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Some Constraints on Change in Eastern Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Melvin Croan
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Not so many years ago, when “de-Stalinization” and “de-satellization” seemed to be the order of things, the horizons of change in Eastern Europe appeared virtually unlimited. Indeed, one elaborate political science treatise, published in 1967, purported to discern two “irreversible trends” throughout the area, an increase in pluralization within individual countries and the tendency of the European Communist states to become more European and less Communist. Nowadays, in the continued aftermath of the massive Soviet intervention to reverse the changes actually undertaken during 1968 in Czechoslovakia, such certainties have all but disappeared. Yet, as Professor Korbonski’s timely and stimulating discussion reminds us, there is no logical reason to suppose that Communist societies are immune to change. With respect to Eastern Europe, however, as Professor Korbonski also notes, the hazards of forecasting are truly, formidable.

Type
Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 240 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1974

References

1. Ghita, Ionescu, The Politics of the European Communist States (New York, 1967)Google Scholar, pt. 4 : “Two Irreversible Trends, ” pp. 271-90.

2. In view of his kind comments on my “Is Mexico the Future of East Europe : Institutional Adaptability and Political Change in Comparative Perspective, ” I hope Professor Korbonski will forgive me for pointing out that he seems to have overlooked the fact that my analysis was not restricted to domestic variables but also sought to include the role of the Soviet Union as a factor setting Eastern Europe quite apart from Mexico.

3. This point has been well argued by Zvi, Gitelman, “Beyond Leninism : Political Development in Eastern Europe,” Newsletter on Comparative Studies of Communism, 5, no. 3 (1972) : 18–43.Google Scholar

4. Jowitt’, Cf. Kenneths discussion of “system building” and “community building” in his Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development (Berkeley, 1971).Google Scholar

5. Burks, R. V., The Dynamics of Communism in Eastern Europe (Princeton, 1961), pp. xxv ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. For a critical discussion along these lines, although in slightly different terms, see Giovanni, Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” American Political Science Review, 64, no. 4 (December 1970) : 1033–53.Google Scholar

7. Lowenthal, Cf. Richard, “Development vs. Utopia in Communist Policy,” in Johnson, Chalmers, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford, 1970), pp. 33–116.Google Scholar

8. Lowenthal, Cf. Richard, “The Soviet Union in the Post-Revolutionary Era : An Overview,” in Dallin, Alexander and Larson, Thomas B., eds., Soviet Politics Since Khrushchev (Englewood Cliffs, 1968), pp. 7–9.Google Scholar

9. Much of the recent discussion about pluralism in Eastern Europe and, even more, the Soviet Union has been marred by the tendency of some Western analysts implicitly to ascribe to various social and occupational groupings representative and institutionalized characteristics that they simply do not yet possess.

10. Pace Ludz, Peter C., whose impressive Parteielite im Wandel (Cologne and Opladen, 1968)Google Scholar exaggerates the notion of the younger, technologically oriented specialists as a “counter-elite.“

11. Zbigniew, Brzezinski, Between Two Ages (New York, 1970), p. 1970.Google Scholar

12. Present-day Hungary, under the NEM, seems to constitute a case in point.

13. For a discussion of the changing “rules of the game” which have made for unpredictability, see Gitelman, Zvi Y., The Diffusion of Political Innovation : From Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union, a Sage Professional Paper (Beverly Hills and London, 1972).Google Scholar

14. Dankwart A. Rustow, “Communism and Change, ” in Johnson, Change in Communist Systems, p. 358.