With all their delusions, including the counterproductive belief in the possibility of a dialogue with the seasoned Leninists that were running the show, the revisionists left a legacy of activism that was to flourish later in the non-Marxist or even anti-Marxist movements of the 1970s and 1980s. Their main weakness, however, was the idealization of the powers-that-be, the firm belief that there were redeemable features in the existing system and that therefore there was no justification for an out-and-out repudiation of the Marxist social design. In all communist countries where revisionist schools managed to come to life, their representatives failed to offer genuine political alternatives to the existing powers. What they were aiming at was at the most an improvement of the system, not its disbandment. In Michnik’s words:
I think that the revisionists’ greatest sin lay not in their defeat in the intraparty struggle for power (where they could not win) but in the character of that defeat. It was the defeat of individuals being eliminated from positions of power and influence, not a setback for a broadly based leftist and democratic political platform. The revisionists never created such a platform.14
The final blows against the revisionist illusions came with the March 1968 events in Poland, when the Communist Party showed its real chauvinistic, fascist nature, and even more shockingly with the military invasion of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the reform movement in that country in August 1968. Indeed, one can say that events in 1968 put the final nail in the coffin of revisionism. For those who recognized the amplitude of the drama that took place in that year, it was clear the the exit from Sovietism meant a resolute break with all Marxist illusions. Leszek Kolakowski, a former revisionist Marxist himself, gave full expression to the newly acquired understanding of the intimate connection between the Marxist world view and the practice of communism in the twentieth century:
It would be absurd to maintain that Marxism was, so to speak, the efficient cause of the present-day Communism; on the other hand, Communism is not a mere “degeneration” of Marxism but a possible interpretation of it and even a well-founded one, though primitive and partial in some respects …. The self-deification of mankind, to which Marxism gave philosophical expression, has ended in the same way as all such attempts: it has revealed itself as the farcical aspect of human bondage.15
But how could one engage in such a struggle against an enormous repressive apparatus, armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated devices and ready to resort to any means in order to defend its privileges? While revisionists were despairing over the collapse of their dreams, neopositivists were seeking to expand the realm of civil liberties. To accomplish that limited goal, they were ready to pay Hp service to the party’s leading role and to accept its hegemony. As the situation grew increasingly tense, both the revisionists and the neopositivists discovered that their options were strikingly out of touch with Poland’s political realities of the 1970s:
The conflicts between the public and the authorities showed the illusory character of the hopes held by both the revisionists and the neopositivists, and placed them in a situation in which they had to make a dramatic choice. When there is open conflict, one must clearly state a position and declare whose side one is on—that of those being beaten up or that of those doing the beating. Where the conflict is open, consistent revisionism as well as consistent neopositivism both inevitably lead to unity with the powers-that-be and assumption of their point of view. To offer solidarity with striking workers, with students holding a mass meeting, or with protesting intellectuals is to challenge the intraparty strategy of the revisionist and neopositivist policies of compromise.16
Michnik proposed an evolutionary path to change the rules of the game, which at that time made the existing system in the Soviet Union the chief deterrent to bold antiregime activities. However, he saw a possibility for a struggle for the expansion of civil liberties within the existing conditions. The “new evolutionism” was thus closer to the Spanish rather than the Portuguese model of transition from dictatorship to democracy. In other words, Michnik insisted on the need for gradual and piecemeal change, rather than a violent upheaval and the abrupt destruction of the existing system. The most important distinction between the previous attempts at change and Michnik’s strategy was that the latter was addressed to the independent society and not to the rulers. That was not a romantic rejection of geopolitical realities but rather the adjustment of the oppositional demands to the existence of a conservative, or even reactionary, imperial center. The new evolutionism was based on the assumption that society could recover from the totalitarian anesthesia, that individuals gradually could become citizens, even without a direct confrontation between the powerful and the powerless. The penetration of the existing structures and the creation of parallel networks of action and communication seemed to be the best means to advance such an agenda. Unlike previous experiments, the new evolutionism saw the working class as the pivotal agent in such a political transition:
“New evolutionism” is based on the faith in the power of the working class, which, with a steady and unyielding stand, has on several occasions forced the government to make spectacular concessions. It is difficult to foresee developments in the working class, but there is no question that the power elite fears this social group most. Pressure from the working classes is a necessary condition for the evolution of public life toward a democracy.17
The philosophy of the new evolutionism became the theoretical axis for the formation of a democratic opposition in Poland and the other East-Central European countries. Anticipating events that were to take place in Poland four years later, Michnik wrote presciently:
The democratic opposition must formulate its own political goals and only then, with those goals in hand, reach political compromises. Take, for example, a situation in which the workers revolt and the government declares that “it wants to consult with the working class” instead of organizing a bloody massacre. The people of the democratic opposition should treat this reaction neither as a sufficient concession (“but they are not shooting”) nor as a meaningless fiction. On the contrary, the democratic opposition must be constantly and incessantly visible in public life, must create political facts by organizing mass actions, must formulate alternative programs. Everything else is an illusion.18
It was precisely in accordance with this approach that Solidarity was able to overcome its limited trade union identity and become the center of Poland’s emerging civil society. The movement’s antibureaucratic nature and its adoption of a comprehensive social agenda contributed to its transformation into the nerve center of the country’s awakening: “The essence of the spontaneously growing Independent and Self-Governing Labor Union Solidarity lay in the restoration of social ties, self-organization aimed at guaranteeing the defense of labor, civil and national rights. For the first time in the history of communist rule in Poland ‘civil society’ was being restored, it was reaching a compromise with the state.”19
The whole strategy of the new evolutionism was based on a certain definition of socialism by the Soviet Union. More clearly, it was based on the recognition by the civil societies that the ultimate limit of their actions was represented by the Soviet margin of tolerance of political change in any of the former satellite countries. In addition, those struggles were taking place in a Soviet Union dominated by the Brezhnevite clique of gerontocrats, suspicious of any change that would jeopardize Soviet interests. In his autobiography, Lech Walesa, the electrician from the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk who became the chairman of Solidarity, justified the politics of “self-limitation of the revolution” by quoting a text by Adam Michnik, who for many years had played the role of an adviser to the independent union’s leadership. Walesa’s autobiography provides a detailed perspective on the strategic and philosophical dilemmas of the East European opposition in the pre-Gorbachev era:
The truth is that without agreement between the government and the people, this country cannot be governed. The truth is
also that, in spite of official pronouncements at national functions, this country is not a sovereign country. This is the truth: Poles should admit the fact that their sovereignty is limited by the national and ideological interests of the USSR. In the last analysis, the truth is that the only Polish government acceptable to the leaders of the USSR is one controlled by communists; there is no reason to think that this state of affairs is going to change overnight, if ever.
What follows from this? It follows that every attempt to govern against the people’s will leads inevitably to catastrophe, but it also follows that every attempt to overthrow the government of Poland strikes a direct blow at the interests of the USSR. This is our reality. One doesn’t have to like it, but one must recognize it.
I realize that many of my colleagues openly reproach me with the charge that I have abandoned our aspirations to independence and democracy. To them, I reply frankly: in our present geopolitical situation, I don’t believe that access to independence and parliamentarism is possible. I believe that we can organize our independence from within, in other words, that in becoming an increasingly better-organized society, increasingly efficient, we will enrich Europe and the rest of the world, in turn, with what we have to offer; at the same time we can offer an alternative choice, demonstrating our tolerance and humanity. When we accomplish this we will be on the road to independence and democracy.
Pluralism in all areas of life is possible, the abolition of advance censorship is possible, a rational economic reform is possible and a just social policy are possible, press and television subject to the rules of competition and relaying the truth are possible, the independence of science and the autonomy of universities are possible, as are social controls of prices and a network of consumers’ councils, along with independent courts of law and police stations where people aren’t beaten up.
