Jozef Pinior: Don't you agree that East European emancipation, this traditional movement for political anti-bureaucratic revolution, has met with new and unexpected problems?
In Poland, it has come up against new mechanisms of exploitation and domination. There are no ready-made recipes for solving these new problems. And this may be one of the reasons for the frustration and disorientation and for the fact that this programme of emancipation no longer has the support that it had in Poland ten years ago, or a year ago in Czechoslovakia.
PU: We are faced with the fact that we have not achieved the goals we set ourselves. The anti-bureaucratic revolution has not been carried through. Certainly we have liquidated the old mafias, but bureaucratic struggle is gradually becoming an anti-capitalist struggle, and we are not used to this change.
JP: In both Poland and Czechoslovakia I can see a division within the anti-bureaucratic movement. A part of the leadership is in the process of modifying the original programme. This was not a capitalist programme, but an attempt to link up human rights, the ecological and anti-militarist alternative, social justice and liberty. This was, without doubt, not a search for a "third way" — such a formula would be too strong.
PU: I don't think it's too strong.
JP: But now things have moved on. The people who are coming to the fore in are a lot like those we know in Poland, Balcerowicz, the IMF pro-
PU: Since the start, OF did not refer to a single ideology and did not use words such as "socialism", "capitalism" or the "third way". The programme on which the OF deputies were elected to the assemblies was clearly pluralist, both politically and economically. It was in favour of a plurality of forms of owner-
February 4, 1991 • #199 International Viewpoint ship of the means of production. There has been no new document by OF on this subject. However this is going to be debated in the conference at Olomouc in December 1990 and then at the OF congress in January 1991.
For the first time there is a possibility that OF will cease to be a pluralist movement and become a political party with a liberal or liberal-conservative line. When Klaus was asked if he was a liberal or a conservative, he replied that he was a conservative. What is involved also is the rejection of any social OI social/ ecological dimension to our reforms. In such a situation, many of those who are still in Civic Forum - and many have already left in disillusionment — and are not in favour of such changes, will propose that those who support such changes form their own party. But this would mean the end and the disintegration of the OF. In any case, unlike Walesa, Klaus is • Klaus' project is clear - everyone knows what he wants. But 1 have the impression that his opponents have no clear project. They want to keep OF while the rise of Klaus is in itself proof of the limitations of this framework. Can the OF be kept in its original form or will growing awareness of divergent interests imply its breakup? The OF was united by the struggle against the bureaucracy - and this is no longer the main battle.
PU: When it was formed, the OF defended the possibility of organizing political life not on the basis of parties on the Western model, but via a civic movement where different groupings could form on this or that problem with a plurality of views. This would enable citizens to take part in political debates and decision making. In this way, a parliamentary system would be progressively enriched by elements of direct democra-
OF has a reason for existing insofar as it is supported by the mass of the population. If it loses that support — as is happening today — Klaus' solution is a fake We could of course develop another conception, for example, form a Bolshevik Party of the Soviets, but this would be
JP: I think that there is a more general and deeper problem here. I think that today in Poland - though not yet in Czechoslovakia — we are facing new forms of exploitation and domination based on the market and not on the political power of the bureaucracy. In fact this bureaucracy itself, which had previously ruled through political means and force, is now trying to maintain its positions through the market. This is new. Perhaps the efforts of all those who selves as an alternative to the right in the form of civic movements are not adequate today. Might it not be that the ideological force of these new market methods is so strong that traditional answers are too weak and doomed to failure?
PU: If this alternative is too weak in Poland, then things will be ten or a hundred times worse in Czechoslovakia. With us many times fewer people have been involved in the civic movements than in Poland. We see only one solution. The mobilization of those who are against Klaus and who have never participated in the anti-bureaucratic struggles - 99% of the working class.
The workers have not had the experience of anti-bureaucratic struggles in independent unions, it has had tolerable material conditions, while suffering violations of human rights such as the right to travel, and religious and cultural freedom. At the same time the country is ecoravaged by 40 bureaucratic mismanagement and there is a looming economic crisis.
Will this be enough to stimulate a movement that is both anti-bureaucratic, and does not demand a return to Stalinism, and anti-capitalist, that is, in favour proper role of the unions and above all their role in management of the enterprises has not been resolved. There are traditions here that are positive - there has been a strong workers movement here for over a century and there are bourgeois democratic traditions as well.
