The Survival of Post-communist Networks: A Challenge to European Unity?

Abstract

Although the fall of the Iron Curtain seemed to pave the way towards a new era of security, freedom and wealth in Central and Eastern Europe, the transition to democracy has been hindered by the weight of its communist heritage. In fact, elites of the old regimes have continued to play a determinant role, to the detriment of the growth of fully democratic societies. This article explores the consequences of post-communism, emphasising the disastrous effects of networks made up of former apparatchiks. The latter have often succeeded in retaining political and economic control in the new democracies. As a result, a genuine process of Europeanisation is hampered by the survival of the Soviet model of authoritarianism and manipulation of information, as demonstrated by an analysis of recent Hungarian political history.

Introduction

When the Berlin Wall collapsed, our peoples thought that we were witnessing the victory of democracy overnight and, to quote Francis Fukuyama's term, the ‘end of history’. Free elections were held, the Soviet Union collapsed, its occupying armies withdrawn. We established democratic institutions, and were able more or less successfully to transform a state-commanded planned economy into a market economy. With their long-awaited accession to NATO and then to the EU, our countries achieved their goal of permanently joining the sphere of security, freedom and wealth. However, democratic transition has not been as smooth and clear-cut as it may seem at first sight, and some countries continue to be bogged down by the heavy baggage of post-communism. And we have immediately arrived to the first question: what indeed is ‘post-communism’? Some observers use the term merely as a time reference, to mark the period since communism collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe. Others, however, prefer to expand the terminology to the characteristic phenomena experienced in transition societies where former communists continue to play a large role in running public life and where the particular mindset and attitudes harboured by former communists have a significant role in society. I will be concentrating upon this latter definition, elaborating on the influence of former communist networks in Central and Eastern Europe.

To use a plausible analogy, Nazism was fortunately eradicated in Germany at the end of World War II, and its loyalists were removed from public life forever. In the case of communism, however, only the ageing echelons of the old guard actually retired and in most cases they did so of their own free will. For the sake of a successful transition, and in the overly optimistic belief in a rapid economic and political transformation; there was no moral ‘blank page’ turned in society or in politics. On the contrary, the peaceful and negotiated nature of the democratic transition in the late 1980s encouraged the bulk of the former elite, mostly technocraticly minded communists, to reinvent themselves. And if old habits die hard, old networks die even harder. The communist nomenclature may have been stripped of its ideology and totalitarian power, but this vast network of former apparatchiks survived the regime change and even re-energised itself—not only by dispersing into business and media, or even staying in the state administration, but by continuing to act as an informal collective, as a real network promoting the restoration of their lost power in the changed circumstances. They scored some remarkable successes, first, by laying the economic foundation: many of the former communists accumulated immense wealth during the shady privatisation schemes of the 1990s, when state assets were sold off in the process of establishing a market economy. Being on the managerial boards of the companies up for sale, or in the middle and high levels of privatisation decision-making, the former-communists-turned-technocrats took important positions in the new ownership class, which has thus emerged in non-transparent and oligarchic circumstances. Later on, this network, represented on the political scene by ‘reformed socialist’ or ‘democratic left’ parties, made a comeback in democratic elections by raising populist nostalgia among the losers of the transition for the phoney economic stability of the old regime. It was also the time when many of the nouveau-riche former communists, having siphoned off state assets in shady privatisation deals, returned to politics and started misleadingly to preach the virtues of capitalism and free markets.

Rival models: European versus post-Soviet

From the perspective of older Member States it may often seem that our market economies and democratic institutions are governed by exactly the same rules and dynamics as those found west of the former Iron Curtain. Indeed, perhaps the most important historic significance of EU accession was the very fact that it made the introduction of the European democratic model in our countries an irreversible fact. Non-member countries to the east in former post-Soviet territory, are suffering from much harsher symptoms of mismanagement, cronyism and corruption—which are symptoms of the same post-communist disease, nevertheless. Difficult as it may be to accept, the survival of the former communist networks in the new Member States has created a grey area in the enlarged European Union, where the old Soviet-style model continues to fight renewed battles in business, government, media and even foreign policy. That is sometimes the key to understanding politics in these countries, where the major cleavage lies between the forces that advocate a thorough Europeanisation of our societies, and those political forces whose policies aim to prolong the survival of the old Soviet model, regardless of the new language the latter are using on market economy and democratic values. But what are the major differences between the two models and their advocates?

Post-communist forces, i.e., the parties of former communists, are not groupings in the European sense of the word, where parties and their supporters are bound together by a common ideological standing and where policymaking aims for a basis in principles. Post-communist parties are more like a loose pragmatic network of individual and group interests vying for resources, where continuous infighting between different lobbies reduces all clear policymaking to failure.

