[The Political Analysis of Postcommunism. Kyiv: Political Thought, 1995, pp. 99-117.]

Previous     Contents     Next

Chapter 2.

Political Transformations of Postcommunist Societies

Zbigniew BRZEZINSKI. Introduction — Volodymyr POLOKHALO.

In practice, postcommunist societies have not yet displayed any lasting features of political development which, if properly defined, could enable researchers to more or less clearly identify and describe tendencies and trends in the transformation of postcommunist political structures, processes, and influences. Hence, such concepts as "political system," "political elite," "political power," "political influence," etc., which together constitute the system of customary coordinates for traditional "pre-postcommunist" political analysis in Western societies, are often of little utility (both in terms of subject matter and methodology) in studying current political life and phenomena in the former communist states.

The reason is not only in the amorphous and arbitrary interpretation of well-known terms as instruments of political analysis transferred to a different political setting with a vastly different context of sociopolitical experiences. The very political reality of these countries, where the present is intricately intertwined with the past and there are still no clear indication of something new arising, reduces to the minimum the relevance of accumulated political science knowledge (in which the past clearly prevailed) and thus the very possibility of finding exact definitions of ideas and concepts with which we may understand the postcommunist transformations.

Conversely, trivial attempts at intellectual borrowing from other social science disciplines in hopes of instantly filling the conceptual vacuum in today's political science /102/ discourse have failed to create a new scholarly "instrumentality," that is, an ideational critical space outside of which any intellectual breakthrough is impossible.

Yet, the very fact of the "mysterious" and "sudden" (for political science but not for history) collapse of communism as the decisive event of the late twentieth century calls for an enrichment of various currents and patterns of political analysis dedicated to the explanation and assessment of the alternatives facing postcommunist societies and the highly contradictory and controversial political transformations taking place in the postcommunist world.

The authors in this chapter focus primarily on specific political changes, stages of the transformations taking place, the making of new political systems on the basis of old elites, how such systems differ from one another, how political power and elites are being transformed, and omnipresent corruption as a universal hallmark of the postcommunist world.

The Stages of Postcommunist Transformation

Time has now passed since the implosion of the communist state in Poland set in train a process that led to the collapse of the other Central European communist states. A bit less time has now passed since the implosion of the Soviet system itself, following five years of agonizing perestroika. It is, therefore, not too early to try to draw some lessons from the subsequent attempts to create, on the ruins of the communist systems, politically viable and economically successful democracies.

That on-going transformation poses intellectually challenging questions. When it began, there was no model, no guiding concept, with which to approach the task. Economic theory at least claimed some understanding of the allegedly inevitable transformation of capitalism into socialism. But there was no theoretical body of knowledge pertaining to the transformation of the etatist systems into pluralistic democracies based on the free market. In addition to being daunting intellectually, the issue was and remains taxing politically, because the West, surprised by the rapid disintegration of communism, was not properly prepared for participation in the complex task of transforming the former Soviet-type systems. Consequently, it has had to improvise very hastily over the last several years.

It is in this context that certain important questions have to be addressed. First, what should we have learned by now regarding the processes of postcommunist political and economic transformation? Second, what  should we have /104/ learned regarding Western policies meant to aid and promote that transformation? Third, and in the light of the preceding two, what results can we expect to flow in the foreseeable future — over the next decade or so — from the ongoing efforts at the transformation?

§1. The Transformation Process

Regarding the broad lessons of the transformation process, the first is that expectations on both sides — in the old communist states and in the West — were much too high and rather naïve. The liberated peoples of the former communist countries had truly exaggerated and simplistic notions of the kind of help that they would receive from the West. There was a generalized anticipation of manna from heaven, of some new "Marshall plan" being applied on a vast scale, notwithstanding the actual historical and intellectual irrelevance of the Marshall Plan experience to the former communist countries. While in the West, there was a general underestimation of the systemic complexity of the changes required, of the resistance by the established and still-pervasive nomenklaturas, and of the duration of the process itself.

