threats in the Sociopolitical Sphere in 1985." One's
protected and underground culture has increased, with threatening
doubts about its authenticity are diminished by the inimitable new-
articles in the official press and speeches at Party meetings, police
speak in which it warns, for example, against a "lack of feeling for
action, the sacking of two well-known academics, and proposals for
Poland's raison d'état among some creative artists" (translation: some
new repressive changes in the law. The emergence of this campaign
artists are rude about the Russians). What is most striking about
roughly coincided with the Popiehuszko affair, and many observers
this document (if it is genuine) is the sheer range of human activities
at first suggested that the propaganda offensive against the Church
that it categorizes as "threats in the sociopolitical sphere," and the
was a tactical quid pro quo for holding the unprecedented trial of
inclusion in this category, point by point, of virtually all the inde-
Father Popietuszko's secret-police murderers-a quid pro quo "for
pendent cultural activities I have sketched above. Any political sci-
Moscow." Probably, there is an element of truth in this supposition;
entist who wishes to maintain that the Jaruzelski regime is by design
and Mr. Gorbachev would surely be as delighted as any predecessors
authoritarian rather than totalitarian will have a hard task explaining
if the Polish Party were to revive itself with a good vicious campaign
the character of this report.
against the Church.
But of course the performance falls far short of the desire. In
But the quid has gone on so long now as to become its own quo.
practice, intellectual and cultural life is emancipated from the would-
The "reformist" weekly Polityka has published a direct attack on the
be-totalitarian ideological control of the Party to a degree unthink-
able anywhere else in the Soviet bloc. Moreover, so decayed is the
1 But I remember the precise judgment of a distinguished Polish philosopher
on, so to speak, the socio-intellectual status of Deputy Prime Minister Rakowski.
Polish Party that the Jaruzelski government attempts only, so to
"Mietek," he said, for they were former comrades, "is certainly intelligent; but he is
speak, in form to use the Party as the main instrument for the res-
no inteligent."
toration of order. In practice, the key instruments of control are now
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
114
115
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
the police and the law. While moving energetically to curb some
The students' self-government organized its own referendum, with
independent actions by the secret police (like the murder of Father
the results scrupulously tabulated and presented-an average of 98
Popietuszko or the recent attack on a priest connected with Father
percent opposed on most points-and copies were sent to the min-
Jancarz's church in Nowa Huta), it has steadily changed the laws so
ister, the Sejm (parliament), and the Polish Press Agency. The main
that, in respect of most forms of Solidarity activity, the legal process
council on higher education (consisting of one delegate each from
has become the continuation of policing by other means.
most higher education institutions) more cautiously told the gov-
It is therefore typical of the Jaruzelski regime that the sharpest
ernment that it should wait another year or two, until the law had
threat to the academic community should come in the form of pro-
been thoroughly tried out in practice. And most surprisingly, even
posed "amendments" to the 1982 Higher Education Act. The first
the government's own favored front organization-the Patriotic
project for these amendments became known last autumn, in a (de-
Movement for National Salvation (PRON)-took up a similar
liberate?) leak from the ministry of higher education. A few quo-
position.
tations give the taste of this "project":
Faced with this united front, the government seemed for a time
to recoil. But the recent plenary session of the Party central com-
In art. 35 sect. 1, delete "elected"
mittee devoted to the intelligentsia called quite clearly for changes
In art. 54 sect. 1, in place of "by election" read "by nomination"
to the law, and it now seems almost certain the repressive amend-
In art. 97, delete "self-governing"
ments will after all be pushed through the Sejm before it is dissolved
In art. 100, delete "students' self-government"
in July. Perhaps the government will soften its original proposals
somewhat, to demonstrate its "liberalism" and attentiveness to public
You get the general idea. If implemented in full, this "project" would
opinion. (Probably, that is one reason why the original proposals
clearly demolish the legal foundations of the universities' autonomy
were so tough.) No doubt it will accompany them with the sweetener
and internal democracy: Their senior officers would all be appointed
of pay raises-academic salaries are now pitifully low. But there is
by the education minister, not elected; academic staff would have
no mistaking the attempted reassertion of Party-state control.
yearly contracts rather than tenure; students could be dismissed by
As I have suggested, the response of the intellectual community
the minister if they "offended against the principles of social coex-
to this assault has been to follow the great principle of As If, in what
istence and public order"; and so on and so forth.
might be called its qualified and its absolute forms. The qualified
The response of the academic community was immediate and
form consists in saying, in effect, to General Jaruzelski: "You, sir,
immense. At the main universities, the governing bodies not only
claim to head a strong but civilized state that is governed under the
protested but also organized internal staff referenda on the main
rule of law. A Polish Rechtsstaat. To us and to the West (although
points of the proposed changes. At Warsaw University the responses
not to your own Party and to the East), you claim to derive your
ranged from 74 percent against a reduction in the representation of
legitimacy not from the transvaluated values of Marxism-Leninism
students and younger academic staff on the governing body (not all
but from certain recognizable old European standards of law and
older professors are as tolerant as the rector) to 90 percent against
order and sovereignty and statehood. All right, we believe you-
giving the minister the right to sack professors for "activities contrary
though millions wouldn't. Here are your proclaimed standards. Here
to the interests of the Polish People's Republic."
are your own laws. Now stick to them." This may be a pretense, but
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
116
117
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
in Poland over the last few years it has been a curiously effective
The Western intellectual who visits his colleagues in Poland feels
pretense. At times it has almost seemed as if some of those in power
admiration, excitement and, yes, envy. Here is a place where people
wanted to pretend too.
care, passionately, about ideas. Here is a place where intellectuals
The absolute form consists simply in teaching, writing, research-
matter. Here, in a figure like Adam Michnik, is the Intellectual as
ing, painting, acting, publishing as far as possible and for as long as
Hero. Here historians make history. The Western intellectual tourist
possible as if the state (to recall Vonnegut's conceit) has withered
enjoys the thrill of being in the front line-in the safe certainty that
away; as if you live in a free country. Both forms of the As If princi-
he will not be shot at.² War without tears. And often he returns to
ple are finely illustrated by the case of Professor Leszek Nowak of
view with weary disdain our workaday world of Western culture,
Poznań University. Professor Nowak, a philosopher, was suspended
with its hypermarket profusion of ideas, for none of which anyone
from teaching last September and summarily dismissed by the min-
risks anything; a world in which intellectuals don't matter.
ister in February. This was clearly a political act "pour encourager les
But if you stay a little longer and look a little deeper, doubts and
autres." The response has been twofold. First, the governing body
questions multiply. In Poznań, I spent an hour talking to an extraor-
of Poznań University has protested to the minister about the way
dinarily impressive and mature student self-government leader-also
the dismissal was carried out: The present law required a disciplinary
an historian. How long would one have to search to find such a
tribunal (of academic colleagues) as a precondition for dismissal.
student in Oxford, I wondered. Then, just before we parted, I asked
That is qualified As If. Secondly, Professor Nowak has just carried
what he was going to do with his degree. "I think I'll become a
on teaching, as a "private guest" at his own seminar, even though
carpenter," he said. With his university record, he explained, the
the minister paid a personal visit to Poznań to demand that he should
security services would stop him getting a good job in a state en-
be banned from the campus. When I went to see him, he had to
terprise. Working privately as a carpenter, the police couldn't get
hurry off to teach a seminar on (if I understood him aright) the
him; and he'd earn more than he ever would as an historian. He
significance of factions in one-party systems. Instead of his profes-
would go on reading and writing in his spare time. In Warsaw I
sional salary, he is being paid a roughly equivalent monthly sum by
heard many similar stories-the most able and independent-minded
sympathetic colleagues, while he writes a book on captivity and
students going to work as taxi drivers, postmen, or market vendors.
revolution. That is absolute As If.
Now, of course, it is possible that these students will sustain their
But how far and how long can Polish intellectuals carry on living
intellectual and cultural engagement. One thinks of the extraordinary
As If? The political answer to this question depends on so many
catacomb intellectual life of Prague, with its philosophers working
unknowns-on the unpredictable response of a barely subordinated
as window cleaners, priests as milkmen, historians as gardeners. But
working class to a further deterioration in living standards, for ex-
how many and for how long?
ample-that speculation is rather fruitless. The only safe prediction
Beyond this question about the future of individuals there is the
is that, since this is Poland, all government measures-whether of
repression or reform-are likely to be half-measures, honored mainly
2 The distinguished medievalist Bronislaw Geremek was recently fired from the
in the breach. It is more interesting to ask a less obvious question.
Polish Academy of Sciences, where he has worked for thirty years. This was almost
Even if they can carry on living As If for years, how will this affect
certainly punishment for his work as an adviser to Lech Wałęsa, and in particular for
the content and quality of the country's intellectual life?
taking part in a private meeting-alongside other Solidarity advisers-with the British
foreign secretary. When I talked to him shortly after that meeting, he told me he had
*
just finished a paper on "Suffering and Laughter in the Work of François Villon."
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 118
119 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
larger question about the collective future. How can a country pros-
fierce. For the uses of adversity are also sour. Scientists desperately
per when the best part of its educated class refuses, or feels unable,
bemoan the lack of modern equipment, which puts their research
to collaborate in running it? (Unable, that is, on the terms offered
years behind that of their Western colleagues. Scholars feel acutely
by this state.) The fact that this question is constantly posed by the
the shortage of foreign books and periodicals-partly the result of
regime's intellectual apologists does not make it a nonquestion. In-
the state's shortage of foreign currency. Many are the doctoral stu-
deed, the question is also posed, increasingly, by deeply anticom-
dents quite demoralized by the lack of the basic literature in their
munist, Catholic, and nationalist intellectuals; and this line of
fields. Private and Church support can hardly begin to fill the well
questioning is clearly encouraged by the primate. When Poland is
of needs.
finally free, so the argument goes, it will need a solid "infrastructure"
of good roads and factories and technical schools; it will need ex-
We may sometimes grow tired in the West of the ways of the literary
perienced managers, lawyers, civil servants-and this must mean
free market-the ceaseless hype, the sheer superabundance of pub-
working, here and now, to some extent with the state. Historians
lications and reviews-but if there is one thing worse than a literary
will immediately recognize the argument for "organic work" from
market it is the lack of a literary market. The political division of
the great debate after the crushing of the January Rising of 1863-
culture can also distort judgment: Second-rate work may be lauded
1864.
just because it is officially criticized, first-rate work ignored because
There is also a real question about the effect on the country's
it is officially lauded. Yes, it is wonderful to find three thousand
political culture of this divorce from the state. There is, for instance,
young people turning up at a poetry reading. But what questions
something faintly adolescent about the current proliferation of po-
do they ask the poet? Should we demonstrate on May 1? How should
litical grouplets with grand titles-the Liberal Democratic party
we treat someone who joins the Party? What should we think about
(three students and a dog)-and grander programs ("Our Policy
the local elections? How should we live? The poet wants to be a
Toward the Ukrainians"), a phenomenon that surely grows in direct
poet, not a confessor, political leader, economist, or citizens' advice
proportion to the reduction in possibilities of real political action.
bureau. He has, so to speak, an abnormal importance. And it is no
(This is not, of course, an argument for collaboration with a state
surprise to find that so many of Poland's best intellectuals, faced with
that does not afford such real possibilities.)
these pressures, limitations, handicaps, and demands, have come
Finally, there is what I might call the question of Poland's Eu-
West, away from the front line, for a breath (long or short) of, so
ropean future. In the offices of Poland's best weekly paper, the in-
to speak, European normality (a notion that certainly includes New
dependent Catholic Tygodnik Powszechny, someone has pinned up a
York and Chicago). Yes, intellectuals in Poland matter-perhaps
cartoon that shows an elderly intellectual (he seemed to me to bear
more than intellectuals ever should.
a faint resemblance to the paper's venerable editor, Jerzy Turowicz)
"Unhappy the land that has no heroes," cries Galileo's angry pupil.
toiling across a desolate, half-ruined landscape-an unfinished So-
But Brecht's Galileo replies: "Unhappy the land that has need of
viet-style housing development, smashed windows, broken water
heroes."
mains, fallen telegraph wires-with the water soaking through his
(June 1985)
shoes. He is repeating, through gritted teeth, "We belong to Europe,
we belong to Europe, we belong to Europe." The sense of hanging
on at the edge of Europe is as acute as the European patriotism is
A HUNGARIAN LESSON
Background Reading
Imagine a garden maze, a maze in which mirrors conceal the hedges,
giving the illusion of open space and free movement but also dis-
torting wildly, as in a fairground hall of mirrors. At one corner you
look impossibly tall, thin, and pale, like the poet Petőfi; at the next,
absurdly squat. First you confidently step forward-and hit a mirror.
Then you nervously edge around an open space. But sometimes you
can walk straight through a mirror (or hedge), only to find yourself
in another alley. Here you meet the administrator of the maze, him-
self lost in it.
This is Hungary.
At a recent meeting of the writers' union, one of Hungary's most
respected writers, István Eörsi, delivered a powerful appeal for cen-
sorship. Yes, for censorship. Give us censorship! he said. Give us one
office that is clearly and officially denoted as the censors'. Specify its
powers. Give us legal definitions of the boundaries. Prosecute us in
the courts if we trespass beyond them. At least we would then know
where the hedges are. Eörsi's idea was not new. Solidarity in Poland
attacked the censorship in precisely this way, by demanding its self-
definition, and partly achieved that goal in the 1981 law "On the
C
1 of Publications and Public Performances." Even today, the
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 144
145 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
censorship is more explicit and visible in Poland than in any other
been treated-with the barest of allegorical disguises-in fiction and
East European state, which is a kind of progress.
drama.
In Hungary, the position is worse and better. Better, because in
Many Western observers apply the world liberalism to this state
practice so much can be published officially, including works of
of affairs. Hungarian writers talk rather of chaos or anarchy in the
Polish writers such as Witold Gombrowicz, that cannot be published
cultural dictatorship. Nowadays, they say, you simply can't tell what
officially in Poland. Worse, because since there is no censor, everyone
will get through. There's almost nothing that might not be allowed;
has become a censor: not just the officials in those departments of
but what was permitted at eight o'clock may be denounced at noon.
the central committee and the culture ministry that are, in fact,
The instruments of control are out of sync. A new textbook on
politically responsible for censorship, but every newspaper editor,
Hungarian language and literature (which includes a chapter on the
publisher's reader, television producer, and worst of all, the writer
Bible) is officially passed for use in schools; then it is fiercely attacked
himself. Because there is not one censorship there are many censor-
in the official press. Books that have passed through all the hoops
ships: collective and individual, political and social, pre- and post-
of precensorship are suddenly withdrawn after being on sale for
publication, before, after, and during the very act of writing. In this
several days. This happened most recently to a biography of Béla
respect, Hungary is more like the Soviet Union-where, as is well
Kun by a scholar at the Institute for Party History-following a
known, there is no censorship.
protest from the Soviet embassy. And so on. Here is the moving
The Hungarian difference consists not in the machinery of cen-
maze.
sorship but in the way it is used. Pierre Kende¹ has identified three
Two main reasons are given for this "anarchy": one contingent,
main surviving categories of "outright taboo." You may not question
one systemic. The contingent reason is that György Aczél, the in-
or criticize the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe, Soviet foreign
ventor of the maze, the Kádár of culture for a quarter of a century,
policy in general, and neighboring socialist states insofar as they
is no longer in command. Aczél it was who in the late fifties and
follow Soviet precepts. (This last is the only major constraint on
early sixties made the essential "Kádárite" bargain with writers. Its
what economists can publish officially.) The basic legitimacy of Com-
terms were, very roughly, that if they desisted from engaging in
munist party rule is also sacrosanct. Finally, you cannot directly attack
politics, as they had done with such spectacular results in 1956, if
Marxist-Leninist "socialism" by name.² Yet as Kende points out,
they observed the political limits, then the state, imposing virtually
there are startling exceptions even in these categories: A historical
no stylistic limits, would publish and provide for them, generously,
journal has published an astonishingly frank account of how the
even lavishly. The maze has a deep-pile carpet. The limits were never
Communist party rigged the 1947 election, which formally legiti-
clearly defined, but on any given borderline book, essay, or film,
mated its seizure of power, and even the great trauma of 1956 has
there was this one overlord who could say: "That is the wrong side
of the hedge." But at the last Party congress, Aczél surrendered his
I Censorship in Hungary, PP. 43-54 in Study No. 9 of the Research Project "Crisis
overlordship of culture.
in Soviet-Type Systems," based in Vienna and directed by Zdenck Mlynar.
The systemic cause-which already began to take effect in the latter
2 "Of course socialism remains a name," a high-placed official intellectual told me
after describing his government's further moves toward capitalism. "I mean 'an aim'
years of Aczél's reign-is quite simply that the people who administer
not 'a name,' he corrected himself, tittering. But how often had he made this "slip"
the system do not believe in it any more than the people they are
before, in private conversation with Western visitors?
censoring do. Marxist-Leninist ideology in Hungary today is as ob-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
146
147
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
viously wax as the face of Lenin in the mausoleum on Red Square.
is never a crime. Here is central committee secretary Mátyás Szürös
"If you write a rabidly anti-Russian article," a friend explains, "the
describing how foreign policy was made in the 1950s under the
editor or publisher's reader will not try to argue with you. He'll say:
Comintern: "Essentially it was done by a collective and pluralistic
'Marvelous piece. You're so right about 'fifty-six. I couldn't agree
decision." Pluralistic! "In certain specific cases this may have been
more. Have a drink on me.'" As a result, the censors have no ob-
harmful and as a whole perhaps objectionable in principle." This is
jective criteria for deciding where the limits are: They too are lost
newspeak turned against its makers.
in the maze. "Accepting the realities" is the slogan. But what are the
Yet the great majority of Hungarian writers, intellectuals, and
realities for most editors or publishers? The realities are a judgment
academics also live and work in the maze. They, too, write dialects
of what is acceptable to your superiors. But their realities too are
of the Periphrastic. Their criticisms of the authorities are oblique,
mainly a judgment of what is acceptable to their superiors, and so
implicit, elliptical, or metaphorical. To the initiated and sophisticated
on, up to the very top.
reader, their meaning is no doubt entirely clear. The non-maze
And what are the top people's realities? They are, we may surmise,
dweller and non-Hungarian speaker must hesitate to gloss what he
rwofold. First, there is the one living piece of Leninist ideology: the
does not understand. I am told that the finest contemporary Hun-
question of power. Here is a real criterion: Does this or that
garian poetry and fiction are written and published in the maze.
strengthen or weaken our power? But the answers to even this ques-
Their artistic quality I cannot judge, because so pitifully little is
tion in contemporary Hungary are often far from clear. Is it more
available in translation. Yet anyone can see that the Periphrastic is
strengthening or weakening ("stabilizing" or "destabilizing," in the
not a language to bring you to the barricades. It is the intellectual
jargon of Western political science) to allow relatively free debate
version of an attitude that prevails in the whole society: that of
about economic reform, to publish or to prohibit this book, that
getting around the system rather than confronting it, of finding
play? The second reality for Hungary's top people is the same as
loopholes and niches rather than making demands of the state; and
everyone else's: a judgment of what will be acceptable to their su-
the premise of this attitude is, again by contrast with Poland, the
periors. As most Hungarian writers are expert at judging what their
essential permanence and immutability of the system.
editors will tolerate, so the top political leadership must be adept at
Not everyone works inside the maze. Since the mid-1970s, Hun-
judging just how much the Russians will tolerate. Rulers and ruled
gary, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, has seen the growth of an
are united in self-censorship. The usual effect of these successive levels
intellectual opposition with its own independent samizdat publica-
of self-censorship is to stop the writer or artist well short of the
tions and a pronounced allergy to the Periphrastic. Today there are
actual limits. But because even Party officials seem to find it increas-
two leading samizdat reviews, Beszélö and Hirmondó, and three sa-
ingly difficult, with the best will in the world, to see things the way
mizdat publishers, AB, ABC, and Hungarian October. The publish-
the Russians do, they sometimes walk through a hedge (or mirror)
ers have produced some twenty books in the last year. The reviews
themselves. Then the Soviet embassy protests.
probably reach some ten thousand readers. So far, their main strength
The maze has its own language. I call it the Hungarian Periphras-
has been their treatment of social and political problems inside Hun-
tic. It is a language of diabolical circumlocution, of convoluted al-
gary-poverty, inequality, alcoholism-and of developments in other
legory and serpentine metaphor, all guarded by a crack regiment of
Soviet-bloc countries. As the publisher's name suggests, the Hun-
sub-Germanic abstract-compound-nouns. Nothing is said directly.
garian October of 1956, that central negative reference point of of-
Everyone is taken from behind. A spade is never a spade. A crime
ficialdom, is the central positive reference point for the opposition.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 148
149 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
While officials, and all too many Western analysts, argue that Hun-
opposition and collaboration, black and white, the craven and the
gary has got where it has in spite of the revolution, the opposition
brave. But here the needle on your Polish moral compass swings
intellectuals maintain that it is only because of the revolution, because
helplessly to and fro. Other fault lines cut across the canyon. There
of the resistance, the refusal to "accept realities," and, yes, the blood-
is, for example. the historic divide between "populist" and "urbanist"
shed then, that Hungary's rulers now exercise their power in a rel-
writers. The populists have traditionally celebrated the folk virtues
atively restrained, cautious, and tolerant fashion.
of Hungarian village life, la terre et les morts; Kultur rather than
Emphasis falls on the word relatively. Generally speaking, those
Zivilisation. The urbanists were (and are) more cosmopolitan and
who publish regularly in samizdat will not be published officially and
often Jewish. (There are still as many as 100,000 Jews in Hungary.)
will be disbarred from official employment. Even with such an ex-
Traditionally to be found on the left bank of the Danube, in the
tensive second economy, this can make it very difficult for them to
cafés of Pest rather than the hills of Buda, politically also "on the
make ends meet. In addition, they may experience difficulties in
left," they have looked outward to Vienna and the West rather than
staying in their state-owned apartments and in the education of their
inward to the Transylvanian strongholds of agrarian Hungarianness.
children. In this respect, too, the difference between Hungary and
They have been drawn to sociology rather than to ethnography, and
other Soviet-bloc states is one of degree, not of kind.
to socialism rather than to nationalism. Such descriptions are, of
This is still a modest opposition by Polish standards. Hungary's
course, historical caricatures. Yet it is curious to find that the question
"democratic opposition" of intellectuals has not yet developed either
Urbanist or populist? is still quite as important as the question Of-
a distinctive political strategy, such as KOR did in Poland, or those
ficially favored or dissident? There is even today a distinct group of
links with other classes-above all, workers-without which Soli-
populist writers, an intellectual party with one recognized "leader."
darity would never have been born. Its impact has nonetheless been
Their great political theme is the fate of the Hungarian minorities
considerable. Probably the main effect so far has been to extend the
in Yugoslavia, Slovakia, and, above all, in Romanian Transylvania.
limits of the possible in official culture. Editors of official journals,
There, systematic cultural discrimination, and outright persecution
who themselves have anyway become bolder since the late 1970s,
by the dreaded Romanian security service (the Securitate), has dra-
can now argue that if they do not publish this author or that essay,
matically worsened the position of the two million-strong Hungar-
he or it will "go into samizdat."
ian minority in recent years.
Moreover, the great social issues that the opposition opened up-
In Poland during the 1970s there was a deliberate, difficult, and
the growing inequality, partly as a result of economic reform, the
fruitful coming together of intellectuals from traditions that just
20 to 30 percent of Hungarians living below the poverty line-have
twenty years before had been bitterly opposed: Jewish socialists sat
been taken over by the official intellectual establishment. The best
down with Christian Democrats, former Stalinists with Home Army
empirical studies of inequality are now being made by official and
veterans, hardened ex-revisionists with inspissated Thomists. In
even Party sociologists, who naturally have all the resources to con-
Hungary, this summer saw a first major attempt at such intellectual
duct the necessary research. In this sense, some of the opposition's
bridge-building: a secretly organized meeting of some forty-five in-
best clothes have been stolen, and it has willy-nilly become part of
tellectuals at a camp site in Monor, some thirty miles southeast of
the official cultural game. Though not in the maze, it is yet of the
Budapest. The participants were carefully chosen to represent dif-
maze.
ferent traditions and groups-democratic opposition, populists, ur-
Coming from Poland, you expect the great divide to lie between
banists, independent writers, sociologists, reformist economists.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
150
151 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
"The idea," one of the organizers told me, "was a kind of popular
ation for Human Rights, which links human-rights monitoring
front." They met for two days to discuss the position of the national
groups in ten Western countries. They have invited Western writers
minorities, the economy, efficiency vs. equality, the mounting social
like Susan Sontag, Amos Oz, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and East
problems of poverty, alcoholism, welfare deprivation.
(or Central!) European writers currently living in the West-the
What emerged from Monor is not-or not yet-something one
Czech Jiff Grusa, the Hungaro-Yugoslav Danilo Kiš-to come and
could call a united, let alone a popular, front. Thus far, one can detect
discuss with their Hungarian colleagues, in a conference room at the
no distinctive political strategy, no common program for post-Kádár
Intercontinental Hotel, such modest themes as "Writers and Their
Hungary. But there was at least a common debate: economists ex-
Integrity" and "The Future of European Culture."
plaining the imperatives of further reform to sociologists concerned
By the standard of previous Helsinki follow-up meetings, in Ma-
about the resulting inequalities; populists and urbanists exchanging
drid, Stockholm, or Ottawa, this is to be a truly inoffensive fringe
different views of Transylvania. Perhaps more than anything else it
group: This is no exile organization planning to surround the No-
is the direct persecution of Hungarians in Romania that has catalyzed
votel with placards demanding "Freedom for Sakharov" or "Inde-
this convergence: the kind of persecution that, as it were, evades the
pendence for the Baltic States." By Soviet standards, it is diabolical.
Hungarians in Hungary. Nicolae Ceauşescu as the godfather of Hun-
Today, the diplomatic community vibrates to the echo of Czecho-
garian intellectual life-what an irony! Deeply unreliable rumor in
slovak and Soviet demands for the Hungarian government to ban
Budapest has it that when Kádár went to see Gorbachev in Septem-
it. So tomorrow the diplomatic niceties. Tomorrow the high-flown
ber, the Soviet leader asked him: "What's this I hear about your
self-congratulatory Eurorhetoric. But today the struggle.
intellectuals getting together at Monor?"
I ask a senior Hungarian official for his response. The Hungarian
government is committed to protecting the personal security of del-
egates to the (official) forum, he says. Like Western governments,
The Lesson
it is very concerned about the threat of terrorism. But can't they be
fairly sure that, say, well-known Western writers are not terrorists?
October 14. Tomorrow, the European Cultural Forum-an official
"Perhaps," he replies, "perhaps. But what about the people who come
international conference to review part of the Helsinki agreements-
with them?" Aha.
will open in the gleaming conference center next to the Novotel, all
Returning across the Danube, I find that the Intercontinental
burnished metal and tinted glass. The airport metal detectors are
Hotel has cancelled the conference room booking. Another room
being maneuvered into place, to prevent any unofficial persons get-
booked in a different hotel has also been hastily withdrawn "because
ting through. This is an event without precedent: the first Helsinki
the windows are being repaired." (Some windows are indeed being
follow-up meeting to be held in a Soviet-bloc country, a French
repaired in this hotel, where I happen to be staying, but these win-
suggestion enthusiastically taken up by Hungary at the Madrid re-
dows are not in that room.) Next day, the Helsinki Federation or-
view conference that ended earlier this year. Tomorrow, delegates
ganizers go to meet an official at the foreign ministry. A small group
from the thirty-five states that signed the Helsinki Final Act will
of us-journalists, participants, unofficial Hungarians-await their
begin their fine speeches.
return in the near-deserted café of the Intercontinental.
But today the talk is not of that. Today the talk is of an "unofficial"
Suddenly, the tables closest to us are occupied by burly, fat-faced
or "parallel" forum organized by the International Helsinki Feder-
men in sheeny jackets, with cheap Japanese watches and fists like
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
152
153
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
Prague hams. They sip mineral water. Their eyes avoid ours, but
hills, magical at twilight. The faded rugs, the Transylvanian pottery,
their ears rotate in our direction, like radar dishes. František Janouch,
the old glass-fronted bookcase (hallmark of Central Europe)-every
an exiled Czech human-rights activist who has just arrived from
detail speaks of an individual taste, of private and independent life.
Stockholm, springs up and starts taking photographs. Our neighbors
What a contrast to the antiseptic public interiors of the Novotel! As
bury their faces in their hams.
with the furniture, so with the speeches. There, the official Romanian
I begin to feel quite at home. We could almost be in Warsaw, or
delegate, after explaining that in his country "more than 14,000
even Prague. It is no surprise to learn later this afternoon of a state-
cultural establishments are used by some 270 million people every
ment given to the organizers at the foreign ministry, declaring that
year,"3 lauds the rich cultural freedom in which Romania's Hun-
the unofficial symposium "could disturb the atmosphere and work"
garian and German minorities can "express themselves in their
of the official forum, and finding it "incomprehensible why there is
mother tongue." Here, we learn the true story of increasingly harsh
this private initiative." But incomprehensible to whom? The state-
discrimination and persecution: Hungarian-language teaching abol-
ment is unsigned.
ished; Hungarian book and magazine publishing reduced to a trickle;
So have we found the limit after all? At last, a real, palpable limit
Hungarian priests beaten and even killed by the Romanian Securi-
to Hungarian tolerance, something we can hit our heads against,
tate; the Hungarian poet Géza Szöcs besieged in Koloszvar (Cluj),
like a wall, a mirror, or a hedge?
interrogated almost every day, telephone cut off, manuscripts con-
No, we haven't.
fiscated and destroyed-"The candle is running low," he writes to
For this very evening we all assemble in the spacious flat of István
his friends in Hungary, "and this is my last candle."
Eörsi (he who demanded censorship), its windows giving a mar-
There, at the official forum, the delegate from the Czechoslovak
velous view of the Danube. Eörsi himself is in West Berlin-the
Socialist Republic proclaims-in Russian-the glories of a culture
invisible host defies the anonymous statement. Here speaker after
subordinated to the socialist state. Here, we listen to one of the many
speaker gets up on the sofa and says everything that may not be said
gifted Czech authors persecuted and expelled by that state. Here,
in the official forum: György Konrád, Susan Sontag, Miklós Har-
too, we can read the answers of writers still in Prague to a ques-
aszti, the Transylvanian philosopher Gáspár Miklós Tamás, Hans
tionnaire that asked them what that state-and the Budapest Cultural
Magnus Enzensberger, speaking on censorship, samizdat, the per-
Forum-could do for their besieged culture. "It is as if you were to
secution of the Hungarians in Transylvania, Solidarity, Charter 77-
ask what a cow can do for the flowers in a meadow," writes Ludvík
you name it, we hear about it. And the Hungarian authorities do
Vaculík. "There is a simple answer: It could stop eating them. But
nothing. For the next two days we meet in another private apartment
can a cow do that? No way! For that reason there is no point in
and discuss those modest themes-writers and their integrity, the
inviting a cow to some conference, seminar, or symposium about
future of European culture-very much as planned. Most of the
meadow flowers. The cow will gladly come, just for show, but any-
leading figures of the Hungarian opposition are here-including
thing it might say there is worth
a cow-pat."⁴
the independent publisher György Krassó, who was under house
arrest until a week ago. In practice, no one is prevented from coming.
The population of Romania is 22 million.
This is a beautiful loft apartment, with heavy brown-stained
A Besieged Culture: Czechoslovakia Ten Years After Helsinki. Available from Charta
77 Foundation, Box 50041, S-10405 Stockholm, Sweden, and from the Helsinki
wooden beams and large studio windows looking across to the Buda
Watch Committee, 36 West Forty-fourth Street, New York, NY 10036.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
154
155 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
* * *
No, we are not yet in the maze. But we, too, are somehow of the
It is impossible to summarize our debates. Memorable things are
maze.
said by some of the Western guests-Amos Oz on the writer as
smoke detector; Alain Finkielkraut defining both Europe and culture
in ten minutes, as only a French intellectual can; François Bondy in
Comprehension Test
praise of old ideas; Hans Magnus Enzensberger in search of a new
one-as well as some unmemorable cant of the "literature is freedom
You should now be able to interpret the following scene.
and freedom is literature" variety. But the real value lies in the East
After the symposium, György Konrád invites you to a small eve-
and Central European contribution. Here is Jifí Grusa, brilliantly
ning party at his apartment. When you arrive, you are surprised to
skeptical about the writer as "tale salesman" in the West and about
find yourself sat down, rather solemnly, between Susan Sontag and
the writer as disillusioned prophet in the East; Danilo Kiš, with a
Danilo Kiš, in a small circle in front of the leader of the populists,
scintillating anatomy of self-censorship; no Poles, alas (a great lack),
a writer called Sándor Csoóri, and a few of his associates. Konrád
but all the more Hungarians. If there is one central point that
stands modestly aside, next to the tiled oven, and says, "I would like
emerges, it is perhaps the unimaginable complexity of censorship and
my friends to tell you about Transylvania." This they, or rather he-
self-censorship-as György Konrád remarks, we need a new science:
the leader of the populists-proceeds to do at length, with some
censorology.
chilling stories of Romanian persecution, slowly, almost ceremoni-
Yet as the second afternoon wears on, I feel a slight unease creep
ously translated (for, as befits a true populist, the leader speaks only
up behind me. A local writer delivers a short spiel. The local audience
Hungarian) by a member of his court.
laughs appreciatively. I wait eagerly for the translation. It comes out
What is going on?
something like this: "Only the irrational is real, and Che Guevara,
like Mohács, points to the 'hope' of hopelessness, which is itself the
irrational hopelessness of reason." Well, ho ho. But surely we are
Notes
back in the kingdom of the Periphrastic? And then, all the Hun-
garians are being so damn polite to each other. I know from private
a) The competent student will answer that this scene reflects the
conversations that many of them are, for example, strongly critical
common and mounting concern among Hungarian intellectuals
of some of Konrád's larger and vaguer ideas. But do we hear this
about the worsening position of their compatriots in Transylvania.
criticism here? We do not. Here it is all "my friend" this and "my
This answer is good as far as it goes. The more advanced student of
friend" that. There is no unseemly controversy. This is the ultimate,
intellectual politics will suggest that György Konrád, himself so very
the most understandable, and even morally defensible form of in-
obviously from the cosmopolitan, urbanist, democratic tradition, is
tellectual perversion: the self-censorship of opposition. And then of
here making a demonstrative gesture of friendship-or at least, com-
course we all know that the fact of this meeting's taking place will
mon-frontship-to the populists, in the spirit of Monor. The student
be bruited around the world (and sotto voce by Hungarian officials)
who is both advanced and cynical may further inquire why the pop-
as further proof of the Hungarian government's infinite cunning and
ulists seem to be making common front with the opposition. Could
"liberalism," whatever happens to the opposition when the limelight
it possibly be that by so doing they hope to pressure the authorities
has moved on.
into giving them their own literary journal? The really outstanding
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
156
student, however, will conclude that if the author of this article had
spent one more day in Budapest, met one more intellectual in one
more café, he would probably have come up with yet another "true"
or "real" reason, spied another distorted reflection in the mirrors,
turned another corner in the maze.
b) Only one thing is certain: Nothing is certain. The hedges move
daily. The Hungarian Party-state still has all the instruments it needs
to punish the few outside the maze, if it wants to. There are no laws
that curb its powers of censorship. There are, however, laws that
could be used to gag writers, editors, and publishers-for example,
the very elastic incitement paragraphs of the criminal code, as György
Bence pointed out in an impressive paper prepared for the unofficial
forum. During the official Budapest Cultural Forum, all has been
sweetness and light-or almost all. But when you read this, the
cultural forum will be drawing to a close, or already over. Will our
hostess have suffered difficulties because she loaned her beautiful loft
apartment for our meeting? We took no risk: She did. Will György
Krassó be back under house arrest? An alert Western public opinion
can make a difference in a state as careful of its Western reputation
as Hungary is. It may even help ensure that the reputation is in-
creasingly deserved. In other words, dear and patient reader: Their
Country Needs You.
(December 1985)
163
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
you have the Czech Granta. For the purposes of literary criticism,
it is a journal called Contents. For the purposes of police search or
legal defense, it is a miscellaneous collection of typewritten papers
in a blank folder. If students want to sit up half the night typing
further copies, that is their own business. (They do.) If Czech exiles
EAST-WEST DIVAN
in the West want to reissue Contents in print (they do), how can the
writers prevent them? And if people want to bring these printed
copies to Prague, what on earth can the poor writers do?
Early evening. A cellar beneath a ponderous red-brick, nineteenth-
century office building, now part of the ministry of culture. The
cellar contains a grimy strip of carpet, two easy chairs (one with
springs), an old office desk, a camp bed, a tin percolator, a typewriter,
Prague
and a piano that looks as if it first saw service at the Café Evropa in
1896. On the walls, a newspaper portrait of Stalin surrounded by
"Karel is out," she says. "You know, he works during the day. I
his adoring subjects, circa 1951, and a black wire silhouette of a girl,
mean, of course"-she blushes-"he does his real work at night."
circa 1963, with breasts that can only be described as "proud." A
Work: bricklaying. Real work: writing. "You know, if you earn your
dirty T-shirt hangs from one nipple. Through a small skylight I see
living by writing, it's regarded as quite suspicious, and, well, almost
the rain splashing off the cobbles on the street outside, but in here
unworthy."
it is dry and very warm, thanks to the huge coal-fired boiler in the
next room.
Now, here is a room full of writers, few of whom do anything so
My host, courteously ushering me to the chair with springs, starts
unworthy. They sit around, feet in slippers, drinking wine and
to discuss the philosophy of Hayek. At one point he says: "You
swapping jokes about Chernobyl. They have just produced the best
know-but this is a private conversation, isn't it? You won't tell my
journal of new writing in Czechoslovakia. It took about twenty
friends?"
minutes.
"No, of course not."
This is how it's done. Once a month, they meet for a small "party"
"Well, you know, I have to say that I myself don't entirely reject
at somebody's flat. Instead of flowers or wine, the guests bring twenty
all elements of socialism."
copies of their latest text. (Most are carbon copies. It is a recognized
When he left university, he knew there was no chance of pursuing
fact that twelve is the largest number of legible copies achievable at
an academic career in his subject and remaining honest. So he decided
one typing. Twelve is therefore the samizdat unit of reckoning-the
to become a stoker. It gives him time for his real work-philosophy.
writer's dozen.) The editorial meeting, then, has only one task: to
Income: small. Prospects: none. Spirit: unbroken.
decide the order of texts and type the contents page, also in twenty
"Now, would you like to hear my rags?" he asks after two hours'
copies. This done, the texts are arranged in order in twenty blank
quiet argument. He sits down at the old piano and starts to pound
cardboard folders, with the contents page on top, and-presto!-
out "The Entertainer." Then "Bohemia," "our national rag." I notice
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
164
165
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
how, against the white keys, his fingernails are broken and black
taking over at the TLS,-getting a rave review from-, and
from shoveling coal. He's not really a good player-wouldn't pass
-being published after making his self-criticism on television."
muster in any jazz club in New York City-but endless practice has
And why not "I look at this bookshop and see my books adorning
brought him up to an impressive tempo and his playing, here, is
its front window"?
somehow electrifying. It has a kind of defiant ferocity. I see the music
leap out of the basement skylight, like an escaping genie, force its
What they all resent about Milan Kundera-and how!-is not, I
way up through the pouring rain, giving a two-finger salute to the
think, his extraordinary success (perhaps that a little, too) but his
ministry of culture as it passes, and then up, up, high above the
stylized nightmare vision of a Prague from which, by definition, no
sodden city, above the smoke from his boiler's chimney, above
good thing can come. No, they say, the Prague in which we live and
the rain clouds, the two fingers turn the other way now, proclaiming
work is not a "Biafra of the spirit"-the Aragon phrase that Kundera
V for Victory.
takes as his theme. One well-known writer (the gentlest of men) tells
me Kundera has to justify to himself "the fact that he ran away"
When you've spent a few days in this world turned upside down,
(but immediately adds, "No, these are not the right words-'ran
among the writers-turned-bricklayer or -window cleaner, between
away,' that's too strong"). And the self-justification, as for so many
the philosopher-stoker and the poet-dustman, you inevitably start
exiles, comes through depicting what you have left behind as hell-
playing the If game. Philip Roth does it in his novella The Prague
and painting how it was before as heaven. It wasn't heaven then. It
Orgy: "I imagine Styron washing glasses in a Penn Station barroom,
isn't hell now.
Susan Sontag wrapping buns at a Broadway bakery, Gore Vidal
bicycling salamis to school luncheons in Queens-I look at the filthy
I am determined to visit Václav Havel. It's not easy. He is staying
floor and see myself sweeping it." Anyone can play. Just insert your
at his remote farmhouse in northern Bohemia. It has no telephone.
own favorite characters; end up with yourself. "Me? Oh, I'd be
I am told the police will try to prevent my visit. I set off early in the
cleaning lavatories. Sure. I wouldn't last five minutes under a dic-
morning in a hired car. After two hours' driving, as I pass through
tatorship. Fascist or communist, they'd never publish me." But what
a small town, there are suddenly three police cars in front of me,
makes you so sure? Maybe they would, and maybe you (we, I)
lights flashing. I am guided onto the verge. Damn! Three cars seems
wouldn't. Maybe you (we, I) would still be (perish the thought)
a little excessive. And how on earth did they know? Then I notice
published writers. And then, what about all these official publishers
that other cars are being waved down, too. This has nothing to do
and literary journals? Their former editors are all working as window
with me or Havel. We are all being stopped to make way for a bicycle
cleaners, or in exile. But who edits them now? Somebody must.
race. I watch as gaggles of prune-faced youngsters come whizzing
Window cleaners? It would be more fun if they did. But the answer
by. A Tour de Bohème. A banner in the window of the local toy shop
is: writers, journalists, men of letters. Second- or third-rate, semilit-
says SOCIALISM-IS A CHILD'S SMILE.
erate, and corrupt writers, to be sure, but are there none such in our
Off again, winding up narrow lanes toward the Sudeten moun-
own literary establishments?
tains, through the damp Bohemian pinewoods; turn a corner, there
Here's the other half of the If game, the half we leave out because
is the house-and there are the police: a Lada estate parked right
it's not so pretty. It would be invidious to name names. Let's be
across the drive, two uniformed officers, one in plain clothes. Their
invidious: "I imagine-editing the New York Review of Books,-
eyes follow me as I drive past, inwardly cursing. Fortunately, how-
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 166
167 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
ever, I have about me my W.I.T.S., one of those marvels of Western
ters-on whom to exercise his will. Things had never been as good
technology that will confound the secret police and undermine the
since-worst of all in 1968, a little better after the invasion. But
whole Soviet bloc. Activating my W.I.T.S., I become invisible and
now, at last, he had some famous political prisoners to bully and
rematerialize inside the inner courtyard of the farmhouse.
abuse again: educated men-a writer, a journalist, a philosopher.
Havel is a short, stocky man with curly blond hair; his moustache
His particular delight was censoring the writer's letters.
and lower face remind me of a friendly walrus. He is dressed entirely
Havel started writing a "cycle" of letters about his philosophical
in shades of damask-slippers, cord trousers, and a T-shirt that de-
views. He mentioned the "order of being."
clares TEMPTATION IS GREAT. (His latest play is called Temptation.)
"The only order you can write about," declared the commandant,
He is warm, intense, a concentration of nervous energy. He tells me
"is the prison order." Then he decided Havel should not write about
the police turned up yesterday evening and have been there ever
philosophy at all. "Only about yourself."
since. "When this happens, it's usually because there is a Western
So Havel designed another cycle of letters on the subject of his
visitor in Prague. Genscher or somebody." He has been listening to
moods: sixteen of them, two to each letter, one good, one bad, and
Radio Free Europe and the BBC, trying to discover who it might
he numbered them.
be.
After eight, the commandant called him in: "Stop numbering your
He talks about the nervous strain of writing under these condi-
moods!"
tions, when at any moment the police might walk in and confiscate
"No foreign words!" he ordered one week.
a year's work. How he has crept out into the woods at night and
"No underlining!" the next. "No exclamation marks!"
buried parts of his typescript in the bole of a tree. How as a man-
The book written under these conditions-for Havel conceived
uscript piles up, he writes faster and faster: The fear of a house search
the series of letters to his wife as a book-is marvelous.¹ Much of
concentrates the mind far more effectively than any publisher's dead-
it consists of his philosophical reflections, and in Havel's conception
line. Just yesterday he was writing about this nervous tension. Then
these were perhaps the most important part of the book. Yet for me,
his wife came in and said, "The police are outside again. I'm afraid
and I suspect for most of his readers, they are actually the least
they aren't our usual ones." And so he got nervous about writing
compelling passages: partly because, since he was not allowed to
about the nervous strain of writing when
keep copies of his earlier letters, there is a great deal of repetition
This is nothing compared with the conditions under which he had
and recapitulation; partly because in order to smuggle his pensées
to write in prison. There, except for one letter a week to his wife-
past the commandant, he had to write in a fearfully convoluted and
maximum four sides, and only about "personal matters," as the prison
elliptical way. Instead of writing "the regime," for example, he had
regulations specify-he was not allowed to write at all. The letters
to write something like "the social-collective manifestation of the
were his only opportunity to express himself as a writer, over a period
not-I." Havel laughingly tells me that when he rereads some of his
of almost four years. If any part of a letter was unacceptable, the
deepest passages today, he hardly knows what he is talking about.
whole letter would be confiscated. The commandant of the prison
What makes this book so compelling is the incidental detail of
camp at Hermanice took a sadistic delight in enforcing these instruc-
prison life-the elaborate rituals that surround the drinking of tea,
tions. This commandant was an old man, nearing retirement. His
toasting the New Year in with a foaming glass of soluble aspirin-
great days had been the 1950s, when he had more than a thousand
political prisoners-bishops, professors, former government minis-
, Now published in English as Letters to Olga (New York: Knopf, 1988)
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 168
169 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
and the intense personal detail of his relationship with his wife: As
to me, for reasons directly related to his situation. For a start, the
a present, he makes her a piece of jewelry out of dried bread
"I
dramaturgy and the visual effects envisaged in his very detailed stage
have tried to give it a touch of Jugendstil," writes Havel.
directions are stilted, and if not stilted, dated-all stroboscopes and
Above all, the book is a self-portrait of the writer. There is Havel
smoke, circa 1966. Not surprising if you consider that he has been
"
setting himself tasks for his four years in prison:
Three. To
unable to work in a theater for eighteen years. The dénouement is
write at least four plays. Four. To improve my English. Five. To
desperately predictable, and predictably political: The Mephisto fig-
learn German at least as well as I currently know English. Six.
ure (called Fistula) turns out to be working for the secret police.
To study all of the Bible thoroughly There is Havel fretting
Despite some grimly amusing dialogue, which survives even the
about his health, fretting about old friends outside. And sounding
Viennese production, most of the action is so carefully plotted, and
through it all, again and again, there is his overmastering determi-
so obviously pointed, as to be quite schematic. It feels like a plan
nation to remain a writer, though he has only four pages a week and
for a play rather than the play itself. Not surprising, again, when
each word he chooses can endanger the whole work. "Last week's
you consider that it was planned and replanned through almost four
letter did not come off," he writes-meaning it was confiscated.
years in prison.
Early in his imprisonment, in 1979, Havel writes several times
So what of George Steiner's "muse of censorship?" Here is a rather
about a "Faust" play that he was mentally reworking. This is the
clear case, it seems to me, of an artist's work not enhanced but
piece that, seven years later, has its premiere in Vienna under the
deformed and diminished by censorship and persecution. If he were
title Temptation. As with most of his plays, he has never seen it
a poet, it might be otherwise. But the playwright needs his theater
performed. He reads the reviews. Friends telephone from Vienna.
as a musician needs his instrument. Not merely the artist but the art
And during rehearsals the actors call him with questions that show
has suffered. Yet at the same time, through that persecution and that
they have not exactly understood the piece. In this case, they ring
censorship, or rather through his defiance of it, he has produced a
up a few days before opening and ask, "Oh, by the way, is there
volume of letters and a body of essays that will, I think, be read long
really black magic in Czechoslovakia?" Yet this is what he regards
after Temptation is forgotten. And what will then be known as his
as his real work: writing plays. His political activity, his essays, his
real work?
letters from prison, his role as a moral and political authority for
thousands of Czechs and Slovaks (and by no means only those ac-
tively engaged in opposition)-an authority that no writer in the
Paris
West enjoys-all that is secondary.
Since, unlike Havel, I can travel to Vienna, I go to see Temptation.
So here she comes, the fat whore, the tart, the harpy, flaunting her
His fears about the limited understanding of the Viennese company
fancy clothes and waggling her bum. She has money. She has motor
are justified. The director of the academic institute in which Havel's
cars. She has sex. She has democracy. But she's lost her soul. She's
Dr. Faustka works, a deeply corrupt Party placeman, is played as if
deaf. She's blind. She doesn't know what she's got or how she's
he were the manager of a department store in the Kärritnerstrasse.
about to lose it. "The West"? Mae West.
And yet, and yet
however much I make allowances for the
Viennese factor, I still cannot avoid a deeper disappointment. The
Today [writes Kazimierz Brandys in his Warsaw Diary], the
play, even as Havel has written it, is weak. And it is weak, it seems
West is emitting cries of horror; the intellectuals are grumbling;
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH 170
171
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
the consciousness of impotence is everywhere. They know al-
In the West, there are no more Dichter. No writer is regarded as
ready and are preparing themselves to be raped. All that matters
a moral or spiritual leader, as Havel is in Czechoslovakia, or as Mitosz
now is that the rape not be a sexual murder but that it happen
calmly, in some comfortable French bed. What should this up-
and Herbert are in Poland. Quite a familiar remark, this. It also
coming state of affairs be called? Finlandization? Scandinavi-
comes as a question: Who was the last great intellectual authority
zation?
But what if it's Czechoslovakization? In these
in Western Europe? And the answer most often given-Kundera's
preparations the French are, as always, in the intellectual van-
answer, in his essay on "The Kidnapped West"-is Jean-Paul
guard. No one is able to spread their legs as aesthetically, to lie
Sartre. Sartre, a moral authority! The author of Les Mains Sales. Yes,
down for the act with such esprit, as the French intellectuals.
An old suspicion of mine: How much money flows from the
all right, he changed his mind. But when I was talking to Ivan Klíma
Soviet embassy to editorial offices in Paris?
in Prague about Western intellectuals' fatuous envy of the perse-
cuted (Verfolgungsneid), Klíma exclaimed. "You know, the man re-
sponsible for all this nonsense is Sartre." Sartre, he said, had come
Ah, there he blows: the Eastern prophet, the sage, the seer, righteous
to Prague in the early sixties, looked around for a day or two, and
eyes ablaze, arms raised to high heaven as he denounces the whores
then given a speech to Czech writers in which he told them how
of the rue de Babylone.
fortunate they were. "You have real subjects," he said. "We in the
"You see, it's really very simple," says Slawomir Mrożek, looking
West no longer have any real subjects"-and so on. Sartre!
out from his tranquil studio flat toward the Eiffel Tower. "You are
Anyway, Mrozek continues, literature in the West has become just
a Pole, an intellectual. You think of yourself as supremely Western
another "line of business" (he uses the Polish word branza), alongside
and European: If only Poland were free, it would be a Western
television, films, video, and windsurfing. A line of business where
country; if only it were Western, everything would be all right.
public relations and promotion are more important than the product
Meanwhile, European values are preserved in the West, to which
itself-"The book of the film"; "Now a Major TV Series"; "Winner
you, unlike the Russians, indubitably belong. Then you come to the
of the-Prize."
West, and the West knows you not. So after a time you get up on
"I don't regret this," says Mrożek. "I don't like it; I don't dislike
your hillock and rage, rage against the blindness of the West. In-
it: It's just the way the world has moved on." (Modernity has its
wardly, you cry: 'You may have your motor cars, your television,
advantages: As we talk, the phone rings and he stands up to listen
your bestsellers. But you have lost your soul. Your soul. If you only
in to the caller speaking to his answering machine; sometimes, he
knew how great, how profound, how truly European I was, you
picks up; most often, he just turns down the volume.) But as Mrozek
would print me in a million copies. Since you don't, you will be
talks on in his dry, sardonic way, it's obvious that he does regret it.
eaten by the Russians."
He speaks about the television discussion program, with its basic
Part of this misunderstanding arises from what Mrozek calls the
assumption that there are two sides to every question, as the char-
"old-fashioned" idea of the moral value of culture and the role of
acteristic intellectual form of our time. On my left the murderer, on
the writer, which still persists in Prague or Warsaw. Eastern Europe,
my right the victim. Two points of view-and of course the murderer
says Mrożek, is a very old-fashioned place, both materially (look at
is often more interesting. Orwell, he says-"Or-vell"-was one of the
the trams) and socially (respect for the old, religion). This is just
few people to refute this fallacy. Orwell understood that there are
one more old-fashioned thing about it.
some things that are not open to discussion: Some questions have
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
172
173
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
only one side. An East European, says Mrozek, knows this from
the common East European background. Another, equally cogent
personal experience. Orwell's achievement was to understand it with-
explanation comes in two words: Samuel Beckett.
out that experience.
Mrożek's own situation is almost a reverse image of Havel's. Havel
The exile's dwelling. Two tiny bare rooms up a narrow uncarpete
is deprived of theatrical experience-can never see his plays rehearsed
staircase. A broom closet of a kitchen. Stools for chairs. A camp bed
or performed-but he still has what might be called vernacular ex-
And then the real essentials: cigarettes, tea, a telephone with a long
perience: He lives in his own language. Mrożek has the theatrical
flex, and books, books, books. Books to prop up the table, book
experience but not the vernacular. He has lived abroad since 1963,
to keep out the cold, books for food, books for drink, books fo
in France since 1968. He can see his plays rehearsed and performed
clothing.
in English, French, German, Italian. But the Polish language of the
Natalya Gorbanevskaya, whose dwelling I describe, is an extraor
street-changing slang, politics, contemporary allusions: all the es-
dinary person. If you sat opposite her on the métro, you would
sential stuff of most recent Polish prose-this he can absorb only at
probably take her for a student at the Sorbonne: a small, girlisl
second or third hand. When his play Ambassador was (exceptionally)
figure in jeans and a chunky sweater, tousled hair, large spectacles
performed in Warsaw in the autumn of 1981, shortly before General
pulling at her cigarette with an air of distracted intensity. At second
Jaruzelski imposed martial law, the audience loudly applauded a scene
glance you might notice some hard-etched lines around the mouth
in which the ambassador sits shivering beside a primitive coal stove.
and eyes, but you would never, never guess that she is in fact a fifty
The Warsaw audience knew a political allusion when it saw one:
year-old Russian poet, let alone that she spent the years 1969 to
Who could not think of the bitter winter ahead, the shortage of
1972 in a prison psychiatric hospital in Karzan, being treated for
heating fuel, for which Solidarity blamed the government, and the
what Soviet psychiatry charmingly calls "sluggish schizophrenia"-
government, Solidarity? Were not they, like the ambassador, be-
which is to say, being persecuted for her courage in political op-
sieged by a foreign power? Except that Mrozek had never intended
position. To enter a conversation with Natalya Gorbanevskaya is to
any allusion. Sitting in Paris, he had not thought what the Warsaw
feel yourself being seized by the hand and pulled helter-skelter down
audience would think.
a steep, heavily wooded hillside-watch out for the Sinyavsky! jump
Yet there are striking similarities between a Havel play and a
over the Zinoviev!-screaming with a mixture of excitement and
Mrożek play. Both favor settings that have a Kafka-like nonspeci-
alarm, until you arrive, breathless but laughing, at a lake called
ficity: neither Eastern nor Western, not Prague, not Paris. Both cleave
Solzhenitsyn.
to the theme of the individual seeking to defend himself-by heroism,
As we perch on our stools, eating the interesting omelette Natalya
by compromise, or by humor-against the chicanery of impersonal
has volubly prepared in that tiny kitchen-cracking Kundera with
powers. Both are fiercely intellectual: If you do not respond to the
one egg, tossing Brandys with the next-her running commentary
ideological argument in the dialogue, you have missed half the point.
rapidly moves on to familiar ground. The trouble with Kundera is
(As did the Viennese audience for Havel's Temptation. As did the
that he excludes Russia from his definition of European culture. The
audience for Mrożek's Ambassador when I saw it in West Berlin. Shift
trouble with Zinoviev is that he reinforces the false Western iden-
this theater just a couple of miles to the East, I thought, across the
tification of the Soviet Union with Russia-which was in fact the
Wall into East Berlin, and the play would be understood.) Yet it
Soviets' first victim. Zinoviev simply has no idea about the immortal
would be a foolish critic who attributed all these shared qualities to
soul
and she talks, very movingly, about the unbroken courage
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
174
175 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
and decency of some of the women she met in prison, about the
when they come to power, it's a different story. Look at the French
faith of persecuted Christians, not only the Orthodox, but the Bap-
socialists. When they came into office, they granted French citizen-
tists and the evangelical sects as well.
ship to the exiled Leonid Plyusch, another victim of Soviet "psy-
I ask what was the greatest shock of her arrival in the West (she
chiatry"-and immediately stopped listening to what he had to say.
left Russia in 1975, and has lived in Paris ever since). Natalya's
For Natalya, too, the one great exception among Westerners is
answer is quite surprising: "You know, one of the few things I really
Orwell. The East European knows some truths instinctively, she says,
looked forward to in coming to the West was having the opportunity
echoing Mrożek. He is born to them-"like the aristocracy!" An
to join in a real, authentic Orthodox mass." If Mrozek's cartoon-
aristocracy of suffering. By comparison Westerners are, well, ple-
Pole hoped to find those true European values preserved in the West,
beians. "But the plebeian who has become an aristocrat through his
she looked forward to finding the true spirit of Russian Orthodoxy,
own exertions is the most admirable of all." Thus are rewarded all
the exaltation and the mystery, preserved in the free world. But she
the Old Etonian Blair's exertions to become a true plebeian-with
too was bitterly disappointed. She found that Orthodox services here
a Russian patent of nobility.
had become social rites: People came less to worship than to meet
My lasting impression of Natalya Gorbanevskaya is of a great
each other, to see and be seen.
warmth, a warmth that seems to insulate me even against the bitter
In Paris, Natalya is now deputy editor of Kontinent, the Russian
January wind howling down the Avenue Gay Lussac as I walked
literary and political review with which Solzhenitsyn is most closely
back to the métro. Here is a spirit permanently living at combustion
identified, and her views on the West also have that prophetic ring:
point: exploding now into laughter, now into sympathy, now into
"It's such an effort for the West to begin to understand. And it's so
anger-but if anger, then always, to adapt Orwell's remark about
important: We may have so little time." A French journalist of her
Dickens, generous anger.
acquaintance recently returned from Afghanistan, and he was so
shocked to see what the Western press was writing about: Nicaragua.
Party time. A farewell party for Seweryn Blumsztajn, a veteran from
Nicaragua? "Yes, that is the last battle, as it says in the 'Internation-
the Polish class of '68 and one of the Solidarity figures best known
ale': the last battle against the evil empire." People here just don't
in the West, who has now decided to return to Poland. An expansive,
understand, she says, that this "metaphysical evil" is spreading across
grand old apartment belonging to an expansive, grand old lady-an
the world: now in Afghanistan, now in Nicaragua. Yet the picture
Ottoline Morrell of the Russian emigration. Parquet floors, high
she draws in conversation is neither so solemn nor so starkly black-
rooms, tables overflowing with kanapki, vodka and wine, Polish and
and-white as these lines in cold print might suggest.
Russian intellectuals mixing as they never could in Warsaw or Mos-
Doesn't Solzhenitsyn, well, exaggerate a little? I ask. And what
cow. Who's that scintillating in the far corner? Why, of course-
about his idealization of tsarist Russia? But of course he exaggerates!
Pani Natalya! And scintillating in this corner is the editor of Aneks.
He has to, after sixty years during which the Russian people have
And there's the editor of Zeszyty Literackie, also scintillating. And
been relentlessly drilled into believing the opposite; has to, if he's
the editor of Kontakt. And someone from Kultura. And someone
to make any impact at all. As for the West, the longer Natalya has
from Arka. There must be more editors per square yard in this
been here, the more differentiated her picture has become. Even the
apartment than there are lawyers in Lincoln's Inn. Plus all the ac-
French left has improved greatly in the last few years. They are quite
companying feuds, rivalries, scandals, and affairs, all raised to boiling
stalwart, principled, and outspoken when they are in opposition. But
point by the pressures of exile.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
176
177 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
For the first hour you might possibly recognize this as a literary
The filmmaker Agnieszka Holland tells me that I must interview
party, as held in London or New York (or indeed Paris): the factional
Blumsztajn about why he's returning to Poland, while she films us
groups, the gossiping, this reviewer making up to that editor, more
I don't want to interview Blumsztajn. I want to go on enjoying this
gossip, that editor making up to this author's wife, more gossip-
party. I hate doing interviews with a microphone to put people on
except that here the volume, temperature, and gestic range are already
their guard. I'm drunk, I have a stinking cold and a fever, and
several points higher. But two hours later you couldn't possibly. For
everybody in this room speaks better Polish than me. Why doesn't
by now everyone is crowded into one room, and singing. The exiled
somebody else do it? No, she says, everyone else knows Sewek too
chansonnier Jacek Kaczmarski has given an impromptu concert:
well. They couldn't put the necessary, brutal, uncomprehending
sharp, contemporary political ballads sung in an angry, rough-edged
questions. That's what journalists are for. Anyway, this film will be
voice, to his own accompaniment on the guitar-the nearest we get
used to help win support in the West if, as seems probable, he is
to this in England is a stage performance of Brecht-Weill songs, and
arrested and imprisoned on his return to Warsaw.
it's not very near. Now Sewek Blumsztajn himself is sitting in the
Impossible to resist the moral half-nelson. So here I am, at two
middle of the room singing, in quick succession and apparently with
o'clock in the morning, sitting amid the broken glass in the glare of
equal delight, a Stalinist youth-movement song, violently anti-
the film lights, with a head like a battered pumpkin, and asking
Church, and then the old religious-patriotic hymn "Rota":
feebly: "Why are you returning to Poland?"
"Well," says Blumsztajn, "I am opposed to emigration." All the
crucial developments in Poland since the war have come from inside
We shall not yield our forebears' land
the country. It's still true today. That's why he feels he can be more
Nor see our language muted
Poles we are, our nation Polish
useful there. And so on, in a well-rehearsed argument. I don't chal-
By Piasts constituted.
lenge it. I haven't the heart, let alone the head, to challenge it.
But the filmmaker does. This is nonsense, she says. He can be
more use here than he can there. And why is he leaving his wife
A few, a very few, former comrades join in the first; everyone joins
behind? Isn't it simply that he puts being with his friends before his
in the second.
work and his family?
Now, play the If game. Imagine, just try to imagine, that at a
And she said they couldn't ask the brutal questions.
certain point in your London literary party everyone stops standing
After a bit more of this I begin to feel like an umpire trying to
around getting quietly drunk in little groups talking about the decline
separate two boxers, and taking all the punches to the head. By the
of the TLS, forgets about their own private interests, schemes, feuds,
end of round three the truth is plain, and indeed admitted with a
and resentments. Instead, all crowd into one room, sitting on the
sad smile. The guy's going back because he thinks he'll be happier
floor, the piano, each other, anywhere, and start singing, very loudly:
there than here.
Lilli bullero, lilli bullero bullen a la,
A few days later, Seweryn Blumsztajn did return to Poland. A great
Lero lero, lilli bullero, lero lero bullen a la,
party of friends, Solidarity activists, and sympathizers saw him off
Lero lero, lilli bullero, lero lero bullen a la.
in Paris. At Orly airport he appeared at a press conference chaired
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
178
by André Glucksmann. Another great party of friends, Solidarity
activists, and sympathizers awaited him at Warsaw airport. Everyone,
in both places, was prepared to launch an instant volley of protest
if he was arrested.
When he arrived at Warsaw airport he was immediately taken
away by six policemen, who told him that his Polish passport was
"invalid" and had been "misused," and then marched him straight
back onto the Air France plane. The pilot was told that the plane
would not be allowed to leave unless it had Blumsztajn on board.
It left. He was on board.
I sometimes wonder what happened to that film.
(August 1986)
229
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
November 10, as we, the Western guests, began to assemble in
Prague, virtually all our Czechoslovak hosts-scholars and members
of the country's main independent groups-were locked up or placed
under house arrest. Havel was in hiding.
THE PRAGUE ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
A lady with a red flower would meet us at breakfast, we were told.
She would lead us to the meeting place. So there we sat, on Friday,
November 11, in the faded Jugendstil splendor of the Hotel Paríz,
a score of academics, writers, human rights activists, and parliamen-
tarians from Western Europe and the United States, waiting for the
lady. Several prominent Western guests, including Marion Gräfin
Dönhoff of Die Zeit and the eminent dean of Copenhagen University,
This essay is a contribution to the permanent symposium Czechoslovakia
Ove Nathan, had been refused visas on the grounds that the gathering
88.
was "illegal"-although by what law the Czechoslovak representa-
tives could not say. Our hosts were in prison. Plainclothes police
Symposium
swarmed around the hotel. I anticipated arrest, expulsion.
Then in through the glass doors came not a lady with a red flower,
nor yet a policeman with handcuffs, but
Václav Havel. He walked
"How will you mark the anniversary?" I asked Václav Havel earlier
quickly to our table, sat down, and formally declared the meeting
this year. No need to say which anniversary.
open. Within seconds, three plainclothesmen were behind him.
"We shall hold a symposium," he said. It would discuss the sig-
nificance, not just of the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion, but
"Well, in this moment I am arrested," said Havel. But before they
of all those "years of eight" which have been turning points for
hurried him away he managed to repeat, with quiet emphasis, that
he had declared the symposium open.
Czechoslovakia and the whole of Europe in the twentieth century:
1918, 1938, 1948, 1968. Interested Western scholars, intellectuals,
Sally Laird of Index on Censorship photographed the scene. More
and writers would be cordially invited. Perhaps I would be kind
secret police moved in to confiscate her film. As we argued with
enough to prepare a paper? They would try to hold the meeting
them we noticed a large, muscular woman in a tight-fitting leather
jacket sitting in the foyer, with not just one flower but a whole
quite openly. They would inform the authorities.
In early November, a few days before the date of the planned
bouquet. She moved toward us and theatrically distributed unmarked
meeting, Havel himself went to the prime minister's office and ex-
envelopes. Inside, we found the most extraordinary poison-pen letter
plained the project to an official deputed to receive him. This man
it has ever been my privilege to receive. Typed and photocopied,
said neither yes nor no. But actions speak louder than words. On
with the text in English, German, French, and Italian, it read as
follows:
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
230
231
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
also came back within hours to most of Czechoslovakia, via the BBC,
ADVERTISEMENT
Radio Free Europe, and the Voice of America. We had briefed our
I am warning you that the action called symposium CZECHO-
ambassadors. We had laid flowers on the grave of the philosopher
SLOVAKIA 88 is illegal and its performance would be contrary
to the interests of Czechoslovak working people and conse-
and founding father of Charter 77, Jan Patočka. Among our group
quently illegal. In this connection your efforts to take part in
was Max van der Stoel, who, as Dutch foreign minister in 1977,
this action would be considered as a manifestation of hostility
had been the first visiting Western politician to meet with Patočka
to Czechoslovakia and in virtue of this we should have to draw
in his capacity as leader of the human rights movement. Following
relevant consequences against your person.
that meeting, Patočka had been hauled in for eleven hours of inter-
rogation, at the end of which he collapsed and died. Now, on his
"I am warning you but the document was unsigned. Kafka!
first visit to Prague since that time, Van der Stoel spoke movingly
thou shouldst be living at this hour.
at Patočka's grave. Patočka is dead, he said, but we all know that
Someone asked the lady with the bouquet to identify herself. She
his spirit, and the spirit of freedom, live on in Czechoslovakia. The
said she ensured order in the hotel. In subsequent conversation we
ceremony was filmed by an independent video team.
tentatively identified her as a secret-police officer who had watched
Then we had marched up to the headquarters of the Central Com-
over the Havel family, presenting herself as "Lieutenant Novotná,"
mittee and delivered a letter of protest addressed to the Party leader,
which is to say something like "Lieutenant Smith." Briefly detained
Miloš Jakeš. A clever-looking official at the door assured us-in fluent
in a police car the next day, three of us were again handed a crumpled
Russian-that he would pass the letter on to "Comrade Jakeš," but
copy of this fantastical "Advertisement" (the German text, inciden-
regretted that there was no one to receive us on a Saturday. And
tally, was headed Achtung) by another plainclothesman. We asked
who was he? What was his name and position? "I just work here,"
him whence it came. From the City Council of Prague, he said. But,
he replied, glasnost glinting from his glasses. Two photographers
we insisted, who is this mysterious "I"? He pointed to himself, adding
took pictures of us from across the parking lot. Then we marched
helpfully, "Police!," as if, sitting in a police car, we might not have
down to the main secret-police office in the Old Town, demanding
realized.
to know why and where our hosts were imprisoned. Once again,
By this time we were visiting such few of the Czech and Slovak
the officer at the door explained that no one was working on the
symposium participants as were still at home-usually under house
weekend-at which point a man in plain clothes pushed through
arrest-and the families of those in prison. Earlier we had attempted
our group to enter the building, somewhat undermining the general
to reconvene the meeting in a private flat, as had been done suc-
contention.
cessfully in the case of the independent cultural symposium in Bu-
Now, as we paid our individual visits, I was interested to observe
dapest in 1985.¹ But here, police in front of the door had simply
the surveillance techniques of the police. Perhaps naïvely, I had not
prevented any Czechs from getting in.
realized before how they use nicely dressed young couples, boy and
We had drafted a strong statement of protest against this "blatant
girl walking arm in arm. And then I was glad to note that they, at
violation of the Helsinki Final Act," a statement sent directly to all
least, have no shortage of hard currency. Three of us alone, myself
the delegations at the Vienna Helsinki review conference, but which
and the Parisian scholars Pierre Hassner and Aleksander Smolar,
were honored with the attentions of at least two foreign cars, a blue
) See "A Hungarian Lesson," above P. 143.
Ford Sierra and a red Fiat Uno. Spying the latter after one of our
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
232
233 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
calls, and feeling tired and hungry, we thought to ask our narks for
Commentary
a lift home ("home" in this case being, aptly enough, the Hotel
Jalta). As we walked toward the car, the driver started the engine
On Monday, November 14, the following commentary, signed "Vá-
and pulled slowly away. We pursued them down the road.
clav Dolezal," appeared on page 2 of Rudé Právo, the central organ
Amusing for us-but no joke for our Czech friends sitting in
of the Czechoslovak Communist party:
prison. In theory, the Czechoslovak authorities' handling of this
"action" was relatively sophisticated. Earlier this year they received
ATTEMPT AT PROVOCATION
harsh criticism in the Western press, and a drubbing at the Vienna
review conference, for breaking up an East-West peace seminar, and
Fourteen days after the provocative demonstration of anti-
expelling all the foreign participants. Now they would allow the
socialist forces [i.e., the unofficial Independence Day demon-
foreigners to stay, but lock up all the Czechs-initially for forty-
strations on October 28; see below] the same group of people
attempted another form of provocation. It took advantage of
eight hours and then, in some cases, immediately again for part of
cooperation with organizations for psychological warfare of the
another forty-eight-hour period (thus abandoning all but the barest
North Atlantic Pact. Western broadcasting stations took an ac-
shreds of legality). We, meanwhile, would be allowed to go where
tive part too. What was up?
we pleased. We would have what the Germans call Narrenfreiheit,
In the past weekend days, the so-called Charter 77 wanted
jester's freedom. All doors would be opened to us, and the police
to organize a "symposium" called Czechoslovakia 88 in Prague.
According to the foreign press, some twenty persons repre-
would politely usher us into empty rooms. Better still, we would
senting various official and unofficial Western structures, many
bring suffering to the innocent. For if we were foolish enough to
of which take extreme anti-Czechoslovak positions, were to
visit anyone not already well known to the police, those people
come to participate in the action, under the cloak of tourism.
would surely feel the "consequences" with which we were merely
The interest of these "also-tourists" was not devoted to
threatened.
inspecting the cultural glories of our capital, but rather to en-
couraging the so-called dissidents to develop even more anti-
In practice, this exercise in damage limitation did not go quite as
socialist activity. They failed to achieve this goal. They wanted
planned: because of Havel's coup de théâtre; because of the black
to use materials prepared beforehand to discredit our social
comedy of "Lieutenant Novotná"; because we made our own protest
system and to blacken our homeland in the countries of our
dramatically, urbi et orbi; and because West German television man-
neighbors. According to the foreign press, these materials, often
aged to film Havel's arrest through the window of the restaurant,
glorifying the pre-1938 political structures, describe our pre-
and to get the film out. It was shown on the television news in several
vious political positions from subjectivist positions and some-
times antagonistically. A series of organizers of this provocation
Western countries. People in Slovakia saw it on Austrian television.
have been detained.
At the Vienna review conference, Western ambassadors lined up to
A similar action with the same political intentions was or-
deplore the Czechoslovak authorities' action.
ganized by émigré and other centers in Vienna on Sunday. The
It was, indeed, a prime-time "advertisement" for the present re-
intention behind both the mentioned actions was a single aim:
gime in Prague.
to defame the efforts of our Party and society for reconstruction,
but also to complicate the Vienna meeting [i.e., of the CSCE]
and, at variance with the Final Act of the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe, to interfere in the internal affairs
of the CSSR and to infringe Czechoslovak sovereignty.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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235 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
I fear my translation does scant justice to the full semantic absurdity
of the original. As I read it, I remembered the lines that Auden wrote
exiled Czech and Slovak intellectuals, and for a widely reported press
following the Soviet invasion twenty years ago:
conference arranged by the International Helsinki Federation. On
Monday virtually all our hosts were out of prison, although some
The Ogre does what ogres can,
of them had to walk several miles home after being released in the
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
early hours when there was no transport of any kind. They swapped
But one prize is beyond his reach,
tales about their latest prison experiences. How the ordinary prison
The Ogre cannot master Speech.
guards were angry with the secret police for disturbing their settled
About a subjugated plain,
routines. How the interrogations were perfunctory and absurd.
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
Havel himself had at one point been interviewed by our charming
While drivel gushes from his lips.
"Lieutenant Novotná." She marched in and announced, "I have come
to debrief you." I suggested to him that after the liberation she should
But the ogre that Auden had in mind was the Soviet Union, and
really be sent to work in the theater, what with her looks and her
that ogre is changing. He has begun to master speech. So in Prague
proven aptitude for the theater of the absurd. He said he might write
his dwarfs are left bewildered, lost. The drivel still gushes, or dribbles,
her a part in one of his plays.
from their lips. But it lacks even the force of consistent absurdity.
Havel and the others were of course exhausted by their days in
The materials for our symposium "glorified the pre-1938 political
prison. But they were also buoyed up by the international support.
structures," splutter the dwarfs, who dare not even sign their own
They were moved by news of the ceremony at Patočka's grave, en-
names. Yet they themselves are now making obeisance to the great
couraged by the protests they heard via Western radio stations, and
architect of those "structures," Tomás Garrigue Masaryk, in an at-
delighted with the way in which we had interpreted Havel's opening
tempt to gain some patriotic legitimacy. And the people laugh at
words. We had understood this as an invitation to continue the
them in the streets.
meeting as best we could. I think it was Pierre Hassner who first
observed that since Havel had formally opened the meeting, it could
I asked the receptionist in a hotel for a copy of Rudé Právo. "Why
not end until he formally closed it.
on earth do you want to read that?" she said. I explained that I had
The meeting thus continues. It has become a permanent sympos-
heard there was this commentary about our symposium. "Oh, I must
ium. As I left, Havel asked that those who write something relevant
read it," she cried, but when she reached the sentence about "or-
to the theme should, wherever it appears, mark it as "a contribution
ganizations for psychological warfare of the North Atlantic Pact"
to the permanent symposium Czechoslovakia 88." Until, of course,
she could go no further. She was just doubled up laughing.
we can all gather again in Prague, to close the meeting.
The Permanent Symposium
Czechoslovakia 88
On Sunday most of the Western participants departed to Vienna,
What does this tragicomedy tell us about the subject of our aborted
for the "parallel" symposium organized by a formidable company of
discussion, Czechoslovakia 88? It tells us, obviously, that the present
regime in Czechoslovakia is still going backward where Hungary,
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
236
237 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
Poland, and, most important, the Soviet Union are going forward-
is thrusting forward, a generation impatient with the compromises
although not uniformly so. Indeed, after the removal in October of
and evasions of their parents. I heard of one girl who took part in
Lubomir Strougal as prime minister, the present government looks
the largely spontaneous demonstration in Wenceslaus Square on
more reactionary than ever. As one Czech historian commented to
Independence Day, October 28. On August 21, 1968, she had con-
me, between interrogations, it is a bitter irony that in 1988, in the
fronted the Soviet tanks in the same square-as a three-week-old
age of Gorbachev, they have finally achieved the government that
baby in a pram.
Brezhnev hoped for twenty years ago, after the invasion. Yet this is
The authorities now face opposition and protest not merely from
a Brezhnevite government without Brezhnev, a regime whose time
the old front line of Charter 77, not only from intellectual samizdat,
has gone.
but from thousands of young people who have found the courage
For this episode also tells us that the regime that has imposed the
to speak out, and from the no less than six hundred thousand people
grotesque abnormality of "normalization" in Czechoslovakia for
who have now signed the petition for religious freedom initiated by
two decades is now profoundly unsettled, confused, and wavering.
a simple Moravian farmer earlier this year. On the twentieth anni-
It is unsettled from the East, for if Gorbachev is behaving like Dub-
versary of the Soviet invasion, thousands of young people demon-
ček, and Poland and Hungary almost like free countries, then how
strated in the center of Prague, chanting "Dubček!" and "Freedom!"
on earth do they justify their continued immobility? By reference to
Then, in mid-October, the authorities suddenly found themselves
the great socialist model of the German Democratic Republic? Or
confronted with a serious, explicitly political opposition platform:
perhaps Bulgaria? It was interesting to note that both the Polish and
the manifesto of a Movement for Civil Liberties, entitled "Democracy
the Hungarian press reported Dubček's speech in Bologna on No-
for All." Although many of the first signers of the manifesto are
vember 13 reaffirming the continued relevance of the Prague Spring.
Chartists, it differs fundamentally from the original Charter 77 pro-
There have been signs that senior Gorbachev advisers, at least, can
gram by attempting to spell out a concrete program for systemic,
barely restrain their desire to reassess the Prague Spring in the di-
political change. This program goes far beyond that "socialism with
rection of Dubček's plea. Gorbachev's close political ally Aleksandr
a human face" which Dubček nostalgically recalled in his Bologna
Yakovlev was in Prague the day after our meeting, and Rudé Právo
speech. Dubček summoned Machiavelli and Gramsci as his intellec-
carried a front-page photograph of him looking pensive between the
tual ancestors. But the patron saints of this manifesto are rather
beaming figures of Jakeš, Vasil Bil'ak, the veteran reactionary, and
Montesquieu and Keynes. It is a somewhat baggy document, as you
their ideological watchman, Jan Fojtík. It might have been captioned:
would expect from a coalition of independent persons and groups
"Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?"
with widely differing political views. But the central common ground
Secondly, the regime is unsettled from below-by the new flow-
is plainly stated: liberal democracy, the rule of law, a mixed economy.
ering of independent initiative and civil courage inside Czechoslo-
Then, in another attempt to gain some patriotic credibility, the
vakia. This is of course partly inspired by the impact of Gorbachev,
authorities suddenly declared that the seventieth anniversary of
the examples of neighboring Hungary and Poland, and the new East-
Czechoslovakia's independence on October 28, 1918, could be cel-
West détente. But it is also the result of internal processes of political
ebrated as a national holiday. (Canny shopkeepers hedged their bets
and economic decay, on the one hand, and intellectual and social
by putting in their windows the slogan "Long live October!"-which
emancipation on the other. The political leadership is now of Brezh-
could refer either to Russia's revolution in 1917 or to Czechoslo-
nevite biological antiquity, while, on the other side, a new generation
vakia's independence in 1918. Only a few risked putting out a picture
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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239 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
of Masaryk.) Then the authorities locked up virtually all the front-
It is rumored that younger men such as the Prague Party secretary,
line opposition leaders, to ensure that there would be no genuinely
Miroslav Štepan, will shortly step up into more prominent positions.
patriotic manifestation. Yet that is what they got nonetheless, with
They too have had a part, albeit a junior one, in the grimy business
a largely spontaneous and mainly young crowd, again chanting "free-
of "normalization." By most accounts, Štepan's political generation
dom," and being pursued down the narrow streets by rather inef-
is composed largely of opportunists, careerists, and cynics. But this
fectual water-cannon.
is not necessarily a disqualification. In Hungary, Károly Grósz and
his contemporaries are hardly the world's purest idealists. Yet they
The new interior minister, František Kincl, is a professional police-
are making what are, with all due caveats, really striking attempts at
man, and police tactics have toughened. The roundups of opposi-
political and economic reform, out of insight into necessity. One
tionists in connection with October 28, and again in connection
man's cynic may be another man's realist. Nor is it entirely clear that
with this symposium, are the worst in years. As I write, many people
what Czechoslovakia needs above all at this moment is another de-
have been, or are about to be, hauled in for interrogation about the
cent, limited idealist like Alexander Dubček.
"Democracy for All" manifesto. An attempt is clearly being made to
What is more, it is possible to argue that when the moment of
deter others from joining them. Worst of all, the prime mover of
change comes, Czechoslovakia might actually be better placed than
the petition for religious freedom, Augustin Navrátil, has been con-
Poland and Hungary, because its once powerful economy, although
fined to a mental hospital with a diagnosis of "paranoia querulans"-
seriously run-down, is still in a less catastrophic state, and relatively
and this at a time when even the Soviet Union seems to be desisting
free of the crippling burden of hard-currency debt. Yet this cuts both
from the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes.
ways. For without their deep economic crisis, and concomitant de-
Yet at the same time the regime is making halfhearted gestures of
pendency on the West, would the Polish and Hungarian leaderships
reform and relaxation. Extraordinarily frank accounts of the country's
ever have felt compelled to launch such radical reforms? Here is a
economic stagnation have appeared in the official press. The Slovak
crux of the East European dilemma. You can have economic crisis
Minister of Culture had an article in Rudé Právo saying that it was
and political reform (Poland, Hungary). You can have no economic
an unhealthy condition for there to be two cultures in the country,
crisis and no political reform (GDR, Czechoslovakia). You can even
and they should seriously consider what were the reasons behind the
have economic crisis and no political reform (Romania). But can
emergence of Charter 77. Official theater groups can take slightly
you have political reform without economic crisis? Maybe Czecho-
more license. Confronted with the formation of an independent
slovakia will yet be the first to achieve that feat, as Milan Šimečka
Helsinki group, and anticipating another unofficial demonstration
optimistically suggests in a paper prepared for our symposium.
on Human Rights Day, December 10, the authorities have proposed
Maybe.
the formation of an official human rights committee on the same
date.
As Tocqueville taught us long ago, this inconsistency, this wav-
The World
ering between increased repression and half-baked reform, is char-
acteristic of an ancien régime in its last years. How long the twilight
What happens will depend mainly on developments inside Czech-
period will last, and how the transition will come about-whether
oslovakia, in the Soviet Union, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe-
fast or slowly, peacefully or less so-is of course very hard to say.
in that order. But it will also depend on us. "The world sees you!"
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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241
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
the crowd chanted at the police during the October 28 demonstra-
of recent East European (and not just East European) history: The
tion. But does it really?
longer fundamental reforms are delayed, the more difficult they are
In 1988, as at all these turning points which were the subject of
to implement, and the less likely they are to occur peacefully. Such
our symposium-1918, when Britain, France, and the United States
an approach is thus likely, in the longer term, to achieve the opposite
gave Masaryk the international license to create an independent
of the desired effect.
Czechoslovak state; 1938, when, at Munich, Britain and France sold
There is a time to praise and a time to scold; a time to finance
that independent state down the river; 1948, with the Communist
and a time to refrain from financing; a time to travel and a time to
coup; and 1968, with the Soviet invasion-in this "year of eight,"
wait. With the Czechoslovak regime in its present repressive yet
too, the fate of this small country in the center of Europe still crucially
unsettled state, this is the latter time. It is a time for watchful waiting
depends on the attitude of the Western as well as the Eastern world.
and for strictly conditional encouragement. Encouraging the old
Now the current line being peddled to the West by the Jakeš crew
guard to depart. Encouraging the new guard, when it comes, to try
goes roughly like this: "We really want to press ahead with our own
to behave as befits a deeply civilized country, in the heart of Europe,
perestroika [prestavba], with economic restructuring above all. But
in the late twentieth century.
for this we need order and stability at home. Ordnung muss sein.
