The leninist debris or waiting for Perón

East European Politics and Societies

Volumn 10, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 504-535

  Tismaneanu, Vladimir ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0030351293     PISSN: 08883254     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0888325496010003006     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. This point was made clear by Miklos Haraszti in his "The Paradigm of the Boots," in Vladimir Tismaneanu and Judith Shapiro, eds., Debates on the Future of Communism (London: Macmillan, 1991), 45-49.
2. Václav Havel, "The Post-Communist Nightmare," The New York Review of Books (27 May 1993): 8.
3. In Hungary, for instance, the government run by the former Communists (in alliance with the Liberal Democrats) initiated in March 1995 a reform of the Kádár welfare system more drastic than anything advocated by the liberal parties.
4. For excellent analyses of the November 1995 Polish presidential elections that led to Lech Walesa's defeat and the victory of the "postcommunist" politician Aleksander Kwasniewski, see Timothy Garton Ash, "'Neo-Pagan' Poland," New York Review of Books (11 January 1996): 10-14; and Wiktor Osiatynski, "After Walesa," East European Constitutional Review 4:4 (Fall 1995): 35-44.
5. For excellent analyses of the November 1995 Polish presidential elections that led to Lech Walesa's defeat and the victory of the "postcommunist" politician Aleksander Kwasniewski, see Timothy Garton Ash, "'Neo-Pagan' Poland," New York Review of Books (11 January 1996): 10-14; and Wiktor Osiatynski, "After Walesa," East European Constitutional Review 4:4 (Fall 1995): 35-44.
6. Thomas Ort, "The Far Right in the Czech Republic," Uncaptive Minds, 6:1 (Winter-Spring 1993): 67-72. A similar case is Gheorghe Funar, the mayor of Cluj, whose anti-Hungarian rhetoric was the vehicle for his lightning political ascent as chairman of the Romanian National Unity Party, the political branch of the ultranationalist Vatra Românescǎ (Romanian Hearth) movement.
7. In November 1995, the alliance between Romania's ruling (presidential) party and some of the extremists came to a provisional end, as Vadim Tudor's representatives were forced to leave the government. It is still too early to decide whether the acerbic polemics between Vadim and Iliescu's supporters will result in a restructuring of Romania's political alliances. Be that as it may, one cannot simply dismiss the exchange as a "family quarrel."
8. For a most insightful analysis of the implications of these elections, see Aleksander Smolar, "The Poland of Kwasniewski," Tygodnik Powszechny, 7 January 1996 (English translation in FBIS-Eastern Europe, 1 February 1996, 48-56).
9. Michael Ignatieff, "The Politics of Self-Destruction," New York Review of Books (2 November 1995): 17-19; and Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London and New York: Penguin, 1995).
10. Michael Ignatieff, "The Politics of Self-Destruction," New York Review of Books (2 November 1995): 17-19; and Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London and New York: Penguin, 1995).
11. For Karadzic's career, see Roger Cohen, "Karadzic's Bosnian War: Myth Becomes Madness," New York Times, 4 June 1995. In 1995, the Russian Writers' Union (dominated by nationalists) bestowed on Karadzic the Sholokhov Prize.
12. Many of my points on the Yugoslav catastrophe owe much to my discussions with historian Nicholas J. Miller.
13. Robin Blackburn, "The Break-up of Yugoslavia and the Fate of Bosnia," New Left Review (May-June 1993): 100.
14. Slavoj Žižek, "Ethnic Danse Macabre," The Guardian, 22 August 1992, quoted in Blackburn, "Break up," 101.
15. Slavoj Žižek, "Ethnic Danse Macabre," The Guardian, 22 August 1992, quoted in Blackburn, "Break up," 101.
16. Ken Jowitt, "Dizzy with Democracy," Problems of Post-Communism 43:1(January-February 1996): 4.
17. "'The Best World We Have Yet Had': A Conversion with Sir Karl Popper," in G. R. Urban, End of Empire: The Demise of the Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1993), 208.
18. See Georges Mink's distinctions between "partis consensuelists, tribunitiens et querelleurs," in his "Les partis politiques de l'Europe centrale post-communiste: etat des lieux et essai de typologie," L'Europe centrale et orientale en 1992, Documentation francaise, 21-23.
