Post-Stalinist State Socialism and Its Legitimization: Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Post-Stalinist state socialism and its
legitimization
"Our system is most frequently characterized as a . . . dictatorship of a

bureaucracy over a society," noted Vaclav Havel, the outspoken dissident
in the late seventies. "I am afraid that the term 'dictatorship'... tends to
obscure rather than clarify the real nature of power in this system." In
Havel's interpretation the regime differed from a classical dictatorship
since it was part of an international community and possessed an effective
mechanism, ideology, and some kind of revolutionary atmosphere.
Moreover, it became a part of the world system in coexistence with the
West. "What we have here," he continued, "is simply another form of the
consumer and industrial society . . . .[T]he post-totalitarian system has
been built on foundations laid by the historical encounter between
dictatorship and the consumer society" (Havel, 1985, pp. 24, 27, 38).
In Havel's judgment, Central and Eastern European state socialism in
the seventies was thus a special hybrid of a dictatorship and a "normal"
industrial consumer society. Although reforms were cautious and limited,
and revolts and revolutions were ruthlessly suppressed, they nonetheless
challenged the regime, provoking unavoidable responses and gradually
generating certain changes. A part of the regime's elite, which was deeply
disappointed with and itself frightened by the irrationality of Stalinism,
now sought, with a revitalized enthusiasm, to replace counterproductive
Stalinism with a moderate and pragmatic policy to satisfy the people's
interests and stabilize the regime.
As a consequence, and as a result of a permanent inner struggle
between short-sighted hard-line conservatives and liberal reformers.
Central and Eastern European state socialism changed and arrived at its
post-Stalinist stage. The transformation, however, was rather gradual in
time and uneven in space. The ambiguous New Course represented the
period of transition to post-Stalinism, which became dominant after 1956.
It became impossible to return to the compromised and tragic first
Stalinist decade. By the sixties, more sophisticated attempts were made to
modernize the economy, increase consumption, improve living standards,
and to consolidate and legitimize power. In some of the countries of the
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156 The post-Stalinist decades
region, the regimes turned toward a sort of "enlightened absolutism" and
carried out their modernization "missions" with a heavy hand, but sought
to do so in a paternalistic manner by "giving" and "allowing" more to the
people.
Describing post-Stalinism and its legitimization attempts, two limitations
should be pointed to in advance. First of all, it is difficult to generalize
about a period when Stalinist uniformity in policy, institutions, and even
regarding military uniforms, began to disappear. The national roads were
vastly different, the various reforms had dissimilar impacts, and
de-Stalinization reached distinct levels in the different countries.
Indeed, the countries under discussion should be divided into three
groups. While certain countries such as Yugoslavia, Poland, and Hungary
reacted in more flexible ways, going through a number of stages of reform
and drawing the furthest away from genuine Stalinism, others such as
Albania and Romania remained almost frozen in a little changed "fossilized"
Stalinism. Czechoslovakia, both in the early sixties and throughout the
abnormal "normalization" period from the early seventies on, was
basically somewhere in between these two groups, as was Bulgaria
Secondly, the transformation from Stalinism to post-Stalinism was not
entirely an internal affair in these various countries. It was an aborted
creature of the post-Stalin Soviet leadership, which both encouraged and
limited reforms. Initiation and limitation sprang from the same sources.
If de-Stalinization, which was initially imposed by the Malenkov and
Khrushchev regimes, subsequently gained momentum in one of the bloc
countries, it was the Soviet party and army that signaled the limitations.
De-Stalinization and reforms were not allowed to go beyond a certain
point, and the satellite party-states had to learn that lesson from
"brotherly warnings," brutal political pressure, and, if needed, military
intervention. Moreover, it was not only the top party leadership which
received Soviet warnings. A large apparatus was in place that gave signals
to everyone concerned.1
1
It pays to recall a small personal experience. In 1975, a dramatic Central Committee
session debated the impact of the oil crisis and what economic strategy to follow in
Hungary during the next Five-Year Plan period. I was the rector of Karl Marx University
of Economics in Budapest at that time, and was invited to the session as a guest and
participated in the debate. When one of the members of the Central Committee argued
that Hungary should turn her back on the West since the "Capitalist world market gave us
a slap on the face," and urged for a new isolation in the Comecon framework, I took the
floor and rejected his conclusion, arguing that the "Soviet market gave us an equal slap on
the face," and noted the departure from the previous successful reform line.
On the next day I received a telephone call from the Soviet Embassy, and two officials,
Musatov and Rozanov, both fluent in Hungarian, asked for an appointment and came in a
few days "to talk" about my intervention and views. They were polite, they did not accuse
or warn, but clearly intended to communicate that they were watching.

Post-Stalinist state socialism 157
Additionally, in a bipolar world system, the West virtually recognized
Central and Eastern Europe as a Soviet sphere of interest. There were no
outside forces to turn to. The governments of the region had to reckon
with this situation and search for effective compromises. They had to
serve the Soviet oppressor and try to use the narrow playground that
remained to them. This situation, however, was not unknown in the
region. Most of the countries had suffered similar conditions in the
nineteenth century as well. Poland and Hungary had had to respect
unquestionable Russian and Habsburg domination respectively, which
became their historical destinies after the suppression of heroic struggles
for independence (in 1848-9 in Hungary, and in 1830-1 and 1863-4 in
Poland). Between the 1860s and 1910s the Poles turned to the "organic
work" of modernization. The Hungarians made their compromise with
the bloody-handed emperor and introduced major reforms, built up a
modern educational system, a dense railroad network, tripled agricultural
output, and began to industrialize. Accepting foreign rule, compromising
and collaborating with the oppressor (in a guaranteed world system),
achieving whatever development was possible under the circumstances -
this was the Realpolitik of the decades following the 1860s2 as well as the
1960s in Central and Eastern Europe.
Ideological and political corrections

After the failure of Stalinist ideology, which strongly contributed to the
horrors of the early fifties and the massive resistance in 1956, one of the
most characteristic and visible features of post-Stalinism was an ideological
correction and, in some countries, an attempt to de-ideologize the system.
Post-Stalinism actually began with an ideological purification: to
restore "genuine Leninism" and eradicate mistaken Stalinist theses. The
initiative was made by the 20th and 22nd Soviet party congresses. The
most important "theoretical" change was the rejection of the two pillars
of Stalinist ideology: the concept of the permanent sharpening of class
struggle after the communist seizure of power and its extension to the
international arena, as well as the theory of an unavoidable war between
the imperialist and socialist worlds. These two theses had served as a
justification for terror and permanent purges. This was also the theoretical
basis for the class struggle in the countryside, the infamous and brutal
2
Jozsef Eotvos, leading liberal reformer of mid nineteenth-century Hungary, clearly
recognized this when he noted in his diary in August 1870: "Today we cannot serve the
goal of national independence. The given situation of the nation . . . requires us to
postpone the issue of political progress and concentrate all of our efforts to develop the
material and intellectual standards of our country" (Eotvos, 1978, p. 373).