A striking example of the above is that the American aid programs, which were initiated immediately after 1989-1990 for Poland and then for the other Central European countries, were based on the assumption that the transition process would last for about five years.¹ We now know that it will be much longer than that — ten years at a minimum for the Central European countries and probably in the range of fifteen to twenty years for the other countries — before it will be possible to say that the transformation has been completed. (One may also add, parenthetically, that the West was also rather overoptimistic as well as simplistic in its assessment of Gorbachev — of his intentions, as well as of his program — and that to some extent we currently display a similar tendency in our reactions to Yeltsin.)

A second and more complicated lesson is that the transformation process itself is not a continuum, but a sequence /105/ of distinct phases. Moreover, not all of the former communist states are in the same phase of the process of transformation, nor are they traversing the respective stages at the same pace. It is also noteworthy that the rapidity of the shift from phase to phase is heavily conditioned by what transpired politically and economically during the final (preimplosion but also gestating) stage of the former communist systems.

The above requires some elaboration. The first critical phase, following immediately upon the fall of the communist system, involves a combined effort to achieve both the political transformation of the top structures of political power and the initial stabilization of the economy. The former typically means the imposition of top-down democracy; the latter typically requires stabilization of the currency while undertaking the initial unfreezing of economic controls. This initial stage is extremely difficult because it involves a fundamental change in established political and economic processes. It calls for boldness and toughness, being essentially a plunge into the unknown.

The first phase is also the critical one because its success is the necessary launch pad for the second stage, one in which the quest for broader political stabilization has to be combined with efforts at more pervasive economic transformation. The adoption of a new constitution, a new electoral system, and the penetration of society by democratic processes are designed to institutionalize a functioning democracy. At the same time a broader economic transformation has to be launched, involving, for example, the establishment of a banking sector, demonopolization, as well as small and middle-scale privatization based on legally defined property rights.

Only when and if that phase has been successfully completed can the next — the third-phase be undertaken, in which comprehensive democratic institutions and processes truly begin to take hold in an enduring fashion, while economic growth becomes sustained as a consequence of the comprehensive unleashing of private initiative. A democratic political culture and an entrepreneurial tradition gradually /106/

Phases of Postcommunist Transformations

Phase One: 1-5 Years

Political Goal: Transformation

Economic Goal: Stabilization

Phase Two: 3-10 Years

Political Goal: From Transformation to Stabilization

Economic Goal: From Stabilization to Transformation

Phase Three: 5-15 (+) Years

Political Goal: Consolidation

Economic Goal: Sustained Take-Off

become reality. This third phase can be described as involving political consolidation and sustained economic take-off. To make all this more concrete, one might hazard the judgment that Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are now on the brink of entering that third phase. (See the enclosed table for a schematic representation of these phases on page 106²).

It is also important to note that the ability to embark on, and to traverse, particularly the first critical phase — the most important stage of decision — is heavily conditioned by the degree to which a particular fallen communist regime permitted both political relaxation and economic liberalization in its last years. The important fact to note is that, in effect, the agony of communism also served simultaneously (at least, in several cases) as a period of political and economic gestation for the emergence of postcommunism. The consequences of that gestation in the cases of Hungary (the Kadar regime in the 1970s and 1980s) and of Poland (the Gierek regime of the 1970s and the last five years of Jaruzelski in the second half of the 1980s) are selfevident.

The third lesson to be deduced from what we have seen of the transformation process involves the primacy of political reform as the basis for effective economic reform. A democratic political consensus and effective political processes are essential for the successful initiation and consummation of the first critical stage of change. One could theoretically postulate the need for an authoritarian system of discipline at this stage, because a great deal of social sacrifice is required (and generated) during its implementation. China obviously comes to mind here. However, in the wake of the collapse of the communist regimes in Central Europe and in the Soviet Union, an authoritarian approach does not seem feasible or desirable.

On the contrary, democratic consensus is imperative. But it must be organized and institutionalized. Initially, that typically calls for the presence of an effective, indeed of a charismatic popular leader — a Havel or Walesa — who can command popular support. It also requires the pres-/108/ence or rapid organization of a political movement that supports the leader in an institutionalized fashion, and is capable of sustaining popular support in the face of the social dislocations and deprivations that typically occur in this phase. But, above all, the initial phase, with its often euphoric postcommunist enthusiasm, must be exploited promptly to build the foundations for legitimate and formal democratic procedures within which longer-term economic reforms are pursued. By the time the second phase is reached, public euphoria tends to have waned, while disappointment with the transformation tends to escalate. Thus, much depends on the resilience and viability of the new democratic processes. Much of Russia's difficulties stem from Gorbachev's (and later Yeltsin's) failure to focus on the need for comprehensive political reform as an urgent priority.