In Poland on the other hand you can always count on the ten million workers who were in Solidarity and the tens of of militants involved in day to day activity for years. They were 20 or 30 when they began, and now they are ten years older. We can discuss with old people about the anticapitalist struggles before the war and about the anti-Nazi struggle. This is a big • Before the November 1989 events, Petr, you had pointed out model of democracy proposed by many of the intellectuals who went on to form the OF. You also underlined the problems with the definition of property. Has this debate
PU: The debate on democracy has taken place between different political clubs - between Obroda, ex-members of the Communist Party, Christian Democrats, Left Alternative and others. It continues now in a different form in parliament. On the property question for example, the OF recognizes a plurality of forms of ownership of the means of production. However for the last few months, the majority of the leadership has oriented towards private property only, forgetting the support expressed for cooperatives, ownership by
EASTERN EUROPE
OBCANSKÉ FORUM
OF
communes of towns and workers' ownership of their enterprise. Self-management was abandoned at the start of 1990. • Has the anti-bureaucratic desire shown in Czechoslovakia during the "velvet revolution" given way to a perspective of capitalist restora-
PU: Czechoslovak society is undergoing a process of very gradual differentiation. Some people, notably Vaclav Klaus, are for the restoration of capitalism -although they do not use the word. The left has not taken this as a reason for a break, but continues to defend pluralism.
Unorganized people are often supporters of capitalist methods because they are worried by the fact that the structures of the old regime are not totally destroyed and that the bureaucrats are trying to set up new limited companies, while political democracy — and thus political life — have not really developed. The laws that would give the people "at the bottom" economic guarantees are not there. This creates a pressure in favour of a more rapprogress towards a Western system which seems efficient to such people. At the same time people are anxious about the future, fearing unemployment, inflation, a decline in living standards and • Do legal limits exist in Czechoslovakia that would prevent foreign capital from buying up particular
PU: The "small privatization" envisages the sale by auction of hotels, garages and so on. However it does not involve transport, agriculture, health service. It only includes some ser-
Furthermore it only applies to enterprises belonging to the state and not those that have been confiscated from a commune or a private owner. In this last case, the goods are to be given back in money form and will not be privatized. Foreign capital will not have the right to take part in the first round of auctions, but only in any subsequent round. In my opinion there is no great danger in a foreigner buying a restaurant or a delicatessen. belong to the unions and nobody touch them. The "big privatization" law (the "law on the transformation of state 23 property", towards which privatization is
International Viewpoint #199 • February 4, 1991
EASTERN EUROPE only one of the roads, which could include share-holding by workers to create a limited company has not yet been adopted, and we do not know what limits will be set to foreign capital.
Klaus is defending scheme — a proposal under discussion, according to which between 20 and 80% of the property of the big factories will be distributed among the population in the of half the average monthly salary. We will see what people make of this. shares, but they will only go to Czechoslovak citizens, who, according to the law, will only be able to sell them to other citizens. The share itself on the other hand can be sold to a foreigner. • Both of you are known as representatives of the leftwing tradition. Both of you have, at one time or another, been leaders in the opposition, Jozef in Solidarnosc and Petr in Charter 77 and VONS (the Committee to Defend the Unjustly Prosecuted). Jozef found himself at a given moment outside Solidarnosc, and you, Petr are the subject of
PU: It is Vaclav Klaus who is most opposed to the presence of the left in OF. He is not a long-term activist, and only appeared 14 days before the end of the old regime. He is no ex-colleague of mine. He is supported by people I have never known. I recently went to the OF's Council meeting to defend my own position and that of the Left Alternative group to which I belong. Two thirds of the people there were totally unknown to me, and it is they who voted to exclude me The people that knew me voted against
Poland is a year ahead of us in the liberalization of prices and economic reform. In the Polish situation, I could without doubt become a deputy in the parliament, but I could not be in the political structure of a force like Solidarity nr Civic Forum if it had the explicit former. At the momen out such a programme. • for this reason that Josef has already been excluded from these structures whereas I am still
JP: There are big differences between our two countries. What is the situation of the Czechoslovak workers' today? For we agree that it is the workers movement that will decide the future.
In Poland I put my hopes in the development of new movements from below, which will arise inside Solidarosc and in the enterprises. These movements will seek an alternative to the economic plan
Balcerowicz, while organizing workers for a struggle against such phenomena as chauvinism, anti-semitism and 24 Thope Satch sy will dis alop. be isha is racism. Such structures already exist and the situation in Czechoslovakia? Is the union movement still controlled by the old Stalinist apparatus?