19. Jane Perlez, "Hungarians Rally to Cry of Old Party," New York Times, 29 July 1995.
20. Wolf Lepenies, "The Future of the Intellectuals," Partisan Review 1 (Winter 1994): 117-18. Lepenies has a drastic view of this defeat of the critical intelligentsia after the short-lived moment of an euphoric état de grace when they thought the spirit had come to power in 1989: "The illusion that intellectuals can participate in European politics has faded." Ibid, 113. But this is still a topic to be debated. Maybe the "revolution of the intellectuals" has failed, but the role of the intellectual in defending the values of spiritual autonomy and protest against the triumph of philistine facticity remains as urgent as ever. Instead of renunciation and melancholy bowing to the status quo, critical intellectuals still have a significant position in their societies. After all, even in France, the role of the critical intelligentsia was to sensitize public opinion to the prevailing lies about the Vichy regime. The same can be said about Germany, where intellectuals have been among the most perceptive critics of the post-1990 arrogance of the former West Germans toward the new German citizens from the old GDR.
21. Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: The Free Press, 1995).
22. For the persistence of the fascist syndrome, see Umberto Eco, "Ur-Fascism," New York Review of Books (22 June 1995): 12-15.
23. Fritz Stern, Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History (New York: Knopf, 1987).
24. What has emerged, however, is a novel political structure that Lenard Cohen accurately described as "ethnic democracy." See his Broken Bonds: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia (Boulder: Westview, 1993).
25. Wiktor Kulerski, "The Post-Totalitarian Syndrome," Uncaptive Minds Vol. 5:2 (Summer 1992): 111.
26. Ralf Dahrendorf, Reflections in the Revolution in Europe (New York: Random House, 1991).
27. For the myth of the "new man," see André Reszler, Mythes politiques modernes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1981), 141-70.
28. Katherine Verdery, "Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania," Slavic Review 52:2 (Summer 1993): 179-203.
29. For interesting glimpses into Milosević's personal life, includmg the possible tensions between him and his wife, Belgrade University sociologist Mirjiana Marković, see Stephen Kinzer, "Serb First Lady Plays Powerful Role," New York Times, 10 August 1995.
30. Jean Rouvier, Les grandes idées politiques de Jean-Jacques Rousseau à nos jours (Paris: Plon, 1978), 159, quoted by Andre Reszler, "Mythes," 193.
31. Jean Rouvier, Les grandes idées politiques de Jean-Jacques Rousseau à nos jours (Paris: Plon, 1978), 159, quoted by Andre Reszler, "Mythes," 193.
32. Agnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér, The Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1991); and Leszek Kolakowski's Modernity on Endless Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). These philosophers have long since noticed the dissolution of the "redemptive paradigms" and the rise of the alternative, parallel discourses, although they did not anticipate the ongoing rise of the narratives of hatred and revenge.
33. Agnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér, The Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1991); and Leszek Kolakowski's Modernity on Endless Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). These philosophers have long since noticed the dissolution of the "redemptive paradigms" and the rise of the alternative, parallel discourses, although they did not anticipate the ongoing rise of the narratives of hatred and revenge.
34. For instance, the Croat president Franjo Tudjman can easily dispense with his own party (at the moment critical voices are heard), use his influence on parliament (without support of his own party) to gain approval of all his choices, and still appear as a "supporter of democracy." The same can be said of Romania's Ion Iliescu and Ukraine's Leonid Kuchma. For Latin American disillusionment with leftist radicalism, see Jorge Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War (New York: Knopf, 1993).
35. Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age (New York: Free Press, 1994), 251.
36. Julia Kristeva, Nations Without, Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 68-69).
37. For the concept of uncertainty, see Valerie Bunce and Maria Csanadi, "Uncertainty in the Transition: Post-Communism in Hungary," East, European Politics and Societies 7:2 (Spring 1993): 240-75.
38. Llazar Semini, "Albania Warns Serbia on Kosovo," Washington Post, 16 August 1995.
39. This point is often made by Michael Ignatieff in his contributions on the Yugoslav disaster, especially in The New York Review of Books.
40. Olivier Mongin, Face au scepticisme: Les mutations du paysage intellectuel ou l'invention de l'intellectuel démocratique (Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1994).
41. Anthony Lewis, "The Italy We Want?" New York Times, 26 June 1995.
42. For perceptive explorations of these issues, see George Konrád, The Melancholy of Rebirth: Essays from Post-Communist Central Europe, 1989-1994 (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995).
