Explaining lustration in Central Europe: A 'post-communist politics' approach

Democratization

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 22-43

  Williams, Kieran ^a,b   Fowler, Brigid ^c,d   Szczerbiak, Aleks ^e  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^b DRAKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

^d MEP   (Belgium)

^e UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Czech Republic; Hungary; Lustration; Poland; Transitional justice

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION; LEGISLATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM; POST-COMMUNISM;

CENTRAL EUROPE; CZECH REPUBLIC; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; EUROPE; HUNGARY; POLAND; WORLD;

EID: 13344283400     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1351034042000317943     Document Type: Review

References (108)

1. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p.211.
2. Neil J. Kritz (ed.), Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes. 3 vols (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995);
3. Jon Elster, 'Coming to Terms with the Past. A Framework for the Study of Justice in the Transition to Democracy', Archives Européenes de Sociologie, Vol.39, No.1 (1998), pp.7-48;
4. and Aviezer Tucker, 'Paranoids May be Persecuted: Post-totalitarian Retroactive Justice', Archives Européenes de Sociologie, Vol.40, No.1 (1999), pp.56-100.
5. Ved P. Nanda, 'Civil And Political Sanctions as an Accountability Mechanism for Massive Violations of Human Rights', Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol.26 (1998), p.391.
6. Adrienne M. Quill, 'To Prosecute or Not to Prosecute: Problems Encountered in the Prosecution of Former Communist Officials in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the Czech Republic', Indiana International and Comparative Law Review, Vol.7 (1996), pp. 165-91.
7. For a thorough survey of earlier literature, see Alexandra Barahona de Brito, Carmen Gonzaléz-Enríquez and Paloma Aguilar (eds), The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.315-51.
8. A noteworthy exception is Roman David, 'Lustration Laws in Action: The Motives and Evaluation of Lustration Policy in the Czech Republic and Poland (1989-2001)', Law and Social Inquiry, Vol.28 (2003), pp.387-439.
9. For detailed case studies of Poland and the Czech Republic, see Aleks Szczerbiak, 'Dealing with the Communist Past or Politics of the Present? Lustration in Post-Communist Poland', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.52, No.4 (2002), pp.553-72;
10. Aleks Szczerbiak, 'Civilised Lustration? Evaluating the Polish Model', Studia Polityczne, No.14 (2003), pp.35-72;
11. and Kieran Williams, 'Lustration as the Securitization of Democracy in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.19, No.4 (2003), pp.1-24.
12. On the former German Democratic Republic see A. James McAdams, 'Communism on Trial: The East German Past and the German Future', in A. James McAdams (ed.), Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law in New Democracies (Notre Dame, IN and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp,239-68,
13. and Donald Kommers, 'Transitional Justice in Eastern Germany', Law and Social Inquiry, Vol.22 (1997), pp.829-48.
14. Versions of lustration have been mooted in Albania, Bulgaria and Lithuania, but have not matched the expanse of the Czech, Hungarian and Polish efforts. See Natalia Letki, 'Lustration and Democratisation in East-Central Europe', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.54, No.4 (2002), p.545.
15. The term 'lustration' has long been used by Slavophone archivists simply to refer to the compilation of an inventory or register. To lustrate someone was to check whether his name appeared in a database. The term was more widely adopted not because, as is commonly alleged, of its etymological association with ancient Roman rites of purification, but because politicians and the public heard it used by bureaucrats during battles for control of Czechoslovak files in early 1990. The word does not even appear in the paradigmatic Czechoslovak law (451/1991 Sb.), which is blithely titled 'On some further prerequisites for the discharge of some functions in state organs and organizations of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, Czech Republic and Slovakia'.
16. For a similar distinction, see Mark Gibney, 'Decommunization: Human Rights Lessons from the Past and Present, and Prospects for the Future', Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol.23 (1994), p.87;
17. C. Charles Bertschi, 'Lustration and the Transition to Democracy: The Cases of Poland and Bulgaria', East European Quarterly, Vol.28, No.4 (1995), p.437;