Therefore you must give us credits and technology while under-
standing why we have to lock up dangerous criminal elements"
To Be Concluded
such as the country's most famous playwright, Václav Havel. A
feeble line, you might think. Yet strangely enough there are signs
There are now reasons to believe that, for once in the history of
that some Western governments are half-prepared to swallow it. This
Czechoslovakia, this sea-change may occur before the calendar turns
applies to Austria and to some extent to West Germany, both of
up another "year of eight." It almost seems a pity to spoil the pat-
which have a particular interest in a stable setting for their own
tern. But they have waited long enough.
national rapprochements, with Hungary and the GDR respectively,
So I look forward to hearing Václav Havel formally close our
and a history (even a philosophy) of promoting economic ties ir-
permanent symposium, in the Slovanský Dum, Na Přikopě 22 (first
respective of political circumstances.
floor), Prague 1-and well before 1998.
More surprising is the case of France, whose foreign minister
(November 1988)
earlier this year made the extraordinary statement that Czechoslo-
vakia's human rights performance was improving (an assertion he
subsequently modified), and whose president, François Mitterrand,
has chosen Prague of all places, and this of all times, to pay a state
visit-scheduled for early December. One might understand his regal
reluctance to follow in Mrs. Thatcher's wake to Poland or Hungary,
but this is carrying the personal competition a bit far.
To offer such high-level political recognition or economic support
to the present regime in Czechoslovakia is not just morally ques-
tionable. It is also politically short-sighted. It ignores a prime lesson
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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287
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
Poland
Of more immediate importance than these faults in design, how-
ever, is the failure to execute even the existing design. The official
Clearly, the preconditions are worse in Poland, given the depth of
"Realization Program of the Second Stage of Economic Reform" of
the economic crisis, the inconsistency of the economic reform pro-
October 1987 is a hastily prepared and cumbersome document, con-
gram and its implementation, the mixture of popular apathy and
taining a theoretical timetable of 130 "tasks" to be performed over
desperation, and above all, the continued gulf between the author-
the four years to December 1991, when, it says, all manner of things
ities and the most active and organized parts of society. National
will be well. The definition of the tasks is often vague, but almost a
product per capita is still 13 percent lower than in 1978, and real
year later one can go down the list and see what has not been done
wages are one fifth lower than in 1980. Inflation has been estimated
that ought to have been done.
at 20 percent for August alone and will probably exceed 100 percent
The failure is the result of external and internal obstacles. The
for the year. Increasingly, the dollar has supplanted the złoty as the
external obstacles are of two kinds. First, there are the Western
Polish currency. Consumer supplies have got worse rather than bet-
obstacles, having to do particularly with the country's desperate hard-
ter. And these are seen by the population to be the fruits of the
currency shortage, the dependence of much of Polish industry and
much vaunted "second stage of the economic reform," launched in
agriculture on components or materials that can only be bought for
the autumn of 1987.
hard currency, the $39 billion debt, and the conditions imposed by
This is, of course, less than wholly fair. Fault can certainly be
Western banks, governments, and the IMF for continuing at least
found with the technical conception of the reform. Its chief architect,
to "turn over" this debt. According to Sadowski, the government
Zdzisław Sadowski, is both an able and reputable reform economist.
considers balancing the current account with the West to be one of
In the tradition of Oskar Lange and Włodzimierz Brus, he has pro-
its "main policy objectives" and aims to achieve it by 1991. 55 Most
duced a design for a "socialist market economy." Radical as this is
independent economists consider this to be quite unrealistic. Sec-
by the standards of most previous reform plans, one might well argue,
ondly, there are the "Eastern" obstacles, having to do with the need
on the basis of Hungarian experience over the last twenty years, that
to improve trade balances with the Soviet Union, the direct involve-
even in conception it is not radical enough. Sadowski talks in general
ment of the Soviet Union in parts of Polish industry, and the problem
terms about "equal treatment of the public and private sectors and
of existing commitments inside Comecon.
market resource allocation,"⁵ but the detail of the plan, let alone
The internal obstacles are also of two general kinds. First, there
the bureaucratic practice, does not begin to amount to equal treat-
is the passive or active resistance of large parts of the ruling class:
ment for the private sector. The neoliberals would say that just be-
the Party apparatus, the industry ministries, the political bureaucracy
cause there is a strong, authentic Polish tradition of design for
at provincial and local levels, many managers. Secondly, there is the
"market socialism," the importance of purely private enterprise-of
passive or active resistance of large parts of the working class. The
capitalism blue in tooth and claw-is consistently underrated, not
attempt to restore a degree of domestic market equilibrium by sharply
just by Sadowski and his team but also by some economic advisers
increasing the prices of consumer goods while holding down wages
to Solidarity who come from the same tradition.
can be criticized on purely technical grounds. But the plain fact is
that this strategy has also been vitiated by the active resistance of
54 The quotation is from a speech delivered by Sadowski to the Royal Institute of
International Affairs (Chatham House) in London on June 21, 1988.
55 From Sadowski's speech to the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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289 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
workers who, particularly in the very large factories, which were
private enterprise, wage raises-anything, everything, except Soli-
Solidarity strongholds, have easily won large compensatory wage
darity. And after nearly seven years, the workers in the country's
raises by striking or merely threatening to strike.
great industrial strongholds stand up and say: Solidarity! So the
Besides this active resistance, moreover, there is a deep and almost
authorities do what they have so often said they would never do:
universal popular disbelief in the possibility of Jaruzelski's leader-
They start talking to Lech Wałęsa. Wałęsa in return manages, with
ship's realizing any reform program. If anyone was prepared to give
difficulty, to end the last strikes.
the Jaruzelski team the benefit of the doubt after December 13,
A landscape that has seemed increasingly complex and obscure
1981-and not many were-it has squandered that confidence by
suddenly looks very simple and very familiar. There is an iron gate.
the self-confessed failure of what is now called the "first stage of
On one side there are police; behind the police, the army; behind
economic reform," which was supposed to be pushed through under
the army, Jaruzelski; behind Jaruzelski, Moscow. On the other side,
the protective carapace of martial law. These two internal obstacles,
there are workers; behind the workers, Wałęsa; behind Wałęsa, the
the popular and the political-bureaucratic, are, moreover, mutually
pope. It looks simple and familiar, but it is not. Two crucial differ-
reinforcing. As two leading Solidarity advisers soberly observe, po-
ences between the situation now and that in 1980 were neatly ex-
litical leaders who do not enjoy social support "become prisomers of
pressed by a worker in the Lenin Shipyard during the strike in May.
their own conservative apparatus, and cannot therefore be consistent
Today, he said, the external conditions are better but the internal
promoters of reform."56
conditions are worse. In 1980 there was a real fear of Soviet invasion.
For eight years now, Solidarity, the Church, and Western politi-
With Gorbachev, that has greatly diminished. On the other hand,
cians have said that the only way to secure popular support for such
in 1980 there was still some real trust in the capacity of those in
painful but indispensable economic reform is a dialogue leading to
power to keep their word, to speak "as a Pole talks to a Pole." Where
a historic compromise between the self-organized workers and a self-
is that trust today?
limiting Communist power. Society might be represented in different
The impossible keeps happening in Poland. It would therefore be
ways, but somehow, in some form, Solidarity must be included in
more than foolish to make any firm prediction about the outcome
the compromise. For nearly seven years now, the Communist au-
of the promised round-table talks between the authorities and in-
thorities have done almost everything except talk to Solidarity. Any
dependent representatives of "society," including Lech Wałęsa. Mie-
number of consultative bodies, extraordinary concessions to the
czysław F. Rakowski, the new prime minister, is both a realist and
Church, remarkably liberal censorship, almost free travel to the West,
a Party reformist, as the memorandum quoted above makes clear.
He continues to enjoy a certain reputation as a "liberal" in the West.
56 This quotation comes from a penetrating critique of the authorities' reform
But in Poland he is seen as the man who deceived and abused Sol-
program and practice by Ryszard Bugaj and Andrzej Wielowiejski, whose arguments
idarity while negotiating with it as a deputy minister in 1981 and
were discussed at a meeting of the "Group of Sixty" intellectual counselors of Solidarity
in the crypt of a Warsaw church during the strikes last May. (The same group was
who has passionately, even obsessively, defended the imposition of
summoned by Wałęsa to Gdansk in September, along with old and new workers'
martial law. His appointment is thus turning over an old rather than
leaders, to help prepare his negotiating strategy.) The Bugaj and Wielowiejski text
a new leaf. In any case, the general prognosis can hardly be optimistic.
was subsequently published, after complicated negotiations, in Tygodnik Powszechny
of June 19, 1988, but with no less than eighteen censor's cuts. The quotation was
There is a deep mistrust of the authorities on the Solidarity side,
among the victims.
and a perhaps even deeper fear among those in power of a restored
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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THE USES OF ADVERSITY
Solidarity. Moreover, it is very difficult to imagine what a restored-
obstacles remain formidable. There is absolutely no blueprint for
or new-Solidarity would look like and how it could be married to
such an arrangement of power sharing. The coalitions of 1945-
the common goal of economic reform.
1948 in East Central Europe are hardly an encouraging example.
If Solidarity were allowed back only on the shop floor in individual
One could just conceivably imagine its working if there were to be
factories, then it would have to work as a trade union, fighting for
a clear, simple, legally defined division of powers between the parties,
the workers' jobs and wages. As a democratic organization, and
enforceable by an independent judiciary. But that is out of the ques-
competing with the official trade unions for members, it would be
tion. One might just imagine its working if there were a large amount
almost bound to oppose factory closings and wage squeezes that its
of mutual confidence between the parties, as in an all-party wartime
own national economic advisers regard as essential. Moreover, no
cabinet. But there is not.
one can seriously believe that it would remain without a national
What remains is the compromise of two boxers who recognize
network for long. The alternative is that Solidarity should return in
that neither can knock the other out and that the ring is collapsing
different guise: as the independent watchdog and guarantor of the
around them. But whence comes the boxers' staying power? Jaru-
whole society's interests at the highest levels of the state.
zelski's staying power still derives from the military and the police
Thus Solidarity might be represented in parliament, together with
(more than the Party apparatus), and ultimately from the Soviet
Catholic and other independent groups. Its experts might participate
leadership's continuing to back him, as Gorbachev did demonstra-
in a body empowered to oversee the implementation of economic
tively during his visit to Poland in July. Walesa's power rests to some
reform. Its representatives or associates might even hold government
extent (as the government spokesman Jerzy Urban claims) on sup-
office. As an independent, legal, national institution, it could then
port from the West and to some extent on his symbolic importance
"sell" the painful economic reform program to society as a genuine
to the whole of Polish society. But his real muscle still comes, as it
program for national recovery, supporting measures that as a local
has all along, from the workers in a score of giant enterprises: from
trade union it would be bound to oppose. Like Churchill in 1940,
the miners of Silesia, the shipyard workers of Gdansk, Gdynia, and
Wałęsa would say, "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and
Szczecin, the steelworkers of Kraków and Warsaw, the engineering
tears and the nation would rally round. In effect, this is what
workers of Poznań and Wroclaw. If you ask, Why is Wałęsa back at
Lech Walesa and his senior advisers have been proposing to the
the table? the basic answer is: because those workers put him there.
authorities ever since July 1981.5
Now, the corollary of this is that Solidarity leaders simply cannot
If it was not possible then, why should it be possible now? Because
afford to risk losing the confidence of these, their grenadiers, unless
Gorbachev is not Brezhnev? Because the West wants it, and Poland
they have cast-iron guarantees of a permanent independent role in
more than ever needs economic help from the West? But the internal
the country's national political life. Even this time around, it was
only with difficulty that Wałęsa persuaded the angry young men in
57 See chapter 6 in my The Polish Revolution Solidarity (New York: Scribners,
the Lenin Shipyard and the slow stubborn miners of Jastrzębie to
1984; Vintage, 1985), where I describe their abortive negotiations with Rakowski.
return to work. But the interests of the workers in these industrial
According to the sociological survey "Poles '88," no less than 84.3 percent of those
strongholds are by no means identical with those of the economy as
asked were of the opinion that "fundamental change for the better can be introduced
only when the authorities come to an understanding with society." Quoted in a brief
a whole. During the May strike at the Lenin Shipyard, the workers
report by the team who conducted the survey (Wladyslaw Adamski, et al.) in Polityka,
chanted, "There is no freedom without Solidarity," while loudspeak-
July 23, 1988.
ers broadcast a message from the management saying that the yard
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
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293 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
would have to be closed altogether. In the pure interest of national
Rakowski writes that some people in power in Poland may still be
economic recovery, however, the Solidarity troops should probably
thinking that if it comes to another revolt, "we call in aid our raison
have chanted, "Close the yards! Open a stock exchange!" But no
d'état and remind people that after all somebody might intervene in
one can seriously expect Solidarity to cut off the branch upon which
our internal affairs. But what," Rakowski goes on, "if that somebody,
it sits unless it has another very solid branch to go to.
bearing in mind his own interests, does not want to intervene?"59 A
One might speculate that for Poland now to break through the
thought to concentrate the functionary's mind wonderfully. Of
immense barriers of alienation and decay, the authorities would have
course, it would be morally indefensible for anyone in the West to
to take not one but two radical steps: restore Solidarity and restore
encourage such a terrible gamble, yet equally, no one in the West
capitalism. An expanded private sector and new mixed forms of
can prevent it. And in the long run of Ottomanization, even a failed
ownership in the public sector might generate economic dynamism
revolution is not the last word.
and harness the energies of the skilled, the young, and the rich, but
it would also exacerbate social tensions, and the private sector could
never be guaranteed a stable future without political representation
Hungary
(or at least protection) at the highest level. Solidarity, restored as a
national political force, might just conceivably mediate (or at least
In Hungary, the preconditions are somewhat better. The economic
alleviate) that social conflict and provide that guarantee, but it could
crisis is still not as deep and, although individual alienation is pro-
hardly leap over its own Christian-social trade-union shadow to
found, there is no comparable gulf between "society" and "the au-
become the cutting edge of radical economic change. One might say
thorities." One of the many reform manifestos to bloom in the
half in jest (and half in mourning) that when a Solidarity branch
Budapest spring was that of a group describing itself as the March
declares a legal strike against a private employer, Poland will be on
Front. Its twenty signers ranged from Rezsö Nyers, who in May
the right course.⁵⁸
became a member of the politburo, to Miklós Vásárhelyi, who was
The most probable outcome, however, remains a continued mud-
Imre Nagy's press secretary in 1956 and might now be described as
dling through; or, rather, a muddling down. On all Polish prece-
the Nestor of the democratic opposition. The March Front has not
dents, the result is likely, sooner or later, to be another explosion of
actually done anything, but in Poland it would not even be possible
popular protest. The result of that explosion would, in turn, depend
to get the names on the same piece of paper.
crucially on the circumstances in the Soviet Union, but if present
The continuum between critical intelligentsia and reformists-
trends in the Soviet Union continue (and if developments elsewhere
in-government is more substantially exemplified by the present
in Eastern Europe do not contribute to reversing those trends), it
economic-reform project. In 1986 a group of reform economists
is not completely inconceivable that the historic compromise that
working under the auspices of Imre Pozsgay's Patriotic People's
could not be achieved by reform might yet be achieved by revolution.
Front produced a radical reform document entitled "Turning Point
In an extraordinary passage of his memorandum, Mieczysław F.
and Reform." In January 1988, several authors of this document
moved into cramped offices in the parliament building, as part of an
SR An alternative approach, still quite popular in Poland, is that of promoting
economic kitchen cabinet working for the deputy prime minister,
workers' self-management. But the Yugoslav experience suggests that this would be
economically disastrous in present Polish circumstances.
59 Rakowski, "Reflections P. 18.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
294
295 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
Péter Medgyessy. In mid-July, the new central committee was offered
finger. The Party "should be removed from economic life." Economic
two variants of economic reform, the radical Plan A and the more
policy should be the province of the government, supervised and
cautious Plan B. Plan A, for which the central committee voted, was
controlled by the parliament. The new company law should provide
essentially based on the kitchen cabinet's design, which in turn was
precise, legally binding definitions of previously political "negotia-
based on the original document.
ble" relationships.
Miklós Németh, the central committee secretary for economic af-
Secondly, political reform must sugar the bitter pill of austerity
fairs, had defined the goal of Plan A as "a genuine market economy,
and win popular support. New courts and new laws delimiting the
without any qualifying adjectives."6 It has been officially stated that
freedoms of association and speech are one path to this end. An
the private sector could account for as much as 30 percent of this
increased role for parliament and local councils, with liberalized elec-
mixed economy. There is to be a real stock exchange. Western ma-
tion laws, is another. At present the Hungarian parliament meets
jority shareholding should be equally possible in firms from the
for just eight days a year. "We want to abolish the Party-state," a
private, cooperative, and state sectors. The change in forms of own-
leading reformist politburo member said to me. "We want to rein-
ership inside the socialized sector, vaguely discussed in Poland, is
troduce the principles of Montesquieu in modern form." This is
here a detailed plan. The Hungarian reform economists (than whom
interesting talk from a politburo member, albeit in a private, back-
no one on earth is more ingenious) have worked out a scheme
ground conversation. But as we have seen, words are cheap in the
whereby the net worth of a state enterprise would be converted into
new deideologized climate. The deeds have yet to follow. The main
stocks, which would be given by the state to local councils, pension
economic measures are supposed to be in place by the end of 1988;
funds, and the like. These councils or pension funds would then have
the constitutional changes, perhaps by 1990.
to live (in part, at least) off the dividends from these stocks rather
What are the chances? Even if there were no political, bureaucratic,
than the direct state subsidies they currently receive. They would
or social hindrances whatsoever to implementing radical economic
thus acquire at least a quasi-shareholder's interest in the profitability
reform in its purest form, Hungary would still be running to keep
of the enterprise. Irredeemable loss-makers should go bankrupt, with
up with an increasingly dynamic European Community, and with
estimated unemployment of 100,000 over the next two to three
the "newly industrialized countries." In purely technical terms, it is
years. A sharp devaluation should bring at least partial convertibility
not easy to turn a Lada into a Mercedes while continuing to drive
of the forint within sight. "What is socialism?" asks the joke of the
down the motorway. Ingenious as the proposals for new forms of
year. Answer: "The longest and most painful road from capitalism
ownership are, one cannot imagine their having half the impact of
to capitalism."
the pure, raw, brutal reprivatization by Thatcherism (so eloquently
advocated by the Towarzystwo Gospodarcze in Kraków). Radical as the
Political reform is seen as indispensable for two reasons. First, to
reintroduction of market forces is meant to be, even in design it
ensure that the political bureaucracy does not continue to vitiate the
seem unlikely to reproduce the Schumpeterian "creative gale of de-
theoretical autonomy of enterprises, as it has for the last twenty years.
struction." Two percent unemployment is a lot for a socialist country,
What a leading member of the economic think tank laughingly calls
but Thatcherism in Britain brought-and perhaps required-12 per-
the "invisible hand" of the center should be reduced to an invisible
cent unemployment to revitalize a much less decrepit economy.
The hard-currency debt is a goad to reform, but if the debt-service
60 In a radio interview quoted in SWB-EE (June 3, 1988), B/3-4.
ratio becomes too steep, it can be a major impediment to further
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
296
297 THE USES OF ADVERSITY
reform (witness Poland). The Hungarians reckon they have a breath-
sale, Grósz has the problem that Gorbachev faces in the Soviet Union.
ing space until 1991, when loan repayments to Western banks are
In theory, he wants to decentralize. But before decentralizing, he
due to increase sharply. This is not long. Moreover, while their
has to reestablish central control. And then there is the great un-
putative West European competitors have the opportunity of the
known of social reaction. The leadership has stated clearly that in
Common Market, they still have the burden of Comecon. To adjust
the short run, reform means that most Hungarians will get poorer.
your domestic market to Western markets is one thing. To adjust
The responsible politburo member, Miklós Németh, told the central
Comecon to your own needs is quite another. So far as I can gather,
committee that Plan A would initially mean lower or even negative
Hungary's economic-policy makers have more or less given up any
growth and "a lower level of consumption by the population,"⁶ not
hope of turning Comecon into a common market and are merely
to mention the 100,000 unemployed. Hungarian society is too di-
looking for more realistic bilateral trade with individual countries,
vided for a Polish-style Solidarity movement to seem at all likely,
including the Soviet Union.61
but there has already been one strike in the mines. Repeated local
Yet for political reasons, the reform package is most unlikely to
strikes-as in Yugoslavia-and even the founding of independent
be fully implemented. For a start, Károly Grósz is not, by all accounts,
unions seem possible. Any one of these levels of resistance is probably
comparable to Gorbachev, let alone to Mrs. Thatcher. He is a clever,
enough to preempt economic take-off in a highly competitive world.
forceful, opportunistic politician, but there is no evidence that his
Together, they seem almost insuperable.
present endorsement of radical reform flows from any deep convic-
Except, perhaps, by democracy. But democracy is not on offer.
tion. His politburo contains only three people who one could clearly
Hungary's Communist rulers quite understandably want to enjoy
categorize as reformists (Nyers, Pozsgay, and Németh), and in János
the benefits of democracy without paying the price of sharing or
Berecz he has (mutatis mutandis) his Ligachev. The higher ranks of
being obliged to compete for power. Legal definitions of rights can
the Party apparatus contain some intelligent, realistic, reform-minded
also be ways of restricting rights. "An up-to-date practice of juris-
men. But no one really has the first idea how the new separation of
prudence can be an even more efficient means of political regulation
powers, or division of roles, between Party and state, central com-
than direct administrative instructions," the new head of the central
mittee, parliament, and courts is going to work. If the Party is not
committee's agitprop department rather revealingly observed.⁶³
to make economic policy, then what on earth is it to do? Men cling
What Mr. Grósz calls opposition is not what we would call oppo-
to power: surely here, too. I asked an energetic, realistic, and reform-
sition, and what we call opposition Mr. Grósz still calls the enemy-
minded new member of the central committee secretariat what he
a nasty verbal throwback to darker days. While the authorities al-
was actually going to do there. "Well," he replied, "we work out the
lowed the populist demonstration for Transylvania, the police broke
broad strategic lines of policy, and then we pass them on to Party
up a much smaller democratic-opposition demonstration on the an-
members in the state apparatus." This sounded vaguely familiar.
niversary of the judicial execution of Imre Nagy, with some brutality.
Then there are the corrupt local oligarchies that flourished under
late Kádárism. Can their grip really be broken? On a much smaller
The liveliest, but also in a way the saddest, meeting I had in Budapest
this June was with a group of law students in their early rwenties
61 According to a report in the Financial Times (August 9, 1988), "Hungary's iron
and steel producers have threatened to consider halting unprofitable exports to other
Comecon countries after the Government's withdrawal of subsidies for metal exports."
62 SWB-EE (July 15, 1988), C1/1-5.
A nice illustration in miniature.
63 Magyar Hirlap, June 24, 1988.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
298
299
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
who have been instrumental in setting up the new democratic youth
a 30-40 percent chance of success. It seems reasonable to suggest
union (FIDESZ). They have a brilliant program. It can be summed
that the reform has a rather higher chance of minimal success-that
up in two words: liberal democracy. As we talked, I felt, as I have
is, of averting revolution-if only because of the further diversifi-
done so often before, a simple anger. Why should they, who are
cation of social interests that it will promote. The freeing of the
every bit as civilized, deserving, brave, and clever as their exact con-
private sector, in particular, means that Hungary might yet have an
temporaries up the river in Vienna, have to put up with any more
entrepreneurial bourgeoisie that will go to the barricades-against
half-measures and half-truths? For God's sake, let them have it-
the revolting workers. Capitalists and communists shoulder to shoul-
now! After all, we know that liberal democracy works: not perfectly,
der against the proletariat: a suitably Central European outcome to
of course, nothing ever does, but in all its West European variants
socialism. To estimate the percentage chance of peaceful transfor-
better than any of the East European variants of anything else. If
mation, by contrast, requires only the fingers of one hand.
Spain can pass peacefully from dictatorship to democracy, why
should not Hungary? In morality and ideology, the ruling party has
no answer. Yet no one, not even as a joke, told me that socialism is
the longest and most painful road from autocracy to democracy.
Back to Central Europe?
The sad fact is that socialism has created in all the East European
states an array of domestic barriers against the transformation to lib-
"To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the alone Dis-
eral-democracy-cum-mixed-economy quite as formidable as those
tinction of Merit." We may not go quite so far as William Blake,
that existed in recent West or south European dictatorships, such as
but virtually all general writing about "Eastern Europe" is either a
Spain, Portugal, or Greece. These barriers lie not only in the system
catalog or, if analytically more ambitious, extrapolates from the one
of politbureaucratic dictatorship (to use Rudolf Bahro's apt term)
or two countries the author knows best. The above has something
and not merely in the character and interests of the nomenklatura
of both faults. To concentrate on Poland and Hungary is, in the
ruling class, but also in the interests, attitudes, and fears of many of
autumn of 1988, justified by the fact that these are the two countries
the ruled. Of course, in conditions of full external sovereignty, with
of East Central Europe in which fundamental reform experiments
liberal democracies on all frontiers, these obstacles would simply be
are under way. Even here, what has been said is fragmentary and
swept aside as they were, gloriously, in Spain, Portugal, and Greece.
tentative. Yet there are many common features as well as differences.
But those are not the conditions. The Polish revisionist Władysław
I would venture to predict that when the fundamental reform ex-
Bieńkowski once wrote a famous text called "The Engines Had
periment does get under way in Czechoslovakia, there, too, one will
Brakes of Socialism." We have been discussing the engines and brakes
recognize many of the features that I have singled out in Poland and
of the transition from socialism. The conclusion is, alas, that even
Hungary.
in Hungary, even in the Gorbachev era, the brakes look more pow-
In the case of East Germany, the differences will perhaps be greater
erful than the engines.
than the similarities. A state whose annual transfers of hard currency
One is bound to hope against hope. The Hungarian reformists
from West Germany cover the total interest burden on its hard-
enter this experiment with that cheerful pessimism that is one of the
currency debt-but a state, also, whose citizens learn about their
more attractive features of Hungarian intellectual life. One of the
own country every night from West German television-is in a dif-
very architects of the entire reform project told me he gives it only
ferent position from its East Central European neighbors, a position
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
301
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
300
both better and worse. I have not attempted to include Romania or
suffering. At times it seems tragic, too, in the sense of classical trag-
Bulgaria in my analysis.
edy: that is, having a relentless logic quite beyond and in spite of
For the heartlands of contemporary East Central Europe, however,
the will of the participants. For the petty functionaries defending
for the more than 60 million Europeans living in the present terri-
their privileges are not really evil; and far less are the unskilled work-
tories of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, there are certainly
ers defending their jobs in factories that should long since have been
the contours of a common fate. The oldest of Central European tales
shut. The more enlightened leaders in Hungary and Poland today
has a German general saying to his Austrian ally: "The situation is
are personally little worse than most politicians in the West. Some
serious but not tragic," to which the Austrian general replies: "No,
genuinely care about their countries as well as themselves. But good
mein Lieber, the situation is tragic but not serious." One might say
or evil, they can no more avoid entanglement in the web of internal
that the situation of East Central Europe today is tragic but not
contradictions that socialism has created than Oedipus could avoid
hopeless.
marrying his mother.
It is tragic because a half-century of immense struggle, upheaval,
So, entirely hopeless the situation is not. It is not hopeless, because,
work, and suffering has produced so little lasting progress. It is
within the setting of overall decay, there are possibilities of individual
fashionable to talk, as Zbigniew Brzezinski does in the title of his
and group emancipation, of free speech, learning, worship, travel,
1988 Seton-Watson Memorial Lecture, of Eastern Europe's being
productive work, and self-help that simply did not exist when I first
on its way "back to Central Europe." Polite reference is made to the
traveled to Eastern Europe ten years ago. It is not hopeless because
positive ideal of Central Europe revived by Milan Kundera, Czesław
these states do, in theory, possess room for maneuver in which they
Miłosz, Václav Havel, György Konrád, and many others. But there
might restore a larger degree of internal sovereignty. It is not hope-
can be a "return to Central Europe" in a negative as well as a positive
less, because the great power to the East is itself convulsed with
sense. The dream of emancipatory modernization, by no means only
change whose outcome no one can predict. It is not hopeless, finally,
the property of communists in 1945, may yet end in a reality, all
because the great powers to the West form a more open, successful,
too familiar from Central European history, of growing relative back-
attractive, and benign constellation for East Central Europe than at
wardness vis-à-vis Western, "modern" Europe. It may end in a new
any time in modern history. This is true of the United States, of
version of Giselher Wirsing's Zwischeneuropa or the intermediate
Western Europe as a whole, and particularly of West Germany, on
zone identified by Hungarian writers and historians, its economies
whose approach the future shape of this region once again signifi-
exporting tin saucepans, bottled fruit, cheap shoes, and cheap labor,
cantly depends.
importing German tourists and Japanese capital. A zone, that is, of
To discuss what we in the West can do directly to encourage
weak states, national prejudice, inequality, poverty and Schlammassel.
desirable change in East Central Europe would require another essay,
It is almost already true to talk, in the case of Hungary and Poland,
indeed a book. But if present trends continue, it is not unreasonable
of a double dependency-on the great powers to the West as well
as to the East.
65 Two excellent multiauthor volumes are Lincoln Gordon, ed., Eroding Empire:
This situation is tragic because of its toll in avoidable human
Western Relations with Eastern Europe (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1987)
and William E. Griffith, ed., Central and Eastern Europe and the West (Boulder,
Colorado: Westview Press, 1989). I am working on a book about the contemporary
64 See my essay "Does Central Europe Exist?" above, p. 179.
German role in this region.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH
302
303
THE USES OF ADVERSITY
to look ahead to a time when the West will be not, as since Yalta,
rope future historians will record as baneful but transient, confined
a tertiary actor in East Central Europe (after the Soviet Union and
only to a few decades in the second half of the twentieth century:
the countries themselves) but a secondary actor-as important as the
The peoples of East Central Europe make their own history, al-
Soviet Union, though in different ways. If we are to play this role
though they do not make it just as they please.
wisely, however, the first imperative is to see East Central Europe
(September 1988)
as it really is and not as a projection of our own fantasies or as a
subcategory of Soviet politics. The metaphor of Finlandization and
the terms glasnost and perestroika are of limited use in analyzing recent
developments in East Central Europe. The impact of Gorbachev and
the "new détente" in East-West relations has been great but also
complex, indirect, and ambiguous. Terms like "crisis," "reform," or
"stability" are useless without closer definition.
I have offered the crude metaphor of Ottomanization as at least
marginally more illuminating than that of Finlandization. The two
faces of Ottomanization, emancipation and decay, both have many
dimensions: imperial, regional, and domestic; economic, social, ide-
ological, and political; the emancipation of states from the imperial
center; the emancipation of societies from states, in the overlapping
spheres of religion, national articulation, civil society, and private
enterprise, and the more or less consciously oppositional variants of
each. Revolution, ending in partial failure, is as likely as reform,
ending in partial success (i.e., averting revolution). On balance, the
former seems more likely in Poland, the latter in Hungary. A maximal
success for reform seems scarcely more probable than a maximal
success for revolution. Each national case must be studied histori-
cally, and for itself. "Every thing is what it is and not another thing,"
as the great Bishop Butler unshallowly remarked.
As these countries are rediscovering their own histories, so also is
history the discipline most urgently called for, if we in the West are
to understand their present and peer into their future. History, calling
in aid economics, sociology, political science, and even security
studies, but above all: history. Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles are
rediscovering their own history; and they are making it again. To
adapt a German philosopher, whose influence on East Central Eu-
DK502
L53
994
WH
The Baltic
Revolution
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
and the Path to Independence
Anatol Lieven
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
3
Germany, had been in a sense a continuation of the Second World War
and its aftermath.
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
The history of the first independence struggle and the first period of
independence is thus a force in shaping the politics of the present. Not
merely are some politicians casting themselves in the role of their
childhood heroes, but for lack of any other tradition the new Baltic States
'O rose, take an axe in your hand,
are modelling not just their political symbolism, but their political
And smash your way through the dunghill,
ideologies, parties and state institutions, on those of the period of
Through fate, hardened fate,
independence between 1918 and 1940. This alone makes that period an
Before it is too late.'
essential object of study for anyone interested in understanding the
Jãnis Rokpelnis,
contemporary Baltic scene. The Europe of the 1920s and 1930s was of
a Latvian poet under Soviet rule
course very different; like other European states, the politics of the Baltic
in those years incorporated strong anti-democratic trends. Thanks to
Soviet rule, the Baltic States have been isolated from subsequent
European liberal and democratic influence and there has never been a
real debate (except to a limited extend among Baltic emigrés) about the
positive and negative aspects of pre-1940 Baltic political traditions.
The effect of too much unanalysed nostalgia has been to distance the
Balts from modern Western Europe and to contribute to worrying
The period of the first Baltic struggles for independence, from 1917 to
political tendencies at home. The drawing of lessons from the experience
1920, has been so intensively mythologised in subsequent Baltic culture
of those years can also lead to serious misjudgements about the
that it came as a shock to realise that, as a minor participant in the events
international position of the Baltic States today. During the recent
of 1990 to 1991, I was myself living through a period to which Balts are
independence struggle the recalling of myths of the earlier struggle
already according the same mythology. In the struggle to achieve Baltic
occasionally led to decisions which at the time looked barely rational
independence and Baltic national identities, memory, and memory re-
though they may look good in the history books. A historian must there-
worked as myth, have always been as important as economics or
fore be cautious about making too many comparisons between the first
diplomacy, let alone tanks or guns. For Lithuanians in particular, a
struggle for Baltic independence and that of our time. The first was above
mythologised history has taken the place of a national myth,
all an armed struggle; the second, SO far at least, has been conducted by
encapsulated in Latvia and Estonia within the recreated national poetie
peaceful means. In 1917 there had never been Estonian or Latvian states,
epics. Dealing with Lithuanian nationalist politicians during the second
and the nationalist leaders were aiming at autonomy within a democratic
independence struggle, I was repeatedly made aware that they were
Russian Federation, if only because they regarded such a link as their
operating only partly in the present; underlying everything that they did
only protection against conquest by the Germans; they declared full
was a consideration of how their actions would look before a pageant of
independence only after Russia itself had collapsed into the hands of the
Lithuanian history beginning with the Grand Duchy and extending into
Bolsheviks.
the history books of the future. The events of 1990 and 1991 were turned
It is possible to imagine that a 'bourgeois' government in Russia, had it
into myth even as they occurred, and seized upon by different political
survived the First World War, could have made sufficient compromises
forces above all by Professor Landsbergis and his supporters - as part of
with the Balts to have kept them within such a federation. Despite the
their claim to supreme national legitimacy. There have of course been
Baltic blood shed by the Russian Empire, the last decades of Russian
Western examples of this syndrome (Churchill and de Gaulle being the
imperial rule had been years of great prosperity and social progress for
most famous) but they are difficult to find in Western Europe today. This
the Baltic provinces, progress which had indeed spawned the Baltic
is perhaps another sign of the fact, often repeated by Balts, that for them,
national intelligentsias. By contrast the nationalist leaders of 1987-91 had
the Second World War ended only with the recovery of independence in
always before their eyes an image of the full independence enjoyed by the
the early 1990s. Soviet rule in the previous decades, like the partition of
Baltic States between 1918 and 1940, and the utter failure of Soviet rule to
produce stable economic progress. They could not in the long run have
54
55
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
St Petersburg
settled for anything less than full independence, and this in turn would
have been bound to undermine Moscow's rule elsewhere in the Soviet
St Petersburg
Union.
Tallinn (Reval)
Novgorod
Estland
Lake Perpus
Dagös
(Pripsi)
The First Struggle for Independence
Lake Ilmes
Parnu (Pernau)
Tartu
As in our own time, the initial chance for Baltic freedom during the First
Osel
(Dorpat,
World War was given by events in Russia. The February Revolution of
lurev)
Pskov (Pleskau)
1917 brought the immediate replacement of imperial governors in Estonia
and Livonia by commissioners of the Russian Provisional Government -
Livland
the Latvian and Estonian Mayors of Riga and Tallinn. Representatives
Pskov
of Latvian organisations met and chose provisional councils to replace
the governing institutions of the Baltic German nobility. 2 The Council in
Ventspils
Riga
Latgale called for union with the other Latvian provinces, but this was
(Windau)
opposed by the large local Russian population. Lithuania was not
Kurland
directly affected by the revolution because it was under German
Jelgava (Mitau)
Vitebsk
occupation, having been overrun in 1915. The position of the Latvians
Liepaja (Libau)
Dünaburg
was complicated by the fact that half their area was also under German
control. Both Latvians and Estonians were still thinking in terms of
Vitebsk
autonomy within a Russian federation, and there was general surprise
Kovno
when on 7 September 1917 the Estonian politician, Jaan Tönisson,
Klaipeda (Memel)
argued for independence from Russia and the creation of a federation of
Scandinavia and the Baltic lands. A majority however continued to
Kaunas (Kovno)
Mogilev
advocate union with Russia.
Vilnius (Vilna)
Tilsit
The Bolsheviks meanwhile were strengthening their position on local
Mogilev
Vilna
soldiers' and workers' councils, and in Riga, in municipal elections in
Insterburg
August gained 41 per cent of the vote. In Estonia their position was
Königsberg
Minsk
weaker, and based partly on the local Russian working class. After the
East Prussia
Suwalki
coup of October 1917, the Bolsheviks took over the administration of
(Germany)
much of the Baltic. Bolshevik terror ensued, targeted partly at the
Minsk
politicians and partly at the Baltic German nobility. In both Latvia and
Allenstein
Grodno
Estonia, non-communist leaders were now aiming at complete
Bialystok
independence, if only to escape from the Bolsheviks, and were hoping for
support from the West.
Grodno
0
50mls
The Baltic Germans were of course hoping for German conquest, and
Polish Provinces
Pinsk
0
100km
this came soon enough; by April 1918, the whole area was in German
hands. For many Balts it seemed, at the time, a catastrophe as bad or
Brest-Litovsk
worse than Bolshevik rule.³ In fact, however, German occupation was to
Warsaw
"Sjedlaz
give the Balts a crucial breathing space. Without it there is little reason to
doubt that Latvia and Estonia would simply have remained part of
Volhynia
Bolshevik Russia.
The Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1914
In November 1918, German defeat in the West led to the armistice with
57
56
The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
the Western allies and withdrawal from most of the Baltic States. The
Russia and had large Russian majorities: the town of Ivangorod opposite
Soviet commander-in-chief at the time was a Latvian, Jakums Väcietis, a
Narva and the area of Petseri (Pechori), near Pskov. These areas were
colonel from the Latvian Rifle Regiments. Formed by the Russian
then incorporated into independent Estonia by the Treaty of Tartu
Imperial government to fight the Germans, several of these units
signed with Soviet Russia on 2 February 1920. In 1945, after the Soviet
subsequently joined the Bolsheviks and played a key part in their victory
reconquest, they were returned to Russia by Stalin. Estonia is now asking
in the Russian Civil War, while others fought for the Latvian national
for their restitution.
government. The British envoy, Bruce Lockhart, commented on the
Latvia meanwhile had been largely overun by the Bolsheviks, and the
Riflemen's mixture of dour discipline and savagery. The German
Latvian national government of Kärlis Ulmanis was forced to flee to the
ambassador in Moscow described them as 'a corset holding together the
friable body of the Red Army'. Latvians also provided some of the most
port of Liepaja, where it survived under the protection of the German
army and the British fleet. A Bolshevik government was instituted in
ruthless leaders of the Cheka, Lenin's secret police and of Stalin's
Riga under Pêteris Stučka, and instituted a brutal reign of terror. Famine
N.K.V.D. During the struggle for Latvian independence in 1990, a
broke out and thousands starved to death. However, while the invasion of
Russian colonel in the republic, protesting his affection for the Latvian
Estonia by the Bolsheviks was a fairly straightforward attempt at
people and wanting to pay a national compliment, said that the Latvian
conquest, the war in Latvia had far more aspects of a civil war between
'Chekists' had been his childhood heroes! After the Soviet conquests of
Latvians themselves.
1940 and 1944 these Latvians from Russia were to provide many of the
The anti-Bolshevik forces were deeply divided between the Latvians
Soviet cadres for the government of Latvia. The tradition continued in
and the Germans, including the 'Baltische Landeswehr', made up of local
our time with men like Colonel Viktors Alksnis, whose grandfather,
Baltic Germans and determined to avoid Latvian rule. On 16 April this
Jekabs Alksnis, was one of the founders of the Soviet Air Force before
force staged a coup against Ulmanis's government and forced it to take
being shot by Stalin in 1937. Whereas in Estonia and Lithuania, the
refuge on a British warship. Heavy British pressure on Germany
native defenders of Soviet rule between 1988 and 1991 were tiny in
compelled the Germans to back down and on 22 May, a combined
number and pathetic in intellect, the Soviet loyalist leadership in Latvia
offensive of German, Latvian and White Russian troops captured Riga
contained a number of significant Latvian figures.
from the Bolsheviks, while the Estonians advanced south to liberate
In November 1918 Soviet troops, drawn partly from the Riflemen,
northern Latvia. This and the Estonian victories of January were the first
marched into the Baltic States immediately behind the retreating
military checks to the eastwards advance of Soviet communism into
Germans, and by 2 January 1919 were within 35 kilometres of Tallinn.
Thereafter Estonian troops, superbly led by a former Tsarist colonel,
Europe. On 22 June, the Estonians and Latvians also defeated the Baltic
German Landeswehr and German 'Freikorps' volunteer units, and
Johannes Laidoner, turned the tide and, within a few weeks, had pushed
avenged themselves for seven-hundred years of rule by the German
them back into Russia. Weapons and supplies were provided by a British
nobility. The result of the final Latvian-Estonian victory over the
squadron, which also prevented any landing on the northern coast by the
Germans in October was a complete German withdrawal from Latvia. In
Soviet Baltic fleet, and several hundred volunteers arrived from Finland
December the Latvians in alliance with Poland, conquered Latgale from
and Scandinavia.*
the Bolsheviks, and it was incorporated into independent Latvia by the
Encouraged by the British, the Estonians subsequently gave support to
the White Russian forces in their attempt to capture Petrograd; it was
Riga Treaty of I August 1920 with Russia.
however half-hearted support, because of the refusal of the commander,
The Lithuanian national government meanwhile had been facing a
General Yudenich, to guarantee Estonian independence. In support of
double threat from both Soviet Russia and Poland. The Bolsheviks also
the Whites, the Estonians advanced into Russia itself, and by the final
invaded in November 1918, but by the summer of 1919 had been driven
armistice with Soviet Russia had occupied two strips of territory which,
from Lithuanian territory. Vilnius meanwhile had been changing hands
although partly inhabited by Finnic-speaking people, had been a part of
(and its official name) with bewildering speed, part 'sacred national
symbol', part bargaining-chip.
In January 1919, after a Lithuanian rule of two months following the
On 18 August 1919, in a striking but strangely uncelebrated victory, British torpedo
German collapse, Vilnius fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. On April
boats penetrated the heart of the Kronstadt naval base, one of the most heavily
15 it was captured by the Poles, who later made it an autonomous region
defended in the world, and sank two Bolshevik battleships at their moorings.
in the hope of using it to tempt Lithuania to restore the old confederation
58
59
The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
with Poland. At the time Vilnius was a mainly Polish-Jewish city with a
Economic and Social Consolidation
Lithuanian minority variously estimated at between 2 and 20 per cent. A
year later, the Poles launched an offensive against Soviet Russia, were
The history of the Baltic States between 1920 and 1940 was characterised
initially defeated, and handed Vilnius to the Lithuanians - after they had
by great economic success, internal political failure, and foreign policy
already lost it to the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks themselves gave it to the
frustration followed by catastrophe: in 1940 they were annexed by
Lithuanians on 25 August in return for permission to cross Lithuanian
Stalin's Soviet Union. This catastrophe was however a product of events
territory on their way to attack the Poles. The Poles then counter-
and forces far beyond the Balt's own control, though controversy rages
attacked and defeated the Bolsheviks. At this time Poles and Lithuaniam
still as to whether their fate could have been averted or at least altered.
were also fighting each other, in a desultory way.
At the end of their wars of independence, the Baltic States were in a
On 7 October 1920 a Polish-Lithuanian armistice tacitly left Vilnius in
state of economic chaos which, on the surface, makes their present
Lithuanian hands but immediately afterwards, the Polish general
situation look almost benign by comparison, although in fact they were
Lucijan Zeligowski staged a 'revolt' - with the compliance and later open
better placed than they are today. Latvia had suffered particularly badly
approval of the Polish leader, Marshal Pilsudski - and seized the city,
because, for most of the war, the front line had run across what was to
Lithuanians have bemoaned this 'Polish aggression' ever since, and it
become Latvian territory. In 1915, much of the population had either fled
continues to bedevil Lithuanian-Polish relations and Lithuanian policies
or been evacuated by the Russian government, along with the major
towards the Polish minority in Lithuania. For an ironical descant on the
industries, many of which were removed or destroyed.⁷ The total
competing choirs of Polish and Lithuanian apologists, one can turn to a
population dropped from 2.55 million in 1913 to only 1.84 million in 1925.
memoir by a Jewish inhabitant of Vilna, Joseph Buloff, who describes
By 1950, with the effects of the Second World War and Stalinism added,
one of the many 'liberations' as follows:
Latvia had become the only European country whose population had
declined in absolute terms since 1900, and Estonia was not far behind.
At the end of the third day, a Polish flag with a white eagle flew from the
The 1915-17 losses, however, helped stabilise independent Latvia, both
still-smouldering town hall. A new parade was announced - this time for
by sharply reducing the Russian minority and by reducing the number of
Poles only. There were no more greens, whites or reds. All and everybody
urban workers, who would otherwise have simply been unemployed. It
became Poles overnight, except for the Jews. The Jews took it in their
can be said that, unlike 1991, when the Russian Empire retreated from
stride. They had served, in their life, under many flags
the Baltic in 1915-17 it took much of the 'imperial' industries (those
In January 1923, Lithuania, in order to give itself a port but also to
dependent on the Russian hinterland) and their workforces with it.
compensate itself for the loss of Vilnius, seized the German town of
During the War and Civil War, all the Baltic provinces suffered from
Memel (now Klaipéda), held since 1919 by the League of Nations, and
massive requisitions of food, material and animals, and from the transfer
retained it until Hitler forced its return in 1939. Another effect of the loss
of their principal industries to Russia. As today, those industries
of Vilnius was to force the Lithuanians to make their 'provisional' capital
remaining were severely affected by the loss of their pre-1914 markets and
in Kaunas (Kovno), a city divided between Lithuanians and Jews, with
sources of supply in Russia. Monetary confusion was exacerbated by
small Polish and German communities. This move to a smaller and less
chaos in the banking system, the headquarters of which, in St Petersburg,
cosmopolitan city has been responsible for encouraging some of the
had been seized by the Bolsheviks. A basic banking infrastructure and
narrower and more depressing features of subsequent Lithuanian nation-
personnel however remained in the Baltic states. This was perhaps the
alism. During the struggle for independence from Soviet rule, the radical
greatest advantage of the Baltic States in 1920 as compared with today:
nationalist wing of the Lithuanian national movement was long known
then, the Baltic area had long been part of capitalist Europe, and had
simply as 'the Kaunas Faction'. These forces continue to harbour a deep
many people, officials and private businessmen, Balts and members of
distrust of Vilnius for its 'cosmopolitan' past, still reflected in a more
other communities, with a tradition of experience in the workings of
varied and liberal culture. Some would even like to move the capital back
capitalism. Baltic industry was also equipped to Western standards, and
to Kaunas, which they term 'the pure home of the race'.
the Balts had longstanding markets in the West. Today, these markets
have to be created from scratch. Experience of capitalism is present only
in the Baltic emigrations in the West, while Balts brought up under
Soviet rule have not merely to be trained, but often retrained, and cured
of everything they learned under Soviet rule. Moreover, decades of
60
61
The Baltic Revolution
communist influence have strengthened certain traditional peasant
suspicions of capitalism, especially in Lithuania.
Leningrad
USSR
Lithuania between the Wars was still an overwhelmingly peasant
economy, with, in 1920, 79 per cent of the population engaged in
agriculture. The Latvian and Estonian economies were more mixed, but
in these republics too, 66 and 58 per cent respectively were farmers. This
meant that unemployed urban workers could always be absorbed back
importance. These reforms were the rock on which the Baltic republics
Tallinn (Reval
Estonia
Vilnius (Vilna)
0 50mls
100km
onto family farms. It also made the land reforms of 1920 of critical
Riga
were founded, and which contributed greatly to their relative social and
political stability, until destroyed by outside intervention. The 1920s saw
Latvia
a major swing from radical politics in all three Baltic States, the richer
Klaipeda (Memel) District
Kaunas
0
s/Helsing
Lithuania
(Kovono)
peasants later becoming the mainstay of the nationalist dictatorships,
Today this link between the peasantry and the Right has been broken. In
Communists of Algirdas Brazauskas.
as
Because in Latvia and Estonia more than half the land had been held
Liepaja (Libau
East Prussia
Poland
Warsaw
Lithuania, most of the peasantry is more strongly attached to the former
by the great landlords, mostly Baltic Germans, the scope of the land
reforms of 1920 was enormous. Compensation was minimal, though in
conservative Lithuania, landlords succeeded in retaining more than in
BALTIC SEA
the other two republics." Before 1914 one third all Russia's European
Stockholm
Danzig
trade had passed through Latvian ports, and Riga, Tallinn and Narva
had huge industries (the Kreenholm cotton mill in Narva was the biggest
in the Empire) relying on Russian raw materials. Initially both Balts and
Western investors assumed, as they do today, that the main economic
Sweden
0
role of the Baltic States would continue to be that of a bridge to and from
Russia. As the 1920s progressed, however, it became clear that Soviet
Copenhagen
Berlin
Russia's external trade would never return to its pre-1914 levels, and that
opportunities for western investment would remain almost non-existent.
25 per cent of Estonia's trade was still with Russia in 1922, but by 1935 it
Oslo
had fallen to only 3 per cent, and Latvia's was no higher - an
extraordinary testimony to the hermetic seal placed by Stalin between
the Soviet Union and the rest of the world."
This situation is however very unlikely to replicate itself in the 1990s,
Norway
Germany
Unless Russia were to collapse completely, the Balts, thanks to the way.
they were integrated into the Soviet economy, will go on trading heavily
Denmark
with Russia, and this is bound to have repercussions on their political
situation. Before 1914, Riga and Tallinn were exporting very large
quantities of both manufactured and agricultural produce to Western
Europe. On the recovery of independence in 1991, due to Soviet rule, their
exports to the West were miniscule, although those of Estonia at least
NORTH SEA
The Baltic Lands between the two World Wars
have increased greatly since then.
Following the loss of the Russian connection, Baltic trade and industry
in the 1920s and 1930s had of necessity to be based chiefly on local
Holland
62
The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
resources, above all agriculture, while many of the great factories
representation, were given almost complete control over the
remained idle or were largely dismantled. Agricultural exports however
governments. In the words of V. Stanley Vardys, 'the executive branch
largely compensated for the decline. These rose steadily through the
was completely dependent on unqualified decisions, better described as
1920s, before dipping sharply after the Slump of 1929. In the 1930s they
whims. The Estonian constitution so magnified the powers of the
recovered, and by 1939 had almost reached their pre-slump level. The
parliament
that the institution itself formed the government and
Latvian and Estonian economies were in general among the most
accepted its resignation'.'
successful in Europe in their recovery from the depression; this was
Today the Soviet system and the movements which overthrew it have
perhaps the most important achievement of the authoritarian regimes of
also, paradoxically, left parliaments in the Baltic with excessive powers.
Kärlis Ulmanis and Konstantin Päts.
From 1990 to 1992 (and in the case of Latvia, even beyond that), the
The Estonian standard of living in 1939 was roughly equivalent to that
Baltic States functioned under slightly modified versions of their Soviet
of Finland, with Latvia not far behind. Lithuania however was much
constitutions. It made the distribution of power under the constitution
poorer and more agricultural. Of course even Estonia was considerably
extremely unclear, because the real fulcrum, the Communist Party had
poorer than West European countries, but this was not obvious because,
disappeared. The Supreme Councils or 'parliaments' found themselves
like the other Baltic States, Estonia lacked the West's extremes of wealth
issuing administrative decrees and controlling details of government
and poverty. Although in the early 1920s many visitors had commented
policy. They were able to do this precisely because they and their
on the misery left behind by the war and revolution, by the 1930s Western
chairmen had previously been rubber-stamps and their powers had never
visitors to Latvia and Estonia were greatly impressed by the apparent
been defined. This problem of excessive parliamentary powers surfaced
well-being of ordinary people. The first period of independence saw a
all over the former Soviet Union, most dangerously of all in Russia.
great expansion in educational provision within the three republics, and
The new Estonian and Lithuanian constitutions, adopted in the
some notable achievements in the field of culture. Lithuania started from
autumn of 1992, were intended to eliminate these faults (see Chapter 8).
a much weaker position, with almost one third of the population illiterate
However, both undermine collective responsibility and the authority of
when the republic was established; but by the 1930s it had increased its
the prime minister by allowing parliament to dismiss individual
proportion of pupils almost seven-fold though its schools remained of a
ministers, and both allow too many parties into parliament. There is
poorer quality than those of the other republics.
therefore a risk that, as in the 1920s and 1930s, constitutional weaknesses
When therefore the Balts look back to their first period of indepen-
will conspire with political ones - especially the lack of party discipline -
dence as an idyllic time, there is a good deal of truth to their view. It
to undermine the fledgling parliamentary democracies of the Baltic.
makes all the more bitter the contrast between their economic position
relative to Scandinavia in those years, and the vast gulf that separates
them today. This in itself would have been enough completely to
Before democracy was overthrown in Latvia and Estonia in 1934, they
undermine Soviet claims to have brought 'progress' to the Baltic, and to
experienced sixteen and seventeen governments respectively. In
destroy the entire moral basis of Soviet rule.
Lithuania, democracy lasted only seven years, but produced eleven
governments.* The plethora of governments did not greatly hinder the
implementation of major reforms, the stabilisation of the economies, or
The Failure of Parliamentary Democracy, 1920-34
advances in education and culture but then these were European
bourgeois societies, long accustomed to living in an atmosphere of
After 1918, all three Baltic States adopted democratic constitutions as a
economic free enterprise, and of considerable freedom of thought.
matter of course. With the victory of the Western Allies over the Kaiser's
In recent years too, at least in Lithuania and Estonia, reforms have
Germany, democratic ideals were predominant, strengthened by the
also proceeded at a fair rate despite frequent parliamentary chaos.
almost messianic hopes attached to the League of Nations and to the
However, the underlying cultural situation today is different from that in
philosophy of President Woodrow Wilson. By the mid-1930s, all three
the first period of independence. After decades of Communist rule, most
Baltic democracies had collapsed and been replaced by authoritarian
people instinctively expect the government to provide a lead, and do not
regimes, albeit of a mild kind. One of the problems of all three Baltic
constitutions was that they were too democratic for their own good.
This time, in the 34 months between the Lithuanian declaration of independence
Parliaments, elected by universal suffrage and full proportional
on 11 March 1990 and Christmas 1992, Lithuania has had five prime ministers.
64
65
The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
take kindly to being led in conflicting directions. Moreover, after 1918, the
Smetona was addressed as Leader of the Nation. The Tautininkai Party
former republics of Latvia and Estonia possessed at least small but
was reorganised on the 'Leader-Principle' and given extensive state
competent civil services, which took over the government after the coups;
powers, and its linked 'Veterans' Association' expanded to become a
No such cadres exist today, and their creation is one of the most urgent
state paramilitary volunteer force, on the model of those of Germany or
tasks of Western aid and training in the region.
Italy. All other party youth organisations were ultimately incorporated
The coups of Latvia and Estonia came as the result of long political
into the Tautininkai's 'Young Lithuania' organisation, with the official
and economic crises resulting in part from the world economic
motto of 'Lithuania for the Lithuanians'. Both 'Young Lithuania' and the
depression. They appear to have been grudgingly accepted by the great
Tautininkai have now been revived, with their pre-1940 ideology and
majority of the populations. The coup of 1926 in Lithuania, by contrast,
symbolism (which in the case of "Young Lithuania', initially included the
appears to have had far more to do with political opportunism and a gut
fascist salute).
dislike of democracy on the part of Right-wing and military forces in
Under Smetona, a leader of Young Lithuania declared that,
Lithuania. One factor was the way that Antanas Smetona and
Augustinas Voldemaras, the main leaders of Lithuania during its
Young Lithuania operates on an authoritarian basis. It knows only one
struggle for independence between 1918 and 1920, and their party, the
leader - the Nation's Leader, Antanas Smetona. Young Lithuania
Nationalists (Tautininkai) had been subsequently excluded from office by
steadfastly believes that the nation can only be united when the will of one
other political forces, rooted in Catholicism or socialism (this exclusion
leader prevails.
from power of the forces which see themselves as the true heroes of the
independence struggle could be a major problem in Lithuania today).
Harsh punishments were envisaged for crimes against the state,
The Nationalists, with limited public support (except among officers,
though the death penalty was rarely imposed. In the opinion of the
students and intellectuals), appear to have despaired of ever returning to
historian Georg von Rauch, 'as a result of these measures Lithuania had
power by democratic means. By 1926, Mussolini had seised power in
virtually become an authoritarian one-party state', to a much greater
Italy and Pilsudski in Poland: the hegemony of democratic ideology in
extent than in Latvia or Estonia during their period of authoritarian rule
European political thought was already compromised.
in the 1930s. All the elements of Smetona's regime professed a public
In 1926, a Populist-Social Democrat coalition took power, dependent
ideology of intolerant nationalism.
for support on the ethnic minorities, including the Poles. Concessions to
The Lithuanian emigré historian Leonas Sabaliunas quotes
the Poles in the field of education, at a time when Poland was closing
Nationalist ideologues of the period on the need for 'total pedagogies in a
Lithuanian schools in the Vilnius area, allowed the Right to allege
young nation-state, seeking a monolithic national body and a collective
treason. The government was blamed by the public for unpopular
soul', and such regimented aphorisms as 'a national-state, as a matter of
economic measures, and by the army for plans to cut costs by reducing
course, presupposes a national orientation in art' and 'the nation-state is
the officer corps. In December 1926, therefore, the army, supported by
essentially a totalitarian state'. 13 However Sabaliunas observes correctly
Catholic political forces, overthrew the elected government, imposing
that Smetona and his regime were far less radical and above all, less
Smetona as President and Voldemaras as Prime Minister. 12 Initially
brutal than these ideologues would have wished, and that 'there is reason
Smetona ruled in coalition with the Christian Democrats, but in 1927
to assume that Lithuanian politics was modified to a considerable extent
dissolved parliament and promulgated a new constitution providing for a
by fidelity to ethical norms'. The universities and even the courts
strong presidency. Two years later he dismissed Voldemaras, who had
retained a real measure of independence.
turned to fascism, supported by the overtly fascistic 'Iron Wolf
Although a strong nationalist, Smetona shunned racial ideology.
paramilitary organisation (today, once again in the process of revival)
Despite deep conflicts with the Catholic Church over its social and
which subsequently staged repeated coup attempts to bring Voldemaras
political role, and its relations with Poland, he remained a practising
to power. The last was in 1934, after which Voldemaras was arrested and
Catholic, unlike Hitler, Mussolini and other fascist leaders. In general,
imprisoned until 1938. This was one of a series of no fewer than thirteen
he did not have either the violence or the revolutionary streak of a true
attempted coups (or movements dubbed as such by the Lithuanian
fascist. There is about Smetona's regime the air of some Third World
government) by different forces in the first period of Lithuanian
countries in recent decades, those which have donned one or other
independence.
Western ideology and used it for their own ends without participating in
From 1930, Smetona's regime developed certain fascist characteristics.
it or putting it fully into practice; in Smetona's time, the dominant
66
67
The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
European ideology was fascism, and some surprising people in Western
fill this role - but in February 1993, it was his arch-rival, former
Europe were also prepared to admire some of its characteristics.
Communist leader Algirdas Brazauskas, who was actually to achieve it.
Although Smetona's regime sometimes used anti-semitic language,
this was not its official ideology, and there were no officially sponsored
pogroms. Smetona spoke on occasions of the religious tolerance of ancient
The Roots of Authoritarianism
Lithuania, and the contemporary Jewish-Lithuanian poet, Mark
Zingeris, has praised Smetona as a man of the enlightenment who had
In Estonia and Latvia, democracy outlived that of Lithuania by seven
many Jewish friends and did not share the crude chauvinism of many of
years, and collapsed only after these societies had suffered several years of
his supporters.
economic recession. In both cases, the coups were carried out by men
There is little doubt that Professor Landsbergis, the Lithuanian leader
who, like Smetona, had helped to found the new nations, and part of their
between 1990 and 1992, regards himself as in some ways the political heir
motivation was to head off a seizure of power by the extreme Right.*
of Smetona. He has referred to him admiringly in speeches, and adopted
Before 1934, Estonia did not even have a formal head of state, but only
some of his symbolism, though not the most extreme; Landsbergis also
prime minister, wholly dependent upon parliament. The average life of
uses more Catholic symbolism, and has a much closer alliance with the
an Estonian government in the 1920s was eight months, and with as
Church than did Smetona. Landsbergis certainly has authoritarian
many as fourteen parties represented in parliament, forming a
tendencies, but he cannot be described as a fascist. His unsuccessful drive
government could take weeks. However, the same parties and individuals
to become the 'Father of the Nation' is described in Chapter 8. It has led
were represented in many of the governments, so the picture was not
him into a tactical alliance with some very dubious Right-wing forces, as
much more unstable than that of France at that time. By the world slump
well as with the Catholic Church, and to demagogic and vicious verbal
of the early 1930s, economic fears, especially on the part of the middle
attacks on his opponents, including old allies. However, Landsbergis seca
classes, encouraged the growth of a fascistic movement, the League of
himself as a force for controlling and moderating the extreme Right; and
Veterans (or 'Freedom Fighters') of the War of Independence. The
a number of liberal and objective Lithuanian emigré scholars of my
founders of this organisation were in fact veterans, but it expanded to
acquaintance were also prepared for a long time to see him in that light,
become a general political movement with a uniformed paramilitary
Following the victory of the former Communists in the elections of
October 1992, it was widely believed that the extreme Right might be
wing. The League's ideology was strongly nationalist, anti-communist, anti-
tempted to carry out a coup, but that they would be restrained by
parliamentary, anti-semitic, and opposed to ethnic minorities in general.
Landsbergis, if only for the sake of his reputation in the West. This of
It was influenced by European fascism, and more immediately by the
course recalls Smetona, for whatever the disquieting sides of his regime,
Lapua movement in neighbouring Finland. In the municipal elections of
he at least averted a victory by Voldemaras, who it seems safe to say
January 1934 the League won absolute majorities in Estonia's three main
would have introduced fascism in the fullest sense. V. Stanley Vardys's
cities, and seemed on its way to the presidency. To head off the League's
description of Smetona as 'mild-mannered but clever and stubborn'
rise, and citing plots for a coup d'état (which has never been proved), the
strongly recalls the character of Landsbergis as well; but unfortunately
prime minister, Konstantin Pats, on 12 March 1934 proclaimed martial
with one difference. Smetona was a fairly able administrator with a long
law, banned the League, arrested 400 of its leading members, and
experience of practical affairs. Landsbergis, though a shrewd political
banished others from the civil service and army. The action was
tactician, is according to members of his own staff fundamentally
supported by the Socialists, who saw all too clearly what would happen if
uninterested in questions of administration, finance, and legislation, far
the League took power. Later that year, after parliament began to oppose
preferring the worlds of foreign visits, symbolism and rhetoric, and the
Päts' government, he suspended it and, in March 1935, banned all
Lithuanian culture he SO deeply loves. This is a common feature among
intellectual politicians who have risen to prominence in several former
Communist states, for under the Communists they were excluded from
Estonia had faced one serious coup attempt on I December 1924, but this was the
any administrative role. These are qualities which would make
work of a few hundred communists, supported by Moscow. Twenty-one people,
Landsbergis an excellent symbolic Head of State; unfortunately, the
including the Communications Minister, were killed during the attempt, and forty
or 50 executed afterwards by the Estonian authorities. There was no general rising
Smetona tradition dictates an executive presidency, which is also
of the working class, and thereafter the Communists in Estonia remained largely
possibly what Lithuania needs today. It was Landsbergis's ambition to
quiescent until 1939.
68
69
The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
political parties. The newly formed 'Fatherland League' was the only
Both Ulmanis and Päts carried out steps to introduce 'corporatist'
permitted political-force, though without most of the fascist trimmings of
economic bodies, following a trend present not just in Nazism, but in
the Tautininkai in Lithuania.
Christian Democracy and other political forces of the time (and which
No-one was executed under Päts' rule, though the Veterans' leader,
Indeed, in another guise, played a major part in German economic
Artur Sirk, may have been murdered by the President's secret service.
success after 1950). This did not, however, impede a very successful
After the uncovering of a further plot, other leading Veterans were given
economic recovery in the 1930s, which by the end of the republic had
heavy prison sentences, though almost all, together with the
raised the value of Latvian exports to more than five times the level of
Communists, were released under an amnesty in 1938. The press W21
1922.
strictly controlled, though there was no attempt to restrain intellectual
life: the period is known to Estonians as 'the Era of Silence'. Until the end
Compared to the first period of independence, democracy in the Baltic
of the republic in 1940, Päts refused to allow the restoration of political
States today has certain notable strengths but also certain weaknesses.
parties. In 1937 he called an assembly to rubber-stamp a presidential
Imperial Russia before 1917 provided more opportunities for
constitution, with parliament enjoying greatly reduced powers, and
constitutional politics than did the Soviet Union before Gorbachov, and
appointed local officials to play an important role. Päts' prime minister
the new national elites had much more experience of constitutionalism
termed this system 'guided democracy'. It is a matter of debate whether
and administration. Furthermore, democracy today is strong largely
by 1940 Päts was planning a return to the genuine article; in any case,
because it is equated with capitalist prosperity (as a placard in East
Stalin pre-empted matters.
Germany in 1990 had it, 'Helmut [Kohl], Lead Us Into The Land of the
Events in Latvia followed a similar course, though anti-democratie
Economic Miracle!"). In Russia; for obvious reasons, the 'Far Eastern
politics began sooner, under the influence of Germany and neighbouring
Model' of authoritarian capitalist development already enjoys great
Lithuania. Latvia had a variety of fascist groups, of which the most
prestige, and such thinking is bound to spread to the Baltic as well, albeit
notable was the 'Fire Cross', later renamed the "Thunder Cross'. As in
moderated by the history of Baltic emigration to North America, many
Germany, pagan revivalist thought played a part in the cultural
representatives of which now advise the present Baltic governments.
background to fascism (see Chapter 5). All these groups were bitterly
These add to the major strength of present Baltic democracy, which is the
hostile to Latvia's Russian, German and Jewish minorities, together
hegemony of democratic ideas in contemporary Europe, reinforced by'
making up almost a quarter of the population. The extreme Right also
European economic power and the lure of Western lifestyles and culture.
called for the prosciption of all Left-wing parties.
This is affected of course by the awareness that the creation of
Faced with what many saw as impending civil war, the premier, Kärlis
authoritarian regimes would probably, though not necessarily, cost the
Ulmanis (like Päts in Estonia, the chief founder of Latvian
Balts western aid and support. 1 have myself spent an inordinate amount
independence) declared a state of emergency on the night of 15 March
of time in the Baltic States arguing with members of the extreme Right-
1934, suspended parliament and banned party activities. He ruled by
wing parties about some of their ideas, and my knock-out blow (wrapped
decree until the end of the republic, but did not introduce a one-party
in less direct language) has always been: 'what you are saying is not
state, although the 'Aizsargi' (Home Guards) functioned in some ways
European; it will separate you from the modern West'.
like a nationalist paramilitary force (and have been revived as an
There are a good many radical nationalist ideologists in the
unoflicial radical nationalist force in the Latvia of today). Ulmanis did
contemporary Baltic who cordially despise the modern West, a contempt
not face great opposition to his rule, and was even able to recruit Social
increased by what they see as the West's 'cowardice' and 'treachery' in
Democrats into his government. Although Ulmanis' government was
failing to do more to save the Balts from Soviet conquest in the 1940s, and
virtually a 'dictatorship of consensus', it made life increasingly
to support them after 1989, while the Balts were sacrificing themselves to
uncomfortable for Latvia's minorities, and indeed adopted the Right-
save Europe from a new Soviet attack. In the words of Višvaldis
wing slogan of Latvia for the Latvians' hardly surprisingly since, in the
Brinkmanis, a leader of the Latvian Citizens Congress: 'Don't you think
1920s, even the 'liberal' Democratic Centre bloc had adopted this phrase.
that it is just as Oswald Spengler predicted? The Western nations have
In the 1920s Baltic Germans had played a role in several governments,
lost their pride and their morale and are mixing themselves with inferior
but in the 1930s they were completely excluded, and the educational
as
races
autonomy of the minorities was reduced. There was however no severe
At present this is very much a marginal view, compared with the
ethnic persecution in either Estonia or Latvia.
general desire for the Baltic States to forge closer connections with the
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The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
West. There remains however another possibility: that Europe itself
seats. The group was backed by a small armed volunteer force which
could swing towards the extreme Right. All the extreme nationalist
rejected the authority of the Estonian government in favour of a self-
parties in Latvia and Lithuania have taken great encouragement from
appointed 'government in exile' of which Toomepuu was the 'Defence
the rise of Jean Marie Le Pen and the Front Nationale in France."
Minister'. These elements are also of course bitterly hostile to the
However, except to an extent in Lithuania, the mainstream Right-wing
Russian minority, much of which they hope to pressure into leaving.
forces in the Baltic appear at present to be committed to democracy, The
In Lithuania, a referendum accompanying the October 1992 elections
leaders of the 'Fatherland' (Isamaa) alliance in Estonia are both entirely
ratified the acceptance of the draft parliamentary constitution drawn up
sincere and very knowledgeable in their attempts to introduce Western
by parliament. In Latvia, with the future constitution still wholly
conservative democratic ideas into Estonian politics. Even the far Right,
unsettled by the end of 1992, much larger forces continued to reject the
the 'Estonian Citizen' group or the Citizens Committees in Latvia, have
authority of the Supreme Council, especially when it came to deciding
declared themselves for democracy in principle, even if some of their
constitutional matters and those of 'national importance' such as the
behaviour appears to belie this.
issue of citizenship to the Russian 'immigrant' population. The paper of
A further factor today is that this time, the Balts did not have to fight
the Latvian Congress, Pilsonis, even on one occasion called for armed
wars of independence. It follows that the various national paramilitary
revolt against the "crypto-communist regime', and for this was banned by
forces, and the new national armies, lack the prestige which comes from
a
Latvian court.
being seen as the 'saviours of the nation'. The importance of this is
In early 1993 the influence of such rejectionist forces was still limited.
evident both in the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1920s,
The risk for democracy is that the mainstream political forces might find
and in developments in the Soviet Caucasus today. Some of today's
themselves forced to make a compromise with the Russian minorities
paramilitary groups would like to portray themselves in this light, but the
which would be rejected not only by the radical nationalists but by many
reality is that it was crowds of ordinary, unarmed Baltic civilians who
ordinary Balts as well. If this came in the context of potential or actual
saved their countries in January 1991 by placing their bodies in the path
conflict between Balts and local Russians, then the extremist groups
of the Soviet tanks.
could grow rapidly. The prestige of these groups is strengthened by the
fact that they are largely led by men and women who resisted Soviet rule,
Although in the Baltic states of today there are far fewer people than in
and in some cases paid the price with years of imprisonment. Some of
the 1920's who reject parliamentary democracy per se, there are
their friends paid with their lives. Even those who find some of their ideas
considerable forces which deny the legitimacy of the existing
disastrous cannot but respect their personal honour, courage and
constitutions. This stems from the rejection, during the struggle for
patriotism. So far, this has not been reflected in strong political support
independence, of the legitimacy of the Supreme Councils by former
(see Chapter 4), but it remains a reservoir of historical prestige which
dissidents and more radical nationalist forces in general. This was partly
may be drawn on if the mainstream forces discredit themselves.
on legalistic grounds, but chiefly because they were elected by all Soviet
By contrast, among the mainstream national leaders, even
citizens in the republics, including all those Russian-speakers who moved
Landsbergis has no record of anti-Soviet resistance, while several of the
there under Soviet rule. The radical forces rallied behind the Estonian
leading figures in Latvia and Estonia were communist officials. In the
and Latvian 'Congresses', organised by these forces and elected by
1920s, the extreme Right regularly raised the cry of 'national treachery'
pre-1940 citizens and their descendants only.
and of 'communist plots', but this cry is far stronger and more effective
In Estonia, the problem of constitutional legitimacy appeared to be
today. And since for better or worse - former Communist leaders like
resolved by the constitutional assembly of 1991-92, which bridged the
Anatolijs Gorbunovs and Arnold Rüütel remain very popular with large
Congress and the Supreme Council, and adopted a constitution
sections of the population in their republics (not just local Russians, but
acceptable to both. This in turn was ratified by a referendum on 28 June.
Balts as well), the Far Right's denial of their legitimacy extends into a
Only a small and seemingly insignificant group continued to reject the
denial of the will of the electorate and anti-democratic feeling in general.
new order in favour of a return to the 'legitimate' (but authoritarian)
To the extreme Right, any senior former Communist is automatically an
constitution of 1938.
agent of Moscow (in Lithuania, anyone who opposes the Right is labelled
Unfortunately, in the elections of September 1992, the 'Estonian
in this way). Since the great majority of the civil services and
Citizen' group, representing this opinion, and led by a retired US colonel
establishments of the three states are still made up of former
of Estonian origin, Juri Toomepuu, won 8 per cent of the parliamentary
Communists, this leads some radicals to a feeling that they have an
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The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Last, 1918-40
absolute national duty to watch and control their own governments. In
In Estonia in January 1992, the government of Dr Edgar Savisaar won
the words of one of the leaders of the Sauliai, a Lithuanian nationalist
a parliamentary vote giving it emergency economic powers, but only with
paramilitary force, asked if his force would allow a Left-wing government
the support of Russian deputies, with a majority of Estonian deputies
to take power: "Of course, if they were properly elected they would be
against the move. As the realisation dawned, public outrage was such
allowed to take power. But we would watch them very carefully; and if
that Dr Savisaar's own Estonian supporters abandoned him and he was
nation. saw that they were betraying Lithuania, we would have to act to save the
forced to resign.
On the other hand, one reason why in Latvia between the wars the
This attitude led to fears fortunately unfulfilled - that a victory of the
extreme Right could not be brought into government was because its
former Communists in the 1992 elections would be undermined or even
reversed by the paramilitaries, forces strengthened by an element in the
policies towards the minorities, if implemented, would have caused
dissident tradition which the paramilitary shares with that of the
extremely grave problems with Germany. Today the National Indepen-
dence Movement and Latvian Congress are calling openly for measures
Freikorps. Both have involved small bodies of activists sacrificing
themselves on behalf of populations which were basically passive, and
against the local Russian population which, if put into effect, could very
which could well be seen as cowardly or lazy. Like the Leninist tradition
well provoke revolt and Russian military intervention. But if minorities
of a small party of activists acting on behalf of the revolutionary masses,
cannot be brought into government because it would outrage the
this does not encourage respect for the will of the electorate.
nationalists, and the extreme Right cannot be brought in because it
All adult Balts studied Leninism at school, and their model for the role
would drive the minorities to revolt, how long can parliamentary
of the activist party is in many ways a Leninist one. Asked about Latvian
governments survive? It may therefore, at some stage, be replaced by a
public support for Gorbunovs, National Independence Party activists in
form of presidential government. The risk is that, as in 1934, this
Latvia replied with contempt that this was made up of 'the uneducated,
transition would only be possible through a period of authoritarian or at
stupid women, ex-Communists and Communist dupes'. After Sajúdis's
least Gaullist-style rule. This might, as before, take the form of a 'coup
defeat in 1992, one of its workers snarled that 'the illiterate peasants have
from the centre', to prevent the extreme Right, if elected, from taking
been duped by the Communists', and a leader of the radical Liberty
League told me that, "This shows that many Lithuanians want to be
power. Such an 'authoritarian transition' would risk severe problems both
slaves. We must teach them to change this mentality' - classically
with the Russian minorities and with Russia. The former are far more
Leninist words, which help explain why such groups are not very good at
numerous than they were before 1940. Moreover, Stalin's Russia was not
winning the votes of the 'illiterate peasants' in question."
particularly interested in the internal politics of the Baltic states; due to
Another potential problem emerges from the experience of Eastern
ferocious Soviet restrictions on contacts with the outside world, economic
Europe between the wars. ^ key weakness of parliamentary government
links between the Soviet Union and the Balts were very limited, and
in many states was that it had to be built on coalitions, and the number of
social contacts non-existent. In the 1930s, in any case, the Russian
"coalitionable" democratic parties in the centre (parties willing to make
minorities were largely led by White Russian emigrés, hardly likely to
coalitions with each other and to support the existing state) was always
appeal to Stalin for protection against the Balts.
liable to erosion from Left and Right, until in the end the band of centrist
The differences today hardly need to be emphasised. They are,
parties was so narrow that it became impossible to govern at all.
however, missed by many Balts, especially returning emigrants. With
Moreover, the necessity of repeatedly constructing governments from the
their eyes firmly fixed on the picture of the independent Baltic states they
same parties was a tremendous spur to political irresponsibility, since
learned from their emigré history books, and without personal experience
none of them could be dispensed with, however disruptive its behaviour.
of dealing with Russians, they instinctively think in terms of a return to
In independent Latvia and Lithuania, the problem was made worse by
the insulated situation of the first republics.
the general mood of nationalism which made it impossible to bring the
parties representing the minorities into government. In 1926, the
Lithuanian government's reliance on the Polish deputies helped provoke
Orphans of Versailles: Baltic Diplomacy, 1918-40
the military coup. In contemporary Latvia and Estonia, unless local
Russians are to be permanently excluded from citizenship, or even
Between 1918 and 1921 the Balts liberated themselves. Western protection
expelled, parliaments will presumably contain a growing number of their
was, however, vital in forcing the German government to withdraw its
representatives.
troops from Latvia, and in stressing to the Soviet government that a
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The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
renewed offensive against the Balts after 1920 would destroy any
Explomatic relations and Lithuania resisted any pact that might seem to
possibility of a diplomatic opening to the West. (The contrast with the
legitimise Poland's rule over Vilnius, or to bring Lithuania under Polish
Caucasus, where the West made clear its lack of interest, was stark).
Begemony. Sweden, the only other significant military power in the
Baltic independence was consolidated under an implicit British and
region, understandably shunned by military involvement on the Eastern
French umbrella. When it was destroyed, the Russian and Germans once
shores of the Baltic, and Jaan Tönisson's dream of a great Northern
again divided the Baltic between them.
Union remained stillborn.
In July 1921, following the withdrawal of its Baltic squadron, the
Baltic co-operation, however, also suffered from an underlying lack of
British government informed the Baltic States that it could not promise
interest and liking between the three Baltic States themselves. The
them militarily assistance in the event of a Soviet attack. Between thes
Estonians regarded the Lithuanians as hopelessly unreliable, and after a
and 1933, militarily speaking, the Balts were at the mercy of Sovies
single experiment, Estonians and Latvians also ceased to hold joint
invasion, and indeed the concensus in British diplomacy for much of the
military exercises or to co-ordinate their military strategy. 19 Between 1919
1920s was that they would in fact return to Russian control. Many Balts
(when they co-operated closely over the Versailles Peace Conference)
continued to believe that in a crisis, the British would save them, but
and 1934 the Balts did not even try seriously to co-ordinate their
British interest in the region was in fact primarily commercial.
approaches to the League of Nations. The Baltic Entente of 1934, created
At this stage, however, Stalin's Russia was withdrawing from the cause
by the three states in response to the rise of Nazi Germany, provided for
of world revolution in favour of 'socialism in one country'. Moreover, a
regular diplomatic consultation. However, it contained no military
disarmed Germany diminished the strategic importance of the Baltie
clauses, and co-operation remained only on paper.
States for Moscow. And finally, it must have been clear to the Sovier
Today the situation seems, on the surface, much better. The three
government that while an invasion of the Baltic region might not lead to
national movements co-operated in their struggle with Moscow, and
war with Britain and France, it could well lead to conflict with Poland,
Baltic deputies tried to work together in the Soviet parliament although,
especially after the Warsaw Accord of 1922 between Poland, Finland,
according to the leading Latvian deputy (and later deputy prime
Estonia and Latvia. It would also have completely disrupted the Sovier
minister), Ilmãrs Bisers, 'we, the Baltic republics, which seemingly
Union's international policies, made future co-operation with the
advanced the same proposals, each went on its own road, and that hurt
Western powers extremely difficult, and raised a host of unforeseen
us".20
dangers.
The Baltic Council, set up on 12 May 1990, revived the tradition of the
This last point is also the essential international factor protecting the
Baltic Entente of 1934, and led to regular meetings between Baltic leaders
Baltic States in the 1990s. It is in the highest degree unlikely that if Russia
and parliamentarians. The 'Baltic Common Market' initiated in April
were to invade, NATO troops would come to their aid; but Moscow
1990, aimed to co-ordinate economic policy and guarantee free trade
could certainly face international isolation, probably a United Nations
between the three states. In fact, it does nothing of the kind. The Balts
blockade, and a complete cut-off of Western economic co-operation and
basically produce the same kind of goods, and none have the raw
assistance. Given Russia's economic weakness, a Russian leader would
materials they so desperately need. The opportunities for worthwhile
need to be crazy indeed to bring such consequences on his country. The
trade between them are therefore limited. After a particularly fruitless
only possible pretext might be a conflict between the Baltic States and
meeting of Baltic prime ministers on 11 September 1992 Latvian Prime
their own Russian minorities, and even then, after having seen what an
Minister Ivars Godmanis criticised 'a lack of co-operation' and 'a certain
indigestible morsel the Balts can be, it is difficult to see anything but a
rivalry' on 'the Soviet-imposed parallel economic development' of the
fascist government in Moscow wishing to annex them outright. The Balts
three states. In September 1992, Estonian Prime Minister Tiit Vähi said
today would probably co-operate more closely in the face of a Russian
simply, 'there is no Baltic co-operation. We have to start from scratch'. 21
threat than they did in the 1920s and 1930s. Their failure then has been
Economic desperation, in the context of the collapsing Soviet economy,
made a standing reproach by historians, although it is not clear that in
also leads each state to look out for itself. Thus in autumn 1991 the
1939 anything they could have done, singly or collectively, could have
Lithuanians reacted immediately to Russian cuts in oil shipments to their
saved them. As it was, collective action was almost wholly lacking, one
refinery at Mažeikiai by passing on the bulk of the reduction to
reason being the dispute between Poland and Lithuania over Vilnius.
consumers in Latvia, rather than attempting any equitable distribution.
Any meaningful Baltic or East European military bloc had to include
In summer 1992, the Estonians demanded world market prices for
Poland. Until 1938, however, Poland and Lithuania did not have
electricity supplies to Latvia, and relented only when (as should have
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The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Last, 1918-40
been obvious from their own experience) the Latvians proved unable to
German officers and the German warship Hipper. To the very end of the
pay. In the beggar-my-neighbour game of post-Soviet economics, the
Estonian republic in July 1940, Konstantin Päts apparently continued to
Balts have been only slightly less ruthless to each other than they have
expect the speedy outbreak of a German-Russian war which would
been to Russia, or Russia to them. There has been no real co-ordination
deliver the Balts from Soviet hands. He was wrong by only a few months,
of price reforms or moves towards the introduction of independent
but those months were crucial. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed on
currencies, with the result that each state tends to be undermined by the
23 August 1939, contained the infamous "secret protocol', detailing the
other two, as well as by Russia. Lithuania has suggested a much closer
division of Poland and the Baltic States. Latvia and Estonia were initially
common market, but its own policies have been as self-regarding as those
to go to the Soviet Union, and Lithuania to Germany, but on 28
of Latvia and Estonia who, for their part, fear that in any really close
September, following the fall of Poland, a second secret protocol allocated
alliance, the Lithuanians would always insist on taking the lead. The
Lithuania to the Soviet Union in return for German concessions in
Estonians for their part are opposed to any closer union because of the
Poland and the equivalent of $7.5 million in gold.
conviction that, with their links to Scandinavia, they are better off alone.