PU: There has been a complete change in the unions. I do not know if the old unions still have even a formal legal existence, or if they are still conducting their last battles in front of the tribunals on
The people who hold the responsible positions in the new unions came to the fore in November 1989. They are the people who organized the threat of a general strike and the strike committees to prepare for a new union movement. In the old "Revolutionary Union Movement" there were some 16 to 18 sectoral organizations, today there are around 80, independent from each other, although coordinated by a relatively strong centre
Most of these unions are, furthermore, federalized — one in the Czech Lands and another in Slovakia - with a level of coordination between them. Some are organized on an all-Czechoslovak level. There is no union pluralism — the workers don't want it. This means, for example, that there is one union for journalists in the mass media (radio, television, and the national press agency - CTK).
The printing workers at CTK are in the printworkers union. unions which are more to the left or to the right. Of course there are some old bureaucrats in the apparatuses but they do not have decisive influence.
The unions have already protested against some laws. They express their ideas in the daily Prace, which used to belong to the old unions, and which is not the property of the new ones. They have undertaking campaigns, example the one recently concerning the draft law on the right to strike, one paragraph of which forbade political strikes. At that time the unions appealed to the prime minister, Marian Calfa, asking: "how a government which was born out of a political strike can ban political strikes. " The law was not adopted.
It is being discussed. This debate is through the political groups. Of course the Czechoslovak Communist Party is now 100% for union rights, but the five other forces - the Civic Forum, the Public Against Violence (the Slovak partner of Civic Forum), the Christian Democratic Movement, the Moravian regionalists and the Slovak nationalists - in the Federal Assembly are divided. Their votes go both ways. Inside OF some say: "these are Bolshevik arguments and it is necessary to put an end to the situation of the past 40 years, where the unions have had a negative influence on production." This is not course. There were no real unions under the old regime. It was a comedy.
JP: What did you mean by your remark that the anti-bureaucratic revolution had not been carried through to the end?
PU: The Czechoslovak process has not gone as far as in Poland, where the poli cal leaders of the old regime are reorg framework. With us there are analogo tendencies, but they are not general. the intermediary level, on the other han the old officials, factory directors, assis ants, heads of sectors and so on, are st in position. This poses a real problem responsibility, education and cadres.
People are fed up with this, and it beginning to change. All the structures al towns are going to be changed by ele tions. The management system impos by the state will be replaced by a syste of territorial self-management and certa officials will lose their power. In t towns with between 10,000 and 20,00 inhabitants the mafias are still at wor They comprise the public prosecuto secret police agents, the president of t local court, directors of factories a local cooperatives, the mayor and so on
Often these people are old ruled by a gerontocracy. Sometimes th have kept their positions, or they ha been demoted a rung, but with all the o contacts still working. They are a parall
People are well aware of this and sa "One year after the revolution, all th still exists." The most radical, the f right Republicans come close to callin for "Stringing up the Communists." B these are marginal people. All this w become clearer when social conflic develop, when there is inflation aI unemployment, because people are not so sensitive unemployment. • There are local elections Czechoslovakia. In Poland thes elections have already taken plac The new local self-managemel structures are very restricted by tr new state structure. bureaucratic revolution cannot be ma in the framework of the moves towar new market mechanisms of dominati and exploitation. It is clear that in t context of the opening to the world ma ket, there cannot be an anti-bureaucrat revolution, since the ex-Stalinist burea cracy is best placed to benefit from tr new mechanisms.
To the extent that the bureaucrat structure remains untouched, the peop who join the local councils work on i terms. The people adapt to the structur not the other way round. Thus, the ne councils work in the old way. They a inefficient, lazy, and are in no way und the democratic control of the electors. • One of the principle values of So idarnosc was that the workers an citizens should be social subjects.
PU: But this is an old Marxist ide Why hide that? *
Left reacts to
Klaus'
takeover of
Civic Forum THE LEFT has for some time been irrelevant inside the Czech Civic Forum (CF) and its Slovak equivalent "Public Against Violence". In the past year the majority of the left has left CF to set up more clearly defined organizations. The left inside CF now consists of Left Alternative, a social democratic club around Charter 77 dissident Rudolf Battek, and Obroda, a group of Communist Party members expelled from the party in 1968. ADAM NOVAK
ETR Uhl (see preceding interview)