The foregoing leads to a fourth lesson, which flows from the previous three: the rapid and comprehensive transformation — the shock therapy of the so-called "Big Bang" approach — is only possible if both the necessary subjective and objective conditions exist. The Polish case is a good example of the combination of the two. It involved the existence of a nation-wide counter-political elite, namely the Solidarity movement, which permeated society, was not crushed during the decade of the martial law, and could promptly serve as an effective counter-political elite on the national scale (rather than, as in some other cases, being confined to a few dissidents suddenly installed at the top of the national power hierarchy). That elite, moreover, was buttressed by the presence of a moral authority able to nourish the social will to sacrifice, namely the Catholic Church. In addition, a charismatic leader, who enjoyed special authority within the class likely to suffer the most from the social sacrifices, was able to personalize the political change. A free peasant class and a large underground economy provided economic responsiveness to the workings of the law of supply and demand, upon the lifting of price controls and the termination of subsidies. Finally, Poland benefited from the support given to its surfacing entrepreneurial culture by /109/ an engaged diaspora comprised of some ten million Poles who live abroad.

The listing of these factors suggests that while the Polish "Big Bang" approach may be exemplary, it may also be, in many respects, exceptional. In the absence of some combination of political cohesion, commitment, and consensus with economic receptivity and responsiveness, shock therapy is likely to produce political conflict and economic chaos, with well-positioned monopolies taking advantage of price liberalization simply to increase prices, thereby also stimulating inflation.

The fifth and last general lesson regarding postcommunist reconstruction follows from this last point: One should not rule out transformation strategies that involve slower motion and are also reliant on continued governmental guidance rather than purely on the unleashing of independent and dynamic market forces. Here, the warnings of the very prominent Japanese development economist, the late Suburo Okita, come to mind. He argued cogently in several papers that governmental intervention is needed in countries in which free market mechanisms lack tradition, experience, and appropriate social culture. He stressed that there are societies in which some combination of market mechanism and governmental planning is necessary for historical reasons, especially since the market mechanism is not always in and of itself infallible.

The examples of both Japan and Korea are very pertinent to the case made by Okita. In the summer of 1993, the World Bank was completing an exhaustive analysis of what transpired in the Far East in the last three decades and what lessons may be derived from that experience. According to a preview in the Financial Times, one of the Bank's conclusions regarding the Korean experience was that "...from the early 1960s, the government carefully planned and orchestrated the country's development.... [It] used the financial sector to steer credits to preferred sectors and promoted individual firms to achieve national objectives.... [It] socialized risk, created large conglomerates, created state enterprises when necessary, and molded a public-private partner-/110/ship that rivaled Japan's."³ Much the same could be said about Singapore as an example of successful directed growth. At the very least, such Asian experience should not be disregarded when contemplating the current political, economic and social dilemmas facing both Russia and Ukraine — countries without strong free market traditions and developed entrepreneurial cultures.⁴

§2. Lessons for the West

Let us now turn to the second of the four major questions posed at the outset: the lessons to be learned concerning Western policy designed to aid and promote postcommunist transformations.

First, Western aid is most critical during the first stage of transformation. In fact, significant Western aid is probably essential if that stage is to be traversed successfully. Later, after the first phase, Western aid ceases to be central, whereas access to Western markets and foreign investment become increasingly important. That access becomes the primary source of continued internal change and of export-driven economic dynamism. That is largely the case today in the relationship between postcommunist Central Europe and the European Community, with the result that the issue of "access" has become much more controversial than the scale of "aid." In contrast, the former Soviet Union is still in the first phase of the transformation process, when direct Western aid for stabilization and initial political transformation is essential.