Moscow acted swiftly. On 23 September Estonia was confronted with
Lithuania's reckless (in the Estonian view) policies during the
an ultimatum demanding it military alliance and acquiescence in the
independence struggle have increased the traditional Estonian distrust of
establishment of Soviet military bases in the republic. The Estonian
Lithuania, and leading Lithuanians have not improved matters by
government consulted the Latvians about the possibility of joint military
publicly accusing Estonia of cowardice because of its more cautious
resistance, but received no encouragement and capitulated on 2 October,
approach. On numerous occasions during the independence struggle the
Latvia was forced to agree to the same terms.* In Lithuania, Moscow
governments did not even inform each other what they were doing, even
used a mixture of pressure and bribery. In return for an alliance and
on crucial questions. 22
military bases, it ceded the Vilnius region, seized from Poland under the
A particularly striking piece of opportunism, recalling the failure to CO+
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This was the basis of later threats from
ordinate security policy in the 1920s and 1930s, was Lithuania's move in
Gorbachov, and from Communist hardliners in neighbouring
September 1992 to seek a separate agreement with Russia on military
Byelorussia, to 'take back' Vilnius (and Memel-Klaipeda, ceded to
withdrawal, thereby undermining the united Baltic front. The Latvian
Germany in March 1939) if Lithuania left the Soviet Union. This was a
and Estonian governments put on a brave face, but the action was
source of some embarrassment in relation to Lithuania's negotiations
severely criticised in the press and by emigré groups (indeed, including
with Moscow and the creation of a joint Baltic negotiating position since,
Lithuanians) in North America. Another move recalling the 1930s was
unlike Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania could not very well ask for a return
the Latvian-Polish signature to a military co-operation agreement of 17
to the status quo ante Molotov-Ribbentrop. It has also of course been a
September 1992 which worried the more paranoid elements of the
source of lasting anger in Poland, although it was hardly more immoral
Lithuanian Right.
than Poland's own non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1934 or
participation, in November 1938, in Hitler's carve-up of Czechoslovakia.
With the rise of Nazi Germany after 1933, Baltic diplomacy became an
The fact that most of the states in this region have always behaved with
increasingly desperate balancing act. The three states signed non-
sublime egotism adds a certain piquancy to their eternal demands that
aggression pacts with the Soviet Union, but evaded proposals for
the West should sacrifice its own interests, and those of Europe as a
guarantees of closer protection, fearing this would lead to the stationing
whole, for the sake of 'justice' and 'morality'.
of troops and to the events which did indeed occur in 1939-40. Following
For several months the situation appeared to stabilise. In December
the restoration of German sea and air power, Britain could no longer
Moscow issued a similar ultimatum to the Finns, provoking the bitterly
intervene militarily in the Baltic even had it wished to. Moscow, for its
fought three-month 'winter war' in which the Finns resisted with
part, showed increasing sign of strategic interest in the region, issuing
brilliance and heroism before being forced to yield on terms. From bases
stern warnings to the Balts not to draw closer to Germany. The signals
were disregarded by the Estonian and Latvian governments, which
thought to continue balancing between Germany and the Soviet Union,
Today, Russian negotiators seeking to perpetuate or at least regularise the presence
and did not foresee a pact between them. On 7 June 1939 Estonia and
of Russian troops in the Baltic occasionally claim that since the independent Baltic
Latvia agreed to non-aggression pacts with Germany, and in the
governments have been restored. the 1939 'mutual assistance treaties' must still be
in force, since they were never abrogated an argument rejected with scorn by
succeeding months, most unwisely, received visits from high-ranking
most Balts
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The Baltic Revolution
Independence Won and Lost, 1918-40
in Estonia, Soviet bombers took part in the campaign. Then, with
questionable political uses. In terms of more general attitudes, it has led
Hitler's victory over France in May-June 1940, the last possible Western
to a strong feeling that even a seemingly hopeless resistance may be the
obstacle to Soviet conquest disappeared, while the need to strengthen the
most rational, as well as the most honourable course. In the words of the
Soviet Union's defences against Germany grew even stronger. In mid-
Latvian poet Augusts Sangs, in an anguished analysis of why he himself
June, Moscow issued ultimatums to all three Baltic States requiring full
did not revolt against Stalinist rule:
military occupation and the reconstruction of the Baltic governments
And albeit that it would have been
under Soviet supervision. All three gave in. President Smetona urged
resistance, but his government refused. He fled Lithuania, dying in a fire
a completely hopeless enterprise
in America four years later.
for senselessness perhaps is sometimes
After the governments of Latvia and Estonia had been taken over, at
the only thing that makes sense.
Moscow's instruction and backed by Soviet troops, by local Communists,
elections with a single list of permitted candidates produced parliaments
which on 21 and 22 July requested 'admission' to the Soviet Union. Päts,
Ulmanis, Voldemaras and a number of other leading figures were
arrested and deported to the interior of the Soviet Union, where most of
them died.
Should the Balts have resisted? At the time the argument against it
looked conclusive. In September 1939, military resistance was already
hopeless, and the three states could still hope, by agreeing to the bases, to
preserve the remainder of their sovereignty. By June 1940, with tens of
thousands of Soviet troops within the Soviet borders, the military
situation became even more desperate. The analogy with Finland's long
resistance is false, since Finland was helped by the winter as well as the
terrain. The argument for resistance, often still heard in the Baltic States,
is twofold. In the first place, whatever death, destruction and suffering
resulted, it could not easily have exceeded what actually happened to the
Baltic States between 1940 and 1954. It is possible that if the Balts had
resisted in 1940, especially if they had been united, they might have
persuaded Stalin against outright annexation and become Communist
satellites, like the later ones of Eastern Europe. The Balts would then
have escaped the worst features of Stalinist rule and, most importantly,
been spared 'Russification' and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of
Russian immigrants.
In Lithuania during the sixteen months following the declaration of
independence on 11 March 1990, I often heard people say, 'this time, we
must not repeat 1940; we must not give in without a fight', when refusing
to bow to Moscow's pressure and seek a compromise with Gorbachov.
Humiliation in 1940 contrasted sharply with the rhetoric of national
defence and last-ditch resistance used by all three Baltic regimes in the
1930s.
In the course of 1992, Landsbergis tried to use the threat of a 'return to
1940' as a pretext for the creation of a presidential constitution and the
exclusion of the former Communist Party and its allies from Lithuanian
politics as potential "Quislings". The memory of 1940 can thus have very
80
81
The Troglodyte International
4
Most terrible was that fear was the central element. Even when it was
subdued, it was all-pervading. When I was growing up, it wasn't like
The Troglodyte International:
Stalin's time no-one was seized at night, and there were no mass arrests;
but this had happened to both my father's and my mother's family, and of
The Soviet Impact on the Baltic
course the memory coloured everything my grandfather was arrested
one night in 1941 and simply disappeared completely. Nothing was heard
from him or about him again, so my grandmother went on hoping that he
might turn up. Finally, when she was dying in the 1970s, she said one day,
'Great advances have been made in teaching cats how to sing, although
'Now at last I think my Auguste is not coming back'.
mainly in the quantitative sense; nevertheless not to be left
My mother always warned us to be careful, that they [the Soviet secret
unacknowledged is the unselfish work
police] were as powerful and ruthless as ever; and we didn't believe her;
of these heroic roof-ploughmen during the night-hours.'
but later we found that they really could hurt you, though in a more
Jánis Rokpelnis (a Soviet-Latvian poet)
sophisticated way
Annual Report on the Nation's Economy
Our generation is permanently depressed, disillusioned with everybody
and everything, because under Soviet rule, the only way to improve your
life was by compromising yourself completely. Soviet life was like a saw
which cut everything down to one level, or a tailor who forced everyone to
wear a grey overcoat. If you compromised yourself, you were allowed to
wear coloured clothes in private, under the overcoat. It was like being in
It is difficult to exaggerate the amount of damage done to the Baltic
prison - either people found underhand ways of evading the system, or
States by Soviet rule. Hundreds of thousands of Balts preserve the
they developed hobbies which were really just substitutes for real life
memory of Stalinist savagery in the 1940s, which left few families
outside the walls.²
untouched. Population losses in the Baltic States as a result of execution,
killings in the war, deaths in Siberia and flight to the West, were
Apart from repression, the dreadful effects of Soviet rule on the Baltic
enormous.¹ The Estonian population declined by some 25 per cent
economies, Baltic culture and customs confronts anyone who enters a
between 1939 and 1945. Given the low Estonian birth-rate, it means that
shop or an office, or picks up a telephone in the Baltic States. It strikes
the number of ethnic Estonians alive today is barely higher than it was in
Balts especially cruelly when they travel abroad and contrast the living
1939.
standards they had in 1939 with the ones they possess today.
An Estonian friend, Eva Tarm, summed up her Soviet experience, and
By the 1980s, the failure of the Soviet economy and the backwardness
that of most Estonians, in a memorable interview:
of Soviet life compared to that of the West was apparent to everyone. A
particularly stark example was that of average life expectancy in Estonia
I was born in 1958, and for most of my life I saw my country being
which, in 1939, was roughly the same as that of Finland. Today it is
degraded before my eyes by Soviet rule. My grandmother showed me
several years shorter. A consciousness of the damage done to Baltic
mementos of the period of independence, and told me how good life had
culture by Soviet rule, particularly among those intellectuals who came
been. Meanwhile outside I saw Russians, who had been brought here to
from educated families, has contributed to a desire to restore the forms of
kill Estonians, being given the flats of their victims, and Estonians living
the pre-1940 republics as far as possible. The need to defend the Baltic
in poverty. The country was changing as we looked, and there was
cultures and traditions against Soviet influence prevented Baltic
nothing we could do to stop it. We no longer even félt that it was our
intellectuals, both within and outside the states themselves, from
country. Our district was increasingly inhabited by Russian immigrants.
engaging critically with those traditions, as this would have seemed to
Russian was spoken in the trams and shops; the shop windows were
give help to the enemy. The consequence was a conformism and
decorated in a Russian style which was alien to us and which I utterly
unreflecting nationalism which characterises so much of Baltic
detested. In the shops, if I spoke in my native language, the shop
intellectual life today.³
assistants yelled at me, and if I sent my son to shop he came back empty-
Much has been written about former Communist leaders, such as
handed because he spoke no Russian.
Leonid Kravchuk in the Ukraine and Vladimir Meciar in Slovakia, who
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now adopt nationalism in order to remain in power. Arnold Rüütel in
regime and survived. Kreve-Mickevičius resigned after failing to
Estonia is a further example. These have been contrasted, at least
persuade Stalin to grant Lithuania a status similar to that of Mongolia, a
implicitly, with the 'real nationalists' who are seen as "anti-soviet" but are
Communist satellite of the Soviet Union with at least the trappings of
in fact often all 100 Soviet in their attitudes and political behaviour. How
independence. This was the hope too of Justas Paleckis, Acting President
could they not be, after five decades of Communist rule?
of Lithuania and Left-wing but non-Communist intellectual. Paleckis's
With isolation came tyranny, the loss of large and irreplaceable
son described his father's initial hope of replacing Smetona with a
sections of the national élites and, above all, impoverishment. With the
government led by the socialist-populist President Grinius, overthrown
return, under Gorbachov, of press and intellectual freedom, the truth
by Smetona's coup in 1926. Eduards Berklavs, a Communist activist in
about the annexation of the Baltic States and Stalin's atrocities emerged.
the 1930s, told me that in 1940 he and his comrades wanted to create a
Thereafter the chances of the Soviet Union legitimising and stabilising its
Communist state in Latvia, but 'even we didn't think of joining the Soviet
rule in the region - at least to the degree achieved by Russia before 1914
Union'."
vanished. Indeed the survival of Soviet rule in the Baltic after 1987 was
Justas Paleckis junior evoked for me the hatred of Smetona which
always an impossibility and with the Balts demanding independence,
existed in Lithuania during the 1930s but which seems inexplicable today
could the rest of the Union have been far behind? Given the Soviet legacy
when this authoritarian but generally civilised figure is contrasted with
of the 1940s, Gorbachov was trying to save the unsaveable.
Hitler and Stalin. He pointed out that while on the Left people such as
his father and Kreve-Mickevičius were intriguing with Moscow against
Smetona's regime, on the Right the supporters of Voldemaras were
Conquest and 'Revolution'
intriguing with Berlin to the same end. He warned that this kind of
unpatriotic irresponsibility could recur today if political conflict within
Impoverishment came with the very first months of Soviet rule in 1940.
Lithuania intensified and a dictatorship were established. Another
The sessions of the 'People's Assemblies' (chosen in elections which were
Lithuanian observer has, however, noticed that in the 1930s, Lithuanians
a farce even by Stalinist standards) which 'requested' annexation to the
took their independence for granted, and felt safe carrying out these
Soviet Union in July 1940 also passed measures nationalising industry
foolish manocuvres, whereas today everyone is alive to the dangers. The
and the banks. Many managers were sacked and replaced by local
record of Lithuanian politicians in January 1991, however, does not
Communists, officials brought in from Russia, or even ordinary workers.
suggest any great improvement.
The result was a steep fall in productivity. By the time of the German
Real power in 1940-41 was in any case exercised by leaders of the local
invasion of June 1941, 90 per cent of shops had also been expropriated.
Communist parties, Stalin's satraps from Moscow close behind them.
There was neither the time nor the structures to establish full control
The existing Communist parties were tiny (fewer than seven hundred
over local culture. Similarly, full collectivisation of agriculture did not
identified members in Estonia) but they were rapidly expanded by local
follow annexation. However, all farms over 30 hectares (75 acres) were
recruits, and above all by the transfer of cadres from Russia. These were
confiscated and distributed to smaller farmers. This led to a sharp
mainly Russians, but in the case of Estonia and Latvia included large
reduction in production. Early in 1941 high requisition quotas were set,
numbers of Latvians and Estonians, the children of Communist parents
partly to compensate for this fall, and partly to put pressure on farmers to
exiled from the Baltic after 1920. or simply of those who had moved to
join the collectives. The new rulers announced salary increases for poorer
Russia under Tsarist rule. In many cases they barely spoke the local
workers, but these were soon negated by price rises, and by demands for
languages. Those in Estonia were satirised as "Jeestlased" (instead of
longer hours and harder work, backed by ferocious sanctions. When, in
Eestlased) for their Russian mispronunciation of the letter 'e'.
late 1940, the independent currencies were abolished and replaced by the
Those political and military leaders of the independent states who did
rouble. the exchange rate was confiscatory and had the effect of
not succeed in fleeing during June or July 1940 were, in the main,
destroying Baltic savings.
deported soon after the annexation, along with several thousand others.
In forming the new Baltic governments, Stalin and his henchmen
President Kärlis Ulmanis of Latvia died in prison in Russia two years
adopted a tactic, later to become familiar, of creating 'left fronts' led by
later. President Konstantin Päts of Estonia lived on until 1956, finally
leading non-Communist Left-wingers. Some were later dispensed with,
dying in an NKVD 'psychiatric clinic'. Their fates remained unknown to
others forced to become Communist. A few, like the Lithuanian Prime
their fellow countrymen until the Gorbachov era. An NKVD photograph
Minister and left-wing writer, Vincas Kreve-Mickevicius, broke with the
of Päts, taken in prison, shows a grim, emaciated, defeated face. This was
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the end of a man who, whatever the controversy had claims to be
units which subsequently fought bravely in the Russian front line but also
regarded as the father of modern Estonia. In 1990 his bones were
carried out numerous atrocities against Jews, Russians, Poles and
identified and returned to Tallinn for burial. It was one of the most
Byelorussians. In Lithuania the attempt to create Lithuanian military
moving events in recent Baltic history - all the more SO for the modest
units failed initially in the face of local resistance, but in all three states,
atmosphere of the funeral and the check which as ever the Estonians kept
thousands were recruited into police battalions. An old Lithuanian priest
over their emotions. Looking at the photograph of Päts, it was easy to
from the Polish area of Nemencine described an episode in the brutal,
understand the determination of Balts to wipe out every trace of Soviet
rule in their countries.
many-sided partisan war of 1943; in which Lithuanian forces in the
German service fought Polish guerillas:
By the end of 1940, arrests and deportations ran at some 200 to 300 per
month. The great wave of deportations however came only on 13-14
A Lithuanian woman came to the priest and told him that [Polish] Home
June, barely a week before the German invasion, when tens of thousands
Army men had taken her cow and pig, and the priest wrote down their
were herded into cattle trucks. A considerable number returned from
names
the Home Army arrested him after Easter, took him to a nearby
Siberia after Stalin's death, but many were shot by the NKVD, either
village and shot him. Simple Polish people hated the Bolsheviks, like
immediately after their arrest, or as the secret police "cleared their stocks'
all of us, and were afraid, like all of us
Life was complicated. The
before retreating in the face of the advancing Germans. The discovery of
Home Army fought the Germans, the Lithuanians and the Soviet
their bodies, often bearing marks of torture, was well publicised by the
partisans simultaneously They burned the houses of German
Germans, and contributed to the level of mass support for them during
informers and killed their families. Later, in the same villages, Lithuanian
the first months of their occupation, and to atrocities against the Jews,
partisans did the same to Soviet informers."
accused of backing Soviet rule.
In 1944, with the Soviet threat, the Estonian national leadership called
for mass mobilisation to defend Estonia. Some 38,000 answered the call,
The German Occupation
and were joined in the summer by several thousand Estonians who had
crossed the Gulf of Finland to join the Finnish army and now returned.
In all three republics, German invasion was accompanied by Baltic
Between January and June 1944, Estonian units played a major part in
revolt. The Lithuanian partisans launched heavy attacks in battles
holding the line of the Narva River against the advancing Red Army.* As
against the retreating Soviet forces which cost thousands of lives. A
the German forces retreated in the summer of 1944, the Balts attempted
smaller revolt also took place in Latvia, while in Estonia fighting went on
to restore their national governments. By then the Red Army was
for more than two months, until the capture of Tallinn by the Germans
pouring into the Baltic States, and these provisional governments lasted
on 28 August. The town of Tartu was held for a week by Estonian rebels."
for only a few days. The Germans held out in the 'Courland Pocket'
Provisional governments were set up in all three states, but were soon
(western Latvia) to the very end of the war, but resisted until the last the
closed by the Germans; (Landsbergis's father was a minister in the
establishment of a Latvian national government.
Lithuanian provisional government of 1941). Until German defeat
became imminent, in 1944, the Germans played a cat-and-mouse game
Resistance: The 'Forest Brothers'
with the Baltic political leaders, seeking to win their co-operation in the
recruiting of soldiers and labourers without sharing real power or making
Mr Visvaldis Brinkmanis, now a leader of the radical nationalist Citizens
promises on the status of the republics after the war. The real postwar
plans of the Nazis were not of course revealed to the Balts. These
Congress, was a Latvian soldier in the Courland Pocket. As the German
involved, over a period of several decades, the expansion of the Baltic
surrender approached, he, like many others, left his unit and set out
States eastward into Russia, the bulk of the Baltic populations being
towards the coast, intending to try and find a boat to take him to Sweden
deported into the new areas and replaced by German settlers. To these
to join the tens of thousands of Balts who had already fled. On his way he
were to be added 'suitably Aryan' elements from among the Balts, and
especially the Estonians, while the rest were to be subjected to intense
A distinction must be drawn between these late recruits and the men of the SS
Germanisation.
Legions and Police Battalions, although in many cases these 100 joined to defend
In Latvia and Estonia the Germans formed SS Legions and police
their countries from the Soviet army, or were simply conscripted from among
Soviet units which surrendered.
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passed a German airfield. Soldiers there said they had been listening to
Rimvydas Šilbajoris, a Lithuanian literary scholar in exile, writes of
the radio, that war was about to break out between the Soviet Union and
the partisan war that 'Lithuanians remember it [the war] in every
the Western allies, and that British torpedo boats were already on their
agonising detail, and can no more stop talking and writing about it than
way to Courland.
can the Russians stop talking about their great struggle against the Nazis.
Believing this, Brinkmanis decided not to risk crossing the Baltic, but
In Lithuanian prose, the guerrilla war is often understood and depicted
to stay in Latvia and await its deliverance. Soon afterwards he was
as a conflict between 'the city' and 'the forest'
the partisans were
arrested by Soviet troops. Though he himself was released after a few
fighting to defend the traditional way of life'.
months, his father, a Latvian intellectual, committed suicide several
In Latvia and Estonia, the partisans were no less brave, but a good
years later when threatened with arrest and deportation.
deal less organised. In all three republics, after the initial battles, the
The hope of Western deliverance came through desperation, but also
strategy of the partisans was to avoid engagement with the Soviet army.
through the memory of what had actually happened in 1919. Its absence
This tactic seems to have been matched by an unwillingness on the Soviet
is one reason for an enduring suspicion of the West held by some Balts.
side to use the Red Army in anti-partisan operations, possibly for fear
The hope, and hence the bitterness, was nurtured throughout the eight
that the mainly peasant troops might find themselves in sympathy with
years of partisan warfare against Soviet rule which followed the Soviet
the peasant partisans. Employed instead were the NKVD and Stribai.
reconquest in 1944. The original resistance movement was made up of
Viktoras Snuolis, a former partisan officer in the Lithuanian district of
soldiers serving in the German forces, others who had collaborated with
Siauliai recalled that "The Red Army was not generally used. Often,
the Germans and had reason to fear the Soviet authorities, and of course
Russian soldiers used to let us past, or simply ignore us. I even talked to
patriotic Balts in general. In Lithuania, priests played a leading part. In
one once, and he said that in action against us, he was careful not to take
due course, and as Soviet deportations gathered pace, the ranks of the
aim'. Mr Snuolis told me of the hunted life of the partisans in the forest,
resistance were swollen by others who preferred to die fighting than be
and how his group was once able to evade an NKVD ambush because it
deported to an unknown fate in Siberia, and by peasants facing
heard the sound of the rain pattering on their enemies' capes. He said
collectivisation.¹
that the partisans were helped by the fact that the NKVD forces did not
In the countryside, the Soviet authorities did everything in their power
know the countryside, while the Stribai auxiliaries were 'gutless and
to give the conflict the feel of a class war, confiscating the land of
undisciplined'.'³
suspected partisans and giving it to poorer peasants, many of whom were
In the bitter cold of a Lithuanian winter, I once visited the remains of
recruited into Soviet auxiliary battalions. (In Lithuania, these were
some of the primitive partisan bunkers in the forests of northern
nicknamed Stribai, from Istrebitelny, meaning 'Destroyers', the name for
Lithuania, and admired the courage and endurance of the men who held
the demolition units during the Soviet retreat in 1941.) Memories of this
out for so long in such dreadful conditions (the wounded often dying for
continue to divide many Baltic villages.
lack of medical care, unless they could be secretly helped by local
The resistance was at its fiercest in Lithuania, where the 'Forest
Lithuanian doctors). One of the bunkers, now a caved-in hollow by a
Brothers' had a general staff, printed newspapers, and ran training
stream of clear water, in the depths of the forest of Mažuolis, held eight
courses for officers. Surviving photographs show members in the
men. Thanks to the loyalty of local people, it was never found by the
uniforms of the pre-war Lithuanian army, bearing a mixture of Soviet
and German weapons. An incongruous touch was that many had very
Soviet police, but simply abandoned when the last partisans after Stalin's
long hair. In a strangely medieval gesture, they had vowed not to cut
death in 1953 gave up the struggle, after which the forest gradually
reclaimed it.
their hair until Lithuania was free again. More practically, it meant that
they were sometimes able to pretend to be women in order to avoid
The partisans concentrated on maintaining their positions, reducing
arrest. Something of the tragic spirit of the struggle was expressed by
local Communist control in the countryside, and punishing collaborators
Viktoras Petkus, then an adolescent, later a dissident:
and informers: in other words, holding out for as long as possible in the
hope of outside intervention. It was not an irrational strategy, nor the
I was not tempted to join the partisans myself, because a Lithuanian army
product of mere obstinacy. If war between the West and the Soviet Union
captain and partisan commander came to my father and advised him not
had broken out, the existence of Baltic forces in the field could have been
to let his children go to the forest. He said that he knew that the West had
of crucial importance in regaining Baltic independence. The strong
betrayed them, and that the movement had no future, but he himself had
partisan resistance in Lithuania also helped discourage Russian settlers
no choice but to go on to the end."
from moving to that republic.
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The struggle in all three republics was attended by the brutalities
whip, telling me to confess and I was my sister. Finally, they accepted that
common enough in guerrilla wars in our own time. The NKVD and local
I was telling the truth, and then they didn't know what to do with me.
auxiliaries tortured suspects, executed the families of partisans and burnt
They asked their chief, and he replied, 'Paleckis's signature is on the list,
their farms, leaving the bodies lying in the streets and fields as a warning.
and I have to fulfil it, so I need people'. So I was deported to Krasnoyarsk
Other skeletons are still sometimes being found where bodies were buried
in Siberia. At that time I didn't know what had happened to my parents.
or simply tossed into unused wells. A woman from Utena described how,
They were also deported to Krasnoyarsk, but I only discovered that
a neighbour of ours was shot, and was dumped in the street; and even his
months later, when I wrote back to Lithuania. I did not see them again
until
mother did not dare to come and look at him, because if the Stribai or
eight
years later There were about seventy of us in our cattle-
NKVD saw people weeping over the dead partisans, they would say, So
truck. We were all students, and were treated a bit better than the people
in the other trucks; there were planks to lie on. The other people in the
you are crying for the enemies of the Soviet Union?'. and sometimes they
train were mainly farmers from Vilnius region. When we crossed the
would simply arrest them on the spot, and they would too disappear.
Urals, we passed seven other trains full of Lithuanian deportees, and we
The partisans themselves carried out atrocities against local
talked to them through the slots in the sides of the truck. One girl even
communists and auxiliaries and their families. In Joniškis District I was
spoke to her parents, but she was not allowed to join them. We thought
told how in the village of Vainiune, partisans gang-raped the local
then that the whole Lithuanian nation had been deported
Komsomol Secretary, a woman called Tünaityte. Ii is difficult however
After we passed Minsk, we were let out of the trucks once a day to go to
to say with confidence who was responsible for what, because the Soviet
the toilet in the fields. Everyone had been allowed to take some food from
side formed provocateur units to kill people and then blame the partisans."
home, and we shared it. We were fed salt fish and bread, and after we
Caught between the two sides, much of the population of northern
passed Moscow, some watery soup. When we reached Siberia, we could
Lithuania seems to have ended by regarding both as a plague. This was
buy milk from Russians who brought it to the train. The guards did not
one factor in the eventual collapse of the partisan movement, though
steal from us or maltreat us. Some people got sick I heard later that my
more critical was military attrition by the Soviet security forces: Mr
mother on her journey had caught pneumonia and three old people died
Snuolis reported that a partisan in the late 1940s could realistically expect
on the way. Their companions wanted to keep the bodies to give them a
to live for some two years before being killed or captured. In Lithuania,
Christian burial, but the guards did not allow it.
up to 13,000 collaborators were executed by the partisans, and Soviet
When we got to Kamarchaga in Krasnoyarsk province, we had to
sources put the total Soviet losses at 20,000 and the partisans losses at
march for three days through the forest. Then we were pulled on a trailer
about the same. Lithuanian sources have estimated Soviet casualties at
by a tractor, because it was Spring and the mud was too thick to walk
80,000 and Lithuanian at 50,000, though this is probably too high.
through. We were sent to the village of Khabaidak It seemed to us that
Today, all over Lithuanian, and to a lesser extent the other two republics
we had reached the end of the world, and would never return. On one side
as well, local monuments are springing up to honour the partisans who
there were huge mountains, on the other, a big, fast river, and everywhere
died. Often these adjoin monuments to local Communist leaders and
was the forest, We were set to work to cut down trees in the forest, and
Soviet security forces, some killed by those same partisans.
then they were floated away down the river. There were several accidents
Exhaustion and, with the end of the Korean War, abandonment of any
at first, because people did not know the work. We got on well with the
hope of Western intervention, helped destroy the movements. The
Finnish exiles there. The Kalmuk exiles were of a lower culture, but they
collectivisation of agriculture in 1949, and the mass deportations which
taught
us
how
to
survive
On Sundays, the Lithuanians would put on
accompanied it, produced a new flood of recruits for the partisans but, in
suits and dresses, and meet to sing Lithuanian songs and recite poetry.
the longer run, drained the pool in which they hid (to use Mao's phrase).
After a year, my file caught up with me from Lithuania, and they
Mrs Genovaité Dubauskiené, a Lithuanian woman deported as the
decided that Khabaidak was too good for me, and I was sent North, to the
daughter of 'kulaks' in May 1948, described her experience. Although she
mining town of Rasdolinsk, where I worked in the hospital. That was
had a NKVD file of her own for helping the partisans, the NKVD group
where I met may second husband, who had been exiled there after five
which finally arrested her in Vilnius did so because they mistook her for
years in prison, I was divorced from my first husband because he did not
her younger sister, who was to be deported together with her parents:
want to join me in Siberia my son was born there. Rasdolinsk had
every nationality you can imagine, all exiles: among the doctors in my
They took me to the cellars of the NKVD. and there they beat me with a
hospital were Russians, Poles, Jews, a Georgian, an Armenian
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In Rasdolinsk, there were many more accidents from the work, but the
exiles did not live too badly, because the pay was better and there was
from the Moscow patriarchate, was forcibly reintegrated into the Russian
more in the shops. The Lithuanians grew potatoes, and bought pigs and
Orthodox Church. Repression was resumed under Khrushchev, and it
chickens, and later cows. In summer, the animals wandered freely, and
was only under Brezhnev that state pressure was somewhat relaxed.
sometimes the cows would be killed by bears, and we would find their
Even so, Archbishop Steponavičius of Vilnius remained in internal exile
skeletons in the forest In winter, the temperature would go down
until 1988.
sometimes to minus 60 degrees, and we had to bring the chickens and pige
After the death of Stalin, many native Communist officials extended a
into our houses, even though most had only one room. The animals lived
measure of protection to cultural figures, and indeed justified their own
under the bed. That could be a problem, depending on the character
collaboration in terms of preserving the nation's cultural heritage. The
the pig. We had one pig which would not let us sleep. Ii used to pull the
writer Arvo Valton (a strong anti-communist) has said of one literary
blankets off the bed and try to eat them
collaborator under Stalin that, 'One cannot condemn him or completely
The Lithuanians worked hard, and in the end even the local Russians
deny his function; it was the means of preserving the national language
were buying food from us. I lived there for eleven years, and by the end we
and identity'. It allowed periodic flourishings of national culture, and the
were able to live normally. When we were allowed to, a few years after
1960s have even been called a time of 'cultural renaissance' for Estonia."
Stalin's death, of course almost all of us went home; but two Lithuanian
The smallness of the Baltic populations meant that the educated
families are still living there. My parents also came back at that time, but my
classes were commensurately tiny. As the process of 'nativisation' of the
father had cancer, and died along the way, He is buried in Lithuania
&
Baltic Communist Parties proceeded, leading Communists inevitably
had close links with the intelligentsias, the majority of whom, even if they
did not brave outright dissent, were nationalist in spirit and, above all,
Stalinism, Normalisation, Stagnation
committed to preserving their national cultures. An example is Ingrid
Rüütel, wife of the Communist Chairman of the Estonian SSR Supreme
Soviet pressure on the reconquered Baltic societies grew steadily after
Council. As the daughter of Neeme Rüüs, Ideology Secretary of the
1945. One aspect was the Baltic wing of the "Zhdanovschina", the
Estonian Communist Party in 1940-41, who was executed by the Nazis,
campaign directed by Andrei Zhdanov to reassert control over the
Ingrid Rüütel came from the very heart of the Communist establishment.
various cultures of the Soviet Union by terroristic means. Baltic culture
Yet by profession she was an ethnographer, a branch of academia full,
had already been harmed by the Hight of so many intellectuals to the
throughout the Soviet years, of crypto-nationalists.
West. After flight, deportation and murder, it has been estimated for
The influence of the intellectuals can hardly have failed to have some
example that, by 1945, no more than 22 per cent of the prewar staff of
effect. In Latvia, Mr Rüütel's equivalent, Anatolijs Gorbunovs, is said to
Tartu University remained in Estonia. The postwar years saw many
have been persuaded in a patriotic direction by the poet Jânis Peters,
more writers silenced, killed, deported. or forced into shameful
whom he met while he was Party Secretary of Central Riga, Such
compromise with the system. In the Stalinist jungle, even loyal
associations helped modify Communist beliefs and loyalty even at the
Communists were not safe indeed, some of the Baltic Communists from
core of the Party. Justas Paleckis junior, born into the very heart of the
Moscow who had survived Stalin's purges of the 1930s were now
Lithuanian Communist establishment, commented that for him and for
eradicated. With the advent of officially sanctioned Russian nationalism,
many young Party members, the invasion of Czechuslovakia and the
history was rewritten to give the Russian Empire a 'progressive'
destruction of Dubcek's 'socialism with a human face' marked the
colouring, and the Russification of language and culture began. A
moment at which the Soviet Communist system forfeited their emotional
Latvian poet wrote that,
loyalty. For a number of dissidents, 1968 was the point at which they
were forced out of the system and into open opposition. This was true of
The Russian language seems to me like a huge bridge of sunbeams
the future Estonian Congress leader Tunne Kelam who, as a lecturer in
Over which the Latvian heart will climb to high horizons.¹
International Regulations, had tried to tell the truth within the Soviet
Particularly hard hit were the churches. By 1948, only one bishop was
academic framework His support for Dubček led to his dismissal, after
left in Lithuania, all the others having fled, been deported or murdered.
which he worked underground within the dissident movement."
Protestant bishops in Latvia and Estonia met a similar fate, while the
Taagepera and Misiunas have suggested that thanks in part to
Estonian Orthodox Church, which in 1920 had declared its independence
defensive action by local Communist élites, the Soviet period, while it
marked a step backwards for the Baltic cultures, left them more secure
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Helsinki
GULF OF FINLAND
the in 1914: that 'in the eighty year perspective, the overall picture was
one of a massive shift from Russian to the national languages', and
Your even compared to 1940, there had been 'an increase in socio-cultural
Tallinn (Reval)
Vorms
Estonian SSR
By 1940, use of the Baltic languages in education and higher culture
Hiiumaa (Dagö)
Haapsalu
vis still new and fragile. Despite Russification, the fact of official status
(Hapsal)
Parm
Paide
la their languages, and the opportunities afforded by Soviet republican
Muhu (Moon)
Lake Peipus
indiations (such as schools and universities in the Baltic languages,
Parnu
River
Tartu
Writers' Unions, and SO on) put the Balts in a better position to defend
Saaremaa (Ösel)
fbeir language and identity than several other small linguistic groups in
Kingisepp
Lake Verts
exidem Europe: the Gaelic Irish in the last century, or the Basques,
Rectons and Welsh in this one, for example.
Valga (Walk)
It is instructive in this context to compare the relative strength of Azeri
BAT OF RIGA
0
Imguage and culture in Soviet Azerbaidjan, where they had some
BALTIC SEA
Ventspils
defense from Soviet republican institutions, to their almost complete
(Windau)
River
public suppression in neighbouring Iran - where most ethnic Azeris
Gauja
eaturally live. Compared to these (or those of the autonomous republics
Tuckums.
Riga
Russia), the overwhelming majority of Balts used their own languages
Latvian SSR
Liepaja
# their primary tongue, and use of Russian by Estonians actually
Jelgava (Mitau)
(Libau)
declined sharply after 1970. This was, however, only because a sufficient
(Drina)
number of "Communist" cultural, academic and even Party figures were
prepared to use these institutions discreetly to defend their national
Daugavpils
Polanga
cultures; and, of course, because Soviet rule and Russification ended
Klaipeda
Siauliai (Schaulen)
Dünaberg)
(Polangen)
when they did. If it had continued for another generation the Baltic
(Memel)
baguages and cultures might have been damaged beyond repair.
Klaipeda
Lithuanian SSR
No equivalent renaissance took place in Baltic agriculture, which never
District
Taurage
recovered from the devastating blow of collectivisation.* Indus-
River
Name
Malisation, however, proceeded at breakneck speed, accompanied by
Tilsit
Belorussian ssa
what most Balts would see as the most malign of all the Soviet legacies - a
Kaunas
massive influx of Russian labour. Only Lithuania avoided this fate,
Kaliningrad
shanks to the Forest Brothers and its higher birth rate but also, until his
(Königsberg)
Vilnius
(Mariampole
death in 1974, to its Communist ruler Party First Secretary Antanas
Sniečkus. Snieckus, unlike the rulers of Estonia and Latvia, who had
East Prussia
been born and brought up in Russian and introduced to their satrapies
Suwalki
0
50mls
only in 1940 was a native-born Communist. Through a mixture of
Poland
0
100km
Vilnius region: Polish (1920-22); Lithuanian SSR (1940 44)
The effects of collectivisation in the Estonian countryside are vividly evoked in
Transferred January 1945) from Estonian SSR to RSFSR
Heino Kiik's novel, Where Hobgablins Sprnd the Night Amidst a general picture of
Transferred January 1945) from Latvian SSR to RSFSR
peasant despair, incompetent leadership by jumped-up Communist flunkeys
without farming experience, and crazy orders from above, one famous passage
Klaipeda (Memel) District: removed from Germany (1919) to allied
describes how the collective's cows became so weak that they could be blown down
control, and occupied by Lithuania (1923)
by the wind, and a man had to be specially detailed to help them to their feet.
Occupied by Germany (1939), restored to Lithuanian SSR (1944-45)
These cows were themselves the survivors of repeated slaughterings of animals by
the peasants in the face of requisitions and collectivisation
Territorial transfer within the Baltic Republics, 1939-45
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unquestioned loyalty to Moscow and tough, clever manoeuvres and
usually taken as having been centred around the figure of Deputy Prime
negotiations, Sniečkus succeeded in warding off the worse effects of the
Minister Eduards Berklavs. He sought to Latvianise the party and
rule of Stalin and his successors. Many Lithuanian intellectuals today
establish greater Latvian control over local industries through the use of
consider that, in his own brutal and compromised fashion, he did in fact
local raw materials. Officially, this was justified by the desire to
serve his country.
contribute more efficiently to the All-Union economy. Unofficially, the
Sniečkus's last successor as First Secretary of the Lithuanian
main aim was to check the heavy industrial development which was
Communist Party, Algirdas Brazauskas, today of course uses such
pulling Russian workers into the republic. The ploy was only crushed
arguments to defend himself against charges of 'collaboration' and
after interventions by Khrushchev himself. Eduards Berklavs has
treason. In his words, as a Lithuanian State Plan official and a senior
described how, after the Latvian government had tried to halt further
Party functionary,
Russian immigration, Russians in Latvia sent a letter to the Kremlin
People don't know what we went through. We had to go twenty times &
denouncing the rebirth of 'bourgeois nationalism'. The reaction led to the
dismissal of numerous party officials at every level. Mr Berklavs himself
year to Moscow to beg for extra investment or to try to ward off something
was sent to mainland Russia as a film-distribution official a very much
that they wanted to impose on Lithuania. I would have to spend the whole
summer there, sitting in antechambers. Most of us in our hearts were
milder destiny, of course, than would have been the case under Stalin.
unhappy about Lithuania's subjugation to the Soviet Union and
Mr Berklavs (now a leader of the radical National Independence
all
of
us were angry that they in Moscow were trying to dictate to us exactly
Party) is today widely honoured in Latvia for his attempts to protect his
how many kindergartens we were supposed to build in every Lithuanian
country against Russification: the crushing of his movement, however,
town. We had no choice but to obey, but we did extract advantages. If
placed Latvia in an even worse position than before. Immigration
Lithuania today has a good base of infrastructure, energy and education,
continued, and the Party was effectively broken as an instrument for
and a good prospect for developing a strong economy, it is thanks to us.
defending Latvian interests. Many Latvians attribute the caution of
Latvian moves to independence, and the poor quality of much of the
Brazauskas stressed that state officials such as himself used to be able
Latvian establishment in our own time, to the lingering effects of the
to celebrate Christmas and other traditional Christian holidays at home
purge of 1959-60. The cultural reaction which occurred during those
(though not of course in Church) without fear of denunciation by their
years also retarded Latvian attempts to recover from the cultural effects
Lithuanian colleagues, although in the Party structures supervision was
of Stalinism.
tighter.
Industrial expansion under Soviet rule in the Baltic States, as under
Despite considerable special pleading, there is a certain amount of
the Tsars and the first republics, consisted above all of light industry,
truth in this picture. Certainly the Lithuanian Communist élite was not
consumer goods and food-processing, although Latvia also has some
as venal and incompetent as those across most of Russia, let alone in the
steel-making capacity. Shipbuilding and ship-repair are important in
Muslim republies. If to call them covert patriots is too flattering, at least
Riga and Tallinn. Here, and in Liepaja, are large trawling fleets, manned
men like Brazauskas never had any positive enthusiasm for Soviet rule,
almost entirely by Russians, since Moscow did not trust the Balts to go to
They were merely a familiar species of collaborator, not particularly
sea for fear of defection.
brave, not particularly wicked, doing the best for themselves and for their
Soviet industrial revolution in the Baltic, together with the flight from
country "under the circumstances' (see Chapter 8).
the land resulting from collectivisation and rural despair, produced the
highest rate of urbanisation that the region had ever known. By 1980, 70
In Estonia, the ability of the local party to resist Moscow's policies was
per cent of Estonians and Latvians, and 62 per cent of Lithuanians, lived
largely broken in a purge of 1950-51 which led to the replacement of all
in towns. Forty years earlier, only about a quarter of Lithuanians, and a
native Estonians by Russians or at least Estonians brought up in Russia.
third of the other Balts, did so. The influx led to severe housing shortages
The first secretary between 1950 to 1978, Ivan Käbin, also, however,
and increased bitterness between Balts and Russian immigrants. These
came to be seen as a qualified defender of Estonian interests. Käbin
shortages, and the high proportion of working women in the Baltic,
Estonianised his name to Johannes, and sought to improve his knowledge
contributed to keeping native birth rates among the lowest in Europe, as
of the Estonian language. In Latvia, a similar purge took place nine years
they had been since the 1890s, although every Balt was aware of the need
later. The thaw in the first years of Khrushchev's rule allowed a backlash
to produce babies for the sake of national survival. As elsewhere in the
within the Latvian party against Russification and immigration. This is
Soviet Union, the level of abortion was appallingly high; it caused
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particular cultural trauma among traditionalists in Catholic Lithuania.
the post of second secretary of the Party was effectively reserved for
Today it is declining as contraceptives become more freely available from
Russians. Unseating these figures became one of the first tasks of the
the West.
national movements and the national Communists. Similarly,
The endemic grey depression of Soviet life also had its effects. One
throughout the republics, the deputy commander of the KGB was also a
Latvian girl told a friend: 'You know, I never in my life really ever
Russian, keeping check on his 'native' boss. Russians were also of course
expected to be happy'. Reflecting this mood was the very high rate of
entrenched in positions throughout the Party, though not sufficiently to
alcoholism, among the highest in the world. Anyone who has visited the
prevent all three parties from swinging towards support for independence
Baltic will know of sad middle-aged people, whose families excuse their
in the late 1980s. 24 Ironically, one state institution in which 'natives' had
drinking by pointing to the hopelessness and the endless petty
always been allowed to predominate, even under Stalin, was that of the
humiliations of Soviet rule, as well as to the lack of sanctions against
'Supreme Councils', or parliaments, precisely because their functions
drinking in an economy where jobs were guaranteed in any case. One old
were almost entirely symbolic. As the independence movements gathered
Polish woman in Lithuania once told me that she still reveres Gorbachov,
pace, however, the parliaments became of key legal significance.
no matter what, because 'he tried to stop my old man from drinking' a
In the last years of Soviet rule, the predominance of 'natives' was
reference to the anti-alcohol campaign of Gorbachov's first year in power.
secured not simply by selection but also by gerrymandering: thus
Suicide rates were also high, Lithuania having the highest in Europe after
Russian-dominated urban constituencies in Tallinn often had
Hungary.23
considerably more voters than 'native'-dominated rural ones. Such
However, for what it was worth, relatively high food production, mass
manipulation is a small example of the kind of discreet localised
demand in the Soviet Union for the products of their industries, together
nationalist activity which occured even within the Soviet system.
with their more prosperous and hard-working traditions, helped to give
the Baltic States the highest quality of life in the Soviet Union; they were
indeed known as the Soviet West'. Living standards rose steadily during
the 1960s and early 1970s, before tailing off and beginning to decline in
The Soviet Establishment: Past, Present and Future?
the later years of Brezhnev, and going into free fall under Gorbachov and
his successors. In the analysis of the Soviet revolution, there is plenty of
As elsewhere in the former Communist bloc, the future of the former
room for application of the J-curve theory', whereby revolutions tend to
Communist establishments is central to the politics of the Baltic States.
occur when steadily rising economic expectations find themselves
The term 'de-Sovietisation', adopted by the Right in all three states,
frustrated. As elsewhere in the Union, the later Brezhnev period in the
refers mainly to a desire to purge members of the old establishments from
Baltic Republics was era of stagnation, in which faceless bureaucrats
the leading roles they continue to hold in the states and economies of the
played an endless game of musical chairs. The population at large was
region except, of course, where they have themselves become Right-
not subjected to repression, and a considerable amount of cultural
wing leaders (decolonisation' tends to refer to the desire to remove the
freedom was allowed, within strict limits. Those courageous people who
Soviet Army and the Russian populations of Latvia and Estonia).
overstepped the limits were of course often hit very hard (though the
Landsbergis and others have spoken of the need for a "Nuremberg
savagery of Latin-American and other regimes was lacking). But most
Trial of Bolshevism'. Few Balts would have any objection to putting on
people simply got on with their own lives.
trial those chiefly responsible for the repression of Stalin's time, if any
By the 1980s, Communist Party membership in Estonia and Lithuania
were still alive; and there is massive support in Latvia for the trial of
was made up chiefly of people from the native populations. In Latvia, a
Alfreds Rubiks, the hardline Communist leader charged with planning
majority was still Russian. The role of Estonians and Latvians from
the Soviet military intervention in the Baltic in January 1991 and
Russia had naturally declined with the years - most of the suitable cadres
implicated in the August coup. What makes many people deeply uneasy
had been brought back from Russia after the reconquest in 1944.
however is when it seems, as in Lithuania, that talk of a 'Nuremberg
However, some of these and their descendants were to play a leading role
Trial' is simply a Right-wing political campaign against the ex-
in opposition to the independence movements of Latvia and Estonia, and
Communist section of the political opposition, part of which is still widely
gave a spurious impression that this opposition was not wholly Russian
popular and respected for its role in achieving independence. (The role of
but had some "indigenous" roots.
denunciations in Lithuania is discussed in Chapter 8.) The overall
In all three republics (as elsewhere throughout the Union Republics),
intention of replacing the former establishment reaches into every corner
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of economic and agrarian reform and especially, of course, the issue of
remain loyal in the event of a Soviet repression. While such former
privatisation.
Communist officials are gradually being edged out of state offices, their
The Right-wing throughout the Baltic, and especially in Lithuania,
takeover of the emerging private sector is proceeding at full swing. It
condemns the former establishment not just for past collaboration with
occurs largely through the phenomenon of 'spontaneous privatisation',
Soviet rule, but with present involvement and potential future treachery,
the taking over of state companies by their managers as their own
should Russia again try to take over the Baltic States. The Right
property, a practice which is advancing rapidly in all three republics, and
sometimes quotes the views of the French scholar Françoise Thom, who
in Latvia seems to be almost out of control. There have been frequent
alleges the existence of a 'second echelon' of communist leaders which
reports in the press but, as of October 1992, not a single prosecution.
has manipulated the course of events in the Soviet Union in recent years
A typical tactic is to rent or sell part of the enterprise you manage to a
so as to take power itself.25
private company controlled either by yourself or by close associates.
As the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Algirdas Saudargas, has warned,
This, it may be argued, at least allows in principle for the continuation of
'even if these people do not wish to be traitors, Moscow has plenty of
production under private ownership. More destructive is the virtual theft
information to blackmail them into collaboration'. This is doubtless true,
which takes place when managers sell their produce to private companies
but Moscow has information on most politicians. A close ally of Mr
(often, again, controlled by themselves) for Baltic state prices, which in
Saudargas was the leader of the Right-wing Independence Party in
turn sell it to the West and pocket the huge difference. This has been
Lithuania, Dr Virgilijus Cepaitis, who was largely responsible for the
especially prevalent in firms controlling 'coloured metals'.
practice of denouncing political opponents as KGB agents. Dr Cepaitis
In Estonia, four 'families' (including connections and clients of various
himself, however, later proved to have been a KGB informer for many
kinds) are often said to dominate much of the state's private capital,
years. Yet none of its extensive net of agents did the KGB any good in the
especially in terms of banking, real estate and hotel development. Three
end when it came to controlling the Soviet Revolution. There is no reason
are led by members of the old establishment. Bruno Saul was the
to believe that a reduced and battered KGB will be more effective in the
hardline Communist Prime Minister of Estonia until he was replaced in
future.
1988. He is now a director of the Tartu Commercial Bank and an owner
As to the 'second echelon', an identifiable stratum of this description
or part-owner of several companies. Olari Taal was manager of a major
certainly exists in the Baltic States and throughout the former Soviet
state construction enterprise until 1991. He then became Industry
Union, but the suggestion that it constitutes an organised united political
Minister in the government of Edgar Savisaar, and Economics Minister
force aiming at the restoration of the Soviet Union reflects a mixture of
in the government of Tiit Vähi (also a former state manager in the very
paranoia - understandable in view of past experience - and ambition,
lucrative field of transport). Uno Veering, leader of another wealthy and
whether conscious or unconscious: underlying much of current politics in
powerful family, was another Communist manager, and Deputy Premier
the Baltic, as in the rest of the former Soviet Union, is a struggle by new
under Vähi. The fourth family mentioned, that of Toomas and Lembit
social groups to displace the old establishment in order to occupy its jobs.
Sööts, is led by a returned Canadian businessman and his brother.
The leading feature today of the former Commmunist establishment is
Much of the wealth of such families is founded in their having had an
political and above all economic opportunism. Indeed, it was the leading
early opportunity to buy up prime pieces of real estate for sums in roubles
feature of the vast majority of Communist Party recruits from the 1960s.
which, although a fortune to Soviet inhabitants, were derisory by
In the words of Janis Aboltins, a Komsomol official and state manager
Western standards. As Tallinn land prices move upwards, buyers can
who later became economics minister in the pro-independence
make astronomical profits on their investments.
government of 1990-91, 'I was asked to become a full-time Komsomol
The successor parties which have emerged from the pro-independence
leader.
After a few days hesitation I agreed. I wanted to get a flat in
wings of the Commmunist parties have to an extent been providing cover
Riga.'26 From the beginning Äboltins appears to have felt little but
for this process, but SO indeed have establishment members in the
contempt for the entire Communist system he served a contempt which
national movements. It leads to some splendidly ironic situations. Thus,
he now extends to the more radical Latvian nationalists. Whether this
in Lithuania, it has been the former Communists, the Lithuanian
makes him more attractive is doubtful. What is obvious is that he was not
Democratic Labour Party of Brazauskas that argued for speedy
someone who was ever going to defend Soviet rule if the going got rough;
privatisation, large-scale private investment and, in general, a version of
the nationalists for their part suspect with reason that he could also not
'management's right to manage'. It is of course because the
be relied on to serve the cause of independence to the bitter end, or to
managements themselves, and many of the 'new rich' from the former
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black market belong to or are close to the old political establishment.
conflicting demands of Moscow and the local government. The first
Even new entrepreneurs who emerged after 1988 are in many cases from
group was made up primarily of Russian managers of the great 'All-
the Komsomol, which was given special rights to start co-operative
Union' factories of Latvia and Estonia, controlled from Moscow and
business in the final years of Communist rule, precisely because
supplied with Russian workforces: the factories were organised as Soviet-
Komsomol leaders were in a position to anticipate the future and wanted
loyalist island fortresses. In Lithuania, where Russian workers are fewer
to get into business.
and most of the All-Union managers were Lithuanian, this phenomenon
The Lithuanian Right, however, motivated by a desire to eliminate the
is less marked. In Estonia, during 1989, Estonian managers, mainly of
former establishment but also by a populist and anti-capitalist tradition,
republican enterprises, joined in a 'League of Work Collectives' to
has introduced a strongly egalitarian programme, with shares being
support independence. They were led by Ulo Nugis (later speaker of
distributed to the whole population, and shops being sold to their
parliament and a leader of the Right-wing Republican Coalition Party)
workers, not to entrepreneurs. So in Western economic terms, Left is
who, as director of the 'Estoplast' firm, had gained some renown within
often Right and Right is Left, a feature Western, and particularly
Estonia for his long struggle to remove his factory from 'All-Union'
American visitors, find difficult to comprehend.
control. The League claimed to be 'the largest political party in Estonia',
In all three republics, other than Soviet loyalist figures who sank with
with 400,000 members; with blithe seigneurial arrogance, like Soviet
Soviet rule, members of the old establishment and managerial classes are
loyalist managers, they had simply enrolled their entire workforces under
spread across several different parties. In some cases they have even
their own political banner.
adopted extreme Right-wing positions.
The attempt did not last long, and the managers soon began to seek
While many local Communist officials are being replaced through local
protection for their interests through a variety of political forces, even as
elections, it might be assumed that, as in Eastern Europe, industrial
Estonian workers joined different Estonian parties. For the managers, as
managers would retain their posts. However, this class too risks being
for the former Communist establishment in general, the story today is
buried, along with Baltic industry, a collapse which would itself have
one of political fragmentation. In Latvia during 1992, the government of
partly nationalist roots. In the Baltic States, arguments for the
Ivars Godmanis was often described as being in the hands of the former
replacement of the managerial élite are national as well as practical and
Soviet establishment; but was opposed by the former Communists, who
moral. Practically, it is urged that such men simply cannot adapt to a free
had now swung to a radical nationalist position.
market economy, and must be replaced. Morally, it is said the
"collaborationist" managerial class does not deserve to profit from
privatisation, nor increase its wealth.
The Dissidents
Neither of these points is proven. Very few people in the Baltic have
practical experience of Western business, and the old managers are often
In the Soviet Baltic Republics dissent never really went away, even
no worse than anyone else at adapting. More to the point, Western
during the depths of Soviet rule. As we have seen, a few gallant partisans
business lessons may not in any case be appropriate to the situation in
rejected the amnesty offered after Stalin's death and continued hiding in
Baltic industry for some time to come. As to the art of survival in a post-
the forests, occasionally attacking the police, in some cases well into the
Communist economy, the old managers are often geniuses (see Chapter
1960s. A proportion of the peaceful dissent of the early 1960s took an open
9).
and "loyalist' form, confining itself to protests by academics and local
Morally, the manager of a factory cannot simply be equated with a
citizens about the establishment of new industries. The ostensible ground
KGB officer or Communist Party boss, or his position deemed
for such protests was often fear of ecological damage, but the real reason
intrinsically more reprehensible than that of a manager anywhere else in
was often fear of new Russian settlement.
the world. To this, however, Latvians and Estonians respond that
Spontaneous outbreaks of popular anger also revealed that the people
managers helped to bring Russian workers into their republics; for this
at large had not forgotten their lost independence or their hatred of Soviet
reason many would be happy enough if much of industry were wholly to
rule. The first major Lithuanian demonstration took place in 1956. Sports
disappear. From their point of view, the worse, the better'.
victories and rock concerts precipitated several of these outbreaks, if only
Industrial managers in the Baltic States during the last years of Soviet
because they had provided legal reasons for large numbers of young
rule divide into Soviet loyalists, adherents of independence and a larger
people to assemble in the first place. Victories of East European or local
group which simply kept its collective head down and balanced the
teams against Soviet or Russian ones led to mass demonstrations against
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the occupiers. The largest Baltic demonstration before Gorbachov took
elections, Sadünaité told a meeting outside parliament that 'God and the
place however in Kaunas, in Lithuania, in May 1972, after a student,
Virgin have turned their faces from Lithuania', and that Communist rule
Romas Kalanta, burnt himself to death in protest against Soviet rule.
would usher in a wave of abortions.
Thousands of youths rioted for several days; some 500 were arrested.
The events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia were a major stimulus to dissent
Eight years later, in October 1980, Estonia saw both widespread
in all three republics, and the 1960s and 1970s saw a series of political
student protests and the first major strike under Soviet rule, at a Tartu
trials. In October 1980, forty leading Estonian intellectuals sent an open
repair factory. The slogans were economic, and reflected a general
letter to Pravda denouncing Russification and Russian settlements in
downturn in the economy, but the workers were also clearly influenced
Estonia. The letter was of course not published. Presumably because they
by a prevailing atmosphere of political anger. At no stage in the
did not openly challenge Communist rule, and because they included
seemingly unchanging, strictly controlled years of Soviet rule could the
some of the most famous names in Soviet Estonian culture, the authors of
Soviets in fact be completely confident of the security of their rule in the
the protest were not officially punished, though they were penalised in
Baltic.
various informal ways.28
Organised political dissent was very much the work of the
A joint document by dissidents of all three republics first appeared in
intelligentsia, except in Lithuania where Catholicism provided both a
1969. In 1974, seventeen Latvian communists, including Eduards
mass impulse and a number of martyrs. Christianity was also an
Berklavs, signed a protest against Russification. Several more protests
inspiration to some Estonian and Latvian dissidents. For much of the
were composed during the 1970s, leading to arrests and long prison
1970s, the 'Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church', initiated in
sentences. The most important Baltic documents of the struggle for
1972 and regularly smuggled to the West, was the heart of Lithuanian
independence appeared in 1979 and 1980. The appeal of 23 August 1979,
resistance. Later it was joined by the 'Catholic Committee for the
on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was signed by forty-
Defence of Believers' Rights', and the Helsinki Group, the survivors of
five Balts, of whom thirty-six were Lithuanian. It denounced the pact
which were to give birth to the extreme nationalist Lithuanian Liberty
and its consequences, and appealed to the United Nations to denounce
League in 1988. Several of the Chronicle's distributors were arrested and
the illegal Soviet occupation of the Baltic States. Similar appeals
imprisoned. The speech of one of them, Nijolé Sadünaité, at her trial in
appeared in December 1979 and January 1980.
June 1975, deserves to be included in any anthology of Catholic
Two names, those of the Estonian dissidents Mart Niklus and Jüri
resistance:
Kukk - a chemistry lecturer at Tartu University - were on both
The Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, like a mirror, reflects
documents. Kükk was arrested shortly afterwards and died in prison in
the acts that atheists perpetrate against believers. Evil is not pleased by its
Russia, as a result of brutal force-feeding during a hunger strike in 1981.
own foul image, it hates its own reflection. The mirror however does not
By the 1980s, however, dissent in all three Baltic States could almost be
lose its value because of this,
said to have achieved the status of 'movements', although few signs of
And you rejoice in your triumph? What remains after your victory?
these appeared on the surface of national life, and many Balts lived with
Moral ruin, millions of unborn foctuses, defiled values, weak debased
only the haziest knowledge of their existence.
people overcome by fear and with no passion for life. This is the fruit of
your labours. Jesus Christ was correct when he said, 'By your fruits shall
To anyone knowledgeable about the contemporary Baltic, one thing
ye know them'. Your crimes are propelling you onto the garbage heap of
about the appeals of 1979-80 is immediately noticeable: of all the names
history at an ever-increasing speed.
on them, few play a role in politics today and none has yet become a
major national leader. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in the
Sadünaité's book, A Radiance in the Gulag, also gives the flavour of the
Caucasus, where leading nationalist dissidents like Zviad Gamsakhurdia
naïve, incantatory quality of Lithuanian popular Catholicism:
and Abulfaz Elchibey have consistently played leading and even
Going against Goliath in God's name, we shall always be the victor!
dominant political roles. Dissidents have been most honoured in
Trusting in God. let us do everything that we must; without his
Lithuania, though even there not to the extent one might have expected.
permission, not even a hair from our heads will fall. God is our refuge and
One obvious reason is that the main political leaders in all three republics
our strength!"
were not themselves dissidents, so may well feel embarrassment when
confronted with the heroism of others. This feature does not, however,
After the victory of Brazauskas in the first round of the October 1992
damage the leaders in the eyes of the mass of the people, for the equally
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obvious reason that the mass of the people were not dissidents either. In
Some dissidents in the Baltic have thus to a great extent excluded
any case many Balts dislike nonconformists of any kind. In the words of
themselves from the political mainstream. In some cases they were
Mihkel Tarm, writing of Estonian attitudes to the dissidents: "The
simply worn out by their sufferings in Soviet prisons and camps. In
Estonians are different from the Lithuanians, who revere martyrs
others, like Sadünaité, they were simple, brave people not fitted for
Estonians feel that if you landed in prison, you must have been a bit
leadership. Some are too honourable for political life which, in the Baltic,
crazy. You obviously just weren't smart enough to manoeuvre properly
is increasingly dirty. Others like Mart Niklus, who do have political
in the face of the system'. An Estonian deputy from the Centre-Right
ambitions, have excluded themselves by their extremism and even
Isamaa ("Fatherland") alliance in September 1992 fiercely attacked the ex-
personal neuroticism, whether by their calls for mass revolution in the
dissident leadership of the more radical National Independence Party
dangerous years of the struggle for independence, or by their attitudes to
(ERSP), saying that,
Russian immigrants and former Communists, or both.
Unlike these people, most Estonian conservatives are not exhibitionists,
This of course is one of the saddest features of the dissident heritage:
and are not trying to be tragic heroes. We do not think that the best way of
that of the tiny minority that found the courage to protest against Soviet
approaching a wall is to run against it with your head. In the ERSP there
rule, so many found it only in nationalism, and often of a basically
chauvinist and backward-looking kind. This is however not always the
are many mentally unbalanced people. This party never had any brains, it
only borrowed them from the emigration in America
case. Some of the dissidents who are most bitter in their denunciations of
It is true that they were willing to risk anything in the struggle against
the former Communist establishment appear genuine in their lack of
the Soviets; but for the sake of Estonia, I would not ask my country to take
bitterness against Russians as a people. It may well be, as several former
such risks
dissents maintain, because they co-operated with Russians in the
Ironically enough, although they are so anti-Communist,
their thinking is quite Bolshevik. They are obsessed with conspiracies, and
dissident movement and shared the sufferings of Russians in the camps.
see spies everywhere. They ask 'Are you a real patriot? If so, why aren't
Lagle Parek, for example, now Chairwoman of the Estonian National
you in our party? Are you with us or against us?"
Independence Party, speaks with understandable affection and
admiration of Irina Ratushinskaya, with whom she was imprisoned.
All three states, in creating traditions, have concentrated mainly on
Former dissidents like Parek stress that their opposition is only to the
heroes and symbols from the first period of (often authoritarian)
presence of the Russian 'immigrant' or 'colonist' population in Estonia.²⁹
statehood in the 1920s and 1930s. One aspect of extreme-Right
Parek herself admitted, on the other hand, that former dissidents in
movements in the Baltic today could be seen as an attempt by old
Estonia have done almost nothing since the achievement of independence
dissident movements to gain the prestige and power they feel they have
to maintain relations with Russian former dissidents or the Russian
deserved, and to exclude forever the Communist establishment which
democratic movement. She attributed this to 'lack of time', owing to the
persecuted them. It is easy enough to understand their rage. Alfonsas
demands of the consolidation of independence. Since one of the key issues
Svarinskas, for example, is a Lithuanian priest and dissident. In 1992 he
in this consolidation is relations with Russia and Russians, the excuse is,
was a radical nationalist member of parliament. One of the prosecutors
however, not a very strong one.
at his trial was Egidijus Bičkauskas. Bičkauskas in 1990 became
One interesting case is the Lithuanian radical nationalist, and Leader
Lithuanian ambassador to Moscow, and a more powerful and better-
of the Liberty League, Antanas Terleckas. He, in fact, is anti-Russian as
paid figure than Svarinskas, let alone all the other dissidents like
well as anti-Communist but remarkably for a Lithuanian nationalist,
Sadünaité. There is only one problem with the seemingly entirely moral
produced in 1989 one of the strongest and most moving denunciations of
and justified demand that people like Bičkauskas be displaced to make
Lithuanian anti-semitism and of the Lithuanian role in the Holocaust;
way for the former dissidents: Bičkauskas has proved an efficient
nor does he seem particularly worried by 'the Polish menace'. 30
diplomat who has done much to keep Lithuanian relations with Russia
The forces behind the Estonian and Latvian Congress movements (see
from deteriorating too sharply, and for most of 1992 appeared in public
Chapter 8) also came from the dissident tradition, and have been
opinion polls as Lithuania's must popular public figure. Svarinskas is
successful in shifting the political debate and consensus in a radical
Lithuanian Torquemada-in-waiting, a vehement clerical nationalist a
nationalist and 'restitutionist' direction in the sense of a return to the
extremist who has called, amongst other things, for the mass execution of
forms of the pre-1940 republics. So far, however, they have failed to draw
former Communists, on the pattern of the execution of Nazi collaborators
much political advantage from this for themselves. One reason is
in France 1944.
precisely their obstinate legitimism, which repels many fellow members
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of their sober and pragmatic nations. Another could simply be the
dissidents, politics. by their very nature, are often not very good at pricess
Some dissidents, not surprisingly, are bitter at the lack of boxes
shown them and their exclusion from power in the countries they beligit
Imagined Nations:
to liberate. Their bitterness is of course greatly increased by the fact
their former KGB persecutors not merely unpunished by the courts
Cycles of Cultural Rebirth
drawing state pensions but, in many cases, having gone very
into private business on the strength of hidden funds and old underwork
- born singing, / grew up singing,
connections. What makes it worse is that conspicuous new opportunités
to spend money means that the wealth of the former Community
Flood my life singing.
establishment is becoming more and more visible.
Mr mul will go singing
On 23 August 1991, immediately after the failed counter-revolution
Rese the garden of God's sons.
from a traditional Latvian
Moscow, I stood outside the KGB headquarters in Vilnius with an off
Catholic dissident, Viktoras Petkus, who had served a total of twenty for
folksong, or daina, translated by
Pauls Raudseps
years in Siberia for his patriotism. Three times he was released, and their
times he resumed his patriotic activity, and was again arrested
and
sentenced. Over our heads drifted smoke from the burning archives 4a
the KGB, before pulling out, destroyed its history, (this time, unlike June
1941, the stock being cleared was only paper, not humans). In Petkus'y
words,
The opening of the Third Congress of the Sajúdis movement in the Sports
Palace, Vilnius, on 14 December 1991 was truly dramatic. An unfamiliar
My happiness today should be greater. But you see, there are people
figure stepped up to the microphone and, in a gesture from the Victorian
this crowd who have been imprisoned in the cellars of this building
stage, set one foot forward, placed a hand to his breast and extended the
myself was taken to Siberia from here. They say that an official into
other towards the audience. After holding the pose for a second, he began
Moscow has arrived today to negotiate with the Lithuanian government
90 declaim: "Today we have come back to our Lithuania, our conscience,
over the level of pensions KGB staff should receive, proportionate to the
ver blood; My God, my God, how have we come back to our dear
income. Today, they are getting salaries of 700 roubles a month, and
Never did we forget this sacred fire when we were
pension is 150 roubles. It is as if they had done that much more than or
serificing our lives for it. Through all the years of the empire of hell we
for Lithuania."
never faltered il My interpreter fell silent, her mouth half open, and
foreign journalists boggled.
How much of a political role former dissidents will play in the future is
The melodrama, however, was intentional and indeed professional, for
not clear. What is certain is that their moral prestige is very considerable
the speaker, as we later discovered, was no politician but Kestütis Genys,
and may grow as the mainstream political forces are seen to make a
actor from the Kaunas Drama Theatre. Sajúdis, the ruling party in
corrupt mess of things. The dissidents' exclusion from wealth and power,
Lithuania, had chosen to open its national congress with a poetic
and their resentment at the continued growing wealth of the old
emonologue, performed with maximum effect. Indeed not simply the
communist élites, could also make them rallying points for popular
opening, but the whole introductory section of the Congress was basically
discontent. For, with economic change, the number of excluded and
exional-religious theatre. We rose for the national anthem, and to
dispossessed Balts could well become legion.
bonour the dead of January 1991, and then again to hear a beautiful
memorial lament. Throughout the first morning of the Congress, a choir
in national dress stood at the back of the platform. In between the
For example, the former KGB commander in Tartu, who is now running both #d.
import-export business and a personal and business security service. Former KGB
speeches, they advanced and delivered patriotic anthems.* All rose
men are involved in such businesses all across the Baltic (and the former Union is
general), often using their links with both the bureaucracy and with
the
underworld to good purpose.
When it comes to patriotic music, the apotheosis is surely attained in a Lithuanian
record of the country's national anthem, presented by the Lithuanian government
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for these, and for the prayers which also interrupted the speeches. The
early nineteenth century, peasant folk-songs and legends were, to all
audience again rose for Dr Landsbergis's entry into the hall, for his
intents and purposes, the essence of Latvian and Estonian culture.
ascension of the platform, for his presentation with a ceremonial sash and
Literature in these languages consisted otherwise solely of religious
state medal for courage (acknowledging his leadership in January 1991),
tracts, prayers, hymns and translations, even though literacy was already
again at the end of his speech, and when he left the hall. In all, there were
well advanced and, in Estonia by the end of the century, perhaps at a
at least nineteen standing ovations that morning. The whole business was
higher level than in Britain. There was of course also a folk-tradition in
irresistibly reminiscent not only of the rituals of past Communist Party
the visual arts, but whereas this was rather limited, Baltic folk-songs were
Congresses, but of the rhythms of the Catholic mass, which has had a
and remain unparalleled in Europe for their richness and beauty. Their
deep effect on Lithuanian culture.
influence runs like a thread through all subsequent cultural
developments and schools of Estonian and Latvian literature from the
mid-nineteenth century. Hence great reverence is paid in Latvia to the
Folklore and Nationalism
memory of Krišjanis Barons (1835-1923) who assembled and codified the
dainas, or Latvian folksongs, 217,996 items in the published edition, and
The ceremonies of the Latvian Popular Front have echoes of such
some 1.5 million in all. With a song for every living Latvian, it is said to
ritualism, as did those of the radical nationalist Latvian and Estonian
be the world's largest collection of oral folklore. In Lithuania and
Congresses. These however do not approach the intensity of Lithuanian
Estonia, men like Jonas Basanavičius, Friedrich Reinhold Kreuzwald
and Jakob Hurt were engaged in similar tasks.³
nationalist ritual, which Estonians indeed find perfectly ridiculous.
In the reborn Lithuania, supreme national rituals are closely
Nor was focus on folklore for the want of any other medium. Singing
associated with the Church, which now plays a part in all major national
had always been immensely important for the Baltic peoples, and
events and commemorations. In Latvia and Estonia, the supreme
undoubtedly played a major role in their ancient pagan religions and
national occasion is by contrast, a secular one (though sometimes with
magical practices. The earliest written records of traditional Estonian
songs were in the form of evidence in seventeenth-century witch-trials.
neo-pagan overtones): the great national song festivals. The political
importance of song in the Baltic States has been noted many times. In the
For this reason, Christian pastors devoted much energy to stamping out
one hundred-and-fifty-year-old process of the creation of national-
these 'satanic songs' and replacing them with German Christian hymns.
cultural symbols, the 'invention' of Baltic tradition, they are probably the
Today, every village has its choir, which often sings to professional
most powerful symbols of all. Baltic national revolutions, and especially
standard and children are strongly encouraged to participate. In the
that in Estonia, have been dubbed 'the singing revolutions', a description
words of the Latvian poet, Imants Ziedonis:
akin to that applied to Baltic national movements before 1917 which are
said to have 'sung their way to freedom'. In Estonia, at least, the use of
My child, we are a nation of eaters, but put your spoon down in your bowl
song as a sort of weapon is of immense antiquity; both Estonian and
while a song is being sung. Don't look at that man eating, don't learn from
Finnish folklore record traditions of singing matches', a kind of peaceful
him. He has eaten all his songs. He can't tell the difference between songs
single combat between rivals.²
and lettuce.
The first Estonian and Latvian national song festivals, in 1869 and
1873 respectively, were political as well as cultural events of the first
Localised festivals of folk song and dance take place regularly at every
importance, the culmination of a decades-long process of national-
level of society, and are major social and public events. They find their
cultural development influenced by contemporary German nationalist
apotheosis of course in the great national song festivals, which take place
folk festivals. To understand why, one must remember that, until the
every few years. When they began, under Russian imperial rule in the
nineteenth century, they symbolised not only the unity and aspirations
but the very existence of the Baltic nations, which the Baltic Germans in
to foreign guests. The first band consists of the Lithuanian national anthem,
particular were disposed to deny. Before 1917, each national festival was
performed by choir and orchestra; the second band, of the same anthem sung by a
seen as a further step in the consolidation and mobilisation of the spirit of
different choir, and more slowly; the third band, the same anthem played by the
Baltic nations. Under Russian, as later under Soviet, rule the festivals
orchestra alone; and the last band, the national anthem played and sung by all
three, fortissimo. On each band all three verses are sung, so that by the end the
were also the only legal opportunity for large numbers of people to gather
listener has heard the melody repeated twelve times, and the words, nine times.
and show their national allegiance, albeit in a veiled way. In recent years,
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Imagined Nations: Cycles of Cultural Rebirth
laid down by experts from the Estonian National Museum; a typical
episode in the 'invention of tradition'.
The national festivals are indeed vastly impressive occasions. The
choirs number in the thousands and the participants, in the cases of
Latvia and Estonia, make up a very large proportion of the ethnic
Latvian and Estonian populations. The sound of hundreds of thousands
of voices symbolise national harmony in every sense, like Rousseau's
'General Will' set to music."
The stress on the connection between folklore and national identity in
Baltic thought stems naturally from Baltic history, but it was also a
central element in the philosophy of the first great European thinker
(possibly indeed the only one) to take a close interest in the Balts and
their traditions. Johann Gottfried Herder was a pastor and teacher in
Riga between 1764 and 1769 and developed a keen interest in Latvian and
Estonian folklore, examples of which he included in his collection.
Stimmen der Voelker in Lieder (Voices of the Peoples in Song' a significant
title). Herder was strongly influenced by this folklore, and by the manner
in which it had kept some form of Baltic identity alive even in the absence
of a 'higher' culture. Largely on the basis of his Baltic experience, Herder
enunciated the theory that every nation had its own special and
6 General view of the Latvian National Song Festival, Riga, July 1990.
incommunicable national spirit and culture, the highest expression of
which was their folksong and poetry. These he called 'the imprints of a
nation's soul'. For nations which had been suppressed by other nations,
politically or culturally (as he saw his own Germany having been
of course, they were also vital symbols of the struggle for independence
colonised by French culture) the only route to the recovery of a national
against Soviet rule. It was at the 'Baltika' festival of 1988 that the three
cultural and hence political identity was through the rediscovery of
national flags were first raised together under Soviet rule.
folklore.
In recent years the presence at the festivals of groups of Baltic exiles
Herder's thought had a great influence on local German scholars who,
has also symbolised at an international level the unity of the Baltic
after him, began to collect Baltic folklore and, through them, on emerging
nations, overcoming the Soviet forces which drove them into exile and
Baltic scholars and nationalists. To this day, Herder exerts a vast
separated them from their families and homeland. It also celebrates the
influence on Baltic philosophy. His stress on national individuality, and
way that these communities, or some of them, have preserved their
denunciations of internationalism and cosmopolitanism, have become
national cultures in exile.
even more popular as a result of opposition to the grim Soviet version of
With independence now achieved, the festivals will presumably once
'internationalism' which threatened to destroy Baltic culture. In the case
again play the role they possessed under the first Baltic republics, when
of the Baltic cultures which have emerged since the mid-nineteenth
they symbolised the survival of a higher, unbreakable national unity and
century, the vision of Herder has been to some extent fulfilled,
purpose in the face of all political conflicts and disputes. As such, of
particularly in terms of poetry (in Latvia and Lithuania, the dominant
course, they proved useful symbols for the authoritarian regimes which
literary form) which has been vastly influenced by folklore and folk-song.
eventually took power in the three states. It is interesting to note that
An Estonian emigré poet, writing in 1973, considered that the Baltic
although today the song festivals are always performed by choirs in
writer rebels against, or falls back on and interacts with, his folklore
traditional peasant dress, which bestows an air of immemorial antiquity,
heritage, just as contemporary English authors, whether knowingly or
in fact this only became the practice in Estonia after the 1934 coup of
not, draw on a literary tradition which goes all the way back to Chaucer
Konstantin Pâts. Before that, people turned up in their 'best' clothes.
in an unbroken line'."
The rules as to what constituted the correct costume for each region were
This rural and folkloric imagery is what gives much of Baltic literature
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its beauty, power and distinctiveness in the context of European culture
However, in the course of the past century, there have also been strong
today. A Latvian emigré scholar, Vaira Vikis-Freibergs, adopting a
attempts by Baltic nationalist elements (and, between 1920 and 1940, the
concept from Marshall McLuhan, has said that the dainas have an
national states) to reshape these traditions to their own purposes. Thus
essential 'coolness' of style, reflected in 'a strong reserve and reticence
the authoritarian Latvian regime of President Ulmanis made quite
towards the direct expression of deep emotions', which has been passed
extensive use of neo-pagan, 'ethnic-religious' motifs during the 1930s. A
on to Latvian literature. She contrasts this with Russian folk-style and
neo-pagan religious group, the Dieuturi (Dievs means "God" in Latvian),
culture, which she says are at the extreme 'hot' end of the scale."
was formed, closely linked with Latvian fascist groups to the Right of
Natural and animal imagery, often taken originally from folksong, is
Ulmanis. Dievturiba has now been revived. Its membership is extremely
very common in Baltic literature, and especially poetry, to this day and,
small, though it enjoys considerable prestige on the far Right of politics.
for that matter, in Baltic languages and popular idioms in general. This
Even Latvians who disapprove of its ideology accord it a certain respect
has often been linked to a sort of 'neo-pagan', animistic, holistic belief in
because of the unusual purity and beauty of its rendering of Latvian folk-
the divinity of all living things. Many Balts are fascinated by questions
songs, and the memory of the repeated imprisonment of its members
relating to shamanism and the idea of a world in which the spirits of men
under Soviet rule. There are also neo-pagan groups in Lithuania, where
and animals interact. In Estonia it is to be found strongly represented in
however the dominance of Catholicism in national imagery means that
the poems of Jaan Kaplinski, for example. Kaplinski's own holistic
their direct political impact has been even more limited. The
philosophy is formulated in Neo-Buddhist terms, but in his approach to
relationship between the neo-pagan and Catholic strands of modern
nature he undoubtedly owes much to this specifically Baltic tradition, as
Lithuanian culture is intensely complicated.
Several of the nineteenth-century Lithuanian national poets and
does the strong ecological consciousness of so many Baltie writers. A
typical, though unusually beautiful and powerful, example of such an
writers, like Maironis and Baranauskas, were Catholic priests. However,
later in the century there also emerged a strong streak of liberal
approach in Lithuania is the poet Sigitas Geda, of whom a critic has
nationalism which blamed Catholic conservatism for Lithuanian
written that he 'talked in a friendly way to a grasshopper, whom he held
backwardness, supineness, Polonisation and reliance on outside
to be of the gods' and that 'Geda draws no clear-cut boundaries between
people, animals and nature - they all seem extensions of each other in a
authority. In the context of a Baltic 'time-lag' in terms of the adoption of Western
landscape where "The brown reeds smell of the forefathers' bodies" and
ideas, so strongly re-inforced by Soviet rule, it is interesting to note that
"leebergs, stones, birds and humans have walked across Lithuania"
liberal positivist thought gained the ascendancy in Lithuania only in the
Animal images, and birds in particular, can get in almost anywhere in
1890s at the precise moment when, in Western Europe, thinkers were
Lithuania. Soon after the Lithuanian declaration of independence, the
beginning to abandon it in favour of other approaches and ideologies,
philosopher Arvydas Sliogeris told me that, 'the Lithuanians see
often with romantic roots. This may help account for the relatively
independence as a big green bird with a red beak. Of course they will feel
shallow roots struck by positivism within Lithuanian culture.
disappointed, because such a bird has not in fact landed on the
From the 1880s, liberal writers like Kudirka explicitly recalled
Lithuanian parliament'. By the bird, he later explained, he meant to
Lithuania's great medieval pagan past in opposition to the negative
symbolise "anything miraculous and wonderful'. During a discussion on
features of contemporary Catholic Lithuania. Since the Catholic element
economic reform with the Lithuanian government, a Lithuanian-
could not be omitted in any full conception of Lithuanian national
American academic suddenly exclaimed: Take a good look at this
identity, it is significant that, for example, the words of the Lithuanian
powerful bird, free enterprise; do you want to shoot it, or will you follow
national anthem, written by Kudirka, are a rather uneasy mixture of
where it leads?"
Catholic and neo-pagan imagery.
The presence of neo-pagan elements and motifs in contemporary Baltic
The official culture of Smetona's authoritarian regime was largely
culture has strong organic roots in Baltic peasant cultures as these
derived from this liberal tradition - an apparent paradox paralleled, for
continued and evolved from the pre-Christian period, though of course
example, in Italy where the tradition of nineteenth-century activist anti-
they became thoroughly mixed with Christian elements. In this sense,
clerical liberal nationalism passed in the twentieth into Mussolini's
while these modern pagan elements are obviously very different from the
fascism. Smetona's relations with the Church were also frequently
original paganism, most are also quite distinct from the neo-paganisms of
strained, though because of its power, the need to consolidate Lithuania's
modern Western Europe, so often either profoundly foolish or deeply
young national culture, and the lack of real radicalism in Smetona's
sinister."
party, the rift never went as deep as in Italy.
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Images of an imagined pagan past are widespread in Latvian and
In Estonia, such historical re-enactments have little resonance, a sign
Lithuanian political rhetoric today, and pictures of that past are used to
of Estonia's greater closeness to the modern West. There, use of folklore
support one or other national and ideological orientation. Thus in the
in party politics is restricted to the more extreme Right. Even the Centre-
nineteenth century, authors made their pagan heroes argue for
Right 'Fatherland' (Isamaa) alliance in the elections of September 1992
democracy as well as for independence. Soviet writers, and many Baltic
made much greater use of pop and rock concerts. The Isamaa Prime
patriots as well, portrayed ancient Baltic society as strongly egalitarian
Minister, Mart Laar, explained that this was partly for cultural reasons,
(this of course being the common currency of most imagined 'golden
and partly because so many pop and rock singers were Isamaa
ages' worldwide). Today, the idea that ancient Baltic society was
supporters. In Estonia, folklore already plays a national role much closer
matricentral has been used both by proto-feminists, and by politicians
to that of Scandinavia. For while even the limited Estonian stress on
arguing that the ancient Balts were a peaceful, unaggressive people,
folklore is unusual by Anglo-Saxon standards, in the Scandinavian and
vulnerable to aggressive nomadic proto-communist Slavs. The
other democracies, displays of folklore are used to bolster both national
implication is that this is also true of the Balts today. Often, especially in
and local identities. As these identities come under threat from modern
Lithuanian rhetoric, this pacific image co-exists uneasily with images of
mass culture, the official use of folklore in many areas has perhaps
glorious Lithuanian victory and conquest.'
become even more marked.
One aspect of the neo-pagan and historical revival which has become
completely generalised and internalised is that of first names. Until the
end of the nineteenth century, Lithuanians and Latvians used either local
The Creation of Language
versions of general Christian names, like Jánis or Jonas, or bore
traditional peasant names, possibly derived initially from pagan roots but
Alongside the political creation of the Baltic nations, the codification of
with no clear connection with the tradition (as, for example, the names of
their folklore, and the first indigenous literary creativity came the forging
the peasants in Donelaitis). The 'rediscovery' of national history in
of the modern Baltic languages out of numerous peasant dialects.
Lithuania, and the 'recreation' of national myth in Latvia meant a
German linguists assisted the process by developing a keen interest in the
tremendous vogue among the intelligentsia for historical and
mythological names, a vogue which is now common in Latvian society.
roots of the Indo-European language group, of which Lithuanian is one
Today, Vytautas, Mindaugas, and Kestütis (all medieval grand dukes)
of the most antique examples.
are among the most common Lithuanian names; a century and a half ago
In Lithuania and Estonia, the process of linguistic harmonisation and
they were largely unknown (though Vytautas survived in Slavonic as
standardisation was more or less complete by 1914, and in Latvia by the
'Witold'). Supporters of Landsbergis sometimes make play in their
1920s. The process was greatly intensified under the independent
propaganda of the identification of his name with that of Vytautas the
republics, through school systems and official media, and was finally
Great. The giving of such names was a quiet protest against Soviet rule
completed under Soviet rule. The creation of the standard languages
when the regime was encouraging the use of 'Vladimir', or weird
brought fierce polemics in the press and struggles between linguists
revolutionary hybrids. One Lithuanian friend reported that her younger
championing different dialects." In Estonia, the result was a conclusive
brother had been named Mindaugas, 'as a very small way of showing
victory for North Estonian over South Estonian, which had bitherto been
that we were still attached to Lithuania and the Lithuanian tradition'.
virtually a separate language, but today, under intensive state pressure,
On 6 July 1992, the anniversary of Mindaugas's coronation (the 739th
has almost entirely faded. A form of it is still spoken by some of the Setu
anniversary in fact, the choice of which shows a certain impatience on the
people in Estonia and the Pskov region of Russian, and the poet Jaan
part of the Lithuanian government) was celebrated with great pseudo-
Kaplinski has used it in some of his work. The 'unification' of Latvian has
medieval ceremonies in Kaunas. According to a Swedish observer,
not proceeded as far, in that the Latgalian language is still recognisably
'whether this will become a regular national holiday depends on which
distinct from 'standard' Latvian. 15
side wins the next elections'. The sweeping victory of the former
In Latvia and Estonia, the movement for 'purification' of the language
Communists therefore means that the anniversary will almost certainly
was most often directed against German words, and in Lithuania against
not be institutionalised. The Lithuanian Right wing loves such
Polish words and orthography. Today, of course, the stress is on
ceremonies, while the Left and Centre have sometimes deliberately
removing Russian borrowings, though fears have also been expressed
associated themselves with pop concerts as a way of showing their
that the Baltic languages may be swamped by a wave of Americanisms.