43. G. M. Tamás, "A Legacy of the Empire," The Wilson Quarterly (Winter 1994): 79.
44. Bruce Ackerman, The Future of the Liberal Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
45. About tribalism as the barbaric component lying at the core of modernity, see Hannah Arendt's masterpiece, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and the whole critique of the Enlightenment by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkeimer, which, as Wolf Lepenies has recently emphasized, is not a rejection de plano, but an invitation to an epistemology of doubt, opposed to the Voltairian exaltation of reason. I insist on this because there is a growing trend to set up a barrier of sorts between a dark, unpredictable, Southeastern Europe, almost inherently irrational, tribal, and violent, and a Central Europe, presumably more able to articulate and internalize the discourse of reason. See Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York: Free Press, 1992).
46. About tribalism as the barbaric component lying at the core of modernity, see Hannah Arendt's masterpiece, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and the whole critique of the Enlightenment by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkeimer, which, as Wolf Lepenies has recently emphasized, is not a rejection de plano, but an invitation to an epistemology of doubt, opposed to the Voltairian exaltation of reason. I insist on this because there is a growing trend to set up a barrier of sorts between a dark, unpredictable, Southeastern Europe, almost inherently irrational, tribal, and violent, and a Central Europe, presumably more able to articulate and internalize the discourse of reason. See Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York: Free Press, 1992).
47. Ken Jowitt, "The New World Disorder," Journal of Democracy 2:1 (Winter 1991): 16-17, and his New World Disorder. The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).
48. Ken Jowitt, "The New World Disorder," Journal of Democracy 2:1 (Winter 1991): 16-17, and his New World Disorder. The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992).
49. See John Rawls' discussion of criteria for assessing civic freedom and the idea of a well-ordered society in his Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 30-40.
50. Martin Palous, "Post-Totalitarian Politics and European Philosophy," Public Affairs Quarterly 7:2 (April 1993): 162-63.
51. Arpad Göncz, "Breaking the Vicious Circle," Common Knowledge 2:1 (Spring 1993): 1-5; see also "Cette étrange époque postcommuniste: Adam Michnik s'entretient avec Václav Havel," in Georges Mink and Jean-Charles Szurek, Cet étrange post-communisme: Rupture et transition en Europe centrale et orientale (Pans: Presses du CNRS/La découverte, 1992), 17-48.
52. Arpad Göncz, "Breaking the Vicious Circle," Common Knowledge 2:1 (Spring 1993): 1-5; see also "Cette étrange époque postcommuniste: Adam Michnik s'entretient avec Václav Havel," in Georges Mink and Jean-Charles Szurek, Cet étrange post-communisme: Rupture et transition en Europe centrale et orientale (Pans: Presses du CNRS/La découverte, 1992), 17-48.
53. See Julian Barnes' disquieting novel The Porcupine (New York: Knopf, 1992).
54. For the immense power of these new mafiosi that have become a challenge second to none to the establishment of the rule of law in Russia, see K. S. Karol, "Moscou sous la loi des gangs," Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 17-23, March 1994, 36-37; and Steven Erlanger, "A Slaying Puts Russian Underworld on Parade," The New York Times, 14 April 1994.
55. For the immense power of these new mafiosi that have become a challenge second to none to the establishment of the rule of law in Russia, see K. S. Karol, "Moscou sous la loi des gangs," Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 17-23, March 1994, 36-37; and Steven Erlanger, "A Slaying Puts Russian Underworld on Parade," The New York Times, 14 April 1994.
56. Rumors had it that it was a form of money laundering for the Italian mafia (after 1992, Romania replaced Yugoslavia as a major traffic way for weapons, drugs, and other dirty trades).
57. Williams McPherson, "Transylvania's S&L: The Pyramid Scheme That Is Eating Romania," Washington Post, 21 November 1993; and Michael Shafir, "The Caritas Affair: A Transylvanian Eldorado," RFE/RL Research Report, 2:38 (24 September 1993): 23-27. For an illumnating exploration of the Caritas affair, see Katherine Verdery, "Faith, Hope and Caritas in the Land of Pyramids, Romania, 1990-1994," in her book What Was Scialism, And What, Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 168-203.