18. and Letki (note 7), p.550.
19. Huntington (note 1), p.228.
20. John P. Moran, 'The Communist Torturers of Eastern Europe: Prosecute and Punish or Forgive and Forget?', Communist and Post-Communist Studies Vol.27, No.1 (1994), pp.95-109.
21. Ibid., p.101.
22. Helga A. Welsh, 'Dealing with the Communist Past: Central and East European Experiences after 1990', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.48, No.3 (1996), 419-28.
23. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD and London: The John Hopkins University Press. 1996), p.42.
24. Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldová, Radosław Markowski and Gábor Tóka, Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-Party Competition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.40.
25. Kieran Williams and Dennis Deletant, Security Intelligence Services in New Democracies: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp.74-5. As of November 2002, the precise total was 402,788, according to Hana. Lachová, head of the Czech Interior Ministry's department for personnel security and lustration (communication to authors, 26 November 2002).
26. See for example Rudolf Tokés, Hungary's Negotiated Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), especially ch.4.
27. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (note 14), p.42.
28. Kitschelt et al. (note 15), pp.21-42.
29. Tokés (note 17), pp.332-47.
30. Reprinted in Sándor Kurtán et al. (eds), Magyarország politikai évkönye 1991 (Budapest: Ökonómia Alapítvány/Econornix Rt., 1991), pp.762-3.
31. Law 1994: XXIII, 'Egyes fontos tisztségeket betölto személyek ellenorzésérol, Magyar Közlöny, 1994, No.36, 5 April.
32. Although lustration survived, the list of posts affected was drastically reduced by the 1994-1998 socialist-liberal government, under a 1996 amendment. The list of posts was expanded again, to include even some that had not been covered in 1994, under the 1998-2002 right-wing government. This 2000 amendment also extended the life of the lustration regime, from its originally planned expiry date of 2000 to mid-2004.
33. Kitschelt et al. (note 15), p.40.
34. Linz and Stepan (note 14), p.255.
35. S. Podemski, 'Lustracja zlustrowana', Polityka, 13 September 1997.
36. Noel Calhoun, 'The Ideological Dilemma of Lustration in Poland', East European Politics and Societies, Vol.16, No.2 (2002), p.503.
37. Ibid., pp.506-8.
38. Aleks Szczerbiak, 'Interests and Values: Polish Parties and their Electorates', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.51, No.8 (1999), pp.1401-32.
39. Welsh (note 13), p.423;
40. Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p.93;
41. Williams (note 7), pp. 1-24.
42. Our generalizations are derived from dozens of contributions to the parliamentary debates on lustration laws. The key Czechoslovak debates took place in January, March, May and October 1991, and are transcribed in Knihovna Parlamentu České republiky, E517, inv. č. 1331/91, 11. společná schuze SL a SN;
43. inv. č. 983/91, 14. společná schůze SL a SN;
44. inv. č. 1357/91, 15. společná schůze SL a SN;
45. inv. č. 1510/92, 17. společná schůze SL a SN. The major Hungarian debates occurred in October-November 1991, October-November 1993, February-March 1994, December 1995, February-March and June 1996, and April and May 2000, and are on line at . The Polish debates took place in July 1996, March 1997, March and June 1998, the transcripts of which can be found at .
46. Knihovna Parlamentu České republiky, E517. inv. č. 1279/90, Tisk 430 [p. 9, 26-7].
47. On the impact of the alleged 17 November conspiracy, see Václav Bartuška, Polojasno (Prague: Ex Libris, 1990);
48. Alojz Lorenc, Ministerstvo strachu? Neskartované vzpomínky Generála Lorence (Bratislava: Tatrapress, 1992), pp.8-11;
49. Jiří Ruml, 'Šest roků', Lidovénoviny, 17 November 1995.
50. Karel Pacner, Osudové okamžiky Československa (Prague: Thermis, 1997), p.552;
51. Jaroslav Spurný, 'Poznej svého udavače', Respekt, No.52, 30 December 1996;
52. Pavel Žáček, Boje o minulost: Deset let vyrovnávání se s komunistickou minulostí - pokus o předběžnou bilanci (Brno: Barrister & Principal, 2000), p.42.
53. Jan Ruml, 'Kdo koho kryje?', Respekt, No.6, 18 April 1990;
54. Mladá fronta Dnes, 21 December 1990;
55. Jana Šmídová, 'Spisy nebyly zničeny', Lidové noviny 3 January 1991;
56. Ivan Trefulka, 'Vidím, co vidím', Lidovénoviny, 3 April 1991.
57. On 'Danubegate', see Vladimir Kusin, 'The Secret Police', RFE Report on Eastern Europe, Vol.1, No.6 (1990), pp.36-9;
58. Zoltán Barany, 'Scandal in the Ministry of Internal Affairs', RFE Report on Eastern Europe, Vol.1, No.10 (1990), pp.27-32.