'youthfulness' and 'modernity'.
Articles on the subject have appeared in the Right-wing press in all three
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republics, and Lithuanian television has a weekly programme devoted to
which distinguish them are their totally backward and crippled language
encouraging people to speak correct Lithuanian. At the Third Sajúdis
Congress the radical nationalist, Antanas Terleckas, in the middle of
and their blinding hatred for the Germans."
someone else's speech, suddenly grabbed the microphone and roared at
In both the ancient classical and the Herderian traditions of the
the unfortunate speaker, 'Why do you use this filthy Soviet term "organ",
nineteenth-century, the highest form of folk creation was the epic. This in
when you could use the proper Lithuanian word "institution"
turn, in the classification of the German writer Wilhelm Jordan, could
(institucija)!'
only be produced by an 'epic people' which was, at the same time, a
The hereditary prestige of Vytautas Landsbergis for the Lithuanian
Kulturvolk. The enterprise was pushed forward by the creation of Ossian."
intelligentsia stems in part from a family connection with the creation of
A vital impetus for the Balts was given by the publication in Finland
the modern Lithuanian language. His maternal great-grandfather,
between 1835 and 1849 of the Kalevala, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from
Professor Jonas Jablonskis, was chiefly responsible for drawing up and
fragments of ancient Karelian folk-poems. In its basic material, the
codifying Lithuanian grammar and vocabulary in the later nineteenth
Kalevala is a good deal more authentic as a folk-epic than Ossian, but
century. At the same time, Dr Landsbergis's paternal grandfather was in
stands nonetheless in the Ossian tradition. 20 The result of these
a sense putting Jablonskis's work into practice by writing the first plays
influences in the Baltic provinces was the publication in 1861 of the
to appear in Lithuanian, as well as developing Lithuanian journalism."
Estonian epic poem Kalevipoeg ("The Son of Kalev'), by Friedrich
The activity of the Landsbergis family can indeed be said to span
Kreuzwald and in 1888 (in Latvian) of Läcplesis ("The Bear-Tearer') by
almost the whole history of Lithuanian culture from its creation in the
Andrejs Pumpurs. Läcplesis followed unsuccessful attempts by other
mid-nineteenth century to the present. Landsbergis's father was a
Latvian authors to create such an epic.
distinguished architect under the first republic, who also fought for
Both the giant Kalevipoeg and Lãčplesis were central figures in
Lithuanian independence in 1918-20 and who served in the Lithuanian
ancient Estonian and Latvian prose folk-tales; the reworking of the
administration under the German occupation of 1941. At the time of
material into patriotic verse epics was therefore an 'organic' development
writing, he was still alive and was regularly hailed at Sajüdis gatherings
in Baltic culture. It however required a transformation which went
as the 'Patriarch of National Independence'. Landsbergis himself is the
considerably beyond that of Lonnrot with his Kalevala material, because
most distinguished critic and analyst of Lithuania's national artist and
an epic poetic tradition simply did not exist in Estonian and Latvian
composer, M. K. Ciurlionis, and by keeping knowledge of his work alive
folklore. It must also be said that neither Kalevipoeg nor Lãčplesis were
under a Soviet system hostile to it, helped defend Lithuanian culture;
aggressive heroes as heroes go, and are portrayed as defending their
however, his suggestions that this constituted a form of active resistance
nations, not leading them into conquest. The transformation of the
are exaggerated.
stories into legends also involved the modification of archaic peasant
tastes by aspiring Victorian ones: thus Kreuzwald left out several aspects
of the Kalevipoeg tradition in Estonian folklore, one of which had Christ
Myth as History and History as Myth
catching Kalevipoeg by the testicles and throwing him into a marsh as
punishment for his sexual licence - an episode which also presumably
In developing their national languages and literatures, the Balts were not
symbolised the victory of Christianity over the old gods.*
only concerned to provide themselves with the tools of modern cultural
The impulse to create an Estonian epic came from Kreuzwald's friend,
nationhood. They had also to prove to the world that they possessed a full
Friedrich Robert Fachlmann (1798-1850), who first proposed "building a
cultural identity, and to overcome the sense of inferiority produced by
national epic' around the figure of Kalevipoeg. Fachlmann himself had
many centuries of foreign rule during which any educated Balt
already published (in German) a series of 'Estonian' myths based on
automatically became a German or a Pole. They had to throw back in his
Finnish legendary characters (with classical Greek trappings) which
teeth the words of the Baltic German pastor who declared in the mid-
became Estonian cultural symbols. In the words of an Estonian critic,
nineteenth century that,
'Such universal acceptance of a largely fictional creation must be a rare
occurrence in the history of literature." More major epics were explicit in
Those who know our "nationals" have long since lost all hope for the
Latvian people. It is a stillborn nation. The Latvians have no national
past and no history, they cannot have a future. The only character traits
Lithuanian editors in the past also changed some of the scatological terminology in
Donelaitis' The Seasons.
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Imagined Nations: Cycles of Cultural Rebirth
their intention to serve as national inspirations and rallying-cries, and
both end with invocations to their nations suggesting that the heroes will
return to lead them and restore their past glory. 22 The impact of each on
their nations was tremendous, equivalent to that of the song festivals, the
assemblers of folklore and the creators of the standard languages.
In the Estonian case, the importance of Kalevipoeg has faded over the
years, possibly because of Estonian access to the more 'authentic' and
artistically superior Kalevala, and because of the more modern, Western
tone of Estonian culture in general. The writer Jaan Pubvel argues that
although bits of Kalevipoeg 'have been brandished as a theatrical prop', it
has mainly served as a roadblock. But in Latvia, Pumpurs's work has
been a source of inspiration for successive generations of writers and
artists to the present day. As such it also helped to perpetuate the
influence of Romanticism in Latvian literature long after it had vanished
elsewhere in Europe. 23 In the plainly Herderian words of a contemporary
Lithuanian writer,
As the nation enters history, the word of the poet must acquire the
properties of a narrative discourse, must grow to become a myth that
could in some ways function like those of epic Greek antiquity, when they
gave the people a soul, an identity liberated by time The present
situation of the Baltic States requires a new approach to the myth of
nationhood, one that would cut through the bourgeois sentimentalism of a
small country and the reveries of the romantic era to reach back to the
roots which were there at the dawn of history and before.2
Thus the authors of the national epics, and in Lithuania, the recreators
of Lithuanian history and folklore, did indeed 'invent a tradition' which
stretched back into an imaginary past and influenced a real national
future. 25 This is deliberately symbolised in the episode in Läčplësis in
which the hero overcomes monsters which guard the scrolls containing
the ancient wisdom of the Latvians in a castle sunk beneath the lake.26
The epics therefore served three national needs. They were, in the view
of the intelligentsia, true 'Tolk-epies', emerging from genuine, ancient
folk-traditions and 'mirroring the nation's soul; they were proof that the
Baltic languages could produce great modern writers; and they gave a
history, and a sense of history, to peoples who had possessed neither.
Both Kreuzwald and Pumpurs re-worked their material so that the
enemies of their heroes became the Teutonic Knights. Real historical
characters and events from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries,
like the Livonian chieftain Kaupo and his visit to Rome, were inserted
into the Läčplesis story, The pagan demi-gods of folklore were also
extracted from pagan legend and inserted into an actual national past, at
the same time as, in Läcplesis, Latvian paganism was endowed with a
His original name was Láčausis, 'Bear's Ears'.
partly real, partly imaginary 'Olympus' of classical-type gods."
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Looking to the Latvian future, Pumpurs made Lãčplesis argue for a
as stemming directly from the folk-tradition also praised the authors not
Latvian democratic tradition The Communists, for their part, portrayed
as 'compilers' but as original creative geniuses. Moreover while the folk-
the Lãčplesis of Fire and Night, a play on the theme by the Latvian poet
tales themselves are always referred to as ancient manifestations of pagan
Jänis Rainis, as a symbol of the shackled, sometimes misled force of the
religious culture, the heroes have also been portrayed as historical
proletariat, and the play itself as a staging of the materialist view of
figures.
history. In this interpretation, Laimdota, the hero's rather colourless
So far as the presentation of Lãčplesis in the Latvian visual arts is
beloved, stood for an 'anaemic, backward-looking romantic nationalism',
concerned, this landed the Latvians not on the horns of a dilemma but
while the spirited witch Spidola stood for 'progress'. It seems this was
rather on the ears of one. According to legend, Lãčplesis was the child of
indeed Rainis's intention to an extent; the play was completed in 1911,
a male human and a female bear, which suggested relations deeply
when he was still a strong social democrat.
embarrassing to a Victorian like Pumpurs. This aspect was hence
These epics became rallying cries for successive generations of Balts,
underplayed in his epic, SO most Latvians mistakenly believe that
whenever the nation and its culture seemed in danger of destruction by
Lãčplesis was merely the bear's foster son. In any event, his mother left
foreign oppressors; and they provided an imaginative link between
him with an unavoidable feature the ears of a bear: his original name
modern Balts and their ancestors of the 'golden age', before conquest by
indeed was 'Lăčausis', or 'Bear-Ear'." This is where 'myth as history'
the Germans. According to the Latvian-American critic, Valda
posed a problem. A Latvian mythical demi-god with bear's ears would
Melngaile, for many Latvian poets, song stands for history'. 28 In the first
have presented no particular difficulty; there have been far stranger
Latvian Republic, the 'Order of Läcplesis' was the premier state
figures, mythologically speaking. But for the leader of the thirteenth-
decoration for courage and service, and it is now being revived in the
century Latvian national resistance movement to be depicted in art with
second republic. A Latvian-Russian friend told me that she had grown up
bear's ears was obviously unthinkable the Germans, Russians and
in Riga feeling 'surrounded by Läčplesis'. Apart from the sculpture on
Estonians would have laughed for the rest of historical time.
the Freedom Monument and frequent performances of Rainis's play at
The way in which Latvian artists overcame this difficulty provides one
school and university, there is in Riga a Läčplesis Street and a Lãčplesis
of the more curious episodes in the history of national iconography. The
Cinema. Many hairdressers and boutiques are named 'Laimdota'.
approach has been basically twofold: to conceal, and to transfigure. Thus
Spidola, the witch, is a favourite name for Latvian ships and boats;
on the Freedom Monument in Riga the sculpture of Lãčplēsis is given
"Kangars', the traitor in the epic, has become a generic term for the
long hair, SO that it is impossible to see his ears. Other artists, feeling that
treacherous. The beginnings of the national movement in 1988 were
the ears have to be represented somehow, have detached them from his
accompanied by the rock-opera Läcplesis, by Mãra Zälite, in which the
head and stuck them onto his helmet, like furry ear-muffs on a Russian
hero's unusual ears symbolise his willingness to hear the call of his
hat. Even then however, knowing that spectators might still look under
people. (Lithuanians for their part are renaming whole blocks of Soviet-
the helmet, they had to cover the ear-spaces with long hair. Despite the
named streets after their ancient gods.) In the verse of the Latvian
unequivocal attachment of Läčplësis to his ears in both Pumpurs' and
contemporary poet, Märis Caklais:
Rainis' epic accounts I have yet to find a single Latvian artistic
Pumpurs is a voice
representation, out of dozens investigated, which presents them in their
sewing up the space:
proper location.
"There is a long, long way
What makes the artists' dilemma especially painful however was
to be danced.
summed up by a Latvian guide, to whom I pointed out this anomaly. She
You will require a voice
looked at me coldly: "The ears are to be understood as a sign of moral
clear and bright.
authority', she said, 'Of course they were not physical ears'. While she
There is a far, far future
was wrong about the physicality, it is quite correct that in both the
to be sung."
ancient myths and the modern narratives, the ears gave their owner not
merely authority but also physical strength. They were the equivalent of
The attempt to answer all these national and cultural needs
Samson's hair, and the 'Black Knight' only succeeds in fighting Läéplêsis
simultaneously involved the Balts, however, in a set of contradictory
to a draw at the end of the epic by lopping them off.³² So by taking away
beliefs about the epies which, for a long time, they dared not analyse for
his ears, what the Latvian artists have done is symbolically castrate their own
fear of breaking their spell. Thus the very people who spoke of the epics
national hero!
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Cultural Politics in the Reborn States
In today's reborn Baltic States, the connection between culture and
politics is particularly explicit in the case of Lithuania. There Dr
Landsbergis represents a form of cultural politics' not simply through his
ancestry and image for the Lithuanian intelligentsia but also through his
own central political motivation. 33
The response of leading cultural figures within the Baltics to the
political scene after independence has of course been varied. The
overwhelming majority supported the struggle for independence, some
playing a leading public role. Of these, a few, like the Lithuanian poet
Sigitas Geda, have withdrawn from public life, disgusted with the
corruption and infighting. Others, like his fellow poet Kazys Saja or the
Estonian poet Paul-Erik Rummo, became parliamentary deputies on the
Right. Others again, like the Estonian Jaan Kaplinski and the
Lithuanian exile Tomas Venclova, have become strong critics of what
they see as the narrow and chauvinist nationalism of some sections of
their countries. Jãnis Peters, the former Secretary of the Latvian Writers
Union who played a key part in founding the Popular Front, as of early
1993, still occupied a key post as Latvian ambassador to Moscow. A few,
like the Estonian poet and novelist Jaan Kross, have succeeded in
remaining public figures admired by all for their integrity and
impartiality. Kross, Rummo and Kaplinski were all elected as deputies in
1992, leading an observer to comment that whatever its other faults, the
Estonian parliament was probably the only one in the world to contain
three potential Nobel prizewinners.
While Baltic poets may with time become unpolitical however, very
few can become apolitical. Since the beginnings of modern Baltic culture
it has been the duty of Baltic artists to provide an example in terms of
symbols and ideology. In the words of a post-1944 Baltic emigré writer,
'The task of Latvian literature in exile is to create symbols for the
experience of the Latvian at this time, symbols which would include
answers for the future: how the Latvian nation shall survive in the
shadow of death and how it shall indeed achieve a future'. 14
Baltic exile literature, and especially verse, was overwhelmingly
coloured by nostalgia for the lost homeland, by themes of yearning and
separation, and by the search for eternal symbols which would transcend
the miserable and possibly hopeless circumstances of the present. But
this was also true for the Soviet Baltic authors - indeed even more
poignantly so - because they were often internal emigrés', spiritual exiles
within their own countries and, because in conditions of censorship, their
search for national symbols had to be a hidden endeavour. Censorship, as
8 The Latvian mythical hero, Läčplésis, of the eponymous epic by Pumpurs, fighting the Black
always, encouraged allegory; and allegory in turn pointed to the use of
Knight. Note the bear's ears on Läcplesis' helmet.
either folkfore or history, the natural, traditional source of nationalist
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imagery. Meanwhile, not merely were most artists seeking in some way to
Estonian realist novel, the series "Truth and Justice' by Anton Hansen
express the national spirit and resist Soviet culture, but they were
Tammsaare, was indeed dominated in its first and last volumes by a
impelled by the sheer dreariness, the moral and physical squalor of Soviet
grim, unrelenting struggle with a harsh and unyielding land.
life, to seek refuge in questions of private existence and in folklore and
Nonetheless, it is only when the protagonist, Indrek Paar, returns to the
nature. This tendency was also a reaction against the brutal shock of
land and the struggle from the falsity and even insanity of his urban life
collectivisation, which not only ruined agriculture, but ruined the
that he 'finds himself" again, and discovers a purpose to existence.³
traditional rural society which was the basis of the national tradition
This celebration of traditional values certainly helped prevent Soviet
itself. There was a tremendous impetus therefore to save what could be
rule from achieving legitimacy. However, this rejectionist aspect of Baltic
saved, and use or at least record it before it disappeared. The words of the
and other Soviet national cultures was disguised and indeed warped by
Lithuanian exile critic, Rimvydas Silbajoris, link the nineteenth-century
another factor of great contemporary importance, which I term (after the
search for national myths with the twentieth century search for national
semi-official national culture of the German Empire before 1914) the
cultural regeneration:
'Wilhelmine' nature of Soviet official culture. This was characterised inter
The Lithuanians, a people with possibly the greatest stories to tell from
alia by a slavish adulation of power, industry, 'Progress' in its most brutal
medieval times, never could find even the basic outlines of the myth that
and domineering form, but simultaneously by an endless harping on the
their nation must have been, judging by its historical deeds. The
value of conservative, rural, homely, familial, traditional, folkloric and
alternative chosen by some Lithuanian poets was to turn inward, towards
religious values, all presented in a general glow of kitsch and nauseating
the human mystery of their own selves, as if to some spacious world from
roseate sentimentality, much of it by authors who were themselves
which a mythological perception of existence may rise like some sort of
already thoroughly urbanised.
'memory inside the blood' to nourish and shape the poet's imagination, so
The 'Wilhelmine' sensibility came in reaction to modernisation, but
that a given moment in the course of history would also become suffused
was also of course directly sponsored in the name of social order by a
with this mythological presence and transform itself into poetry
35
threatened authoritarian state. If you omit the religious element, this is a
pretty fair picture of much of officially generated Soviet culture in the last
As a result, after Stalin's death, and Khrushchev's 'thaw' in the 1950s,
decades of the Union. In Russia itself the nationalist aspects could be
there was a tangible literary move, especially in Lithuania and Latvia,
more or less open, and even in the other republics a certain amount was
towards folkloric themes and imagery. It was accompanied by a great, if
allowed. The numbingly boring uses by the Soviet state of sanitised and
covert, internal philosophical reaction against positivism as exemplified
'safe' national folk-cultures are all too familiar to visitors to the former
in its most grim, coarse, and ultimately discredited form by Soviet
Union, and fitted in as perfectly with Soviet rituals as they do with the
Marxism-Leninism. Today this is reflected not only in straightforward
new national ones. Thus too, the high official status of Soviet authors who
uses of traditional forms and motifs, but in sophisticated post-modern
celebrated rural and traditional values (of the most ossified kind) was not
reworkings of them.
compromised by the fact that much of what they were writing could as
The anti-modernist tendency, present in any case in the Baltic peasant
well have come from the Baltic emigrés in America. Similarly, the very
and folkloric-romantic tradition, was considerably strengthened by the
popular Soviet Lithuanian author, Justinas Marcinkevicius, opened his
fact that everything ugly in modern society could now be seen not as the
play Mazvydas (1977) with a Lithuanian pastor teaching children to spell
consequence of general economic and social trends, but as yet another
their first word, 'Lithuania':
evil consequence of alien rule. The effect was that, in much of the Soviet
Baltic literature that Balts really loved and admired, the countryside, and
As you say this word, upon your lips,
rural values, tended to receive an overwhelmingly positive shade, and the
You'll feel the taste of blood and honey,
towns an overwhelmingly negative one. One Lithuanian author is said by
You'll hear the Oriole call before the rain,
Dr Silbajoris to 'describe the moral depravity of his urban characters as if
You'll catch the smell of hay.
it were the very essence of their souls'. Numerous works bathed the 'lost
and SO on. This stomach-turning stuff is not, it must be said,
paradise' of rural childhood in a golden glow. Even in relatively
characteristic of Marcinkevičius's work as a whole, let alone of Baltic
unromantic Estonia, the urban novels and short stories of Arvo Valton,
poetry at its best. On the contrary, one of the great values of folkloric
Mati Unt and others are dominated by themes of coldness, alienation
imagery in Baltic literature is precisely that it avoids triteness and kitsch,
and falsity. In the 1920s and 30s, the greatest classic in the tradition of the
providing instead motifs of universal lyricism and power. Nonetheless,
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these lines are fairly representative of both at their worst, and certainly of
newly-weds often go to the Freedom Monument to lay flowers, as those in
the kind of poetry which is now being written by amateur bards for
Soviet Russia used to go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
political and patriotic occasions. As a patriotic Latvian McGonnigal in
The second danger of course is that Baltic culture will simply open
the radical nationalist paper Pilsonis had it, presumably referring to the
itself to Western mass culture, as so many Balts themselves are doing,
Russians in Latvia:
and vanish into the Western sea. The danger seems particularly acute
While white souls are trying to fly
because of the poverty of the Baltic States, as well as their small size. The
High in the sky,
specific features of Baltic culture described in this chapter are indeed
Black souls are dragging them down and trying to doom them to
already becoming less followed by the newest generation of Baltic
extinction.
creative artists, while most young people in general are thoroughly
Wolves are invading our sacred places,
attached to Western popular forms.
And our gardens where seeds of the Latvian tricolour are
After so many years of guarding their national cultures against
growing
38
destruction, this prospect is naturally viewed with particular horror by
many Baltic intellectuals. The entire cultural, economic and political
However, the field of culture also symbolises and embodies the most
transition is for many highly disturbing in personal terms, even given the
positive sides of Baltic nationalism: its capacity to inspire and move; its
exaggerated hope and subsequent disillusion common to all
intense love for old, precious and unique traditions; and its basically
revolutionary processes. The explanation has something to do with
peaceful and unaggressive character. Today, Baltic writers and artists
emerging from the 'internal emigration', identified in this chapter, which
are addressing the question of how the national concerns of Baltic culture
was in its way a comforting place to live, as well as being relatively secure
should be expressed in this new age. In this context, they face two main
economically and socially for most writers and artists.
problems. The first is the danger of remaining patriotic bards, expressing
Max Weber spoke of the 'disenchantment of the world' through
national values' and articulating the national spirit', though now with
modernisation. This is what threatens Baltic culture, now that the
the support of the dominant political forces. 39 Those who do are likely to
possibility has gone of blaming Soviet rule for everything bad and ugly.
lose touch with the transformation of their societies and find themselves
Jaan Kaplinski personifies this dilemma in some ways. On one hand, he
perpetuating a tradition which is 'Soviet in form and national in content'.
has strongly denounced the narrow and chauvinist aspects of
This is now probably the dominant cultural form in all the former
contemporary Estonian culture, and the hatred of the Russians:
republics of the Soviet Union, as nationalism is the dominant political
form. This is not only because nationalism is the only force which can
The Citizens Committees [an Estonian radical nationalist force represent
replace communism in the structure of state, society, culture and
a new religion and know what a true Estonian is. Anyone who doesn't
academia. It is also because, following the 'Wilhelmine' argument, some
agree is a heretic and not a true Estonian
[for
example]
if
someone
aspects of Soviet and patriotic culture had a good deal in common,
says that the Russian language could be a second state language in
making the transition between them an easy one.
Estonia, he is not a true Estonian. There is an opinion here that 'an
Similarity between the Soviet and the nationalist style is even more
Estonian is always closer to another Estonian', but for me, Boris Yeltsin
marked in the area of public monuments. It is amusing to note how
for example is much more sympathetic than some of our Super-Estonian
intellectuals of the various republics, though contemptuous of the ugly,
politicians Because Estonians are a small nation, they tend to put
brutalist style of Soviet monuments, are full of praise for Soviet
pressure on their compatriots, so that every Estonian should 'think as an
monuments to their own national heroes, even when constructed in
Estonian' and think like the majority. But I have my own convictions and
exactly the same style. The most famous surviving national monument
will never give them up, whatever the majority may say.41
from the period of the first republics in the Baltic is the Freedom
Monument in Riga, constructed in the 1930s. This is not of course Soviet
On the other hand, Kaplinski loves the rural and folklore tradition (albeit
in style, but it is certainly disturbingly brutalist, showing all too clearly
transfigured in his verse by universal values and influences from widely
the influence of the prevailing official styles of contemporary Germany
different cultures) and SO dislikes urban life that he can hardly bear to
and Italy. The elaborate statuary is however more reminiscent of
live even in the small university town of Tartu. He has denounced the
pre-1914 Germany, suggesting (as so often) a certain lag in the
influence of mass Western culture as 'Barbification', after the popular
transmission of Western cultural influences to the Baltic. Today, Latvian
doll:
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Barbie is a model introducing us to the brave new world that we are
entering. Regrettably, this brave new world is totalitarian, it has no place
for a different life, for different people. I'm deeply worried by the fact
that practically no new children's books have been printed in Estonia in
the last couple of years, and that instead, children are fed with the so-
called Barbie-culture. The continuation of this trend is a serious threat to
Estonian culture and the Estonian identity. Barbie-ism is potentially even
more deadly than Bolshevism because we do not see it as a danger. No
normal person wants to be engulfed by a swamp and fights desperately for
survival. but
is it more pleasant to suffocate in rose petals than mud?⁴²
It is difficult not to sympathise with Kaplinski, when Western mass
culture is indeed so crass and Western 'higher' culture often so vacuous.
The effect of the former is encapsulated in the availability on cable TV in
the Baltic of bland West German soft-core pornography, now achieving
the miracle, beyond the power even of the Soviet State, of making sex
boring. Similarly, at a street exhibition of modern Western art in Riga
during the summer of 1991, the upended metal grills, the monster
cardboard cut-out of one of the artists, and the rest of the shallow,
narcissistic masquerade - as ritual and empty in its way as anything
produced by Soviet culture - made one yearn for Baltic folkloric symbols,
which, if not completely true, at least have meaning and beauty.
The issue is expressed in another form in William Wilson's book,
Folklore and Nationalism in Finland. After tracing what he clearly sees as a
generally unhealthy Finnish obsession with national folklore for the past
century-and-a-half, the author ends with an optimistic picture of Finnish
students turning from this to the study of contemporary popular culture,
for example, 'narrative formulas in comic strips'. I cannot really share his
enthusiasm. There are hundreds of thousands of comic strips, and
hundreds of academic theses about them; but there is only one Kalevala.
Similarly, while Lithuanian nationalist intellectuals are often mad, they
are at least uniquely mad, or madly unique. The highest ambition of
many Estonians, by contrast, is merely to become a sub-species of slightly
spoiled Swede. A deeper question is whether the heroic Finnish resistance
of 1940 and 1944, to which Wilson gives due credit, would have been
possible without the kind of pride in Finnish national culture so
assiduously fostered by the nationalist folklorists and cultural figures of
whom he so disapproves. This is a key problem in the Baltic States, and
one to which no conclusive answer can ever be given.
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The Baltic Russians
7
They have argued in terms of international law, historical justice, and
specific Baltic interests. I have replied on the basis of pragmatism,
The Baltic Russians
practical risks, and the interests of Europe and of the former Soviet region
as a whole. In the light of experience of ethnic conflict elsewhere, I am
concerned about the appalling consequences which could result,
throughout the former Soviet Union, from attempts to dismantle the
The body of this people is like a fat cocoon,
demographic legacy of Soviet rule. This concern may be exaggerated.
Inside which sleeps a caterpillar soul,
Since living in the Baltic, my instinct both as a journalist and a historian
While shaping its breast for flight
has told me that, to go by the past, Baltic policies towards the Baltic
Unfolding its wings, flexing and adorning -
Russians will, sooner or later, lead to an explosion. It may well be,
But when the sun of freedom shall rise,
however, that, for reasons set out in this chapter, these 'ancestral voices
What kind of insect will fly out of that shroud?
prophesying war' are mistaken in the case of the Baltic States.
Adam Mickiewicz
It is in any case bitterly unfair that the Balts should be asked to modify
(translated by Czeslaw Milosz)
their behaviour for fear of its effect on chauvinist nationalism in Russia,
or the ethnic harmony of Kazakhstan. But history, like geography, is
often unfair, and I argue that if Russia does swing in the direction of
fascism, the result in part of the position of Russians living outside
Russia, then the Balts themselves may suffer acutely. A Scandinavian
diplomat explained his country's policy:
The concern expressed in this chapter for the status of the Baltic
Russians, and of Russians outside Russia in general, comes not from
We hope for peace and ethnic harmony in this region, which would itself
affection for them, or from a sense that the circumstance of their location
make it more likely that the Baltic States can carry out economic reforms
is in any way justified. It comes from a strong belief that they are
and move towards Western Europe; but I don't see this desire as directed
dangerous.
against the Balts - after all, this is also very much in their own interests.
A Latvian, reading an early draft of this book, observed that while it
Although to the Balts it may well seem unfair, I do not regard it as
attacked Baltic 'racism' towards the Russians, it was itself guilty of racist
immoral that Western Balts should talk in terms of the general interests
comments about the Baltic Russians. The point, however, is not that I
of Europe, or of the former Soviet peoples. Moreover, while the Balts
regard Baltic attitudes to the Russians as especially pernicious in
have a strong case in international law for regarding most of the Russians
comparison with those of Western nations; they are often perfectly
as illegal immigrants, a moral argument can also be made for the rights of
understandable and justified. The point is that they remain dangerous.
the Russians, and has been made, by Helsinki Watch amongst others.
In practice, strong pressure on the Russians to leave will endanger the
peace of the region and of Europe.
There is also one exception to the general moral justification for Baltic
behaviour: the position of Russian and Russian-Jewish intellectuals and
A Question of Identity
businessmen in Riga is rather different, for several reasons. First, because
the Russian community in Riga (even if not in its present dimensions) is
A common charge against the Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic
of historic standing; secondly, because it broadly supported Latvian
is that they have no real national identity: they are pure examples of
independence; thirdly, because it is essential to Latvian prosperity; and
Homo Sovieticus. An aspect of this has been the Baltic Russian attachment
fourthly, because Riga has always been a multinational city, neither
to the symbols of Communism. Thus in the Russian-populated Estonian
purely Latvian nor purely anything else. Seen in the long historical term,
town of Narva, the statue of Lenin once stood, not because of positive
the attempt to turn Riga into a city with a purely Latvian face and
enthusiasm even among former Communist authorities, but purely as a
identity is at odds with its traditions.
visible sign of opposition to the 'nationalist' government in Tallinn. A
In my discussions with Balts over the question of guaranteed rights for
Russian factory worker in Tallinn, asked in spring 1991 about a huge
the Russian minority, the argument has usually been at cross purposes.
painting of Lenin on the wall of his plant, shrugged his shoulders sadly:
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
I know that today it does not look as if Lenin achieved very much, and
suggested that a majority of Muscovite girls would like to become hard
that even in Russia he is charged with crimes; but you see, we need some
currency prostitutes. The effects of this on the Russian male psyche, and
sort of national symbol. In England too, you have national symbols, don't
the possible implications for politics, can be imagined.
you? Like Churchill, for example?¹
A common analysis of support for fascism has been in terms of declasse
social groups, or those threatened with social upheaval. In the context of
The loss of national culture is of course not a problem for the Baltic
the replacement of a Communist society with an impoverished, Third
Russians alone. It has been suggested, by Paul Goble among others, that
World version of a free market, this fate threatens the entire population.
under Stalin a kind of implicit contract was created, by which the
Even the minority who stand to do well from the new order are being
Russian nation as a whole agreed to surrender its national culture to that
shaken out of long established patterns; for most, the effect is not
of the Soviet Union, in return for a supposedly trans-national Union
dissimilar to the strains placed on the German petty bourgeoisie between
guaranteeing Russian pre-eminence in what was in effect a continuation
1918 and 1933. For the moment, however, the Baltic Russians' self-image
of the Russian empire. It meant that both national and traditional
as an imperial people has been greatly undermined. Unlike most imperial
imperial symbols were destroyed or devalued by association with Soviet
peoples, the Russians have generally been poorer (and often, it must be
propaganda, and are therefore more difficult to recover than the symbols
said, dirtier and more drunken) than many of the peoples over whom
of the Balts or the Georgians.² It is also important to note that despite the
they were ruling. Most Russian immigrants to the Baltic came from the
view of many Balts, such an 'implicit contract' does not denote collective
working class or the peasantry, whereas the local populations comprised
guilt for the crimes of Stalin or his successors: the Russians were never
a substantial middle class and intelligentsia, damaged but not destroyed
consulted, in free elections, as to their support for Communism.
by Stalinism. The discrediting of Communism led many Baltic Russians,
Traditional Russian culture, and the Russian educated classes, bore the
especially younger ones, to look towards the West. This in turn led to
full brunt of Communism. Russians do not view themselves as
support for independence, and hopes of a move towards Western
beneficiaries of the Soviet system, but as its chief victims. Russian
standards. In the words of Nikolai Slinsky, a Russian technician at the
workers in the Baltic, too, are incapable of comprehending why the Balts
'Communard' plant in Vilnius, shortly after the Lithuanian Declaration
should view them as privileged exploiters, since their income and living
of Independence,
standards are on average lower than those of the Balts themselves.
I have been abroad several times, and seen how people live there. I would
A formal Russian apology for Soviet crimes therefore appears
like Vilnius to be like the towns I saw in Finland. And as long as
inappropriate, and will certainly not be forthcoming. What can be asked,
Lithuania is democratic, like the West, there will be no problem for
of course, is that Russians, and Russian intellectuals in particular, should
be more aware of the relationship between Russian nationalism and
Russians here.³
Soviet imperialism, and show some commitment to a conclusive break
An opinion poll in Latvia in December 1991 showed that while, as
with the past.
expected, more local Russians than Latvians favoured a connection with
Russian self-confidence today is undermined by the traditional
the former Soviet Union (though only 33.2 per cent of Russians to 23.4
Russian tendency to bitter and even hysterical self-criticism, mixed with
per cent of Latvians), the proportion of those favouring an orientation to
quasi-messianic beliefs that Russia was destined to save the world, a
the West and to Japan was extremely close: 36.9 per cent Russians to 39.2
combination familiar in Third World countries exposed to First World
per cent Latvians. Economic hopes have so far been disappointed.
modernisation, precisely the fate of Russia since Peter the Great.
resulting in a great wave of disillusionment among Balts as well as
Communism fed on the second conviction, and Communism's fall is
Russians. Any resulting Baltic Russian reaction against independence
leading to a striking revival of the first. It is very common in Russia today
has however been diminished by the fact that, across the border, Russia
to hear the expression, 'in the civilised world', implying that Russia is not
itself is even worse off.
civilised and perhaps never will be. Such abject despair is worrying, both
On the other hand, the fear of Russian workers (and of many Balts),
because it can lead to paralysis of the will and because it suggests that in
that if the Baltic Republics left the Union, Russian raw material and oil
due course, as a reaction, there may be a reversion to the messianic
supplies would decrease, damaging the Baltic economies, has proved
variant, signalled, perhaps, by the rise of Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
entirely accurate. Its impact has, however, been deadened, because the
The humiliation of grinding poverty and a dispossession of ideals
decline has come in the context of a general collapse in the Soviet trading
would be dangerous enough on its own: an opinion poll, for example, has
system, harming all the former republics alike.
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The Baltic Russians
In the Baltic Republics, therefore, it was difficult indeed for Russians
just as many of the uncertain features of contemporary Baltic ideology
to see themselves - as did British and French colonists in their empires -
result from the 'time-lag' of Soviet isolation, so Russian attitudes and
as bearers of civilisation and prosperity. The Baltic Russians became
dilemmas are sometimes reminiscent of those of Western Europeans a
increasingly aware of the failure of the Soviet system, and of their
couple of generations ago. In the autumn of 1992 Russia stood in a
association with it. In the words of Goethe, to be hated hurts no-one; it is
position not wholly dissimilar from that of France in the mid-1950s,
contempt that drags men down'.
between the end of the war in Indo-China and the full intensification of
A large proportion of Baltic Russians have been prepared to
the war in Algeria.
acknowledge that the Balts have a superior civic culture, are cleaner,
Losses suffered during the Second World War and in Indo-China
more orderly, and harder-working. They may qualify this by saying that
destroyed the will of the French people to hold on to their colonial
Russian life is 'friendlier', or 'more humane', but this is the exact reverse
empire, just as Britain's exhaustion after 1945 made it impossible to think
of the usual coloniser: colonised self-images. In marriages between Balts
of holding on to India.
and Russians, the tendency has been for Russians to become Baltified
Even before de Gaulle, the French had begun an orderly, negotiated
rather than vice versa, a check on the 'Russification' of the region; in
withdrawal from most of their colonies and protectorates. Except Algeria;
Latvia in 1990, 36 per cent of marriages were across nationalities
but Algeria was not presented to the French people as a conventional
(including marriages between Russians and Ukrainians and SO on).
imperial, colonial conflict: after Dien Bien Phu, such a war would have
Growing ethnic tension, however, may account for the increase in divorce
been bitterly unpopular. Instead, it was fought precisely on the grounds
within inter-ethnic marriages, from 37 per cent in 1987 to 40 per cent in
that ici, c'est la France, that the presence of one million Frenchmen (or, like
1990. Marriages between Estonians and non-Estonians have been much
the "Russians' in the other former Soviet republics, a mixture of
rarer.⁵
nationalities but predominantly French-speaking) made Algeria part of
or pre-eminent importance in avoiding the development of strong
the soil of France itself.
Baltic Russian resistance to independence au pied noir, has been the
It was through this argument that the alliance of Pieds Noirs and
peaceful strategy of all three Baltic national movements, and the natural
embittered military veterans of Indo-China cajoled the French nation
restraint of the Baltic populations in the face of every provocation to
into an extended, bitter struggle. It was backed by the assumption that
violence. This feature has been central to the prestige of the Baltic
since Frenchmen could not possibly live under Muslim majority rule, the
movements, not only in the West but also in Russia, and among Baltic
only alternative was 'the suitcase or the coffin' emigration or death.
Russian intellectuals. These claim it has also influenced the character
After several years of savage warfare, of course, it became a self-fulfilling
and behaviour of the Russians in the region. In words that have been
echoed by many Baltic Russians, Boris Yulegin, Deputy Mayor of
prophecy. Today, defeat in Afghanistan, economic collapse, the total discrediting
Tallinn, said that:
of Communism, national revolt (albeit mainly peaceful) and the end of
the Communist Party - the iron frame of the Soviet empire - have led to
The Russians who have lived here all their lives have changed a lot. They
the disintegration of the Soviet Union and of much of the old Russian
have taken on something of the Estonian coolness, restraint and habit of
empire. Sheer exhaustion, as much as anything else, saw the Russian
hard work whether they like it or not! They do not feel at home when
people accept, at least before 1993, the loss of empire with extraordinary
they go to Russia. The Russians who come here also sometimes do not
equanimity (when compared to Britain and France), despite the fact that
understand our character, and ask us, "Why don't you protest? Why don't
some of the abandoned territories had been part of Russia for longer than
you go on the streets?"
the entire national history of the United States of America.
After the First World War, Russia was also in a state of exhaustion, but
In view of the size of the Baltic populations, the local Russian response to
the empire was rebuilt by Lenin with the help, in part, of national
calls for rallies, strikes, and political resistance before the summer of 1992
Bolsheviks', Russian Imperialists like General Brusilov (and even
was pitifully small, and even the response to referenda and elections was
Marshal Tukhachevsky) who saw Communism as the only means to
deeply divided.
unite Russia and reconquer the lost territories. (That, however, was in
Despite this, it is still useful to analyse the position of Russia as a
the context of an age of European empires. The world cultural
whole, and of the Baltic Russians in particular, within the context of the
atmosphere today is of course different.)
European experience of decolonisation. It is important to remember that
Sections of the former Communist and radical nationalist press continue
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The Baltic Russians
The Baltic Revolution
to demand that the Baltic States should remain within a sphere of
population. I always felt like crying out: 'Friends, your attitude is
influence amounting in effect to imperial control. Thus a Pravda article in
misplaced! I am different!' But the words stuck in my mouth, because I
too am to blame for the occupation and enslavement of the Baltic States.
June 1992 argued that,
Withdrawal of Russia from the Baltic States would mean not just closing
But to expect the majority of the Russian people to be decisively
our window on the West, which has already been done, but also boarding
influenced by feelings of post-colonial guilt would be to require more of
it up, which is going on at present. Russia simply cannot exist without the
them than the peoples of the other former Soviet republics and indeed of
Baltic ports. Therefore Estonian politicians will have to consider the
the former Western imperial nations as well.
renewal and development of links with Russia
[and]
the
Russian
The issue of responsibility for the former imperial territories is of
nation, which once saved the Estonians from Nazi genocide, has no choice
course a heaven-sent weapon for all those in opposition in Russia to use
but to re-open its European window. How this might be done is another
against whichever government is in power the tactics of Ruslan
7
Khasboulatov against Yeltsin being a flagrant example - and a way of
question
distracting public attention from failures at home. In the words of a
The article's strongest language is, however, reserved for the question of
Russian diplomat, 'the Russian politicians are trying to solve the
rights for Russian residents of Estonia. Liberal Moscow papers like
problems of Russians in Riga because they don't know how to solve the
Izvestia, Moscow News and Nezavisimaya Gazeta also often express the hope
problems of Russians in Moscow'.
that the Balts will retain close economic links with Russia, but they do
To retain mass support, Russian liberals cannot be seen to be too soft
not use the neo-imperialist language of Pravda. All, however, are
on the question of Russian rights. With some twenty-five million
becoming increasingly concerned about the treatment of Russians living
Russians living outside national borders, there are of course also practical
in the Baltic.
reasons for any Russian government to ensure that they are secure, and
Even among those who oppose independence for the Balts and others,
do not return to burden an impoverished Russia and worsen the attitude
there is little real enthusiasm for force. Most of the supporters of
of Russia's population to its own internal ethnic minorities.¹
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, for example, tend to retreat when confronted with
the reality of war on a massive scale." The hope in much of Russian
government is to retain the Baltic States within a sphere of influence. But
The Baltic Russians through History
were it not for the existence of substantial Russian minorities, it is
doubtful even this effort would be made, given Russian weakness.⁹ An
Some sort of Russian presence has existed in the lands that are now
opinion poll published in Izvestia in January 1993 suggested that while a
Estonia and Latvia since the Dark Ages, though numerically small. After
majority of Russians wanted their country to regain its status as a great
expulsion by German crusaders of the Russian princes that had
power, only some four per cent thought it should be through military
dominated parts of the region, the Russian population in the Middle
force and aggressive foreign policy; the great majority sought it through a
Ages consisted of small groups of merchants from Novgorod and Pskov,
strong economy.
together with a number of Slavic (or Slavicised Balt) communities in
The protection of the minorities is a theme which both the old Soviet
what is now Eastern Latvia. This is excepting the enormous Slavic
and new Russian imperialists have a strong interest in exploiting. But the
Orthodox community which came under Lithuanian rule between the
situation in Moldavia, Ossetia or the Baltic States is not being presented
thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, but was later incorporated into what
by Russian television as a struggle for empire;¹⁰ nor is it seen as such by
are now Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine.
most Russians. For them, the duty of the Russian government to protect
From the sixteenth century, the small Russian communities in the
the position of Russians (and pro-Russian minorities) in neighbouring
ethnic Baltic heartlands were joined by Russian political refugees and
states is seen not as an imperial but as a national duty.
religious dissidents fleeing persecution by Ivan the Terrible and his
Some Russian intellectuals (Professor Yuri Afanassyev is a leading
descendants. The largest group was made up of 'Old Believers', the
example) feel differently, regarding most of these populations as legacies
Russian Orthodox who refused to accept liturgical reforms introduced by
of imperialism. The dissident Russian poet, Boris Chichabin, has written,
the seventeenth century Tsars, culminating in those of Peter the Great,
We are all answerable to God. During the stagnation years I used to visit
still remembered by these communities as Antichrist. A few Old Believer
the Baltic States and often encountered the unfriendliness of the local
villages survive in Latgale, on the northern shores of Lake Peipus
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
(Peipsi), and in Lithuania. They were subjected to Soviet persecution
had a Russian minority of some 30 per cent, but now has a majority of 94
and, partly as a consequence, tended to support Baltic independence."
per cent) on 18-19 June 1938, the Archpriest Alexander Sakharov
After the conquest of Livonia and Estonia by Peter the Great, the
thanked the Estonian government for allowing the Russians to live 'in
population was gradually expanded by increasing numbers of Russian
peace and prosperity'. According to the Russian emigré scholar Temira
officials, soldiers, and merchants. Most were transients, but some put
Pachmuss, all the speakers, including the Estonian ministers, spoke in
down roots and remained. At the same time, branches of the Baltic
Russian. The Festival of Russian Song, also in Narva, attracted
German nobility intermarried with Russian noble families. Until the
thousands of singers from all over Estonia.
later nineteenth century the number of Russians in the Baltic provinces
As in Eastern Europe and Manchuria after 1944-45, Stalin's
was never large. At this point the Russian government, in pursuit of its
determination to wipe out the Russian opposition forces in exile meant
Russification policy, attempted to settle Russian peasants on the land.
that the Russian communities in the Baltic suffered early, and
This archaic colonial idea failed but, unplanned by the imperial
particularly badly, after the conquest of 1940. Of those prominent
government, the workings of imperial capitalism (as in Malaya, the West
Russian intellectuals who failed to escape to the West or to Finland, the
Indies, Fiji and so on) were drawing tens of thousands of impoverished
great majority were executed or died in camps. The Russian community
Russian peasants to new factories and docks springing up on the Baltic
in Tallinn in particular has never recovered from the loss, which
coast. According to an American scholar, 'Riga became in these decades
eliminated a group which might later have built bridges between the
one of the most ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse of the
Russian and Balt communities.
major cities of Europe'. According to a census in 1913, Riga was 39.8 per
Soviet partisan activity among Russian workers in the Baltic occurred
cent Latvian (an increase from 23.6 per cent in 1867), 20 per cent
during the German occupation, and was ruthlessly suppressed. The scars
Russian, 13.9 per cent German, 9.5 per cent Polish, 7 per cent Jewish and
it left were exploited by Soviet loyalists in recent years, but with limited
6.9 per cent Lithuanian. 13
success.¹⁵ The Russian population in the Baltic after the war was
Since both Russian workers and Balts saw the local German élites and
overwhelmingly new and had no direct acquaintance with past atrocities
the imperial government as their common enemies, there was little
- or, indeed, of life in a free society.
tension between them. In 1915, the Russian retreat and the consequent
New Russian settlement began almost immediately the fighting ceased
evacuation of the factories and their workforces led to a drastic reduction
in 1945, beginning with officials and demobilised soldiers given jobs in
in the size of the Russian population. The resulting labour shortage,
the region. These in many cases moved straight into flats abandoned by
especially on the farms of independent Latvia, was compensated by
the refugees who had fled to the West, or belonging to Balts deported to
Polish and Lithuanian migrant labour. The pejorative image of the
Siberia. Baltic claims for the return of their property are a factor causing
Lithuanian as a dirty, shiftless, landless labourer lingers in Latvia to this
tension in the region now.
day.
Within only a few years the influx made up for the colossal losses of the
After the Bolshevik revolution and the achievement of Baltic
war years, and was responsible for an absolute rise in the population of
independence, the pattern of the Old Believers was repeated, with
both Latvia and Estonia. The Estonian population had fallen from 1.13
Russian refugees seeking refuge in the Baltic States. Some were explicitly
million in 1939 to some 850,000 in 1945; by 1955 the population had risen
religious, as in the case of the Mikniškes Orthodox community in South-
again to 1.15 million, chiefly through the arrival of some 230,000 non-
Eastern Lithuania. The educated sections of this new Russian emigration
Estonian immigrants. By 1959, ethnic Russians, 8.2 per cent of the pre-
were a heterogeneous mixture, including both former White officers and
war population, amounted to 20 per cent of the total.¹⁶
their families, and (in Latvia) large numbers of Russian-speaking Jews.
In Latvia the population was swollen by 535,000 non-Latvian
Between the wars Riga was the largest Russian emigré centre after Paris.
immigrants, rising from around 1.4 million at the war's end to 2 million
Russian immigrants complained of Baltic "coldness' towards them, of
by 1955. The Soviet pretext was that these workers were necessary to
anti-Russian rhetoric from the press and politicians, and of state
develop the economy and compensate for wartime losses. Lithuania, with
discrimination (especially in education), but most were very grateful to
its higher birthrate and bigger reserve of rural labour, had more grounds
have found in the Baltic States a refuge from Communist savagery. The
to resist the influx, and only some 160,000 non-Lithuanians arrived
nostalgic, mournful verses about their lost homeland anticipated those of
during the post-war years.
Baltic exiles when their homes too were ravaged by the Communists.
Thereafter immigration continued more slowly. In Latvia and Estonia,
On the "Day of Russian Culture' held in Narva, Estonia (which then
it diminished steeply in the 1970s as Russia's own birthrate and labour
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
pool fell sharply. In Lithuania, where industrial expansion persisted after
had done so. The residence requirement for citizenship, on which much
the native labour pool had been exhausted and the death of Snieckus had
Western attention has been focused, is therefore largely irrelevant for the
removed a covert defender of national interests, immigration increased
purpose of excluding the bulk of the Russians. The really important
sharply. In 1965-69, the figure was only 29,000, but by 1980-85, it had
factor is the language test, quotas (in Latvia), and, in terms of the Russian
grown to 59,000. Lithuania's larger native population however meant
political élites, the proposed Latvian requirement excluding military
this still left the Russian minority at less than ten per cent of the total. In
veterans, past-Communists and opponents of Latvian independence.
Estonia, by contrast, the native proportion of the population fell from
Ethnic Russians make up the large majority of the non-Balt
88.2 per cent in 1938 to 74.6 per cent in 1959, and is only around 61 per
populations. In Latvia they represent 34 per cent of the population, with
cent today. In Latvia, the figure fell from 75.5 per cent before the War to
Byelorussians 4.5 per cent, and Ukrainians 3.5 per cent. These latter
62 per cent in 1959, and some 52 per cent today. By 1990, according to the
groups tend to be classed generically but loosely as 'Russian-speakers',
Latvian census, the process had ceased, and a net emigration had begun:
and this is probably fair. As a result of being made to study in Russian
3,989 more people left Riga than arrived that year. By 1992, emigration
schools and work in Russian-speaking workplaces, and of intermarriage,
by Russian speakers was more than 20,000.
most have lost any close connection with their original nationality.
The clear intention of the Soviet government was to dilute the Baltic
Russia has offered citizenship to all those who declare themselves to be
populations and bolster pro-Soviet loyalties. The attraction, however, as
Russian.
it had been before 1914, was principally the higher living standards of the
The Baltic governments have tried to drive wedges between non-Balt
Baltic States (the Soviet West'), which sucked in workers, especially
communities by means of regional cultural societies and other tactics, but
those young and unmarried, from all over the Union. As an incentive,
this has been undermined by the lack of education among the
many (though by no means all) were offered flats on the grounds of being
communities concerned, as well as by the tendency of the Baltic
needed 'specialists', while Balts frequently spent years in the housing
populations to regard all non-Balts as 'Russians' and to treat them
queue. As one Latvian put it:
accordingly. This of course tends to solidify non-Balts within a sort of
The Russians take the apartments in a house, and leave us the attic and
quasi-Russian, quasi-Soviet identity, and has led to some strange
the cellar. Then they say that we are discriminating against them because
identifications. In Riga, I listened for months to my Latvian landlady
they have nowhere to hang their washing or store their wood!
abusing the 'noisy, dirty Russians' next door before discovering they
were in fact Georgians.
In the principal cities the population change was even more to the Balts'
In February 1990, soon after the bloody Soviet suppression of the Baku
disadvantage. Even in 1940, Riga had been only 63 per cent Latvian, the
revolt, I met an Azeri foreman in a Lithuanian factory whose allegiance
balance made up of Russians, Germans, Jews and some Western
to the Soviet Union seemed indistinguishable from that of his Russian
merchants. The Latvian percentage rose sharply as a result of the
mates because, he claimed, he was afraid of the 'Lithuanian fascists'.
deportation, evacuation or murder of many of the minorities, but fell
Despite this, the mixture of nationalities among the workforces of
steeply again after 1945. Today Latvians make up only 36.5 per cent of
Russian-speaking factories in Latvia has been one factor working against
Riga's population. They are also in a minority in each of Latvia's six
collective political action.
main towns, ranging from 49 per cent in Jelgava to only 13 per cent in the
The very real threat, under Soviet rule, of being reduced to a minority
eastern city of Daugavpils. In Tallinn, Estonians had formed 85.6 per
within their own homeland and eventually swamped altogether has left
cent of the population in 1940, but today represent only around 49 per
deep scars upon the Latvian and Estonian psyches. Everyone agrees that
cent. But whereas in Latvia, Russians live in towns across the country, in
further immigration must cease. Russian immigrants of any description
Estonia they are concentrated in Tallinn and the north-east. Other
would have attracted hostility from the Balts (or any other indigenous
Estonian towns, like Tartu, Parnu and Kuresaare (formerly Kingisepp)
nation in the same position, those in the West most emphatically
have solid Estonian majorities. In Vilnius the trend was entirely the other
included), given their huge numbers and association with foreign
way. Lithuanians, a small minority before the war, are today in a
conquest, political tyranny, debasement of culture and public manners,
majority, although some 45 per cent of the city's population remains
and economic decline. It has been precisely the proletarian nature of the
Polish, Russian or Byelorussian.
Russian immigration that has contributed to the resistance to it,
In Latvia and Estonia, the great majority of the present "immigrant"
especially among Estonians, so very different in temperament and
population entered the republics before 1970, or was born to parents who
culture. I have seen Estonians, normally so very calm, twitching and
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
shaking with repressed physical hatred as they speak of the 'Asiatic,
a half-Russian, half-Latvian woman explained why she had never
Mongolian barbarians' who have settled among them, and of their foul
learned Latvian:
habits.
This kind of gut racial hatred is less of a problem in more easy-going
You see, Latvian didn't seem to us like a real language. The good books
and films were all in Russian. In our house in Riga the most notable
(and Slavicised) Latvia. There too, however, one can very often hear
resident was a Russian colonel.
I have to admit that there was a period
mothers chastising their children that 'you're behaving like a Russian
you're eating like a Russian'. This cultural difference threatems to become
in my life [at school] when I was ashamed of my half-Latvian roots.
We made fun of Latvians, skipped our Latvian language classes, and sent
even more marked if the Balts take advantage of economic change to rise
our teacher out of the classroom crying. To be Russian was more
into a new middle class, while Russian workers decline relatively or even
absolutely in prosperity.
glamorous, more glorious, more true-to-life
Latvia didn't even exist in
Russian schools here.¹⁸
Latvians blame the dirt and decay of Riga and the other cities upon
their Russian majorities - and they are often right. There is indeed about
Knowledge of Latvian among Russians is higher than that of Estonian,
some of the Russian workers in the Baltic an air of the 'Dark People', the
partly because the communities in Latvia are closer, but mainly because
sullen, suspicious, unknowable, potentially terrible peasants of the
Latvian, like Russian, is an Indo-European language, whereas Estonian
Russian tradition. This in turn evokes Pushkin's words about the revolts
is a Finno-Ugric tongue of exceptional complexity. Even so, in 1989, only
of those same peasants, 'senseless and merciless'. More often, however, I
23 per cent of non-Latvians could speak Latvian with any degree of
have found the people perfectly friendly, but ignorant, as much
fluency.
bewildered as angry. Their deception by the Communists, their lack of
Today, a willingness to learn certainly exists, and Russian bookstores
knowledge of history, and their social isolation from the Balts has meant
are full of 'teach yourself Latvian' manuals. Much depends on factors
that they simply, for a long time, had no idea what the Baltic national
such as class, education, and location: Russians in cities with a high
movements were all about, or why local people disliked them.
proportion of Balts are much more likely to learn than those living in
Only a small proportion of Russian-speakers in the Baltic have learned
towns such as Daugavpils. But most depends on individual motivation.
to speak Baltic languages adequately. Until recently a majority did not
Some ordinary workers seem to be making honest efforts to learn; some
speak them at all: according to a 1988 poll in Estonia, only 38 per cent
officials and businessmen are still arrogantly refusing to do so, believing
could speak even minimal Estonian, though the picture has doubtless
themselves to be indispensable.
improved since then. This, and the general Russian indifference to local
The image of the Baltic Russians as made up overwhelmingly of
culture, has been a major source of Baltic anger. As a bitter joke has it:
proletarians is true for Lithuania and for Tallinn. In north-east Estonia
(where about half the Russian-speakers of Estonia are concentrated), the
'In the Soviet Union, if you know four languages, what are you?'
huge Russian majority has produced a Russian educated-class of
'A Zionist.'
teachers, doctors, and managers and scientists at factories and power
'And if you know two languages?'
stations. In Latvia, the picture is different. Riga, as the capital of the
'A Nationalist."
Soviet Baltic, attracted a higher proportion of educated Russians, just as
'And if you know one language?' [i.e. Russian]
it had under the Russian Empire. According to a 1989 census, 13.4 per
'An Internationalist!"
cent of non-Latvians in the republic had received a higher education,
compared with only 11.5 per cent of Latvians. It is quite true that
Today, this failure constitutes a major threat to the position of the Baltic
Russians make up the majority (62 per cent) of the industrial workforce,
Russians, as all three republics demand knowledge of the language as a
but together with Russian Jews they also dominate the managerial class,
qualification for continuing to hold many state jobs, not merely as
the technological establishment (58 per cent of scientific jobs and 51 per
doctors, teachers, and officials, but even as waiters.
cent of information and computer services), and of great significance for
Living amidst Russians, working in Russian-majority factories,
the future the great majority of positions within the new, private
watching Russian television and with all necessary documents translated
business sector."
into Russian, most simply had no reason to learn the local languages. Nor
Other than this, whether the existence of a Russian-speaking educated
did the generally very inadequate level of Estonian and Latvian teaching
class proves a boon or a curse for Latvia depends very much on who
in Russian schools encourage learning. In a newspaper interview in 1990,
succeeds in Latvian politics and what their intentions are towards the
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
Russians. If, eventually, a compromise is sought with the Russians, then
similar objectives, there was relatively little co-operation between them,
this middle class will provide valuable intermediaries. Whereas, hitherto,
and leaders in Latvia, for example, were often surprisingly ignorant of
the general breakdown in communication between even moderate
developments in the other two republics probably because they all
Russian politicians and intellectuals and the Latvian nationalist forces is
looked first to Moscow for help and instruction.
worrying, the determination of the business class to maintain good
What the forces opposing Baltic independence had principally in
contact with the government and to show support for the new state is one
common was their 'reactionary' position; as Soviet "loyalists', they all
positive feature.
favoured the survival of the Soviet Union in some form or another.
So long as the Latvian government remains friendly to business, some
Beyond this, they varied from mainstream Communist and military
sort of basic ethnic co-existence is probably assured. The real danger
hardliners to the leaders of the 'Equal Rights' Faction in Latvia, (Sergejs
would follow any future national populist government with a programme
Dimanis and Tatjana Zhdanoka, for example) who in Russia would
targeted against "foreign speculators', Russian professionals ignorant of
probably have been supporters of Boris Yeltsin. These claim to have
the language, and unemployed industrial workers. In this eventuality,
sought initially to join the Popular Fronts, but to have been repelled by
Russian resistance in Latvia would be more formidable than in Estonia,
their 'chauvinist atmosphere'.
not simply because they are more numerous, but because they would be
The key problem for the loyalist moderates was that their absolute
better and more articulately led.
opposition to Baltic independence left them with no choice but to ally
with the hardliners. This in turn led them into justifying a whole series of
shameful actions (beginning with the annexations of 1940), which
The Last Stand of the Soviet Union
discredited them utterly in the eyes not only of Balts but of most Western
observers as well. Most have now been swept away, along with the Soviet
The Communist Party, among all its other functions, was the institution
Union, except where they created a solid local base of support, like
designed to bind together the élites of the different Soviet nationalities
Vladimir Chuikin, the charismatic former Communist mayor of the
under Russian hegemonic leadership, bridging national differences and
Russian-majority town of Narva, in north-east Estonia. Chuikin, unlike
suppressing rivalries in the name of 'Internationalism'. After mid-1988,
many of the hardliners in Lithuania and Estonia, but like the
however, the Baltic Communist Parties began to unravel in the face of the
parliamentary leaders of the pro-Soviet opposition in Latvia, was a 'new
newly-formed Popular Fronts, until finally, between December 1989 and
man', or relatively so, who owed his rise to Gorbachov's accession to
May 1990, all three parties, and the press that supported them, split
power.
along essentially ethnic lines.²⁰
The leadership of the pro-Soviet wings of the Baltic Communist Parties
The three Popular Fronts all developed Russian language newspapers,
contained not simply Russians, but a good many native Balts, as well as
edited by pro-independence Russian intellectuals. While the local
Balts brought up in Russia, who could or would not make the transition
television stations broadcast Russian programmes, most local Russians
of Brazauskas, Gorbunovs and Rüütel to a support for independence.
preferred to watch the central Russian station, if only because of its
This was in some cases because their past made it impossible for them to
superior quality. This preference explains why the rise of Boris Yeltsin, as
portray themselves as nationalists; in others, they seem to have remained
reported by Russian television, was of great importance in influencing
loyal to the hand that raised them; in all cases, there seem to have
opinion among the Baltic Russians.
persisted some sort of belief in Soviet ideology. During the Soviet
As reformist (and covertly pro-independence) interests gained control
referendum of 17 March 1991, which he helped organise, Algirdas
of the three parties, local Russian Communists and hardliners in Moscow
Kondruška, a Lithuanian Professor of Marxism-Leninism, explained
joined to create Soviet loyalist movements, under Communist and retired
why he had remained a loyal Soviet Communist:
military leadership, and looking directly to Moscow for support. In
Estonia the movement was called "The International Movement of
Yes, my wife asks me that: 'why are you still a Communist when everyone
Workers in the Estonian SSR': in Latvia, it was known as the
is asking for independence?" Even the former Director of the Party School
'International Front', and in Lithuania as 'Unity' (Yedinstvo). The
is now writing in the papers that I am a traitor. But you sec, the Soviet
'Intermovement' in Estonia held its founding Congress on 14 March
Union helped me to study at Moscow University, and I am grateful
It
1989, accompanied by a demonstration numbering an estimated thirty to
is true that there I learned to have much in common with Russians, but
forty thousand. Oddly, although the three movements had precisely
my first motive is professional. I have always taught in the Party School,
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The Baltic Russians
Many left for Russia in the aftermath of the August coup. Rubiks in
Latvia and Valery Ivanov, a Soviet loyalist leader in Lithuania, were
arrested; but a number of hardline retired officers remain, especially in
Latvia, such as Colonel Gennady Romashov, a leader of the 'Russian
Society of Latvia', formed after the achievement of independence. The
more formidable Colonel Viktors Alksnis, an ethnic Latvian brought up
in Russia (see Chapter 3), remains a figure on the imperialist Right in
Moscow. Two of the hardline Interfront leaders in Estonia, Yevgeny
Kogan and Mikhail Lysenko, have also become active in reactionary
politics within Russia. 22
Unlike Alksnis, most members of this category revealed themselves to
be incapable of responding imaginatively to changing political
circumstances; they were rigid intellectual products of Soviet education
and Soviet establishment. Others, especially in Lithuania, were simply
deeply stupid or incompetent, the scrag-end of the Communist Party.2
The attempt by hardline Soviet loyalists to 'manipulate' the Russian-
speaking populations of the Baltic into opposition to independence
provides an interesting case-study for which there are historical
10 Demonstrators at a meeting of Interfront, a Soviet loyalist organisation, in Riga, January
precedents. In pre-1914 Germany, it has been argued, much of German
1991.
nationalism was the product of deliberate manipulation by landed élites,
and the imperial government they controlled, to defend their own
and to change my views overnight is impossible for me. It is a question of
political interests. In pre-independence India, similarly, Muslim
honour; I must go on with the Party to the very end.²¹
separatist polities has been seen as the product of manipulation by the
British and by endangered Muslim feudal élites, rather than of a genuine
Kondruška, however, spoiled this not unsympathetic picture by adding,
mass fear of Hindu rule.
with the grotesque exaggeration - sometimes hysterical, sometimes
Such claims need to be examined closely; in their crudest form they
deliberate - characteristic of Soviet loyalists, 'of course, if the Soviet
represent no more than the standard line that unrest arises not out of
Army were not here we would all be hanging from trees'.
genuine grievance but is the work of 'outside agitators'. Thus the denial
In this category were also serving and retired officers and managers of
of spontaneity to pre-1947 Muslim politics excuses the Indian Congress of
Moscow-controlled, 'All-Union' factories in the Baltic. Some were of long
failing to do more for Muslims. In the Baltic 100, charges that local
service in the Baltic, and some, like Colonel Igor Lopatin in Latvia and
Russian fears were externally fomented relieved the nationalist
Vladimir Yarovoi, manager of the Dvigatel plant in Tallinn, seem to
movements of the obligation to reassure the Russian population.
have been deliberately inserted by Moscow, after the launch of the
Manipulation through misinformation by the Soviet state media, the
national movements, to help shore up Soviet loyalism.
local pro-Soviet press and local Russian officials was of course blatant
Behind such men stood the senior hardliners of the KGB, Interior
and continuous." It was accompanied by instances of deliberate
Ministry and Military Command in Moscow who were ultimately to
provocation to provide an excuse for intervention. In the context of the
attempt the counter-revolution of August 1991. Associated with them
'historiography' of manipulation, however, the striking point is that very
were some (though not all) of the local military commanders in the
little was achieved. Only a small minority of local Russian-speakers were
Baltic, men like the regional commander, Colonel General Fyodr
persuaded actively to oppose independence. In South Ossetia and
Kuzmin, and the Vilnius garrison chief, Major General Uskhopchik. The
Moldavia, by contrast, Communist attempts to stimulate rebellion
relationship of other local commanders (such as Admiral Belov in
among local minorities were strikingly successful.
Estonia) to the hardliners was more ambiguous; what exactly went on
What this indicates is the obvious but often forgotten point that while
within the military during those months may never be known.
manipulation can play a part in sparking conflicts, it can only do SO if the
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The Baltic Russians
The Baltic Revolution
appropriate historical, social and cultural climate already exists. Where
Estonia was Yevgeny Kogan, whose extremist speeches even caused
it does, as in Ossetia for example, it becomes extremely difficult in
friction with the rest of the Soviet loyalist organisation. A later recruit
practice to distinguish between manipulation and the real fears of the
was the thuggish Mikhail Lysenko, a former policeman who had been
Ossetes, derived from history and Georgian behaviour.
dismissed on charges of corruption.
What is clear, however, is that thanks to local conditions and Baltic
In the first instance the OSTK was directed against Estonian attempts
qualities, such a climate did not exist in the Baltic during the years
to remove factories from the control of Moscow. Later the trend was to
between 1988 and 1993. A section of the Russian-speaking population was
establish the factories as Soviet-Russian fortress islands in the Estonian
indeed worried by symbolic actions such as the restoration of the old
Sea. Thus the 'Integral Commission', a formal association of factories
national flags, and by the anti-Russian (as opposed to anti-Soviet) tone of
and OSTK, was established in July 1990 with powers akin to those of a
some Baltic newspaper articles, bits of which were assiduously reprinted
fully operational local government, uniting social services, insurance
by Soviet loyalists as part of their propaganda. A key factor in generating
schemes and housing projects as well as representing the interests of the
support for the Interfronts was the passage by the Baltic Supreme
factories and their workforces in dealings with both Moscow and the
Councils in 1988-89 of laws establishing the official status of the Baltic
Estonian government.
languages and requiring a residence qualification (if only a short one: two
In August 1989, the OSTK and Intermovement called a general strike,
years in Estonia) for those wishing to stand for elected office.
ostensibly in protest against the electoral residence requirement. More a
The residence clause affected only migrant workers and equally
lockout than a strike, since it was supported by the Soviet managers and
migrant Soviet officers. But the language law, with its requirement that a
the workers continued to be paid, it was supported by only something
whole range of state officials, medical workers and even waiters should
between 18,000 and 30,000 workers, or 5-8 per cent of the workforce. It
learn the local language or lose their jobs, affected a large part of the
did, however, succeed in disrupting public transport and supplies within
Russian-speaking population.
Estonia.
26
The Baltic Russians have complained that the period provided for the
Throughout the next two years, governments and observers in the
learning of the languages was too short, and that Baltic language
Baltic expected a repetition of the strike on a much larger scale, possibly
teaching in Russian schools was in any case highly deficient, and remains
involving violence. However those strikes which were organised during
so, especially in Russian-majority towns like Narva. The excuse given is
May 1990 and on subsequent occasions were in fact miserable damp
lack of money and the unwillingness of Estonian teachers to work in
squibs. They affected only All-Union factories, and then not all of them.
Russian schools and Russian-majority areas. In 1992, both Latvia and
Public transport workers, though overwhelmingly Russian, refused to
Estonia extended by a further two years the time limit for Russians in
join the action.²
towns, like Narva and Daugavpils, with overwhelmingly Russian
Aside from the pervading Baltic air of calm, there were two main
populations and, consequently, particular learning difficulties. 25
reasons for the failure. The first was the simple threat of unemployment.
Russians, however, suspect that the Balts do not wish them to succeed, in
Russians working for Estonian state enterprises in particular had good
order to exclude them permanently from public life and avoid a 'dilution'
reason to fear retaliatory dismissal. The second reason involves the
of Baltic language and culture. In general, the appeal to Russian workers'
paradox of managers and official trades unions calling a strike at all a
prejudices against the 'bourgeois intellectual' Baltic leaderships was one
paradox of which the workers were quite aware. During the Tallinn strike
of the most effective weapons in the Kremlin's armoury, not simply for
of May 1991, I asked a Russian worker what he thought of Yarovoi and
cultural reasons but because it was backed up by a very real (and
the other leaders of the Soviet loyalist forces. "Those Communist
justified) fear of economic reform and unemployment.
bastards!' he said. 'Do you think I don't know they've been stealing from
Associated with the Intermovements was the plan to mobilise Russian-
us all these years? Of course I know it, and I know about their cars and
speaking workers of the 'All-Union' factories, and indeed the factories
their dachas and their mistresses. But what other leaders do we have here
themselves, in the struggle against independence. In all three republics,
in Estonia?'
Communist officials, especially from the 'official' trades unions, were
Thus the Soviet Communist Party's support among Russians in the
active on the shop floor, rousing the workers. In Estonia and Latvia, the
Baltic was weakened by exactly those factors which were weakening it in
attempt went further, with the creation of the "United Council of Work
Russia itself. Only a few leaders, like Chuikin in Narva, were able to
Collectives' (OSTK). The movements were linked by the factory
distance themselves from the Communist past. Chuikin was rewarded by
directors, Yarovoi and Shepelevitch. A further Interfront leader in
a high anti-independence vote in the referendum of 3 March 1991,
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
whereas Daugavpils in Latvia, with an old-style, hardline Communist
interrupted by the passage of a new Estonian citizenship law, defining
municipal council and a majority Russian population, produced most
most Russians as 'immigrants', and a new constitution leading to
surprisingly - a pro-independence vote, albeit by a small majority and on
elections in September 1992. In both Estonia and Latvia, the Soviet
a low turnout.
loyalist forces were eliminated from parliament as a result of the
disenfranchisement of the bulk of the Russian population in the elections
The Baltic elections of February-March 1990 led to Soviet loyalist forces
of 1992 and 1993.
winning most of the seats in Russian-speaking areas. In Latvia, however,
Alongside the Soviet loyalist parliamentary campaign went resistance
the Popular Front gained many Russian votes in the first round of voting
by local authorities in Communist-dominated minority areas. In all three
on 18 March. By the second round in April, the storm of hostile Soviet
republics such councils declared that they would not follow laws passed
propaganda which followed the Lithuanian declaration of independence
by the new national parliaments which were in violation of the Soviet
had alarmed the Russian-speaking population, and the PF vote dropped
constitution.
sharply. The final results were: Popular Front candidates: 139 (including
After the seizure of the Lithuanian Procuracy by Soviet troops in April
6 Russian speakers, 2 Poles and 2 Jews); Equal Rights' candidates
1990 and the establishment of an alternative "Procuracy of the Lithuanian
(backed by the Soviet Communist Party and/or Interfront): 62
SSR', attempts were made in several areas to detach the police (largely
(including 8 ethnic Latvians).
Russian and Polish) from the control of the Lithuanian Interior Ministry,
Even allowing for a certain element of gerrymandering, and for the
and create islands of Soviet authority. Due in part to the small size and
greater apathy of the Russian-speaking population (it is to be presumed,
scattered nature of the Russian community in Lithuania, however, and in
on the basis of the turnout figures in Daugavpils and other solidly
part to an effective mixture of bribes, diplomacy, and personal appeals by
Russian towns, that the majority of those not turning up to vote were
the Lithuanian Interior Minister, veteran Police General Marijonas
Russian-speakers) this would still suggest a large minority of Russians
Misiukonis, these attempts were frustrated. Defections were limited to
voting for the Latvian PF, with smaller - though still substantial
some 150 in all, including those who had joined OMON in January 1991.
minorities doing SO in Lithuania and Estonia. Thus in the port town of
In Latvia, Soviet loyalist influence led to two near-mutinies - in May
Liepaja, with a 67 per cent Russian majority, the PF won 5 out of 9 seats,
1990 and January 1991 among the overwhelmingly Russian police force
and in Riga, with a 63 per cent Russian-speaking population, it won 31
of Riga when it rejected the Latvian Supreme Council's choice of Interior
out of 69. On the other hand, it did not win a single seat in the
Minister, shouted down the Latvian leadership and loudly applauded
overwhelmingly Russian eastern city of Daugavpils.
hardline Soviet representatives. Several police districts declared they
In Latvia, Soviet loyalist deputies grouped behind the 'Equal Rights'
would ignore the orders of the Latvian Procuracy, but follow those of the
Faction of the parliament. Most had also been sponsored by Interfront
Soviet Procuracy which had broken away from the Latvian institution. In
and the pro-Soviet wing of the Latvian Communist Party. In Estonia, the
ordinary police work, however, effective co-operation was in fact
Soviet loyalist deputies were formally divided between Interfront and the
maintained.29
Communists, although they shared the same platform. In Lithuania, the
Now, after independence, considerable tension remains between these
Soviet loyalists (two Russians and six Poles), sat as members of the Soviet
police forces and the new police battalion and Home Guard, recruited
Communist Party until, during the military intervention of January 1991,
from Latvian volunteers alone and established by the Latvian
the Poles joined the united Polish Faction, declaring its support for
government during the independence struggle; it is feared that, in the
independence.
event of ethnic conflict, these units would be among the chief protagonists
The parliamentary strategy of Soviet loyalists in the face of
on either side (see Chapter 9).
declarations of legal independence in all three republics was the same.
In Estonia, a determined effort was made in summer 1990 to create
Comprehending that they would in any case be defeated, they abstained,
alternative representative and administrative structures, based on
attempting to deny the legitimacy of the process. During the fifteen
Russian-dominated local councils and big factories. In the north-eastern
months before the August coup, while consistently opposing further
town of Kohtla-Järve, a congress of Soviet loyalist deputies voted on 26
moves towards independence, the loyalist blocs began to divide into
May to set up a two-tier 'Inter-regional Council' with authority over
more, and less, intransigent groups. In both Latvia and Estonia, the latter
local government and industry. If it had worked, the Council might have
began to support the government in several areas of economic policy.
posed a serious threat to Estonian stability. But failure seemed likely
Further moves towards reconciliation in Estonia, however, were
from the start: the opening meeting could not even achieve a quorum,
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The Baltic Russians
while deputies known to oppose the scheme were barred entry by Soviet
paratroopers guarding the event. Several months later the whole scheme
collapsed, and Soviet strategy in Estonia reverted to the 'Integral
Commission' already described. It marked a retreat from an attempt at
representative authority to the 'fortresses' of the All-Union factories.
In Lithuania, meanwhile, the four months following the declaration of
independence on II March 1990 had seen both a partial economic
blockade by the Kremlin, and the occupation of buildings belonging to
the Communist Party (purportedly to prevent their being unilaterally
held by its pro-independence wing) and to the DOSAAF Soviet reserve
military training organisation. The occupations were carried out mainly
by Soviet Interior Ministry (MVD) troops, which exercised considerable
restraint and appeared anxious to avoid harm to civilians.
Strikingly enough, there was during this period not a single instance of
mass violence by the pro-Soviet Russian and Polish populations of
Lithuania because, for all their efforts, the Soviet side simply could not
rally sufficient local Soviet loyalists to provide the necessary cover. The
only pro-Soviet demonstration involving more than 5,000 people was
immediately after the declaration of independence; then there were
approximately 30,000 demonstrators. Most demonstrations were not
merely small, but also attended largely by the elderly. The sight of badly
dressed, misshapen Russian women shrieking hysterically at these
meetings was one with which every observer became familiar. It is not
the stuff of which successful counter-revolutions are made.
Demonstrations in Riga and Tallinn were equally small, despite the
hundreds of thousands of Russians in those cities.
In fact, since the launch of the national movements, there have been
only three demonstrations which showed any sign of turning seriously
nasty. The first two occurred in Tallinn and Riga on 15 May 1990, eleven
days after the Latvian parliament's declaration of legal independence.
I myself witnessed the demonstration outside the parliament building
in Riga, attended largely by cadets from the Soviet Aviation Academy
and soldiers in civilian dress. These were demanding a meeting with the
government and the revocation of the declaration of de jure independence.
The cadets clearly enjoyed pushing and shoving as they tried to break
through the Latvian crowd and the police line guarding the building; but
it was far from (as the Latvian government reported) 'an organised
attempt by paratroopers to storm the parliament'. If it had been, the
building would have been stormed, or the Latvian police would have had
to open fire to prevent it.
The Tallinn demonstration was led by Mikhail Lysenko, and was
11 Arnolds Klausens, the Latvian Communist leader and (behind) Alfreds Rubiks, at a Soviet
rather more serious. Some of the ethnic Russian police guarding the
loyalist meeting at the Second World War Victory Monument in Riga, October 1990.
parliament seem to have pulled back and allowed the demonstrators into
the courtyard. But even they seemed bewildered about what to do next,
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
and left quietly enough when masses of Estonians turned up in response
from the Interior Ministry were thin and contradictory. There have also
to a government appeal over the radio."
been suggestions, on the Latvian side, that a 'third force' may have been
The third instance of mass violence, one with much more serious
involved, firing on OMON to provoke the attack, but that seems
implications, was the Soviet loyalist demonstration in Vilnius in January
unlikely. According to the survivors of the Latvian camera crew, the
1991, which briefly broke into the parliament. Although the declared
shots that killed their colleagues clearly came from OMON.¹³
pretext was a protest against newly announced price rises, the incident
Mlynik and the Latvian OMON are also held by the Lithuanian
was clearly part of a co-ordinated plan to destabilise Lithuania.
Procurator's office to have been responsible for the cold-blooded murder
The irony of the 15 May demonstration in Riga was, in retrospect, that
of Lithuanian police and border guards at Medininkai on 30 July 1991.³
the military demonstrators were driven back by the Latvian OMON, or
The incident followed several months of OMON attacks on Baltic border
'Black Berets', later to gain an infamous reputation. OMON, whose
posts in an attempt to destroy an obvious symbol of Baltic independence.
initials in Russian stand for the Special Purpose Militia Units, was set up
Medininkai, however, was on a quite different scale. The earlier attacks
throughout the Soviet Union during the summer of 1988 as riot squads in
had involved beatings and humiliations, but no-one had been killed. The
case of public disturbance. The different OMON groups were placed
Medininkai killings gave reason to fear that the hardline Soviet campaign
under the command of the Republican interior ministries. In autumn
of 'provocation' was moving on to a new level. Barely a fortnight later,
1990, however, as hardliners gained the ascendancy in the Soviet
however, the failure of the August counter-revolution ruined their
government, OMON in Latvia was placed under the Soviet Interior
schemes. The thought, however, that those responsible may still be
Ministry. Almost all the ethnic Latvians in the force soon quit. By
present in the Baltic, waiting for an opportunity to restart the campaign,
autumn 1990 the Latvian OMON was in the forefront of Soviet pressure
is obviously of deep concern to many Balts.
on the republic, and in January 1991 the Lithuanian OMON followed
The failure of even moderate Soviet deputies in Latvia and Estonia to
suit.
condemn the January killings (in contrast to the Polish Communist
Soviet hardliners meanwhile, presumably by means of the KGB, had
deputies in Lithuania) drove a deeper wedge between them and the
been escalating tension in the Baltic through a series of small and
national majorities; and so far as the Russian-speaking populations in
harmless bombings in the region, incidents which were then blamed on
general were concerned, Soviet violence seems indeed to have encouraged
'the Baltic nationalists', a lie SO transparent that few Soviet loyalists even
support for independence, or at least generated disgust at Soviet
believed it. Immediately after the failed Moscow coup, there was a more
Communist rule. Soon afterwards, referenda on independence were held
serious bomb attack on the headquarters of the Estonian Home Guard in
in all three Baltic governments. Whereas the great majority of Russians
Tallinn, in which one man was seriously wounded. There has been no
and Poles in Lithuania voted against the plan, in Estonia and still more
continuation of this strategy SO far.
in Latvia a very large minority of Russian-speakers voted in favour. As a
In Vilnius, military seizures during the period leading to the attacks on
Ukrainian woman engineer in Riga said:
the television station and tower on 13 January 1991 were accompanied by
the defection of the Lithuanian OMON, under its commander, Boleslaw
I am completely opposed to what happened in Vilnius and Riga in
Makutinowicz, to the Soviet side. Over the following months,
January, and I am going to vote for independence. I think that our lives
Makutinowicz was joined by several dozen more local Russian and Polish
will be better. The Soviet Union is backward and cannot join Europe
police. If the Soviet plan to create a Communist-ruled Polish
Yes, I am a little worried about my status in a future Latvia, and I may be
Autonomous Region in Lithuania had succeeded, Makutinowicz would
making a mistake to vote 'yes' but I know that in democratic countries
presumably have been its Commander-in-Chief, its "Napoleon of
people are not divided into first and second class citizens. Besides, if we all
Soleczniki'.¹
had better living conditions, we would understand each other better.
On 20 January 1991, after a series of attacks on other targets, the
Another Ukrainian, a worker, said she would vote against independence:
Latvian OMON stormed the Latvian Interior Ministry, killing two
policemen. Two Latvian cameramen and a bystander were killed in the
No, I don't like what they did in January, but I think that Latvia should
indiscriminate OMON firing that followed. While the exact motive for
remain in the Soviet Union. Latvia cannot live without Soviet raw
the attack is unclear, it is safe to assume that orders came from above.
materials, and how are we going to buy them in the West? Or is the West
Various Soviet explanations, ranging from the rape by Latvian
going to give them to us for free?
Many different people live here and
nationalists of an OMON officer's wife to OMON's being fired upon
after the war we rebuilt Latvia together. My husband has been a factory
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The Baltic Russians
worker here for 30 years. My son is a sailor based here - he works in a
Monarchist Club, the 'Russian Historical Society', and assorted
crew with many nationalities. There are Latvians in the crew, but they are
crazies.³⁶
the minority, SO naturally they must take account of the feelings of the
Even in north-east Estonia, I sensed the mood of demoralisation and
others.
All these problems are caused by politicians and journalists, in
cowardice gripping the Communists when I travelled to Narva to
the past all nationalities used to get on together and there were none of
interview the mayor, Vladimir Chuikin. At the last minute Chuikin
these problems. 35
evaded me, providing instead via one of his stooges a post-dated
document "proving' that he had been on leave during the coup, and
Both the Lithuanian and Latvian governments claimed that a majority of
giving a series of embarrassed excuses for the Narva Council's previous
Russians had voted in favour of independence. This was also widely
defiance of the Estonian constitution, destruction of Estonian border
reported in the West, but an analysis of the results shows that the real
posts and creation of a pro-Soviet para-military force, the 'Workers'
figure in Latvia was between a quarter and a third of Russians voting.
Detachments'. However, in October 1992, Chuikin and the former
There is, on the other hand, good reason to believe opinion polls which
communists won convincing victories in local elections called by the
throughout 1991 showed Chairman Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Prime Minister
Estonian government in an effort to unseat them.
Ivars Godmanis, and Foreign Minister Janis Jurkãns to be the three most
This would obviously have been the moment for the Balts to appeal to
popular political figures among Russians as well as Latvians far
moderation, and permanently split the Russian-speaking leadership.
outstripping the Soviet loyalist leaders.