Whereas the European forces in these countries push for increased competition and transparency in the economy, the Soviet-style post-communist model is worried about these things, because they may break the grip of the old network on distributing available resources. Whereas rhetorically speaking they may be great advocates of privatisation and competition, in reality post-communists prefer opaque monopolies in various sectors of the economy. These monopolies, private in many cases, ensure them unchallenged access to resources. In fact, members of the post-communist network, while boasting about their own talent in the world of free enterprise, have barely met any real competition in gaining their fortunes. Instead, they have been growing rich on taxpayers’ money in the corrupt and non-transparent environment of their network, using public resources as a milk cow. The privatisation deals of the 1990s, when most of this oligarchic establishment came into existence, must still hide thousands of skeletons in the closet.

The visions of society harboured by European-minded and post-communist forces are diametrically opposed. In older Member States, political parties compete for the votes of a large middle class that has emerged in the competitive environment of a vibrant market economy. That is also the basic constituency for European-minded parties in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the middle class (where such existed) was wiped out by communism in the twentieth century, and the post-communist network has no real interest in making it strong again. Why? Because such a national middle class, comprising millions of free, educated, self-conscious and self-sustaining citizens and their families, is not supportive of the old-style cronyism where national wealth and influence are distributed in a non-transparent, non-competitive environment. For post-communists, the ‘ideal’ society is therefore one that is divided between a tiny pool of very wealthy people (in fact, their own network) and the pauperised remainder, with as many people dependent on the state as possible and exposed to political manipulation by populist policies.

Communist regimes were the masters of large-scale manipulation, and post-communists have continued that tradition. The type of society they envisage requires manipulative techniques, as well as powerful media outlets to communicate them. No wonder that one of the most important targets for the post-communist network to conquer during the democratic transition was the media sector. In many cases, their control was never even relinquished: old pundits, several with a background in the political police, have continued on the editorial boards of large newspapers, and their influence has also expanded to the recruitment of young journalists in the electronic and new media. In several Central and Eastern European countries the majority of the mainstream media is leaning towards the post-communists, which makes it very difficult for European-minded centre-right forces to push their agenda.

Despite all the efforts of the former communist network to rewrite history, the tradition of democratic transition and European integration belongs to those forces and individuals in our countries that stood up against the communist regime even before its collapse. True, regime change had its advocates in the ruling parties, too; nevertheless, the main vehicle of democratic transition was the determination and will of the opposition forces and the civil society that emerged in the 1980s to fight communist oppression. And that opposition was already pro-European when some of the well-known figures of today's post-communist forces were still preaching about the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.

This heritage also explains the different attitudes to the rule of law and democratic institutions. European-minded forces in our countries genuinely believe in these notions, as they were fighting for them during the years of repression. Post-communists, on the other hand, who had been fighting against the rule of law and democracy, can hardly veil their authoritarian reflexes. They regard the rule of law and democratic institutions as simply a nuisance that had to be introduced under pressure, in a changed post-Soviet global and European environment. For them, the democratic framework is merely a set of technical rules devoid of any principles, which can be adjusted any time to support raw political considerations. In other words, it is little more than a fig leaf to conceal ruthless power plays. Since many of them have a background in the old political police, post-communists do not hesitate to use the secret services overtly as a political tool, disregarding the need for a democratic oversight of these agencies. They also often resort to populism to disguise their authoritarian policies, aiming to muzzle the expression of all popular will other than the actual ballots cast at general elections every fourth year. All such expressions of will, be they demonstrations or referenda initiatives, are labelled extremist or unconstitutional by a post-communist power that is genuinely afraid of the people.

Whereas the region's European-minded parties believe in the systematic representation of national interests in the competitive framework of European Union institutions, the post-communists’ lack of guiding principles leads to a colonial mentality and a belief in one-sided dependence. They are unable to grasp the essence of Brussels politics and prefer to wait for ‘instructions’, as they did in the old times. Even this ‘commitment’ is fragile, however. The post-communists’ repeatedly expressed adherence to shared values with other EU nations, often taken for granted by older Member States since the 1990s, wanes when the old Russian master roars. And the old Russian master does roar indeed, feeling encouraged by the splits within the European Union that are caused, at least in part, by the Soviet-style mentality that has made its way into EU decision making as a negative side-effect of enlargement.

The Hungarian case

Of course, there are major differences among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as to the extent of the influence of the former ‘nomenklatura’. Certain countries, like the Czech Republic, were cautious and wise enough to enact laws in the early 1990s that sought to limit the power of the former networks. Others, like Poland, were for a long time known for their dominant former communist party, until voters finally had enough of chronic mismanagement and corruption and handed them a historic defeat a few years ago. Hungary's case was similar to Poland's for many years, and featured most of the major general characteristics of post-communism, as well as some peculiarities. Since the first comeback of the rebranded Hungarian Socialist Party in 1994, Hungary's politics have been characterised by a fierce competition between the Soviet-style post-communist tradition and a gradually solidified block of the original democratic and pro-European tradition.