'de-kulakization,' which created a civil war atmosphere in the early fifties.
But it also served to justify the tremendous sacrifices imposed on the
people in preparation of an unavoidable World War III.
The basic elements of the ideological foundations remained unchanged.
Leninism was in its systematic, ideological form the creator of Stalinism,
and the departure from the most notorious Stalinist theses strengthened a
more pragmatic approach to reality. Rational economic and foreign
policy considerations had not replaced the previous ideological drive, and
were combined with them to make policy more reliable. Ideological
consideration thus made it possible to reconsider peasant policy, economic
policy, as well as foreign policy directives. Overturning the concept of a
sharpening class struggle had widespread consequences in everyday life.
Compulsory vigilance, the searching for enemies, and show trials
disappeared. "Socialist legality" acquired a principal importance and
replaced an uncontrolled, "revolutionary" police terror. Post-Stalinism
was thus a kind of general moderation of the regime.
De-Stalinization, however, stopped halfway in most of the countries of
the region. The regime remained strongly ideological, and ideology
continued to serve as a basis of judgment for "adequate" or "mistaken"
policies in one or another bloc country. Stalinist hard-liners could and
were always ready to use this fact in defending their interests and
position, and could always rely on "brotherly international help" of
fellow hard-liners in some of the other countries. Brezhnev and Suslov's
Soviet Union, Ulbricht and Honecker's East Germany, Husak (1979)
and Bilak's (1980) Czechoslovakia, Hoxha's (1980) Albania, and Ceau§escu's
(1981) Romania remained bases for orthodox Stalinism, and often
criticized attempts to create a more consistent post-Stalinist socialism in
reform-oriented Poland, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. Left-over Stalinism
thus had a devastating impact on all of the countries, halting the
undisturbed de-Stalinization process and strengthening hard-line groups
in the reforming countries. The post-Stalinist systems, themselves
preserving basic elements of traditional ideology, were thus inconsistent
and fragile.
The reform-oriented countries, which were unable to rid themselves of
obsolete ideological baggage because of both external limitations and
internal resistance, turned toward deliberate de-ideologization. In post-
Stalinist Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, the party gave up previous
efforts to control and influence people's private lives and way of thinking.
The party-state no longer attempted to brainwash the population, and
instead sought to de-politicize its citizens. The party no longer required
an absolute ideological-political loyalty and welcomed passive acceptance.
New pragmatism had even greater importance than ideological correctness.

Since ideology was an indispensable element of the Stalinist regime
and was a basic legitimizing factor, its significant weakening had far-
reaching consequences. As Tocqueville recognized, the stability of a
dictatorship requires conviction in an ideology. Once a dictatorship gives
up this premiss, it becomes more fragile and must then change and
attempt to find new legitimizing factors.
The most radical de-Stalinizing countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, and
Hungary, made impressive advances in building up their post-Stalinist
systems in the sixties and seventies. In the political arena, a marked
liberalization tempered the regimes. Legality was strengthened and new
constitutions guaranteed certain freedoms and human rights. The new
Polish constitution of February 1976 declared that the police were
required to get a court order before making arrests, and could not keep
people in detention for more than forty-eight hours. The Yugoslav
constitution of 1974 guaranteed the freedom of art and science. The
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party abolished the so-called class categor-
ization of students, which had excluded "class alien" young people from
universities, and a 1963 regulation stipulated that acceptance be based
entirely on school records.
One of the most important changes was the agreement of the Polish
party-state with the Roman Catholic Church in December 1956. Freedom
of religion was granted, and a strong, free, and active church, with its own
newspapers and publishers, and, with its role in organizing communal
and social life, created the most important element of a kind of pluralism.
(Szajkowski, 1983; Monticone, 1986). Hungary also renounced its
hostility toward the church, and had reached agreement with the Vatican
by the sixties. The free and undisturbed existence and activity of an
institution that was openly anti-Marxist significantly contributed to the
realization of freedom of thought and conviction.
Political consolidation was attempted by abolishing class and political
discrimination. The especially hostile handling of "kulaks" was halted.
Party membership was no longer a prerequisite to attain high state
position, declared the Hungarian government in the sixties. Uncommitted
"sins" were generally not punished. The party-state no longer required a
pro-party alignment, and people could now shed all pretence of such
sympathies. Although political dissidents and the intellectual and ideological
opposition were carefully monitored, repressed, and punished, it was no
longer the case that even active opponents of the regime were subject to
torture, long imprisonment, and execution. Dissidents were sometimes
imprisoned, more often dismissed from their jobs and as a rule not
allowed to travel, but in most de-Stalinized countries they remained free
and maintained some kind of existence. If one kept away from opposition

politics and did not openly attack certain basic taboos, but visibly
separated oneself from the party-state and searched for an asylum in the
"second society," one did not have to fear repression.
Fear did not penetrate everyday life in post-Stalinist Yugoslavia, in
Poland after 1956, or in Hungary from the mid sixties on. If, as
Montesquieu clearly recognized, fear is the essence of despotism, the
disappearance of, or at least a significant diminution in, fear was both a
sign and an initiator of substantial changes.
International relations were also rebuilt and normalized. The countries
were opened to Western tourists and visitors. Correspondence- with
Western friends, relatives, and colleagues in these three countries became
widespread and no longer dangerous. Freedom of travel was assured for
the citizens of Yugoslavia, where even work permits were issued for jobs
in the West. Poland guaranteed freedom of travel from the late fifties and
Hungary from the early sixties on. Major Western foundations offered
grants, and citizens of de-Stalinized countries were allowed to accept
them and spent longer periods at prominent universities in the United
States or other countries. Western journals became available, and the
broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America were no
longer jammed. Even local news and journals provided more and more
objective information on the world. Previous strict cultural and economic
isolation of the closed societies was substantially reduced.
Political power was "secularized," and the party withdrew by separating
the party from state leadership. The symbolic division of the previous
unity of the posts of party boss and prime minister was intended to
express a division of labor between party and government. The separation
of legislative and executive power and the courts was not reestablished,
and political power in the one-party system remained unchallenged. The
supremacy of the party leadership at national and even at county and city
levels remained unchanged. Direct party intervention, however, gradually
weakened at lower levels. The first person in command in a state-owned
firm or institution became the director, appointed by the state and not the
party secretary. Moreover, the party itself was modernized, and uneducated
party bureaucrats were replaced more and more by university graduates.
Yugoslavia, Poland, and gradually Hungary had thus become markedly
different though the previous structures of absolute power were preserved
(Rothschild, 1989). The reforms were more or less flexible reactions to
genuine mass dissatisfaction, but basically remained mere policy changes
within the existing political frameworks. Post-Stalinist regimes tended
toward reforms, but their limitations were strictly defined. In critical
situations they easily and automatically reverted to their old dictatorial
practices. Freedom of travel was allowed; however, when the party-state

bureaucracy deemed it politically necessary, the right to travel was
immediately withdrawn from some citizens.
The permanently emphasized and celebrated "socialist legality" did
not mean the abolition of party-state control over the legal system. The
courts did not become independent, and the possibility of party interference
survived and remained a hidden practice. A sort of indemnity for higher
level party functionaries continued. It was personally and politically
decided how to handle dissidents. Political considerations defined the
need for arrest and the extent of punishment in political cases. Corruption
and serious traffic violations (including fatal accidents) were overlooked
in the case of high-ranking functionaries who, in the worst cases, were
demoted to a lesser position. The subordination of law and the courts to
state-party decisions endured in a basically unchanged political-institutional
structure. Similarly, the more marked separation of party and state
occurred without institutional guarantees, since the veto power of the
party and the institution of the nomenclatura continued to exist, and the
state-party preserved its overwhelming power to control appointments.
In other words, all the basic elements and institutions survived Stalin and
characterized the genuine post-Stalinist regimes virtually until the very
end. But, except in extraordinary situations, the post-Stalinist party
leadership did not attempt to use the existing weapons that were an innate
part of the system's structures.
Some reforms, nevertheless, went beyond the existing structures and
slightly modified them. The rejection of collectivization in agriculture
and the reestablishment of free private peasant farming in Yugoslavia and
Poland were of major institutional importance. These changes even had
political importance since a much less controllable peasantry was created,
which certainly contributed to the loosening of the party's hold on power.
The system of workers' self-management in Yugoslavia, and its partial
subsequent introduction in the industrial sphere in Hungary and Poland,
for example, certainly broke the structural consistency of a centralized
economic system and weakened the political dictatorship. The abolition
of the compulsory delivery system, the ultimate "legal" basis of abusing
and harassing the peasant population in the fifties, followed by the
abolition of central planning in general in Yugoslavia and Hungary, and
much later in Poland, represented important structural and institutional
changes. Private business gained some ground and market elements
broke the consistency of strict central planning and state ownership. The
Polish and Yugoslav peasant farms, the Hungarian private plots, the
private leasing of some state-owned shops and the small private hotels on
the Yugoslav seashore and at Lake Balaton in Hungary, all represented
forms of institutional changes.

