The Lessons Of Eastern Europe

by John Vandermeer

Reflections abound, in virtually every left publication in the country, on the meaning of Eastern Europe's sweeping changes. Analysts have claimed everything from the destruction of Stalinism, to the opportunism of an unenlightened populace embracing capitalism out of an enormous naivete. But for the U.S. it seems to me there is quite a hopeful message to take from all of this. Could it be that Eastern Europe is as much a falsification of certain Marxist dogmas as it was the nail in the coffin of the Kirkpatrick theory?

Recall that Jean Kirkpatrick made her fame with a key essay in which she asserted, among other things, that what she called "totalitarian" systems as distinguished from "authoritarian" ones, could not be changed into "democratic" ones by peaceful means. Her method of distinguishing between totalitarian and authoritarian systems was hardly rigorous, to say nothing of her notion of democracy. But nevertheless the spirit of her argument was clear. Kirkpatrick's "totalitarian" roughly corresponds to what we would probably identify as Stalinist, except she included almost any country that refused to put the political and economic needs of the U.S. first.

What happened to her thesis? If it were a matter of an honest academic discourse, one would have to say her hypothesis had been discredited in a far more complete and dramatic fashion than had ever happened in the history of the social sciences. All it would have taken to falsify her hypothesis would have been for one of those Stalinist systems to fall. For almost all of them to fall, virtually simultaneously, was as if god herself had set out to ruin Dr. Kirkpatrick's academic career.

But of course we are not talking about a serious academic argument in the first place. The Kirkpatrick thesis was formulated as an ideological weapon in the Reagan arsenal and functioned at least well enough to make Kirkpatrick one of the respected commentaors on all the newsfluff programs of U.S. television.

But there was a piece of Kirkpatrick's argument that may sound vaguely familiar to those on the left. She would never agree, but we were taught that capitalism creates conditions under which the working class will eventually come to organize a revolution to overthrow the capitalist order. A centerpiece of this most fundamental of all leftist ideas is that the capitalists would never give up state power without a fight, meaning that a bloody revolution is absolutely necessary for the overthrow of capitalism. I don't wish to make too much out of the parallel, but certain aspects of Kirkpatrick's argument seem to be similar to the arguments of the left, albeit applied to the overthrow of different systems. Have we perhaps been making the same mistake as she in assuming that capitalism in the U.S. and elsewhere would eventually require a violent and necessarily bloody revolution?

It is here that I wish to suggest something for us to ponder from the breakup of Stalinism in Eastern Europe--the possibility that we might do the same. i shall always recall the words of "Danny the Red" when he spoke in Ann Arbor in 1969. He said that if someone would have suggested to the French left in late 1967 that in less than a year there would be millions of students and workers in the streets, all left factions (and there were many) would have scoffed at the idea.

Risking scoff, let me suggest that in Eastern Europe there was a population dissatisfied with an ossified bureaucratic system that could not repsond to their legitimate needs, a population no longer willing to subject itself to the rule of a single-party elite, a population disillusioned with declining economic conditions for itself while elites continued to prosper, a population no longer willing to accept rule by the fiat of a centralized bureaucracy that obviously could care less about their needs. Exactly which country are we talking about? It does not take much imagination to realize that these legitimate rasons for the mass movements that changed the face of Eastern Europe are almost precisely the conditions that prevail in the post-Reagan United States.

Seeing the people of Easter Europe rise up against a familiar sort of undemocracy was a surprise to most of us, but only in terms of how fast it happened, and how bloodless it was. Perhaps the most important lesson for us is that it can happen. The armies of Poland or Romania were no less able than ours to murder their citizens, no less willing to put down popular revolt. But it happened! It's not as if some noses didn't get bloody, and even some severe fighting occured in Romania. But it happened, and it did not take a protracted struggle with tens or hundreds of thousands dying in battle. The question the left ought to ponder is, if there, why not here? Why not the U.S. democracy movement? What might happen with the union of the traditional labor movement, and the environmental movement? Could it be our own democracy movement? Maybe we can do it without the violent and bloody revolution I had always assumed would be necessary.

I suppose I'm just dreaming, but if someone had said in 1988 that one year later Stalinism would be defeated in Eastern Europe, and that remarkably little blood would be shed in the process, he or she would have been dreaming. There is no reason why we cannot dream of democracy in the United States. We still have nothing to lose but our chains. Si Romania vencio the United States vencera.

John Vandermeer teaches at the University of Michigan.