Second, and perhaps more controversial, after the critical first phase, the inflow of external capital is not decisive. If Western capital was the key to success, former East Germany (GDR) should be flourishing, Hungary should have taken off economically some time ago, followed by the Czech Republic, with Poland trailing behind. Moreover, Russia should be doing much better than China.

Former East Germany has received monumental amounts of external capital over the last three years, at a rate of $100 billion per annum, for a population of a mere /111/ 16 million people. (Just calculate what anything comparable to such a per capita inflow would be required for Central Europe as a whole, or for Russia specifically!) But the crucial point is that the former GDR is still in a massive socioeconomic crisis. Similarly, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (prior to its division into two states in early 1993) have been the beneficiaries of much larger capital inflows than Poland. Yet today, Poland has a larger private sector and is the first former communist country to have attained a positive economic growth rate.

China has been the beneficiary of relatively small amounts in terms of grants, loans, credits, and until recently, investments. Over the first twelve years after the start of reforms in 1979, the total involved for China (a huge country with an enormous population) was less than $60 billion. This is much less than the Soviet Union /Russia has received since 1986 — some $86 billion. Yet China has done extremely well in terms of its economic development, growing over the last decade at a rate of 6 percent per annum, last year at 9 percent, and this year will probably reach 13 percent. Russia, in contrast, is still in an economic mess, with a negative growth rate.

In brief, after the conclusion of the first critical phase, during which external assistance is central, the nature of domestic polices, social discipline and motivation cumulatively become more important than the inflow of external capital in determining success or failure in the pursuit of economic transformations.

A third lesson with respect to the inflow of external capital is that explicit preconditions and strict supervision of its utilization are imperative. In fact, if a choice is to be made between quite limited but tightly monitored financial assistance and large inflows of external and largely integrated capital, the former is clearly more beneficial and, therefore, should be favored. This is especially true in the first phase, until trade and foreign investment replace the initial dependence on direct aid. Trade and investment almost automatically tend to be subject to more effective control by directly interested and personally concerned parties. In the ab-/112/sence of close external supervision, as experience sadly shows, massive diversion and extensive theft of foreign aid is to be expected.

The West should have learned this from its experience with Poland under Gierek. In the 1970s, Poland borrowed about $30 billion, yet it is very difficult to account for what happened to those funds. Today, there are even more serious questions to be raised regarding the $86 billion that has flowed into the former Soviet Union since the second half of the 1980s. Some estimates made in the United States conclude that as much as $17 billion of it has been diverted away from intended purposes and recycled to Western banks.

A recently concluded Japanese study, conducted on the eve of the July G7 Summit in Tokyo by a private think tank, Toray Corporate Business Research Inc., also addressed this issue. The study concluded that the Russian government has lost control over the capital flight phenomenon, with the consequence that large amounts of cash, gold and diamonds have been stashed in Swiss and Hong Kong banks. "The scale of the capital flight has already exceeded 40 billion dollars," the study asserted.⁵ Though this estimate may be too high, it is nonetheless clear that the problem of illicit diversion is a very serious one.

Accordingly, precise targeting and close monitoring by donors should be explicitly asserted, even if it offends the national pride of the recipients. Specific conditionality is also essential regarding the fundamentals of reform. Stabilization in the monetary area, depoliticization of the banking system, demonopolization, at least initial smallscale privatization (including in agriculture) and the decentralization of economic decision making, are the minima that the West has the right to insist upon when granting aid, if the aid is to be helpful.

Fourth, the West ought to encourage the recipient countries to develop some longer-range mobilizing vision, one capable of sustaining domestic support for the needed painful reforms. Even with generous external aid, domestic sacrifices and a great deal of social pain are unavoidable. /113/ Therefore, the articulation of a more positive, hopeful, constructive perspective on the future is politically necessary. The public must perceive a sense of direction which justifies their transitional pain and sacrifice.

For the Central Europeans such a vision largely exists already. It involves the notion of a united Europe, and of their eventual membership in it. That vision is very meaningful and tangible for the average Czech, Hungarian or Pole. It represents something to which they can relate personally. The issue becomes more difficult and elusive when one moves further east. What can provide such a constructive vision for the Ukrainian of today, who has found that independence has brought mainly socioeconomic deprivation? What is that vision for the Russian, who not only experiences similar socioeconomic deprivation, but feels acutely humiliated by Russia's loss of superpower status? It is not easy in these circumstances to generate a positive vision of the future.