Indeed the Estonian Prime Minister, Edgar Savisaar, helped create a
new force, the Russian Democratic Movement, with precisely that end in
The failure of the Moscow counter-revolution led to a general collapse in
mind. The problem however was that the general swing of Estonian
the Soviet position throughout the Baltic, and to commensurate Soviet as
politics towards more radical nationalism did not permit Savisaar and his
well as international support for Baltic independence. The effect on the
allies to make the concessions needed for an alliance with these groups.
local Soviet loyalist forces was shattering: the loss of overt support from
The threat of north-east Estonia to secede from the republic seems now
Moscow and the Soviet armed forces; the destruction of much of their
to have gone into abeyance. Vladimir Chuikin has become something of
structural base, the banning of the Communist Parties and allied
an expert at brinkmanship, threatening the Estonian government, yet
organisations, the confiscation of their property, and the nationalisation
never going too far. His hesitation may be based on fear of the
of the 'All-Union' factories. For months afterwards, nothing was heard of
consequences of secession, continued hope of Western aid for Narva, or
these forces; and with the exception of north-east Estonia, their prestige
doubt that a referendum on the subject would in fact gain the necessary
has never recovered. Indeed, it is precisely because the Russian
support. In my own visits to Narva up to the summer of 1992, I found the
communities were so tied to the Communist and Soviet loyalist banner
overwhelming majority of local Russians opposed to secession, including
that, in Lithuania and Latvia at least, they now find themselves so
those very critical of Estonian behaviour. 'After all, this is Estonian land',
divided and leaderless. At the same time the attitude of the Baltic
one elderly woman told me.
nationalist parties to the Russians has hardened, and the debate over the
rights of the Russian community has entered its most critical phase (see
Chapter 8).
Apart from the remnants of the 'Equal Rights' group, Latvia contains
Defending the Legacy of Peter: The Soviet and Russian
several other Russian political formations, all at odds with one another.
Military Presence
The largest is the "Democratic Initiative' group, made up chiefly of
former Soviet loyalists trying to reconstitute themselves as loyal would-be
Although the Soviet military was deeply involved in the campaign to
Latvian citizens. On the Right is the 'Russian Society of Latvia', headed
keep the Baltic republics within the Union, military action was in the end
by Colonel Romashov and other former hardliners, increasingly
rather slight principally because the Balts presented no legitimate
presenting themselves as traditional Russian nationalists. This body
excuse for an escalation. The killings of January and August 1991 were
includes a good many military veterans. To the Right even of this, and a
perpetrated by OMON or by only one military branch, the paratroopers.
considerable embarrassment to most of the Russian representatives, are
The lack of common purpose among the military was especially
the Cossack Circle, which expresses open sympathy with the Cossacks
evident during the August counter-revolution. Despite the fact that the
fighting in Moldova. And finally, on the outer fringe, is the anti-semitic
Soviet officer corps in the Baltic was probably the most hardline and
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The Baltic Russians
imperialist of the entire Union, by the second day of the coup it became
at Paldiski had already been cleared. Western diplomats estimated that
clear that the plotters in Moscow had not taken even a fraction of the
fewer than 15,000 Russian troops remained in the republic. As one officer
Baltic senior officers into their confidence. Military coups succeed in
admitted, after the introduction of the Estonian currency the army could
general when a substantial section of the officer corps is involved, and
simply no longer afford to feed itself.
every regional commander has been carefully briefed on what to do,
The military in Latvia may present a tougher problem. Liepãja is one
which buildings to occupy, and whom to arrest. In the Baltic, few
of the most important bases on the Baltic, and the nearby Skrunda space-
garrison commanders were party to the plot, even if they sympathised
radar station is both an expensive and important part of Russia's anti-
with its goals: while they made formal declarations of states of
ballistic missile defences - or so the Russians insist. If the Latvians were
emergency, they did nothing whatever to implement them during the
amenable, however, it should be possible to arrange joint control during
three days the coup lasted.
a phased withdrawal period, but they have opposed it.
The military intervention of January 1991 also suggested a conspiracy
Russia favours a policy of gradual withdrawal in part because of the
in which too few people had been consulted, too few were fully
acute accommodation crisis within Russia itself. The line is supported by
committed, and too many were afraid of being left holding the buck. The
the 'Officers' Association' which has threatened to disobey the order to
picture that emerges from a report by the Democratic Officers'
withdraw if the social needs of officers and their families are not
Movement, 'Shield', based largely on monitored radio exchanges, is one
guaranteed." Since the grotesque promotion structure of the Soviet
of considerable confusion, with junior officers requesting clear orders,
armed forces resulted in 22,000 of the 56,000 troops in Latvia being
and their superiors not giving them. Such orders as were given by radio
officers and NCOs, a considerable rump of disaffected soldiers may
were in some cases to open fire, in others to show restraint. (As for the
remain even if the conscripts disappear altogether."
Soviet procuracy report alleging that Lithuanians had attacked the
In recent years, the Soviet officer corps has had a special attitude to the
soldiers, this was one of the most disgraceful single episodes of
Baltic for two reasons (apart from the fact of so many officers having
Gorbachov's presidency.) 'Shield' alleged that orders must have come
settled there): firstly, the Balts were rightly seen as the cutting edge of the
directly from Gorbachov, but their only evidence was that according to
disintegration of the Soviet Union. Among some officers, this has led to a
the Soviet command structure, this was the procedure. As the attempted
particular hatred of the Balts, which could pose a threat in future.
coup made apparent, however, the Soviet command structure had
Secondly, Latvia and Estonia (or rather, the former state of Livonia)
already begun to disintegrate."
was the continuous object of Russian strategic ambitions since the
Paradoxically enough, the lack of cohesion may not necessarily prove,
fifteenth century. Older officers still see them as strategically vital. At the
in the longer term, a positive factor. The greatest danger for Russia, the
start of 1994, the armed forces and Russian government were still deter-
region, and even the Balts themselves could prove the disintegration of
mined to keep the Skrunda radar station for at least 10 years. For the navy,
central command, and warlordism by Russian local commanders. There
the Baltic States cover by far the greater part of the former Soviet Baltic
are already ample signs in Moldova of 'prancing proconsuls', dreaming
coastline, and include three naval bases, at Paldiski (Estonia), Liepája
of making a political name by 'defending' local Russians, and of
(formerly Libau, Latvia) and Klaipeda (formerly Memel, Lithuania).
returning in triumph to Moscow.
However, the naval bases are being abandoned. Many younger naval
By late 1992, Russia had reached agreement with Lithuania on a
officers with whom I have spoken have attached no strategic significance
military withdrawal by August 1993. Yeltsin, in September 1992,
to these bases, and say that their emotional significance is also much less
declared that no agreement can be made with Latvia and Estonia while
than that of Sevastopol. A Lieutenant Commander (Captain Third
they discriminate against local Russians, but Russian officials have
Rank) in St Petersburg told me that,
indicated that they mean in any case to withdraw by the end of 1994.
If we simply give Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet to the Ukraine,
Indeed Yeltsin's suspension of withdrawal was described by Major-
Russia ceases to be a Black Sea and Mediteranean power, and we lose
General Ziauddin Abdurrahmanov, the air-defence commander in
much of our influence: but in the Baltic, even if we lose Paldiski and
Estonia, as 'incomprehensible', since it had already proceeded too far to
Liepája, we still have St Petersburg and Kaliningrad. Besides,
the
be stopped. He observed that the bulk of the remaining military person-
whole concept of the need for Baltic bases is outdated. They don't really
nel were officers' families for whom no housing could be found in Russia.
defend Russia, and even if they did, it would be against NATO. Does
Withdrawal from Estonia is in fact proceeding fast, and by September
anyone seriously still think we are going to go to war with NATO, or
1992, as I discovered during an unscheduled visit, much of the naval base
NATO with us?"
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The Baltic Russians
The specific naval identity within the former Soviet (and now Russian)
They differed on the issue of the Baltic bases. Oleg declared that,
armed forces is of some interest in view of the likely future role of the
military in Russia's government. Throughout the Soviet period, the navy
We must keep those bases, because if the Baltic States separate
maintained the strongest traditions of the old Russian imperial service.
completely, we would be almost cut off from the Baltic Sea. We would lose
Its officers tended to be better educated than those in the army, and more
everything that Russia has gained since the time of Peter the Great.
likely to hold covertly anti-Soviet views. This led, in the early 1980s, to
the formation of a dissident group within the Baltic fleet, eliminated by
Western pressure to leave would, he added, be 'interference in our
internal affairs', and would encounter a furious response from the officer
the KGB, and is the spirit which may have contributed to the attempted
defection of a Soviet frigate to Sweden. The navy indeed was the first
corps. With a grin, Alexander observed, "This is the imperial point of
view. I don't think that these bases are important'; but he added that:
Soviet service to fly the 'Andreyevsky flag'.
While the symbolic transition from Soviet to Russian allegiance is
The duty of the armed forces will be to defend Russians wherever they live
easier for the navy than for the army, the fall of the Soviet Union has in
the proposal to disenfranchise Russians living in the Baltic is
reality been even more painful for the navy, for two reasons. The first is
particularly
bad
and
dangerous
The Balts should remember that at
the threatened loss of historic bases at Sevastopol and, to a lesser extent,
the moment, Russians are still looking for a national identity. If, due to
in the Baltic. The second is the pervasive loss of a sense of purpose. There
attacks on Russians by other nationalities, this identity turns out to be an
are good reasons to fear that the Russian army will have a function in the
extreme Great Russian one, then the Balts could be wiped from the face of
future; the navy's strategic forces by contrast look completely pointless.
the earth.
Paradoxically, but not unnaturally, the navy, despite its past liberalism,
may therefore be the most chauvinist and belligerent of the services in the
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its reversal of the approach of
years to come.
the final Gorbachov years, Yeltsin's government has been more friendly
The naval command's desire to keep Liepaja was also fuelled by the
towards Lithuania than towards the other two Baltic States. Lithuania
astonishing degree of 'spontaneous privatisation' now occurring within
seems sometimes to respond, as in the case of the agreement on
the Baltic fleet the diversion of naval equipment and facilities for the
withdrawal between Yeltsin and Landsbergis in January 1992. The
private profit of individual officers or of the officer corps as a whole. The
difference in the Russian approach seems based on both contemporary
Latvians, seeking the return of the port of Liepaja, handed by Moscow to
and historical factors. The principal reason for Russian hostility towards
the fleet in 1965, have been blandly referred to as a shadowy 'private
Latvia and Estonia today is their treatment of Russian minorities; in
corporation' called 'Russo-Balt-West', apparently directed by the fleet
Lithuania there are far fewer and they have received full access to
command in Kaliningrad. The navy claims simply to have "rented" the
citizenship. Historically Russia was more interested in access to the
port to the 'corporation' an act worthy of Captain Kidd. Profits are
Baltic through the former Livonia, while the ethnic Lithuanian lands
being used for the social needs of the servicemen'. In Tallinn, a "private
were not incorporated into Russia until the end of the eighteenth century.
company' called 'Fonon', using naval vehicles leased by three logistics
Today, the main Soviet strategic interest in Lithuania is as a corridor to
officers to themselves, is prospering. On 27 July 1992, a clash occurred
the Kaliningrad (Koenigsberg) enclave.¹
when Estonian troops attempted to recover a military building which had
More important in the long run than the strategic and historical
been sold to Fonon, and were driven out by Russian marines.
dreams of the older officers is the fact that, under Soviet rule, the Baltic
In December 1991 I spoke with two young naval lieutenants in St
States, and especially Latvia, have been a favourite retirement spot for
Petersburg, identified only as Alexander and Oleg. Both were leaving the
officers, often given jobs within the local administration especially in
service shortly. Alexander explained that,
the housing departments, which facilitated the settlement of yet more
The best professionals are leaving the Heet, and the ones who are staying
officers. Retired military personnel became part of the backbone of the
are the older officers and those who are not so bright. This is not good for
Soviet loyalist movement in Latvia. Naturally it provoked furious
Russia or the world in general, [because] the former Zampolits (political
resentment among the Latvians: in the Latvian citizenship law Soviet
officers), though the more intelligent and modern officers laugh at them,
veterans are explicitly excluded from citizenship. The Latvian radical
nationalists advocate the denial of residence permits to officers and calls
do have a certain influence, and they are encouraging the spread of
extreme, even fascistic ideas.
for their expulsion; a good deal of administrative harrassment is allegedly
already occurring in respect of the allocation of accommodation and
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The Baltic Revolution
of residence permits to Russians returning to Latvia from military service
in Russia.
This in turn angers not only the veterans but Russians in general,
because in Liepaja, for example, veterans and their families are said to
constitute almost a sixth of the population. General Fyodr Melnichuk has
said that in its negotiations on withdrawal, the army insisted on
citizenship for veterans: Tor us it is a matter of honour and duty to look
after the interests of former soldiers'. The demand was echoed by the
Chairman of the Officers' Association, Colonel Vladimir Kandalovsky.
If the military adheres to this condition for withdrawal, they could be
there forever. By October 1992, Yeltsin was including the rights of
veterans among the conditions demanded from the Balts for military
withdrawal.
The great fear of the Balts is that military activity is continuing in the
form of the covert provision of arms to former Soviet hardliners in the
region, in preparation for a revolt along the lines of that in
Transdniestria. While there is no proof, it is plausible enough; General
Melnichuk admitted to me that theft and illegal sales of arms are
occurring, although limited to thirty-six cases during the previous year,
and those the work of criminals. A Russian manager in Narva reported in
12 Soviet veterans of the Second World War at a commemorative meeting near the junction of
the Russian, Byelorussian and Latvian borders, July 1990.
June 1992 that he was concerned about the quantity of guns available in
the town. These were in the hands of security guards and private
individuals, but could in a crisis be put to political use.
This fear lay at the core of the campaign of the Baltic governments to
remove Russian armed forces from their territory. It gained considerable
Western support which, in turn, seems to have edged Moscow towards
have persuaded them that they are now in a foreign country and that it is
withdrawal. By early summer 1992, the Balts appeared to have
their duty to keep calm.
successfully blocked attempts to bring in large numbers of new
conscripts, an important element in the rapid diminution of the military
By autumn 1992, it seemed as if such talk was already bluff, just as the
presence. Succeeding months saw a series of incidents in both Lithuania
Russian government was deliberately exaggerating the numbers of
and Estonia in which nationalist forces tried to stop 'unlicensed'
Russian troops in the Baltic, presumably for bargaining purposes. On the
movement within the republics and, in Estonia, to seize military
ground, in Estonia and Lithuania at least, the whole military position
buildings by force. Both sides however exercised restraint, with the Balts
was crumbling. Morale was very low, with officers embittered by low pay
firing at the tyres of vehicles and the Russians into the air. General
and the atrocious living conditions of their families, anxious either to
Melnichuk observed (whether sincere or not):
leave (if accommodation were available in Russia) or to resign from the
army altogether and seek work in the Baltic - if permitted to do so.
We have experience of this process in Germany and Hungary: we know
that the withdrawal of the troops is unavoidable. But during this
In September 1992, led by some Estonian Greens, I entered the Soviet
withdrawal period, we must have an internationally recognised status of
military base at Paldiski by driving through a large hole in the fence.
forces agreement to avoid the possibility of clashes We have officers
While the whole peninsular was technically off-limits, it was obvious that
here who are veterans of Afghanistan. How do you think they feel when
the navy had neither the men nor the will to guard it. (They were,
some eighteen-year-old Lithuanian kid sticks a loaded pistol in their face
however, still guarding the two nuclear reactors, shut off but not yet
and tells them to stop when they leave the base to go shopping? There is a
dismantled.) This is land from which Estonian farmers were expelled
real danger of our officers' patience breaking, though we believe that we
when the navy took over, now covered with thick, uncut young forests.
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Surreal monuments to military wastefulness occur at random, like a field
old son would be the tiny flat of his mother, in Kazan in the Tartar
covered with large mooring buoys, inspected by grazing cows.
Autonomous Republic; 'but they have separatists there too, don't they?"
The former submarine harbour was guarded by a middle-aged Russian
woman in jeans. She turned us away SO we found another gap. The
submarine facilities had been abandoned and wrecked. Several of the
Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad Question
large repair sheds had been burnt, and around them lay piles of smashed
equipment and pools of diesel. Rain beat through holes in the roof and
The future of the 21,000 square kilometre Kaliningrad enclave (or rather
windows, soaking the shreds of military documents scattered over the
exclave) is beginning to worry Western chancelleries. A fantasy writer
floor and washing down Communist slogans painted on the walls.
might indeed think of using its fate as the origin of the Third World War;
Amidst the desolation, a single building was operating - a small power
enough countries have claims to the former East Prussia, although most
station serving the town. It appeared to be manned by three Russian
seem happier to preserve the status quo than risk the enclave going to their
grandmothers in black dresses, like the final chorus of a tragedy. Snaking
rivals.
through the land were curious thin trenches, where pipes and
Marion Countess Doenhoff, the former Editor of Die Zeit and member
communication cables had been ripped up to be sold for scrap. Civilian
of an old East Prussian landowning family, has suggested a Russian-
fishermen lined the harbour wall. "Some are fishing for fish, and some for
Polish-German condominium, though her colleagues reportedly rejected
copper,' declared our guide.
the idea as too dangerously redolent of German expansionism, and very
Not all the ruination however was the product of withdrawal; much of
difficult to administer. This would indeed be so, given the ethnic
it, like a half-finished pier of crumbling concrete blocks, had obviously
composition of the 960,000-strong population. It is drawn from all over
been there for years, a symbol of the long decay of the Soviet armed
the former Soviet Union, but is completely Russified. The entire German
forces, SO curiously unobserved by Western military intelligence.
population fled or was massacred during the Soviet advance of 1944-45.
It took an hour for a marine patrol to find us. Its composition was
During my first visit, in 1991, the Chairman of the Executive
representative of the closing days of the Soviet military in the Baltic: two
Committee was called Anatoly Yusuf, and had a Tartar father and a
Commanders (Captains Second Rank), one Lieutenant Commander, two
Russian mother. A Russian intellectual with German historic interests
Lieutenants - and seven privates. They took us to the school for
said disdainfully that 'here, you find the pure form of Soviet Man a
submarine officers which, though closed for several months, still housed
mixture of people from different areas, with no cultures of their own.
the office of the admiral commanding the base, a spot of light approached
They even speak pure Soviet Russian'. Ida Zhurba, formerly head of the
down endless dark and abandoned corridors.
cultural section of the regional administration, told me that the first task
Rear Admiral Alexander Olkhovikov was a pioneer of the Soviet
in the region was to establish some kind of Russian culture. She pointed
nuclear submarine forces, and a former student at Paldiski. His mood
out that, until 1988, there was not a single Russian Orthodox Church in
during our interrogation - for having 'violated military property' was
the whole region, and theatre and music were conspicuously
curious, On one hand, he was clearly powerless, the interview having a
underdeveloped.
purely ritual character of which he was fully aware. At the same time, he
I asked Alexander Khmurchik, a former seaman turned jovial
was clearly suffused with an almost ungovernable rage. His subordinate
apparachik, and editor of Kaliningradskaya Pravda, whether there was a
officers by contrast seemed merely depressed and resigned, complaining
strong local loyalty in the population. He replied,
about their living standards, their pay, and above all their uncertain
There are very nice girls here. They dress better than in the rest of Russia,
future: We are all living on our suitcases, waiting for withdrawal, but we
because the seamen bring them back Western clothes. But a local
don't know where to'. I asked one about the picture of Lenin still hanging
patriotism? If there is such a thing, it is concentrated on the desire to gain
above the Admiral's desk. 'It's a work of art,' he replied sardonically.
local prosperity by making this a Free Trade Zone.
Standing in front of a crumbling marble plaque honouring the school's
prizewinning students - which would be taken to Petersburg in the final
Ida Zhurba remarked,
withdrawal an elderly commander with a grey moustache told me he
What is special about us? The rain! And that there is always fish to eat.
had spent his entire life in the navy, and now probably faced early
Also, that we are a very naval town, strongly marked by the military. But
retirement. He was going to have to survive on a pension, 'or rather, a
beyond that, I wouldn't say that ordinary people here feel especially like
joke,' as he said. The only home for him, his wife and their fourteen-year-
'Kaliningraders'.
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Things have moved on since then, and rather artificial attempts are in
not be up for grabs. Both Russian and local leaders have stressed
progress to 'rediscover' a local identity by exploring the pre-1945 history
repeatedly that it is inalienable Russian territory.
of the area. Various shops and publications have appeared using the
Germany, from which East Prussia was taken in 1945 and its German
name 'Koenigsberg'. Some local intellectuals call themselves 'neo-
population driven out, renounced territorial claims in the East as part of
Prussians' and stress their distance from Russia. For the name of the city,
the treaty on German reunification in 1990. For a long time to come,
some have suggested Kantgrad, after its most famous son, though it is
therefore, the German state cannot hope to recover the territory, and will
hard to believe that he would have approved. The monument to Kant, on
have no interest in doing so. Quite apart from the question of what to do
the wall of the ruined Cathedral, together with that to Schiller, are the
with the Russian inhabitants, a move by Germany over Kaliningrad
only two German monuments left standing in the centre of the city.
would raise suspicions of German expansionism all over Eastern Europe.
The name Kaliningrad, after the vile Soviet President under Stalin,
Mikhail Kalinin, is indeed a severe embarrassment. The Russian city of
In particular it would cause the deepest alarm in Poland.
Kalinin has reverted to its ancient name of Tver. Changing Kaliningrad
For that very reason, Poland itself could hardly make a claim, for fear
back to Koenigsberg however is hardly possible. It would almost imply a
of raising the spectre of German claims to its own previously German
German claim, and besides, as Yusuf said,
lands. Agitation in Poland for the annexation of the territory has been
restricted to the extreme Right, although centrist politicians and even
Koenigsberg was completely destroyed. For better or worse, this is a new
government officials have spoken of the possibility of its future becoming
city,
with
a
new
population
If it were proved that Kalinin was a
moot.
criminal, we might be forced to change the name, but then we should find
Lithuanians would dearly like to claim the territory, which they call
a neutral one, like Pribaltiisk ["City on the Baltic'].
'Lesser Lithuania'. It used to have a largely Lithuanian-speaking
One ingenious proposal has been to go back to the name Koenigsberg
population (see Chapter 6, n. 26), and still contains between 18,000 and
(the King's fortress) but in a Russian form: Korolgrad, just as the
30,000 Lithuanians; but Vilnius fears both the Germans and the Poles,
Lithuanians call it Karaliauskas, and the Poles, Krolewiec. The military
and certainly does not wish to put itself in the position of Estonia and
presence, already strong, grew greatly after 1990 as a result of Soviet-
Latvia by annexing another 960,000 ethnic Russians. The destabilising
Russian military withdrawal, first from Eastern Germany and Poland,
factor in this scenario may therefore be not so much international as
then from the Baltic States. This led to severe housing problems, as well
internal: on the one hand, the uncertain future of Russian democracy and
as fears in Poland and especially Lithuania about the presence of such
government, raising fears of dictatorship and disintegration; on the other,
massive forces on their borders. These forces, however, appeared in 1993
the economic state of the territory itself.
to be in full decay.
Although by 1993 Kaliningrad's economy was beginning to undergo a
The military presence also does not necessarily make Kaliningrad
slow and painful transformation, its people were still dependent to a
politically conservative. Alexander Ostakhov, editor of the reformist
dangerous extent on military bases and a crumbling military industrial
Prospekt Mira, said that the naval officers on the local council are often
complex precariously supplied from Russia, and now in full decline.
more liberal than the former Communist officials, 'because they have
Although the local fishing and cellulose industries remain dynamic, and
travelled and seen the West', and because of their high technical
there were some 75,000 German tourists in 1992, it is not clear that they
education. Many officers, especially from the fleet, have moved
can fill this gap. As Ostakhov declared, with a touch of pride, in June
successfully into private business. The Kaliningrad area as a whole voted
1991,
strongly for Boris Yeltsin in the presidential elections of June 1991, and
reformist candidates looked set to do relatively well in the parliamentary
There is much talk of converting the military industries, but at present we
elections of December 1993.
are still trying to find out what they are actually making
Conversion
The Russian military, and Russian nationalists in general are,
will also certainly mean fewer jobs, and less work for our highly-trained
however, certainly determined to retain Kaliningrad as their last military
engineers. After all, these were not cheap handicraft industries for tourists
base on the southern Baltic, and as Russia's last prize from the Second
- we have a factory here which makes engines for ballistic missiles.
World War (apart from the Kuriles, of course). As Yusuf put it, 'we are
holding Russia's Western gate'. Unless therefore Russia were to
The local authorities, whose leaders seem intelligent and active, are
disintegrate completely and this does not seem likely - Kaliningrad will
trying to create a 'free trade zone', but are facing huge obstacles, quite
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The Baltic Revolution
The Baltic Russians
apart from the long delay in ratification by Moscow which was imposed
the region, but so far this has proved illusory, precisely because Bonn has
by the political struggle. St Petersburg, Belarus and indeed the Baltic
been extremely anxious not to raise Russian fears. A few private German
States themselves are all drawing up inept plans of this kind ('too many
aid workers have taken an interest in the enclave. Representatives of the
bridges and not enough traffic', as a Riga banker told me). Despite the
German neo-Nazi groups have also unobtrusively scouted out the
proposed incentives in terms of tariffs and taxes, the isolated position of
enclave, but they are very much on the fringe of German politics.
Kaliningrad and the political turmoil in Russia has SO far discouraged
Whether sufficient Soviet Germans would move to make the enclave
large-scale Western investment.
into a German territory, and whether the local Russian population would
Moreover, because Kaliningrad was a closed military area, the first
tolerate it, however, seems extremely doubtful. With the idea of
Western ship since 1945 docked in the port only in June 1991, SO until
recreating their old territory on the Volga effectively still-born in the face
then local people lacked even those limited direct contacts with Western
of local Russian resistance, most Germans leaving Kazakhastan head
traders common to other Soviet ports. Mr Yusuf told me in June 1990
straight for the flesh-pots of Germany.
that the local council had never even been informed by the Defence
Tourism from Germany is increasing, but is hindered by the very
Ministry how much freight was passing through their territory. The main
assiduity with which the new Soviet rulers flattened the remains of the
road across Lithuania to Belarus and Russia is very attractive, still lined
city after 1945. The new concrete city centre presents an appearance
with trees dating back to Prussian days - and has been neither widened
which is bleak and ugly even by Soviet standards, in tragic contrast to the
nor repaired since then. The old German Autobahn to Berlin had
beauties of Koenigsberg befor Hitler's War.
however, by the end of 1993, been largely restored with German, help.
Germans who lived in Koenigsberg before 1945 sometimes burst into
After 1991, small-scale private trade grew enormously, above all with
tears at the sight of it now, from shock rather than from nostalgia. They
Poland. By the end of 1993, 615 joint ventures had been founded, most of
wander the streets, pursued by child-beggars, their eyes fixed on
them with Polish and German firms and connected with small-scale
remembered buildings that no-one else can see, their minds full of the
import-export enterprise. Large numbers of local people had entered the
appalling sufferings of their flight from East Prussia in 1945, which even
trade, soaking up the unemployed not only from the factories but also
other Germans have long forgotten. For the Russians the tourists
from the armed forces. Very slowly the appearance of the city began to
symbolise the isolation and alienation of exile in a particularly painful
change, and by December 1993 the main avenue featured both an
form. A more cheerful sight are the fine beaches and small spa towns
excellent pizza restaurant and a seedy sex shop. On the other hand it was
along the coast. These were not so badly damaged in the War, and like
still called Leninsky Prospekt: as with the city itself, reverting street
the surviving suburbs of Koenigsberg, retain a German bourgeois charm,
names to their German originals, or finding new ones, had so far proved
with their quaint neo-Gothic villas.
politically and emotionally too difficult.
One potential danger stems from the fact that local agriculture cannot
The idea has been raised of resettling in Kalningrad the "Volga
sustain the local population. Much of the rural population looks diseased,
Germans', deported to Central Asia by Stalin during the Second World
drunken, elderly and hopeless. Until the end of 1993, imports from
War. It has been supported by some right-wing German groups, but not
Poland and the West had stabilised the food situation. If supplies to the
by the German government. Fearful of the growing nationalism of the
enclave were to break down altogether, the West may have to bear the
Central Asian populations, the two or so million Germans remaining in
responsibility, which in turn might one day awaken German ambitions,
Kazakhastan and elsewhere are leaving in increasing numbers, and by
unlikely though this seems today. One hope for the region, on the other
the end of 1993 some seven thousand had settled in Kaliningrad. They
hand, might be that Western and especially German and Scandinavian
have been tolerated by the local population partly because most are now
aid will flow to Kaliningrad precisely to prevent the area becoming a
source of destabilisation.*
far more Russian than German in culture - few speak German, and most
have intermarried with other nationalities. Some local Russians speak far
The New York Review of Books of 13 May 1993 contains an article by Amos Elon on
better German than the Russian-Germans, having learned it through
Kaliningrad entitled "The Nowhere City': it contains an evocative description but,
business, study in Germany or by acting as tourist guides. None fears
in my view, exaggerates the geopolitical instability of the enclave's future, and the
German re-annexation.
possibility of a German claim. The most thorough German discussion of the
Having sold their property in Central Asia for a pittance, most of the
enclave is Koenigsberg morgen: Luxemburg an der Ostsee, by Wilfried Boehm and Ansgar
Graw (Blau Aktuelle Reihe, 1993). It concedes that the area will have to stay under
Russian-Germans in Kaliningrad are dreadfully poor, generating pity
Russian sovereignty, but suggests sponsorship by the Council of Europe and other
rather than fear. Local people hope that they may draw German aid to
Western organisations.
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
8
would distrust this apparently factual, objective and soberly-written
account. Yet it gives a completely (though quite possibly unconsciously)
false picture of the real state of Latvian party politics in the summer of
The Independence Movements and their
1992. In the first place, Steins creates this neat picture by virtue of leaving
out all the Russian deputies, thereby ignoring the central national tension
Successors, 1987-92
in Latvian politics as a whole. By doing so he is also able to categorise
most of the Latvian nationalist parties as 'Centre-Right', whereas in
terms of their attitudes to the Russians, most can only be called
We shall endure. All overlords will go.
'Extreme-Right' or 'radical nationalist'. Moreover the Latvian 'parties'
Away the stranger, who has seized your land.
are by-and-large no such thing, but simply groups of individuals
Time has decided. time has decreed it so.'
gathered around particular leaders, slogans or interests. Up to the time of
- Imants Auzins
writing, they have no party organisation, no structure, no registered
membership, no policy-making bodies, and most emphatically no party
discipline. The 'parties' in the country and 'factions' of the same name
within the parliaments are usually only tenuously connected, and
sometimes completely at odds. In the opaque primeval soup of Baltic
politics, these political amoebas split, form new transient unions, and
split again.
Some of the formations which have arisen in all three republics over
A Confusion of Terms
the past two years have barely had the lifespan of mayflies. (The
'conservative' Steins, for example, began as a social democrat.) They
In the looking-glass world of post-Communist politics, few parties or
have also been as numerous as mayflies. There are, in Latvia today, four
institutions are quite what they seem, and few politicians say quite what
'political parties' each of which claims exclusive representation of the
they mean. This is not always intentional; one of the most difficult though
interests of farmers. Interest-group politics of the most crass kind is
fascinating aspects of writing about the Soviet region results from the
mitigated only by the divisions in the respective interest groups.
almost complete lack of conceptual landmarks. Nothing quite like these
One could perhaps speak of two fundamental interest groups: those
events has ever occurred before, so there are no analytical models to fall
who belonged to the former Communist establishment (or who believe
back upon, and few of the usual terms and descriptions really fit. Until
they stand to lose from certain kinds of reform), and the 'new men'.
new models and descriptions are developed, however, we have to
Parliamentary debates on privatisation have certainly provided ample
continue using the old ones. The problem is that local politicians and
examples of the way ex-Communist deputies from widely differing parties
journalists, wishing to imitate the West or simply for want of anything
have tended to pull together to defend establishment interests. But as we
better - use these false models to describe themselves and then play them
have seen in Chapter 4, this does not mean at all that the former
back to us, thus confirming naive Western observers in their own
establishment opposes reform as such, let alone that it necessarily
misconceptions. The result is a real mirror-game, a copulation of
represents a 'Left-wing' position in the Western sense. The "Secure
illusions.
Home' Party in Estonia, founded by former Communist state managers
Thus the 'conservative' (his own description) Latvian politician,
and officials, describes itself as 'Right-wing', and so, in most respects, it
Valdis Steins, published in a Riga-based English-language newspaper in
is. It just wants privatisation to be as far as possible to its own supporters'
July 1992 a portrait of the Latvian political spectrum based on a
advantage.
comparison with that of the European Parliament. He described the
An analysis of contemporary politics in terms of standard Western
range of parties, from communists through socialists, liberals,
'Left-Right' ideological pattern makes little sense in the Baltic. In the
conservatives and so on, concluding that 'we can see that the political
West, national questions of course play a part, but the real distinguishing
spectrum in Latvia is very wide, and that it corresponds to the situation
and opposing policies are in the area of economic and social policy.
in other European countries.
it
Within the Baltic, no clear comparable Left-Right division is visible.
Few Western observers, without a detailed knowledge of the region,
There, and in much of the former Communist world, the great defining
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
features are attitudes to history, nationality and (particularly in
(for Estonia):
Lithuania), culture.
Apart from questions of personal history - such as membership of the
Communist Party (or the KGB) on one side, or the dissident movement
Left
First Republic
on the other - ideological division focuses on attitudes to the pre-1940
republics. The commitment of most within the 'Right' to the restoration
Est. Citizen
of private agriculture is as much connected with this view, as with a
desire for efficiency. Indeed some are committed to restoring to each
Nat. Ind. Party
family precisely the land that belonged to it before 1940, irrespective of
the effect on current farming practice (see Chapter 9). The most accurate
Moderates
description of this mindset would be 'radical restitutionist'.
Fatherland
Congress movements in Latvia and Estonia were founded on the
explicit premise that the forms of the 'First Republics', in particular in
relation to citizenship, had remained unbroken by Soviet rule and should
Popular Front
be restored as before and in their entirety. For their part, most of the
leaders of the Popular Fronts, while they stressed the legal continuity of
Secure Home
independence, also tended to believe that the new states should be based
on "existing realities', particularly as regards the position of the new
Est. Communist Party
Russian populations in the region. The gradual shift on this issue of large
sections of the Popular Front towards a position closer to that of the
Russian Dem. Movement
Congress was a central political theme between 1990 and 1992.
In Lithuania, attitudes towards the dictatorship of Smetona and its
Second Republic
Right
legacy of authoritarian nationalism represent a major demarcation. It is
connected to the essentially cultural question of whether Lithuania
should move closer to the West or, as the more nationalist tradition
Thus in Estonia, the Fatherland (Isamaa) block, with its commitment
would have it, seek a uniquely Lithuanian way of its own.² For the
both to the First Republic and to free market economics, stands squarely
Lithuanian 'Right', nationalist attitudes are linked to their obsession
on the horizontal line on the right of the grid, and fairly close to the
with the history of Lithuanian-Polish relations, a factor which is of much
centre. Edgar Savisaar's Popular Front stands in the same position on the
less concern to the Centre or 'Left'.
Left side. Marju Lauristin's Social Democrats began with Savisaar but
In Latvia and Estonia, the Right's desire to restore the pre-1940
subsequently moved to occupy a position close to the vertical line within
republics and their citizenships is closely linked to the desire to exclude-
the top, 'First Republic-Left' half of the grid, but also close to the Centre.
or even expel - the Russian-speakers who moved into the republics under
The 'Secure Home' (Kindel Kodu) alliance stands in a curious position.
Soviet rule, or at least make them undergo a rigorous naturalisation
In terms of its current policies, it supports both the First Republic and
procedure, whereas proponents of the "Second Republic' have taken a
free-market policies (as it ought, given so many of its members have
more compromising stand. The best means of describing the political
become capitalist proprietors). Because of the Communist background of
scene in Latvia and Estonia is through a grid, rather than a spectrum, the
its members, however, it is identified by all the other parties as behind a
centre point of which represents moderation in policy:
'New Republic'. Kindel Kodu also opposes restitution of pre-1940 property
and wants to preserve collective farms as co-operatives under their
existing management. Placing a party like this within any spectrum
would be problematic.
The extreme nationalist 'Estonian Citizen' group of Colonel Juri
Toomepuu stood, in 1992, somewhere beyond the fringe and in the top
right-hand corner. Given its members' propensity for populism, the
group might in future move sharply to the Left on economic policy, even
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217
The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
though it will always remain within the 'First Republic' section. This is
Under Landsbergis, between 1990 and 1992, nationalist activists
true of all the parties now called 'Right-Wing'; in the Baltic. Their
attempted to stamp Lithuania with their own neo-traditionalist vision, a
commitment to the 'First Republic' is unshakeable, SO great in fact that
product partly of genuine religious and cultural values, and partly of a
by comparison it completely dwarfs economic policy. Their commitment
paranoid fear of Poland, Russia, of internal traitors, and indeed of the
to the economic policy of the Right-hand corner is modest, and relatively
cultural influence of the West. The story of these years is the story of the
liable to be drowned within a 'First Republic' tradition of anti-capitalist
failure of this vision, though it would be unwise to predict that it has
populism.
failed forever.
For an extreme example of a 'Left-wing' (or rather populist-
Lithuania, like many Communist countries, was profoundly changed
opportunist) party now strongly committed to a 'First Republic' position,
by Communist rule, far more so than Landsbergis realised. One crucial
one has the former Latvian Communist Party, now called the Democratic
difference was that peasant conservatism, largely (though by no means
Labour Party. This would be well out along the vertical line of the top
entirely) attached, during the First Republic, to clerical nationalism,
half of the grid. Its leader, Juris Bojars, illustrates the wonderful
tended this time to be aligned with the former Communists, so long as
opportunities for populism and the changing of position within a system
these had taken a stand against Moscow.
in which clear economic policies seem not to be required.
The nationalists also suffered from the fact that decades of Communist
Bojars is an ex-KGB Major and 'international lawyer' who emerged
Party rule had discredited the very term 'party'. Many politicians
from the Popular Front. By switching to a strongly nationalistic position,
attempt to dissociate themselves from allegiance to a particular party,
he has ingratiated himself with the now-dominant nationalist element
presenting themselves as somehow standing above party politics, and
without losing his ability to appeal to the workers with Left-wing attacks
ironically enough the most successful practitioners of this approach
on the government's free-market reform. Whether this will succeed in
Rüütel and Gorbunovs in the Baltic, and Edvard Shevardnadze in
propelling him into a future Latvian government seems doubtful,
Georgia, all emerged from the womb of the Party of Parties.
however, for he is widely mistrusted, and may be barred from standing
for parliament because of his KGB past. In both Latvia and Estonia,
though not in Lithuania, the phenomenon of former Communists trying
The Rise of the National Movements, 1987-90
to engineer a comeback through an appeal to nationalism has been
manifest.
Analysing the political scene is made still more difficult by the fact that
No-one, Balt or non-Balt, who witnessed the great pro-independence
demonstrations of 1988-91 will forget them or the tremendous emotional
the mass of the population is so extremely indifferent to it. In these
circumstances public opinion polls, and even elections, tend to give a
impact they had: the songs, the tears, the sense of relief as people were
false picture. When, in July 1992, I conducted my own limited 'vox pop'
able to say in public things which for fifty years they had been scared
survey on thirty individuals in Riga, not a single one expressed support
even to whisper in private; 'For ye shall know the truth, and the truth will
for any particular political party or indeed any political leader. Even
make you free'.³
general political views seemed unfocused and not very strongly held.
The speed of the independence process was due partly to the sheer size
Moreover, this was the case not simply after the achievement of
of the nationalist demonstrations and their cumulative effect in
independence but, to a surprising degree, during the independence
undermining the will of the Communist rulers. Most striking of all was
struggle. It indicates that although the vast bulk of the indigenous
the "Baltic Way' of 23 August 1989, when two million Balts (two-fifths of
populations was deeply committed to independence, cynicism about and
the entire native population of the region) formed a continuous 370 mile
detachment from the independence movements themselves was far
human chain from Vilnius through Riga to Tallinn to demand
greater than the rallies and demonstrations suggested.
independence. Between the first demand, in April 1988, for an Estonian
This was demonstrated too by the huge vote for the former
Popular Front, to the Lithuanian declaration of independence on II
Communists, and against Landsbergis and his rump Sajúdis, in the
March 1990 was a period of only twenty-three months. During the final
Lithuanian elections of October 1992. To a far greater degree than most
months, in the autumn of 1989, the East European revolutions provided
observers realised and this is no doubt true of many revolutions
an added impetus; prior to that the Baltic independence process had been
nationalist struggle in the former Soviet Union has been largely a
mainly self-generating, and had itself stimulated similar movements
function of small groups of activists, working upon much vaguer feelings
elsewhere in the Soviet empire.
held by the population as a whole.
To many Western observers (and indeed to Gorbachov himself), the
218
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
Baltic independence movements appeared to spring from nowhere. They
One of the curious features of the struggle for independence in the Baltic
were, however, preceded and accompanied by pro-independence groups
has been that while the three republics have usually moved at different
stemming from the Baltic dissident movements, which took, and still
speeds, they have not moved in the same order. The question of who was
take, a more radical line than the 'Popular Fronts' and their successors.
really 'first' has been a focus of many jealous national claims. Between 11
The first autonomous political action in the Baltic States during
March 1990 and the achievement of real independence in August 1991,
Gorbachov's presidency came from the tradition of ecological protest
Lithuania led the confrontation with the Kremlin. But from 1988 to 1989,
which had long had a partially tolerated place in the Soviet (and
Estonia was the leader, by several months, on the road to independence.
especially Russian) scene, and which was therefore difficult to suppress.
In 1987-88, however, Latvia, supposedly the most cautious of the
In all three republics, however, national concerns were either close to the
three, was definitely the pathbreaker in patriotic demonstrations and
surface or completely open. In Estonia, opposition to state plans for
revelations. The first step was taken by the 'Helsinki-86' group, founded
phosphate mining was motivated by a genuine fear of further wastelands
in Liepãja by a mixture of long-standing dissidents and new recruits. It
like the oil-shale mining areas of north-east Estonia, but also because the
called a demonstration at the Freedom Monument in Riga on 14 June
plan involved bringing in thousands of Russian workers. There was
1987 to mark the anniversary of the Stalinist deportations of 1941. Such
opposition to similar industrial development in Latvia and Lithuania,
'calendar demonstrations', marking vital anniversaries of the first
and in all three republics the Communist leadership itself gradually
independence struggle or the 1940s, were to become regular occurrences
usurped such popular demands in an effort to regain popularity.
over the next three years.⁴ The Helsinki-86 group was harassed and
In Lithuania, plans by Moscow to expand the republic's ecologically-
scrutinised by the KGB, and there was good reason to think that, as in all
dangerous chemicals industry was one factor leading to the formation of
previous instances, fear would discourage all but a handful from
Sajúdis in June 1988. The core of ecological protest, however, involved
attending, and the demonstration would be quickly dispersed by the
the building of a fourth reactor at the Ignalina nuclear power plant,
police. Instead Gorbachov's own impact made it a success: the Latvians
already the biggest in the Western Soviet Union, opposition to which
had gained in self-confidence, and the police had lost it. Moreover, this
swelled of course following the disaster at Chernobyl in April 1986. Baltic
first demonstration, ostensibly against a Stalinist crime rather than
servicemen were among the soldiers and workers, often completely
Soviet rule as such, was calculated to confuse the Soviet authorities:
unprotected, used in the Chernobyl clean-up operation. Subsequent
Gorbachov and the central press had for some time been engaged in
rumours played a major part in stimulating Baltic anger, as did the
denunciations of Stalin.
appalling treatment often meted out to Baltic (and other) soldiers in the
Soviet army.
For days after the 14 June demonstration, protestors returned to the
Several leading contemporary Baltic politicians cut their political teeth
monument to lay flowers - a practice which would itself have guaranteed
in the ecological protests during the first three years of Gorbachov's rule.
arrest a few years before. It was followed by demonstrations on 23
The term 'Green' is however one of those Western words which needs to
August, the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and 18
be treated with caution when applied to the Baltic States. In all three
November, the anniversary of Latvia's first declaration of independence.
countries, the Green parties stand on the nationalist Right, and their
This last occasion proved too much for the authorities, and police
current main activity is agitation for the removal of the Russian armed
attacked the demonstrators, injuring several of them. Some Helsinki-86
forces. The connection of the Greens with the Right is partly to do with
members were also expelled to the West. It did not, however, stop
the fact that both stemmed originally from the nationalist dissident
demonstrations spreading to the other two republics. The 23 August 1987
cause. It has also deep cultural roots in the centrality of nature to Baltic
demonstration in Tallinn was attended by some two thousand people and
national culture, extending in the case of some nationalists to something
addressed mainly by former political prisoners. A year later, crowds
like a "blood and soil' ideology identifying the Baltic nations with the
numbering hundreds of thousands were common in all three states.
land.
An early sign of Estonia's lead in economic reform was the 'four-man'
In Estonia, another very important proto-political force was the
proposal of economic autonomy made on 26 September 1987. Its
National Heritage Society, ostensibly devoted to the restoration of artistic
signatories were all soon to play leading roles, most notably Edgar
monuments. In April 1988, the society was the first to fly the old national
Savisaar as Prime Minister and Siim Kallas former leader of the official
flag, and in January 1989 it issued the first call for the creation of a
Communist Trades Unions and, from 1991, chairman of the State Bank.
Congress. The Estonian Christian Democrat parties stem largely from
this body.
As protest mounted, the Communist Party in the Baltic began to
220
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
fragment. History, or rather historiography, was the major unraveller.
unstoppable. At this stage, the old national flags, still technically illegal,
The Baltic experience demonstrates the central dilemma of Gorbachov's
were being openly carried during demonstrations. Protests were,
entire effort, a dilemma he appears still not to understand. Glasnost was
however, still heavily scrutinised by the police, and sometimes attacked.
inevitably going to bring a new honesty about the past; but since the
The Party, although fast losing control over the creative unions, the
entire Communist claim to legitimacy and to positive achievements was
universities and much of the press, was still in charge both of the 'forces
based on lies, this honesty would sooner or later bring down the whole
of order' and of most of its own membership, especially in Latvia and
system.
Estonia where the membership was largely Russian.
The key role in undermining the Communist will to power was the
Appeals for help to Yegor Ligachov and other key Moscow
Soviet Union's manifest economic failure in comparison with the West,
conservatives came from the Baltic Communist leaderships. These
and a keen awareness among younger Communist officials that they
heralded a counter-attack against Gorbachov's reforms on 13 March
would have better lives under a capitalist economy. However, the
1988, while he was in Yugoslavia, with the publication of the famous
discrediting of the Communist past was also a crucial, if secondary,
'letter of Nina Andreyevna in the paper Sovietskaya Rossiya, denouncing
factor.
indiscipline, ideological confusion and attacks on the Soviet past.
From this point of view the Soviet Empire was in a worse position than
Gorbachov defeated this move, but it had important consequences in the
the old Russian or other European empires, which based their claim to
Baltic. The toleration, or even perhaps active encouragement, extended
legitimacy on a simple right of conquest. Soviet rule was based on lies,
to the Popular Fronts and Sajúdis by the reformist sections of the
and when these were exposed, that rule collapsed. Similarly, when
Moscow leadership and the KGB in 1988 resulted from their being
autocratic control was removed, Soviet 'democratic' institutions proved
viewed as allies against the hardliners within the Communist Party.
surprisingly capable of expressing the people's will, and in the Baltic and
This was made explicit during the visit of Gorbachov's leading liberal
elsewhere, this will was directed at the destruction of the Soviet Union.
Lieutenant, Alexander Yakovlev, to the Baltic in August 1988.
In the Baltic the revelation of the full extent of the deportations and
Yakovlev's meetings with Popular Front leaders led to the dismissal of
executions of the 1940s played a part in undermining Soviet rule, but the
the hardline Latvian and Lithuanian Party leaders over the next months,
key factor was of course the publication of the truth about the Molotov-
in advance of the founding congresses of the Popular Front and Sajúdis in
Ribbentrop Pact and the way the Balts came to be annexed in 1940. The
the autumn of 1988. Yakovlev's visit led to a drastic reduction in state
main Estonian radical nationalist party, the National Independence
pressure against the national movements, such that Sajūdis members
Party, emerged out of a body calling itself "The Group for the Disclosure
were to distinguish between the periods 'before' and 'after' Yakovlev.
of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact'. When the Supreme Soviet in Moscow
Yakovlev himself later described his discussions with Baltic
admitted, as it did in summer 1989, to the existence of the secret protocols
nationalists in terms which emphasise the collapse of self-confidence and
of the Pact and to their illegitimacy, it had in effect admitted the
will to rule among the more intelligent and liberal Communist leaders:
illegitimacy of Soviet rule; any subsequent Soviet political activity in the
I had to admit to them that we had an empire, that there really was a
region could now be only a rearguard action or an attempt at the
centre which dictated to the republics. I had to agree with them. Anything
reimposition of military rule, without any democratic or legal
else would have been blasphemy. So I supported them, and I still think I
justification.
was right.³
While the dissidents organised demonstrations and appeals to the
West, revelations about the past emerged from the previously docile,
The question of whether or how far the KGB may have contributed to the
Communist-controlled institutes of history and Writers' Unions, as their
formation of the Popular Fronts in 1988 cannot be answered until its
younger or more patriotic members contested the power of the Party
archives are opened - if they have survived. Certain KGB elements may
hacks, and forced them out of office. On I-2 June 1988, an 'extended
well at the time have thought they were simultaneously strengthening
plenum' of the Latvian Writers' Union heard the Party veteran, Mavriks
Gorbachov against the Party conservatives, and moderate Baltic
Vulfsons, reveal that no revolution had taken place in Latvia in 1940, and
reformers against the ex-dissident nationalist radicals. It has since been
there had been no popular movement for Soviet rule. Vulfsons pointed
established that there were certainly several KGB informers, and
out that he had himself at the time been a Party activist in Riga: 1 was
possible agents, among the original founders of Sajúdis in Lithuania.
there; I know'. Though he was fiercely attacked by Communist
Speculation on this theme, however, has been influenced by post-Soviet
hardliners, public discussion of historical questions now became
Paranoia, Baltic emigré attitudes to 'former Communists', and by the
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
propaganda needs of Right-wing forces opposed to the Fronts and their
formed in Estonia, and Estonian representatives came to encourage the
successors, as well as by better-based arguments.
Lithuanians to follow suit.² On 3 June, a public meeting was held under
For their part, Soviet loyalists have always argued that the CIA was
Vilkas's chairmanship in the hall of the Academy in Vilnius. What
behind the national movements, via agents from the Baltic emigrations.
happened next can be interpreted more or less according to taste. Vilkas
There can be no question that the CIA did have close links with the
appeared rapidly to lose control of the meeting, as demands were made
emigrés, and some have been rumoured to be agents. There is however
for the formation of a new political body. Representatives of the Liberty
no evidence that they played a key role and, in any case, the policy of the
League claim not merely that the whole affair was planned by the KGB,
Bush administration after 1989 was to retard Baltic independence, not
but that even Vilkas's resistance was part of the plan, in order to
encourage it. If any sections of the CIA were pursuing a different course,
contribute to the credibility of the process. Vilkas himself has said that,
then like the KGB, they are unlikely to advertise the fact to historians."
with the President of the Academy absent, he was anxious only to find an
'alibi' which would prevent the authorities from throwing blame on to his
On 23 August 1987, only a few hundred people had dared attend a
shoulders.
meeting in Lithuania. The meeting was organised by dissidents and
The result of the meeting was the formation of an 'Initiative Group' of
former political prisoners, mainly members of the Catholic group which
thirty-six which, in turn, produced the 'Movement (Sajúdis) for
had, over the previous twelve years, published the Chronicle of the Catholic
Lithuania's Restructuring'. According to a Western participant, Dr
Church in Lithuania: Antanas Terleckas, Viktoras Petkus, Vytautas
Alfred Erich Senn, ten of the names had been decided in advance, the rest
Bogusis, Nijole Sadúnaite and others. None of the future leaders of
appearing to emerge spontaneously. It is amusing, in retrospect, but also
Sajúdis were present. In May the following year, the dissidents
very difficult, to imagine some of these people as having once worked
announced the existence of the 'Lithuanian Liberty League' (Lietuvos
elosely together. The three most easily identifiable elements in the group,
Laisues Lyga, or LLL), saying that it had existed secretly since 1978. They
which for the next two years was to provide the leadership of Sajúdis,
too were subjected to police harassment, though at the same time
were intellectuals from the arts and humanities, intellectuals from
Gorbachov, under pressure from the West, was ordering the release of
technical and scientific fields, and junior members of the Communist
Baltic political prisoners - like Lagle Parek in Estonia, released in 1988
establishment. The elements overlapped of course, and membership did
after serving five years of a seven-year sentence. These promptly returned
not necessarily determine subsequent political behaviour, although
to the Baltic to swell the ranks of the nationalist parties.
certain trends are visible.
On 14 November 1987, the Lithuanian Artists' Union threw out its
The intelligentsia drawn from the humanities included a professor of
entire leadership. Petras Griskevicius, the First Secretary of the
musicology, Vytautas Landsbergis, not at this stage notably different
Lithuanian Party since 1973, was present at the meeting and died of a
from his colleagues; two young philosophers, Dr Arvydas Juozaitis (also
heart attack that night. He was succeeded by Ringaudas Songaila, a
an Olympic champion swimmer), later to become a leading liberal and
more circumspect but still entirely loyal Communist. Songaila's
bitter opponent of Landsbergis, and Vytautas Radžvilas, leader of the
leadership, however, lasted a bare eleven months. On 20 October 1988,
Liberal Party; Vytautas Petkevičius, another philosopher and advocate
he was replaced by a reformist Party Secretary, Algirdas Brazauskas.
of a Soviet confederation, who later left the leadership after Sajúdis
The appointment was largely the result of the growing strength of
swung in a more radical direction (and he himself was shown to have
Sajúdis, formed in Vilnius on 3 June 1988.
been a Soviet auxiliary in the partisan war of the 1940s), only to return to
Sajúdis formation had every appearance of spontaneity, and if there
parliament in 1992 as a deputy for the Labour Party of Algirdas
was a KGB hand, it was not blatant. The context, however, was that of
Brazauskas; Dr Virgilijus Cepaitis, who was to become a radical
the Nineteenth Soviet Communist Party Congress, which Gorbachov had
nationalist leader and Landsbergis's right-hand man before he too was
called as a spur to reform. In each Baltic republic, institutions and
ruined politically by revelations that he had been a KGB informer, and
groups were invited to submit nominations of delegates. The previous
the poet Sigitas Geda.
day, at a congress of the "Creative Unions' in Riga, Viktors Avotins had
The technical and scientific intelligentsia was numerically under-
also proposed the creation of a Latvian Popular Front.
represented by the physicist Zigmas Vaišvila; Arturas Skučas, an
In Lithuania, the Academy of Sciences formed a commission under its
architect and later a radical and Commander of Landsbergis's
Secretary, Professor Eduardas Vilkas, to propose changes to the
bodyguard; and Kazimieras Antanavicius, a non-Communist economist
Lithuanian constitution. At this point a Popular Front had already been
and later leader of the Social Democrat Party. Among the junior
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
members of the Communist establishment were Kazimiera Prunskiene,
intervals right up to the declaration of Lithuanian independence. By the
an economist (from July 1989 Deputy Prime Minister for Economic
Sajüdis Congress of 22-24 October 1988, however, the rise of the Kaunas
Reform in the Communist government, and from March 1990 to 1991,
faction and of pro-independence feeling within Sajūdis was very
Sajúdis Prime Minister); Romualdas Ozolas, a lawyer and advisor to the
apparent. On 24 October, Rolandas Paulauskas, a popular composer
Central Committee (later Deputy Prime Minister under Prunskiene);
from Kaunas, made the first public call for complete independence.
another 'lawyer', Kazimieras Motieka (later Deputy Chairman of
Brazauskas continued trying to buy both time and popularity,
Parliament and rival to Landsbergis); and Professor Bronius Kuzmickas,
announcing during the Congress, for example, the return of the cathedral
yet another philosopher (later a Landsbergisite and another Deputy
to the Catholic Church: since the 1950s it had been an art gallery. In
Chairman). In all, 17 of the 36 founders of the Initiative Group were
Moscow, however, not only hardliners but also men like Alexander
Communist Party members. This does not necessarily mean that they
Yakovlev now began to speak sharply against the movements he had
were part of the 'nomenclatura' of privileged senior Communists, though
encouraged only a few months earlier.
they could be called part of the wider Soviet 'establishment'.
In November 1988, Brazauskas and Lionginus Sepetys, the Speaker of
A plethora of philosophers is one of the striking features of the group.
the Supreme Council, under intense pressure from Moscow, blocked a
Another is that the overwhelming majority of members were from
sovereignty declaration similar to that already passed by Estonia. Such a
Vilnius. A former bulldozer-driver, Kazimeras Uoka was the only worker
declaration was not to be passed until 18 May 1989, seven months later;
present.
Latvia followed on 28 July, It was accompanied by a law on economic
The fate of Sajúdis over the next three years was to be its gradual
self-management, accepted by the USSR Supreme Soviet on 27 July
takeover and radicalisation by representatives from Kaunas who were
1989, but thereafter resisted by the Soviet government.
often also members of the technical or scientific intelligentsia: men like
November 1988 represented a failure of nerve from which Brazauskas's
Audrius Butkevičius, a doctor and later Defence Minister, Algirdas
prestige among Lithuanian patriots has never fully recovered. It
Saudargas, a physicist and later Foreign Minister, and Aleksandras
contributed to the crushing Sajüdis victory in the elections to the
Abišala, a former Komsomol official and engineer, and later Prime
Congress of People's Deputies in Moscow in March 1989 (36 out of 42
Minister. An important marker was the appointment of Virgilijus
seats) and to the support of even moderate Sajúdis deputies in March
Cepaitis (a radical, though not from Kaunas) as the head of the Sajūdis
1990 for a motion to replace Brazauskas by Landsbergis as Chairman of
Committee for the selection of candidates for the February 1990 elections
the Supreme Council. This step separated Lithuania from Latvia and
- an appointment which had obvious consequences for their political
Estonia, where the Communist Chairmen were retained as a symbol of
colouring.
compromise.
The typical profile of the Right-wingers and radical nationalists who
later entered parliament or occupied one of innumerable government
One reason for this was the greater speed with which pro-independence
offices was that of a technically trained white-collar worker from Kaunas
ideas progressed within the Estonian Communist Party. Five out of seven
or the provinces: they were engineers, small managers, schoolteachers,
members of the executive committee of the Popular Front, founded in
lawyers, agronomists and the like. The difference between them and the
April 1988, were Party members; two were even prominent: Edgar
Vilnius intelligentsia mirrored the old cultural tension, noted in Chapter
Savisaar as former head of the State Planning Commission (Gosplan),
3, between relatively pluralist Vilnius and the more ethnically pure
and Marju Lauristin as a mildly dissident journalist, but above all as the
Kaunas. It also reflected a certain class difference, as far as this term can
daughter of one of the founders of Soviet Estonia, Johannes Lauristin,
be used in post-Communist society. The 'Kaunas Faction', as it was later
killed by the Germans in 1941. The leading role of such figures is a
known, represented the 'intellectual petty bourgeoisie': hating
reminder that the Popular Fronts were essentially founded by the liberal
Communism, but without access to Western culture, they had steeped
wing of the Communist establishments.
themselves in the traditional culture of Lithuania in 1939, or whatever of
In June 1988, Karl Vaino, First Secretary of the Estonian Communist
it had survived. They were passionately ambitious to drive the existing
Party, was sacked by Moscow on the advice of his own Ideology
establishment and bureaucracy from their places.
Secretary, Indrek Toome." Vaino had provoked furious protests from
At the start, of course, none of this was apparent. The Liberty League,
Moscow when he tried to nominate (rather than elect) delegates to the
and some Lithuanian emigrés, accused Sajúdis of being a Communist
nineteenth Soviet Party Congress - an action rejected by Gorbachov as
front organisation, set up by the KGB, and continued to do so at
he fought his own battle with the Moscow hardliners. Vaino was replaced
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
by Vaino Väljas, formerly Soviet ambassador to Nicaragua. Väljas was
Communist moderates and the more radical nationalists. On 31 May
to move closer to the Popular Front position on most issues, including
1989, with the moderate leadership absent at the Congress of People's
that of republican sovereignty: not until autumn 1989 did the Popular
Deputies in Moscow, the radicals engineered a declaration by the
Front make full independence its official platform, even though radical
Popular Front Board that it was necessary to discuss the question of
groups within the Front had long been demanding it.
complete independence.
Väljas and Toome (who from 1989-90 was Prime Minister and leader
The National Independence Movement bridged the gap between the
of negotiations with Moscow) threw the weight of the Party behind a plan
dissident forces and the Popular Front (and later between the 'Latvian
for Estonian economic sovereignty, the acronym for which, IME, means
Congress', their 'alternative parliament', and the Supreme Council) just
'miracle' in Estonian. The Communist chairman of the Supreme
as Gorbunovs in turn sought to mediate between the Popular Front, the
Council, Arnold Rüütel, was also labouring to build personal bridges to
different wings of the Communist Party, the Russian minority, and the
the Popular Front, an effort which later helped ensure his survival in
Kremlin, and with some success.9
office long after many of his colleagues.
This then was the situation in which the three republics entered 1990,
Väljas criticised the Popular Front for not itself constructing more
preparing for the Supreme Council elections that spring. Under pressure
effective links with the increasingly restive Russian minority in the
from the Popular Fronts - in turn pressured by more radical forces - all
republic. At the same time he himself moved to increase the proportion of
three Supreme Councils had passed declarations of sovereignty, new
Estonians within the Party and the Supreme Council (to about two-
language laws, assertions of control over national resources and industry
thirds of the total), vital in securing the passage of the legal steps on the
and, above all, refutations of the legitimacy of the Soviet annexations in
road to independence.
1940 stopping short, however, of full declarations of independence.
The struggle of the Communist and Reform Communist elements to
The Communist leaders had committed themselves in principle to the
survive as parties in the Baltic lasted four years, and in Lithuania is
restoration of independence, but couched in vague terms. The Popular
continuing with renewed force. On 16 November 1988, the Estonian
Fronts and Sajúdis were actively demanding independence, but they too
Party appeared to take on a new lease of life when the Supreme Council
were vague about the stages through which it might be achieved. During
voted a declaration of sovereignty, giving Estonian laws precedence over
these years the words 'independence', and still more 'sovereignty',
Soviet ones and itself the right to veto the jurisdiction of All-Union
acquired a whole spectrum of meaning unknown in the West.
legislation in Estonia. Although the action was declared unconstitutional
Indeed between the Kremlin, the national movements and the local
by the Praesidium of the Supreme Council in Moscow, the Estonian
Communist Parties there was a virtual conspiracy that 'independence'
Communists refused to back down, going on to pass laws which affirmed
did not really mean independence, that 'sovereignty' meant something less
Estonian as the only official language, and restricted the voting rights of
than the full right to self-determination, and that both could somehow be
recent immigrants.
accommodated within the Soviet system. It was a convenient self-
deception, since no-one wanted a stand-up fight, but it had a thoroughly
In Latvia events moved more cautiously, primarily because there, more
bewildering effect on the local Russian population: it was not unusual at
than half the Party members were Russians. Thus while the Lithuanian
this time to hear exchanges like this:
and Estonian Parties were, by majority vote, to separate from the Soviet
Communist Party in December 1989 and March 1990 respectively, the
'Are you in favour of independence?"
Latvian Party split down the middle. In April 1990, a majority remained
'Yes, of course. Every country should be independent.'
loyal to Moscow and elected as its First Secretary the hardline former
'So you are in favour of leaving the Soviet Union?"
Mayor of Riga, Alfrēds Rubiks. Rubiks replaced the lacklustre Jänis
'No, no! I am for independence within the Soviet Union.'
Vagris, appointed in October 1988 by Gorbachov in an effort to keep the
By the end of 1989, Communist rule, the iron frame holding the Empire
Latvian Party together. Vagris's predecessor had been Boris Pugo, the
together, had been thoroughly undermined, both within the Baltic and
former KGB official appointed Soviet Interior Minister by Gorbachov in
by events in Eastern Europe. Gorbachov's dramatic visit to Vilnius in
the autumn of 1990 who then betrayed him during the attempted coup of
January 1990, in an attempt to prevent the Lithuanian Communist Party
August 1991.
from proceeding with its decision to separate from the Soviet Communist
The Latvian Popular Front, founded like Sajúdis - in June 1988, was
Party, was merely another example of his failure to comprehend what
always the victim of a tug-of-war between the Communist and ex-
was happening to the Soviet Union. At that stage simply keeping the
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
for membership of the Executive Committee, but Landsbergis was
elected chairman for six months. Later he was able to beat off challengers
and make his position permanent, partly through superior tactical skill
and toughness, but above all as a compromise candidate uniting the
different elements in the movement: the Vilnius liberal intellectuals who
had founded it; the Kaunas nationalists who had penetrated it; and the
NOST OKUPACIJU!
reform Communists who continued to build a bridge between it and its
main rival, the Communist Party.
Neither Juozaitis, the archetypal liberal intellectual, nor Ozolas, the
liberal Communist, would have been acceptable to the 'Kaunas Faction';
yet neither then nor later was this faction able simply to take over Sajúdis
as a whole; when the Right finally did so with Landsbergis'
encouragement, the result was to split the movement and reduce it to a
rump. Even then, the Kaunasite core itself split, and much of it turned
against Landsbergis.
In his initial role as consensual leader, Landsbergis was helped both by
his apparently mild and diplomatic character and by his ancestry and
background, which spanned the high Vilnius intelligentsia and the
Kaunas nationalist tradition. Right up to 11 March 1990, however
Landsbergis remained only a first among equals. During the elections he
13 A protest meeting in Riga, Latvia, to demand the withdrawal of the Soviet army from the Bal-
had made less impression on the Lithuanian public than had Brazauskas,
tic States, 17 June 1990. The main banner reads, 'End the Occupation', the small placard in the
or the feisty Kazimiera Prunskiene who, as Deputy Prime Minister, had
centre calls for a "Nuremberg Trial' for Communists, while the one on the extreme left is a parody
gained popularity through tough negotiation with the Kremlin over
of the famous Soviet Second World War propaganda poster "The Motherland Calls You' It reads
"The Motherland Calls You Home'. In the background is the Freedom Monument (see Chapter
economic autonomy.
5).
The general public preference for Brazauskas over Landsbergis reflects
a general pattern in the former Soviet republics: while the Communist
Party itself had become highly unpopular, ordinary people continued, in
many cases, to prefer individual Communist leaders over the leaders of
Communist Party united was irrelevant in terms of preventing further
the opposition. In Lithuania, even as his party shrank, Brazauskas
moves towards independence. Gorbachov would have needed to cancel
remained consistently ahead of Landsbergis in most opinion polls, except
the Supreme Council elections due the following month and impose
for the year or so following the events of January 1991. 10 It reflects partly
central rule by military means. Such action would seem to have gone
the instinctive conservatism of those, especially older voters, raised under
against his own instincts, as well as his need for Western support. When,
Soviet rule, and partly simple anti-intellectualism. There is even an
a year later, he did authorise the military to attempt such a solution in
element of racism (assiduously stoked by Soviet misinformation) which
the Baltic, it was both half-hearted and already far too late.
accused Landsbergis, wrongly, of being a German or a 'half-Jew'."
Landsbergis has always had a grander image of himself than has
Brazauskas who, when leader of the Communist Party, used to walk in
'Be Realistic: Ask the Impossible': The Declarations of
public without guards unlike the old Party leaders in Moscow, but very
Independence, 1990
much in the Gorbachov spirit. Landsbergis, however, was soon so
surrounded by hulking bodyguards that even when he did appear, few
By the Lithuanian elections of February 1990, Landsbergis had been
could see him. Other Sajüdis leaders imitated him until their retinues
chairman of the Sajúdis Council for filteen months. He was elected in
began to take on a rather menacing appearance.
November 1988, in a contest with Romualdas Ozolas and Arvydas
There is a good deal of simple dislike for Landsbergis's style and
Juozaitis. Ozolas and Prunskiene had received more votes in the contest
character among ordinary Lithuanians. In the words of a farmer's wife,
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
Landsbergis speaks in such a complicated way, as if he's talking down to
revolution of August 1991. Brazauskas evidently expected the coup to
us. And I also don't think he's honest. He doesn't say what he really
succeed, and told me that democracy in the Soviet Union and Lithuania
means and wants, even when we all know it. All this moderation and
would be put back by a decade. Landsbergis sometimes underestimated
reasonableness is just a big pretence.
short-term threats, but his long-term view of the Soviet Union's decline
A combination of slyness and sanctimoniousness has also been
proved much more accurate. The British journalist Edward Lucas has
particularly infuriating to former colleagues of Landsbergis, many of
summed up this nice combination of extremism and judgement as
whom feel betrayed by him. Indeed Landsbergis puts one in mind of
'barking up the right tree'.
Disraeli's remark about Gladstone, that he did not mind Gladstone's
keeping the Ace of Trumps up his sleeve, if only he would not claim that
It may seem curious, in view of the undoubted support of the vast
it was the Lord God that put it there. The view of a student, in contrast,
majority of Lithuanians for the idea of independence, but the 11 March
was that,
1990 declaration of de facto independence came very much as a surprise,
and an unwelcome one at that. In the elections of February 1990, Sajüdis
One of the reasons I like Landsbergis is that he speaks so beautifully. It's
stood on a platform of complete independence, and won on it; but the
not just that he is always so rational, but he uses the Lithuanian language
beautifully, and he knows Lithuanian literature and culture so well. He
general expectation was that independence would come in stages,
always makes me feel better
beginning with a declaration de jure, the course that Latvia and Estonia in
fact pursued. In practice the independence process as it actually occurred
The physical appearance of Landsbergis and Brazauskas also affected
was a response to objective factors, but also to the determination of the
attitudes: to see them together is to be reminded of some fairy-tale about
radical nationalist minority in Sajüdis, who succeeded in galvanising the
a mole and a bull. Brazauskas is a populist figure, enormous, red-faced
more cautious majority. Speaking on 3 February 1990 to the movement's
and loud-voiced, very like something from a cattle-fair. Landsbergis by
pre-election conference in the Sports Palace in Vilnius (the slightly
contrast is short, plump and balding, with a little academic beard. In the
incongruous setting for so many national celebrations and funerals over
old days, 'before Landsbergis became Landsbergis' (as someone put it),
the following two years), Landsbergis set out the possible courses of
his preference for a crumpled brown-corduroy jacket made the
action. He began with a long disquisition on Lithuanian resistance
resemblance to a mole positively uncanny. His habitual tone of voice is
against Communism, and on the damage wrought by Communism on
nasal and low, and often halting - perhaps an affectation intended to give
the Lithuanian spirit, and denounced 'toadyism and [a] spirit of
the impression of hesitancy, modesty and moderation. He has a tendency
subservience and compromise', evidently to discredit the Brazauskas
towards academic jokes and sarcastic remarks, after which he titters
Communists whom he warned might reform and 'continue their negative
gently to himself. But of the two men it is probably Landsbergis who has
activities'. He declared clearly that 'we are an illegally annexed country,
the stronger nerves. Although not a naturally brave man (according to an
the sovereignty of which must be fully re-established', then stated that
old associate) he has, through a sheer effort of will and patriotism, made
there could be two paths towards this goal, both of which would begin
himself extremely courageous: in standing up to Moscow, especially in
with the election of a new Supreme Council and the appointment of a
January 1991, he showed the most steely determination. Brazauskas, on
delegation for negotiations with Moscow:
the other hand, has on occasion seemed badly rattled. He has persistently
The
over-estimated the threat from Moscow, doubtless very often for political
first is the model of decolonisation; an agreement on moving step-
reasons, to boost his own value as a mediator. In the words of a
by-step, re-establishing equal state relations [with the Soviet Union]
Lithuanian-American journalist,
without causing an upheaval on either side, preparing and establishing
economic, military, and transit agreements, and co-ordinating the final
Brazauskas is not a traitor. He is genuinely loyal to Lithuania. His
handover of power to the legal Lithuanian government. The other way
problem is that he is a defeatist. From the beginning of the independence
would be to regain sovereignty ourselves, expressed by unilateral political
struggle, he has always been saying, We can't do that, it's too dangerous;
action. This would be done prior to any negotiations, and in the face of
we can't do this, it's too difficult'. If we had all thought that way, we
sharp political confrontation. It would involve the formal re-
would never have achieved anything.
establishment of independence and [an assertion of] the continuity of the
Lithuanian Republic. Independence from the jurisdiction of the Soviet
One example came on the first day of the attempted Soviet counter-
Union could be proclaimed, but it would have various possible
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
consequences. We would become dependent on circumstances and on our
March), produced 99 Sajudis deputies, 25 pro-independence
society's capacity for resistance, which has not yet been tested, on a
Communists, 7 Communists loyal to Moscow, and 5 independents. The
[national] unity which seems real and yet unreal, and on civic
result, however, was not quite so clear cut, because 12 of the 'Sajüdis
consciousness. We would have to foresee the risk of chaos, yet without
deputies' were also Communist Party members. A gentleman's
12
knowing the views of foreign countries or the extent of their support
agreement meant that leading pro-independence Communists and
leading Sajúdis representatives did not run against each other -
Though couched in Landsbergis's usual circuitous style, this is clearly
something the Communists later had cause to regret: it cost them the
advocacy of the first (later Estonian and Latvian) variant, and an
possibility of defeating several leading Sajúdis Right-wingers, none of
argument against the Kaunas radicals who, in internal discussions, were
whom was especially popular."
pressing for an immediate declaration of full independence. Most voters
In the days preceding the first meeting of the new Supreme Council on
with whom I spoke expected a continuation by stages of the legal
11 March, the Sajúdis assembly (Seimas) and Deputies' Caucus met to
declarations (on sovereignty and the illegality of the annexations, for
discuss strategy. At the Seimas on the 8 March, the dominant mood
example) of the previous eighteen months.
appeared initially to be one of caution: the Liberty League leader,
During the February 1990 election campaign, I visited the rural
Antanas Terleckas, in a characteristic intervention, accused the deputies
constituency of Jurbarkas, accompanying the Sajúdis candidate, Laima
of having not blood but water in their veins. Terleckas, at this stage, was
Andrikiene, an agronomist who had studied at Manchester University.
opposed to Landsbergis' becoming chairman of the Supreme Council."
Her opponent was one Zairys, head of the local council and a long-
Landsbergis himself first asked that the declaration question not even be
standing Communist boss, who revealed his unreconstructed nature by
discussed. warning that he might need to hold international
refusing to see me. The voters seemed thoroughly sick of his rule and that
consultations. In the words of a radical deputy, Landsbergis, at this
of the "apparat" in general, and showed it by giving Andrikiene, and the
stage, 'obviously could not make up his mind. It was impossible to say
idea of independence, a large majority. But election meetings were small
how he was going to act. He kept calling America, trying to get advice.'
and not especially enthusiastic; questions were not about paths to
The calls were made to Stasys Lozoraitis, Ambassador to the US of the
independence, but about food prices, taxes, and the provision of
pre-1940 Lithuanian republic and, in 1993, rival to Brazauskas for the
machinery. At one meeting a plump, elderly woman in a fake fur coat
office of president. Lozoraitis advised Landsbergis to declare immediate
like a turnip-eating herbivore swallowed whole by a rather mangy
de facto independence. He reported, over optimistically, that ex-president
leopard - hammered away at the problem of collective farm debt, and the
Reagan had been urging Lithuania's case with Bush, his successor.
responsibility of the state. The contrast between this woman and the
When, on 8 March, Ozolas led a Sajúdis delegation to meet the US
other collective farmers, with their Soviet clothes and dirt ingrained into
Ambassador in Moscow, they were told there was no possibility of
the very skin of their faces on the one side, and the candidate in her smart
immediate recognition; but as Ozolas later admitted, they simply refused
English overcoat on the other, was acute.
to believe it, apparently thinking that a declaration would force America
Seeming to respond to the public mood, Andrikiene spent very little
to respond. Andrikiené and other radical deputies clearly also believed
time on flights of nationalist rhetoric, and concentrated on arguing that
that recognition was imminent. When I tried to suggest otherwise, they
independence was necessary for economic renewal; she presented herself
refused to accept it, declaring that the West, having never recognised
as the kind of Westernised technocrat who could help in this process.
Soviet annexation, was morally bound to recognise independence.
What were not presented were the plans for the rapid decollectivisation of
The Seimas concluded by authorising the deputies to declare
agriculture by parliamentary decree, and for the return of land to
independence, but without stating what form the declaration should take.
pre-1940 owners. Had these been revealed, it is probable the Sajúdis vote
A Sajúdis spokesman announced on television that independence would
in the Lithuanian countryside would have been drastically reduced. De-
be declared, further compromising the deputies. An additional question
collectivisation was a central factor in the crushing Sajúdis defeat two
was the nature of the constitution an independent Lithuania should
years later when, in the October 1992 election, Andrikiene lost Jurbarkas
adopt: some radicals, backed by Algimantas Gureckas, leader of the
and retained her seat only through being second on the Sajúdis
emigré 'Lithuanian World Community', urged a return to the 1938
proportional vote list.
constitution, with amendments, but this was rejected on Landsbergis's
advice.
The 1990 elections, held on 24 February (with run-offs between 4 and 10
Even as the Seimas was taking place in the hall of the Trades Union
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
headquarters, adjacent to the Supreme Council, the deputies were
making it difficult for Gorbachov to take a moderate line, even if he
gathering in a lecture room downstairs. It was much too small for the
wished. Bičkauskas asked:
ninety or so members, and in the resulting confusion I was able to slip in,
and sit among them.
Why should we give a card to the hardliners? I don't understand this
The deputies' decision can be interpreted at three levels. First, and
hysterical hurry. Moscow is sure not to introduce any authoritarian
fundamental to everything, was that every Sajūdis deputy was committed
at
this
stage,
but
this Congress in Moscow is a 'black
to independence: it was only a question of when; but in the words of
Congress'. regime If we do something rash now, Gorbachov may be forced by the
Professor Vilkas, by then himself a Sajudis deputy,
reactionaries to act against us, despite his own wishes. Instead, we
To have voted against an immediate declaration would have been seen as
should work quietly and have the four basic documents ready to hand.
voting against the declaration itself, not against the date, and no-one
Vaišvila countered that,
wanted to be recorded as against the declaration.
During the debates in the caucus I had the clear impression that a
Going on and on negotiating with Moscow on the present basis is not
majority of deputies were very concerned and hesitant about an
going to get us any further. Do any of you really believe that it will be
immediate declaration of full independence. Indeed several voiced their
possible to force Moscow to recognise the illegality of the Molotov-
disquiet, but when it came to the final vote on the evening of 10 March,
Ribbentrop Pact? [Declaring independence now] may seem drastic and
only three opposed the motion (though others, like Vilkas, absented
illogical, but it is the only thing that will move things forward.
themselves from the later stages of the discussion). The following day,
The third element in the decision was, of course, personal interest.
although all the Brazauskas Communists would have opposed an early
According to former Sajúdis deputies (but now in opposition to
declaration given the power, they too voted in favour when the
Landsbergis, and hence perhaps unreliable as a source), negotiations
declaration came before the Supreme Council."
went on throughout the week between Landsbergis, Prunskiené and
The failure of moderate Sajüdis deputies to oppose the vote was not
Kaunas Faction leaders, the latter promising to support Landsbergis as
simply a selfish fear of the effect it might have on their later careers; it was
chairman of the Supreme Council and Prunskiené as prime minister in
also because they could not bear to appear before history, and possibly
return for their support for an immediate declaration. Prunskiene's
before their own consciences, as having taken such a stand. At the time I
surprising advocacy of immediate independence may well have owed a
was reminded of Kamenev and Zinoviev, the only two members of the
good deal to this offer (though the other prime ministerial candidates
Bolshevik central committee to vote against the October 1917 coup, a fact
were Vilkas and Antanavičius, scarcely more welcome to the Right,
used against them in every subsequent party struggle. As in all
which lacked any convincing candidates of its own). It may also have
revolutions, once the principle of independence had triumphed in
helped Landsbergis to make up his mind. Other figures angled for other
Lithuania, then as long as the independence struggle lasted, whoever
minorities and positions. In Latvia and Estonia, the national movements
could articulate that position most boldly would have the moral edge.
were to take control of the government (in Estonia, under Edgar
This was the cultural hegemony of nationalism with a vengeance.
Savisaar, a reform Communist figure comparable to Prunskiené), leaving
The deputies' decision was also influenced by certain specific
the chairmanship, for the sake of compromise, in the hands of
arguments and developments. Chief among these was the argument that
Communist leaders. In other republics the national movements took the
Lithuania had to act quickly to secure its legal position before the new
chair while allowing Communists to continue running the government.
Congress of People's Deputies convened in Moscow, gave Gorbachov
In Lithuania, the national movement took control of both the
new presidential powers, and approved a planned 'law on secession',
chairmanship and the government. The deputies expected that Ozolas
establishing a ten-year qualification period for a republic to leave the
would be one of the deputy chairmen, but during the caucus discussions
Soviet Union. This danger was repeatedly mentioned in speeches. Vilkas,
he attempted to put forward his candidacy against Landsbergis for the
Professor Kazimieras Antanavicius and Egidijus Bičkauskas (later envoy
chairmanship. The following day, Landsbergis made sure Ozalas was
to Moscow) however argued that it was irrelevant, that Lithuania's legal
excluded (the vote for Landsbergis against Brazauskas was 91 to 38).
right to independence would be unaffected by the Moscow Congress, and
Vaišvila (by Prunskiené's account) begged her for the deputy
that to declare independence during the session would give hardline
premiership, but she slapped him down: 'Oh, stop jumping about,
Soviet deputies the chance to pass punitive resolutions against Lithuania,
Zigmas!' Vaišvila was to have more than ample revenge over the
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following nine months as a Rightist critic of Prunskiene's government,
that by the elections of 1992 it had only seven deputies in the Supreme
and on her fall indeed became deputy premier.
Council. Bitter faces were to be seen among the defectors when that
One deputy to Landsbergis, Ceslovas Stankevičius, came from the
number multiplied tenfold after the elections.
Kaunas Faction; the other two, Bronius Kuzmickas and Kazimieras
In March 1990, the Lithuanian Communist Party collected tens of
Moticka, were from Vilnius, but Right of Centre. With Brazauskas and
thousands of signatures for a petition asking for Brazauskas's re-election.
Ozolas as deputy premiers, the stage was set for the confrontation
This made no impression on the Sajūdis deputies, but increased the
between the Praesidium of the Supreme Council led by Landsbergis
hostility of the Right to the independent Communists, whom they now
and supported (at this stage) by most deputies on one side, and
accused of 'splitting the nation' just as pressure from Moscow was
Prunskiené's government on the other.
beginning.
When the Supreme Council declared de facto independence, and the
deputies rose to sing the national anthem on the evening of 11 March, a
Within days of the Il March declaration of independence, demands came
crowd gathered outside in the freezing rain and surged forward to tear
from the Congress of People's Deputies and from Gorbachov for its
down the Soviet insignia over the door. But it was a very small crowd -
cancellation. Direct pressure followed through the seizure by Soviet
between three and six hundred in strange contrast to the huge
paratroops of Lithuanian deserters from the Soviet army, housed in a
gatherings earlier in the struggle.
psychiatric clinic near Vilnius under the 'protection' of the Red Cross
flag. Lithuanian and other Baltic soldiers continued to desert in large
For the following week or so, the prevailing mood in Vilnius was one of
numbers but, after this, had the sense to hide quietly with relatives and
doubt and uncertainty. In the words of a student, Edita Urmonaité:
friends. The Soviet military captured some, but the great majority
escaped. The Spring draft was a total failure in the Baltic, as in the
The mood among my friends was not very cheerful. We were surprised by
Caucasus and much of the Western Ukraine. The High Command made
how fast it had happened, at night and without any public discussion; and
periodic threats, but these became increasingly ritualistic as the entire
then there had been so many declarations. Many people didn't take in the
local conscription machinery either collapsed or was taken over by local
significance of this one at first. When an American-Lithuanian student
Baltic authorities as they set out to create their own armed forces.
came and told us how she had burst into tears of joy when the declaration
was made, we all looked at her as if she was mad.
After the initial capture of deserters, the seizure began, initially by Soviet
The replacement of Brazauskas by Landsbergis as chairman of the
Interior Ministry troops, then in some cases by paratroops, of buildings
Supreme Council undoubtedly added to the mood of insecurity. The
in Vilnius owned by the Communist Party but now under the control of
great majority of ordinary Lithuanians I interviewed in the succeeding
the majority Brazauskas party. The buildings were however of no
weeks said they would have preferred Brazauskas as chairman, largely
governmental significance, and in several cases the independent LCP had
because of his governmental experience and good personal relations with
agreed to pass them to academic institutions. Their seizure therefore
Gorbachov. The Soviet leader apparently harboured a deep personal
served no useful purpose, and the unobtrusive military presence in them
loathing for Landsbergis. The need to keep open lines of communication
did not impinge on the life of the city, in whose heart they remained like
to Moscow was a major reason for the inclusion of Brazauskas and other
lumps of cold, dark, invisible matter.
