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Adjusting to Perestroika
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13687 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1988 |
3,086 Words |
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Vladimir Sobell
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Eastern Europe has often been perceived as little more than a zone of Soviet satellite states. Such a view was fully justifiable in the 1950s, when all countries in the Soviet sphere of influence were obliged to follow the Kremlin's precepts slavishly. Subsequently, however, this vision became obsolete, as some members of the alliance, such as Romania, displayed a surprising measure of independence in foreign policy, while others, such as Hungary, managed to diverge substantially from the Soviet economic model. In the age of Mikhail Gorbachev's "new thinking," deviation from the Soviet line continues to remain in fashion, and more rather than less independence and variety can be expected in the years to come. Indeed, variety can be seen in the fact that the Kremlin's new reformist line has encountered stiff resistance from the region's conservatives without the "liberal" Kremlin seeming to be too worried about it.
Yet it would be rash to abandon completely the earlier view, because Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe undoubtedly is the most decisive factor in the region's politics. Instead of a rigid satellite system, however, it is more appropriate to see the Soviet-East European relationship in terms of a looser and inherently more diverse "solar system." The Soviet "sun" does indeed exert a strong gravitational pull over the countries of Eastern Europe (and by the same token effectively neutralizes the pull of the West), but the individual East European planets have been able to work out their own specific orbits.
The mechanism by which Soviet control is exercised boils down to a set of rules that are well understood by both the Eastern European regimes and the populations. Each European country must be ruled by its communist party, which exercises its "leading role" and preempts the emergence of independent activity in any walk of life; their economies must be centrally planned and integrated within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA); and they must be linked militarily with the USSR within the Warsaw Pact Treaty. Limited departures and occasional violations of these rules are possible and are tolerated by the Kremlin. However, if the latter's license is withdrawn and if the offending country does not head Soviet warnings, it begins to run the risks of a Soviet invasion (like Czechoslovakia in 1968) or Moscow-supported self-invasion (such as Poland in 1981). The threat of punitive action by the Kremlin, incorporated in the Brezhnev Doctrine, has long served as the ultimate deterrent keeping the system in place.
Diverse response
With the advent of Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, the Soviet-dominated system in Eastern Europe has entered a potentially destabilizing period of readjustment. Instead of continuing to maintain its role as the guardian of orthodoxy and policeman of the East European nations, the Kremlin has been pushing the East European communist regimes toward the same reformist policies as have been announced in the USSR--in particular, economic decentralization, whose logic leads to an eventual dilution of the party's "leading role." This change is destabilizing not only because the old certainties have gone, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because no new rules capable of assuring the "solar system's" smooth operation are yet in sight.
Can reforms evolve without any mishaps? There is clearly room for greater independence and systemic innovation, and this is
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