For Ukrainians, perhaps it could be the notion of Ukraine eventually becoming and being accepted by its Western neighbors as a Central European state, and thus part of a community that is already moving closer to the West. That vision certainly would be more tangible to Western Ukrainians than to Eastern Ukrainians, but it might have wider appeal to Ukrainians who wish to define their nationhood in terms that differentiate Ukraine from Russia.

For Russians, perhaps, the appropriate vision might be one of becoming a partner of the United States, given the fascination with America that is so widespread in today's Russia. But if Russia is to be "a partner" of the United States, America will have to be explicit in insisting that such a Russia be truly a post-imperial Russia because only such a Russia can become genuinely democratic. The fact is that Russia has still a considerable distance to go in the painful process of adjusting to its new post-imperial reality, a process that was consummated in the case of Britain with the loss of India, in the case of France with the loss of Algeria, and in the case of Turkey under Atatürk, who de-/114/fined the concept of a new, would-be modern/would-be European, Turkey. The process of post-imperial self-redefinition is a complicated and difficult one. One can understand why opposition and confusion surround this subject in today's tormented Russia: but the issue must be addressed.

§3. A Differentiated Future

In the light of the responses to the first two questions, what reasonable expectations regarding the postcommunist transformation might be entertained in terms of the foreseeable future — say, the next decade or so? It follows from the analysis already offered that the transformation will be differentiated — in kind and time — as well as difficult. But what is likely to be the overall pattern? Are all of the former communist states safely on the way to becoming pluralistic, free market democracies? Before hazarding some rather arbitrary judgments in response to this question, let me suggest the following fourfold predictive framework.

The first category includes countries with essentially positive futures, by which is meant countries in which it would take something altogether unforeseeable and, at the present time, rather improbable for them to be diverted from the process of becoming viable pluralistic democracies.

The second category includes countries whose prospects over the next ten years look somewhat better than even, but in which a reversal, indeed a political and/or economic failure, still cannot be excluded.

The third category involves countries whose political and economic futures, in my judgment, are likely to be unresolved beyond this decade and into the next century.

Finally a fourth category, essentially an extension of the third, comprises countries whose futures currently, and into the foreseeable future, look distinctly unpromising.

By this classification, as already indicated, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary fall into the first category, as probably do Slovenia and Estonia. Of these, the first three are likely to become members of the European Community and NATO within a decade, and even perhaps within this /115/ century. Without minimizing their internal difficulties, their futures appear largely predetermined; although Hungary or Estonia could be affected adversely by some external complications (notably, ethnic problems). In any case, the first three can be seen as about to enter (or entering) Phase Three of the table enclosed on page 106, while the latter two are in Phase Two.

Even the likely success of the leading three, however, should not obscure the fact that it will take many years before the gap is significantly narrowed between the living standards of the richer West and even its most promising postcommunist neighbors. If one assumes, for example, that Germany and Austria will grow at 2 percent per annum, while Poland, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia will grow twice as fast, at 4 percent per annum, it would still take 30 years for Czechoslovakia, 46 years for Hungary, and 63 years for Poland to close the gap in their respective GNP per capita with their Western neighbors.⁶ Even if the rates of growth were 2 percent and 8 percent respectively, the years required would still be 12, 17 and 23 for the respective Central European populations to catch up with Germany and Austria. Obviously the prospects are much dimmer for the countries listed below in the second, third and fourth categories.

The second category — countries whose futures are generally positive but which are politically and economically still vulnerable —  includes Slovakia, Croatia (if it does not get entangled in a new war with Serbia), Bulgaria, perhaps Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Kirgizistan, and Turkmenistan (the latter two because of indigenous economic potential). Some of them — e. g., Latvia or Bulgaria — may be approaching Phase Two, but the others are still navigating through Phase One.