Communist officials in the government. In the words of Algimantas
It is difficult to know whether Gorbachov's strategy was a further case
Cekuolis, a Communist journalist, founder of Sajúdis and strong
of barking up the Communist tree, thinking the Party still identical with
supporter of independence, in February 1990:
the State: or whether he was attempting to make the Soviet Communist
Party the protector of 'extra-territorial rights' for Soviet citizens in an
The Lithuanian Communist Party today has only one purpose to
independent Lithuania; or whether he was simply completely baffled
maintain ties with Moscow, so as to be on the safe side until Moscow
about what course to take.
agrees to normal interstate relations. If Moscow refuses to negotiate, then
The measures, however, only increased the determination and morale of
there is no point in keeping the LCP.
ordinary Lithuanians. Those who, immediately after the declaration, had
Cekuolis and many others such as the Ideology Secretary, Justas
been critical of Landsbergis and Sajúdis, became increasingly supportive,
Paleckis left the LCP (or the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party as it
and popular demonstrations returned to their pre-independence
was later renamed) in the conviction that it had no future. The result was
dimensions. The West also became alarmed, and opinion grew in support
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of Lithuania. By late spring, however, it had become clear that a
with the proviso that it should follow full interstate negotiations between
continued oil blockade (the only sanction which really worked) would
Lithuania and Moscow. The Praesidium and Parliament demonstrated
play havoc with the Lithuanian harvest and lead to severe food shortages.
their lack of confidence in Prunskiené by ordering that they, not the
The blockade was, however, partly undermined by the Soviet military:
government, should form the negotiating commission. Since they also
individual soldiers sold military petrol on the black market, and on at
demanded that Moscow should agree to the Lithuanian agenda - in effect
least one occasion, an entire Soviet unit, with its transport, joined the
recognise the independence process - the talks never happened, nor did
harvest in return for a share of the crop (a throwback to the last decades
the moratorium. By mid-autumn in any case, Gorbachov had lost
of the Empire!)
whatever interest he had in negotiation.
The fuel shortage, and strong advice from Western leaders during her
Prunskiené continues to insist that a great chance was lost by failing to
trips abroad, convinced Kazimiera Prunskiené to seek a compromise
open negotiations at a time when Moscow may have been conciliatory,
with Moscow through a 'moratorium' on the implementation of the
but this is very questionable. The experience of Latvia and Estonia
declaration of independence, if not the declaration itself. Much of the
suggests that the Soviet government would have tried to stall serious
Lithuanian Right continues to allege that Prunskiene's move resulted
negotiations indefinitely. The Balts in any case could have done nothing
from orders from Moscow, or that she was blackmailed because of her
to prevent the ascendancy of the Soviet conservatives in autumn 1990. or
alleged earlier connections with the KGB. But past KGB informers
the. military intervention that followed, short of freezing the entire
included the main leader of the Right, Virgilijus Cepaitis and
independence process in an attempt to help Gorbachov stabilise his
(apparently) several other prominent deputies. There is no evidence that
position. This was the hope of many Baltic moderates, but formed no
it led any of them to work against Lithuania in this period.
part of the radicals' agenda. These argued that the Soviet Union was
Prunskiene's advocacy of a moratorium marked the beginning of the
bound to collapse anyway, and that the Baltic should simply stake an
split between her government and Landsbergis' parliamentary majority.
absolute legal position and wait for developments elsewhere to destroy
The split was far from clear cut, because majorities in parliament were
the power of the Kremlin. In this the radicals were entirely correct, and
continually shifting, while the government itself included such leading
their analysis sharper than that of many moderates and Western
radicals as Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas. Tension, however,
analysts. By contrast the policy of Prunskiene, by the winter of 1991, was
resulted not simply from Prunskiene's 'compromising' policies, but also
manifestly bankrupt: in her position, a Western prime minister would
from uncertainties about the rights and powers of government and
have been forced to resign. It was the manner and timing of the move to
parliament respectively. Similar tensions have emerged elsewhere in the
bring her down, not the move itself. which left deep scars in Lithuanian
former Soviet Union The split was long hidden from the public, in part to
political life.
avoid direct confrontation, but also because Landsbergis finally, and
with great reluctance, came round to the moratorium idea, even though
he continued to throw responsibility for it on to Prunskiene.
The Lithuanian declaration of independence placed the Latvians and
Estonians in a difficult position. Honour suggested similar declarations of
Despite its complicated and even murky genesis, the declaration of
full independence: it will be many years before the Lithuanians forgive
Lithuanian independence became a national talisman, if more for the
their Baltic neighbours for their failure to issue these. Prudence, the plans
politicians than for the mass of the population. Even moderate Sajúdis
already made, and above all the presence of the large Russian minorities,
deputies declared that 'we were not elected in February so as to suspend
dictated a more gradual approach. As it was, the Lithuanian declaration
independence', or 'the people would not understand us if we were to do
and Moscow's response to it, resulted in a drastic reduction in local
this': the declaration had become a Golden Calf, a god which they had
Russian support for the Latvian Popular Front, demonstrated by a
made and to which they were now wholeheartedly devoted. This was true
declining vote between the first and second rounds of the election.
of course above all for Landsbergis, whose entire personality seems to
It had been feared that neither in Latvia nor Estonia would the
have become bound up with the declaration.
Popular Front gain the necessary two-thirds majority to enact
The moratorium was accepted by the Supreme Council on 23 June,
constitutional changes under their own (Soviet) statutes. In this
and Soviet oil shipments to the Lithuanian oil refinery at Mažeikiai were
eventuality, the plan of the radicals, and indeed the moderates, was for
resumed immediately. The harvest was safe, and mass unemployment
the Estonian and Latvian Congresses to declare independence. This
had been avoided, if temporarily. But the moratorium was approved only
would obviously have had grave consequences, undermining the
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
legitimacy of the independence process among local Russians, democrats
A fortnight later, the Estonian Supreme Council upgraded its initial
in Russia, and Western governments.
declaration to match that of the Latvians; in the name of Baltic solidarity,
In fact, thanks to Russian support (put by Dainis Ivans at 30 per cent
the Estonian Congress did not protest. On 29 April, the Kremlin had
of the Russian vote in Latvia) and Russian apathy, the elections in both
made a final attempt to head off the Latvian declaration: Soviet
Latvia and Estonia led to two-thirds majorities for the Popular Fronts
representatives in Moscow persuaded a Latvian negotiating delegation
and associated pro-independence candidates. In Latvia, 68.2 per cent
comprising representatives of both the Communist government and the
voted for the Popular Front and only 21.5 per cent for opponents of
Popular Front to agree to talks on joining a Soviet confederation.
independence, with 10.3 per cent for 'neutrals' (most of whose
Gorbachov also offered Latvia the status of the Grand Duchy of Finland
representatives voted for independence).
under the Tsars full internal autonomy excluding defence and foreign
The new Estonian Supreme Council adopted the most cautious of the
affairs. Both offers were rejected by the Latvian Popular Front. While
three declarations - so much SO that many Estonians have forgotten it
its leaders did not rule out a future confederation, they declared that
was made. It simply cancelled the Soviet annexation, and declared that
negotiations would need to follow the achievement of real independence.
Estonia was in a period of transition to full independence. Much more
Over the next fifteen months, negotiations on practical steps towards
important was the formation of a Popular Front government by Edgar
independence took place at regular intervals. There is little point,
Savisaar, with a cabinet made up largely of pro-independence former
however, in detailing them, since most were mere formalities, the two
Communists. In the words of Professor Endel Lippmaa, chief Estonian
parties setting out their positions again and again; the Soviet government
negotiator with Moscow, in April 1990:
had no interest in making significant concessions.
On 4 May the Latvian Supreme Council, in a law on "The Renewal of
We have in fact done what Lithuania did, but by a long series of such
the Independence of the Republic of Latvia', declared null and void the
small steps that it was difficult for Moscow to tell when exactly we got
Soviet annexation, restored (but, as in Lithuania, immediately
really nasty. What Lithuania did was take a big step, as ill Moscow didn't
exist."
suspended) the constitution of 1922, and established a transition period
leading to de facto independence, to be concluded by the convening of a
The limited nature of the Estonian declaration was in part the work of the
Latvian parliament. Since by late 1992 this parliament had still not been
national radicals. Loyal to the Congress, and denying in principle the
convened, many Right-wing Latvians argue that the transition period
legitimacy of the Supreme Council, they wished to preserve the 'sacred'
was not terminated by the declaration of independence that accompanied
symbols of the pre-1940 republic for a 'real' declaration of independence.
the attempted Moscow coup on 21 August 1991, but is in fact still in force.
On the eve of the new session of the Estonian Supreme Council, the
As in Lithuania and Estonia, the Latvian Supreme Council followed its
council of the Estonian Congress passed a resolution declaring that in the
main declaration with a subsidiary pronouncement on Latvia's accession
'transition period' Estonia could not be a real state, but supporting it in
to the human rights conventions of the UN and the CSCE, and with an
any case. Trivimi Velliste explained that,
appeal to the governments of the world to,
We don't want to legitimise anything phoney as a cover for continued
support the endeavours of the people of Latvia to achieve the complete
Soviet rule. We cannot declare independence twice, and there is no point
renewal of the independence of Latvia and to give the new government full
in following the Lithuanians and declaring full de facto independence now
moral, diplomatic and possibly material assistance. In particular, we ask
when we have even less chance than the Lithuanians of actually
you to use all your international authority to persuade the government of
controlling the country.
the USSR to begin negotiations on an equal basis. The Baltic question
is an international issue. If Europe is to be reunified the Baltic question
In a shrewdly prophetic comment, he added that,
must be resolved.
We don't want to devalue the concept of independence. What will people
Following the declaration, the leaders adjourned to the Daugava
feel and say the next morning if independence has been declared and
embankment, where in sharp contrast to Lithuania a huge crowd,
nothing has changed? The achievement of real independence could last a
tens of thousands strong, gathered to celebrate. Leaving the meeting,
year, more or less. The crucial thing is political developments in Russia.
Popular Front Chairman Dainis Ivans, then the most popular figure
We don't know when or how the collapse of Communist rule in Russia will
among Latvians, was bombarded with greetings and almost buried in
come, but it is already obvious that it is bound to happen.20
flowers.
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The Baltic Revolution
The declaration was accompanied by the election of a fresh Praesidium
and government by the new majority. The Praesidium was headed as
before by Anatolijs Gorbunovs, chosen for his popularity and ability to
negotiate with the Kremlin, but above all because of the need to reassure
the local Russian population. Gorbunovs was joined as vice-chairmen by
Ivâns (who stepped down from his PF post) and by Andrejs Krastins,
leader of the radical National Independence Party. The new government
was headed by Popular Front vice-chairman Ivars Godmanis, a physicist
who had newly joined the Party from the Centrist forces in the Front.
Many Balts remain bitterly disappointed by the absence of Western
diplomatic recognition in 1990-91, and by the subsequent failure to put
economic pressure on the Russian government to withdraw its troops
from the Baltic states. Landsbergis repeatedly warned of the threat of
'another Munich' and, according to Prunskiené, 'suspicion that
the
Western states would betray Lithuania ran like a red thread through his
policies and statements'.
Western concern with the fate of the Balts, and pressure on the Soviet
government, was, however, unquestionably a key factor in deterring
serious military action - against the Lithuanians in particular - in 1990,
and in frustrating the plans of the Russian hardliners in January 1991. If
the West had stood back, Gorbachov could not have crushed the Baltic
nationalist movements, but the struggle for independence would have
been much more difficult.
The 'Bloody Events': January to August 1991
Matters between the Baltic States and the Kremlin were therefore at an
impasse when, in the autumn of 1990, Gorbachov swung towards the
Soviet hardliners, rejecting the Shatalin economic reform plan and
appointing Valentin Pavlov as Prime Minister and Boris Pugo as Interior
Minister. How far he approved the detail of their actions in the Baltic
States remains unknowable. As suggested in Chapter 7, one reason why
both the January 1991 military intervention in the Baltic and the August
counter-revolution failed was precisely that so few Soviet leaders were
willing to take full responsibility.
In September 1990 a series of minor bomb attacks hit Soviet and
military targets in Latvia. There seems little doubt these were in fact the
work of Soviet hardliners, provokatsii, to create an excuse for military
intervention and presidential rule from Moscow. From December, the
Soviet High Command issued statements insisting that conscription
would be implemented in the Baltic, using force if necessary.
At this point Edgar Savisaar's Estonian government demonstrated its
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recreate a backward-looking, religiously-coloured nationalism seems a
Congress elections. A very few pre-1940 Russians participated or were
mere piece of baroque theatre, brilliant but brief. It is, however, too early
elected as observers.
to say if it is gone for ever, or whether a long period of grinding national
The Congresses called the Supreme Soviets 'institutions of foreign
poverty and political turmoil might resurrect it, as a national blanket
occupation', and denied their legitimacy, at least in constitutional
against the intolerable cold of the modern age.
questions and 'matters of key national importance', such as citizenship
There were beautiful sides to Landsbergis' nationalism, but others
for the Russians. Supporters of the Supreme Councils denounced the
which were profoundly ugly, The greatest charge against him is perhaps
Congresses as revolutionary forces which would bring disorder and
that unlike the national leaders with whom he would like to be compared
Soviet intervention.
Churchill and de Gaulle- he left the nation more divided than when he
Membership of these two bodies, however, overlapped. In Estonia,
became its leader, and Lithuanian democracy badly scarred. There is,
while the National Independence Party, led by former dissidents, refused
moreover, no sign that he has learnt from his mistakes: up to March 1993
any part in the Supreme Council, several more moderate nationalist
his central tactic remained that of suggesting that Brazauskas and his
parties, like the Christian Democrats, while they identified with the
government are working for Moscow. His wider historical importance
Congress principles, came under the Popular Front umbrella and entered
lies in the push he and Sajûdis gave to the disintegrating Soviet Union,
the Supreme Councils in the 1990 elections. Around 40 Congress
and in the resistance he and many ordinary Lithuanians offered the
members also sat in the Supreme Council.
Soviet backlash in January 1991. In neither case was Landsbergis' or
In Latvia, the 'Citizens Committees' (which organised the Congress
Lithuania's contribution decisive: Soviet decline was prescribed by wider
elections), remained aloof from the Supreme Council, but the National
factors. But without him, and the Lithuanians, the course of events might
Independence Movement (LNNK) was initially in alliance with the
have been quite considerably different.
Popular Front and entered the Supreme Council where its leader,
It is for this contribution that Balts will always remember Landsbergis
Andrejs Krastips, became deputy chairman. On the other side, even
with a certain gratitude, however great their criticism. As to whether the
many Centrist supporters of the Popular Fronts and the Supreme
disintegration of the Soviet Union as opposed to the end of
Councils nonetheless welcomed the creation of the Congresses, and
Communism - was a good thing for the Soviet peoples or humanity as a
participated in elections to them, out of fear that because of the Russian
whole, this question will be decided by history.
populations, the Supreme Councils might not achieve a two-thirds
majority in favour of independence: or that Moscow would impose
central rule and pack these bodies with Soviet stooges.
In this case, it was felt, it was essential that the nations should have
some legitimate elected body to fall back on. In Lithuania, the
Ethnic Estonian Politics, 1990-92
preponderance of ethnic Lithuanians in the population meant that there
was no need for an institution like the Congresses. In 1990, the
According to the schema in the introduction to this chapter, Estonian
governments of both Edgar Savisaar and Ivars Godmanis sought
and Latvian politics in 1990-92 represented a protracted duel between
compromises with the Congresses. Savisaar addressed the first session of
the proponents of the First and Second Republics, ending in victory for
the Congress in Tallinn, though he broke an agreement to share power
the former.29 The formal protagonists in this struggle were on one hand
with it. His government. formed when the Supreme Council met in April
the Supreme Councils (in Russia, Soviets), the 'parliaments' of the Soviet
1990, however, contained no representatives of the radical nationalists,
Baltic republics which, after the spring elections of 1990, were dominated
being formed above all from men who like himself had been senior
by pro-independence Popular Fronts; and on the other, the Congresses,
members of the former Soviet establishment.
set up by radical nationalist groups and elected only by pre-1940 citizens
Three of Savisaar's ministers were still Communist Party members
and their descendants.
when the government was formed. Savisaar himself, like Social Democrat
In the course of 1989 and early 1990, the radicals carried out voluntary
leader Marju Lauristin, had resigned from the Party a short while before.
registration of the potential Congress electorates. Elections were held in
Lauristin, who for a long time was Savisaar's close ally, was professor of
the winter of 1990 and the Congresses met in March and May in Estonia
journalism at Tartu University and had signed mildly dissident
and Latvia respectively. In each republic, an absolute majority of ethnic
statements during Brezhnev's rule (see Chapter 4). She was also the
Latvians and Estonians (almost 700,000 of the latter) voted in the
daughter of the first prime minister of Soviet Estonia, Johannes
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
Lauristin, and step-sister of Jaak Allik, previously Communist Ideology
independence process, invasion by Moscow, or diplomatic isolation from
Secretary. That she ended up as an ally of the Congress says something
a critical West.
for both their and her own flexibility.
When none of these things happened not merely did the moderates lose
From 1990-91, the Congresses appeared to be losing the struggle with
their public arguments, but much of their internal support for Russian
the Supreme Councils. Balts who were content with them as a fall-back
rights vanished, and their public position shifted rapidly. Thus the swing
were alarmed at their radicalism and the possibility of conflict with
of Marju Lauristin to an anti-Russian position after the achievement of
Moscow, and their support waned. Their endless criticism of the Popular
independence in August 1991 can be explained partly by political
Front governments came to seem divisive and negative at a time when
'necessity'. Her long negotiations, as head of the Citizenship
the nations were in danger. They were also deeply divided internally, not
Commission, to construct a more generous citizenship law, were finally
least in their attitude to co-operation with the Supreme Councils. An
ended by a wrecking motion on 16 October 1991, after which she told me
Estonian emigré analyst, Riina Kionka, wrote in January 1991 that by the
that,
third Estonian Congress session the previous October, 'most observers
pronounced the Congress more-or-less dead as a politically influential
I now support going back to the naturalisation law of 1938. We have no
movement'.
other choice, given the deep conflicts that exist over this issue. We have to
Congress denunciation of the Supreme Councils as 'occupation bodies'
go back to the only law that is there, that has legitimacy.
was undermined when the Supreme Council in Lithuania proclaimed
Thereafter, however, Lauristin's remarks about Russians and Russia
independence. The Supreme Councils in Latvia and Estonia declared de
took on a new, more hostile tinge. perhaps the result of her own long-
jure independence in 1990, and de facto independence in August 1991. It
suppressed feelings of hostility, or perhaps a more complicated process of
was the Supreme Council that the Estonian people rallied to defend when
justifying to herself her change of position.
attacked by Soviet loyalist demonstrators on 15 May 1990. Thereafter
Only a very few Balts, like the Estonian poet Jaan Kaplinksi, the
support for the Congresses among ethnic Estonians and Latvians never
Latvian Foreign Minister Janis Jurkans, or the Latvian emigré Nils
rose above 25 per cent.
Muižnicks, continued supporting Russian rights because they felt that it
Ultimately, however, a large number of former Popular Front deputies
was right to do so, or because they disliked the idea of a narrow, stuffy,
in both Latvia and Estonia came to accept the Congress position on
ethnic-based state; and their arguments cut increasingly less ice with the
restitution of the First Republics and especially on the refusal of
bulk of their compatriots.
automatic citizenship to Russian 'immigrants'. There are various
Savisaar has also been a consistent advocate of compromise with the
secondary reasons for this, including the intellectual and financial
Russians, though his enemies have claimed this is only because of a
influence of large parts of the Baltic emigrations in the West, many of
calculation that when or if large numbers of Russians do in fact become
whom took a hardline restitutionist and anti-Russian position. There are
citizens, they will vote for him out of gratitude. His supporters say that
also two central reasons. First, the restitutionists had at least a clear
his position is based on an enlightened assessment of the need for ethnic
image of what they sought, backed by the golden glow which time and
harmony.
Soviet rule had cast over the First Republics. Their opponents spoke of
What his friends argue is difficult to say, because he has so few. Even
liberalism, democracy and a modern society, but their own
by post-Soviet standards. Edgar Savisaar is an abrasive figure whose
understanding of these terms was often too deficient for them to argue
political problems have been partly due to his having alienated SO many
effectively for them.
former allies. He was known as 'Piggy' by some Estonian officials, and
Even more important, however, was the Russian question. The
not only because of his weight. Savisaar's crude manners are a feature of
restitutionists, in arguing openly for strict limits on Russian citizenship
all too many post-Soviet politicians, and led to much unnecessary strife.
and more covertly for encouraging or even driving them to leave, tapped
His arrogance and abnormal sensitivity to criticism are also doubtless
an almost universal vein of anti-Russian feeling within the Baltic
due to his origins, as the illegitimate son of a woman whom his enemies
populations. In contrast, the moderate Popular Fronts' politicians who
allege was Russian.
argued in favour of granting citizenship automatically to the Russians
(the 'Zero Option'), did so, with rare exceptions, not out of commitment
Although almost 70 per cent of the deputies elected to the Estonian
to a multicultural liberal democracy, or to civic values, but simply out of
Supreme Council in March 1990 belonged to the Popular Front, and
fear: fear of local Russian revolt or at least obstruction of the
continued to do SO until after the achievement of independence in August
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
1991, it would be more accurate to say that the parliament was divided
Rüütel, like Gorbunovs and even Brazauskas (in his Minotaurean
into four loose groups, only one of them wholly outside the Front. This
fashion) is a handsome man in the Soviet understanding of the word. His
group was made up of Soviet loyalists, and was overwhelmingly Russian,
manner is pleasant and unassuming, and he was described as 'hopelessly
just as the others were overwhelmingly Estonian; it has been discussed
likeable' by one journalist who strongly disapproved of him and his
earlier and can be discounted here because it played almost no part in the
retinue of sleazy ex-apparachiks. Meanwhile, Rüütel covered himself
political disputes of the Estonians themselves. Savisaar's attempts to
with the nationalists by moving steadily to a hardline position on the
build bridges with moderate members of this group were frustrated by
question of Russian citizenship - although, in contrast to his counterpart
opposition from other Estonian politicians and the hardline attitudes of
Anatolijs Gorbunovs in Latvia, this probably also corresponded to his
the Soviet loyalists themselves.
own deeper feelings. Other Free Estonia figures, such as Toome, also
Of the three Estonian groups in parliament, the largest was the 'core'
moved towards an increasingly nationalist position.
Popular Front, made up of the sort of people who had created the original
Although Rüütel was involved in autumn 1990 in the first concerted
party in 1988: junior Communist Party members and reformist but non-
attack on Savisaar's government - by an unholy alliance of the Free
dissident intellectuals. In 1992, after numerous defections, this group
Estonia group and the Congress supporters - he never showed his hand,
transformed itself into a Front party under Savisaar's leadership. was
throughout the period of Savisaar's government, in the attempts to
defeated in the election, and went into opposition.
undermine the Premier. The first attack took the curious form of an
The second group was made up of the forty or so radical nationalist
accusation that the government, and specifically the Foreign Minister
deputies who also sat in the Congress. In 1992 these were to form the
(and later President) Lennart Meri, had betrayed Estonian interests in
Isamaa (Fatherland) moderate nationalist alliance, and the focus of the
collusion with the Bush administration by failing to secure a guarantee of
government of Mart Laar. They also were mainly intellectuals, though
Baltic legal independence in the "Two plus Four' agreement on German
generally younger and more dynamic than the 'core' Popular Frontists,
Unity. It turned into a general attack on Savisaar, with the Congress
with fewer connections to the old Communist system. Unlike the more
supporters and Free Estonia jointly demanding his resignation and the
radical National Independence Party, however, their leaders were not ex-
formation of a government of national unity.
dissidents.
Leader of the attack on Meri was another minister, Professor Endel
The third group consisted of senior Communists who had held power
Lippmaa. A former senior member of the Soviet scientific establishment,
before the March 1990 elections, led by former Prime Minister Indrek
Professor Lippmaa was closest to Free Estonia (later to Secure Home)
Toome. At the end of 1989, with the Party already clearly doomed, they
and to Rüütel, although he posed as an independent. He showed no
formed the Vaba Eesti (Free Estonia) group; most left the Communist
loyalty to the Savisaar government, although he remained in it until July
Party, which by now had split between Russians and an Estonian rump
1991 as Minister without Portfolio for relations with Moscow.36
under Enn-Arno Sillari. The rump diminished steadily, and failed to win
Though, before August 1991, Savisaar was repeatedly attacked by
any seats in the October 1992 election. Free Estonia continued to play a
Lippmaa and others for his conciliatory policy towards Moscow, there is
prominent role, and after many twists and turns, eventually gave birth to
no evidence this lost him popularity with the cautious and pragmatic
the Kindel Kodu (Secure Home) party, which came second in the 1992
Estonians. On the contrary, he gained through being seen to have
elections.
averted in Estonia the sort of Soviet attack which occurred in the other
Leading members of Secure Home tended to have been very much
Baltic States in January 1991.
more senior in the State (and sometimes the Party) apparatus than the
Throughout this period Savisaar held regular meetings with Soviet
Popular Frontists. They harboured considerable resentment against
commanders in Estonia, to resolve any local sources of strife. In this way
Savisaar for having excluded them from power, even though there were
he also secured tacit Soviet agreement to a large part of the Estonian
in fact several leading former Communists in his cabinet. Arnold Rüütel,
economic reform programme. The reforms failed to halt a steep decline in
chairman of the Supreme Council before and after the 1990 election, was
the Estonian economy, but provided a much better base for Western
close to this group, though by keeping his associations discreet this silver
investment than elsewhere in the Baltic. This did not of course stop
fox of the Baltic political scene preserved a wholly unearned reputation
ordinary Estonians grumbling; while the educated classes were growing
for being 'above politics'. His anodyne phraseology expertly serviced the
critical of Savisaar's dictatorial style. Much of the opposition was
Estonian need for calm and reassurance, and concealed his lack of
directed at his attempts to turn the Popular Front from a broad umbrella
intelligence.
movement into a disciplined party just as Landsbergis and Čepaitis
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
to the town of Narva. This was very much less than the full autonomy the
hardline Soviet loyalists had demanded, but it provoked a furious
response among Estonian nationalists, who accused Savisaar of
preparing to surrender Estonian territory. The campaign was led by
Lippmaa who finally - resigned in protest, and engineered the rejection
of the proposal during its second reading in the Supreme Council. In the
course of the debate, Lippmaa, speaking of Savisaar, asked how a man
with a Russian mother could defend Estonian interests. Shortly
afterwards, the failure of the August counter-revolution rendered
Savisaar's offer obsolete.
The achievement of independence, without bloodshed, boosted
Savisaar's popularity. His power, however, never really recovered from
the defeat of his Narva policy, and there were increasing calls from all
sides for a government of national unity. Allies such as Lauristin
distanced themselves and, in the autumn, Savisaar was strongly attacked
for refusing to implement a voucher scheme for mass participation in
privatisation which had been agreed by parliament. His position was
further damaged by his covert attempts to help create a moderate
Russian political force in Estonia, the Russian Democratic Movement,
formed soon after the coup. If most Estonians had been prepared to
19 Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Arnold Rüütel and Vytautas Landsbergis, 12 May 1990.
compromise with the Russians over citizenship and language questions,
this moderate movement might have developed into a valuable group of
interlocuteurs valables. As it was, it was soon forced into opposition and by
sought to do in Lithuania, albeit from a very different political
the following year had formed an alliance with the old hardline
standpoint. Savisaar, however, could not count on the support of many
Communists forming together the 'Estonian Assembly of Russian
politicians who were otherwise still his allies: Marju Lauristin, for
Speakers'. As the Estonian position hardened, even Savisaar's Minister
example, had no intention of seeing her own power and the Social
for Ethnic Relations, Dr Artur Kuznetsov, was dismissed and forced into
Democratic Party vanish into a Popular Front party under Savisaar's
opposition. There was then no Russian on the Estonian side of politics for
dictatorial leadership.
whom local Russians felt any trust. When the new Centre-Right
Like Landsbergis, Savisaar could not decide what he most wanted. On
government of Mart Laar took power a year later, no non-Estonians were
one hand, for the Popular Front to become his party, it would inevitably
included, and the Ministry for Ethnic Relations was abolished, although
have to become much smaller and relinquish its claim to represent the
in other ways this government has sought good relations with the local
whole nation. On the other, Savisaar wanted to preserve the Front as the
Russians.
national movement, and continue denouncing political parties in general
After the Moscow coup, loyalist Russian town councils in the north-
as 'little groups which splinter society and bicker amongst themselves' 31
east were dismissed, and fresh elections called for 20 October. The
The critical damage to Savisaar's popularity and prestige came in
Communists were returned to power in Narva and Sillamae, while in
June-July 1991, and was above all the work of Lippmaa. Unlike the
Kohtla-Jarve a democratic alliance of Estonians and Russians was
obscure "Two plus Four' controversy, which bewildered most Estonians,
returned, splitting the anti-Estonian position in the region. Since then,
Lippmaa's second attack orchestrated a national consensus- on the issue
the threat of a secession of the North East appears to have receded, and
of Russian rights and Estonian territorial integrity.
local demonstrations in favour of autonomy have received very little
In early summer 1991, it seemed as if Soviet attempts to separate
support. In general, local Russian groups in Estonia now stressed their
Russian-speaking north-eastern Estonia were moving towards a critical
loyalty to Estonia and tried to distance themselves from their pro-Soviet
point (see Chapter 7). Savisaar decided to try to divide the Russians, and
pasts. The Russian Assembly stressed that it was not trying to become an
win over the moderate elements, by offering the status of a free-trade zone
alternative power-structure along the lines of previous Soviet attempts.
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In September, a compromise between the Supreme Council and the
By this point, however, a majority of Estonian deputies were opposed
Congress, which Savisaar had long resisted, was formalised with the
to Savisaar, and the measure succeeded only with the support of the
creation of a Constitutional Assembly made up equally of representatives
Russian and Soviet loyalist deputies, including three Soviet officers.
of both bodies. Given the numbers of radical nationalists in the Supreme
These deputies actually outnumbered Savisaar's Estonian supporters.
Council, this inevitably led to a new constitution drawn up on the basis of
When the realisation dawned on Estonians that their government was
that of 1922. Seven of the thirty representatives elected by the Supreme
dependent upon Russian votes, the anger was such that many of
Council were Russians, but they were hopelessly outnumbered and had
Savisaar's remaining supporters abandoned him, the attempt to form a
little influence.
commission to draw up the emergency powers was defeated, and
The new constitution provided for a parliamentary government with a
Savisaar himself resigned. He devoted the following months to
largely symbolic presidency. Parliament was to be elected by a
transforming what was left of the Popular Front into a party of the
complicated voting system, half proportional representation and half
Centre-Left under his strict control, and to consolidating its role as the
constituency. The failings of the 1922 constitution, which had helped
chief Left-wing, or rather populist critic of the effects of free market
destroy democracy during the 1920s and 1930s were to be avoided by
reform on ordinary people.
strengthening the power of the prime minister and by creating a four per
Given the suffering imposed by that reform, Savisaar is bound to play
cent hurdle for parties wishing to enter parliament though this was
an important future political role as a spokesman for its victims. On the
undermined by allowing members of parties which failed to secure this
other hand, under the parliamentary constitution, Estonian governments
minimum support to get in by winning their constituencies.
for the foreseeable future will be coalitions, and since Savisaar had made
The new voting rules encouraged the formation of a number of large
himself so unpopular, the other parties are unlikely to enter a coalition
electoral blocks, which contested the election in September 1992. Thus
with the Popular Front so long as he was leader of it.
Lauristin and the Social Democrats, together with various other former
To succeed Savisaar, a caretaker government was appointed to hold
office until the introduction of the constitution and new elections. The
Centrist Popular Front leaders (like Ignar Fjuk, who had split with
Savisaar), came together to form the Moderate Alliance; the Christian
new Prime Minister was the former Transport Minister, Tiit Vähi, a
Democrats and various other Rightist groups formed the Fatherland
colourless former state manager from Southern Estonia who was close to
Rüütel and the former Free Estonia (now Secure Home) group. The
block, and parties representing the former Communist establishment
great triumph of his nine months in office was the successful introduction
made up the curiously named 'Safe Homes' movement - an attempt to
in June of the long-awaited Estonian currency, the Kroon (see Chapter
play on Estonian fears of rising rates of crime. By the end of 1992, these
9). Otherwise, Vähi's government worked competently, although there
blocks had cohered fairly well, and the Estonian political scene was more
were accusations that corruption and 'spontaneous privatisation' had
disciplined than in the great majority of post-Communist countries.
flourished among his friends from the state managerial class. His
On 6 November, in a separate decision on the advice of the
controversial appointment of another member of that class, Ulo Uluots,
Constitutional Assembly, the Supreme Council decided to revert to the
as Defence Minister (over a force naturally largely composed of radical
Citizenship Law of 1938, restoring citizenship automatically to pre-1940
nationalists) led almost to a loss of state control over the Home Guard,
citizens and their descendants (this was ultimately extended to emigrés
which in the summer engaged in a series of clashes with the Russian army
as well), and stripping the existing Russian 'immigrant' population of its
against the orders of the government.
existing citizenship and forcing it through a rigorous naturalisation
On 28 June 1992, the constitution was adopted by an overwhelming
process. This was another defeat for Savisaar, a long-time proponent of
majority - not surprisingly, given that all the main parties from both
the 'Zero Option' on citizenship.
Supreme Council and Congress supported it. The Congress announced
The death-blow for Savisaar as Prime Minister came in January 1992,
that it would dissolve itself as soon as the new parliament (Riikikogu) met
ostensibly the result of a severe energy crisis provoked by cuts in fuel
after the election. A second proposal included in the referendum - to
supplies from Russia. Heating of homes and food supplies had
extend citizenship automatically to the five thousand or so non-citizens
plummeted at the coldest time of year. Emergency plans were drawn up
who had applied for it was defeated by 53 per cent to 46 per cent. The
to evacuate hundreds of thousands from Tallinn to the countryside,
introduction of a constitution by national consensus distinguishes
though in the event the evacuation was staved off by Western aid.
Estonia from all other former Soviet republics but Lithuania, and is a
Savisaar was accused of failing to prepare for the cuts by seeking supplies
further element in its international prestige - despite the exclusion of the
on the free market.
great majority of its Russian population.
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The emergence in May-June 1992 of opposition to the new constitution
with SO few Russians in the electorate, there was no advantage in doing
from a position even more radical than that of the National
SO. All the main parties now paid at least lip service to the free market
Independence Party and the Congress was, however, a surprise. Initially
and the restoration of the forms of the First Republic, while differing in
called 'Restitution', it emerged originally from the self-styled
emphasis. Even Secure Home claimed to be a 'Centre-Right' party,
'Government in Exile', an emigré group based in Sweden. Endel
which as a party of former Communists turned private businessmen and
Lippmaa was among its leaders. "Restitution" argued that the new
'proprietors of state industry, it indeed was. What characterised
constitution was illegal and redundant, since the constitution of 1938
Fatherland and the National Independence Party in particular was
remained in force. However, given that constitution incorporated an
'desovietisation', the purging of the state and even of industry of the sort
authoritarian presidency, and had been introduced during the
of people represented by Secure Home. Whether it would work was not
dictatorship of Konstantin Päts, even the Congress found it
clear.
unacceptable. Inconsistently enough, the 'Government in Exile' and the
The full results of the election to the 100-seat chamber were:
'Estonian Citizen' also party to which it gave birth, rejected the 1938
Fatherland (Isamaa), 29 seats; Secure Home (Kindel Kodu). 17: Popular
Citizenship law as too liberal and called for it to be amended to restrict
Front (Savisaar), 15; Moderates (Lauristin), 12; National Independence
naturalisation still further.
Party, 10; Estonian Citizen (Eesti Kodanik), 8; Royalists, 8; Greens, I; and
Estonian Citizen was led by Jüri Toomepuu, a bald, whiskery,
Entrepreneurs Party, 1. The Fatherland and Moderate alliances and the
extremely volatile retired Lieutenant-Colonel of the US Army who,
National Independence Party formed a coalition government, as they
according to one of his own leading supporters, favours cut-outs of
had indicated they would, under Fatherland leader Mart Laar, a cheerful
Rambo with his own head super-imposed upon them. In the election of
and apparently able 32-year-old former historian. After two defections,
20 September, Toomepuu won twice as many personal votes as any other
from the Estonian Citizen and Secure Home groups, the government's
candidate, helping his party to an 8 per cent of the total vote and 8 seats
majority rose to three, but remained precarious.
in parliament. His supporters are bitterly anti-Russian, and have formed
Fatherland had stood on a mixture of free-market economics,
a 'Decolonisation Committee' to draw up plans to facilitate the Russian
restitutionalism, and moderate nationalism, under the overall slogan
leaving. Not surprisingly in view of Toomepuu's past, they are also
'cleaning house', represented by an election poster depicting a man with
passionately interested in the armed forces.
a broom. 322 The symbolism was widely taken as a reference to the
The Royalist Party - an Estonian equivalent to Poland's 'Orange
unpopularity and corruption of the former Soviet rule, but Russians in
Alternative' established as a sort of joke by a group of actors, television
the republic inevitably took it as a reference to them.
personalities and intellectuals, also polled 8 per cent of votes and the
While the election results by no means represented an unequivocal
same number of seats. Some of the party's leaders are genuine
endorsement of plans for the restitution of property or free market
monarchists who believe that a monarchy under a Swedish prince would
economics, Fatherland certainly presented a more modern image than its
help to restore Estonian traditional society and avoid vulgar competition
rivalls. Secure Home did best among rural voters who supported the old
for the top state post, but most simply want to liven the Estonian scene.
Collective Farm leadership mainly out of anger at the worsening
The Royalists, and the Estonian Citizen group, evidently benefitted
economic climate and at the manner in which decollectivisation had been
from the protest votes of an electorate weakened by economic suffering
implemented.
and disaffected by the main political parties. I asked a Royalist voter if
The membership of the new government was evenly balanced between
she really wanted a King: 'Oh no,' she replied, 'I'm a very moderate
its three constituent parties, and included several non-party experts and
Royalist'. Few Royalist supporters had heard the widespread rumours
three Estonian emigrés. It had a strongly intellectual cast, and was seen
that they were not a joke after all, but a group deliberately and secretly
by foreign observers as highly honest, potentially able, and relatively free
created by Savisaar to split the Right-wing vote.
from links with the Communist bureaucracy or the new 'business' circles.
The turn-out at the September 1992 election was 67 per cent, markedly
The most unexpected appointment was that of Lagle Parek as Interior
lower than in the years of the independence struggle, but still high by
Minister. The choice of a woman ex-political prisoner, without
some Western standards. Public attendance at election rallies had been
administrative experience, as head of an overwhelmingly male, and still
minimal, and on polling day many voters did not know the difference
largely Russian security force seemed provocative. Parek was also soon
between the parties: indeed many claimed the same platform. None- not
being accused of failure to get to grips with the job.
even the Popular Front - advocated improved rights for the Russians:
During the election campaign party differences were evident not
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
simply in terms of ideology, but also in physical appearance. Secure
disregarded the near certainty that Rüütel would win a second-round
Home's leadership, as might have been expected, consisted of solid-
popular vote, and selected Meri. Rimitel did not trouble to hide his
looking middle-aged men in business suits, very much on the old Soviet
chagrin, rejecting parliament's thanks for his services to Estonian
leadership pattern. The suits were now often of excellent Western design,
independence with the words that they were like 'a waiter who has spilt
but like the haircuts, very conservative. Fatherland's image was
wine over your coat and then clumsily tries to mop it up'.
decidedly younger and more stylish. Its leaders wore up-to-date Western
The new President, Lennart Meri, is one of the most vivid and
suits - but good ones, not the flashy variety favoured by most post-Soviet
interesting characters in Baltic polities; but as a headline in the Baltic
businessmen - and wore them with a certain air. Beards were much in
Independent had it, "Charm and Ability Leave Questions Unanswered'. He
evidence. The party's support among Estonian youth was greatly helped
is the nearest thing Estonia has to a "cultural politician', like
by the endorsement of the country's leading rock and pop bands.
Landsbergis, and was chosen as a symbol of the substitution of Estonian
The activists of the Popular Front and the Moderates, by contrast,
for Soviet culture. Like Landsbergis, however, he had defended that
looked like people who had just missed the bus: 1970s-style sideburns,
culture from within the Soviet system, not outside it.
clothes stylish a decade ago; indeed a very Soviet time-lag. Its supporters
Like Landsbergis too, Meri's image stems partly from his family: his
too tended to be about ten years older than those of the Fatherland, who
father was a senior diplomat during the First Republic, and as a youth
were in general those whose adult lives had coincided with Gorbachov.
Meri was deported with his father to Siberia. He made play with this
The Popular Frontists, by contrast, were people whose formative years
pedigree during his campaign, though it rebounded on him when his
had been spent under Brezhnev, and who already had a place in society.
father was accused of co-operating with the NKVD: how otherwise, it
The former dissident leadership of the National Independence party
was asked, could he have been allowed to leave Siberia in 1945, just as
evidently thinks the issue of clothes and image to be frivolous, although
tens of thousands of Estonians were heading in the opposite direction.
some of its leaders have a tweedy, musty respectability probably derived
Meri's past, like that of many now attacking the old Communist
from pre-1940 family traditions. Its election poster portrayed a man in a
establishment, was indeed not spotless. As a senior official of the
top hat, like an advertisement for a Fred Astaire movie, meant to
Estonian-Soviet Writers' Union he collaborated with the Communist
demonstrate a desire for a return to the pre-1940 status quo. The
system in order to defend Estonian culture. In this role he was naturally
Royalists have appeared in public wearing everything from shamanistic
compelled to make many speeches in praise of Marxism-Leninism, which
headdresses to dustbin-liners.
his enemies now gleefully quote against him. This was also true of
Landsbergis.
In the first round of voting for the presidency, simultaneous with the
There was little wrong in this: it was the basic position of most of the
parliamentary election, there were four candidates. By far the most
intellectuals now supporting Meri's Fatherland government, as well as
popular was the existing chairman, Arnold Rüütel. So strongly was the
those behind the Moderates and the Popular Front, all of whom criticised
intellectual tide now running against former leading Communists,
the "foolhardy courage' of the dissidents who later formed the National
however, that only Secure Home supported him. Throughout the
Independence Party. It was very probably the best policy for Estonia, let
campaign he was plagued by questions about his Communist past, and
alone for Meri, though it sits uneasily with the favoured image of national
especially about his official links with the KGB. Fatherland fielded
resistance. As the Baltic Independent commented,
former Foreign Minister (then Ambassador to Finland) Lennart Meri;
the Popular Front put up the leading Estonian-Canadian academic, Rein
Perhaps the biggest question mark over Meri's presidency is his
Taagepera, and the National Independence Party, Lagle Parek. The last
association with Fatherland's election slogan, 'Cleaning House'. That
three candidates declared they were standing against Arnold Rüütel
someone who, as much as any other Estonian, showed how working inside
rather than against each other. The Silver Fox was finally cornered: he
the system could benefit his country, has now joined the anti-
could not win outright on the first, popular, ballot, and when the vote
nomenclatura campaign in earnest, casts some doubt on his integrity and
sincerity."
went to parliament, a majority of deputies were already pledged to reject
him.
As an adult Meri returned to Siberia to make films and write books with
The popular vote for Rüütel was 41.8 per cent, as against 29.5 per cent
a certain nationalist agenda on the various Finno-Ugric tribes of the
for Meri, 23.3 per cent for Taagepera, and 4.2 per cent for Parek. To
region, cousins to the Estonians. His most famous work is Silver-Grey, an
the considerable anger of ordinary Estonians, parliament blithely
imaginative reconstruction of Estonian prehistory. In appearance, Meri
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
has the air of an inquisitive tortoise which has extended its head too far
principle and conciliation in practice. The National Independence Party,
out of its shell and become stuck. In manner, and in breadth of culture,
however, came under pressure from its radical supporters, and began to
he is a European gentleman of the old school. His personal charm is very
demand that non-citizens should even be barred from standing for local
great, and his intellectual enthusiasm infectious. In a Baltic panorama in
office. One of the permanent dangers of coalition government in Estonia
which former Communists and members of the new Right (often of
is that policy towards the Russians may become more severe simply
course one and the same) often vie with each other in the [Soviet] crude
through the need to keep unstable coalitions together. The other is that
and provincial narrowness of their attitudes, he represents an older and
majority government itself will prove impossible, leading to weak
nobler past. Like Landsbergis, though, this sometimes leads him to
minority administrations.
patronise ordinary Estonians.
The dangers are exacerbated by the fragility of the economy: for the
Meri is, however, not without his eccentricities. During my first
foreseeable future much of the population is going to suffer great
interview with him - as Foreign Minister - in June 1991, he quickly
economic hardship. This, after only a few months in power, had
overran the fifteen minute appointment allocated by his staff. An hour
contributed to a steep drop in the popularity of the coalition parties, and
later, the Minister was cheerfully recounting the story of an expedition to
the government was coming under intense pressure from pensioners and
Yakutia in which he ended up eating his own horse. He then whisked me
workers to spend more on social welfare and subsidies. The sacking of
off in his official car to an exhibition of Russian culture in Estonia under
officials in the name of 'desovietisation' led to accusations of party
the First Republic, a subject in which he is conspicuously knowledgeable.
favouritism and incompetence in the appointments system.
His affection for Russian classical culture is deep.
Most worrying was the way in which the extreme nationalists of
Lennart Meri's charming but unpredictable behaviour often infuriates
Estonian Citizen appeared to benefit from these problems. Their support
and exhausts his staff. His downfall as Foreign Minister came after he
grew sharply at the start of 1993, as nationalist voters became angry with
told a press conference in March 1992 that Estonia should act as a cordon
the pragmatism of the Laar government. Estonian citizens also of course
sanitaire between the West and Russia, where 'massive hunger and
gained because of economic suffering. At the beginning of 1993, the signs
cannibalism' was emerging. The Estonian government was forced to
for Estonia, however, looked generally bright. In comparison not simply
distance itself from the statement, indicating it sought to act as a bridge,
with the other former Soviet republics, but with much of Eastern Europe
not a barrier. And Meri's plain talking is both splendid and dangerous.
as well, this former colony had already gone a long way towards creating
At the Helsinki summit of the CSCE in July 1992, Meri, though at that
the fabric of a prosperous, modern, independent and constitutional state.
stage only the Estonian Ambassador to Finland, marched into a meeting
of the Baltic leaders with George Bush and, addressing him as 'George',
informed him his administration possessed neither a Russian nor a Baltic
Ethnic Latvian Politics, 1990-92
policy. In the words of an American diplomat, 'before that, Bush hardly
remembered that the Balts existed. Now, thanks to Meri, he is furious
Latvia moved more slowly than the other Baltic States towards a new
with them'.
constitution and party political system, in part because of the larger
A few weeks after taking office, Meri was already embroiled in a
Russian minority.
dispute with the government over his attempts to run aspects of Estonian
Their numerous representatives in the Supreme Council made it more
foreign policy. Under the constitution, the powers of the President are
difficult than in the other republics to create stable alliances of deputies
very strictly limited and do not include any role in government - but no-
behind particular reforms. A key cause of the delay in creating a new
one who knows Meri ever thought that he would be able to keep within
Latvian constitution was the fact that the Latvian deputies could not
such limits.
decide on the question of citizenship for the 'immigrants'.35
The power of Russian Soviet loyalist elements in Latvia was indicated,
As Estonia set out as a full-fledged state, the question of whether its
upon the declaration of de jure independence and the formation of the
politicians general would respect the rules and conventions of
Godmanis government on 4 May 1990, by demonstrations of pro-Soviet
government was central to the country's future. At the beginning of 1993
forces, and Soviet officers, outside the parliament building, and a flood of
there were two main problems facing the new coalition government. The
threats from Rubiks and the Soviet Communist Party. In addition the
first, that of the Russian minority, was a quiescent but continuing threat.
(mainly Russian) Riga police refused to accept the new Interior Minister,
The government's approach seemed a sensible mixture of firmness in
insisting on the re-appointment of the previous minister, Steinbriks, a
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
many Russians within Latvia. The Russian business community in
independence are not questions of nationality
Every
ethnic
group
in
Latvia was relieved that the threat of a national-populist economic policy
Latvia is guaranteed equal rights'."
had greatly lessened. However, the citizenship law proposed in
The rhetoric of a trans-national, Latvian and Russian struggle for
November 1993 by the coalition government was still tough enough to
democracy was employed strongly in Latvia during the events of January
draw international criticism and worry many Russians, while not being
and August 1991. The slogan of the 1863 Polish rebellion against the Tsar,
nearly tough enough for the radical nationalist opposition. The
'For Our Freedom and Yours', was widely used and painted on
continuing economic hardship of large numbers of both ethnic Latvians
barricades outside the parliament in Riga.
and ethnic Russians made a swing to radical nationalism an enduring
Godmanis's government went on favouring a policy of compromise
threat, while the rise of Vladimir Zhirinovsky increased the risk that
with the local Russians up to the elections of 1993; but the ground was cut
violent protest might be exported from Russia to Latvia.
from under its feet by a general shift to a more hardline position. Thus by
its Fourth Congress, in November 1991, the Latvian Popular Front was
referring to the Russians that had entered the republic under Soviet rule
as "illegal immigrants', while the PF chairman, Romualdas Ražukas,
The Baltic Independence Movements and the Baltic Russians
stressed that "The PF supports the concepts basic to the Citizens
Congress' the radical nationalist body with which much of the Popular
Viewed with hindsight, much of the Latvian and Estonian propaganda
Front had always been at odds.⁴²
directed towards both the Baltic Russians and the West during the years
Jurkans, by now Foreign Minister, found himself progressively isolated
1988-91 has a rather ironic ring. One of the principal charges against
by his abrasive arguments on behalf of the Russians, and in October 1992
Latvia and Estonia is that their national leaderships have broken their
was abandoned by Prime Minister Godmanis and forced to resign.
word on Russian rights. The question of the legal and moral justification
One aspect of the shift in opinion was the increasing emphasis on the
for it is a separate issue, discussed in the Conclusion.
fact that a majority of Russians had opposed independence, which
In March 1990, I wrote in The Times that,
contrasts oddly with the public claims by Latvian leaders, in March 1991,
that a majority of Russians had voted for independence in the Latvian
The Popular Front in Latvia emphasises that its struggle is for 'popular
referendum that month.⁴³ Most of the moderates and every leading
rule, economic prosperity and social justice' for all nationalities.
The
member of a national minority had left the PF by its Fourth Congress;
Front's approach represents the triumph of enlightenment and common
indeed not one Russian spoke at it. The Congress adopted a programme,
sense over the personal feelings of its leaders towards the Russian
widely at variance with those of its first three Congresses, which called for
38
community, which are rarely amicable.
a return to the Constitution of 1922, and the restriction of citizenship to
Janis Jurkans, then the International Relations chief of the Popular Front
pre-1940 citizens and their descendants. According to this programme,
of Latvia, told me in February 1990 that,
the extension of citizenship to others should only be considered after the
withdrawal of Soviet troops, and by a parliament elected by the pre-1940
We are trying to persuade the local Russians that we are going to build a
electorate. The Popular Front in the country and the majority Popular
multi-ethnic democracy in Latvia, with equal rights for all; but they have 39
Front deputies in parliament split on the issue.⁴⁴
been fed so many Soviet lies that it is difficult to persuade them
The second Congress of the Popular Front, held two months previously,
The shift to an anti-Russian position is partly due to a general hegemony
had stressed that the goal of the PF was independence, but also 'the
of nationalist over liberal pluralist ideas, and emigré liberals have linked
guarantee of the equality of all people living in Latvia, irrespective 40 of
defence of Russian rights to defence of liberal democracy in general. Thus
their social status, nationality, religious or party affiliation'.
the Latvian emigré academic Nils Muižnicks, in an article for Atmoda,
At this stage Popular Front leaders lost no opportunity to stress, at
posed the question: 'Independent Latvia: Latvian or Democratic?'. Talk
least to an international audience, that the Front was supported by many
at later Latvian Popular Front Congresses, of the need for 'Latvian-
local Russians - 30 per cent of them, according to Ivars Godmanis, then
thinking people', and of how "specific groups of people' (in other words,
the Popular Front's Prime Minister-designate. Shortly before assuming
Russians, Jews and former Communists) were 'plundering our national
office in May, he stressed that 'independence can only be achieved if the
wealth' was deeply jarring for any emigré liberal, however patriotic.
different national groups go down the road together. Sovereignty
and
At the conference of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic
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The Baltic Revolution
The Independence Movements and their Successors
Studies in Toronto in June 1992, Dr Toivo Miljan of Wilfred Laurier
The speed of the shift from an anti-Soviet to an anti-Russian position
University warned of the possibility of the development of parallels with
in 1991-92 is explicable partly in terms of Russian government policy and
South Africa and said that Estonians 'must recognise the civic rights of
concern over military withdrawal, fuel supplies and the citizenship
those living amongst you [but]
the Latvians, Lithuanians and
question. But in the view of former Estonian Prime Minister, Edgar
Estonians weren't tolerant in the 1930s, so where are they supposed to get
Savisaar, and others, the Balts themselves played a role in the
it from now?' This highlights the fact that extreme nationalist hostility to
deterioration of relations. This was especially true of the decision by both
the Russians in Latvia and Estonia is not simply the result of the massive
the Estonian and Latvian Supreme Councils to demand the return of
immigration under Soviet rule; it is also due to a direct and explicit
minor territories annexed by Stalin in 1945: in the case of Latvia,
revival, by some of today's radical nationalist groups, of the extreme
Pytalovo (Abrene); and of Estonia, Pechori (Petseri) and Ivangorod
nationalist ideas and stifling cultural atmosphere of the Baltic States of
(Jaanilinn). The claim was in defiance of the spirit (if not the letter) of
the 1930s. According to one Latvian liberal: 'the question isn't just the
the Helsinki Conference and of the treaties signed between Latvia,
Russians. The question is whether there will still be oxygen to breathe in
Estonia and Boris Yeltsin in January 1991. when the Balts desperately
Riga.'
needed Russian help. At the time, even radical nationalist deputies
In February 1990, a Jewish friend in Tallinn (and a strong supporter of
supported the signature of the treaties, which also spoke in vague terms of
independence), Eugenie Loov, told me simply that:
the peoples of both countries having the right to a 'free choice of
The greatest mistake of the leaders of our independence movement was
citizenship'.
not to make a substantial appeal to the Russians in Estonia at the very
The disputed territories, though inhabited originally by Finnic and
beginning. The reason they did not do this is because they hate them.*
Latgalian peoples, even before their military conquest by Latvia and
Estonia in 1920, had Russian majorities even then, and now have
In many cases this appears to have been true: Popular Front
enormous ones. An Estonian nationalist once told me that 'In my view,
representatives in both Latvia and Estonia simply disguised their real
the wishes of 1,200 hardworking Setus (an Estonian-related people living
feelings in order not to play into the hands of the Soviet government and
in Petseri and Southern Estonia) should count against the wishes of
loyalists. In other cases, the commitment to national compromise was
26,000 good-for-nothing Russians any day', a view the Russian majority
real enough, but was not based on any real belief in multi-ethnic
can hardly be expected to share. The more rational view, put forward by
democracy, but on a fear of a mass Russian reaction. As this did not
men like Velliste, was in favour of compromise settlement, but only in the
happen, Baltic leaders began a move to harder positions on national
context of a new international conference and Russian recognition of
questions, trying to appeal to what appeared to be the national consensus
Estonia's legal rights. Even this, however, was foolishly legalistic, since
of ethnic Latvians and Estonians.
there was nothing the Estonians could gain except an unnecessarily
This has been true of Latvian Supreme Council chairman Anatolijs
irritated Russia.
Gorbunovs. Until the autumn of 1991, he was still publicly committed to
The Estonian emigré academic, Rein Taagepera, also criticised the
the Zero Option, to grant citizenship to all Latvian residents irrespective
Estonian Right, saying they behaved 'as if the earth swallowed up Russia
of length of residence or knowledge of the language. Gorbunovs delivered
when Estonia achieved independence'. His view was that, 'Estonian
some powerful speeches in support of national compromise, arguing in
politicians should remember without fail that Russia has always been our
the immediate aftermath of independence that 'one half of a population
great neighbour, and that we should treat it with greater respect than we
cannot successfully build an independent state without the other'. 46 On 6
are now doing'.
May 1990, two days after the Latvian declaration of sovereignty, he spoke
Baltic politicians seemed, by 1992, to have almost completely forgotten
in Russian on Latvian television, addressing the Russian-speaking
the very substantial help given them by Boris Yeltsin during the military
inhabitants of Latvia and promising them that,
intervention of January 1991, when he appealed publicly to Russian
All those who want to be citizens of Latvia can be. There is also a special
soldiers not to obey orders to attack Baltic civilian targets or become
note guaranteeing the rights of non-Latvian citizens in Latvia. It is not
'pawns in the hands of dark reactionary forces'. At the time, the
serious to talk about 'second class citizens'.
statement was given the widest possible publicity by the Baltic
governments. Yeltsin himself, at considerable personal risk, visited
By summer 1992, however, Gorbunovs was advocating a referendum on
Tallinn to sign the Estonian-Russian Treaty, and narrowly escaped
citizenship restricted to pre-1940 citizens and their descendants alone.
kidnap by local Soviet loyalist forces. He, together with the Russian
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
The Baltic Revolution
democrats who supported the Balts, have good reason to feel aggrieved
to understand the consequences of that.' Having told them that, we can
not simply by the subsequent Latvian and Estonian position on Russian
build an honest and legal relationship, and those who do not want to
rights, but also by the harrage of anti-Russian propaganda, coming even
accept it, can leave."
from figures like Marju Lauristin, alleging that the Russian people are
This indeed has been the approach of the Centre-Right Estonian
"inherently imperialist'.
government which won power in the September 1992 election, and in
which Velliste himself was Foreign Minister. In his view it is wrong to
It was the habit in the Baltic, under Soviet rule, to blame every
speak of the Russians in Estonia as a 'minority': 'Legally, the word
misfortune on the fact of that rule. The mentality is not easily shaken off
'minority' applies only to those Russians who were settled in Estonia
and the fear is that, when the Russian army has gone, the resentment will
before 1940. The rest are colonists.'
simply be transferred to the local 'immigrant' populations. The
The language of the Latvian Congress has been more extreme, partly
characteristic is already manifest: some Balts have in any case long been
because of the difference in national style, partly because of the even
accustomed to blaming local Russians for much of the crime, prostitution
more acute demographic situation. The Congress also refers to most of
and disorder in their countries. Withdrawal of the army will of itself do
the Russians in Latvia as 'colonists', and increasingly argues that under
little to improve ethnic relations. Already, most Balts falsely equate
the clauses of the Geneva Convention governing occupied countries, they
'Russian' with 'Soviet', even though Latvians themselves, like
have no right to be in Latvia at all and should depart with the Russian
Dzerzhinsky's two Chief Lieutenants, Jakovs Peters and Martins Lãcis,
troops. In August 1992, the Committee of the Latvian Congress issued a
provided some of the most ferocious exponents of Communist terror.*
warning 'to the colonists from the USSR in Latvia' [in its own
'A return to the Latvia of 18 November 1918' (the date of the first
translation]:
declaration of independence) the slogan of the Fourth Popular Front
Congress and the Constitution Faction - was always a code for exclusion
You are living illegally on the Latvian territory. That's why the
of Russian 'immigrants', even though it also had a wider emotional
Congress of Latvian Republic Citizens as an authorised representative of
resonance. Moreover, in circumstances of complete legislative and indeed
Latvian republic offers you to leave Latvian territory. You will be forced
intellectual confusion, a return to pre-1940 forms came to seem not only
to leave sooner or later. Delaying your departure, you provoke the
the most legitimate but also the simplest solution. In the words of Mart
activities of those forces which are ready to solve the question of the
Laar, leader of the Right-wing Estonian Christian Democratic Union
decolonisation of Latvia by means of force, in which neither you nor we
and the Fatherland alliance, and from October 1992, Prime Minister,
have any interests.⁵¹
Our approach should be honest. If we say something, we should keep our
The sentiment is widespread, even if some phrase it less harshly. In July
word. Maybe what we needed to say to the Russians from the beginning
1992 the Latvian Supreme Council passed a law establishing stiff
would not have been pleasant, but it would have been the truth and on it
requirements for the issue of residence permits to those wishing to settle
we could have built an honest relationship; but until recently, we have not
in the country. The 'Constitution' group and LNNK then announced
been honest with them.19
that they understood this to apply also to those non-citizens already
The radical nationalist Citizens' Congresses in Latvia and Estonia had
living in the republic which would have meant the expulsion of
indeed always said the same thing, with varying degrees of incisiveness.
hundreds of thousands of the population. The parliamentary majority
So far as those that had entered Estonia under Soviet rule were
rejected this interpretation, but the radicals continue to assert it, and if it
concerned, Trivimi Velliste said, at our first meeting in February 1990,
came to power, would presumably make at least symbolic gestures to put
it into effect. One of the Congress leaders, Visvaldis Lãcis (also of the
that,
Latvian National Independence Movement, or LNNK), told me that,
The Russian colonist population here is effectively a military garrison in
civilian clothes, and there can be no question of giving them citizenship
In my party, we want the Russians to leave, because otherwise, how will
until they have satisfied some important requirements.
If
you
give
we be able to live in an independent Latvia where only 50 per cent of the
these people, who by international law are illegal immigrants, false hopes,
population are Latvians? We would be subjected to a permanent
you will only create confusion in their minds. It is much better to tell the
biological war, and if their birthrate is higher, then we would be
truth: 'Who annexed Estonia in 1940? Stalin and Zhdanov. You will have
threatened with extinction.'
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
In 1989, public articulation of this view was confined to the Congresses,
the post-Soviet press on both sides. The patronising tone of much of the
even if it was commonly said in private conversation. By May 1992, it was
local Russian press has infuriated Latvians: indeed Katya Borschova's
even proposed by Arnold Rüütel in a speech to participants at the
own paper, Baltiskor Vremya, was guilty of this. The result was that the
Bergedorfer Gespraechskreis.⁵ Politically speaking, the dangerous
Popular Front dismissed the paper's editor and appointed a sycophant
erosion of Russian interlocuteurs valables which has occurred in Estonia,
and opportunist more amenable to the Latvian interest.⁵⁵
and to a lesser extent in Latvia, since the achievement of independence
has had as much to do with perceptions of the general mood and fears for
Under the new editor Baltiskor Vremya collapsed. A subsequent attempt
the future as it has with concrete steps taken by the Baltic governments
by the dissident journalists to set up a new Russian democratic paper
then also failed, amidst feuding between the Russian journalists and a
and parliaments. In the words of Katya Borschova, formerly a Latvian
general collapse of will. This characteristic Russian divisiveness is true of
Russian journalist for the Popular Front Russian-language newspaper, in
July 1992,
Russian politics in Latvia in general, and is an explanation for the deep
political apathy among the Russian-speaking population during the
We feel under constant pressure because of the continual barrage in the
eighteen months after August 1991.
Latvian press and on television; the constant talk of 'colonists', "aliens',
By summer 1992, the Russian Democratic Movement in Estonia,
'fifth columns', 'illegal immigrants'; the constant stress on a Latvian
founded eleven months earlier, after the achievement of independence,
Latvia, the exaltation of everything Latvian, the denigration of everything
had moved into close alliance with the Russian Trades Unions and the
Russian. This is especially irritating when it comes from individuals who
Russian-dominated municipalities of the north-east. This 'Co-ordinating
only a year ago were stressing that this was not a national struggle. It is
Committee' was supported, openly or tacitly, by a considerable number
having the effect that Russians who had been strongly committed to
of Russian intellectuals and managers who previously backed
learning Latvian are now giving it up, simply because they can't stand to
independence and opposed the actions of the local Communist
be
bullied
into
learning
All this is especially depressing for those who,
municipalities. These were alienated by what they feel to be the anti-
like me, worked for independence and stood on the barricades in January
industrial policy of the Estonian government and by the threat to their
and August. We feel betrayed and made fools of Russians here are now
jobs posed by the language and citizenship laws. One known to have
saying to us, 'you see, Interfront was right after all in its warnings, and
been a supporter of independence is Valery Myachin, Director of the big
you,
you deceived us' Among Russian intellectuals, the tendency now
'Narova' furniture factory in Narva. In July 1991 he denounced the
is to look down on the Latvians, 'little children pretending to be a nation
policies of the local Communist leadership before the Narva city council.
we have to understand their mistakes'; but yes, a certain mood of hatred
By May 1992 he was deeply worried. both because the trade barriers
for the Latvians is also growing, because of the pressure, even among
between Estonia and Russia were likely to bankrupt his enterprise, and
Russians who are ashamed of this feeling.
because of his own position:
This exemplifies a central flaw in the Latvian and Estonian approach to
I have taken two courses in Estonian, and at one point even spoke it quite
the question of Russian citizenship. Strict procedures for acquiring
well; but here in Narva it is impossible to keep it up, because there is no-
citizenship are often justified in terms of the need for local Russians to
one to speak it with. And when I go to hold talks with the ministry in
'prove' their loyalty and commitment. At the same time, however, these
Tallinn, of course we speak Russian together - anything else would be
nations are increasingly expressing themselves and defining their
impracticable. So it's very unlikely I'll be able to pass their language test.
national identities in ways that can only repel other nationalities. A
My children. yes, perhaps anyway, they're young, they learn more
realistic appeal to the loyalty of national minorities can only be made in
easily.
Now I've been told privately by Estonian officials not to worry,
terms of institutions and universal values - and it was indeed in these
that they know my worth and that my job is not at risk. But the point is
terms that appeals by the Baltic national movements both to local
that if in future things change, and someone comes along who wants my
Russians and to the West were couched between 1988 and 1991. The
job, all they have to do is use the language test or the citizenship law to
present appeal to support purely ethnically based ideas of the state is, in
have me chucked out.
contrast, illogical and bound to fail. Although in Estonia, at the
This goes to the heart of the matter. The citizenship laws and language
beginning of 1993, most Russians were eligible to apply for citizenship,
tests, or proposed ones, are not in themselves unreasonable by West
very few had done so.
European standards - though they may well seem so in the particular
A good deal of mutual resentment has resulted from the coarse style of
context of East European history in the twentieth century. They include,
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
for example, the provision that non-citizens may vote in municipal
Human Rights and the International Convention on Civil and Political
elections - though the example of Latvia and Lithuania suggests that
Rights. By joining the CSCE, Latvia committed itself to upholding the
since the parliament retains the right to suspend such bodies more or less
human rights standard set out in these documents.
at will, the concession may be less meaningful than it seems.
Particularly objectionable are [the specific exclusions]
Such
The Lithuanian citizenship law is indeed extremely liberal, and has
never been criticised. It grants citizenship to all permanent residents who
interpretation. political and medical categories are vague, subject to wide and arbitrary
registered before November 1991, and can do so without inhibition since
Helsinki Watch maintains that the 16 year residence requirement is
the Lithuanian minorities are so much smaller than those of the other two
excessive and unnecessarily interrupts the lives of people who (in good
republics. This brings out the essential falsity of the argument that the
faith) settled in Latvia without ever expecting to be rendered a foreigner
Estonian and Latvian approach is simply based on strict legality and the
in an independent country. The language requirement is an extra
legal imperative of a return to the pre-1940 state order. No-one could
hardship. If a test is set, then the law must provide for extra gratis
have exceeded Landsbergis and the Sajüdis radicals in their nostalgia for
language training."
the pre-1940 republic; but because this demographic aspect was lacking,
they felt quite able to compromise even on such a key issue as citizenship.
The Estonian citizenship law, passed in November 1991. grants
Even this law, however, was rejected by the Latvian Right as too mild.
automatic citizenship to pre-1940 nationals and their descendants.
In any case, they denied the right of the 'Soviet' Supreme Council to
Others have to satisfy a two-year residence qualification, pass a fairly
decide this matter at all, declaring that the decision belonged to a future
severe language test which includes a test on Estonian history, and swear
parliament elected by pre-1940 citizens and their descendants alone.
an oath of loyalty. The result in effect is that the vast majority of Russian-
speakers were excluded from voting in the September 1992 election.
Given time, the emergence of a generation of Baltic Russians educated in
The draft naturalisation law finally put forward by the Latvian
the local languages, and the fast progress of spontaneous language-
government in November 1993 was a good deal tougher than that passed
learning among their elders, would in the natural course of things lead to
in Estonia. It provided for a ten-year residential qualification,
a majority of local Russians gaining citizenship. The expressed hope of
conversational knowledge of Latvian, and a 'legal income'. Former Soviet
moderate Balts is that, in the meantime, the Russians would have learned
military servicemen from outside Latvia, and people who worked against
also to think of themselves as Balts and not as an imperial nation. But
Latvian independence through 'anti-constitutional methods', were
will the moderates remain in power? Will it be them administering the
excluded. The draft law's most worrying aspect was its provision for an
language tests? Or, in the words of Janis Jurkans, 'Are we going to go on
annual quota, set by government and 'taking into consideration the
raising the hurdles against getting citizenship higher and higher, using
demographic and economic situation in order to ensure the development
the excuse that international law says nothing on the subject, and secretly
of Latvia as a single-nation state'. It has been calculated that if some of
rejoicing that the Russians won't be able to make it?"
the proposed quotas were adopted, it would take over five hundred years
Several few weeks after making this statement, Jurkans was forced to
for all the Russians in Latvia to acquire citizenship, even if they passed
resign under radical nationalist pressure. As he told me bitterly a few
all other requirements. However, the Latvian government submitted the
weeks earlier,
draft law for scrutiny and approval by the Council of Europe, provoking
Russian lobbying in opposition to it.
These idiots [the Latvian radical nationalists attack Kozyrev [Russian
The US-based human rights body, Helsinki Watch, - which always
Foreign Minister] as a 'Russian imperialist', and me for being 'soft on the
strongly supported the Baltic right to independence - wrote to the
Russians'. They haven't even noticed that Kozyrev is on the extreme
Latvian Supreme Council deploring the draft law:
liberal end of Yeltsin's government, and is under continual criticism from
his own chauvinists and reactionaries for being 'soft on the Balts'.
At present, with ethnic relations within the Baltic relatively quiet, the
The draft law effectively denies citizenship to people who until August
chief danger lies in the probability of a future more nationalist
21st 1991 were considered citizens in Latvia and enjoyed the full rights and
government in Moscow and of a new and harsher Russian strategy. On
privileges that citizenship confers.
Many of the draft law's proposals
the Baltic side, the danger also lies in the possibility of more radical
violate the spirit of CSCE documents, the Universal Declaration of
nationalist governments taking power, and the risk that the language and
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The Independence Movements and their Successors
citizenship laws may be used by them to exclude as many local Russians
pressure to force them to leave. In the words of Višvaldis Brinkmanis of
as possible.
the Latvian Citizens Congress, asked how the Congress would persuade
In a reasoned exposition of the Latvian case on citizenship, Viesturs
local Russians to return to an even more impoverished Russia:
Karnups, the Latvian-Australian chief of the newly created and recruited
Citizenship and Naturalisation Department, told me that,
The big factories here will inevitably collapse, and it is out of the question
that Latvia should pay unemployment benefit to their workers who come
Latvians have nowhere else to go. There is no other Latvia. If this Latvia
from among the colonists, so they will have no choice but to return to
is not truly Latvia, then the Latvian culture, tradition and language will
Russia
As far as workers in the military industrial factories are
disappear from the face of the earth. So Latvians want to see a Latvian
concerned, they are simply part of the occupation army, and like that
Latvia. They would wish a multicultural Latvia only in the sense of a
army, they should not receive legal permission to stay in Latvia.⁶⁰
multicultural Australia, in which other cultures and languages are free to
develop to a limited extent, but state support for them is seen as a
Some Russian-speakers are in fact leaving, if they are pensioners and can
privilege, not a right.59
sell or exchange their flats, if they have jobs to go to in other republics, or
if they still have close family elsewhere. According to Estonian
However, he continued that, "The intention of this department is not to
government statistics, 17,000 Russian-speakers left Estonia during 1992; a
find excuses for excluding people, but to create opportunities for people
similar number left Latvia. If the trend continues, it would greatly reduce
to become citizens who fulfil the requirements, and who wish to integrate
the number of Russians in the Baltic. But as a Ukrainian worker at the
into Latvia.' He also let slip the phrase, 'my officials are known
'Radiotehnika' plant in Riga put it,
throughout the government for their enthusiasm and incorruptibility'.
This in a way sums up the moral ambiguity of nationalism: its power to
If we are to have no rights here, it would be better to leave; but how? The
inspire, and its power to harm. No-one doubts that Karnups's officals,
government is offering us 100,000 roubles compensation, but a flat in the
Ukraine now costs more than ten times that. Even if we are allowed to sell
amidst a post-Soviet civil service riddled with laziness and corruption,
are indeed hard-working and honest. But where does their motivation
our flats here, if only citizens are allowed to buy them then supply will be
far
than
demand.
come from? Their patriotism. And what is their patriotism telling them to
greater
Besides, where am I to go? I was born in
do? Most local Russians believe that it is telling them to exclude Russians
Riga more than forty years ago, my children were born here. I have
whenever possible.
relatives in the Ukraine, but not close ones, and anyway, can they give me
A form of harassment to emerge during 1992 related to the refusal of
a job? Are there more jobs in the Ukraine than there are here?⁶¹
residence permits to people rejoining their families after working abroad,
Marju Lauristin has claimed that when the Estonian government sent
and to ex-servicemen. Those who had worked briefly for the military in
negotiating teams to talk with the Russians of the north-east, they had
menial jobs were sometimes given residence registration dating only from
failed to present a concrete demand. But it was not so. The Russians had
the end of their employment, even if they had been born in Latvia. There
indeed put forward at least one very important demand, but the
is also evidence that the application of the language law is sometimes
Estonians had refused it, despite their repeated promises to the West that
skewed even against Russians who speak good Latvian. It also gives
full and equal social and economic rights for the Russians would be
radicals and busybodies plenty of opportunity for interference, bringing
maintained, regardless of citizenship. As a Popular Front spokesman
prosecutions against shops for displaying signs in Russian but not
declared in July 1989: 'We consider unfair the participation in the fate of
Latvian, and other minor misdemeanours. Public symbolism is being
the region of all the inhabitants of the republic, [but] citizenship does not
made exclusively Latvian: the Moscow District of Riga has been renamed
infringe on the social rights of other residents. The restriction only affects
'Latgale', despite the fact that Moscow Suburb (Moskauer Vorstadt) is its
participation in the adoption of laws."
historic name. All over central Riga, street signs in Russian have been
The Russians' demand was that the Estonian constitution should
removed. None of this amounts to 'human rights abuses', but it naturally
explictly rule out future discrimination between citizens and non-citizens
causes resentment; Russian-speakers make up, after all, 63 per cent of
in the fields of property ownership, choice of occupation, government
Riga's population.
(including local government) employment, social welfare, unemployment
Apart from administrative harassment, the exclusion of 'immigrant'
benefits, pensions and health care. Instead, clauses 28, 29, 31 and 32 of
Russians from political power makes them vulnerable to two main
the Estonian constitution explicitly leave this possibility open, as in
dangers. The first is that future radical governments might use economic
clause 28:
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Everyone shall have the right to health care. Estonian citizens shall be
discrimination, more than the loss of citizenship, is what most Baltic
entitled to state assistance in the case of old age, inability to work, loss of
Russians fear: Soviet citizenship was never a very meaningful concept in
provider, and need unless otherwise determined by law [my italics], this
any case, and relatively few sought it. All, however, are worried by the
right shall exist equally for Estonian citizens, and citizens of foreign states
threat of economic pressure. And both the fear and the reality of such
and stateless persons who are present in Estonia.
pressure will be increased by their lack of political representation.
Article 30 likewise states that:
One of the more curious sub-genres to have emerged from the teeming
positions in state and local government shall be filled by Estonian citizens.
womb of Soviet humour is that of the Pooh Bear and Piglet jokes or
In accordance with the law, such positions may in exceptional cases be
rather Vinni Pukh and Pyatachok. As the following exchange makes clear,
filled by foreign citizens or stateless persons.
their characters have suffered as a result of life in the former Union:
If strictly administered, this clause would destroy most of the benefits
Pooh and Piglet are walking down a road;
coming to non-citizens. Will it be strictly administered? That depends on
Piglet: "Where are we going, Pooh?"
future Estonian governments, which the Russians will have little say in
Pooh: 'We're going to the forest to eat a pig.'
electing. The programme of the main Right-wing force in the new
Piglet (indignant): 'And if the pig doesn't agree?"
Estonian government, the Fatherland alliance, does, however, guarantee
Pooh (in official tones): "The pig is not to be consulted!"
social and economic equality, and has been emphasised in conciliatory
In the case of the Baltic States and the Russians, the roles are of course
moves by the new Prime Minister, Mart Laar, SO that for the moment
reversed; it is the three little piglets who are trying to take the bear to the
such discrimination will probably not occur.
forest - which may turn out to be not quite such a good joke after all."
The second long-term danger, however, remains that exclusion from
political representation will leave the economic interests of Russian
workers and Russian businessmen largely unprotected. Latvian law
already explictly excludes non-citizens from owning real estate or setting
up joint-stock companies, though they can lease land and invest in
Latvia. Businessmen are vulnerable to (often justified) populist attacks
on 'foreign money-launderers'; workers, of course, to the whole free-
market transition. In other countries, including Poland and Russia,
economic reform and de-industrialisation have been retarded by an
awareness that the human, but especially the political costs, are too high
to bear. The Russians in the Baltic will have no such protection, and will
not be wrong to see their resulting misery as in part the result of their
political disenfranchisement.
In a post-Communist society in which patronage and influence over
the state are critical, the Russians, in spite of all guarantees, could find
themselves disadvantaged in a range of other fields as well, and most
notably in education. The Baltic universities increasingly operate only in
the Baltic languages, and quietly discriminate against Russian
applicants.
Višvaldis Lâcis, the Latvian Congress leader, told the Popular Front
Russian newspaper that, "Certainly we will not drive Russians out of
Latvia by force; but your status here will be that of the Turks in West
Germany
You are not second class citizens here; you are nothing."
Some such economic, political and social status is in fact precisely what
awaits a great many Russians in the region. Economic and social
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strange cries. This was of course mainly a joke, but, albeit to a lesser
an impoverished underclass and considerable social and economic
extent than other Balts, Estonians too hanker after their 'own' religion,
resentment.
and after a feeling of closeness to natural forces which Christianity cannot
By 1993, however, there were already much more positive aspects to
give them.
the Baltic scene, especially in Estonia. Although private investment from
The Lutheran churches of Latvia and Estonia, having always been
the West had so far been very much less than the Balts had hoped, it
closely associated with the Baltic German rulers, started from a weaker
remained proportionately far greater than in Russia and parts of Eastern
position, and were weakened still further by the general decline in
Europe. In countries with smaller populations than some Western cities,
Protestant belief throughout Northern Europe and, after 1940, by the
even a small number of new factories can make a substantial impact.
inevitable compromises under the Soviet regime. As in Russia, this has
Thus in Latvia, Pirmaden, a new American shoe-making venture,
encouraged the mushrooming of evangelical churches and sects. Some
absorbed much of the unemployment from the crumbling state
have local roots, others have been founded and funded by American
electronics giant Elektrotehnika. In Estonia, Finnish business was
missionaries. In Estonia, the former Leningrad television channel has
heavily engaged in several fields. A Swedish-Swiss company, ABB, was
been turned over, for several afternoons a week, to dubbed American
investing $10 million in a new plant to produce insulated pipes for energy
'televangelist' programmes. The mystical element in the Baltic traditions
saving in Lithuania though the fact that up to the end of 1992 this was
also naturally inclines some people to various holistic Estonian religions.
Hare Krishna is frequently in evidence, and the Moonies have been
discouraging. the largest external investment in Lithuanian manufacturing was
propagandising intensively.
Scandinavian investment suffered from domestic economic difficulties,
The appearance of such groups is acutely worrying to the traditional
but Swedish and Finnish aid had already contributed greatly to
churches, especially in Lithuania where, in 1992, the Catholic hierarchy
improving telephone connections between the Baltic States and the West.
prevailed upon the Sajûdis government to block a proposal for an
The whole Estonian telephone network was rapidly being transformed.
American-backed ecumenical college in the town of Panevèzys. On this
A few Baltic-owned firms were also beginning to penetrate Western or
occasion the American backer was at least a respectable and charitable
Central European markets. This involved some surprising success
Mennonite businessman. However, the acting administrator of Vilnius
stories, like the military-industrial Dvigatel plant in Tallinn, using its
archdiocese, Auxiliary Bishop Juozas Tunaitis, declared that, "We have
sophisticated equipment and skilled workforce to produce a variety of
many strange sects here and don't want another one. It's time to
high-value technological products. At a less skilled level, the Lithuanian
consolidate the nation and not to split it. The example of Yugoslavia
company Kendra began successfully exporting bathtubs to Poland. With
shows the danger of more than one religion.'
the end of the political tensions between Vilnius and Warsaw and, one
hopes, the end of the absurd blockages on the Polish-Lithuanian frontier
and in the minds of Lithuanians, Poland could become a major Baltic
trading partner, and the Zloty a more readily available hard currency.
Most encouragingly, the Balts were clearly beginning to capitalise on
one of their great advantages, a labour force which is highly educated and
Peoples Divided
extraordinarily cheap by Western standards. In each of the states
Pauls Raudseps, deputy editor of the Latvian paper Diena, once
Western computer firms invested in the assembly, programming and
sketched what he saw as the likely general development of the three
marketing of computers for the Soviet market, and in some cases have
Baltic societies. He thought that, in Estonia, wild capitalism, extreme
begun to sell to the West as well. In several cases, firms have grown out of
social differentiation and conspicuous consumption would ultimately be
co-operation between the old Academies of Sciences and new private
businesses. A small number of recognisably European businessmen have
modified by the Estonian national ethic and style; in Lithuania,
something similar would occur if only because of an underlying peasant
appeared, well-educated and with a real understanding of the rules by
hostility towards capitalism. Lithuania would therefore remain poorer
which Western capitalism works. Most are very young, like the budding
Estonian media magnate Hans Luik, a huge, piratical figure with a red
and less developed than Latvia, but without such extremes of wealth and
beard. somehow appropriate to the new Estonia. In Latvia, a great
poverty. In Latvia, in his view, an atmosphere of laissez-faire encouraged
success was Software House, run by Latvians though with Russian
by legal and political anarchy would accelerate the development of
financial backing. Originally a computer firm, it came to control Latvia's
certain sectors, and would lead to an ostentatiously rich capitalist class,
main oil pipeline.
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These developments may help check the loss of interest in education, and
Poverty, however, is the stark reality of life for many, especially the
the discernible 'fast-buck' mentality which, since the 1970s has been a
elderly, The signs are everywhere: the beggars outside churches, the
saddening characteristic of Baltic youth. This variety of sleaziness is
ragged street-kids washing cars in Riga, or the increasingly ruthless
harmful even for the free market: the tendency to 'bandit economics'
attitude of Baltic hospitals, badly short of staff, fuel and medicines, to
common to so many post-Soviet businessmen, frequently alienates their
'useless' elderly people. The Baltic Observer of 17 September 1992 carried
Western partners.
an article describing how an elderly woman who had broken her arm in a
Baltic schools do, however, exhibit commitment and enthusiasm. By
fall had it set without an anaesthetic and was then dumped by hospital
1993, the teaching of literacy, mathematics and scientific subjects was
orderlies at a bus stop and told to make her own way home. No element
excellent, geography was at least better taught than in the USA, and
of ethnic hostility was involved, but it is easy to see how, if relations
above all there was a passionate interest in learning foreign languages."
deteriorate, incidents such as this might be given an ethnic colour and
The humanities, however, were finding great difficulty in climbing out of
used to stir up hatred.
the Marxist-Leninist mire without falling straight into a nationalist one.
While public fear has focused on the 'mafia' and crimes of violence,
Some of the new history text-books do not simply read as if they had been
more dangerous for the future fabric and morale of the Baltic States may
written in the 1930s - they were written in the 1930s! Difficulties may arise
be the almost universal habit of pilfering, fostered under Communism
among Russian teachers and pupils required to use works which
and entrenched by poverty. The practice is encouraged by the fact that
denigrate their nation.
even many educated people, let alone the masses, simply cannot
Even though education in all three states is still wholly state-
understand why former criminals and criminal activities are now
controlled, a division along class lines is already very apparent. Thus the
respectable, or the difference between making money from semi-legal
director of a prestigious Russian-language Gymnasium in Riga, with a
commercial activities and stealing outright from the office, shop or
high proportion of Jewish pupils, reported that,
factory where you work." 98
We have no real problem with books, stationery or food because many of
The section of the population which is suffering the most is, perhaps
the parents of our pupils are well off, and they help the school. One has
inevitably, the one which is most politically apathetic. This has been
even given us several computers so that the children can learn early how
lamented by those that regret the mass engagement of the independence
to use them. But I know of course that other schools do not have such
struggle, but it is fortunate for the governments: only a politically
advantages.⁹⁾
anaesthetised population could accept what is being done to it without
massive protest.