58. Williams McPherson, "Transylvania's S&L: The Pyramid Scheme That Is Eating Romania," Washington Post, 21 November 1993; and Michael Shafir, "The Caritas Affair: A Transylvanian Eldorado," RFE/RL Research Report, 2:38 (24 September 1993): 23-27. For an illumnating exploration of the Caritas affair, see Katherine Verdery, "Faith, Hope and Caritas in the Land of Pyramids, Romania, 1990-1994," in her book What Was Scialism, And What, Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 168-203.
59. Williams McPherson, "Transylvania's S&L: The Pyramid Scheme That Is Eating Romania," Washington Post, 21 November 1993; and Michael Shafir, "The Caritas Affair: A Transylvanian Eldorado," RFE/RL Research Report, 2:38 (24 September 1993): 23-27. For an illumnating exploration of the Caritas affair, see Katherine Verdery, "Faith, Hope and Caritas in the Land of Pyramids, Romania, 1990-1994," in her book What Was Scialism, And What, Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 168-203.
60. See Albert Hirshman's splendid analysis of the "perversity argument in his The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991).
61. Jorge Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War (New York: Knopf, 1993), 247.
62. For the former Communists, see Andrew Nagorski's perceptive book The Birth of Freedom: Shaping Lives and Societies in the New Eastern Europe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) , especially chap. 2, "The Communist Afterlife," 55-91.
63. For the former Communists, see Andrew Nagorski's perceptive book The Birth of Freedom: Shaping Lives and Societies in the New Eastern Europe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) , especially chap. 2, "The Communist Afterlife," 55-91.
64. Michael Specter, " Discontent of Belarus Voters Fueled Landslide for Outsider, " New York Times, 7 December 1994.
65. For the global impact, in terms of norms definition, see James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory of Change and Continuity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
66. "Poles Hold March Over New Budget," New York Times, 10 February 1994. This was one of many protests against the austerity budget in February 1994. It turned out to be the largest antigovernment demonstration since the collapse of communism (about 30,000 people).
67. Peter Reddaway, "Russia on the Brink," The New York Review of Books (28 January 1993): 30-35 Reddaway notices a multilayered feeling of moral and spiritual injury related to loss of empire and damaged identity: "Emotional wounds as deep as these tend to breed anger, hatred, self-disgust and aggressiveness. Such emotions can only improve the political prospects for the nationalists and neo-communists, at any rate for a time." Needless to add, in the meantime, Reddaway has become even more pessimistic.
68. Adams Michnik, "The Church and the Martyr's Stake in Poland," New Perspectives Quarterly 10:3 (Summer 1993): 32.
69. See Andrew Arato, "Revolution, Restoration and Legitimization: Ideological Problems of the Transition from State Socialism," in Michael Kennedy, ed., Envisioning Eastern Europe: Postcommunist Cultural Studies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 180-246.
70. For the "Movement for Romania" as a reincarnated Iron Guard, see Tismaneanu and Dan Pavel, "Romania's Mystical Revolutionaries: The Generation of Angst and Adventure Revisited," East European Politics and Societies 8:3 (Fall 1994): 402-38; for the ongoing intellectual fascination with the former Iron Guard doctrinaires, see Tismaneanu, "Romania's Mystical Revolutionaries" Partisan Review (Fall 1994): 600-09.
71. For the "Movement for Romania" as a reincarnated Iron Guard, see Tismaneanu and Dan Pavel, "Romania's Mystical Revolutionaries: The Generation of Angst and Adventure Revisited," East European Politics and Societies 8:3 (Fall 1994): 402-38; for the ongoing intellectual fascination with the former Iron Guard doctrinaires, see Tismaneanu, "Romania's Mystical Revolutionaries" Partisan Review (Fall 1994): 600-09.
72. For such a pessimistic approach, see Jan Urban, "Europe's Darkest Scenario," Washington Post, Outlook Section, 11 October 1992, 1-2.
73. For an insightful exploration of Papandreou's anti-Western radicalism, see Robert Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), 260-81; see also the excellent discussion of "Third World populism" as an alternative to traditional Leninism, in Dimitri Kitsikis, "Populism, Eurocommunism, and the KKE: The Communist Party of Greece," in Michael Waller and Meindert Fennema, eds., Communist Parties in Western Europe: Decline or Adaptation? (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 102-06.
74. For an insightful exploration of Papandreou's anti-Western radicalism, see Robert Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), 260-81; see also the excellent discussion of "Third World populism" as an alternative to traditional Leninism, in Dimitri Kitsikis, "Populism, Eurocommunism, and the KKE: The Communist Party of Greece," in Michael Waller and Meindert Fennema, eds., Communist Parties in Western Europe: Decline or Adaptation? (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 102-06.