The countries which fall into the third category — those whose political and economic futures are likely to be still unresolved for a decade or more — are, first and foremost Russia, then Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azebaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Finally, those in the fourth category, whose futures for a variety of reasons /116/ look rather grim, are: Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Moldova, and Tajikistan. None of the above can be said to be very advanced (or successful) in traversing Phase One; some may not even have entered it. In fact, most of them are still governed by their former communist elites who masquerade under new labels, but whose commitment to a pluralist democracy and sensitivity to its nuances is still questionable.

Of those in the uncertain (third) category, Russia is, of course, the most important. One has to recognize some positive trends in ongoing Russian developments. There has certainly been general democratization, particularly of the upper-metropolitan levels of Russian society. In a number of the large cities, democracy is an operational reality, though it lacks genuinely pervasive institutionalization. There has also been some privatization of the economy and initial steps toward its stabilization.

But there are also contradictory trends. Economic chaos is a reality; there is no effective monetary policy, inflation is still extraordinarily high, unemployment is rising; the writ of the government is effectively limited to a few metropolitan centers and does not run throughout the country; there is a lack of policy cohesion and consistency; most of the privatized shops are still located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod.⁷ There is massive diversion of Western funds and aid by the remnants of the well-positioned nomenklatura and by a new class of middlemen; and many (probably most) of the new capitalists represent parasitic wealth, channeled mainly into consumption and not into productive investment.

Also complicating the economic picture is the evident renewal of imperial aspirations, which increases the likelihood of intensifying tensions with Ukraine and also generates problems with some of the other neighboring states. Most noteworthy here is the use of economic leverage and military pressure to informally preserve the essential elements of the Kremlin's former imperial status. Quite symptomatic of Moscow's continued reluctance to accept Kyiv's independence as an enduring fact. /117/

All of this justifies — and generates — some uncertainties regarding the future. One can expect, most probably, continued democratization, but in a context of inconsistent reforms that run the risk of producing periodic phases of intensifying anarchy — and thus the temptation to eventually resort to more authoritarian solutions. As a result, Russia does not fit either category one or category two, but has to be placed — reluctantly and regrettably — in category three. The same is true of Ukraine, whose independence is still in jeopardy and whose internal transformation has been lagging even more badly.

The foregoing cumulatively suggests that history is still open-ended as far as the final outcome of the postcommunist transformation is concerned. As of now, politically and economically successful liberal democracy is not a foreordained outcome, except perhaps for five out of the twenty-seven postcommunist states.

1. See, for example, the US General Accounting Office Report, Poland and Hungary  —

Economic Transition and US Assistance, May 1992, pp. 1826, 30.

2. Duration of the phases above are influenced by the nature of the gestation prior to the final collapse of communism. The four basic types of positive/negative gestations which impact the pace of transformation are: (1) both political and economic changes are positive; (2) political changes are positive, but the economic are negative; (3) political changes are negative, but the economic are positive; and (4) both the political and economic changes are negative. (Hungary and Poland fall generally into the first category, Russia into the second category, China reflects the third group, and Romania is an example of the fourth category.)

3. See Michael Prowse, "Miracles Beyond the Free Market," Financial Times, April 26, 1993.

4. A useful compendium of Saburo Okita's writings on this subject is contained in "Steps to the 21st Century," The Japan Times, 1993. In addition to Saburo Okita's numerous writings,  see also D. W. Nam (former Korean Prime Minister), "Korea's Economic Take-off in Retrospect," paper presented at the Second Washington Conference of the Korean-American Association, Washington, DC, September 2829, 1992; and N. Yonemura and H. Tsukamoto (both of MITI), "Japan's Postwar Experience: Its Meaning and Implications for the Economic Transformation of the former Soviet Republics," March 1992.

5. As reported by KYODO, May 24, 1993. Further shocking details regarding the diversion of Western aid for illicit purposes are contained in Grigory Yavlinsky's op-ed article "Western Aid is No Help," New York Times, July 28, 1993.

6. Based on the CIA World Fact Book of 1991, with the per capita GNP for Germany being $14,600, for Austria $14,500, for CSFR $7,700, for Hungary $5,800, and for Poland $4,200.

7. See also "Measuring Russia's Emerging Private Sector," Intelligence Research Paper (CIA: Washington, DC), /352/ November 1992.

Previous     Contents     Next