Thus, compared to its previous Stalinist counterpart, the post-Stalinist
system was corrected and modified* but the old structures were not
destroyed.
Modernized economic policy and consumerism

Among its most important characteristics, a revised and much more
pragmatic economic policy and an impressively altered strategy of
favoring increased consumerism played a distinctive role in post-Stalinism.
The orthodox Stalinist economic policy was substantially revised from
the late fifties on. The regime continued to realize its "modernization
mission," and rapid industrialization remained the nucleus of economic
policy. The speed of forced industrialization, however, was slowed down
in order to decrease forced capital accumulation and investments, and
provide a bigger piece of the pie to the populace. Capital accumulation of
25-35 percent of the GDP in the early fifties was moderated to 20-25
percent from the sixties on. Capital formation and investments still
remained high, but the consumption share of the population substantially
increased. A new, central emphasis was given to a continuous increase in
the standard of living.
This policy, however, permanently clashed with the still ambitious
industrialization goals, especially since the system preserved its tendency
to foster self-generating investment drives that often led to "over-heating"
the economy. The "investment-cycles" of state socialism limited the
increase in consumption and provoked frequent central interventions to
ease tensions and cool down the economies. Consumption, however,
sharply increased from the latefiftieson, and this trend continued in the
mid eighties.
Another major element of economic change was a deliberate shift from
the Stalinist structural policy toward a more modern developmental
trend. Overambitious industrial investments (approaching half of national
investments) were decreased by, in some cases, one-third, and the
previously neglected agriculture and infrastructure received more.
Agricultural investments reached about 20 percent and contributed to
major mechanization and chemicalization of production, which led to
increased productivity and yield, and higher per capita production.
Investments in services and infrastructure jumped, from the previous
one-third, to half of total investments, and this accounted for better
housing and better developed transportation and communications.
The structural policy of industrialization was also revised. The
Stalinist industrialization pattern, based on the most extreme preferences
for coal, iron, steel, and some branches of traditional engineering, and

which received 75-90 percent of industrial investment during the first
Five Year Plan in the various countries of the region, was essentially
decreased. The previously favored production of strategic products,
linked with the emphasis on war preparation, was slowed down, and a
central project to develop the previously neglected chemical industry
became the most favored child of post-Stalinist industrialization. A
structural reorientation was also expressed by the introduction of modern
engineering sectors, such as automobile production and electronic
industries.
While the Stalinist industrialization pattern was based on the turn-of-the-
century Western structural model of industry, the new orientation from
the 1960s on attempted to draw lessons from the development trends of
the advanced West (Berend, 1983).
Stalinist industrialization, furthermore, was based on an isolationist
strategy and on an autarkic national economy. Of course, self-sufficiency
was impossible in the relatively small Central and Eastern European
countries, but a kind of "processing self-sufficiency" was attempted,
whereas energy and raw material imports from the Soviet Union were
assured by bilateral agreements. This concept, however, was revised in
the late 1950s when Nikita Khrushchev initiated a planned division of
labor among the bloc countries. The Council of Mutual Economic Aid,
which provided a framework for the bilateral agreements, began to
organize cooperation. The real turning point occurred in May 1956, at
the Berlin session of the organization. The member countries decided on
the construction of a commonly financed oil pipeline and a joint electric
energy network. From the late fifties on, the central apparatus of
Comecon worked on suggestions from the member countries to specialize
their production and produce certain products, for the whole "Socialist
common market." In engineering, the member countries agreed on the
production of hundreds and thousands of products, and certain countries
acquired a monopoly in the production of some products. Hungary, for
example, agreed to produce 228 different types of machines, and was
given the monopoly in the production for forty-eight types. Czechoslovakia
and the Soviet Union became monopoly producers of certain types of
trucks, Romania produced diesel locomotives for a broader Comecon
market, and Bulgaria won the right to supply the member countries with
certain types of computers. According to the arrangement, Hungary
halted production of 3-5 ton trucks and of 5-7.5 ton special vehicles, and
also stopped production of different types of agricultural machinery and
freight-cars, but received a monopoly to produce buses supplying the
entire Comecon. On this basis the Hungarian Ikarus Company built up a
series of 12,000 buses per year and became the worlds sixth largest

producer with nearly 6 percent of the world production.
Comecon's Standing Committee for the Chemical Industry initiated
long-run development programs and coordination for the member
countries in December 1957. On this basis all of the member countries
began a rapid, coordinated investment and development program.
Although Comecon made an attempt toward modern cooperation, the
program was built on bureaucratic central planning. Khrushchev in the
early sixties suggested the introduction of a common Comecon plan, with
a central Comecon planning office. The initiative generated, however,
strong resistance because of the immense danger of direct Soviet
interference into domestic economic affairs, and the proposal was
dropped. In the end, multilateral agreements influenced only a marginal
part (3-6 percent) of the production of some sectors, such as the
engineering and chemical industries of the member countries. Still, the
new projects represented a partially successful attempt at modernization.
The lower rate of capital accumulation and investment, and the slower
pace of economic growth, produced a more balanced development
without causing a dramatic decline in other sectors of the economy nor
concomitant shortages and social tensions, and led to more reliable
supply and higher consumption. In the more reform-oriented countries
better services and supply was brought about by a more liberal policy
toward small-scale private business: "Small-scale industry is a stable
element of the national economy," was the view in Poland in 1977, "it
serves better the satisfaction of the population's needs in services"
(Karta, 1977, p. 48).
A new consumerism became one of the key elements of post-Stalinist
Central and Eastern Europe. The shortage of food disappeared in
Yugoslavia and Hungary, where supply eventually became abundant, and
Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria were also assured of a better supply. People
became much better dressed throughout the region. The image of an
almost uniform, shabbily dressed populace disappeared. Foreigners
admired the elegance of Polish women in the streets of Warsaw. The
import of high-quality Western consumer goods, including certain
durables and even cars, the introduction of a free market in housing and
construction, the appearance of private family houses meeting Western
standards in the Rozsadomb district of Budapest and two or three-story
homes in Polish and Hungarian villages and on the Yugoslav seashore, all
revealed a conspicuous consumer orientation that made Hungary,
Yugoslavia, and to a certain extent Poland, exceptional in Central and
Eastern Europe. Some elements of this policy, though in a much more
limited and less spectacular way, appeared in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria
as well. The possibility of creating even a limited "socialist consumer

society," however, was basically excluded in most countries of the region.
The mechanization of households, practically unknown by that time,
began in the early sixties: washing machines, refrigerators, television sets
and other electric appliances became common in the region at a time
when car ownership reached new heights in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
Hungary, and Poland. Although development programs that continuously
limited consumption and living standards had a preference in governmental
policy, the severe shortages of consumption goods, the rationing of basic
food items, and sharply declining real wages that uniformly characterized
the 1950s disappeared or significantly diminished in post-Stalinist
Central and Eastern Europe, with the exception of the "fossil Stalinist"
states of Albania and Romania.
Social policy and the consumption of social services