59. For an account by one of the figures involved in breaking the scandal from the Federation of Young Democrats (FIDESZ), see József Végvári and Zoltán Lovas, 'Szomorújaték', Magyar Narancs, 5 February 1990, reprinted in András Bozóki (ed.), Tiszta Lappal. A FIDESZ a magyar politikában 1988-1991 (Budapest: FIDESZ, 1992), pp.250-57.
60. See the interview with Gábor Demszky, chair of the committee and one of the authors of the SZDSZ bill, 168 Óra, 11 September 1990. Another SZDSZ member of the committee, Ferenc Koszeg, similarly recollected the meeting as the origin of the bill, in a much later interview;
61. see 168 Óra, 15 September 1997.
62. Rzeczpospolita, 22 December 1995.
63. In Poland, for example, the Oleksy affair seems to have been responsible for a rise from 34 per cent of respondents regarding lustration as 'urgent' in April 1994 to 44 per cent in February 1996;
64. see Aleks Szczerbiak, 'Dealing with the Communist Past' (note 7), p.561.
65. Reprinted in Sándor Kurtán et al. (eds), Magyarország politikai évkönvye 1992 (Budapest: Demokrácia Kutatások Magyar Központja Alapítvány/Economix Rt., 1992), pp.759-66.
66. See, most famously, the tract published in August 1992 by MDF Vice-President István Csurka, 'Néhány gondolat a rendszerváltozas két esztendeje és az MDF új programja kapesán', reprinted in Sándor Kurtán et al. (eds), Magyarország politikai évkönye 1993 (Budapest: Demokrácia Kutatások Magyar Központja Alapítvány/Economix Rt., 1993), pp.516-39, especially at p.535.
67. The Czech centre-left Civic Movement divided over the final form of the 1991 lustration law, as did the similarly centre-left Social Democrats on its extension in 2000. This was, by contrast, unanimously supported by the deputies and senators of the right. Likewise, the liberal SZDSZ was divided over the 1994 lustration law in Hungary. At mass level, in the Czech Republic in May 2000, 59 per cent of supporters of the neo-conservative Civic Democratic Party wanted lustration continued, against a national average of 36 per cent;
68. see Institut pro výzkum veřejného mině ní, 'Veřejnost k lustračnímu zákonu', press release dated 29 May 2000. In Poland, in an October 1999 survey, 66 per cent of supporters of the right-wing Solidarity Electoral Action supported decommunization, against 25 per cent of SLD supporters, while supporters of the centrist Polish Peasant Party and Freedom Union were more evenly divided - although it should be noted that even 43 per cent of SLD voters supported vetting only;
69. see Szczerbiak, 'Dealing with the Communist Past' (note 7), pp.559, 571n.21. In a May 1999 CBOS survey, SLD voters were the only ones who opposed automatic exclusion of former communist agents, by 50 per cent to 39 per cent;
70. see Polacy o lustracji i ustawie lustracyjniej (Warsaw: CBOS, June 1999). In Hungary, according to Gallup polling in June 2002, soon after the relevation that new Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy had worked with communist counterintelligence, 75 per cent of supporters of the right-wing FIDESZ and MDF wanted the names of all those who had worked for the domestic secret police published, against a national average of 61 per cent, 56 per cent of MSZP supporters and 67 per cent of SZDSZ voters. Support for the publication of the names of post-Communist public figures who had worked for any branch of the Communist security services stood at 67 per cent, 51 per cent, 43 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively, among the same four groups;
71. data at as of 7 December 2002.
72. For example, seven communist-era officials who were publicly named in a report into Hungary's 'Danubegate' scandal as having continued to receive secret police reports after October 1989 won parliamentary seats in the 1990 elections, two in individual constituencies;
73. see HVG, 7 January 1995. Survey and electoral evidence is often ambiguous regarding the impact on voting behaviour of candidates' links with the communist regime.
74. See the remarks by Václav Krása, a member of the right-leaning Freedom Union, in Digitální knihovna PČR, PS 1998-2002. 25. schůze. Středa 24. května 2000, located at .
75. See also remarks by a leading Christian democrat, Cyril Svoboda, at .
76. According to analysis by the Medián polling agency, by the time of the 2002 parliamentary elections former Communist Party membership, views on the c communist period and a wish to remove former cadres from office were among the strongest predictors of party choice;
77. see HVG, 29 March 2002.
78. The SLD's victory was probably responsible for a rise from 27 per cent to 34 per cent between February 1993 and April 1994 in the share of Poles regarding lustration as 'urgent';
79. see Szczerbiak, 'Dealing with the Communist Past' (note 7), p.561.