Telling examples of how the old network is functioning in Hungary can be seen in the short biographies of the previous and the incumbent Socialist Prime Ministers. Péter Medgyessy, evicted from office by an internal coup after 2 years in 2004, had been a Communist Party apparatchik in the Finance Ministry, gradually rising to the post of Deputy Prime Minister in the last Communist government in the late 1980s. As the regime collapsed, Medgyessy left for the business world and made a fortune, capitalising on his well-established connections to the old network. Re-entering politics more than a decade after the transition, he was elected Prime Minister after a closely contested election in 2002. And just days after he took the oath of office, the story broke: Medgyessy had been in fact undercover agent D-209 of the political police. The very fact that he could hang on to his office following the scandal tellingly revealed the moral decline Hungary had undergone at the hands of the old post-communist nomenklatura. And there was worse to come, as Péter Medgyessy was replaced by Ferenc Gyurcsány, whose name is by now synonymous all over Europe with being caught lying on tape. He had been the last leader of the communist youth movement before going into business, where he made use of his family ties to one of the most notorious Hungarian communist dynasties to acquire preferential loans and acquisitions from state assets during the privatisation period of the 1990s. The excessive hypocrisy of the situation and the individual is highlighted by the fact that Gyurcsány lives in a villa expropriated from a Jewish family by the Nazis in 1944 and ‘redistributed’ to the communist dynasty he married into.

Successful in murky businesses with Hungarian taxpayers’ money, the old networks and their representatives, of which Medgyessy and Gyurcsány are prime examples, have a remarkably dismal performance in what they are actually elected for—running the country. Mismanagement, cronyism and sleaze have eroded the Hungarian socialists’ popularity even among core voters in recent years. As a matter of fact, Hungary has had no real government since 2002: the country is drifting and there is nobody to take the helm. The post-communists have been pursuing a populist economic policy for fear of losing their slight electoral edge in the balanced Hungarian political scene, and in that sense, they are similar to traditional Western European socialist parties despite their post-communist credentials. As a result of irresponsible spending and handouts for core voting blocks, the national debt, budget deficit and taxes have been soaring since 2002, and Hungary has lost its competitiveness and dominant position in the region. Indeed, although the block of new Member States as a whole is the fastest growing area within the EU, Hungary stands out as lagging behind with zero growth. Due to the crisis, Hungary is unable to benefit from EU accession in the way our neighbours do. Accession to the Euro-zone, targeted for 2007 by the Fidesz-led centre-right government 6 years ago, has been put off twice and now indefinitely by the socialist cabinet and it seems at the moment that Hungary will be the last country to join.

The lack of transparency and disregard for the rule of law and democratic principles have also significantly increased in the past years in Hungary. The intelligence services have been openly used against political opponents (suspicious phoney terrorist threats in the election campaign, intimidation of investigative journalists for covering up corruption scandals), and former agents with close ties to the intelligence services and even leading socialist politicians have been involved in tax evasion schemes. The tax authority takes sides politically by leading smear campaigns against leading opposition politicians. Trust in the democratic oversight of the police also collapsed after riot police were ordered to break up a peaceful commemoration rally organised by Fidesz on 23 October 2006, a rally that was manipulatively declared a ‘mob’ by the mainstream left-leaning media—the same ‘mob’ that EPP President Wilfried Martens had addressed just half an hour before. This evoked painful memories and frustration on the 50th anniversary of the anti-communist revolution. For the first time since 1990, the Prime Minister recently ignored the opinion of the Committee on National Security in Parliament, when a majority voted against the nomination of an old agent, educated for 7 years at the KGB Academy, reactivated several years after his discharge and speaking only Russian among foreign languages, as Hungary's top counter-intelligence officer. The Prime Minister reaffirmed the nomination nevertheless, leading to large-scale speculations in the Western press on Hungary's true allegiances in NATO and the EU, and a resurgent Russian presence in Europe using Hungary as a springboard for influence and a source for obtaining classified information. This was not without any precedent, however. The post-communist Hungarian government has renewed old-style high-level bilateral briefings for Moscow before EU and NATO summits and proposes to act in official communications as a ‘bridge’ between the West and Russia. And most notably, Gyurcsány has been openly favouring Russian natural gas pipeline plans, as opposed to Nabucco, a key EU project that could enhance the diversification of Europe's energy supplies. This has all raised doubts about Hungary's position as a reliable NATO ally and a responsible Member State of the European Union. The changing international environment—a resurgent Russia and a chillier relationship between the West and Moscow—thus immediately puts to the test the commitment of Hungarian post-communists to the values and strategic interests that Europe is built upon. And they seem to be failing this test.

A Pan-European challenge

Probably the most troubling evidence of the post-communist mindset in Central Europe is the leaked speech delivered by the Hungarian Prime Minister to his fellow Socialist deputies in 2006, shortly after winning re-election by a narrow margin. It laid bare the purely Machiavellian thinking that guides the current post-communist elite in Hungary. One may say that it is a domestic Hungarian problem, but in fact it is an all-European challenge. No wonder that the leaked tape recordings evoked widespread debate in Europe about morality in politics. The European Union, where the borderline between domestic and European politics is increasingly blurred, cannot afford to not protect itself from this Soviet-type mindset, which has also become a part of European decision making. The legacy of post-communism hinders the emergence of a genuine civil society, thereby slowing down the convergence process and weakening cohesion among Member States. It is hindering the emergence of a genuinely strong Europe capable of meeting the challenges in areas as diverse as economic competitiveness and energy security.