Since the shortage economy was the essence of central planning and
ambitious industrialization, even the consumer-oriented post-Stalinist
countries had their strict limitations, and consumerism remained a poor
imitation of the Western variety.
There was, however, a major field where post-Stalinist regimes became
highly competitive and where consumption reached a high international
standard: the consumption of social services. On an orthodox ideological
basis Stalinism scored important achievements in social policy. Several
major steps were made to broaden social insurance and build up a
premature welfare system in the early fifties. The Stalinist dictatorship
and its violent class policy, however, openly discriminated against large
numbers of the population. The private peasantry, still the greatest part
of the population in most of the countries, was excluded from most of the
welfare measures. Discrimination affected small-scale businessmen and
in certain respects even intellectuals, let alone "alien" class elements and
their children. The "attentive" state thus sought to protect and assist only
a minority of the population. Moreover, governmental care was drastically
counterbalanced by oppression, police terror, and brutality.
Social policy, the building of a consistent social safety net and, given
the economic standards of the countries, a premature welfare system
became prevalent during the post-Stalinist decades. Social policy measures
were nationwide and applied to all citizens. Egregious discrimination
against significant layers of society disappeared.
Among the most important social services, the introduction of a
general pension policy deserves to be mentioned first. A pension was a
special and rare privilege in the region. Postwar legislation in the state
socialist countries introduced old-age pensions, first for workers and

employees of state-owned firms, and then for peasants and self-employed

citizens, in effect making pensions a general right based on citizenship. In
Poland thefirststep was made in 1946, and private handicraft self-employed
workers were included in 1965. The system became complete in 1978
when independent farmers acquired the right as well. A pension was
assured at the ages of sixty-five and sixty respectively for men and women
after twenty-five and twenty years of work. In the mid eighties more than
six million people, roughly 18 percent of the population, received a
pension, and one million of them were former independent farmers.
In Czechoslovakia, a national retirement system was introduced in
1948. Peasants and members of collective farms were included in 1975,
and a pension was guaranteed after twenty-five years of work and at the
ages of sixty and fifty-seven for men and women respectively (additionally,
the age limit for women was decreased by one year for each child). The
pension was calculated on the basis of one's average salary and years in
service. In the mid eighties peasant pensions were on average one third,
and those of private self-employers one half, less than those of workers
and employees in state-owned firms.
In Hungary, old-age pensions were introduced for workers and
employees in 1950, and the system was enlarged in 1958 by including the
members of cooperative farms and industrial cooperatives. Private
merchants and the handicraft self-employed also acquired the right in
1962, but they received a much lower rate, and the policy was equalized
for all citizens only in 1982.
A pension was granted at the ages of sixty and fifty-five for men and
women respectively. In the mid eighties 22 percent of the Hungarian
population was retired.
Similar retirement policies were adopted in Romania and Bulgaria,
though retirement age was different and only 14 percent of the Romanian
and almost 25 percent of the Bulgarian population was pensioned in the
mid eighties. The latter figure was uniquely high since "old-age"
pensions were granted between the ages of forty-five and sixty, depending
on the job, and women retired five years earlier than men. A similar low
retirement age, between fifty and sixty for men and forty-five to fifty-five
for women, existed in Albania as well.
Hence, wages being genuinely low, the average pensions (mostly 50
percent to 70 percent of previous wages) assured only a rather meagre
existence but undoubtedly offered some kind of basic security level for
the entire population. This was even more so, given the fact that free
medical insurance was also introduced into the area.
As with the retirement policy, the government gradually enrolled the
entire population into a medical insurance system that became a citizen's
right from the seventies on. In countries where only about a third of the

population had medical insurance before World War II, and where
postwar industrialization was accompanied by long-lasting neglect of the
infrastructure, the expansion of medical services went hand in hand with
a decline in quality. Basic services, however, were granted. Sick pay was
assured, in most cases, for one year, and with certain illnesses (tuberculosis)
even two, and an early disability retirement was granted if one could not
go back to work.
The increased free medical services may be illustrated by three
internationally comparable parameters: the number of medical doctors
and hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants, and the rate of infant mortality.
In 1950, there were roughly nine to ten medical doctors per 10,000
inhabitants in the Central and Eastern European countries (with the
exception of Poland, where this number was less than five). In the mid
1980s Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria had thirty-one to thirty-five,
Poland twenty-nine, and Yugoslavia and Romania twenty doctors per
10,000 people; thus the level increased, in most cases, by three times.
Additionally, in 1950, the Central and Eastern Europeanfiguresrepresented
only about half of the West German standard, whereas in the mid eighties
three or four countries of the region achieved the West German level.
The number of hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants increased from the
mid sixties on, and the highest level was reached in Czechoslovakia in
1984, whose 101 hospital beds was barely behind the West German level
(111 beds). Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania followed with nearly ninety
beds, whereas Poland had only seventy and Yugoslavia's level reached
only half of the Czechoslovak one.
Infant mortality, an important index of health care, drastically declined:
in 1950,78-117 from each 1,000 newly born babies died in thefirstyear of
life in the region (the best and worst levels applied to Czechoslovakia and
Romania respectively). By the mid 1980s, the number had declined to
fifteen to twenty-three deaths, thus to one quarter to one fifth of the
previous level (whereas the best and worst cases remained unchanged)
(Schonfelder, 1987).
Social services had a rather broad range. Families received a fixed
amount (or percentage) of child support (per child), and a contribution to
meals in company cafeterias. During the seventies, Hungary pioneered
the introduction of a singularly long maternity leave, granting three years
leave for mothers with each newly born child, and paying a full salary for
the first six months followed by a part of the salary thereafter. Maternity
leave existed in one form or another in all of the countries of the region. In
Yugoslavia, after paid leave, shorter working hours were guaranteed for
child care. In Albania, mothers could take 180 days of maternity leave
with 80 percent of their salaries.
A pre-school system was developed and, in the most socially oriented

countries, it had the resources to enroll nearly the entire pre-school
population between three and six years of age. The state, trade unions,
and state-owned firms and institutions possessed a huge network of
resorts and guaranteed one to two week vacations for a nominal fee. A
person's paid vacation in Yugoslavia, for example, which was very similar
to the other countries, varied, depending on the number of years of work,
at between eighteen and thirty-six days. The population also enjoyed a
great variety of subsidies, free or very inexpensive pharmaceutical
products, heavily subsidized transport charges and rents, etc.
The post-Stalinist countries thus established a relatively high level of
various social services as an important component of their welfare
orientation. Hungary, which led this trend after 1956 and especially after
the introduction of her economic reforms in the mid to late sixties, clearly
manifested an advanced version of this policy. In 1960 she spent, for
example, 6.6 percent of GDP on social insurance, but in 1983 this
increased to 15.4 percent, surpassing the level of the OECD countries.
Hungary was the twentieth among the European countries regarding
per capita GDP, but twelfth in social insurance spending. Hungary's
15.4 percent expenditure of her GDP for social insurance was two times
higher in percentage terms than of Portugal, and surpassed the relative
expenditure level of the United States (8.4 percent), Canada (12.6
percent), Great Britain (13.3 percent), and Spain and Finland (14.4
percent).
Social insurance expenditures continued to increase in Hungary
during the eighties and, compared to the 3.6 percent in 1950, reached
nearly one fifth of her GDP by 1990. The premature welfare system in the
relatively poor countries of Central and Eastern Europe was often
deformed and offered sub-standard services. Polish hospitals, especially
in the eighties, could not afford to buy modern Western equipment, and
even small, inexpensive appliances such as single-usage injection syringes
were absent; 15-20 percent of the hospital patients got infections. In the
winter of 1984-5, according to Polish reports, half of officially registered
medicines were not available and half of the operations were postponed.
A total banning of imports in Romania by the late seventies hindered the
import of insulin and other basic medicines. "Old people were excluded
from medical services," summarized Bruno Schonfelder, who conducted
interviews with Romanians on the severe restrictions, "but in spite of
these kinds of 'thrifty' measures . . . it was normal that patients with
heart-attacks were not hospitalized and two patients shared a bed"
(Schonfelder, 1987, p. 115). In 1986, the periodical Donauschwabe
described the infamous state, later publicized world-wide, of the Romanian
orphanages and wards for mentally disabled children, where, in a small