If we have to obtain all this by force, to wrest it from the government, since no nation has ever received its rights as a gift, let us be careful in resorting to this necessary violence not to tear to shreds the Polish state, deprived of its sovereignty as it already is.20
This long quotation is just the opposite of an invitation to passivity. Michnik’s own political career, which started during the student protest movement at the University of Warsaw in the 1960s, included the formation of KOR, participation in Lech Walesa’s team of advisers, and a new series of prison terms following the proclamation of martial law in December 1981, is testimony against such an interpretation. The philosophy of the new evolutionism was the attempt to discover a way out of the stalemate created by the post-totalitarian order. It was a realization, especially in light of the tragic end of the Prague Spring, that as long as fundamental changes did not occur in the center of the empire itself, as long as the Kremlin perceived the East European countries as a mere extension of its inner empire, any attempt to challenge and modify the established form of authority was bound to engender Soviet intervention. But even in those extremely limiting conditions, there was enough to be done. First and foremost, as civic activists in all the East-Central European countries discovered, it was possible to create a parallel structure of institutions. The emergence of Solidarity was precisely the result of that approach. The new union was not simply a movement restricted to the defense of the workers’ interests. As Walesa himself noted, Solidarity meant the rise of a new form of politics, one opposed to the duplicitous rituals practiced by the rulers. Later on, Vaclav Havel would speak about the politics of truth. And that of course was the deeper meaning of the appearance of Solidarity and of its victory over the principles of self-serving Realpolitik: It was the dissident’s dream turned into a mass movement, the triumph of the humanist creed over bureaucratic pragmatism.
In the preface to his memoir, Walesa describes the experience of Solidarity as the beginning of a new form of politics, one that would take into account the ultimate dangers confronting mankind and the right of the individual to reject any ideological imperatives. The new politics involves the defanaticization of the public realm, the affirmation of the right to be different and of the right to civil disobedience. The significance of Solidarity transcended the Polish borders. Its birth was one of those world-historical developments that not only announce a new chapter in a country’s national history but also usher in a new order of things on the global scale. In Walesa’s words:
Solidarity is a further sign that a new era is beginning. The burden of the past was weighing us down and forcing us to look for new solutions; it was forcing us to confront problems of impossible complexity. We Poles are exposed to influences from all sides and life requires us to choose, to verify, to experience for ourselves, and then to assert ourselves and draw from within ourselves the necessary moral strength to effect change. Though we are caught in the vise of a fossilized system, a product of an outdated partition of our planet, in August 1980 we overthrew an all-powerful taboo and proclaimed the dawning of a new era. The Polish nation achieved this as a force before the eyes of the world without threats, without violence or a drop of the opponent’s blood being shed; no ideology was advanced, no economic or institutional theory: we were simply seeking human dignity. In both camps, free and unfree, this episode has been regarded as a revolutionary act. But we saw nothing revolutionary in what happened. We merely felt that after so many years of living upside down, we were at least beginning to walk on our feet.21
Indeed, the strategic outlook represented by the new evolutionism ensured the development and flourishing of an alternative political culture in Poland without producing a direct clash with the ruling elite.
When the Polish government decided to crack down on Solidarity in 1981, it was not only because of its own concerns about the future of the political system and the union’s transformation into a rival political force, but also because of pressure from the Soviet Union. One can imagine the reaction of Brezhnev, Suslov, and other orthodox Leninists to the rise of an autonomous, self-governing union in neighboring Poland. They definitely feared that Solidarity’s example would become contagious and would inspire similar movements in Eastern Europe and even in the Soviet Union. Yet not all of Jaruzelski’s motivations in proclaiming martial law were related to the danger of direct Soviet intervention. Clear evidence of the long-planned nature of the 1981 crackdown appeared in the Polish media during the presidential campaign in December 1990, when Jaruzelski left the political scene and Lech Walesa was elected President. Plans for a military takeover and a ban on the activities of Solidarity had been initiated immediately after the signing of the Gdansk agreements in August 1980, well before the first recorded instances of Soviet pressure.22 Later on, when the whole Soviet vision of intrabloc relations changed and the Kremlin decided to let each country follow its own political course, a new approach was needed. The determining and compelling geopolitical limitations that had historically operated to produce a deadlock were replaced by new possibilities for experimentation.
