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Dissent in Eastern Europe: Rudolf Bahro's Criticism of East European Communism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Since the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki on August 1, 1975, the communist parties of Eastern Europe have been confronted with growing human rights movements from diverse individuals and groups. In the Soviet Union, so-called Helsinki Watch Committees were founded in 1976, in order to monitor the implementation of the Helsinki human rights provisions and those of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Czechoslovakia, the human rights movement was coordinated by the publication of “Charter 77” in January 1977, which, like its counterpart in the Soviet Union, asked its government to comply with the Helsinki human rights provisions signed earlier by the Prague government. “Charter 77” has been signed by more than a thousand individuals, many of whom have been arrested or terrorized by the Secret Police. In Poland, the “Committee for the Defense of the Workers” (KOR) was founded after the June 1976 uprising of Polish workers in Ursus and Radom. The Committee's purpose was to provide legal and financial aid to those workers subjected to the Party's repression and physical terror for having participated in the June uprisings. KOR also criticized the government's violation of fundamental rights, such as the right to work, freedom of expression, and the right to participate in meetings and demonstrations. Again in 1980 during the Polish workers’ strikes, KOR under the leadership of Jacek Kuron assisted the strikers. They denounced the decline of the Polish Communist Party's credibility and the complete collapse of communication between rulers and the ruled. Even Hungary and Rumania have experienced the emergence of individuals and small groups who either want their governments to observe the human rights provisions, or who support human rights movements in other eastern European countries.
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- Copyright © 1981 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities (USSR and East Europe) Inc.
References
Notes
1. In 1977 KOR reconstituted itself as the “Committee for Social Self-Defense — KOR” (KSS-KOR)Google Scholar
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4. Time, July 24, 1978, p. 24.Google Scholar
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13. Rudolf Bahro, Eine Dokumentation, p. 12.Google Scholar
14. In November 1978 European Leftists discussed Bahro's The Alternative at an “International Congress on and for Rudolf Bahro” in West Berlin. Papers presented by Hermann Weber, Herbert Marcuse, Jiri Pelican, Rudi Dutschke and others are published in: International Journal of Politcs, X, No. 2-3 (Summer-Fall 1980).Google Scholar
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17. Bahro, The Alternative, p. 406ff., p. 430f.; Bahro's concepts on ecology and socialism are also contained in a major speech delivered in Freiburg on November 11, 1979, entitled “Sozialistische Alternative and “Ökologie.” Copy of manuscript is in author's possession.Google Scholar
18. DDR: Das Manifest der Opposition. Eine Dokumentation. (Munich: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 1978), pp. 39-46.Google Scholar
19. “Das Manifest des Bundes Demokratischer Kommunisten Deutschlands,” in: Der Spiegel, Jan. 2, 1978, pp. 21-24; Jan. 9, 1978, pp. 26-30; also in: DDR: Das Manifest der Opposition, pp. 12-39.Google Scholar
20. An excerpt of this critical analysis of the Polish party and state apparatus entitled “Without Pressure from Below no Reform from Above,” authored by the group “Experience and Future,” was published in: Die Zeit, August 29, 1980, pp. 3-4.Google Scholar