room of eight square meters, forty children from the ages of two to eight,
were jammed on top of each other, partly dressed or naked, like small
animals.
In spite of the pronounced welfare orientation of some of the
post-Stalinist countries, the availability of the often free social services
was not uniform. The governments were unable to properly finance a
comprehensive welfare system, and the dramatic decline in services was
counterbalanced by illegal payments for better care, a hospital bed, or
cheap accommodations in a union-owned resort.
The research on the compromised "free" medical services and the
"deliberate" fees paid for them in Hungary reveals that unofficial fees for
an operation increased by five times between 1975 and 1985, and were
close to an average monthly income in the mid eighties.
With all its shortcomings and distortions, however, the various welfare
measures of the post-Stalinist countries assured, without discrimination,
basic services for the entire population and offered at least minimal
assistance. It produced a higher standard of consumption of social
services than in countries with similar or even somewhat higher levels of
economic development. A premature welfare system became a significant
characteristic of paternalistic post-Stalinist regimes.
Evaporating "socialist-realism": liberalized cultural

policy
A distinctive feature of post-Stalinism was a somewhat liberated cultural
and art policy. Changes in Yugoslavia, Poland, and Hungary were
dramatic. Publication of several previously banned or recently neglected
works was allowed. Dostoevski, Kafka and Freud, Ionesco, Italo Calvino,
and Tennessee Williams were tolerated and published. A separate
literary monthly, Nagyvildg (Entire Word), published contemporary
Western novels and literature in Hungary from the 1960s on. Theater and
music life began to be transformed, and previously outlawed plays or
"formalist" composers were performed. The exhibition of explicitly
non-" Socialist Realist," and as non-figurative paintings now became
increasingly possible. The programs of theaters, operas, and concert halls
began to resemble their Western counterparts. Movie theaters and
television companies often screened Western films. The "Beatles
revolution" and rock music generally made a gradual breakthrough.
The liberalization of life in Hungary was rather symptomatic. After
many years of denunciations of "decadent" Western music and dance,
and after an unceasing effort to replace it with folk-dance movements,
collective singing of folk-songs and old protest songs from the labor

movement, the cultural policy changed in 1960-1. The official party
daily, changing its condemning tone and ending its practice of dictating
the type of music the public should hear, pragmatically acquiesced to
popular demand in this regard. Within a few years, by the mid sixties, the
state television channel began to organize annual music festivals based on
popular vote.
The Beatles found their way to Hungary relatively easily in a single
decade: they reached the height of their success in the 1960s. Rock music
was adopted in Hungary in 1963 and performed openly in 1966. The 1968
music festival on Hungarian TV represented its full acceptance: all
awards were given to the first Hungarian rock group, "The Illes'."
Instead of trying to impose a presumably "ideologically correct" music,
the regime renounced its ambitions to politicize music and adjusted itself
to popular taste.
Although black lists of literary and artistic (as well as scholarly) works
did not disappear even in the less repressive post-Stalinist countries, they
were significantly shortened and mostly contained works considered
"anti-Soviet" or explicitly "hostile" to communist ideals. Music and
paintings belonged to the most de-politicized fields of the arts.
Science and art policy revealed similar features. In Hungary, Poland,
and Yugoslavia, "freedom of research" was declared to be also valid for
the social sciences and the humanities. In the latter fields, however, as a
contradictio in adiecto, freedom of publication remained limited and
under strict controls. Sometimes, however, even strongly critical works
were allowed to be published. Sociology, psychology, genetics, computer
sciences and other scholarly disciplines, previously condemned and
banned as "bourgeois sciences," were formally recognized and restored
to university life.
As Stalinist cultural policy had been characterized by the forced
introduction of "socialist-realism," one of the most spectacular signs of
change was its dismantling. In some countries socialist realism was
denounced and eliminated, while in others its interpretation was so
radically broadened that it was for all intents and purposes eradicated as
well. In strongly de-Stalinized countries of the region, artists boldly
threw off the strait-jacket of dictated art.
Yugoslavia and Poland officially declared socialist-realism a mistaken
art trend and state policy, which, as was declared already at the congress
of Polish artists in 1954, led to a decline in artistic works between 1949
and 1953. The "Arsenal" exhibition in Poland in 1955 was the first in
Central and Eastern Europe that went beyond realism. Between 1956 and
1958 virtually any sort of censorship and state direction vanished.
Przeglad Artytyczny, the new artistic periodical, denounced socialist-

realism in its first editorial in 1957 as "decadent naturalism of a
declarative, schematic art" (Wojciechowski, 1957, p. 4). Although not
without renewed attacks against triumphant modernism in the sixties,
Polish art became the most free and independent art in the entire region
by the seventies. Abstraction, constructive non-figurative art, expressionist
"deformation," surrealism, pop-art, and neo-Dada trends dominated the
Polish art scene. Moreover, they continued to be dominant under the
military-party regime in the eighties as well, when artists boycotted
official exhibitions and exhibited in churches from 1982 on. Within a few
years, in the framework of the conciliatory attempt of the Jaruzelski
regime, contemporary modern art returned to its proper place. In the fall
of 1986 the National Museum of Warsaw organized the first "deterrent"
exhibition of the "Faces of Socialist-Realism."
In most of the other countries, particularly in Hungary and Czecho-
slovakia, a reformed post-socialist-realism became a sort of official trend
by the mid fifties on. "Classical" socialist-realism was amalgamated with
cautious post-impressionism, and twentieth-century modernism was
recognized. Tivadar Csontvary and Lajos Vajda, together with the early
twentieth-century Hungarian revolutionary avant-garde, were returned
to their former position in museums.
Kvetoslav Chvatic attempted to prove that Czechoslovak abstract
painting belonged to the progressive tradition. In that typically transitory
stage of post-socialist realism in 1960, Jifi Hendrych, secretary of
ideology in the Czechoslovak party, sharply attacked non-figurative art
for "abandoning real life," for being "formalist and alien from life," and
for not wanting to present "the beauty of the socialist life and enrich the
life of the people" (Hendrych, 1960, p. 433). The Slovak party chief Jozef
Lenart, in his speech at the Central Committee of the Slovak Communist
Party in May 1959, continued to speak about the role of culture and art in
educating the masses "to overcome the remnants of capitalism in the
masses' consciousness, and to affect and re-educate the working class on a
Marxist-Leninist basis" (Lenart, 1980, p. 47). In December 1963,
however, Vladimir Koucky officially stated at the party congress that the
party and government guarantee the right of free expression. The Czech
surrealists and abstract artists then began to exhibit their work, and direct
party control virtually faded in the late sixties.
The situation worsened decidedly after 1968, and particularly from
1972-6 when Vasil Bilak denounced "ideological diversion," rehabilitated
socialist realism and insisted on "understandable" work. Gustav Husak,
in his report at the 16th party congress in May 1981, stressed the "social
role of the arts . . . to reinforce in citizens an active attitude towards the
ideals of socialism. . . . We support . . . artistic creativity inspired by a