In Poland the regime failed to introduce economic reform, social discontent soared, and industry was paralyzed by working-class unrest. It was clear that far from having been smashed, Solidarity had thrived underground. The huge network of independent press and other activities permitted the sudden revival of the union and helped reconstitute a credible political actor at the moment of the roundtable negotiations. By 1988 the issue was the nature of the political system itself and the regime’s monopoly of political power in Poland. The new evolutionism had led to a revolutionary situation where simple intrasystemic reforms were counterproductive. They had been tested, and they had failed. The transcendence of the status quo through the organization of free elections was the only alternative to the prolongation of this agony. As the British political essayist Timothy Garton Ash insightfully commented, what was happening in the first months of 1989 in Poland and Hungary was not traditional tinkering with the system, or adjustment of the opposition to the old-fashioned rules of the game, but rather the combination of reform and revolution in a uniqu
e strategic chemistry that included mutual trust and the acceptance by the government of a partner—the democratic opposition—it had long considered intractable. For the opposition, that meant that for the first time its leaders were engaged in a historical deal that could bring them to power.
The dichotomy “reform or revolution” turned out to be irrelevant in Poland and Hungary at the beginning of 1989:
[W]hat is happening just now is a singular mixture of both reform and revolution: a “revorm,” if you will, or perhaps a “refolution.” There is, in both places, a strong and essential element of voluntary, deliberate reform led by an enlightened minority (but only a minority) in the still ruling Communist parties, and in the Polish case, at the top of the military and the police. Their advance consists of an unprecedented retreat: undertaking to share power, and even—mirabile dictu—talk of giving up altogether, if they lose an election.23
But this did happen in the revolutionary year 1989, when all the previous considerations of tactical pragmatism and prudence were reassessed in the light of a new Soviet margin of tolerance.
During the 1970s and 1980s, before Gorbachev came to power and affirmed his new philosophy of international relations based on the supremacy of universal human values, it was unthinkable that the continuum of domination in each East European country could be broken in such a radical way. The opposition strategy had to count on a long and patient construction of another social reality, one different from the official institutional framework based on coercion and lies.
THE POLITICS OF ANTIPOLITICS: HOW CIVIL SOCIETY EMERGES
Nobody better expressed the commitment to a politics of truth than the Czech playwright and human rights activist Vaclav Havel. During the Prague Spring Havel belonged among those independent intellectuals who criticized the party reformers for their timidity in breaking with the Soviet-style system. As a young man, born to a bourgeois family, Havel was denied the right to attend university. He thus experienced the discriminations introduced by an order that claimed to express the interests of all the working people. He discovered that there was no connection between the regime’s self-serving demagogy and the social reality of Czechoslovakia. His plays described the predicament of the human being in systems inimical to truth and dignity. Following the Soviet invasion of his country, Havel refused to emigrate and continued to fight in defense of civil rights. He was a founding member of and one of the first spokesmen for Charter 77. For his uncompromising struggle, he was imprisoned on various occasions. In 1979 a group of Czechoslovak and Polish dissidents decided to organize and publish a samizdat collection of essays called On Freedom and Power. Because of the political situation in the two countries, the volume that emerged contained only the Czechoslovak contributions, but the Poles had read them and were highly appreciative of their quality. Referring to Havel’s contribution to the volume, Zbigniew Bujak, the Warsaw Solidarity leader, noted in 1981 that this essay, entitled “The Power of the Powerless,” gave the Polish opposition “theoretical backing, a theoretical basis for our actions.”24 Havel’s merit was to synthesize, in a most poignant way, ideas, expectations, and even emotions that had existed mostly in a spontaneous, unarticulated, subliminal form. The new movements in Eastern Europe needed a convincing theoretical explanation of their political legitimacy. Each essay in this path-breaking multi-author volume deserves special discussion, but Havel’s offers a concentrated, comprehensive analysis of the nature of power, dissent, and opposition in post-totalitarian societies.
Reinventing Politics Page 19