So far as the better-educated and well-motivated young people are
The physical appearance of the towns is changing rapidly, stimulated
concerned, the fall of Communism has led to an immeasurable lightening
by Western investment. Tourism is booming, hotels and restaurants are
of their lives and widening of their horizons, especially of course in terms
opening, and well-dressed visitors speaking foreign languages are
of ability to travel and study abroad. However, the arrival of MTV is not
commonplace. In the streets of the main cities, attractive privately owned
an unqualified step forward for civilisation. By far the most popular
boutiques display an array of Western goods. Some of the fashions are
television programme in all three countries is a Mexican soap opera
now Baltic-made, as by Bruno Birmanis's fashion house in Riga,
entited "The Rich Also Cry'- a comforting thought, presumably - which
beginning now to achieve a European reputation.
is atrociously dubbed into Russian and rebroadcast by Moscow TV,
On the other hand, the trams and buses that run past these shops to
Indeed, it might even be termed a force for ethnic harmony within the
the grim concrete suburbs seem increasingly dirty, run-down, and
Baltic, since the most nationalist Balts and the most resentful Russians
infrequent, and the streets are rarely cleaned. Window-displays and
are united in their love for the heroine, Marianna.
street-lights are often blacked-out for lack of electricity, and walking at
The press has become far livelier than under Soviet rule - it could
night is becoming increasingly dangerous, as well as eerie.
hardly have been less - although there are still very few good papers, and
While for educated younger people the world has become brighter and
quite a number of pornographic rags. As so often in the former
more sophisticated, other sections of the population feel the coarser,
Communist world, literary and cultural publications have actually lost
colder side of the changes. Few people have time or resources for charity
readership because their raison d'etre as a focus for dissent has vanished,
outside their own families, and even the Churches often seem more
and people are in any case too busy playing politics or making money.
concerned to rebuild their monuments than to help the poor or the
The arts in general have suffered as a result.
elderly. There are frequent complaints that the traditional morale and
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solidarity of the Baltic peoples - if it ever existed are being lost to the
The only way out of this trap is through Western aid, which has indeed
harsh competitive ethic of primitive capitalism.
already been forthcoming in disproportionate amounts, and has helped
For several years at least, the sufferers from the free market may
stave off complete economic collapse. Much more however will be needed
include a majority of the Baltic populations, especially the local Russians.
fully to stabilisc the economic and political situation. This is in the West's
The purchasing power of the average family dropped 44 per cent during
interest, for, as argued in the Conclusion, a crisis in the Baltic could have
the first months of 1992, and by the end of that year, most people were
a disproportionate impact on the West itself.
spending by far the greater part of their incomes on food. Consumption of
In one sense, however, the connection between the Balts and Russia
meat and milk fell sharply, and that of bread and turnips rose. Total
does work to the Balts's advantage; for the Baltic States are in the
impoverishment has often only been avoided through the low and
position of the swift explorer, relative to the slow explorer and the lion.
virtually uncollectable - rents and electricity charges. Facing mass
The story is well known:
evasion of payment, the electricity authorities resorted to collective
punishment by disconnecting entire apartment blocks.
Two explorers in Africa are attacked by a lion. One of them turns to run.
In Latvia, the Save the Children Fund reported in mid-1992 that 87
The other exclaims, 'What's the point? You can't outrun a lion!" 'I don't
per cent of the population was below the poverty line, though the statistic
have to outrun the lion. I only have to outrun you.'
needs to be treated with reserve.⁹⁹ In all three Baltic States citizens have
So long as through aid and their own efforts the Baltic States can remain
developed techniques of survival, including cultivating their own food
visibly better off than Russia, and SO long as the Russians in the Baltic are
and having several jobs. The colossal differential between the buying-
not excluded from this relative advantage, the danger of conflict will
power of Western and local currencies has led to those with a source of
greatly diminish. For good or ill, this will also bolster the national morale
hard currency supporting many relatives; but while Latvians and Jews
of the Balts themselves by showing that, even if among the poor relations
have relatives in the West, Russians do not.
of the West, they are still superior to Somebody.
By late 1992, all three governments were coming under intense
pressure to support industries and social groups threatened by the
changes, and there were signs of the kind of anti-IMF resentment well-
known in the Third World. In Latvia, an Economics Ministry official, Dr
Inna Steinbuka, argued that the demand-damping measures called for by
the IMF were useless. The impoverishment of the population, in her
view, itself brought a fall in demand, but within Latvia's monopolised
market, closely linked with the former Soviet Union, this did not and
could not have any effect in reducing inflation. Dr Steinbuka argued that
to press ahead with strict money policy would lead to bankrupcies,
massive unemployment, a catastrophic decline in GDP and state
revenues, and finally a social explosion. Clearly representing the views of
many in the Economics Ministry, she called for a gradualist policy to
protect output.¹⁰⁰
At the end of 1992, even the new Rightist government in Estonia was
under intense pressure, while the Lithuanian government was busy
promising higher prices to the farmers, lower prices to consumers, and a
crusade against the food-processing plants, heavily flavoured with
traditional prejudice against 'profiteering middlemen'. Prime Minister
Bronislovas Lubys, in theory a liberal, was beginning to talk of the need
for rationing, illustrating the natural tendency in all three Baltic states to
revert to authoritarian thinking when things deteriorate seriously. Such
action would however be an obvious option for any government facing a
crisis of this scale.¹⁰¹
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Conclusion: The West and the Baltic States
compulsion - economic war or an army offensive. And that would have
been done by any Russia - Red, Pink, White or Black- which did not want
to suffocate inside the limits of those artificial boundaries to which the
Conclusion: The West and the Baltic
World War and internal chaos had confined her.¹
States
As argued in Chapter 7, imperialists in the strict sense are now relatively
rare among ordinary Russians; but crude nationalists are legion, and
large sections of the Russian population now lie outside Russia's present
'The snows still fall like silent sifting sand,
borders, some 2.3 million of them in the Baltic. This is what ties the old
Thrown up by gravediggers in some lost hour.
Soviet imperialists and the new nationalists together. This is the link
Old Europe, who shall stir a strengthless hand,
which needs to be broken if disaster is to be avoided.
When imminent night draws down in mindlessness of power?"
It is therefore of great importance that the West should think clearly
Péteris Aigars (Herberts Termanis), Latvian poet of
about its interests and obligations towards the former Soviet Union. It
the First Republic: 'Elegy of the Snows', written in
must do SO in relation to the Baltic States in particular, where it is already
the late 1930s, translated by William K. Matthews
committed, emotionally and politically - to a far greater degree than in
Kazakhstan, Moldova or even the Ukraine. But emotional commitment
needs to be backed both by real support and good advice - or it can be
positively dangerous.
There is much current debate about the 'frontiers of Europe', and
A keynote of Baltic national feeling since its rebirth in the 1980s has been
where they lie: on the Oder? The Bug? Or, as both Gorbachov and
the desire to 'return to Europe'. Balts feel also- and rightly - that the rest
Yeltsin would have it, at Vladivostok? The Balts are clear that the
of Europe has a duty to help them do so, The problem is that the Europe
frontier should be seen as following their castern borders with Russia,
many Baltic politicians seek to return to is not the Europe of today, but
and that the Baltic States should be seen as bulwarks against an
that of the 1920s and 1930s, when the Baltic was first independent.
essentially non-European, 'Asiatic' Russia.²
Compared to life under Soviet rule, and indeed to much of Europe at
When it comes to frontiers, however, there is a clear bottom line. One
the time, these really were idyllic years for the Balts; but they were not
can talk about cultural frontiers or economic frontiers, but historically
safe ones. Like the rest of Eastern Europe, the Balts were beneficiaries
speaking there is only one good definition of a frontier: it is something a
but also ultimately victims of the Versailles Peace Settlement, which was
state or alliance of states is prepared to fight to defend. The West today is
based on the status quo at the end of the First World War, when both
quite clear, not surprisingly, that it is not prepared to fight to defend the
Germany and Russia were prostrate. The central flaw of Versailles was
Baltic States, any more than it was between 1920 and 1940. Nor is the
that the situation in 1919 did not reflect the true underlying balance of
'bulwark' image, with its military implications, an appropriate one. If
power in Eastern Europe; and that in the long run, the settlement could
there were an active Russian military threat to the West, the Balts could
only be maintained by a level of Western commitment which did not
not halt it. They do not represent a bulwark: they are not even a fence.
materialise until it was too late. This is the spectre which today haunts
There is at present, however, no such threat to the West, nor will there be
the Balts and the other former Soviet republics as they contemplate the
in the foreseeable future, given Russia's acute weakness and the lack of an
threat of a renaissant Russian nationalism.
ideological basis for such an offensive.
Given the Russian (as Baltic) manner for harking back to old models,
The possibility of Russian military aggression in the future is very real,
it would be surprising if some Russian generals were not today studying
but if it occurs it will be confined to the borders of the former Soviet
the words of General Denikin, the White commander in the Russian Civil
Union, and justified by a rhetoric of 'restoring' order and 'protecting'
War, written after the White defeat and the partial restoration by the
Russian or allied minorities. To some extent, therefore, the degree of
Bolsheviks of the Russian Empire:
Western involvement will be a matter of Western choice - though only to
some extent, because a major war in the Soviet region, or even the rise of
The state link of Russia with her borderlands was ordained by history
an ultra-nationalist regime in Moscow, would have of course a disturbing
This link would sooner or later be restored, either voluntarily or through
effect on Europe as a whole.
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Conclusion: The West and the Baltic States
The West is involved in the attempt to extract the Baltic States from
Thirdly, the West should provide more substantial, and properly co-
Russia's sphere of influence, by putting pressure on Moscow to withdraw
ordinated aid, with the deliberate aim not simply of helping the transition
its troops and by aiding the Balts to strengthen their economies and
to a market economy, but of minimising unemployment and reducing
escape dependence on those of Russia and the rest of the former Union.
food prices during that transition. This would do much to reduce the
More intangibly, every official Western visitor, or indeed tourist, to the
danger of socio-ethnic discontent among the Baltic Russian workers,
Baltic reinforces the attachment to Europe, holds out another incentive to
especially since they would then see even more clearly that they were
the local Russians, and goes some way to discourage any Muscovite
better off in the Baltic than in Russia.
desire for reconquest.
The conditions imposed in 1992 in return for IMF aid were indeed
Escaping from Russia's sphere is, however, in its way an even more
necessary for the long-term stabilisation and reform of the Baltic
difficult and delicate business than was the extraction of the Baltic States
economies. But in the short run their effect was to help drive parts of
from the Soviet Union; for it goes against powerful strands of history and
Baltic industry to the wall and increase the risk of socio-ethnic conflict
economics and, above all, because it could in some circumstances involve
and a political or even military crisis. The hiatus between the short and
ethnic conflict between Balts and local Russians. It is nonetheless a
long runs should be bridged by increased Western aid. Compared to the
praiseworthy enterprise. The Balts do have ancient links with Western
huge sums being poured into the bottomless pit of Russia, let alone
and Central European culture, even if they have weakened under Soviet
thrown away on frivolities in the West, there need not even be very much
rule. The Balts moreover will never live happily within the Russian
of it. By 1994 relatively small sums of Western aid had already had a
sphere. Leaving them there risks driving them to violence, and provoking
major impact.
the sort of regional crisis which it must be the duty of the West to avert.
As opinion polls show, many Baltic Russians already look more to the
However the enterprise is only praiseworthy if the West embarks upon it
West than to imperial protection from Moscow. They will not continue to
fully aware of what it is doing, and ready to face any unpleasant or
do so however if they see themselves cut out of the benefits of the move
unforeseen results. An unwillingness to make such a deep, considered
towards the West. This is of course the nub so far as many Latvian and
(and expensive) commitment may, paradoxically, be one reason why the
Estonian nationalists are concerned, because they want the Russians to
West has not been firmer with the Balts on the question of Russian rights.
To take a direct role in ordering the internal affairs of these states would
leave, and know they will not do if they become prosperous where they
are. In the words of Trivimi Velliste, 'We hope that a third or so will
imply taking on a measure of responsibility for their security - a
become Estonian citizens, a third may remain here with Russian
responsibility which, for all their rhetoric, Western chancelleries are
wholly unwilling to assume.³
citizenship, and a third at least will leave'.' Balts further to the Right of
In my view, real commitment should involve three aspects. The first is
Velliste do not wish to extend citizenship to any of the "illegal
continued pressure on Russia fully to withdraw its troops a withdrawal
immigrants'.
which does in fact seem to be proceeding rapidly. This would lessen
While many Russians are in fact leaving the Baltic, it is difficult to
tension, encourage local Russians to integrate into Baltic society, and
imagine a process which would persuade as many as a third to return to
hopefully inspire the Balts to look more kindly upon them. It would also
an impoverished Russia without leaving the remaining two-thirds in a
of course reduce (though not altogether remove, given the porousness of
state of dangerous discontent, and the Baltic States in a condition of
the Baltic frontiers) the passage of weapons from hardliners in the
serious instability. Furthermore, however understandable the Latvian
Russian military to hardliners in the local Russian communities.
and Estonian desire to reduce the Russian population, the use of even
Secondly, the West must put pressure on the Baltic governments to
subtle economic and administrative pressure to this end seems
guarantee the rights of the local Russian population, irrespective of
incompatible with the spirit of the CSCE, which in effect stresses that
citizenship, especially in the social and economic sphere. Western aid
neither frontiers nor populations should be altered unilaterally,
should be conditional upon the Latvians and Estonians honouring their
regardless of their provenance.
repeated past promises. Apart from the dangers of locally generated
The West is not bound to support the radical Balts in this aim. A moral
conflict, nothing could be more damaging to Western prestige and
commitment to the restoration and maintenance of Baltic independence -
influence not only in the Kremlin but throughout Russian society than
as recognised originally by the League of Nations and now by the UN
for the West to take sides exclusively with the Balts in a case in which the
certainly stands. This in turn implies support for the basic national
overwhelming majority even of pro-Western Russians think that the
character of the Baltic states. It does not, however, imply support for the
complaints of the Baltic Russian minorities are justified.
exclusive political authority of the native ethnic communities in these
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Conclusion: The West and the Baltic States
states, any more than recognition of Fiji or Malaysia amounts to support
Russian-majority areas, are also tremendously important because they
for programmes of Fiji for the Fijians' or 'Malaysia for the Malays'.
suggest that if the local Russians keep quiet, Western aid will flow their
As the Swedish Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, pointed out to the Swedish
way. This is indeed what American diplomats have been telling them.
parliament on 2 April 1992, Scandinavian and United Nations
But promises must be followed by real money, or the incipient Western
recognition was granted to the Baltic States as they existed in August
influence will disappear.
1991, with the borders and populations of the time, and not to the
Western attitudes are slowly changing. A Western diplomat described
republics of 1939. It would be different if the Balts were, as they so often
to me a 'sea-change' in US State Department attitudes between August
claim, threatened with extinction by the Russian presence; but they are
and October 1992. The attitude had been that this was not an important
not. So long as they can prevent further mass immigration their
question for the US; that it was the Balts' own business. Thereafter the
demographic position should remain stable or even improve, as it is
US became much more active, both through the CSCE and in steering its
indeed already doing. The greatest danger for the Balts, and especially
aid; thus cheap US cotton credits for the Kreenholm mill in Narva were
the Latvians, lies in ethnic conflict.
deliberately intended to help avert a social crisis in this Russian-speaking
Enlightened self-interest in the West would suggest assisting a
area.
reasonable (though not, admittedly, altogether just) balance, recognising
Western diplomacy in the region is still plagued by a number of
the need for a secure predominance of Balts while guaranteeing the
problems. Apart from the informal Stockholm Working Group, which
Russians a collective position which would not be vulnerable to
had no executive function, it remained largely unco-ordinated. Not even
amendment by any future radical Baltic governments. This should
the beginnings of a general Western crisis-prevention plan were evident,
involve granting rights in the social, economic and educational spheres,
and different Western diplomats told the Baltic governments different
and official status for the Russian language. Citizenship in itself is of
things.
lesser importance, and indeed is not the most pressing concern of many
In general, Western policy remains obstinately reactive, not proactive.
ordinary Russians; after all, the Soviet citizenship of which many Baltic
In 1992 a diplomat informed me that the CSCE representatives had not
Russians have now been deprived was not, itself, very meaningful.
visited Latvia, 'because Latvia has not passed its citizenship law yet, and
the Russians haven't complained as much about Latvia yet'.
Western diplomacy was very slow to get to grips with the dangers of the
At that stage Russian propaganda was directed more against Estonia, so
ethnic situation in the Baltic. When it finally began to do so, during the
the situation there seemed to be more acute. Diplomacy tends to be led by
summer of 1992, it was only under pressure from increasingly bitter
events; it is difficult to drum up support to deal with a problem that hasn't
complaints from Moscow complaints which, under Foreign Minister
yet happened.
Andrei Kozyrev, were directed through the proper channels of the CSCE,
UN and Council of Europe. (The CSCE response came under the so-
The UN dispatched a mission to Latvia, but found nothing legally
called 'Moscow Mechanism', which allows one country to complain
wrong. This was in part perhaps because the UN, as a body representing
about another's application of CSCE principles.) The advent of civil war
nation-states, has never found it easy to discuss minority rights or
in Yugoslavia also began to drum into even the thickest skulls the need
external interference, except where the case is desperate - in other words,
for preventive diplomacy.
when it is too late. American diplomacy has also suffered from the
As a result, and following a Swedish and British initiative, senior
familiar problem of domestic political pressure from the Baltic-American
Western diplomats instituted periodic meetings in Stockholm, after
emigrations. In the course of 1992 a succession of US Senators pre-
August 1992, to discuss questions relating to the Baltic States. At the
pickled in Baltic propaganda and inadequately briefed - made flying
beginning of 1993 the CSCE, after two preliminary visits, dispatched a
visits to the Baltic. Most called for Russian military withdrawal without
six-month mission to Estonia to examine the position of the 'immigrant'
even mentioning Russian rights.
Russian population. This was the first occasion on which the CSCE had
A more fundamental problem is that contemporary Western
done anything of this kind and, as with all CSCE operations, the
diplomacy finds it difficult to deal with forms of oppression if they do not
Estonian investigation was funded on a shoestring. It had, however, the
involve outright 'human rights abuses'. Three years ago, for example,
very important effect of giving local Russian leaders a voice in the West,
one of the factors exacerbating the fears of the Serbian minority in
and of reassuring them they had not been forgotten.
Croatia was a Croat government decision to change a majority of the
Signs of interest of this kind, and visits by American diplomats to
police chiefs in the Serbian areas. Given the power of the police in such
379
378
The Baltic Revolution
Conclusion: The West and the Baltic States
societies, the Serbian reaction is understandable. It seems highly likely
in 1990, I was one of the very few Western journalists to criticise some
that few diplomats in the region bothered even to report this minor
Baltic policies, I warned my Baltic friends that the uncritical support of
administrative alteration to their superiors. The consequences are
the rest of the press could not be relied on; that for a hundred years and
appallingly clear.
more, Western journalists had swung between two contradictory
Delegations visiting the Baltic States during 1992 certified - accurately
stereotypes of Eastern European nations, and would surely do SO in their
- that no human rights abuses existed. But with 'human rights' as the
case. The first stereotype is of gallant little freedom-loving peoples,
bottom line, there is a tendency to underrate the dangerous potential of
fighting against wicked empires for the sake of independence and liberal
quieter and less conspicuous factors. There is a tendency also to miss the
democracy. The second is horrid little anti-semitic peasants, trying to
point which is, for the West, not whether the Baltic States do or do not
involve us in their vicious tribal squabbles. In relation to the Baltic
match up to some abstract standard of human rights, but how a regional
States, much of the American press in particular has swung between
crisis can be averted. Diplomacy should certainly be inspired by
these two poles with almost nothing in between. Where they have
morality, but its chief moral duty lies in the avoidance of evil
criticised the Balts (especially over anti-semitism). the criticisms have
consequences, not in the celebration of fine ideals.
often been so extreme, biased, and badly supported that they have merely
Scandinavians, with their tendency to see everything in moral terms
infuriated even reasonable Balts, and discredited Western advice in
and their lack of experience of the problems of dismantling multinational
general.
empires, have been particularly at sea over the Baltic Russian issue. The
In the course of 1992, there was a welcome shift in Western diplomatic
British and French do have experience of decolonisation, but have not
thinking from pure emphasis on human rights to a stress on the economic
used it. The French, for example, have not cared to draw any very close
position of the Russians. Even this, however, was inadequate, since it
comparison between their rather different attitudes towards settlers'
ignored the fact set out in Chapter 8 that in post-Communist societies,
rights in the Baltic States and in New Caledonia.
communities often need a share of political power to ensure a share of
The Swedes in particular have also suffered from a guilty conscience,
state patronage and economic advantage.
as one of the few Western states formally to have recognised the Soviet
The give-away line among Western diplomats during 1991-92 was,
annexation of the Baltic States. They now evidently feel they have to
'but it is not our business how the Balts arrange their naturalisation
compensate through unconditional support. However, if the central
process and so on'. This is also the line of many Balts themselves. And it
argument against automatic Russian rights in the Baltic is that their
would be fine if it were consistent; if, in the event of an ethnic crisis and
arrival under Soviet occupation was illegal according to international
resultant Russian intervention, offers of Western support would also be
law, it may be asked why they should be expected to have had a better
waved away by the Balts: 'No, thank you all the same - as we said, this is
understanding of that law than past Swedish governments.
our business
From a point of view of international law, the Estonian and Latvian
Instead, thanks to the moral and emotional commitment of the West,
argument, though strong, is not in any case beyond question. A strict
and the assiduous efforts of Baltic lobbyists, ethnic conflict in the Baltic
reading of the Geneva Convention would seem to allow for mass
States would almost certainly lead to a major crisis in relations between
deportation; but there is in fact no clause in international law that
the West and Russia. This in turn could deal a death-blow to
governs a situation like that of the Baltic today - in which countries
Westernisation and democratisation in Russia, and encourage the growth
have been ruled by another state for two generations, and the situation
of an ultra-nationalism which would affect the lives of tens of millions in
recognised either de facto or de jure by the international community.
Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Latvian and Estonian policies
Western diplomats may argue that the different Western approach to
towards the Russian minorities have already had an appreciable effect in
Russian rights in the Baltic and in Kazakhstan, for example, is governed
strengthening the hand of reactionaries in Moscow and weakening those
by the fact that both were independent between 1920 and 1940. but I
of Yeltsin, Kozyrev and the Democrats. Was this well done? Is this a
suspect that cultural prejudice has more to do with it; and though it is
process that the West should be subsidising?
entirely true that Estonian and Latvian policies towards the Russians
In any case, the 'not your business' line- if, after Yugoslavia, it needed
have so far taken purely legal and non-violent forms, it still forms part of
any further criticism - was refuted more than eighty years ago when,
a pattern of exclusivist nationalism which risks tearing apart the entire
during the Versailles Conference, Clemenceau urged Poland to sign the
fabric of Eastern Europe and of the former Soviet Union.
League of Nations "Minorities Treaty':
The Western press has also played a fundamentally dismal role. When,
Nothing, I venture to say, is more likely to disturb the peace of the world
380
381
Conclusion: The West and the Baltic States
The Baltic Revolution
than the treatment which might in certain circumstances be meted out to
Finally, once again, this approach completely ignores the dangers of
the minorities. And therefore, if the Great Powers are to guarantee the
administrative harassment of, and discrimination against, a community
peace of the world in any sense, is it unjust that they should be satisfied
without either legally guaranteed rights or some hold on political power.
that the proper and necessary guarantees have been given?⁶
The case of Northern Ireland under Protestant rule between 1922 and
1969 is an example of this, and there are many others. Such harassment is
The responsibility of the West after the collapse of the Soviet empire is
of course unwritten and unspoken, but it can be extremely effective and
fully comparable in scope to that facing the West after the defeat and
lead ultimately to disaster. I believe that on balance such an explosion is
collapse of the German, Austrian and Russian empires during the First
unlikely in the Baltic States; but the danger is certainly there.
World War. The West's difficulty in evolving a coherent strategy also
The sad thing is that by taking this line towards the local Russians, the
dates back to the central dilemma of Versailles: the conflict between
Latvians and Estonians may in fact be diminishing, not increasing, their
Wilsonian ideas of national self-determination and the linked
chances of reaching safety in the arms of the European Union. So long as
requirement for general stability and minority rights. Thus Brian
there is some insulation against the Russian economy and Russian
Beedham, in a postmortem on the West's failure in Yugoslavia, wrote
immigration, the fact of the Baltic States possessing large Russian
that immediately after the Croat and Slovene declarations of
minorities would not of itself prevent them joining the EU. Nor would a
independence, Western troops should have been stationed on the border
sensible Russian government object to this. What every Western
of Croatia to deter Serb aggression. But that since this would have left
diplomat accepts as out of the question is that the EU should admit states
unsolved the question of the Serb minority within Croatia,
which risk conflict with their internal minorities and with Russia. Once
within the European Union, co-existence should be possible. As long as
The protection given to Croatia would therefore have had to be
Latvians and Estonians control their own television and radio, their own
accompanied by a promise that an agreement would be reached within,
schools and universities and their own frontiers, they need not fear being
say, six months on how to protect the rights of Croatia's minorities
overcome by the local Russians, especially if these Russians increasingly
What Beedham does not say is what kind of agreement the West should
look to the same goals and values as they do, and if, as at present, many
have insisted upon, given the probable failure of the parties concerned to
are actually leaving. One might hope to return to older traditions in
reach agreement on their own. His proposal involves casting the West in
which several distinct communities lived separate lives within the same
a virtually imperial role - but without a clear imperial policy, or indeed
frontier, with one community in a hegemonic position but others having a
an imperial army. After the West's miserable failure in Yugoslavia, the
guaranteed place and rights, and the whole being supervised by a general
belief that it could intervene successfully to resolve conflicts in the former
European order.
Soviet Union once they have begun, or deter consequent aggression by a
Despite the economic crisis that seems set to continue wracking the
future hardline Russian government, is naive; it can, however, play some
Baltic States for a considerable time to come, and the threat of a general
part in preventing such conflicts from breaking out.
criminalisation of the economy and state, there are also encouraging
In the case of the Russian minorities, it is inadequate to say, as does
signs of political stability. The Centre-Right governments in Estonia and
Paul Goble, that because most of the Russians were not old minorities
Latvia are committed to Western values and free-market reform. The
but 'simply representatives of the imperial centre, dispatched to promote
commitment to reform of Brazauskas's party in Lithuania is much more
Soviet power',
doubtful, but at least its victory means that a majority of Lithuanians
have rejected chauvinist nationalism. In general, the anti-Western
The international community, including the United States, must
nationalist attitudes examined in parts of this book will probably
make every effort to try to ensure that Russians in the new states enjoy
decrease as new generations come to the fore - but only SO long as ethnic
R
equal rights as individuals, regardless of minority status.
tensions do not lead to the appalling primitivism seen in SO many other
This comes dangerously close to the radical Baltic line that the Russians
places. It is the West's duty to help push and pull the Balts in the
as illegal immigrants are not a 'minority', and therefore must be treated
required direction.
simply on a case-by-case basis. It is also out of touch with reality.
No-one should reckon on the permanence of Western liberal capitalist
Clearly, where Russians constitute 94 per cent of a town's population, as
values within circumstances in which they have become associated with
in Narva, or a huge proportion of a republic's population, they are going
economic misery for ordinary people, of every nationality; and even
to behave as a political unity and demand collective rights.
prosperity will not of itself bring safety or stability unless the Russians in
383
382
The Baltic Revolution
the Russians. Baltic learn to live without empire, and the Balts learn to live with the
have been Until for that day comes, the Baltic States will remain - as they
the past eight centuries - a debatable territory.
February 1990-January 1994.
384
Hugh Honour:
Battle Over Post-Modern Building
Volume XXXV, Number 14
September 29, 1988
The New York Review
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of Books
CAN.$2.75
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Anton Shammas:
The Morning After
a Palestinian State
Jasper Griffin:
The Real
Olympic
Games
Timothy Garton Ash:
The Decline of the Soviet Empire
Helen Vendler: New York Poet
Neal Ascherson: The King of Children'
Irving Howe: Jerusalem Notes
BEST COPY AVAILABLE
The Empire in Decay
Timothy Garton Ash
Eight years after the birth of Solidarity,
occupation strikes once again spread
O½
something altogether more modern and
Is the so-called "Brezhnev doctrine" of
concepts crumble, but, where are
luxurious. And who is that man In a
limited sovereignty within the socialist
BcToBa Poland. The workers' first demand
the new? Beside the novelty, Intricacy,
black soutane being ushered obsequiously
Is: Solidarity. On the twentieth anniver.
and fragility of Internal developments in
commonwealth, so eloquently presented
across the terrace? And since when have
by Mr. S. Kovalev In Pravde of Septem-
sary of the Soviet invasion, ten thousand
each country, and the central uncertainty
blockhouses had spires?
ber 26, 1968, still valid twenty years after
Crechs march through the streets of
about the nature, pace and durability of
the Warsaw Pact Invesion of Czechoslo-
Prague, chanting "Dubcek!" and "Free-
change In the Soviet Union, there is the
dom!" With official permission, some
1.
vakin? At least two senior Gorbachev ad.
problem of divergence. To generalize
visers have told Western Journalists, on
forty thousand people demonstrate la
about "Eastern Burope" was always a dif-
Let us start with Mr. Gorbachev-which
the record, that they regard Invasion as
Budapest-against the policies of a neigh-
ficult and questionable exercise-even at
is not, however, to start at the beginning.
unthinkable in present circumstances.' In
boring socialist state. Without official
the height of Stalinist Gleichschaltung-
Faced with this bewildering East Euro-
purely theoretical terms, the "new think-
permission, half a million Crechs and
but it becomes ever more difficult and
pean vista, most Western news commen-
Ing" in Soviet foreign policy would at
Slovaks sign a petition for religious
questionable as Individual countries
tators have taken refuge in a formula as
least demand a different' ideological
freedom. The Protestent churches in East
become Increasingly different, not just
simple as It is facile. Every new develop-
justification of such an action, In terms
Germany try to peaise the recent policies
from the Soviet Union but from each
ment in Eastern Europe is treated as a
of "all human" rather than class Interests.
of the Soviet Union, but are censored by
(The Soviets could say the ozone layer is
the state. The Polish government spokes-
threatened by pollution from Crech In-
man Invites himself to visit Radio Free
dustry.) Two leading Soviet legal scholars
Europe. A Hungarian Politburo member
argued in a recent article that the princi-
says be has "no arguments in principle
ple of "peaceful coexistence" must, in the
for the one-perty system."
context of the "new thinking." be ex.
These days one is mildly disappointed
tended to relations between states with
if, on opening a Polish or Soviet journal,
the same political and social systems."
one finds that BORTM great, Immovable,
Gorbachev himself has emphasized the
forty-year-old taboo has not been casu-
right of socialist states to find their own
ally broken. It would be amusing, al.
paths to socialism, notably during his
though perhaps a tittle cruel, to comple a
visit to Belgrade.
small anthology of statements from
On the other hand, In discussing the
Soviet and East European experts of the
"priority area of relations with the social.
form "what la unthinkable is or "one
lat countries" the theses for the extraor-
thing is certain
dinary Party conference in Moscow in
It is not just individual taboos that fall
May declared: "Our internationalist links
like ninepins. Whole concepts have crum-
are built on the basis of mutual benefit, a
bled. "Normalization," for example.
balance of interests and common respon-
After the imposition of martial law in
sibility for the fate and prestige of social-
Poland, most serious Western analysts
Ism and the enhancement of Its role in
concentrated on the "prospects for nor.
world development." Official Soviet com-
malization" la Poland, where "normatize-
mentaries on the twentieth anniversary of
tion" might be defined as the attempt to
the Invasion of Czechoslovakia (August
return an East Central European coun-
20-21) were largely unrepentant, although
try, initially by the use of force, to Soviet
this can be explained by their concern not
norms. The comparison was with Hungary
to embarrass the Husdk-Jakes regime in
after 1956 and Caschoslovakia after
Prague. During his visit to Warsaw in
1968. This line of analysis was entirely
June, Gorbachev declined to renounce
reasonable at the time. But what rele-
the "Brezhnev doctrine," despite # direct
vance has the concept today? Not only
public challenge to do so from a Polish
has the Jaruzelski team's original vision
intellectual.'
of "normalization"-Kidáriam à La Polo-
naise-failed, as the best analysts pre-
These statements are important, not
dicted it would.' The very Idea of what is
least for their direct impact-simply as
normal some to have changed.
statements-on Eastern Europe. But they
do not get us (or Soviet leaders) much
'Imre Pozzgay, quoted in BBC, Summary
further in determining what they would
of World Broadcastz-Eastern Europe
other. The historian Joseph Rechschild
function of, or alternatively as a chal-
actually do were an East European coun-
(hereafter SWB-RE), May 24, 1968, C/14.
The exact wording of the translation
calls his new political history of East
lenge 10, Soviet glasnost and perestrolka.
try to blow up in their faces. Nobody can
transcript is "I have no principled argu-
Central Europe since World War II
Yet in truth, a serious analysis of Hun-
know that: not even Mr. Gorbachev. This
ments on the side of the one-party system."
Return to Diversity. A knowledge of each
gary or Poland's present dilemmas could
question can only be answered in prac-
The author would like to thank Nor-
country's prewar, or pre-"Ynita" history
almost as well begin in the Middle East'
tice, All we can say is that, in response to
man Davies, Charles Gati, Philip Hanson,
is now quite as necessary as a general
as in Moscow. or course Gorbachev's Im-
the three major postwar East European
Pierre Hassner, Milowit Kunidski, Zbig.
understanding of Soviet-type systems.
pact has been large: it has also been com-
challenges, the Soviet Union has each
niew Pelczynski, George Schöpflin, Alek-
Eastern Europe today resembles a
plex, ambiguous, more indirect than
time hesitated longer-days with Hun-
sander Smoler, and Rudolf Tokes for their
landscape on whose commanding heights
direct, and the "Oorbachev factor" has
gary in 1956, months with Czechoslovakia
comments on an eartier draft of this
vast uniform concrete blockhouses were
played Into political scenes that, at least
'Oleg Bogomolov, quoted in the Finan.
essay.
built some forty years ago, There they
in Hungary and Poland, already had
cial Times, June 27, 1988, P. 17; Viateche-
'See, for example, Wiodzimierz Brus,
stand, still inhabited, still hideous, from
powerful dynamics of their own.
slav Dashitchev in Der Spiegel, Number
"The Prospect of "Normalization" in
the wooded hills of Thuringis to the
The most radical and basic speculative
27, 1988, p. 126.
Poland," in W. Brus, P. Kende, z.
Great Hungarian Plain, and on their ter-
question about Moscow's approach to its
"The article from the March 1988 number
Miynar, "Normalization" Processes in
races the familiar fat-Jowied proprietors
"external empire might be called the
of Soviet State and Law is summarized
Soviet-Dominated Central Europe (1982),
still sit at lugubrious leisure, with their
TITO question: Troops In, Troops Out?
Study No. I of the Research Project on
and analyzed by Theodor Schweisfurth in
"Crials in Soviet-type Systems" directed
black, curtained cars and their prefabri-
In what circumstances might Soviet
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (May
by Zdenck Miyndr; Jacques Rupalk,
cated Lies. But look again: strange things
troops once again march Into an East
13, 1988), pp. 9-10.
"The Military and "Normalization" in
have happened. Here, a whole wing has
European country? Under what condi-
'The question was posed by Marcin Król,
Poland," reprinted in Paul Lowis, ed.,
fallen to the ground, rusty steel rods jut-
tions might they march out?
editor of the Independent monthly Res
Eastern Europe: Legitimation end Po.
ting out of crumbled concrete. There, the
Publica, at Gorbachev's meeting with
litical Crists (St. Martin's, 1984); and
blockhouse has incongruously acquired a
'The Middle East-which produced the
selected Intellectuals in the Royal Palace
pp. 299-303 in my own The Polish Revo-
baroque frontage or a romanesque Inte-
oil, which earned the petrodollars, which
on July 14. In his speech on the seven-
lution: Solidarity (Scribmers, 1984; Vin-
rior, repainted in the prewar national col-
Poland and Hungary borrowed, which
tieth anniversary of the October Revolu-
tage, 1985). Two Interesting references to
ors, while the strains of & patriotic march
created the debt, which precipitated the
tion, Gorbachev also spoke of the damage
the Polish authorities' dream of Kadari-
that could be done to relations between
zation are to be found in Adam Bromke,
sound from the hall. There again, cot-
crisis, which compelled the reform.
socialist countries "by a neglect of the
Eastern Europe in the Aftermath of
tages in half-remembered versions of
"External empire" meaning the six mem-
common interests of socialism on the inter-
Solidarity (East European Monographs,
traditional styles shoulder up the hill
ber states of the Warsaw Pact, as op-
national scene" (quoted from the official
Boulder, Colorado, distributed by Co-
toward H, while around the corner a
posed to the "internal empire" of the non-
translation appended to Soviet Weekly,
Proce 1081) 0. 41.
private entrepreneur has built himself
Russian republics of the Soviet Union.
November 7. 1987, p. xvi).
in 1968, more than a year with Poland
Hungary "in the foresecable future."
MICHIGAN MICHIGAN MICHIGAN
in 1980-1981. It has gone to increasing
This is 8 possible development to which
pains to disguise Its intervention-unilat-
Immense attention has been paid in the
eral in 1956, multilateral (Warsaw Pact)
West-mainly because of that "militari-
Garvin Bushell as Told to Mark Tucker
In 1968, Polish "internal" in 1981. It now
ration of thought" about East-West rela-
JAZZ from the Beginning
has stronger reasons than ever for healtht-
tions which is the common weakness of
Ing and fudging, since an invasion would
American "cold war thinking since the
be a blow to reform Inside the Soviet
1950s and European "peace movement"
"It would be hard to Imagine a more uniquely valuable contribution to the literature of
Union as well, and since relations with
thinking in the 1980s. Plainly, any quan-
lass than Gerria Bushell's vivid, perceptive, moving reminiscences of @ veryone from
the West are so important for that re-
titative reduction or qualitative transfor-
King Oliver through John Coltrane. And Mark Tucker has recorded them superbly. A
form. The nature of the East European
mation of the military confrontation in
major achievement." -Martin Williams
challenge has in each case been a matter
Central Europe is bound to have an Im-
"The personal recollections of longtime sideman and woodwinds Instructor Garvin
of definition: What is "reform" and what
pact on the East European polities.
Bushell add up to a major historical document. Mark Tucker has used his literary
croftsmanship procisely M If be were an expert keyboard accompanist. His sease of
"revolution"? What helps "the fate and
Plainly, a physical withdrawal of Soviet
context and persent research help his soleint stay in tune and time and always close to
prestige of socialism" and what harms it?
troops-the very bearers and symbols of
the autoblographical melody." -Albert Murrey, cosuthor of Good Morning Blues: The
What- use the favored Western policy
domination-would have more political
Autobiography of Count Basis
terms-is "stability" and what "danger-
Impact than any changes in the structure
less from the Baginning is the first volume in the Michigan American Music Serios
ous Instability"?
of force, armaments, or military doc-
which focuses on leading figures of American jess and popular music, assessing both
All Soviet leaders since Stalin (except
trine, although some of these might actu-
the uniquences of their work and its place in the context of American musical tradi-
the transitional figures of Andropov and
ally be more important for the military
tion.
Chernenko) have faced major East
balance. But what exactly this political
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European challenge. There are strong
Impact would be it is exceedingly difficult
reasons for believing that this challenge
to say.
will come sooner rather than later to this
Any implicit argument suggesting,
James M. Borders
Soviet leader.' Politically, it is therefore
"Soviet troops brought communism to
European and American Wind
of the first importance that the West
Eastern Europe forty-five years ago, so If
should prepare Itself for such a crisis:
Soviet troops go, communism will go,"
analytically. psychologically, and by
contains an obvious, childish fallacy in its
and Percussion Instruments
planning possible responses. One part of
conclusion, as well as small oversimpli-
Catalogue of the Steams Collection of Musical
the response is precisely the matter of
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definition. In the past, major Western
from obvious that such half-articulated
Instruments, University of Michigan
powerr-and particularly West Germany-
hope would not be raised In many # patri-
have too often adopted a restrictive, In-
othe breast were the Invaders to depart. In
This volume is devoted to a discussion of ODE of the largest collections of instruments
deed almost a Soviet definition of "stabil-
the short term, the new Hungarian Party
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ity." treating as symptoms of "dangerous
leader, Mr. Kiroly Grósz, might well
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instability" phenomena such as strikes
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and street demonstrations, which are an
move. But In the medium to longer term,
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THE UNIVERSITY OF
public life in our own countries. or
could not satisfy?
111
course a strike in a socialist state self-
In general, the domestic effect of any
MICHIGAN
MICHIGAN PRESS
evidently is # more important thing than
Sovlet military reductions will probably
a strike in # liberal democracy. But there
be to put the emphasis more nakedly, and
is a strong tactical case for the West now
even harshly, on the question of changing
Dept. TZ P.O. Box 1104 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106
to say (while firmly warning the Soviet
the political, economic, and social system
Union of the disastrous consequences of
that came with, or was at least partially
the use of force, whether direct or cam-
restored by, those troops. Increased mill-
ouflaged): "So [name of country) has
tary "stability" can mean reduced politi-
fifty thousand people on the streets?
cal "stability." This is patently not an
A new vision
There are strikes every week? They have
argument against careful disarmament. It
independent political parties? So what!
is just an argument for keeping our eyes
This is normal. This is fine. It's reform,
open. The two halves of the TITO ques-
not dangerous instability. We call It
tion are intimately related: Troops Out
glasnost and perestroika." But that la a
DOW can Increase the danger of Troops In
for creating
political argument. Analytically, there is
later. But any real political change In
little more of interest to be said on this
Eastern Europe is bound to be accom-
subject, beyond registering the Soviet
panied by some reduction in political
statements and signs.
"stability"-otherwise it will not be real.
world peace
It is more pleasant to speculate about
troop movements in the other direction.
'Géza Kotal, quoted in SWB-EE, July 14,
In mid-July the Hungarian Party foreign
1988, B/6. According to this transcript
affairs spokesman said on television that
his actual words were: "There is under-
standing on the plane of Soviet policy,
In this powerful new book,
Soviet troops could be withdrawn from
vis-à-vis the Hungarian endeavors, that
Andrew Bard Schmookler,
author of the highly acclaimed,
'In his stimulating Hugh Seton-Watson
we should be affected In the first stage,
Memorial Lecture at the Center for
according to the schedule, meaning we,
award-winning The Purable
Outof
Policy Studies la London in January of
Hungary, would be affected by this in the
of the Thises, continues his
this year, Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested
foreseeable future. This is our objective,
groundbreaking analysis of
that 1988 might just be another 1848. "It
this is our endeavor., However, the
the causes and cures of human
Warsaw Pact summit in Budapest a few
Weakness
is not AD exaggeration," he said, "10 af-
destructiveness.
firm that there are five countries now In
days later offered no further hints in this
Eastern Europe all of which are ripe for
direction. Károly Order, the new Hun-
"A wide-ranging and deeply
revolutionary explosion. Nor is it an exas-
garlan Party leader, reportedly denied the
thoughtful meditation on
geration to say that this could happen in
story on his visit to the United States in
the psychological sources of
more than one almultaneously" (quoted
late July. In effect, Mr. Kotai's remarks
the danger to humanity
from A Year in the Life of Glasnost,
may therefore be little more than a verbal
created by the advent of
Center for Policy Studies, Study No. 94,
flirt, mainly for domestic consumption.
weapons of mass destruction."
p. 12). This seems to me precisely-an
"An oversimplification, above all, in the
-Dr. Jerome Frank, author
exaggeration. Romania, In its desper-
case of Czechoslovakia, although at the
of Sanity and Survival
ate misery, is unquestionably "ripe"
time of the February 1948 coup, Statin's
Healing the
for explosion. In Poland there is both
emissary to Klement Gottwald "pointedly
"Offers all of us, hawks and
the desperation and the necessary dash
suggested that Gortwald should ask the
doves and in-betweens, a
WoundsThat Drive
of hope, as the latest wave of strikes
Soviet government for military assistance;
psycho-therapeutic journey
amply demonstrates. In Hungary an
Soviet troops were already massed on the
toward that spiritual place
UstoWar
explosion secure . real possibility, but no
Hungarian border." See Karel Kaplan,
more than that. in Czechoslovakia and
The Short March: The Communist Take
where we may come to peace
Andwew.Band Schmookler
the ODR the time of maximum risk will
over in Czechoslovakia 1945-1948 (C.
with self, others, world."
surely be when a new leadership starts
Hurst and Co., London, 1987). p. 175
-Mark Satin, editor,
making changes from above, in line with
and passim. As equally differentiated so
New Options
the Umeworn Tocquevillean adage that
count of the Communist takeover in
PAYTAM NEW ACE BOOK
the most dangerous moment for a die-
Hungary is to be found in Charles Gati.
reforship is when it starts trying 10
Hungery and the Soviet Bloc (Dut
The countries of East Central Europe"
Union was in many ways a "softer" part-
do so-leaving the ruling parties embar-
als-10 describe the direction and outer
at present divide into two categories:
ner. Gorbacher's hard-nosed approach to
rassed and straggling behind.
limit of desirable and conceivable change
those whose regimes are rhetorically cm-
Soviet-East European trade, his Insist-
There is a swelling conviction in both
for East European countries. "Finlandi-
bracing the Gorbachev example, for their
ence on the delivery of better-quality
Czechoslovakia and the ODR that their
zation," or "self-Finiandization," is held
goods, his desire to revitalize Comecon
own purposes, and those whose regimes
old, weary, wooden Brezhnevite leaders
up as a nightmare for Western Europe
are still resisting, while their peoples
Integration, his penchant for Soviet-East
cannot last for more than another year or
but a dream for Eastern Europe. The
wistfully embrace, the Gorbachev exam-
European joint ventures (favorably men-
two. People looked with keen Interest at
metaphor is not wholly useless 10 describe
ple. The Jaruzelski team in Poland and
tioned In his book Perestrolka): none of
Hungary's palace revolution In May,
A condition in which an East European
this necessarily helps economic reform
the new leaders in Hungary are not sim-
when an extraordinary Party conference
state would, like Finland, enjoy almost
programs whose success or failure is
ply taking leaves out of Mr. Gorbacher's
kicked János Kadár upstairs (to the newly
complete autonomy in its domestic social.
measured in hard currency.
book. Rather, they are taking his license
created post of Party chairman) and ex-
economic, and political life, while per.
pelled his whole Inner circle, not merely
to pursue national strategies that are
force remaining compliant to the Sovier
The general position Is. however, as
from the Politburo but from the Central
Union in military and foreign affairs."
deeply different and highly specific, but
clear as it is extraordinary. For the first
Committee as well." But when the change
The term is, however, almost wholly
In some respects also more radical or "ad-
time In decades the primary limits to
in Party leadership comes In Czechoslo-
useless to describe the process by which
vanced" than those currently being de-
bated In Moscow. The Jakes-Husak
political change in Eastern Europe are
vakia and the ODR there will not simply
an East European country might get from
not external but Internal. The ultimate
be a populace eager to follow the Party's
here to there. Does it mean that the East
regime (mutton dressed as lamb) in
limits are of course still external, even If
new "Gorbachevite" line. Here 100, albeit
Europeans should first give the Russians
Czechoslovakia and the Honecker geron-
no one knows exactly where they lie. But
on a smaller scale than In Poland or
a bloody nose In a winter war? Obviously
tocracy in the ODR are not simply resist.
the barriers up against which the enter-
Hungary, there will be non-Party Intellec-
It cannot mean that; but would the Finns
Ing glasnost and perestrolka. They are
prise of economic and political liberaliza-
tuals, the churches, Independent social
enjoy even their present measure of
also defending national strategies that
tion In Poland and Hungary is currently
groups, the oppositional rainbow coall-
autonomy had It not been for their brave
have kept them In power, and their soci-
pushing are Internal, Polish and Hungar-
tion of Charter 77 In Czechoslovakia,
military resistance In 1939-19407 Does It
etles in relative quiescence (or "stabil-
Han barriers. Comparisons with Yugosia-
ecological, peace, and human rights ac-
mean achieving a new status in the con-
Ity"?) for nearly twenty years."
via, a socialist state without the external
tivists, and the refuseniks in the ODR. all
text of an International settlement, a
It is probably wrong to suggest that
Soviet limits, are Increasingly apt.
advancing their own programs for change.
Mr. Gorbachev wholly deplores these lat-
Moreover, even If the Soviet Union is
Each case will be different: Czechoslo-
unions head, Sandor Gaspár, got the
ter regimes. Although, like, Mrs. That-
lowest vote of all, A mere 249 out of n
not directly pressing recalcitrant regimes
vakia because of the legacy of 1968, East
cher, he cannot always resist the personal
possible 985. Most of those returned.
to change, the indirect effect of the Oor-
Germany because of West Germany. But
Itch to preach his own solutions, his
however, received votes in the high nine-
bachev example is to Increase the pressure
In both, the real trial is still to come. In
hundreds.
general message has been: "You must
from their own populations for change.
Poland and Hungary, by contrast, the
solve your own problems In your own
"Note, however, that Finland itself
This is demonstrably the case in the ODR
trial is already on.
way." The last thing he wants is a new
seems to be edging as close 10 Western
and Czechoslovakia. There is a partial
Europe as It can: see the article by Daniel
Prague spring to complicate his own. It is
parallel here between the Impact of Oor-
also wrong to imply that be is an entirely
2.
Vernet in Le Monde (July 9. 1988). A
bachev's "second de-Stalinization" and
fairly representative East European usage
comfortable patron for Hungary and
that of Khrushchev's first de-Stallnization.
"Finlandization" is the crude metaphor
of the term "self-Finiandization" can be
Poland. Economically, Brezhney's Soviet
But whereas the lessons of Khrushchev's
that has been used In the West-but also
found in Ferenc Feher. "Eastern Europe's
"Meaning Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
de-Stallnization were first articulated in-
by independent East European Intellectu-
Long Revolution Against Yalia," in East
side the ruling parties of Eastern Europe,
European Politics and Societies (an excel-
Poland, and the GDR. In what follows I
lent new journal). Vol. 2. No. 1, p. 34. A
shall only touch Incidentally on Romania
now we find that Independent social move-
"With one exception: György Acztl.
useful reminder of how the Finns actually
and Bulgaria.
ments, the churches, non-Party intellec-
How far this expulsion of the old guard
resisted Finlandization is the chapter by
"One should also note that the ODR has
tuals, young people, and just the crowds
was spontaneous and how far "rigged" is
James H. Billington in Cyril E. Black, eu.,
enthusiastically supported Soviet "new
welcoming Mr. Gorbachev are the first to
an Interesting question. A leaked list of
Communism and Revolution (Princeton,
thinking" In foreign policy.
spell out the lessons-and not afraid to
the voting shows that the former trades
1964). pp. 117-144.
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"new Yalts"? In all the Soviet "new
finally fell apart in war, not in peace: "Is
historical process-whose final outcome
The World of Surgery
thinking" about foreign policy-a funds-
it war you want?" they will indignantly
is, to be sure, simost Impossible to con-
1945-1985
mental reexamination of Soviet positions
ask. So let me stress again that this is not
celve, since most previous empires ended
Memoirs of One Participant
in many parts of the world-there has
a detailed historical analogy, just a crude
In wars, but this empire has nuclear
been no hint of Soviet Interest In such a
James Hardy. M.
metaphor, "good enough for government
wespons.
basic renegotiation of the status quo in
work" as I believe they say in the State
Beyond this, we have to look in detail
Alively, personal account of an exciting period
Europe. The vagueness of the metaphor
Department.'
at Individual countries that are, as you
in medical history and the professional and
is amply illustrated by the fact that when
would expect In the course of "Ottomani-
personal life of a man who helped make that
applied to Western Europe It means the
The metaphor of "Ottomanization"
zation," Increasingly different. In what
history.
precise opposite of Its putative meaning
stresses, in very general terms, the overall
follows I shall look briefly at some symp-
for Eastern Europe. For Western Europe
context of Imperial decline, and the un-
toms of decay. In # second article, I shall
Includes Hardy's practice in private and in the
it means a process of increasing depend-
planned. piecemeal. and discontinuous
survey some contours of emancipation,
Army during World War II, his contributions
ence on the Soviet Union, for Eastern Eu-
nature of that process. It allows both for
taking most of my examples from Poland
to medicine, including performing the first
rope, a process of diminishing dependence.
attempts at reform from the center (Gor-
and Hungary, and then pose the question
heart and lung transplants in man. his role in
bachev as Selim III) and for attempts at
of reform or transformation: that is,
the integration of Mississippi society.
I have In the past offered an alternative
revolution from the periphery, for the
whether in either of these ploneer coun-
metaphor, almost equally crude, but
partial success and partial failure of each,
tries there seems any chance that the dis-
320 pages, 57 illustrations.
slightly better in indicating the nature of
and It recognizes, in the long run, the
parate elements of emancipation In decay
Cloth ISBN 0-8122-8000-8, $39.95
the process, though not the end result.
dialectical relationship between reform
can be combined, partly at the wish of
Available directly from the Press at $24.95
This is the metaphor of the "Ottomaniza-
University of Pennsylvania Press
tion" of the Soviet empire. 1 mean by
Károly Grdst
Blockley Hall, 418 Service Drive
this, in a very loose analogy to the decline
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6097
of the Ottoman Empire, a long, slow pro-
cess of Imperial decline in the course of
which one would see an unplanned, piece-
meal, and discontinuous emancipation,
both of the constituent states from the
imperial center and of societies from
states. This would occur not by planned
reform from the imperial center, in the
context of sustained growth and compre-
hensive modernization, but mainly by un-
coordinated independent action, whether
individual, collective, or national, by
pressure from below or from outside, in
an overall context of growing relative
backwardness in relation to much of the
developed world, and specifically to
Western Europe. In a phrase, "Ottomani-
zation" means emancipation in decay.
It is tempting to pursue the historical
analogy. The Ortoman Empire, after all,
also started out as an ideological empire:
"the divinely protected well-Nourishing
absolute domain of the House of Osman."
It liquidated much of the old ruling class
in several of the territories it conquered,
and replaced them with a new and Ini-
ttally functional ruling class drawn mainly
from lower social strata. These Ottomans
had their own language, the Osmanlica:
the Communist Nomenklatura has its
newspeak. There was one great sociopo-
litical divide: between the Ottomans and
the "reayn" or flock. Like communism,
the Ottoman system assumed its function-
aries to be angels: selfless servants of the
cause, with no need for petty human
checks and balances. As a result, they
could behave like devils. This new class
and revolution. Indeed, even in the mere
the present political leadership and ruling
degenerated into what the historian Peter
forty-five years of the Soviet external em-
class, into a new socio-political system:
Discover some
Sugar calls "ossified functionalism," with
pire we have already seen several turns of
either into some "viable"" system short
the growth of corruption. the assertion of
that dialectic: the reforms Introduced by
of liberal democracy as we know it, in
great thoughts
local and selfish interests, and the decay
János Kadar were an attempted response
Western, northern, and southern Europe,
with some great
of an entrenched bureaucracy." The
to the Hungarian revolution of 1956, just
or simply into a Central European vari-
Ottoman Empire was imprisoned in a
as the Jaruzelski reforms have all been an
ant of liberal democracy.
companions
rigid, archaic economic and fiscal system,
attempted response to the Polish revolu-
incompatible with the demands of the
tion of 1980-1981. This metaphor there-
modern industrial economy emerging
fore invites us not to think of revolution
3.
around it, and incapable of competing
as the end of reform, or of reform as the
Why should anyone in Eastern Europe
Join a Great Books
with the West. And then there is the
definitive alternative to revolution, but
ever support a socialist state tied to the
Reading and
parallel originally suggested by Hugh
rather of both as part of a very long-term
Sovier Union? Forty years ago there were
Discussion Group
Scion-Watson: that the final collepse of
perhaps three main reasons for doing
the empire might result from the rise of a
"Recent events in Transcaucasia and the
such a curious thing. First, there was the
power in the East. Let China be to the
Baltic republics could lead one to ask
reason of force. Secondly, there was what
how far the metaphor of "Ottomanize-
Russian empire what Russia was to the
tion" might also be applied to the Internal
presented itself as the force of reason:
he FREE information street Great Bonks
reading and documents groups,
Ottoman Empire!
empire. A reasonable answer Is probably
that is. Ideology. Thirdly, there was the
I RIDO 222-5870 less Ano] In Illinos, call
All this is tempting: but the temptation
"not yet." But how would the growth of
hope of emancipatory modernization.
(312)332-5870 (4 mad the company BIR
must be resisted. For a thousand histori-
inter-national tensions Inside the Soviet
The reason of force had two sides. In
The Great Books Foundation
ans will at once reach for their pens to
Union directly affect the East European
Eastern Europe It was Soviet armies that
A nonprofit educational corporation
point out the numerous respects In which
process? One can Imagine It cutting both
defeated Nazi Germany: Soviet power
Department A06
the decline of the Ottoman Empire can-
ways: negatively, by prompting a back-
could subsequently be said to protect the
40 Fax Human Street
heave, Illuses 60611
not possibly be compared with that of the
lash against Gorbachev's reform pro-
new territories of Poland and the restored
Soviet empire. Someone else will add, for
gram, or by underscoring the need for
Name
good measure, that the Ottoman Empire
tighter imperial control (lest, say, Poland
"I use the term "viable" in the sense very
become an example for Lithuania): posi-
usefully explored by Wlodzimierz Brus in
Address
lively, by giving Soviet leaders more than
his "Socialism- Feasible and Viable?,"
School
in
"See Peter F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe
enough to handle at home, thus increas-
New Left Review, No. 153 (September/
-
Under Ottomen Rule, 1354-1804 (Uni-
ing the temptation to let East European
October, 1985), pp. 43-62 (a review essay
versity of Washington Press, 1977).
states work out their own problems in
on Alec Nove's Economics of Feasible
passim.
their own ways.
Socialism).
territory of Czechoslovakia against a
to believe that some version of a Soviet-
one great, structural inequality-auto-
niques, or technology.' Only by dint of
revanchist Germany. For that, some felt
socialist planned economy could pull
matically privik yed status for the Nomen-
their ties with Western Europe are some
they had reason to be grateful. On the
most of Eastern Europe out of its historic
klature-but it nonetheless really looked
of these countries just barely clinging to
other side of this coin there who simply
backwardness and dependency, and, par-
as if there could be jobs, housing, basic
the coattails of the revolution of high
force majeure. The Soviet Union was
ticularly in the case of its developed parts
health care, and basic schooling for all. A
technology that is transforming the in-
self-evidently the single dominant power
such as the Czech lands or Silesla, even
certain rudimentary social security was
dustrial West and Far East. The historical
In the region. It, or its fraternal Com-
outperform the capitalist economies. Nor
an Indisputable fact. So was the social
reckoning is drastic: "we have lost four
munist parties, had the guns, the ammu-
was It entirely absurd to Imagine that a
advancement of a whole generation of
decades," "we are returning to the start-
nition, the soldiers, the police, and the
socialist state could achieve a standard of
workers and particularly peasant children,
ing point of 1945-1946." These are not
will to use them. If you resisted, they
social justice and "social rights"-univer-
who found themselves, for the first time,
the judgments of dissidents but almost
would crush you. There was no alterna-
sal equal provision of employment, hous-
in # modern apartment with running
casual asides from senior members of the
tive. Not & noble reason for supporting a
ing. health care, education, and so forth-
water and Inside lavatory, or even in a
government economic reform teams in,
state, but a powerful one.
far superior to the miserable standards of
lace-curtained office, with a potted plant
respectively, Hungary and Poland. If one
Soviet power came as "the wheel of
much of prewar Eastern Europe, and
and a plastic Lenin.
considers the added dynamism that West
history." It brought a future that was
perhaps even superior to those achieved
But what is there today? Growth rates
European economics may acquire In the
both inevitable and sublime. Many reasons
in capitalist states.
have slumped since the mid-1970s, with
mid-1990s through the completion of the
led sensitive and educated men and
an absolute decline In national product in
EC Internal market, it seems fair to say
women to embrace those incredible, uto-
U, to the mld-1960s It remained possi-
some years, not only in Poland but also
that-barring radical change-Eastern
plan claims of ideology:, from the experi-
ble. to believe that something of this was
in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Eastern
Europe once again faces the prospect of
ence of social Injustice, redal prejudice,
actually happening. Growth rates were
Europe's total share of world trade is
growing relative backwardness vis-d-vis
and bigotry under prewar regimes to the
high, even allowing for statistical exag-
shrinking. Poland, Hungary, and the
Western Europe.
Indescribably terrible Central European
geration. Western scholars wrote seri-
ODR are among the world leaders In
If this is the objective reality, the sub-
experience of war, occupation, and holo-
ously about "convergence." Khrushchev
per capits hard currency debt." The
Jective reality for the individual citizen is
caust. These reasons cannot be summa-
talked publicly of "burying" the West.
model plants of Stalinist moderni-
even grimmer. The economists tell us that
rized or synthesized, for they are not only
The Caechoslovak leader Antonia No.
zation-those Lenin steelworks, Lenin
material standards of living have stag-
reasons but motives, drives, compounds
votny worried privately about Czechoslo-
mines, and Lenin shipyards-are now
nated or declined, with open inflation in
of fear and longing, "of eros and of
vakia's economic problems of success."
mostly sheer Habilities. Even the most ad-
Poland and Hungary. But the quality of
dust": hunger for power, lust for destruc-
As for "social rights," there was already
vanced and West German-subsidized
life is felt to have sunk still further,
tion, vulgar ambition, but also desperate
ODR has fallen dangerously behind with
because of pollution, because of the
responses to such suffering as the human
"Thus, for example, Zbignlew Brzezin-
essential Investment, not merely in in-
shortfall in basic investment-painfully
spirit simply will not acknowledge to be
ski's book of 1965, Alternative to Parti-
dustrial plant, but In basic infrastructure:
visible in housing, hospitals, and schools-
senseless. Literature and blography, rather
tion, contains a section on "the ideologi-
roads, railways, waterways, telephone
and because the members of the younger
than philosophy or history, are here the
cal neutrality of Industrial development,"
lines, and so forth.
generation compare their situation not
only ladders to Verstehen."
and statistical tables to show that Poland
The Soviet Union offers less than be-
with their own countries' recent past, but
The more rational part was the hope of
and Italy, Hungary and Austria, Crecho-
fore In hidden or open subsidy, and next
emancipatory modernization. In, say,
slovakia and Sweden were all developing
to nothing in providing a model for
"Even the highly conformist editor of
1948 It was by no means wholly Irrational
pretty much In the same way. For "con-
economic reform, management tech-
the East German communist youth move-
vergence" see also Zbigniew Brzezinski
ment (FDJ) paper Junge Well observed
"Czeslaw Milosz's classic account, The
and Samuel P. Huntington, Political
recently that although the Soviet Union
Captive Mind, should be supplemented
Power: USA, USSR (Greenwood, 1964).
"A very useful overview is the Economist
deserves great historical respect for hav.
by the carthier observations of the other
The reference to Novotny comes in a
Intelligence Unit's Eastern Europe and
ing defeated Hitler, "as far as technology
greatest living Polish poet, Zbigniew
reminiscence by Vasil Bilak, published in
the USSR: Economic Structure and
and progress are concerned, it is no
Herbert, in Jacek Trznadel, Hariba
the Slovok paper Nedelna Pravde, March
Analysis (London, 1988), especially the
model for us" (quoted in Die Zeit, June
Domowa (Paris, 1986).
4; 1988.
chapter by Lászio Szimuely, pp. 7-14,
27, 1986).
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57
September 29. 1988
when 2011 in
with the situation of their contemporaries
The general feeling Is: think, nicely cap-
But this is light relief. There are three
Secondly, socialism has virtually disap-
in Western Europe, whither they travel in
tured In an exchange between Teresa
peared from the language of opposition.
growing numbers."
Toranska, a Polish Journalist of the
serious ways In which Ideology has fur-
or course KOR and Charter 77 had
younger generation. and Julia Mine, one
ther decayed in the 1980s. It remained
already, In the late 1970s, taken a decisive
In International forums, and notably at
of the old Statinists she Interviewed for
generally true in the 1970s that, although
step beyond the revisionist hope of "so-
the Vienna Helsinki review conference,
her spiendid book, Onl. Julia Mine has
virutally no one had any use for official
claimsm with a human face." Yet Adam
Soviet and East European governments
been defending the Afghan government,
Marxism-Leninism, most people in East-
Michnik ended his seminal essay on the
still advance their notion of "social rights,"
"which is trying to build socialism":
ern Europe would probably endorse some
"New Evolutionism" In 1976 with a sen-
with the clear implication that whereas
Toranska: What is socialism?
variant of something called "socialism,"
tence beginning "every act of resistance
people in the West may enjoy more Indi-
or, even if they reacted against the term
permits and allows us to build the foun-
vidual or civil rights, people in the East
Mine: A higher standard of living
for everyone, free education and
(because it was poisoned by official
dations for a structure of democratic
enjoy more social rights. But In much of
usage). they had internalized some of
socialism and much of the vocabulary
Eastern Europe those very "social rights"
social security.
Torodska: Like in the West?"
what might be regarded as core values of
of the opposition In Poland, Hungary,
(10 adopt the questionable terminology)
socialism: egalitarianism, belief in full
and Czechoslovakia was unmistal ably of
have been eroded to an unprecedented
Ah yes, socialism! The end of ideology
employment, social ownership of the
the left.
degree, in both quality of things provided
and the bankruptcy of socialism in East-
means of production, a large welfare role
This is no longer true. The small re-
by the state and equality of access to
ern Europe have been proclaimed so
for the state. Evidence for this assertion
founded Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and
them. Poland, where hospitals lack the
often that one has to say more precisely
came from sociological research, opinion
the dwindling "Eurocommunist" faction
simplest medicines, where children go to
what one means. In what senses is Ideol-
surveys, and, not least, from the demands
of Charter 77 are the exceptions that
school in three shifts, for want of class-
ogy more dead and socialism more bank-
made by the worker-activists and leaders
prove the rule. If asked "how do you
room space, and where a young couple
rupt in Eastern Europe In the 1980s than
of Solidarity in Poland. Yet there are
recognize a leftist opposition Intellectual
can now expect to wait twenty years for
It was In the 1970s? By then, of course,
now signs that even this is beginning to
in East Central Europe today?" the un-
an apartment, is obviously an extreme
no one believed that heaven would be
erode, under the Impact of the economic
kind answer might be: "The leftist Intel-
case. But even a good hospital In central
built on earth. Regimes sought their
and social crisis indicated above. At least
lectual is the one who says that the cate-
Prague resembles an English hospital in,
say, the early 1960s.
In addition, there is the injustice: not
just the formal injustice of separate,
better-supplied hospitals for the Nomen-
klature and the police, but the informal
injustice of corruption and graft, when in
practice you have to pay illicitly (prefera-
bly in hard currency) for the surgeon to
perform an operation, for the nurses to
look after you in hospital, for extra tui-
Photot I 4 Joed
tion to remedy your child's inadequate
schooling, and even for the apartment
that is theoretically yours by right.
Current projects of economic reform
will certainly result in . further erosion of
these "social rights," including violation
of the ultimate taboo of full employment,
as loss-making factories are closed.
Unemployment of about one hundred
thousand people (some 2.5 percent of the
working population) Is now officially
projected for Hungary. Even for those in
employment, there is the frustration of
senseless work, and a real sense of ex-
ploitation. For the younger generation of
worker and peasant children, moreover,
there Is little prospect of the kind of
social advancement that their parents'
generation enjoyed. Solidarity, it has
been well observed, was to some extent a
product of blocked social mobility. Not
1968
only social but actual physical life expect-
popular "legitimation" in nationalism or
among younger and better educated peo-
gorles left and right no longer have any
ancy has declined in some countries. In
consumerism as much as or more than in
ple (students as well as skilled workers) in
significance in East Central Europe." The
Hungary, average male life expectancy
socialism. Popular ignorance of and in-
Poland and Hungary, not just the Soviet-
right does not say that: and by DOW it is
has reportedly declined from sixty-seven
difference to the ideology had already at-
type system but some basic core values of
certainly possible to talk of a "right" op-
to sixty-throe over the last eight years. The
Impressive dimensions. Generally,
socialism, such as equality or social
position. Indeed, for good or III, the
statistics for suicide, alcobolism, and drug
one would rather people learned things
ownership, are Increasingly questioned. It
fashion in oppositional thinking, whether
abuse also show change for the worse."
than not; yet there is something glorious
is still unlikely that In a free and secret
in Poland, Hungary, or Crechoslovakia,
Or
in the capacity of millions of burnan be-
ballot you would find a majority for
is BOW for liber :, libertarian, conserva-
course the picture is not uniformly
ings to spend billions of hours being Incul-
returning heavy industry to private owner-
tive, or revived prewar nationalist/
grim. Of course many young people in
cated with Marxism-Leninism, and to
ship. (Apart from any theoretical prefer-
national-democratie/populst argument
Eastern Europe have a rose-tinted picture
emerge knowing nothing. but absolutely
ences, this would Involve many people
and/or rhetoric.
of the West. But that Itself is a reality
nothing, about It. In 1985 Radio Buds-
voting themselves or their relatives out of
that their governments have to confront.
pest sent two of its reporters to Marx
# job. There is still widespread passive at-
hirdly, there is the change In official
Square to ask passers-by who Karl Marx
tachment to the old habits of "they pre-
ideology. It has been customary to ob-
"One should also mention the Impact of
was. The transcript notes:
tend to pay us, and we pretend to work.")
serve that although the leaders of socialist
radio and television-not only the West
But It may soon be right to talk, In this
states might not privately believe's word
German television received in most of
Another voice: He was a Soviet
more fundamental sense, of 8 popular re-
of their own official doctrine, they can-
East Germany, but also the Austrian
philosopher; Engels was his friend.
television received in parts of Hungary
jection of socialism tout court."
not publicly abandon it, since this is the
Well, what else can I say? He died at
and Czechoslovakia.
only fundamental legitimation they pos-
an old age.
"Byron once said that while the English
sess for their continued monopoly of
"The context of the Hungarian official
A female voice: or course, a
do not have the word "longweur," they
estimate for unemployment will be ex.
have the thing in great profusion. One
power. Historical necessity must stand in
politician. And he was, you know,
plained in the second part of this essay.
he was what's his name's-Lenin's,
might say the same about Solidarity and
The Pope and Father Józef Tischner have
Lenin, Lenin's works-well, he trans-
socialism. The word did not appear in the
"Poles "88," 30 to 40 percent of respond-
both written eloquently about the prob-
lated them Into Hungarian.
Solidarity program of autumn 1981; but
ents were in favor of permitting private
Iem of "senseless work." The reference to
The reporters then went to Engels
the thing was there In some profusion.
ownership without any limitation in the
Solidarity as a product of blocked social
Clearly, in all of East Central Europe
retail trade, restaurants, services, agrarian
mobility comes from an unpublished
Square.
there is still a strong current of egalitari-
wholesale, and housing construction. A
paner by Aleksander Smolar: the statistic
Q: Who was Engels?
anism and a deeply ingrained habit of
majority was still against the reprivatiza.
for Hungarian life expectancy I owe to
A: He was an Englishman, and he
looking to the state as provider. But the
tion of hospitals, social security, banks,
George Schöpflin. For some telling detail
screwed around with communism."
trend is away from this. For evidence see,
and heavy industry. But would an opin.
on suicide, sickness, pollution, poverty,
for example, the article by Lena Kolarska.
ion survey even in Mrs. Thatcher's Brit-
"Teresa Toranska, Onl (London, 1987).
and inequality in Poland see George
Bobinska in the special Central and East
ain show a majority for the reprivatize.
Kolankiewicz and Paul G. Lewis, Poland:
P. 24.
European issue of Social Research, Vol.
tion of hospitals, social security. or
Politics, Economics and Society (Frances
"Quoted from Radio Free Europe Re.
55, No. 1, Spring/Summer 1988. Accord.
even of heavy industry? (see Wisdvels
Pinter 10881 10.17
for charlema, divine right, or the bellot
are you going to do about it? Come and
box. Yet in Poland and Hungary the
lsted, has long ago been paid, with multi-
throughout East Central Europe by the
get us! We know we're # minority govern-
Ideological pretense has been dropped to
ple compound Interest. General Jaruzelski
example of Poland's "state of war." Yet
ment. We know we're hated. But we're
may still wheel out the old line about the
an extraordinary degree. The new Hun-
at the time of writing, In the summer of
going to pull this nation up by Its boot.
garlan leader, Károly Order, has said that
Soviet Union protecting the Polish fron-
1988, even these fears have diminished.
straps whether It likes It or not. History
tiers against German revenchism, but
it la only because of "bed luck" (pech)
For reasons outlined above, It is rational
will prove us right." That, in effect, was
most young Poles have an Increasingly
that Hungary has ended up with a one-
to assume that the danger of Soviet Inva-
the message of the likes of Rakowski, the
positive view of the Federal Republic and
party system." I cited at the beginning
sion has at least temporarily receded. But
government spokesman Jerzy Urban, and
certainly do not believe for an Instant
It is also broadly true to say that the level
of this essay the remark of the most
the Polityke columnist Daniel Passent.
that the Red A: is there to protect
of Internal repression has decreased. even
outspoken reformist in his Politburo,
At for economics: in both countries the
then against the West Germans."
in Czechoslovakia and the GDR.
Imre Pozegay, that he had no argument
superiority of capitalism is more or less
The fear of Soviet Invasion and Inter-
Very nasty things still happen. In May
in principle for # one-party system. He
openly acknowledged.
nal repression remains. It was reinforced
"anti-terrorist". forces broke up a peace-
went on to say that he had only a prac-
Threadbare as the ideological legitime-
ful strike at the Nowa Huta steelworks in
tical argument: the need for political
tion had already become, its nearly total
"According to the series of sociological
Kraków with gratuitous violence. Also
stability.
abandonment in favor of arguments of
surveys entitled "Poles, "80, 81, "84,"
with gratuitous brutality, Hungarian riot
In Poland, the Jaruzelski regime has
relson d'War, expediency, or efficiency Is
and, most recently "'88," the percentage
police dispersed a small, peaceful demon-
not entirely abandoned Ideological self-
a significant development. In the short
of respondents who saw & threat to the
stration In Budapest on the thirtieth anni-
justification, and the most vaunted "re-
term this redounds to the popular credit
Independence of the Polish state from the
versary of the judicial execution of the
formist" in the Politburo, Mieczyslaw F.
of the leadership: "at least they are call-
Federal Republic fell from a mere 10.7
leader of the 1956 revolutionary govern-
Rakowski, believes la the leading role of
Ing a spade a spade." But In the longer
percent in 1980 (when the figure for the
the Communist party more fervently than
Soviet Union was 49.6 percent!) to 4.7
ment, Imre Nagy. The prime mover of
term, one wonders. If Václav Havel is
many a "hard-liner." Yet the defense of
correct when he writes that the quotidian
percent in 1984 (USSR: 23 percent), al-
the petition for religious freedom in
though . further 4 percent in 1980, and
Czechoslovakia, a splendid Moravian
martial law-still an obsession with this
canvas of ideologically determined lies
2.9 percent in 1984, saw a threat from
yeoman called Augustin Navrátil, has
group-was conducted In almost entirely
plays an Important role in preserving
"Germans"-without specifying which
been committed to a psychiatric hospital.
nonideological terms. The government
the system, then the very public rend-
Germans! (See Jan Powiorski, "Polacy
Germans are still imprisoned or shot just
adopted what might be called a neobru-
Ing of this canvas cannot be without
'84..." la Krytyke Warsaw, No. 27,
for trying to walk from Germany to Ger.
tallst tone: "If we had not done it, the
consequences.
1988, P. 63.) I do not yet have the figures
many." But In general the risks of speak-
Russians would have. In any case, we
from "Poles "88." Matthias Rust is proba-
Ing your mind have become more calcula-
have the guns and you do not: so what
The hope of emancipatory moderniza-
bly the first German since World War II
ble, and less extreme, although they still
tion has faded. Ideology is not only dead
to be a popular hero in Poland. One of
"Cited from Charles Gati, "Reforming
the surrealist "Orange Alternative" groups
differ greatly from country to country.
but officially burled. This leaves the
in Pozzan calls Itself the "Matthias Rust
Adam Michnik says that this is not "10-
Communist Systems: Lessons from the
reason of force-and only in its coercive
Commando": "On March 8 this particu-
claimsm with . human face" but "totalitar-
Hungarian Experience," in William E.
aspect. For while Soviet leadors may still
lar Matthias Rust landed outside a bar in
lanism with the teeth knocked out." The
Griffith, ed., Central and Eastern Ex-
believe that Eastern Europe owes the
Polwiejska Street, in the form of a group
metaphor is only half apt. Yes, this is
rope end the West (Westview Press,
Soviet Union a "blood debt" for libera-
of worken displaying banners proclaim-
a further symptom of the decay of a
forthcoming).
tion from Nazi occupation, I doubt If
Ing We, Polish women, support the
"This is vividly apparent from a remark-
there is now a single human being any-
government,' "Life is getting better all the
"However, It does appear that at the mo-
able leaked document by Rakowski, co-
where in Eastern Europe who does not
time," and the like. The group quickly
ment, thanks to consistent West German
titled "Reflections on some aspects of the
feel that this "debt," insofar as it ever ex-
swelled to some one hundred people and
pressure, the East German border troops
political and economic situation In the
proceeded down the road shouting, Thank
do not, as a rule, "shoot to kill." For
Pollsh People's Republic in the second
"For Soviet claims of the "blood debt" at
you for the price rises' and "Long live the
Augustin Navrátil see the article by Ed.
half of the nineteen-cightics." The sixty-
the time of the Invasion of Caschorlove-
government" (Obserwator Wielkopolski,
ward Marston in The Spectator (April 16,
page typescript : signed and dated "War-
kis see Karen Dawisha, The Kremlin and
No. 119, March 1988. Quoted in Uncen-
1988). His confinement to a mental hos-
saw, 8.6-10.10. 1987." Rakowski has
the Progue Spring (University of Califor-
sored Poland News Bulletin, No. 12,
pital was reported in the Frankfurier
privately confirmed that It is genuine.
nia Press, 1984).
1988).
Allgemeine Zeitung of July 2, 1988.
Shifting Ground
Exile Literature from the
Spanish Civil War
Remance and
the Erotics of
Michael Ugorte
Property
Attending to both cononical
Facing Texts
Mass-Market Fiction
and neglected works by
Encounters Between
for Women
émigrés from the Spanish
Contemporary Writers
Civil Wor-with particular
Jon Cohn
and Critics
emphasis on Aub, Cemuda,
"Argues compellingly that the
and Goytisolo-Ugarte
Helde Ziegler, editor
romance's story of attraction
the work of the seventeenth-
reveals the particular impor-
This selection of Retion by
and love masks 0 more impor-
Frederic Manning
century poel Thomas Tro-
lance of this literature for our
mony of America's best
tant, more disturbing tale
An Unfinished Life
home, and second, that
century and for the study of
writers, coupled with a
about how women achieve
Jonathan L. Marwil
applying their thought to
literature Itself, 256 pages.
distinguished critic's response,
power and economic success
Traherne makes the three con-
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creates o rore critical simulta-
within patriarchy."-Janice
Monning-classicist, poet, and
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neity. Contributions by Stonley
Radway. 181 pages. $27.95.
philosopher-stunned the
in startling new ways. 312
Elkin, Donald Borthelms,
English literary world in 1930
pages, $42.50.
Chinese Narrative
Robert Coover, Guy Doven-
with his grittily realistic (and
Poetry
port, Susan Sontag, Walter
A World of Words
widely proised) World Wor I
The Late Han through T'ang
Abish, William H. Gass, John
novel Her Privates We.
Language and
Fascination
Dynosties
Howkes, Joseph McElroy, and
Morwil's detective work into
Displacement in the Fiction
John Borth appear with the
the reclusive author's life and
Foulkner's Fiction, 1919.1936
Dore J. Levy
of Edgar Allan Poe
response of the critic, who
letters a fascinating and
Michel Grosset
An accomplished examina-
was chosen by the writer. 302
Michoel's. S. Williams
revealing. 380 po.rus.
Adopted from the French by
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which language Itself is o
In covering Foulkner's appren-
sheds light on the ways in
topic of Poe's texts. "Will be 0
Traherne
Hoship as o writer os he
which Chinese poets adapted
provocative chopter in the be
moved from a personal self to
the devices of lyric to the
ginning-ogoin of Poe's conont-
in Dialogue
o norrative consciousness,
needs of 0 completely
zotion." "-Joseph N. Riddel.
Heidegger, Locon, and Derrido
Gressel draws on resources
different expressive mode.
182 pages. $29.50.
A. Leigh DeNeef
that range from monuscript
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moterial to the work of Freud,
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Locan, and Sortre. 215
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Duke University Press
and Derrida provides on
6697 College Station Durham, North Carolina 27708
Important new perspective on
September 29, 1988
once-totalitarian system. But the teeth-
the recovery of force in states that still
of dialogue, and with what prospects, I
for the individual citizen to speak and act
the instruments of coercion-are still
possess formidable apparatuses of repres-
shall consider in the second part of this
for him or herself (but also more need to
there, and indeed, in the case of Poland,
sion. This might take new forms: the
essay. Yet even if there were to be a
fend for yourself), more de facto plural-
more numerous and sharper than ten years
murder of Father Popleluszko in Poland
rewrsion in Poland to the systematic use
Ism, than at almost any time in the last
ago. What is different is that the present
four years ago was more reminiscent of
of force, one can already say, with con-
forty years." How, do people
heads either have less will to use them, or
El Salvador than of "classical" totalitarian
fidence, that this would not stem but
speak or act in these expanded spheres?
more desire not to use them, or indeed-
repression. It might be an autonomous
rather hasten other processes of decay.
What are the contours of emancipation?
for reality is complex and messy bit
response to domestic unrest, or unwilling
At the time of writing, the net result of
What are the prospects for reform-or
of both.
compliance with a conservative backlash
all these different sorts of decay-impe-
revolution?
Yet this is surely the least irreversible
in Moscow. As this goes to press it ap-
rial, regional and national, economic and
-August 31, 1988
of the trends of decay. One can hardly
pears that the Polish authorities, having
social, ideological and political-is that,
This is the first of two articles.
imagine a successful revival of ideology.
contained the latest wave of strikes by a
in Hungary and Poland at least, there are
A recovery of state-directed emancipatory
mixture of cajolery, threats, and direct
more and larger spheres in which the
"Excepting, of course, a few weeks in
modernization seems scarcely more prob-
police intervention, now hope to end
state does not in practice intervene, or In-
1956, and for Poland, sixteen months in
able. But one can all too easily imagine
them by reopering a dialogue. What kind
tervenes ineffectually, more opportunities
1980-1981.
Call of the Wild
Stein, who lives about a hundred miles
Weeds are the proletarist of the vege-
down the road from me in country very
My Weeds: A Gardener's Botany
no more permanent than the garden it-
like this, has explored It like an archaeol-
table world. Teeming in their ghettos,
self. A garden is an interregnum, an ar-
ogist, noting the stages of growth as
thriving on neglect and adversity, they
by Sara B. Stein,
are a continuous threat to the cultivated
illustrations by Ippy Patterson.
tificially in uced pause in the inexorable
though they were the strata of a lost city.
Harper and Row, 229 pp. $19.95
march of occupying armies. But so, too,
Here she is on a bank of the Mianus
plants that like a spoiled and passive
is the landscape beyond it unless by some
River:
aristocracy wait for their needs to be met.