party-based esprit de corps ... [and] aid the creative strength of socialist
realism in all of its expressive richness" (Husak, 1981, p. 39).
Czechoslovak literature was strictly controlled. The fine arts, however,
were not pushed back to the fifties. A typical post-socialist-realist art
prevailed with its post-impressionist, and at times expressionist, elements,
and from the late seventies on even modernists could exhibit. In the
eighties the neo-avant-garde again found its place in public exhibitions.
A post-socialist-realism became the characteristic art trend even in the
non-reforming countries such as Romania, where the Central Committee
had also denounced the previous Stalinist art trend as "simplistic,
tasteless and gray naturalism," and declared a need for a modernization of
socialist-realism (Lazar, 1956, p. 2). However, at the same time it warned
of the "danger" of preferring artistic quality over content.
A substantial broadening of the concept of socialist-realism, however,
attempted to identify socialist art with a sort of eternal grand art, and the
great Romanian avant-garde sculptor Brancusi was lifted into the
progressive realm of Romanian socialist-realism. The expressive style of
post-impressionism was recognized, but the non-figurative, contemporary
Western trends did not appear in the country. A strong central direction
was preserved as a clear expression of one of the most dictatorial,
quasi-Stalinist party-state systems in the region, and mandatory "rep-
resentative" paintings of the "great leader," Ceau§escu, continued.
In a speech at the General Assembly of writers in 1968, Ceau§escu
clearly stated that party direction and control would be continued, and
that literary associations and publishers "must encourage [writers, poets
and playwrights] to focus on major socialist topics and express the
socialist goals and ideals. . . . Unions' leaders [have to] direct creative
work and organize large-scale ideological debates among writers . . . "
(Ceau§escu, 1968, pp. 26-7).
Unlike Romania, where post-socialist-realism stagnated in its first
stage, or Czechoslovakia, where the post-1968 Husak era reintroduced
more stringent party control, Hungary followed a rather different path.
The first non-figurative exhibitions in 1957 were, indeed, succeeded by
typical post-socialist-realist hybrids, but artistic freedom gradually
strengthened; although authoritative, the rather tolerant art-policy of
Gyorgy Aczel gradually led to the incorporation of modern, contemporary
art trends into the artistic life of Hungary.
Aesthetic values were recognized in post-Stalinist art policy, and rigid
naturalism and Soviet-type socialist-realism were partly or entirely
eliminated. Art was no longer a servant of politics and ideology,
responsible for re-educating and mobilizing a new "socialist type" of
people, and increasingly regained its genuine values and traditional roles.

From Central and Eastern European post-socialist-realism, a direct
passage was opened in Poland, Yugoslavia, and Hungary towards
Western post-modernism. A coexistence of different styles and artistic
trends became characteristic from the late seventies and eighties on.
Nationalism in the post-Stalinist era

Nationalism was an additional, peculiar characteristic of the post-Stalinist
era. This statement requires explanation. In the first place, nationalism
was not a post-Stalinist phenomenon, since Stalinism itself was strongly
nationalistic. Marxist internationalism evolved into a cynical ideological
weapon in the hands of Stalin (and his successors) both for continuing the
Tsarist policy of, using Lenin's term, "internal colonization," as well as
achieving expansionist goals of establishing and maintaining Soviet
domination of the "brotherly socialist countries."
Quite ironically, the more nationalist the Soviet Union was, the more it
struggled against "nationalism": i.e., against the national aims and
emotions of those nations under her domination. National roads toward
socialism, therefore, were not accepted and immediately suppressed;
their representatives were ruthlessly purged, or, if that failed, excom-
municated and expelled from the bloc. Stalinist nationalism thus would
not tolerate satellite nationalism.
Consequently, in the Stalinist era, with the exception of Tito, who ran
the risk of resisting the Soviets and succeeded, the newly established state
socialist regimes did not follow a nationalist line. Paradoxically enough,
in those countries that successfully resisted de-Stalinization and preserved
their domestic Stalinism, the party leaders, in an attempt to consolidate
and stabilize their regimes, played the nationalism card. The post-Stalinist
era in some countries was thus characterized by a renaissance of, in some
cases, extreme nationalism. (Liberalizing reforms and nationalism were
rarely applied together, the exception being Yugoslavia, which combined
the two.)
Nationalism was, of course, not only a substitute for liberalizing
reforms, but a deeply rooted, "natural" trend in the region. Nationalism
was a strong driving force from the early nineteenth century on. It
emerged earlier in the region than the nations themselves, since the idea
was imported from the West and became the major instrument of
nation-building in a process that continued unabated throughout the
entire century. The right of self-determination, inapplicable as it was in
the region, created new conflicts after the Versailles treaty that culminated
in wars, civil wars, pogroms, and Holocaust during the bloody years of
World War II.

Liberation from the horror and pain of the war came, paradoxically,
with the beginning of Soviet domination. The former conflicts were not
resolved, but rather swept under the rug. State socialism itself, in most of
the countries of the region, represented a new form of subordination and
national humiliation. Consequently nationalism remained a powerful
force, and served as an essential "wonder weapon" to overcome reluctance
and opposition and convince and mobilize people. A champion of the
national cause, a guarantor of national independence, and a warrior of
national grandeur easily won nationwide acceptance and could legitimize
his power.
This was the case with so-called national communism in Yugoslavia,
but also with "national Stalinism," a most paradoxical phenomenon of
the post-Stalinist period in Albania and Romania. But attaining national
goals, that is, preserving or reestablishing national independence, did not
only mean curbing or resisting Soviet domination; a revitalized small-nation
nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe was naturally connected with
domestic national issues as well.
In Yugoslavia, where his regime was a "legitimate child" of a
heroic-revolutionary partisan war, Tito, a bold, uncompromising defender
of independence against a most dangerous and overpowering Stalin,
continued an everyday struggle under the banner of "Yugoslavism" to
keep the "Yugo" (i.e., "Southern") Slav nations together and balance
internal national conflicts by both suppressing separatist endeavors and
reorganizing the country on a federal basis. The permanent danger of
severe internal national confrontations, the specter of Serbian "centralism"
and Croatian separatism, the gloomy memory of a devastating civil war,
and the temporarily successful attempt to create a new, just, multi-national
Yugoslavia, all served, together with reform and consumer orientation
and democratization, to validate the legitimacy of Tito's regime.
In Romania, both Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceau§escu, while maneuvering
toward national independence and the liberation of the country from
Soviet domination, at the same time championed the cause of national
"homogenization," systematically eradicating the multi-national character
of the country through the Romanianization of Transylvania. The
creation of a united Romanian nation through forced assimilation, the
elimination of Hungarian schools and universities, the eradication of
autonomy in Transylvania, and the granting of Jewish and German
emigration from the country while simultaneously imposing the highest
possible population growth (by strictly banning abortion and birth
control) among ethnic Romanians, all clearly classified the regime as an
agent of internal national goals. Nationalism, besides anti-Soviet
maneuvering, had thus an internal effect in Romania as well. All this was