80. The amended law was Law 2000: XCIII, 'Az egyes fontos tisztségeket betölto személyek ellenorzésérol és a Történeti Hivatalról szóló 1994. évi XXIII. törvény módosításáról', Magyar Közlöny, 2000 No.65, 24 June. The justification attached to the bill (T/2298) emphasized that it would require lustration of the parliament and government elected in 2002.
81. For the text of the amended law, see Rzeczpospolita, 23 October 1998, and for details see Szczerbiak, 'Dealing with the Communist Past' (note 7), p.569.
82. Knihovna Parlamentu České republiky, E517, inv. č. 1331/91,11. společná schůze SL a SN 10.1.1991 [p.535].
83. See, for example, György Sándorfi, 'Az igazsá gtétél és Európa', MS, remarks delivered at Lakitelek, 8 April 1995. In the debates over the 2000 amendment to the lustration law, and again in 2002 following the revelation of Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy's past as a communist-era counter-intelligence agent, right-wing advocates of a tougher lustration regime have continued to argue that Hungary's standing in the West and 'Europe' is damaged by having some compromised communist-era figures as national leaders.
84. Consider the justification attached to the 1997 Polish lustration bill: the legislation 'provides an opportunity, in a manner that is open to appeal, to repair the damage caused to a person unjustifiably suspected of collaborating with the [Communist-era security] services';
85. see Projekt Ustawy o ujawnienia pracy w organach bezpieczenstwa panstwa lub wspólpracy z nimi w latach 1944-1990, osób pelnia̧cych funkcje publiczne (Warsaw: Sejm RP, 1996).
86. Knihovna Parlamentu České republiky, E517, inv. č. 1331/91, 11. společná schůze SL a SN 10.1.1991 [pp.564-8, 615-17].
87. The public was unimpressed by this approach, with only one-third of respondents to a spring 1991 poll trusting the information that underpinned the accusations. See Rudé právo, 19 April 1991.
88. Louisa Vinton, 'Olszewski's Ouster Leaves Poland Polarized', RFE/RL Research Report, Vol.1, No.25 (1992), pp. 1-10.
89. Antonío Costa Pinto, 'Settling Accounts with the Past in a Troubled Transition to Democracy: The Portuguese Case', in Barahona de Brito, Gonzaléz-Enríquez and Aguilar (note 5), p.73. Popular pressure was greater in Portugal because the founding election was not held until two years after the transition commenced, and the Communist Party of Portugal was agitating in the workplace.
90. Szczerbiak, 'Dealing with the Communist Past' (note 7), p.559.
91. Rzeczpospolita, 5 October 1999.
92. Rzeczpospolita, 11 August 2000.
93. Polacy o lustracji i ustawie lustracyjniej (Warsaw: CBOS, June 1999).
94. Ocena Procesu Lustracjnego (Warsaw: CBOS, October 1999).
95. Medián poll in Magyar Hírlap, 21 October 1992, cited in Heino Nyyssönen. The Presence of the Past in Politics. '1956' after 1956 in Hungary (Jyväskylä: SoPhi, University of Jyväskylä, 1999), pp.223-4.
96. TeleMedia poll in Magyar Hirlap, 26 January 1995. As well as secret police agents, the question referred to members of the armed units that helped put down the 1956 revolution and to members of the fascist Arrow Cross.
97. Gallup polling, 19-20 June 2002, at as of 7 December 2002.
98. Rudé právo, 3 September 1991.
99. For Hungarian data, see Béla Marián, 'A politikai közvélemény a Medián kutatásainak tükrében', in Sándor Kurtán et al. (eds , Magyarorzág politikai évkönye 1993 (Budapest: Demokrácia Kutatósok Magyar Központja Alapítvány, 1993), p.650. As the aftershocks of the Medgyessy affair continued, 49 per cent of respondents reported themselves entirely uninterested in the issue;
100. Medián polling in Népszabadság, 24 September 2002.
101. František Cigánek, Kronika demokratického parlamentu 1989-1992 (Prague: Cesty, 1992), p. 188.
102. Rzeczpospolita, 2 February 1996.
103. Barbara A. Misztal, 'How Not to Deal with the Past: Lustration in Poland', Archives Européennes de Sociologie, Vol.40, No.1 (1999), p.42.
104. Gibney (note 9), pp.95-7.
105. This is implied by Pavel Rychetský, the deputy federal premier who oversaw preparation of the lustration bill, in an interview in Rudé právo, 17 May 1991. The charter, and European human-rights standards, also stopped efforts to lustrate editors in private media ( Rudé právo, 2 July 1991).
106. Rudé právo, 26 June 1991.
107. Roman Boed, 'An Evaluation of the Legality and Efficacy of Lustration as a Tool of Transitional Justice', Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol.37, No.2 (1999), pp.386-95. Presenting the government's 1991 bill to parliament on 8 October of that year, the Hungarian Interior Minister, Péter Boross, cited the international reaction to Czechoslovak lustration to support his argument for moderation.
108. Speaking in the debate on the first reading of the lustration bill on 4 July 1996, at .