Deasor Percayl
remarkable chance it happens to be a
Because the traits we desire are precisely
There is a sense in which the average
forest primeval or a virgin prairie. These
The stages of succession are palpable
those that nature discriminates against,
gardener is like the motorist who tools
are stable plant communities that have
in a place like that, where the forest-
cultivars depend on us for their very a.
along year after year in blissful ignorance
reached what is termed the "climax,"
to-be is barely shoulder high, and the
istence. Wild yams, for instance, are
of what goes on under the hood of his
meaning that they will undergo no fur-
meadow-that-was is dying. The dom--
poisonous, wild beans purgative, wild
car. If the mechanism works, well and
ther transformation without outside In-
inant trees will never amount to
carrots bitter and tough. Thousands of
good. If it doesn't, consult an expert.
terference, and no weeds grow in them.
much. They are fast-growing but
years of cultivation have bred out these
Don't try to understand it. That, at any
Weeds appear in the wake of disasters,
shori-lived, and lack the stature of
protective characteristics in favor of
rate, has been my way. Incurious, for the
sweetness, tenderness-edibility, in short,
most part, about the private lives of
which Insects, too, prefer. Natural selec-
plants except as they impinge on my
tion, moreover, culls the weaklings from
plans for them, I haven't often asked
the wild population, leaving the survivors
myself why milkweed attracts butterflies
more resistant to plagues. What gardener
or whether garlic is immortal; and still
hasn't noticed the spectacular health of
less have I been concerned with the larger
weeds as opposed to his rusted beans and
matter of the environment that surrounds
mildewed phiox?
me. All I know is that my soil is on the
All this is bad enough. Most serious of
acid side, and full of rocks. I have, to be
all is the loss among many cultivated
sure, had my occasional suspicions that
plants of the ability to disperse their
more is happening out there than meets
seeds, delay their germination, or in some
the eye-going so far as to speculate that
cases to make seed at all. The domestic
A vine reaching out horizontally toward a
pea is a prisoner in its pod, which no
holdfast might have eyes or even a brain,
longer splits to release it. The cultivated
and that those who claim to have wit-
transto, unlike its little wild cousin, is too
nessed the power of prayer on beans may
big to be swallowed by birds, who spread
have something. But these wanderings
reed far and wide. Wild grains have
have more to do with superstitious magic
licads that shatter easily, releasing seed
than with an interest in science, which I
that is barbed to catch at passing ani-
am not, as they say, good at.
mals. Domesticated cereals have sharter-
For all these reasons, a book appar-
proof heads and the seed, ripening all at
ently devoted to weeds didn't promise to
the same time, stays on the stalk. In each
exert a spell. In my view, weeds have
case, a plant has been deprived of its
been something to get rid of, not study.
capacity to multiply and must depend
Weeds, the catchall term that Stein has
fire and flood that sweep clean, or that
trunk or wealth of crown valued in
on us for its properation and ultimate
chosen to describe all plants not currently
most persistent of all disturbances to the
specimen and shade trees. Such
survival.
under cultivation, are fascinating-1
natural order: agriculture. It is the plow
species as poplar, sassafras, and wild
Some cultivated plants do, in fact, seed
more various and full of quirks and
(and by extension the gardener's hoe) that
cherry are considered weed trees,
themselves, but only in their own im-
disguises than their domesticated coun-
by clearing the land restarts the process
and I would cut down every one of
mediate vicinity. Few are Independent
terparts. Or at least they 5.come so under
of colonization. Weeds are therefore and
them as so much woody ragweed
travelers. Weeds, on the other hand, are
the scrutiny of an insatiably curious
very largely our creatures, our very own
were it not for the part they play in
invincible wanderers. They may be
mind.
monster children.
plant succession. In every stage,
powered by their own fiendish devices:
from bare earth to beach grove,
burrs that float or grab; winged seed that
Here I should say that this isn't a how-
W cre I as well-informed as Steln, I
weeds both cull the old and nurse the
flies before the wind. Tumbleweeds roll
to book. Though It describes some of the
would have realized that I have a perfect
new.
themselves into a ball and cover vast
innumerable uses to which so-called
example of how it all works right here in
distances like ministure tornadoes. But
weeds have been put over the centuries, it
the scraggy, ill-conditioned woods of
Grasses are the earliest arrivals on
most weed seed is moved, unwittingly, by
isn't a guide to concecting dyes or wild
shoreline Connecticut. I knew that most
cleared land, as everyone knows who has
men and animals. In cattle guts and pack-
salads. No. does it disclose any secret for
of this land had been farms and orchards
let a vegetable garden lie fallow for a
ing materials, attached to boofs and
eliminating -veeds from the garden. Sara
only a few generations ago (broken stone
season; and they in turn are invaded by
wheels, weeds have crossed oceans and
Stein hoes and hacks and curses like the
walls, strangling in wild grape and poison
goldenrod, milkweed, daisies-plants
continents. A few have even spread by in-
rest of us, with no more and DO less suc-
ivy, are everywhere in the undergrowth),
whose roots are strong enough to pene-
vitation. Rose multiflors, a pervasive
- The difference la that she asks ques-
but failed to make the connection. The
trate turf and make a meadow. But not
nuisance, was imported to control ero-
as she goes along, and having asked
Inferiority of our woods must, I thought,
for long. All these are sun-kovers, and
sion and fence highways. But one way or
inm goes to books and neighbors and
be due to some deficiency In the environ-
soon they will be shaded out by the ad-
another weeds move. They move and
old records to find the answers. She
ment, or simply human failure to clear
vancing thickets and weed trees whose
they flourish, often by means that are
wants to know her enemies: where they
the brush, : was regularly done by the
seeds do not need sun to germinate. But
close to unbelievable.
came from, how long they plan to stay,
peasantry where I used to live in Eastern
these, too, are doomed. Mining the soll
One of these is mimicry, whereby a
and what their personal habits are.
Europe. It isn't so. Our woods are weed
with their roots, depositing their annual
weed changes its shape and size as dr.
Though we all know how quickly an
woods, in a transitory stage, and if left
mulch of leaves, they unwittingly prepare
cumstance requires. In alternate stands of
untended garden will return to what is
alone will, in another hundred years, give
the conditions in which the forest giants
winter and spring barley, a weed form of
called a state of nature, few of us, I
way to a noble forest like the one the
take their stand at last-terminating
the genus Arena is # rosette among the
think. realize that the state of nature is
early activers cut down.
the eycle.
roanties of winter harley. STOWE tall
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October 27, 1988
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JOAN DIDION: THE CAMPAIGN
SUSAN SONTAG: AIDS
Frederick Crews
Robert Darnton
Ronald Dworkin
James Fallows
Timothy Garton Ash
Charles Rosen
Murray Kempton
Stephen Jay Gould
George F. Kennan
James Merrill
John Osborne
Wilfrid Sheed
H.R. Trevor-Roper
Gore Vidal
Reform or Revolution?
Timothy Garton Ash
1.
to the development of the mass media,
W hat the reformers want to reform is
making losses and devouring subsidies as
the societies of our countries can 'peer
The word "reform" has been devalued by
Into' the everyday life of the masses
thus, in the first place, the economy.
huge as their façades. They should have
been closed long ago: they must be closed
overuse, both In the writing of Western
under capitalism." The conclusion is
Now there is, of course, a more than
now, Subsidizing the production of basic
journalists and scholars and in the rheto-
drawn a few pages later. If the socialist
thirty-year history of attempts at eco-
commodities is a great burden on the
ric of Communist leaders. In Lenin's day.
"formation" does not find the strength to
nomic reform In Eastern Europe. But as
state budget. Many official prices are
"reformism" was the ultimate transgres.
reform Itself, Rakowski writes, "the fur-
Wlodzimierz Brus, the doyen of this sub-
wholly unrealistic, in relation to
sion for Communists: now It is their sav-
ther history of our formation will be
Ject, wrote recently, "with . single excep-
domestic, let alone Western, markets.
ing grace. In Western usage, the term has
marked by shocks and revolutionary ex-
tion" these attempts "have failed even in
The subsidies mus: therefore come down
been pressed Into service to describe
plosions, Initiated by an increasingly
the sense of Institutionalising 8 new
and the prices-up. People will only
everything from a mere adjustment of
enlightened people."
system, let alone in exercising a real Im-
work better If they can carn more money
economic policy to a fundamental trans-
Well, exactly. Allowing for some slight
pact on performance." The single excep-
by doing so. Some people must therefore
formation of the system, political as well
differences of terminology, this could
tion is Hungary, yet virtually all
earn more than others.
as economic.
almost be an academic analysis for the
Hungarian et onomists now agree that
What does this perspective of reform
What are the reformers in Poland and
CIA, Yet this is . text by a man who is
twenty years O1 the New Economic Mech-
Imply for a socialist state? Socialism's
Hungary today trying to reform, and why
not only a Politburo member, but who,
anism have not effected & real transfor-
proudest boast has been full employ-
are they trying to reform it? A rather
according to Informed rumor, became a
mation from the command economy to
ment. Reform requires unemployment.
clear answer is given In a remarkable
Politburo member on the strength of this
market socialism. Interference by the
Socialism promised equality. Reform
private memorandum leaked earlier this
text. Private statements by Hungarian
central political bureaucracy has re-
means more Inequality: a second pyramid
year. It is the work of Mieczyslaw F.
Politburo members reflect an equally
mained all-pervasive, with loss-making
of Inequality, superimposed on the exist-
Ing pyramid which has the nomenklatura
sprawled across its peak.' Socialism said
"from each according to his ability, to
Photos Photograph
each according to his need." It is precisely
the unskilled workers, the old, the weak,
and the needy who will do worst out of a
radical market reform. What is more, ac.
cording to the sociologists In Poland at
least, those who are likely to do badly out
of the reform are precisely those who are
at present more Inclined to give the
government their confidence, wherea-
those who support the Idea of reform are
least likely to support the government.
And anyway. why should anyone believe
that this agonizing wrench will actually
produce the goods? How many times
already has the regime promised jam
tomorrow! Where are the guarantees?
See
both the social cost of economic
reform and the political credibility gap.
the reformers in both Hungary and
Poland are now saying that political
reform is the indispensable concomitant
of economic reform. Indeed, the new
leadership in Hungary declares that
political reform is the most Important
side of the equation. This is in diametric
contrast to reforms carried out under
Rakówski, who has just become Poland's
striking realism in the diagnosis of the
state enterprises consistently bailed out
János Kádár, whose attraction to neigh-
new prime minister.' Poland, he says,
disease-although neither they nor Rs-
by huge arbitrary tax breaks or subsidies,
boring rulers was precisely that they
has been living through an economic,
kowski are half so realistic In prescribing
and with a vast gray area of managerial-
seemed to demonstrate the possibility of
social, and political "crisis" (another
the cure. In other words, some men in
bureaucratic "bargaining" Instead of the
successful economic reform without po-
devalued word!) since 1980, and arguably
power see the reality of decay, and the
free play of market forces."
litical reform. What is more, the political
since 1976. The Polish crisis is sul
prospect of growing relative backward.
The task of economic reform becomes
reforms are at least partly conceived of as
generis, but "we should not forget that
ness, which I sketched in the first of these
more difficult with every passing year.
what the Polish Politburo member
basically symptoms of crisis are becom-
articles.¹ They also see that if they do
The gap with the West grows wider. The
Marian Orzechowski recently called "con-
ing apparent in all socialist countries."
not do something drastic to modernize
list of the deferred tasks of moderniza-
scious self-limitation of the Party's
"Not only Poland," he writes,
their economies, their own people will
tion grows ever longer-not only closing
power." The more usual euphemistic
unkindly invite them to leave the stage. A
outdated plants and opening modern
terminology is "redefining the leading
but most socialist countries are
younger generation, better educated, bet-
ones, but also all that neglected Invest-
role of the Party." The "strategy of
threatened with relegation to the
ter informed, relatively unafraid, looking
ment in infrastructure, not to mention
retreat" is the oldest trick In the book of
position of countries incapable of
to Gorbachev in the East and the Euro-
such luxuries as elementary environ-
Communist attempts at economic
keeping up with the revolution of
pean Community in the West, will just
mental protection. The Inevitable social
reform. It dates back to Lenin's New
technological development In
not be kidded by fatuous ideology, paper
cost of reform therefore continues to
Economic Policy (NEP). But as a con-
capitalism.
patriotism, or more promises of jam
grow, while the regimes' popular credit
sclous political strategy, an NPP so to
And again,
tomorrow.
continues to dwindle. They recognize that
-speak, it is more novel. Gorbachev's ex-
8 "radical" economic reform is necessary.
ample has, of course, greatly facilitated
If one could transport a capitalist
Those great model enterprises of the
this part of the discussion.
society Into our everyday reality. it
'See "The Empire in Decay" (The New
heroic phase of Stalinist moderniza-
What would be "success" for these
would very soon rise up in a revolu-
York Review, September 29), where I
also developed the metaphor of "Otto-
tion-the Lenin shipyards, the Lenin
reforms? A minimal definition of success
tionary struggle.
steelworks, the Lenin mines-have been
is easily given: to have averted revolu-
manization" for the long, slow decline of
tion. A maximal definition is more dif-
But not only a capitalist society. For "due
the Soviet empire, and the unplanned.
plecemeal, and discontinuous emancipa-
'Quoted from W. Brus, "The Experience
ficult. For Communist reformers like
'The lasked document is entitled (In
tion, both of the constituent states from
of Economic Reforms: 1956-1987,"
Rakowski or Orósz It Is a fair assumption
Polish) "Reflections on some aspects of
the imperial center, and of societies from
typescript, P. 3. See also his contribution
that maximal success means fulfilling the
to Volume 2 of the Economic History of
the political and economic situation In
states.
Besides those already thanked in a
Eastern Europe, edited by M.C. Kaser
'For the Image of the Intersecting
the Polish People's Republic In the sec-
footnote to that article, I would further
(Oxford University Press, 1987).
pyramids see George Kolankiewicz and
and half of the 1980s" (hereafter
Rakowski, "Reflections "). The sixty.
express my gratitude to Ivo Banac, Ar-
'See János Kornal, The Hungarian
Paul Lewis, Poland: Politics, Economics
page typescript is signed and dated "War-
chie Brown, Wiodzimierz Brus, Elemer
Reform Process: Visions, Hopes, and
and Society (Frances Pinter, 1988). figure
raw. 8.6-10.10 1987." Rakowski has
Hankies, Tony Judt, Lestek Kolakowski,
Reality," In the Journal of Economic
2.1, p. 64, drawing on the work of Ivan
privately confirmed that is is genuine. All
and Jacques Rupnik for their comments
Literature, Vol. XXIV (December 1986),
Szelényi.
translations are my own.
on earlier drafts of this essay.
pp. 1687-1737.
'See Trybune Ludu (September 6. 1988).
47
AD FEMINAM:
forty-year-old promise of modernization,
from states relates to the emancipation
making their states respected, competitive
of states from the imperial center. West-
Women & Literature
members of a larger European commun-
ern analysts have paid considerable atten-
ity (small c), while at the same time no
tion to the cautious manifestation of
A series of feminist criticlsm edited by Sandra M. Glibert
.taining the maximum possible amount of
verbal autonomy in foreign policy by
MARGARET ATWOOD
power in their own hands. They want, in
Hungary, the ODR, and, to some ex-
other words, to have their cake and eat it.
Vision and Forms
tent, Bulgaria, in the years 1983-1985.
The Party's retreat, If retreat there must
This might fairly be described as - post-
Edited by KATHRYN VAN SPANCKEREN and JAN GARDEN CASTRO. With an
be, is tactical or at best strategic. There is
tive assertion of these states' "limited
Autobiographical Foreword by MARGARET ATWOOD This new volume IS a lively
a strong element of reculer pour mleux
sovereignty." Under Gorbachev, such
and enlightening critical anthology on the work of Margaret Atwood. The essays
sauter. Lower down the Party apparatus,
daring has not been necessary in for-
cover every aspect of Atwood's literary achievement. and the volume reproduces in
the selfish motive of preserving your own
eign policy. At the same time, the ex-
color eight of her vivid watercolors. Illustrated
$24.95
power and privileges may easily outweigh
ternal limits on sovereignty for East
Previously published In the seriest
any larger concern about the future of
European states have widened, at least
THE LITERARY EXISTENCE
the country. (This Is not to Imply that
in practice and for the time being. This
those at the top are any less selfish; just
should facilitate the task of recover-
OF GERMAINE de STAEL
that they are less Immediately threat-
ing a larger measure of "internal sover-
By CHARLOTTE HOGSETT Foreword by
ened.) All this is human, all too human.
eignty," but there is absolutely no guar-
MADELYN GUTWIRTH. This literary biogra-
There are very few universally valid laws
antee that individual states, or states
phy follows the author from her chichood to
of history, but one of them is: men cling
and societies together, will be able to
her death (1766-1817) and treats both the
to power.
take the opportunity. The widening of
expository and fictional works in the Stael
Yet many of those outside the Party
the external bounds is a necessary but
canon $2250
who support the reforms, and whose AC-
by no means a sufficient condition.
tive participation is essential to their
The causel connections in the other
LUNACY OF LIGHT
success-economists, journalists, aca-
direction are even less clear. One might
Emity Dickinson and the
demics, lawyers, some managers, entre-
argue, theoretically, that a state which
Experience of Metaphor
preneurs, private or cooperative farmers,
can stand on Its own two feet, by its own
By WENDY BARKER. Barker argues that
skilled workers-have & different max-
achievements, will have less need of the
Dickinson and other women writers of her
Imal definition of success. This is that
threat of force and the Imperial center.
period transforme the established meaning
reform should become transformation.
The more a state can depend on its own
of the light-dark equation to create a metaphor
The Party's retreat should be permanent.
people the less it need depend on Moscow.
singularly their own. $19.95
The courts really should be courts.
But does it follow that the imperial center
Parllament really should be parliament.
will have less need of, or hold over it?
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Unions really should be unions. Reform
The peaceful transformation, so fervently
The Poetry of Endurance
begun at the behest of Party leaders (out
desired by most supporters of reform
By DOLORES ROSENBLUM. This work ex-
of insight Into necessity) would march in-
outside the Inner power elites, might in-
plores how Rossetti endured the constrains of
eluctably heyond those leaders' maximal
deed reasonably be expected to Increase
the Victorian female artist and shows that her
goals. The forces of change from above,
the external autonomy and the "strength"
poetry was actually a subde parody ano sub-
change from below, and what I have
of the state, as the Pope suggests. But
version of the male tradition of literature.
called "change from the side" would
that is very far from being the primary
$23.95
-
somehow combine in the process of
goal of the political leaders who are
Add $150 when ordering by mail
transformation: in part willingly, in part
currently initiating "reform." Yet before
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS
unwillingly, but nonetheless combine.
dwelling any more on these putative
Dept. WR78. P.O. Box 3697. Carbondale. IL 62902-3697
The energies of social emancipation
"problems of success," one is bound
would somehow be harnessed to halt, or
to ask what chance, in practice, the
even reverse, the swful progress of
Polish or Hungarian reform experiments
economic and social decay.' Reform
have of achieving even minimal success,
would indeed avert violent revolution.
let alone maximal success or peaceful
NEW THIS FALL
But it would effect a peaceful revolution
transformation.
instead.
Wendy Doniger
The state would re-acquire what one
2.
might call "internal sovereignty," in
the sense well described by an outstand-
Clearly the preconditions are worse
O'Flaherty
ing Polish political scientist, currently
in Poland, given the depth of the eco-
living in Rome. "The state is firmly
nomic crisis, the Inconsistency of the
OTHER
sovereign when it governs society and
economic reform program and its im-
also serves society, and allows the na-
plementation, the mixture of popular
tion to realize its own subjectivity,"
apathy and desperation, and, above all,
writes this author. "Queen of Poland!"
the continued gulf between the authori-
PEOPLES'
he continues, "Queen of Poland, I also
ties and the most active and organized
wish to entrust you with the difficult
parts of society. National product per
task of those who wield authority on
capita is still 13 percent lower than in
MYTHS
Polish soil. The state gains its strength
1978, and real wages are one fifth lower
first of all from the support of society."
than in 1980. Inflation has been esti-
This may not be the language we usually
mated at 20 percent for August alone,
expect from political science, but the
and will probably exceed 100 percent
The Cave of Echoes
words of Pope John Paul II, addressed
for the year. Increasingly, the dollar
as it were directly to the icon of the
has supplanted the zloty as the Polish
In this enlightening and entertaining book, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty
Black Madonna in the monastery of
currency. Consumer supplies have got
celebrates the universal art of storytelling-and the rich diversity of
Jasna Góra, nonetheless express an
worse rather than better. And these are
stories that people live by. Drawing on biblical parables, Greek myths,
analytical truth."
seen by the population to be the fruits
Hindu epics and the modern mythologies of soap operas and Woody
of the much vaunted "second stage of
Allen, she helps us understand in new ways the force of myth in our
Now It is obviously germane to ask
the economic reform," Isunched last
lives and in the lives of other cultures.
how the recovery of "internal sover-
autumn.
"This is more than a wonderful collection of stories about stories Wendy
eignty" might relate to the expansion
This Is, of course, less than wholly
Doniger O'Flaherty is a mythologist in the grand tradition of Mircea
of "external sovereignty," or, to revert
fair. Fault can certainly be found with
Eliade and Claude Levi-Strauss...A superb achievement."
to the central metaphor of Ottomaniza-
the technical conception of the reform.
-Mary Douglas
tion, how the emancipation of societies
Its chief architect, Zdzislaw Sadowski,
"[Wendy Doniger Flaherty returns again and again to the usefulness of
"I discussed some forms of social eman-
is both an able and a reputable reform
encountering other cultures through their stories, including their ability
economist. In the tradition of Oskar
to shed light on our own through the myths of others, Western-
cipation in "The Opposition" (The New
ers might bypass the bloodless cynicism of so much contemporary
York Review, October 13), the second
Lange and Wlodzimierz Brut, he has
thought and 'skim close to the ground of the human heart.'
part of this three-part essay. By "change
produced a design for # "socialist mar-
-Kirkus Reviews
from the side" I mean the strategy of
ket economy." Radical as this is by
building an extensive autonomous social
the standards of most previous reform
sphere based on private enterprise, while
plans, one might well argue, on the basis
$19.95 at all bonkstores, or call (800) 323-7445 to place your credit card order
ignoring rather than directly challenging
of Hungarian experience over the last
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
the socialist state.
twenty years, that even in conception
A Division of Macmillan, Inc. 866 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022
'This was on his 1983 visit. For the
it is not radical enough. Sadowski talks
quotation see Wiez, Nos. 8-10 (August-
in general terms about "equal treat-
October, 1983). p. 52.
ment of the public and private sectors
48
The New York Review
and
market resource allocation," but
The Internal obstacles are also of two
the seli-organized and self-limiting "soci.
"Lively and attractive
the detail of the plan, let alone the bureau-
general kinds. First, there is the passive
ety" and the self-limiting Communist
embracing a wide range of
cratic practice, does not begin to amount
or active resistance of large parts of the
power. "Society" might be represented in
interests."
"Christopher
to equal treatment for the private sector.
ruling class: the Party apparatus, the in-
different ways, but somehow, In some
The neo-liberals would say that just
dustry ministries, the political bureau-
form, Solidarity must be Included in the
Norris, The Times Literary
because there is a strong. authentic Polish
cracy It provincial and local levels, many
compromise. For nearly seven years now,
Supplement
tradition of designs for "market social-
managers. Secondly, there is the passive
the Communist authorities have done
ism," the importance of purely private
or active resistance of large parts of the
almost everything except talk to Solidar-
enterprise-of capitalism blue in tooth
working class. The attempt to restore a
ity. Any number of consultative bodies,
and claw-is consistently underrated, not
degree of domestic market equilibrium by
extraordinary concessions to the Church,
just by Sadowski and his team, but also
sharply increasing the prices of consumer
remarkably liberal censorship, almost
by some economic advisers to Solidarity
goods while holding down wages can be
free travel to the West, private enterprise,
who come from the same tradition:
criticized on purely technical grounds.
wage rises-anything, everything. except
Of more immediate importance than
But the plain fact is that this strategy has
Solidarity. And after nearly seven years
these faults in design, however, is the
also been vitiated by the active resistance
the workers in the country's great in-
failure to execute even the existing
of workers who, particularly in the very
dustrial strongholds stand up and say:
design. The official "Realization Pro-
large factories which were Solidarity
Solidarity! So the authorities do what
gram of the Second Stage of Economic
strongholds, have easily won large com-
they have so often said they would never
Reform" of October 1987 is a hastily
pensatory wage rises by striking, or
do: they start talking to Lech Walesa.
prepared and cumbersome document, con-
merely threatening to strike.
Waless in return manages, with difficul-
taining a theoretical timetable of 130
Besides this active resistance, moreover,
ty, to end the last strikes.
"Tasks" to be performed over the four
there is a deep and almost universal pop-
A landscape which has seemed increas-
years to December 1991, when, it says, all
ular disbelief in the possibility of Jaruzel-
ingly complex and obscure suddenly
manner of things will be well. The defini-
ski's leadership realizing any reform pro-
looks very simple and very familiar.
tion of the "troks" is often vague, but
gram. If anyone was prepared to give the
There is an Iron gate. On one side there
almost a year later one can go down the
Jaruzelski team the benefit of the doubt
are police: behind the police, the army;
edited by Jonathan Freedman,
Christopher Miller, Sheila
Murnaghan, and Sara Suleri
Editorial Board: Peter Brooks.
chairman Marie Borroff* Paul Fry
Roberto González-Echevarria
Michael Holquist Margaret
Homans Louis Martz Mary
Miller Jonathan Spence
Bryan Wolf
Photograph Phone Jase o
Published in association with
the Whitney Humanities Center,
Yale University, The Yale Journal of
Criticism provides a new forum for
acts of confrontation and discovery
in all fields of the humanities.
Contents of Volume 2. Number ,
Andrew Ross Uses of Camp
Sara Suleri Naipsul's Arrival
Joseph Halpern Judicious Discretion:
Miranda and Legal Change
Arthur Waldron The Great Wall
Myth: Its Origins and Role in
Modern China
Review Essay
Barbars Klinger In Retrospect Film
Studies Today
Positions
Anthony Applah Out of Africa:
Topologies of Nativism
Gillian Brown Nuclear Domesticity:
Sequence and Survival
Ctechoslovakia, 1966
Jack Goody, Brian Stock, Jerome
Bruner, Roger Shattuck, Carol
list and see what has not been done that
after December 13, 1981-and not many
behind the army, Jaruzeiski; behind
Fleisher Feldman, David Olson,
ought to have been done.
were-it has squandered that confidence
Jaruzelski, Moscow. On the other side
Rolens Adorno, Christopher
by the self-confessed failure of what is now
there are workers; behind the workers,
Miller Excerpts from the
This failure is the result of external and
called the "first stare of economic reform,"
Walesa: behind Walesa, the Pope. It
Symposium on "Literacy, Reading,
and Power," Whitney Humanities
internal obstacles. The external obstacles
which was supposed to be pushed through
looks simple and familiar, but it is not.
Center, November 14. 1987
are of two kinds. First, there are the
under the protective carapace of martial
Two crucial differences between the
Please enter my one-year
Western obstacles, having to do par-
law. These two internal obstacles, the pop-
situation now and that in 1980 were
subscription to The Yale Journal
ticularly with the country's desperate
ular and the political-bureaucratic, are,
neatly expressed by a worker in the Lenin
of Criticum, beginning with
hard currency shortage, the dependence
moreover, mutually reinforcing. As two
Shipyard during the strike in May of this
issue 1:1 (two issues, $15.00;
of much of Polish industry and agricul-
$16.00 for institutions)
leading Solidarity advisers soberty observe,
year. Today, he said, the external condi-
Please send me issue 2:1 of
ture on components or materials that can
political leaders who do not enjoy social
tions are better, but the internal conditions
The Yale Journal of Criticism for
only be bought for hard currency. the $39
support "become prisoners of their own
are worse. In 1980 there was a real fear of
$9.95.
billion debt and the conditions imposed
conservative apparatus, and cannot there-
Soviet invasion. With Gorbachev, that
Special offer: 25% Volume One
by Western banks, governments, and the
fore be consistent promoters of reform."
has greatly diminished. On the other
Please send me
IMF for continuing at least to "turn over"
hand, in 1980 there was still some real
Issue 1:1
this debt. According to Sadowski, the
For eight years now, Solidarity, the
trust in the capacity of those in power to
Issue 112
The Yele Journal of Criticum at the
government considers balancing the cur.
Church, and Western politicians have
keep their word, to speak "as Pole talks
special price of $7. each
rent account with the West to be one of
said that the only way to secure popular
to Pole." Where is that trust today?
fordering single issues: Please add
its "main policy objectives," and aims to
support for such painful but indispen-
The impossible keeps happening in
for shipping and handling to your total
achieve it by 1991. Most independent
sable economic reform is a dialogue
Poland. It would therefore be more than
order.
economists consider this 10 be quite
leading to A historic compromise between
foolish to make any firm prediction
My check for
is enclosed
unrealistic. Secondly, there are the
about the outcome of the promised
Or
charge
MasterCard
Visa
"Eastern" obstacles, having to do with
"This quotation comes from a
"round table" talks between the
the need to improve trade balances with
penetrating critique of the authorities'
authorities and independent represen-
Account
Exp.
the Soviet Union, the direct involvement
reform program and practice by Ryszard
tatives of "society," including Lech
Signature
of the Soviet Union in parts of Polish in-
Bugal and Andrzej Wielowieyski, whose
Walesa. Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski, the
Name
dustry, and the problem of existing com-
arguments were discussed at a meeting of
the "Group of Sixty" intellectual coun-
new prime minister, is both a realist and
Street
mitments inside Comecon.
selors of Solidarity in the crypt of a
a Party reformist, as the memorandum
City
Warsaw church during the strikes last
quoted above makes clear. He continues
State
Zip
'The quotation is from a speech deliv-
May. (The same group was summoned by
to enjoy a certain reputation as a
Yale University Press
cred by Sadowski to the Royal Institute
of International Affairs (Chatham
Walesa to Gdansk in September, along
Dept 1511. 92A Yale Station
with old and new workers' leaders, to
negotiations, in Tygodnik Powstechny of
House) in London on June 21, 1988.
New Haven, CT 00510
help prepare his negotiating strategy.)
June 19, 1988, but with no less than
"From Sadowski's speech to the Royal
The Bugsj and Wielowieyski text WR: sub-
eighteen censor's cuts. The quotation was
Institute of International Affairs.
sequently published. after complicated
among the victims.
The New York Review
"liberal" in the West. But In Poland he is
power rests 10 some extent (as the govern-
grenadiers, unless they have cast-iron
seen as the man who deceived and abused
ment spokesman Jerry Urban claims) on
guarantees of a permanent Independent
One might speculate that for Poland
Solidarity while negotiating with It as a
support from the West, and to some extent
role in the country's national political
now to break through the immense bar-
deputy prime minister in 1981, and who
on his symbolic importance to the whole
life. Even this time around, It was only
riers of alienation and decay, the au-
has passionately even obsessively,
of Polish society. But his real muscle still
with difficulty that Walesa persuaded the
thorities would have to take not one
defended the imposition of martial law.
comes, as it has all along, from the
angry young men In the Lenin Shipyard
but two radical steps: restore Solidarity
His appointment is thus turning over an
workers in a score of giant enterprises:
and the slow stubborn miners of Jastrzeble
and restore capitalism. An expanded
old rather than a new leaf. In any case,
from the miners of Silesia, the shipyard
to return to work. But the interests of the
private sector and new mixed forms of
the general prognosis can hardly be op.
workers of Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin,
workers in these industrial strongholds
ownership in the public sector might
timistic. There is deep mistrust of the
the steelworkers of Krakow and Warsaw,
are by no means Identical with those of
generate economic dynamism
authorities on the Solidarity side, and a
the engineering workers of Poznan and
the economy as a whole. During the May
harness the energies of the skilled,
perhaps even deeper fear among those in
Wroclaw. If you ask, "Why is Walesa
strike at the Lenin Shipyard, the workers
the young, and the rich, but it would
power of a restored Solidarity. More-
back at the table?" the basic answer is:
chanted, "There is no freedom without
also exacerbate social tensions, and
over, It is very difficult to Imagine what a
because those workers put him there.
Solidarity," while loudspeakers broadcast
the private sector could never be guar-
restored- new-Solidarity would look
Now the corollary of this is that Soli-
a message from the management saying
anteed a stable future without polit-
like, and how It could be married to the
darity leaders simply cannot afford to
that the yard would have to be closed
lcal representation (or at least protec-
common goal of economic reform.
risk losing the confidence of these, their
altogether. In the pure Interest of na-
tion) at the highest level. Solidarity,
If Solidarity was allowed back only on
tional economic recovery, however, the
restored as . national. political force,
the shop floor In individual factories, then
the opinion that "fundamental change for
the better can be introduced only when
Solidarity troops should probably have
might just conceivably mediate (or at
it would have to work as a trade union,
the authorities come to an understanding
chanted, "Close the yards! Open a stock
least alleviate) that social conflict.
fighting for the workers' jobs and wages.
with society." Quoted in a brief report by
exchange!" But no one can seriously ex-
and provide that guarantee, but it
As a democratic organization, and compet-
the team who conducted the survey
pect Solidarity to cut off the branch upon
could hardly leap over its own Christian-
iag with the official trade unions for mem-
(Wladyslaw Adamski, et al.) in Polityke
which it sits, unless it has another very
social trade union shadow to become
Ders, it would be almost bound to oppose
(July 23, 1988).
solid branch to go to.
the cutting edge of radical economle
factory closings and wage squeezes that its
own national economic advisers regard as
essential. Moreover, no one can seriously
believe that it would remain without a na-
tional network for long. The alternative is
Happy birthday from
that Solidarity should return in different
guise: as the independent watchdog and
guarantor of the whole society's interests
at the highest levels of the state.
Thus Solidarity might be represented in
parliament, together with Catholic and
other Independent groups. Its experts
might participate in a body empowered to
oversee the implementation of economic
reform. Its representatives or associates
might even hold government office. As
an independent, legal, national Institu-
tion, it could then "sell" the painful
economic reform program to society as a
genuine program for national recovery,
supporting measures which as a local
trade union it would be bound to oppose.
Like Churchill in 1940, Walesa would
say, "I have nothing to offer but blood,
sweat and tears...," end the nation
would rally round. In effect, this is what
Lech Walesa and his senior advisers have
been proposing to the authorities ever
since July 1981.
If it was not possible then, why should
it be possible now? Because Gorbachev is
not Brezhnev? Because the West wants it,
and Poland more than ever needs eco-
nomic help from the West? But the inter-
nal obstacles remain formidable. There is
absolutely no blueprint for such an ar-
rengement of power-sharing. The coali-
tions of 1945-1948 in East Central Europe
are hardly an encouraging example. One
could just conceivably Imagine It working
if there were to be a clear, simple, legally
defined division of powers between the
parties, enforceable by an independent
judiciary. But that is out of the question.
One might just Imagine it working if
there was a large amount of mutual con-
fidence between the parties: as In an all-
party wartime cabinet. But there is not.
W
hat remains is the compromise of two
boxers who recognize that neither can
knock the other out, and that the ring is
collapsing around them. But whence comes
the boxers' staying power? Jaruzelski's
staying power still derives from the mill-
tary and the police (more than the Party
apparatus), and ultimately from the
Soviet leadership continuing to back him,
as Gorbachev did demonstratively during
his visit to Poland in July. Walesa's
"See chapter 6 in my The Polish Revolu-
tion: Solidarity (Scribners, 1984; Vintage,
1985) where I describe their abortive
negotiations with Rakowski. Accord-
Alfred:A:Knopf
Ing to the latest in # remarkable series of
sociological surveys, "Poles '88," no less
change. One might say half In Jest (and
defined the goal of Plan A as "a genuine
The National Poetry Series
half In mourning) that when a Solidarity
market economy, without any qualifying
branch declares - legal strike against #
adjectives." It has been officially stated
private employer, Poland will be on the
that the private sector could account for
right course."
as much as 30 percent of this mixed
The most probable outcome, however,
economy. There is to be a real stock ex-
remains a continued muddling-through:
change. Western majority shareholding
ELEVENTH ANNUAL OPEN COMPETITION
or, rather, a muddling-down. On all
should be equally possible In firms from
Pollsh precedents, the result is likely,
the private, cooperative, and state sec-
The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to recognize
sooner or later, to be another explosion
tors. The change in forms of ownership
and promote excellence in contemporary American poetry by
of popular protest. The result of that ex-
Inside the socialized sector, vaguely
subsidizing the publication of five manuscripts each year. This
plosion would, In turn, depend crucially
discussed in Poland, Is here 8 detailed
year each of five judges will select one manuscript from the Open
on the circumstances in the Soviet Union,
plan. The Hungarian reform economists
Competition entries.
but if present trends In the Soviet Union
(than whom no one on earth Is more in-
continue (and If developments elsewhere
genious) have worked out a scheme
Recent Judges: Jorie Graham, William Stafford. James Tate. Tess
in Eastern Europe do not contribute to
whereby the net worth of # state enter-
Gallagher, Galway Kinnell, Stanley Kunitz, Philip Levine, James
reversing those trends) It is not com-
prise would be converted Into stocks,
Merrill, Seamus Heancy. Louise Glück.
pletely Inconceivable that the historic
which would be given by the state to local
compromise that could not be achieved
councils, pension funds and the like.
by reform might yet be achieved by revo-
These councils or pension funds would
DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES:
February 15, 1989
lution. In an extraordinary passage of his
then have to live (in part at least) off the
(Manuscripts must not he submitted before January 1, and must
memorandum, Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski
dividends from these stocks rather than
be postmarked by February 15, 1989.)
writes that some people in power in
the direct state subsidies they currently
Poland may still be thinking that If it
receive. They would thus acquire at least
WINNERS WILL. BF. NOTIFIED:
June 15, 1989
comes to another revolt, "we call in aid
a quasi-shareholder's Interest in the prof-
our roison d'état and remind people that
itability of the enterprise. Irredeemable
PUBLICATION OF ALL BOOKS:
Spring/Summer 1990
after all somebody might Intervene In our
loss-makers should go bankrupt, with
Internal affairs. But what." Rakowski
estimated unemployment of one hundred
All manuscripis submitted to the Open Competition must be
goes on, "if that somebody, bearing in
thousand over the next two to three
typed and book length (approximately 48.64 pages) Only one
mind his own interests, does not want to
years. A sharp devaluation should bring
manuscript per author may be submitted, and the work must be
Intervene?" A thought to concentrate
at least partial convertibility of the forint
previously unpublished in book form. No eligibility restrictions
the functionary's mind wonderfully. or
within sight. "What is socialism?" asks
(except for American citizenship) will be placed on those
course It would be morally indefensible
the joke of the year. Answer: "the longest
submitting manuscripts. Each entry must include a self-addressed.
for anyone In the West to encourage such
and most painful road from capitalism to
stamped return envelope, and an entrance fee of $15.00 (checks
a terrible gamble, yet equally no one In
capitalism.
should be payable to The National Poetry Series). Manuscripts will
the West can prevent it. And in the long
not be returned.
run of Ottomanization, even a failed
Political reform Is seen as Indispensable
For a copy of the complete guidelines, please write to:
revolution is not the last word.
for two reasons. First, to ensure that the
political bureaucracy does not continue
The National Poetry Series
26 West 17th Street, New York, NY 10011
3.
to vitiate the theoretical autonomy of
enterprises, as it has for the last twenty
In Hungary, the preconditions are
years. What a leading member of the
somewhat better. The economic crisis is
economic think tank laughingly calls the
still not as deep, and, although Individual
"invisible hand" of the center, should be
aliention is profound, there is no com-
reduced to an invisible finger. The Party
parable gulf between "society" and "the
"should be removed from economic life."
MICHIGAN MICHIGAN MICHIGAN
authorities." One of the many reform
Economic policy should be the province
manifestoes to bloom in the Budapest
of the government, supervised and con-
R. H. Super
spring was that of a group describing
trolled by the parliament. The new com-
itself as the "March Front." Its twenty
pany law should provide precise, legally
The Chronicler of Barsetshire
signers ranged from Rezso Nyers, who in
binding definitions of previously politi-
May became a member of the Polltburo,
cal, "negotiable" relationships.
LIFE OF ANTHONY TROLLOPE
to Miklós Visarhelyi, who was Imre
Secondly, political reform must sugar
R. H. Super, acclaimed " editor of The Complete
Nagy's press secretary in 1956 and might
the bitter pill of austerity and win popu-
Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, has given us at
now be described as the Nestor of the
lar support. New courts and new laws
last an authoritative biography of Anthony
democratic opposition. The March Pront
delimiting the freedoms of association
Trollope. an exhaustive analysis of the events of
has not actually done anything. but In
and speech are one path to this end An
Trollope's long and productive life. Based on
Poland It would not even be possible to
increased role for parliament and local
Super's research of primary sources, including
get the names on the same piece of paper.
councils, with liberalized election laws, is
correspondence spanning Trollope's entire
The continuum between critical Intelli-
lifetime, TM Chronicler of Barsetahire devotes
another. At present the Hungarian par-
considerable attention both to Trollope's long
gentsia and reformists-in-government is
liament meets for just eight days a year.
career as a civil servant in the Post Office and to
more substantially exemplified by the pres-
"We want to abolish the Party-state," a
the details of his literary life, including the per-
ent economic reform project. In 1986 -
leading reformist Politburo member said
ticulars of his business dealings with the
group of reform economists working under
to me. "We want to reintroduce the prin-
publishers of his forty-seven novels and his
the auspices of Imre Pozsgay's Patriotic
ciples of Montesquieu in modern form."
works of nonfiction. discusses Charles
People's Front produced a radical reform
This is interesting talk from a Politburo
Dickens, Frances Trollope-Trollope's mother
document entitled "Turning Point and
member, albeit in a private, background
and a literary figure in her own right-as well as
Reform." In January 1988, several authors
other contemporaries and infimates of Trollope.
conversation. But as we have seen, words
An extraordinary contribution to Trollope
of this document moved into cramped of.
are cheap In the new de-ideologized
scholarship.
fices in the parliament building, as part
climate. The deeds have yet to follow.
cloth $35.00
of an economic kitchen cabinet working
The main economic measures are supposed
Also AVAILABLE
for the deputy prime minister, Péter
to be In place by the end of 1988, the con-
Medgyessy. In mid-July, the new Central
stitutional changes perhaps by 1990.
Anthony Trollope
Committee was offered two varlants of
What are the chances? Even if there
economic reform, the radical "Plan A"
were no political, bureaucratic, or social
Marion Fay
R. 11. Super
and the more cautious "Plan B." "Plan A,*
hindrances whatsoever to implementing
A Novel
Trollope in the Post
for which the Central Committee voted,
radical economic reform in Its purest
Edited by R. H. Super
was essentially based on the kitchen cabi-
form, Hungary would still be running to
With illustrations by William Small
Office
net's design, which in turn was based on
keep up with an increasingly dynamic
the original document.
European Community, and with the
First published in installments by the Graphic of
scrupulous attention to the facts that is rare
Miklós Németh, the Central Commit.
"newly Industrializing countries." In
London, Marion Fay was published in book
in modem Trollope scholarship
lee secretary for economic affairs, has
purely technical terms it is not easy to
form in 1894. " then disappeared from view,
-Dickens Studies Annual
turn a Lada into a Mercedes while con-
This edition, published with the original
cloth $12.95
engravings from the Graphic. reseues Marion
"An alternative approach, still quite
tinuing to drive down the motorway. In.
Fay from oblivion and allows Trollope em host-
popular in Poland, is that of promoting
genious as the proposals for new forms
asts access to the novel that Super calls "
111
THE UNIVERSITY or
workers' self-management. But the Yugo-
of ownership are, one cannot imagine
splended work-the product of # master of
slav experience suggests that this would
HILAN
fiction at the height of his powers."
MICHIGAN PRESS
be economically disastrous in present
Days ET PO Box 1104 Ann Artive, Michigan 48106
Polish circumstances.
"In a radio Interview quoted in the BBC
clush 52500
Summary of World Broadcasts-Eastern
"Reflections 18.
Europe (SWB-EL) (June 3. 1988), B/3-4.
them having half the Impact of the pure,
even negative growth and "a lower level
restricting rights. "An up-to-date practice
early twenties who have been Instrumen-
raw, brutal reprivatization of Thatcherism
of consumption by the population,"
of jurisdiction can be an even more effl-
tal in setting up the new democratic
(so eloquently advocated by the Towar-
not to mention the one hundred thousand
cient means of political regulation than
youth union (FIDESZ). They have a
gystwo Gospodercte in Krakow), Radical
unemployed. Hungarian society is too
direct administrative instructions," the
brilliant program. It can be summed up
as the reintroduction of market forces is
divided for a Polish-style Solidarity
new head of the Central Committee Agit-
in two words: liberal democracy. As we
meant to be, even In design It seems
movement to seem at all likely, but there
Prop department rather revealingly
talked I felt, as I have done so often
unlikely to reproduce the Schumpeterian
has already been one strike In the mines.
observed." What Mr. Grósz calls "oppo-
before, a simple anger. Why should they,
"creative gale of destruction." Two per-
Repeated local strikes-u in Yugoslavia-
sition" is not what we would call opposi-
who are every bit as drillzed, deserving.
cent unemployment Is a lot for a socialist
and even the founding of independent
tion, and what we call opposition Mr.
brave, and clever as their exact contem-
country, but "Thatcherism" In Britain
unions seems possible. Any one of these
Grosz still calls "the enemy" nasty ver-
poraries up the river In Vienna, have to
brought-and perhaps required-12 per-
levels of resistance is probably enough to
bal throwback to darker days. While the
put up with any more half-measures and
cent unemployment to revitalize a much
preempt economic "take-off" in a highly
authorities allowed the populist demon-
half-truths. For God's sake, let them have
less decrepit economy.
competitive world. Together, they seem
stration for Transylvania, the police
it-now! After all, we know, and they
The hard currency debt is # goad to
almost insuperable.
broke up a much smaller democratic op-
know, and their authorities know, that
reform, but If the debt-service ratio
Except, perhaps, by democracy. But
position demonstration on the anniver-
liberal democracy works: not perfectly of
becomes too steep it can be a major Im.
democracy is not on offer. Hungary's
sary of the judicial execution of Imre
course, nothing ever does, but in all its
pediment to further reform (witness
Communist rulers quite understandably
Nagy, with some brutality.
West European variants better than any
Poland). The Hungarians reckon they
want to enjoy the benefits of democracy
of the East European variants of any-
have a breathing space until 1991, when
without paying the price of sharing or be.
T he livellest, but also in a way the sad-
thing else. If Spain can pass peacefully
loan repayments to Western banks are
Ing obliged to compete for power. Legal
dest, meeting I had in Budapest this June
from dictatorship to democracy, why
due to increase sharply. This is not long.
definitions of rights can also be ways of
was with # group of law students in their
should not Hungary? In morality and
Moreover, while their putative West
ideology, the ruling Party has no answer.
European competitors have the oppor-
"SWB-EE (July 15, 1988). CI/1-5.
"Magyer Hirlap (June 24, 1988).
Yet no one, not even as $ joke, told me
tunity of the common market, they still
have the burden of Comecon. To adjust
your domestic market to Western mar-
ZEN AND THE ART OF
William Morrow
kets is one thing: to adjust Comecon to
MOTORCYCLE
BLIND TRUST
your own needs is quite another. So far
MAINTENANCE
Congratulates
The Human Crisis in
as I can gather, Hungary's economic
An Inquiry into Values
Airline Sefety
policymakers have more or less given up
Robert M. Pirsig
John J. Nance
THE NEW YORK
With more than two million copies
A frightening look at the effects of
any hope of turning Comecon into a
common market, and are merely looking
sold in the United States alone and
REVIEW OF BOOKS
the rapidly expanding airline
published to acclaim in fifteen
Industry on safety in the skies.
for more realistic bilateral trade with In-
foreign languages, ZEN AND THE
on its 25th
"It is probable that lives will be
dividual countries, Including the Soviet
ART OF MOTORCYCLE
saved and that a superior air
Union."
MAINTENANCE has been one of the
and
transport system will result if the
most discussed and celebrated
Y for political reasons, the reform
books of our time.
Quill Paperbacks
men and women who operate and
regulate our airlines read this book
package is most unlikely to be fully im-
The real cycle you're working on
and heed its message."
plemented. For a start, Karoly Grósz is
is a cycle called yourself:
on its 10th
-Los Angeles Times Book Review
not, by all accounts, comparable to Gor-
-from ZEN AND THE ART OF
bachev, let alone to Mrs. Thatcher. He is
MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE
"AND I WAS THERE"
AMERICAN ESPIONAGE AND
a clever, forceful opportunistic politician,
Pearl Harbor and Midway-
THE SOVIET TARGET
but there is no evidence that his present
PORTH TO THE
Breaking the Secreta
WILDERNESS
Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton
Jeffrey Richelson
endorsement of radical reform flows
U.S.N. (Ret,)
Here. Richelson gives the most
from any deep conviction. His Politbure
The American Frontier,
With Capt. Roger Pineau, U.S.N.R.
complete account ever of America's
1754-1774
espionage activities against
contains only three people whom one
(Ret.) and John Costello
A.COMPANY OF
the Soviet Union.
could clearly categorize as reformists
The bestselling book that made
HEROES
(Nyers, Pozsgay, and Németh), and in
headlines from coast to coast and
"Richelson's book is by far the
The American Frontier,
was named *Intelligence Book of
best account of what we know
János Berecz he has (mulatis mutandis)
1775-1783
the Year," "AND I WAS THERE"
about the Soviet military programs,
his Ligachev. The higher ranks of the
ARK OF EMPIRE
finally describes-after forty-four
when we knew it and how"
Party apparatus contain some intelligent,
The American Frontier,
years of official silence-what
-Thomas Powers. author of
realistic, reform-minded men. But no one
1784-1803
really happened at Pearl Harbor
The Man Who Kept the Secrets and
really has the first Idea how the new
THE FINAL
and Midway.
Thinking About the Next War
separation of powers, or division of
CHALLENGE
"No other book on that war
roles, between Party and State, Central
The American Frontier,
can now be written that does
FREEDOM SONG
1004-1845
Committee, parliament and courts is go-
not take into account what
A Personal Story of the
ing to work. If the Party is not to make
"(This four-volume history is]
(Layton) has written."
1960s Ciril Rights Movement
-The Washington Post
Mary King
economic policy then what on earth is it
one of the most noteworthy
contributions to American historical
Mary King writes a gripping account
to do? Men cling to power: surely here
writing. is a mighty story, and the
100. I asked an energetic, realistic, and
A SHORT HISTORY OF
of her years of work with the
country is fortunate to have it so
WORLD WAR I
Civil Rights Movement.
reform-minded new member of the Cen-
ably rendered."
A SHORT HISTORY OF
"FREEDOM SONG will stand as a
tral Committee secretariat what he was
-Allan Nevins
WORLD WAR II
monument to that wondrous time."
actually going to do there. Well, he
"(Van Every is] an expert historian."
A SHORT HISTORY OF
-New York Times
replied, we work out the broad strategic
-Los Angeles Times
AIR FOWER
lines of policy, and then we pass them on
James L. Stokesbury
PRESIDENTS'
to Party members in the state apparatus.
THE LONGEST BATTLE
Stokesbury has written the
SECRET WARS
This sounded vaguely familier.
The War at Sea, 1939-45
definitive short histories of both
CIA and Pentagon
Then there are the corrupt local oligar-
Richard Hough
World Wars and of air power.
Covert Operations Since
chies that flourished under late Kádárism.
Acclaimed historian Richard Hough
"lelling just enough of the 'what'
World Wer II
Can their grip really be broken? On a
has written a lively. readable
to explain the why"
-Revised Edition
account of the strategies and actions
(Harry Levins, St. Louis Dispatch).
John Prados
much smaller scale, Order has the prob-
of the Allied and Axis naval powers.
PRESIDENTS' SECRET WARS is the
Iem that Gorbachev faces in the Soviet
"The works of James Stokesbury
Union. In theory, he wants to decentral-
"(Richard Hough] tells a
are notable for their clarity.
first comprehensive account of
how America mounts "secret wars"
lze. But before decentralizing, he has to
tremendous story and tells it well."
vigor of expressions. accuracy.
and fair-mindedness."
that change the fates of nations
-The Washington Post
reestablish central control. And then
-Joseph Kingsbury-Smith
*Probing and important."
there is the great unknown of social reac-
-Cleveland Plain Dealer
THE OTHER NUREMBERG
tion. The leadership has stated clearly
The Unteld Story of
STEPHEN HAWKING'S
that in the short run reform means that
the Tokyo War
UNIVERSE
A CONFLICT OF VISIONS
most Hungarians will get poorer. The
Crimes Trials
John Boslough
Ideological Origins of
responsible Politburo member, Miklós
Amold C. Brackman
Here. readers are led into the
Political Struggles
Németh, told the Central Committee that
This is an incredible first look
mysterious world of black holes and
Thomas Sowell
"Plan A" would initially mean lower or
at the powerful decisions and
singularities-the points in the
In this stimulating book,
still-echoing effects of the
universe at which space and time
Sowell examines how social
"According to a report In the Financial
Tokyo War Crimes Trials.
break down completely-and
theorists have based their thinking
Times (August 9, 1988). "Hungary's Iron
back in time 10 the "Dig bang" with
on two irreconcilable sets
"This book is a necessary
which our universe began
and steel producers have threatened to
reminder of a dark, half-forgotten
of premises. constrained and
consider halting unprofitable exports to
"(Stephen Hawking is] the wizard
unconstrained visions
chapter of human history
other Comecon countries after the Gov.
-Gaddis Smith. New York Times
of space and time."
"Provocative"
ernment's withdrawal of subsidies for
Book Review
-Omni
-The Washington Post
exports." A nice illustration in
New Books
that socialism is the longest and most pain.
position both better and worse. I have
the West form a more open, successful,
ful road from autocracy to democracy.
not attempted to include Romania or
attractive, and benign constellation for
The sad fact is that socialism has
Bulgaria in my analysis.
East Central Europe than at any time in
created In all the East European states an
For the heartlands of contemporary
modern history. This is true of the United
South Carolina
array of domestic barriers against the
East Central Europe, however, for the
States. of Western Europe as # whole,
transformation to liberal democracy cum
more than sixty million Europeans living
and particularly of (West) Germany, on
mixed economy quite as formidable as
in the present territories of Czechoslo-
whose approach the future shape of this
A HISTORY OF
those that existed in recent West or South
vakia, Hungary, and Poland, there are
region once again significantly depends.
THE JEWS OF ARABIA:
European dictatorships, such as Spain,
certainly the contours of a common fate.
To discuss what we in the West can do
From Ancient Times to
Portugal, or Greece. These barriers lie not
The oldest of Central European tales has
directly to encourage desirable change in
only in the system of politbureaucratic
a German general saying to his Austrian
East Central Europe would require
Their Eclipse Under Islam
dictatorship (to use Rudolf Bahro's apt
ally: "The situation is serious but not
another essay, Indeed a book.' But If
BY GORDON DARNELL NEWSY
term). and not merely in the character
tragic," to which the Austrian general
present trends continue, It is not unrea-
The Jewish communities or Arabia
and interests of the nomenklatura ruling
replies: "No, Mela Lieber, the situation is
sonable to look shead to a time when the
had great influence on the atti-
class, but also in the Interests, attitudes,
tragic but not serious." One might say
West will be not, as since Yalta, a tertlary
tudes that Muslims hold toward
and fears of many of the ruled. or
that the situation of East Central Europe
actor In East Central Europe (after the
Jews, and yet relatively little has
course, in conditions of full external
today is tragic but not hopeless.
Sovlet Union and the countries them-
been written about their history.
sovereignty, with liberal democracies on
selves), but i secondary actor, as Impor-
Through techniques borrowed
all frontiers, these obstacles would simply
is tragic, because a half-century of im.
tant as the Soviet Union, though in dif.
from anthropology, literary criti-
be swept aside, as they were, gloriously,
mense struggle, upheaval, work, and suf-
ferent ways. If we are to play this role
cism, sociology and comparative
in Spain, Portugal, and Greece. But those
fering has produced so little lasting prog.
wisely, however, the first Imperative is to
are not the conditions. The Polish revl-
ress. It is fashionable to talk, as Zbigniew
see East Central Europe as It really is,
religion, this book reconstructs
sionist Wladyslaw Bienkowski once wrote
Brzezinski does in the title of his Seton-
and not as a projection of our own fan-
some understanding of Jewish life
a famous text called "The Engines and
Watson memorial lecture, of Eastern
tasles or as a subcategory of Soviet
in Arabia before and during the
Brakes of Socialism." We have been
Europe being on its way "back to Central
politics. The metaphor of Finlandization,
time of Muhammad. The material
discussing the engines and brakes of the
Europe." Polite reference is made to the
and the terms glasnost and perestroika,
is used to develop a perspectiveo
transition from socialism. The conclusion
positive ideal of Central Europe revived
are of limited use in analyzing recent
the inter-confessional relations
is, alas, that even in Hungary, even in the
by Milan Kundera, Czeslaw Milosz,
developments in East Central Europe.
between Judaism and Islam when
Gorbachev era, the brakes look more
Václav Havel, Gyorgy Konrad, and many
The impact of Gorbachev and the "new
Islam was at one of its most dy-
powerful than the engines.
others." But there can be "return to
détente" in East-West relations has been
namic stages of growth.
One is bound to hope against hope.
Central Europe" in a negative as well as a
great, but also complex, Indirect, and
Cloth, $34.95
The Hungarian reformists enter this ex.
positive sense. The dream of emancipa-
ambiguous. Terms like "crisis," "reform,"
periment with that cheerful pessimism
tory modernization, by no means only
or "stability" are useless without closer
which is one of the more attractive
the property of Communists in 1945. may
definition.
features of Hungarian Intellectual life.
yet end in a reality, all too familiar from
One of the very architects of the entire
Central European history, of growing
In the first article in this series, I offered
THE BUDDHIST
reform project told me he gives it only a
relative backwardness vis-à-vis Western,
the crude metaphor of "Ottomanization"
REVIVAL IN SRI LANKA:
30-40 percent chance of success. It seems
"modern" Europe. It may end in a new
as at least marginally more illuminating
Religious Tradition,
reasonable to suggest that the reform has
version of Giselher Wirsing's "Zwischen-
than that of "Finlandization." The two
Reinterpretation and Response
a rather higher chance of minimal suc-
europa" or the intermediate zone Identi-
faces of Ottomanization, emancipation
cess-that is, of averting revolution - i
fied by Hungarian writers and historians,
and decay, each have many dimensions:
BY GEORGE D. BOND
only because of the further diversifica-
its economies exporting tin ssucepans,
imperial, regional, and domestic; eco-
In 1956, Theravada Buddhists in
tion of social interests which it will pro-
bottled fruit, cheap shoes, and cheap
nomic, social, ideological, and political;
Sri Lanka and throughout South-
mote. The freeing of the private sector, in
labor, importing German tourists and
the emancipation of states from the Im-
east Asia celebrated the Buddha
particular, means that Hungary might yet
Japanese capital. A zone, that is, of weak
perial center; the emencipation of soci-
Jayanti, the 2500th anniversary of
have an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie that
states, national prejudice, inequality,
eties from states, in the overlapping
the Buddha's entry into Nirvana
will go to the barricades-against the
poverty, and shlammassel. It is almost
spheres of religion, national articulation,
and of the establishment of the
revolting workers. Capitalists and Com-
already true to talk, in the case of Hun-
"civil society," and private enterprise,
Buddhist tradition. This book ex-
munists, shoulder to shoulder against the
gary and Poland, of a double depend-
and the more or less consciously opposi-
amines the revival of Theravada
proletariat: a suitably Central European
ency-on the great powers to the West as
tional variants of each. Revolution, end-
Buddhism among the laity of Sri
outcome for socialism. To estimate the
well as to the East.
ing in partial failure, is as likely as
Lanka, analyzing its origins and
percentage chance of peaceful transfor-
This situation is tragic because of its
reform, ending in partial success (i.e.,
mation, by contrast, requires only the
toll in avoidable human suffering. At
averting revolution). On balance, the
its growth up to the present day.
fingers of one hand.
times It seems tragic, 100, In the sense of
former seems more likely In Poland, the
Cloth, $29.95
classical tragedy: that is, having a relent-
latter In Hungary. A maximal success for
4.
less logic quite beyond and in spite of the
reform seems scarcely more probable
will of the participants. For the petty
than a maximal success for revolution.
"To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Par.
functionaries defending their privileges
Each national case must be studied his-
HUMAN RIGHTS
ticularize is the alone Distinction of
are not really evil; and far less are the un-
torically, and for Itself. "Every thing is
AND THE CONFLICTS
Merit." We may not go quite so far as
skilled workers defending their jobs in
what it is and not another thing." as the
OF CULTURE:
William Blake, but virtually all general
factories that should long since have been
great Bishop Butler unshallowly remarked.
writing about "Eastern Europe" is either
shut. The more enlightened leaders in
As these countries are rediscovering
Western and Islamic Perspectives
. catalog or, If analytically more ambl-
Hungary and Poland today are person-
their own histories, 10 also is history the
on Religious Liberty
tious, extrapolates from the one or two
ally little worse than most politicians in
discipline most urgently called for, If we
BY DAVID LITTLE, JOHN KELSAY,
countries the author knows best. The
the West. Some genuinely care about
in the West are to understand their pres-
AND ANDULAZIZ SACHEDINA
above has something of both faults. To
their countries as well as themselves. But,
ent and peer into their future. History,
Human Rights and the Conflict of
concentrate on Poland and Hungary is,
good or evil, they can no more avoid en-
calling in aid economics, sociology, polit-
Cultures investigates the claim
in the autumn of 1988, justified by the
tanglement in the web of Internal con-
(cal science, and even security studies, but
about "human rights" in a cultur-
fact that these are the two countries of
tradictions that socialism has created
above all: history. Crechs, Hungarians,
ally diverse world. The book is
East Central Europe in which fundamen-
than Oedipus could avoid marrying his
and Poles are rediscovering their own
concerned with the relationship
tal reform experiments are underway.
mother.
history; and they are making It again. To
Even here, what has been said is frag-
So entirely hopeless it is not. It is not
adapt a German philosopher, whose in-
between religion and human
mentary and tentative. Yet there are
hopeless, because, within the setting of
Nuence on East Central Europe future
rights-with the ways that certain
many common features as well as dif-
overall decay, there are possibilities of in.
historians will record as baneful but tran-
religious traditions may or may
ferences. I would venture to predict that
dividual and group emancipation, of free
sient, confined only to a few decades in
not provide support for ideas ex-
when the fundamental reform experiment
speech, learning, worship, travel, produc-
the second half of the twentieth century:
pressed in various international
does get underway in Czechoslovakia,
tive work, and self-help. which did not
the peoples of East Central Europe make
documents concerned with ideas
there, 100, one will recognize many of the
exist even ten years ago. It is not
their own history, although they do not
of religious liberty or freedom of
features that I have singled out in Poland
hopeless, because these states do, in
make it just as they please.
conscience. Special focus is placed
and Hungary.
theory, possess room for maneuver in
-September 27, 1988
on freedom of religion and con-
In the case of East Germany, the dif-
which they might restore a larger degree
science in the West and Islam.
ferences will perhaps be greater than the
of Internal sovereignty. It is not hopeless
This is the last of three articles.
similarities. A state whose annual trans-
Cloth, $24.95
because the great power to the East is
fers of hard currency from West Ger.
*Two excellent multiauthor volumes are
itself convulsed with change. whose out-
many cover the total interest burden on
Lincoln Gordon, ed., Eroding Empire:
come no one can predict. It is not hope-
Western Relations with Eastern Europe
its hard currency debt, but a state also
less: finally, because the great powers to
(Brookings, 1987) and William E. Grif-
Available at Bookstores, or order from
whose citizens learn about their own
fith, ed., Central and Eastern Europe and
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
country every night from West German
"See my essay, "Does Central Europe Ex-
the West (Westview Press, forthcoming).
508 Assembly St, Columbia, sc 29208
television, is in a different position from
ist?" in The New York Review (October
1 am working on a book about the con-
(803) 777-5243
its East Central European neighbors-
9. 1986).
temporary German role in this region.
The New York Review
Garry Wills: Scorsese's 'Temptation' ,
Volume XXXV, Number 15
October 13. 1988
$2.25
The New YorkReview
FDC
$10254
of Books
CAN. $3.00
BENJAMIN M. FRIEDMAN:
THe CAMPAIGN'S
HIDDEN
SSUE
Timothy Garton Ash:
East Europe's Opposition
William Gass:
'Painting as an Art',
Andrew Hacker:
How Fair is 'Workfare'?
The Opposition
ship, as one of Its first acts, permit an in-
A second dimension is the revival of
tion of "civil society" in East Central
dependent mass demonstration against
Timothy Gartes Ask
the Ceausescu regime's persecution of the
religion, not just in Poland, but also in
Europe. There is already a substantial
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and
literature on this subject," yet the con-
A comprehensive map of the opposition
Hungarian minority in Transylvania?
in East Central Europe today would
Partly, of course, to give vent to a burn-
even, on a very small scale, in Hungary.
cept remains woefully imprecise, partly
because of the variety of earlier uses
ing popular concern, and gain social
This, too, is exceedingly complex,
resemble nothing so much as one of those
whether one considers social roots, con-
(notably by Hegel), but mainly because it
kaleidoscopic multicolored maps of
credit for so doing. But also, perhaps,
fessional forms, or political implications.
is currently used to describe two different
ethnic groups in this region before the
because if you let people shout about na-
tional rights in Transylvania they may be
Why do so many young people in Eastern
things: (A) the entire range of social
war. In both Poland and Hungary,
associations, ties, and activities independ-
less inclined to think about civil rights in
Europe, often brought up in a wholly
ent of the state, from glee clubs to Charter
groups or grouplets whose identities or
atheistic environment, at home as well as
Hungary. Certainly it was a strange at:
77, from samizdat to breviaries and from
programs arise from specific postwar
fair, this torchlit demonstration on
at school, turn to religion, or at least to
private farmers to homosexuals;' (B)
realities overlap or combine with groups
the churches? Is it simply because nature
Heroes' Square In Budapest. The speeches
raising almost every flag, slogan, aspira-
abhors a value vacuum, such as the col-
more narrowly, and more politically, the
were an uneasy mixture of somewhat
tion, or prejudice of the prewar political
lapse of socialist ideology has left? Is it
products of that strategy of "social
stilted liberal sentiments (universal rights,
the search for comfort amid material
self-organization" which was, broadly
spectrum (except communism): populists,
the poor Romanians suffer too) and pur-
ple patriotic rhetoric." My overwhelming
decay, misery, and hopelessness?
speaking, adopted by the democratic op-
reform economists, radical sociologists,
positions in Poland, Hungary, and
Smallholders, Lutherans, Catholic "base
impression was of a lonely crowd: men
Czechoslovakia in the mid to late 1970s.
groups," evangelical sects, democratic
Change and decay in all around /
and women with slightly bewildered faces
see;
For them, the reconstitution of "civil
opposition, democratic youth, demo-
mouthing half-forgotten hymns, and just
cratic academics, Solidarity, Fighting
0 Thou, who changest not, abide
society" was both an end in Itself and a
beginning to rediscover, for good or ill,
with me.
means to political change, including,
Solidarity, national democrats, liberal
what It means to be a nation; a spectacle
eventually, change in the nature of the
democrats, Christian democrats, social
at once pathetic, moving, and disturbing.
Part of the larger rediscovery of the past?
state.
democrats, liberal Catholics and conserv-
"All we want is freedom and democracy
The Impact of the Polish Pope? Divine
(B) is a subcategory of (A). The growth
ative Catholics, Christian socialists,
for the Hungarians in Transylvania," said
intervention? All of the above? Religious
of (A) will generally be unplanned, or at
Jews, anti-Semites, advocates of workers'
least not part of an overall political
self-government, apostles of free enter-
strategy, yet the emergence of non-
prise, syndicalists and monetarists, self-
political social associations and bonds
styled "crazy liberals," "neorealists,"
has been facilitated by. and is deliberately
"neopositivists": you name it, we have it.
included in, the strategy of (B). It might
And this is merely the surface of explicit
just be poesible to call (A) simply "soci-
opposition. One could produce another
ety." except that in Poland the term
rich catalog of official or semiofficial
"society" (spolecterstwo) has come to be
projects for "reform." Hungarian politi-
used precisely for those. organized or
cal scientists have coined the delightful
civilly active parts of society (whether
term "paradigm ecstasy."¹
workers, farmers, or intellectuals) which,
Here I shall merely indicate four di-
since August 1980, can meaningfully be
talked of in opposition to the powers that
mensions that every cartegrapher of
be (wladza). So while elsewhere people
emancipation must bear in mind.' The
say "civil society" but mean society,
first might be called a popular redis-
here people say "society" but mean civil
covery of the national past: a widespread
society.
and passionate interest in history,' pre-
war national traditions, forgotten authors,
In Hungary, "civil society," even in sense
ethnic minorities past and present (Jews,
(A), was almost totally destroyed by
Germans, Ukrainians, Hungarians in
Stalinism and János Kádár's counter-
Transylvania and Slovakia), and regional
revolution after 1956, but it has been
ties ("Central Europe," Germany, Lithu-
slowly, quietly reconstituted. A rudimen-
ania, and the Ukraine). To subsume all
tary measure of this is the number of in-
this under the label "nationalism" would
dependent clubs and associations: more
be crass oversimplification. Much of it is
than 13,000 in the 1930s, sinking to as
simply the quest for what is regarded in
few as 1,000 In the 1950s, but up again to
the West as a "normal" cultural continu-
more than 3,500 by 1981." However, in
Ity: an identification with national iym-
the last year or two, and most dramati-
bols, traditions, and even myths, as be-
cally in recent months, we have seen a
nign In moderation as It is dangerous in
sudden flowering of "civil society" in
excess. The lack of "normal" access to the
sense (B): the more or less spontaneous
national past was a form of deprivation;
combustion of debating clubs, associa-
the recovery of it is a form of emancipa-
tions, and lobbies of different social and
tion. Tradition, said G.K. Chesterton, Is
intellectual groups, most of whose mem-
the democracy of the dead. But does the
bers are consciously agitating as citizens,
recultivation of tradition necessarily con-
concerned not merely with their individual
duce to the democracy of the living?
or group interests, but with the state of
What about the authentic, national un- or
the nation. The appeal for the demon-
antidemocratic traditions? And cannot
stration in Heroes' Square was signed by
nationalism act-or be used-as a substi-
no fewer than twelve such groups, and
tute for democracy?
a speaker at one point. Loud applause.
participation can be a channel for basi-
This fear is particularly acute among
Then, almost as an afterthought, and
cally secular, social, and political aspira-
two of these were alliances: the Hun-
the "democratic opposition" in Hungary,
freedom for ourselves." Still louder ap-
tions: as it is in part of the Church-
garian Democratic Forum for "populists"
Why, they ask, did the new Party leader-
plause. If I was the new Hungarian Party
protected peace and human rights move-
or nationalists, the Network of Free Ini-
leader, Karoly Grósz, I should not be at
ment In the ODR. But it can also be a
tiatives for the rest.
all sure that 1 could separate the national
substitute for social and political activ-
Probably the most notable of these
'For "paradigm ecatasy" see Rudolf L.
from the democratic cause. It is a short
ism. The surge of churchgoing in Poland
new groups are the Democratic Union of
Tökes, "The Science of Politics in Hun-
step from asking why the Hungarian
after the imposition of martial law had
gary in the 1980s," in Südosteuropa, Vol.
government is not doing more for the
elements of both. Like the rediscovery of
"See, for example, John Keane, Democ-
37 (1/1988). p. 15 and passim.
Hungarians in neighboring socialist
national history, the religious revival cuts
racy and Civil Society (Verso, 1988) and
1n my article in the September 29 issue,
states, to asking why you have the kind
several ways, and it is very difficult to say
John Keane, ed., Civil Society and the
"The Empire in Decay," I suggested that
of Hungarian government that cannot do
which cut goes deeper.' This is a nice
State (Verso, 1988), especially the essay
the decay of the Soviet empire in Eastern
analytical problem for the scholar, but a
by Z.A. Pelczynski.
more. To some extent, the Jaruzelski
Europe brings with it the possibility of
government faces a comparable dilemma
hard political dilemma for the authorities.
The example of homosexuals is not
"an unplanned, piecemeal, and discontin-
on the burning national question of the
A third important dimension is what
imaginary. An association of homosex-
uous emancipation, both of the constitu-
Katyn massacre, and the other "blank
has come to be known as the reconstitu-
uals is currently applying for registration
ent states from the imperial center and of
in Warsaw.
societies from states." In this article I
spaces" of Soviet-Polish relations. If
you cannot make or obtain a clear state-
"Even in the most political churches,
'Excluding sports clubs. Quoted in #
look at forms of social emancipation,
taking most of my examples from Poland
ment of the truth, it may be safer to say
there is an extraordinary jumbling of na-
paper by Elemer Hankiss for the
tional. social, and religious issues. At the
and Hungary.
nothing.
Woodrow Wilson Center European
last "Mass for the Facherland" I attended
Alumni Association conference on "The
The observation about the interest in
at Father Popieluszko's church in War-
European Question" in May 1988. (The
history is repeatedly made in a regular
'See my article in The Speciator, July 2,
saw, the preacher ended up exhorting the
papers from this conference are due to be
series of reports about Polish samizdat in
1988. One should note that the Romanian
faithful to Fight the good fight against
published in book form.) The number of
the leading underground weekly, Tygod.
refugees in Hungary were also
alcoholism. robbery, abortion, and com-
private foundations also rose from nil in
Scientific Workers (i.e., academies) and
audiovisual words-wonderfully funny
I suspect that few people in the West
holes left by the decaying state-provider:
the Alliance of Young Democrats (FIDESZ)
tapes from the satirist Jacek Fedorowicz,
(and perhaps also in the East) have really
literally so, In the case of private dentists.
(mainly students). both founded in the
wonderfully serious tapes about Friedrich
woken up to the sheer scale of private
It flourishes by providing what the public
spring of 1988. These are the first In.
von Hayek, passed around on the coun-
economic activity in Poland and Hungary.
sector cannot, whether housing, services,
dependent unions to be launched in
try's now numerous videocassette re-
In his excellent book of 1985, Private
consumer goods, or medical care. The
Eastern Europe since the banning of
corders; words, words, words.
Enterprise In Eastern Europe, Anders
variety of people who have turned to
Solidarity. The differences between this
For many, this is still exhilarating -
Aslund suggested that the economic ac-
private enterprise is at least as wide as
ferment and Poland in 1980 are obvious
writers, in particular. But most people
tivity of the legal private sector in Eastern
that of those who have turned to religion.
and legion. Yet I must say that listening
are not writers. Although it is wrong and
Europe was likely to continue to fluctuate
So is the variety of motives. With religion
to a gloriously discursive meeting of the
patronizing to assume that workers or
around a very low level, as it had done
it is not always the pure love of God;
new academics' union (only academics
peasants are not interested in words,
ever since the 1950s. But in a recent
with private enterprise it is not always the
would try to write footnotes to a demon-
ideas, free debate. worship or drama,
paper, the Anglo-Polish economist Jacek
pure love of money. Those involved
stration). or talking to the marvelously
these give no immediate answers to their
Rostowski argues convincingly that
range from people using private enter-
fresh and bright student activists of
most pressing concerns: wages, housing,
"Aslund's Law" no longer holds for
prise as a means to support opposition
FIDESZ, I felt almost as if I was back in
health care, pollution. Even a student or
Poland; and the same is clearly true for
publications, to secret policemen, who
Poland in the autumn of 1980. How the
academic may tire eventually of words, if
Hungary.
keep an official eye on private firms but
Hungarian authorities deal with these
they are wholly disconnected from any
All figures are extremely speculative,
also an unofficial hand in the till. There
groups will be one of the more interesting
visible results. The defensive message of
but Rostowski estimates that private
is givend evidence, both from Poland and
questions of the autumn of 1988.
much of the underground press is summed
economic activity (legal and not so legal)
Hungary, of major participation in
In Poland, the situation is both worse
up in the title of a journal I noticed the
now accounts for somewhere between 38
private firms by senior members of the
and better. When, in the mid 1970s. the
other day: Jestesmy, which means simply
and 45 percent of personal money in-
nomenklatura, their relatives or
democratic opposition first embarked on
"We Are." The contemporary Polish ver-
comes in Poland. Total private sector
placemen.
the strategy of "social self-organization"
sion of Describes is "I print, therefore
employment accounts for nearly one
and "change from below," they never
1 am."
third of the labor force. Two fifths of
For many people, private economic ac-
imagined a mass movement like Solidar-
new housing construction can be classi-
W hat is more, the virtual sbandon-
tivity clearly is an alternative to public
ity. They did, on the other hand, imagine
fied as private. In 1986 and 1987, hard
political activity. A Hungarian professor
that they might find some partners, albeit
ment of ideology by the authorities, coin-
currency remitted from abroad by indi-
tells me that there are two quite distinct
reluctant ones, within the system, and
bined with the relative freedom of speech,
vidual Poles was almost equal to the hard
types among his students: those who wish
that the result might even be some new,
explicit or implicit, "social contract." In
the late 1980s. civil or self-organized
society exists in Poland on a scale no one
then dreamed of. There is a fantastic
landscape of independent clubs, associa-
tions, periodicals, publishers, and the
like, and this, together with the existence
of something called "the opposition," is
accepted by more realistic members of
the nomenklatura, and even of the secret
police, as a lasting feature of Polish life.
10104d peor 4 a
In a long memorandum written last year,
Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski-a Politburo
member sometimes feted in the West as a
"liberal"-noted that "in practice we have
recognized the opposition as a lasting ele-
ment on the country's political map."
Earlier this year, the authorities felt
themselves compelled by the depth of the
economic crisis and popular discontent to
start talking privately with this opposi-
tion again, very gingerly exploring the
notion of an "anti-crisis pact." In recent
weeks, they have been compelled by a
wave of strikes to start talking directly
and publicly with the man whom they
have so often said was no longer a "part-
ner" for them: Lech Walesa. But, as I
write, in mid September there is still
nothing remotely resembling a "partner-
ship" between the authorities and the
Curchostovakie, 1968
"society" represented by Solidarity. There
even in censored publications, has re-
currency trade surplus earned by the
to go Into private enterprise and those
is no "historic compromise" or "social
sulted in a curious devaluation of lan-
whole socialized sector." For Hungary,
who wish to go Into oppositional activity:
contract."
guage. Solzhenitsyn's "one word of truth"
private economic activity is estimated to
the party of interests, as It were, and the
This seven-year-old historic stalemate
really mattered when it was spoken amid
generate at least 30 percent of household
party of values. The sociologist Robert
has had many demoralizing effects. Not
a forest of lies, and when those in power
incomes. Although the share of the labor
Manchin has found from his research
the least important is that it has confined
seriously sought to compel public en-
force is much smaller (no private farm-
that Hungarians with private sources of
"civil society" largely to the realm of
dorsement of the lies: but when you can
ers), it is growing, and estimates of the
income are on balance less likely to ex-
words. Written words-in samizdat jour-
say anything you like, and those in power
private share of housing construction go
press discontent with the present political
nals too numerous to list, legal independ-
will even publicly agree with you (but
as high as 85 percent. In both countries,
system or to articulate conceptions of
ent Catholic journals like Tygodnik
then do nothing about it), words, how-
the role of the private sector is already
political change. "If part-time self-em-
Powszechny, Znak, or Wiez, Internal
ever true or noble, lose some of their
visible, both in the city centers and the
ployment is a value-generating strategy at
university publications, samizdat books
value.
countryside: here a bar, boutique, or
all," he writes cautiously, "individual
from publishers like Krag, Nowa, or cdn,
Partly in response to this impasse,
software firm, there a smart new villa or
freedom is certainly not one of its core
political programs, long and short,
many bright young people have turned
farmhouse.
values." In Poland I have been told
moderate and extreme; spoken words-in
their attention to the most recent and
repeatedly by university teachers that
sermons, hymns, lectures, legal and il.
dynamic form of social emancipation:
In many ways, the dramatic growth of
private business is now the consuming in-
legal seminars, worker education groups,
the fourth dimension. This is private
private enterprise in the 1980s is a classic
terest of many of the brightest students.
theaters, cabaret, unofficial cassettes:
enterprise. or course most classical
example of emancipation in decay, or
The official politics of "the reds" (as the
definitions of "civil society" assume an
"Ottomanization" at the social level."
Communist authorities are politely called
"The leaked document is entitled "Reflec-
economic foundation, with private own-
Private enterprise is stepping in to fill the
by the disaffected young) are beneath
tions on some aspects of the political and
ership, property rights guaranteed by due
"Jacek Rostowski, "The Decay of
discussion. But the unofficial politics of
economic situation In the Polish People's
process of law, free exchange, and so
Republic in the second half of the 1980s,"
Socialism and the Growth of Private
the opposition also seem to offer few
forth. In a sense, therefore, the pursuit of
The sixty-page typescript is signed and
Enterprise in Poland," typescript.
perspectives. What they want is to travel
private enterprise is the logical comple-
dated *Warsaw, 8.6.-10.10. 1987."
""Ottomanization" as a metaphor for
Rakowski has privately confirmed that it
ment of the pursuit of "civil society." But
the decay of the Soviet empire in Eastern
"Robert Manchin, "Individual Economic
is genuine. It is interesting that he con-
In practice, the engagement in private
Europe, by very loose analogy with the
Strategies and Social Consciousness," in
nects this recognition of the opposition
enterprise has so far been seen rather as
decline of the Ottoman Empire, is ex-
the Central and East European special
specifically with Western official visitors'
an alternative to the pursuit of "civil
plained in my previous article ("The Em-
issue of Social Research, Vol. 55, Nos. 1-2
now regular practice of meeting with op-
society" in the narrower, more political
pire in Decay," The New York Review,
(Spring/Suinmer 1988), pp. 77-96, this
position leaders.
sense indicated above.
September 29).
quotation on p. 93.
to the West for a year, earn some hard
economy"" In the Krakow volvodship,
which Margaret Thatcher could sign
Saul Bellow
currency, maybe learn some capitalist
and applied to the authorities in all form
without a moment's hesitation.
skills, and then return to set up a small
for legal registration. This they somewhat
The long-term message of the neo-
private firm in Poland, whether dealing
surprisingly received at the end of last
liberals is ultimately little different from
Sisters in Crime
In videocassettes, carpentry, decorating,
year, and launched . public lecture
that of a conversation I overheard be-
trinkets, 10/1, or computer software."
course entitled "How to begin (in busi-
tween two lads in a crowded Warsaw
There are, however, individuals and
Clifford Odets
ness)." A large turnout confirmed the im-
tram at the time of lost year's referendum
groups who connect their advocacy (and
pression that there is a great reservoir of
on economic reform. After laughing
practice) of private enterprise with a
public interest in this area, particularly
about a friend who had gone to vote
Modern Iberian Writers
larger vision of social and political change.
among students, young professionals,
because he was afraid that otherwise the
If the strategy of the democratic opposi-
and younger skilled workers.
authorities ("oni") wouldn't let him go
tion in the 1970s could be described as
T he Warsaw association has not, at the
abroad, one lad said: "but I suppose we
Katherine Mansfield
"change from below," as opposed to the
should try and reform this economy
earlier revisionist hope of change from
time of writing, received permission for
somehow." "Come off it," said the other,
above, this 1980s vision might crudely be
legal registration. Led by, among others,
"this reform hasn't a chance. The only
Etc.
characterized as one of "change from the
Aleksander Paszynski, a former Polityka
thing is to do it like in America." An
side." in Poland, most advocates of this
journalist who resigned from the paper at
entirely rational position, though hardly
CONTINUUM
path would probably be happy with the
the time of martial law, and went on to
one the authorities are likely to adopt. In
label "liberals"-and many use it them-
build up a highly successful private hous-
the short-term, however, there are good
selves. In American terms, some might
ing consultancy firm, the Towarzystwo
selfish reasons for the authorities to per-
Literary Excellence
rather be described as neoliberal Oi even
Gospodarcie has been somewhat more
mit *2 expansion of the private sector.
neoconservative, but there are significant
direct and more ambitious in its pro-
In Hungary, the politico-philosophical
differences of style and philosophy be-
claimed goals: for example, it wants the
theory is not so highly elaborated, but the
tween them. To confuse the Warsaw
right to work throughout the country. It
entrepreneurial practice is much more so.
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ROBERT MUSIL
"Some 30 percent of entrepreneurs are
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Lowell A. Bangerter
under thirty-five, according to Rostowski,
version of the nineteenth-century post-
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A jargon free examination of the We and work of
quoting J. Baczynski in Polityka, No. 37,
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-September 15, 1988
GERMAN WRITING SINCE 1945
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This is the second of three articles.
A Critical Survey
(RFE/RL Soviet East European Report,
ments besides socialism and in spite of
Lowell A Bangerier
Vol. V, No. 32, August 10, 1988). One
socialism." Their theoretical position is:
twa Przemyslowego DE temat Programu
A thorough examination of all the fiction, poetry,
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Gospodarczej," typescript. (Kraków,
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and we will get on with the job. Yet when
October 1987). p. 15 and passim.
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"But has not the Pope criticized
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Gabriel Miller
"used to say that socialism is a beautiful
A keen new biocritical study of the playwright.
for a substantial private sector, you soon
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ism" (Miroslaw Dzielski in Kurs, No. 27,
The Man. His Tales and Romances
economics these were clear and very easy
program for the "second stage of eco-
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JAMES M. CAIN
28-29, 1987).
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Paul Skenary
"Among them one should certainly men-
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sense of frustration or desperation and
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life, impelling them to emigrate," etc. The
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communiqué of the Polish Episcopate
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CONTINUUM
Janusz Korwin-Mikke and Piotr
dustries belonging to the state"! Quoted
of the private sector in the national
Wierzbicki,
from "Opinia Krakowsklego Towarzys-
economy" (February 26, 1988).
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