accompanied with extreme and efficient nationalist propaganda laden
with a romanticized Romanianism.
In addition, the classical Stalinist modernization strategy, with its
potential for rapid industrialization and rise in the level of education as
well as cultural homogenization, gained a new momentum in the
nationalist regimes. Resistance to the Soviets and oppression of national
minorities, combined with a promise of a spectacular national resurgence
and modernization, created a consistent policy of eliminating traditional
peripheral backwardness and "catching-up."
Small-nation nationalism openly appeared during the post-Stalinist
era in several countries. Beside the most spectacular Romanian and
Albanian cases, some elements of nationalist policy, especially in certain
critical periods, were used in many other countries as well. This was the
case in Poland in 1968, when a major intellectual revolt was suppressed by
unleashing open anti-Semitism. A desperate Todor Zhivkov also often
played the nationalism card: in the late sixties, the Institute of History of
the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was ordered to revitalize the
"Macedonian question" against Yugoslavia. "The Macedonian Problem*
Historical-Political Aspects" was published in 1968. The party revised its
interwar position regarding the Macedonian right to self-determination,
which resulted in a resurgence in Bulgarian-Yugoslav hostility. In 1984,
the government initiated a campaign of national homogenization, aiming
to assimilate the vast Turkish minority in the country, which included a
forced "Bulgarization" of Turkish family names and official proclamations
denying the existence of a Turkish minority in the country since
"so-called" Turks were actually Islamized Bulgarians.
By unleashing nationalism, the state socialist regimes sought to exploit
national sensitivities and present themselves as the authentic representatives
of the national interest. Some orthodox regimes which neither liberalized
politically nor assured even a modicum of human rights, and which were
unable to introduce consumerism, did manage, by successfully adopting
nationalist policies and producing visible results in enforcing it, to at least
temporarily broaden their power base, some already from the fifties on,
others basically by the sixties.
Czechoslovakia represented the exception among the non-reforming
countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in that it could not play the
nationalist card because of her geopolitical situation and (after 1968) the
strong Soviet military presence. Poland, on the other hand, though a
pioneer of political liberalization, could not cope with an almost permanent
economic crisis nor offer effective consumerism. But the regime, with its
most delicate geopolitical situation, was unable to initiate a nationalist
line as well. In periods of imminent political danger, however, both

regimes played the anti-Semitic nationalist card (Checinski, 1982;
Institute, 1986; Schatz, 1991).
As a consequence of the substantial reforms in the de-Stalinizing,
liberalizing countries, which decisively improved the quality of life, a
new atmosphere of security among the people prepared the ground for
attempts at legitimizing power. Those regimes which remained frozen in
at least a semi-Stalinist state sought to achieve this with nationalism.
The legitimization of state socialism

There are very well-known stereotypes regarding the legitimacy of power
in state socialism. Since communist power was forcibly seized, and
indeed in most cases imposed on the countries by Soviet pressure based
on military presence, state socialism in the region never gained legitimacy
and was preserved only by brute force. One of the most extreme
observations maintained that the Central and Eastern European regimes
did not even seek legitimization: "if leaders have little need to pay
attention to public opinion . . . and are not vulnerable to electoral defeat,
why should they be concerned at their lack of legitimacy?"
Others differentiate between legitimacy and a sort of "consolidation"
(Lewis, 1984, p. 3). Although a long period of social peace and apparent
cooperation did exist between the population and the regime in
post-Stalinist Hungary, this was not legitimacy, suggested Istvan Lovas
and Ken Anderson: "While a transition has been made from active to
passive terror," the authors stated, "social control is maintained through
an enforced consensus which is predicated upon the memory, the threat,
and the institutionally preserved potential for a return to terror in its
active phase" (Lovas and Anderson, 1984, p. 69).
Ferenc Feher and Agnes Heller held a different view, and emphasized
that fear no longer led to consolidation in Kadar's Hungary, but that
conformism, a "collective bribery of a nation," and "group or individual
corruption" did. They, however, also distinguished between consolidation
and legitimization, and excluded the possibility of the latter. In their view,
which is quite widespread, legitimacy by definition may only be gained
through free elections in a pluralistic system; thus the regime, they
maintained, was "firmly consolidated but not legitimized" (Lewis, 1984,
pp. 69-70, 96). One can reject the view that a regime does not need, nor
seek, legitimization, and is instead content on relying on terror (or the
memory of it). Legitimization, nevertheless, is indispensable even for
dictatorial governments because it makes command and control much
easier. Legitimizing power is not a mystical procedure but a rather
practical one: the regime must be able to generate an atmosphere where

its laws are not questioned by a populace that feels responsible for
keeping them.
As one of the most authentic experts of the question. Max Weber,
suggested in his Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft that there are no objective
single norms nor one exclusive model of legitimizing power. Legitimacy
is a faith in and an acceptance of existing power. If the people have an
image of the legitimacy of power, then that power is "valid." In reality,
the history of state socialism was that of a permanent struggle for
legitimacy, which, in most cases, was only temporarily successful.
It is a widely accepted paradigm that the only legitimate power is a
freely elected one, which is based on a kind of social contract that is
embodied in a set of unquestioned laws. In such a system the people obey
the impersonal order and laws, and are not subordinated to an alienated
power. Those who exclude the possibility of a legitimized state socialism
are thinking in this paradigm (the "rational type of legitimate power," in
Weberian terms), and they are entirely right to do so.
As Giovanni Sartori noted, "despite the fact that . . . a majority of the
175 countries (circa) in official existence do not qualify as even minimal
democracies, the Zeitgeist admits one and only one legitimacy, namely,
that power derives from, and is bestowed by, the people. In today's
modern world there is but one 'rightful government': freely elected
government" (Sartori, 1991, p. 437).
This Zeitgeist is, however, a rather new historical phenomenon,
having originated at the time of the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution, and gradually emerging during the last two centuries.
Universal male suffrage was introduced only in the last third of the
nineteenth century, while half of the population, all of them women, still
remained "naturally" excluded until after World War I. Moreover,
political systems based on free elections were consistently challenged
and rejected throughout its short history and practically never realized
outside the Western Core, including the Central and Eastern European
periphery of the world system.
Hence, understanding the legitimization attempts of state socialism
and its transitory success would not be possible without examining the
peculiar Central and Eastern European historical context. In post-1848
Hungary, the victorious Franz Joseph I, who ruthlessly suppressed the
Hungarian revolution and executed thirteen generals of the revolutionary
Hungarian army in Arad, established legitimate power by signing the
Austro-Hungarian compromise in 1867 and granting some of the rights
the Hungarians demanded and were ready to die for. Moreover, during
his long life, the bloody-handed emperor (whose bedroom in the Vienna
Burg was decorated by paintings of his victorious battles against the

Hungarian revolution) became the beloved, jovial "father" who had
unquestioned authority.
Illustrating the difference compared with the West, it pays to recall that
in Hungary in the early twentieth century, a country where (noble)
parliamentary traditions were one of the strongest in the entire region,
only 6 percent of the population had the right to vote; and even in the
1920s during the Horthy-regime, elections were held with open ballots in
the countryside and small townships.
In the Balkans, even "traditional," hereditary royal rule was introduced
only in the last third of the nineteenth century, when foreign dynasties
were invited to create legitimate rule (such as the Hohenzollers to the
Romanian throne), or local chiefs (knazes) were consecrated to establish
dynasties and "traditionalize" power (such as the Karadjordjevic and
Obrenovic dynasties in newly liberated Serbia). In Albania, this happened
only in the 1920s.
Poland in the interwar period began with a short episode of democratic
constitutional power, but this was soon squashed by the coup d'etat of
Marshal Pilsudski in 1926; henceforth, political legitimization was based
on Pilsudski's unquestioned charisma.
The Horthy regime, which gained power thanks to the Romanian and
Czechoslovak armies' defeat of Bela Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic,
and which also dethroned the legal-traditional Habsburg dynasty (and
militarily defeated King Charles IV when he attempted to regain power
in 1921), went on to realize a bogus parliamentarism. After fifteen to
twenty years in power, however, Horthy also evolved into a sort of
"father-figure," and his regime, born of blood and the repression of his
"white terror," was widely accepted and thought to be legitimate.
It pays to note that the peculiar "Royal dictatorships" in the Balkans of
the 1930s represented a special type of legitimizing power. In the deep
and explosive crisis, traditional inherited royal power no longer sufficed,
and the king, in order to preserve and strengthen his regime, had to act as
a savior of law and order; he thus had to turn toward banning parliaments
and parties and introduce a centralized authoritarian rule based on the
army and bureaucracy in order to avoid civil war. The bulk of the
population recognized royal dictatorships as a legitimate form of power.
This brief excursion back to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Central
and Eastern European history may help in understanding the complexity
of the question of legitimizing power in the post-World War II period.
Using the modern, "rational" paradigm, based on the contemporary
Zeitgeist, none of the modern, late nineteenth-century and interwar
Central and Eastern European regimes, with the exception of interwar
Czechoslovakia with her parliamentary democracy and free elections,