75. See my "Fantasies of Salvation: The Dynamics of Nationalism in Post-Communist Societies," in Michael Kennedy, ed., Envisioning Eastern Europe, 102-24.
76. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global turmoil at the End of the Twentieth Century (New York: Charles Scribner and Son, 1993), 19.
77. In this respect see Tony Judt, "Misjudgement of Paris: French Illusions and the Eastern Europe That Never Was," Times Literary Supplement, 15 May 1992; G. M. Tamás, "The Legacy of Dissent," Times Literary Supplement, 14 May 1993; and my rejoinder "NYR, TLS and the Velvet Counterrevolution," Common Knowledge 3:1 (Spring 1994): 131-42. One of the best explorations of the role of ressentiment in postcommunist politics is Irena Grudzinska-Gross, "Post-Communist Resentment, or the Rewriting of Polish History," East European Politics and Societies, (Spring 1992): 141-51.
78. In this respect see Tony Judt, "Misjudgement of Paris: French Illusions and the Eastern Europe That Never Was," Times Literary Supplement, 15 May 1992; G. M. Tamás, "The Legacy of Dissent," Times Literary Supplement, 14 May 1993; and my rejoinder "NYR, TLS and the Velvet Counterrevolution," Common Knowledge 3:1 (Spring 1994): 131-42. One of the best explorations of the role of ressentiment in postcommunist politics is Irena Grudzinska-Gross, "Post-Communist Resentment, or the Rewriting of Polish History," East European Politics and Societies, (Spring 1992): 141-51.
79. In this respect see Tony Judt, "Misjudgement of Paris: French Illusions and the Eastern Europe That Never Was," Times Literary Supplement, 15 May 1992; G. M. Tamás, "The Legacy of Dissent," Times Literary Supplement, 14 May 1993; and my rejoinder "NYR, TLS and the Velvet Counterrevolution," Common Knowledge 3:1 (Spring 1994): 131-42. One of the best explorations of the role of ressentiment in postcommunist politics is Irena Grudzinska-Gross, "Post-Communist Resentment, or the Rewriting of Polish History," East European Politics and Societies, (Spring 1992): 141-51.
80. In this respect see Tony Judt, "Misjudgement of Paris: French Illusions and the Eastern Europe That Never Was," Times Literary Supplement, 15 May 1992; G. M. Tamás, "The Legacy of Dissent," Times Literary Supplement, 14 May 1993; and my rejoinder "NYR, TLS and the Velvet Counterrevolution," Common Knowledge 3:1 (Spring 1994): 131-42. One of the best explorations of the role of ressentiment in postcommunist politics is Irena Grudzinska-Gross, "Post-Communist Resentment, or the Rewriting of Polish History," East European Politics and Societies, (Spring 1992): 141-51.
81. Samuel Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72:3 (Summer 1993): 22-49.
82. See Giuseppe De Palma, "Legitimation from the Top to Civil Society: Politico-Cultural Change in Eastern Europe," World Politics 44:1 (October 1991): 49-80; and Eric Hobsbawm, "The New Threat to History," New York Review of Books (16 December 1993): 62-64.
83. See Giuseppe De Palma, "Legitimation from the Top to Civil Society: Politico-Cultural Change in Eastern Europe," World Politics 44:1 (October 1991): 49-80; and Eric Hobsbawm, "The New Threat to History," New York Review of Books (16 December 1993): 62-64.
84. One might say that the real problem (folly?) of East Central Europe is the desperate search for and manufacture of an ideology instead of an ethics. Ironically, the blatant amorality of the Leninist age was followed by a widespread distrust of ethical values, a flight from individual responsibility, and a repudiation of genuine political commitments. Thus, in Poland, it is, paradoxically, those who are the beneficiaries of the new freedoms (the successful business people) who are politically apathetic. None of these societies has been able to formulate the set of values that would define the existence of a "transcendental good." And how can "civil society" exist in the absence of such a metaphysically grounded status of the individual freedoms? I owe many of these thoughts to Jay Tolson's critical remarks to a book proposal I wrote while a research scholar at the Wilson Center in the summer of 1993.
85. For an excellent discussion of nationalism, see Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism and Exoticism in French Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).