could be counted as legitimate. Historically speaking, however, it is
hardly questionable that most of these regimes were legitimate at certain
periods of their existence. How did it happen? Legitimization of the
regimes in the region followed a different pattern from that of the West.
Max Weber helps us to understand the difference when he historically
differentiates among "three clean types of legitimate rule": beside the
"rational" (modern), he also lists the "traditional" and the "charismatic"
types, which represent different paradigms. If rational legitimization is
based on a social contract and free elections, the more traditional
societies, Weber suggests, believe in "the sanctity of age-old rules and
powers. The masters are designated . . . and are obeyed because of their
traditional status . . . . [T]he ruled are . . . 'subjects'" (Weber, 1978, pp.
226-7). But in "traditionalist periods," and, one should add, in the
backward peripheries, if the people begin to question traditional power
and revolt against it, they turn, surmises Weber, toward "charisma,"
which is "the great revolutionary force" (p. 245).
People may accept aggressive, violent revolutionary regimes as legitimate.
In deep desperation and blind faith, explains Weber, people may
recognize the power of some charismatic leader who convinced them to
follow him toward Canaan, whose prophecy and promise seem to be a
guarantee of success:
Charisma [is] . . . a certain quality of an individual ... [who] is considered

extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural... powers of qualities.
. . . Psychologically this recognition is a matter of complete personal devotion ...
arising out of enthusiasm, or of despair and hope. (pp. 241-2)
Legitimacy in this case is maintained by the realization of "mission"
and "prophecy." Charismatic legitimization requires permanent success.
All in all, there were different paradigms, and today's universally
accepted rational Western parliamentary pattern was only one of them,
and one which was not valid for a long time in the peripheries. In the
latter areas various sorts of beliefs legitimized power. This continued in
post-World War II Central and Eastern Europe. It should not be
forgotten that parliamentary legitimization through free elections was
highly compromised and was easy to dismiss in mid twentieth-century
Europe, since nazism gained power in a properly legitimate parliamentary
way. Moreover, people lost confidence in powers that they ultimately
recognized as legitimate, but which could not preserve legitimacy
because of their failure in the thirties and during the war.
In its postwar desperation, a devastated Central and Eastern Europe
was ready to revolt against traditional power and longed for a new and
promising prophecy. Stalinist socialism sought to exploit the situation

and declared its mission. Marxism-Leninism embodied the prophecy
and infallibility, and this was reinforced by the promise of modernization
and egalitarianism as well as the painful but spectacular tour deforce over
Hitler in World War II.
The tragic failure of the fifties in Central and Eastern Europe, with
their appointed "charismatic" proconsuls (a contradictio in adjecto) and
failed prophecies, undermined the legitimization efforts of the regime.
Although enthusiastic and idealistic intellectuals, inexperienced youths,
and certain groups of profoundly desperate people embraced, and
ambitious careerists pretended to embrace, the mission and charisma of
the person and the system, the masses did not believe in, and disappointed
intellectuals revolted against, the regime; broad social strata became
explicitly hostile. Stalinism could not gain legitimacy in the region.
Post-Stalinist socialism, with all its reform attempts and striking
rebellions, opened a new chapter in legitimizing its power. In some of the
Central and Eastern European countries, of course, genuine charismatic
leaders such as Yugoslavia's Tito and Albania's Hoxha continued their
unchallenged rule until their deaths in the eighties. In some other
countries, new charismatic figures emerged, such as Hungary's Kadar
and Romania's Ceau§escu. In other countries, such as Bulgaria, Czechos-
lovakia, and Poland, either grey apparatchiks or technocrats took over the
party leadership, and also ruled for decades up until the late eighties.
(Only in Poland did permanent crises lead to frequent change: Gomulka,
who emerged as a charismatic leader, lost his appeal surprisingly soon and
was succeeded by typical technocrats and clerks.) Both charismatic and
apparatchik leaders, however, waged a permanent struggle for legitimiz-
ation. They tried to "routinize charisma" and "rationalize" (legalize)
their regimes, using the Weberian terms, in order to stabilize power
through legitimization. The frightening fortissimo of the violent Hungarian
revolution, supported by the choir of the Berlin and Poznan uprisings and
the Plzen strike, was definitely a wake-up call. The regimes could not
exist without solid rational legitimization. The "New Course" and, in
some reforming countries, the follow up de-Stalinization, which emphasized
"legality" in the place of revolutionary terror and stressed supply-
orientation and consumerism instead of a nebulous future "mission,"
while in most of the non-reforming, orthodox countries, a reformulated
"national mission" (nationalist-Stalinism) all expressed attempts to
assure legitimacy.
What actually happened in the sixties and seventies in Central and
Eastern Europe was due to the traditions of the region: people began to
recognize that the regime, which had been initially imposed on them, now
satisfied, at least, some of their (economic) needs or (national) emotions.

In some of the cases (mostly in Hungary), Lipset's argument helps us
to understand the process: a "prolonged effectiveness . . . may give
legitimacy to a political system" (Lipset, 1960, p. 82). In almost all the
other cases, Przeworski's reasoning is more valid: "what matters for the
stability of any regime is not the legitimacy . . . but the presence or
absence of preferable alternatives" (Przeworski, 1986, pp. 51-2). Indeed,
in the bipolar world system, in which Central and Eastern Europe's place
in the Soviet sphere of interest was not challenged, "preferable" alternatives
may have existed, but realistic ones were totally absent.
In describing a situation that he would undoubtedly apply to post-World
War II Central and Eastern Europe, Max Weber writes: "The distinction
between an order derived from voluntary agreement and one which has
been imposed is only relative. . . . It is very common for minorities . . . to
impose an order which in the course of time comes to be regarded as
legitimate by those who originally resisted it" (Weber, 1978, p. 37). Most
of the Central and Eastern European regimes, either in their "liberalized"
post-Stalinist form or with their agitated nationalism, were temporarily
accepted by their respective peoples, as long as the regime worked.
Two definite exceptions should be made: Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Neither of these countries could play the nationalist card because of their
geopolitical situation and (in Czechoslovakia only after 1968) the strong
Soviet military presence. Poland, moreover, could not cope with her
almost permanent economic crisis, nor counterbalance her humiliating
dependence with effective consumerism. Czechoslovakia, as the most
developed and the only industrialized and democratic country before
World War II, could not, as did all the other countries of the region, even
temporarily profit from a state socialism that was designed for backward,
non-industrialized countries, and was thus unable to produce convincing
results. The Poles, as did their predecessors, revolted on almost a
permanent basis. The Czechs with their Svejkian peaceful, obstructionist,
recoiling tolerance, endured their fate rather quietly.
Wherever it was achieved, the fragile and temporary legitimacy in the
other countries of the region rapidly eroded and then disappeared when
the system declined into a deepening and terminal crisis from the
late-seventies on.


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Post-Stalinist state socialism and its

"Our system is most frequently characterized as a . . . dictatorship of a

Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Ideological and political corrections

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Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Modernized economic policy and consumerism

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Social policy and the consumption of social services

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employees of state-owned firms, and then for peasants and self-employed

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Evaporating "socialist-realism": liberalized cultural

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Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Nationalism in the post-Stalinist era

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Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

The legitimization of state socialism

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Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Charisma [is] . . . a certain quality of an individual ... [who] is considered

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Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2009

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