Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:25:41.191Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Prospects for Change in Eastern Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Andrzej Korbonski
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Writing some ten years ago about the changing political situation in the Soviet Union, Allen Kassof made the astute observation, “Although liberalization tells something about where the Soviet system has come from, it does not say very much about where it is going. To say that the system is being liberalized is like walking away backward from a receding reference point, a procedure that gives too little information about what lies on the road ahead.” It is clear that this statement applies with even greater force to Eastern Europe—even if we were to substitute “change” for “liberalization.” Anyone reckless enough to write about the prospects for change in Eastern Europe is faced with an almost impossible task, certainly a more difficult one than for the Soviet Union, or for that matter China, where at least there is, or was, a single reference point—be it Stalinism or Maoism, totalitarianism or the “administered society.”

Type
Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 219 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Allen, Kassof, “The Administered Society : Totalitarianism Without Terror, ” World Politics, 16, no. 4 (July 1964) : 561.Google Scholar

2. For a perceptive discussion of pitfalls in analyzing and predicting Soviet political developments see Alexander, Dallin, “Bias and Blunders in American Studies on the USSR,” Slavic Review, 32, no. 3 (September 1973) : 560–76.Google Scholar

3. Zvi, Gitelman, “Beyond Leninism : Political Development in Eastern Europe, ” Newsletter on Comparative Studies of Communism, 5, no. 3 (1972) : 18–43Google Scholar; Chalmers, Johnson, ed., Change in Communist Systems (Stanford, 1970)Google Scholar.

4. Skilling, H. Gordon, “Group Conflict and Political Change,” in Johnson, , Change in Communist Systems, pp. 215–34Google Scholar; Fleron, Frederic J., Jr., “Toward a Reconceptualization of Political Change in the Soviet Union : The Political Leadership System, ” Comparative Politics, 1, no. 2 (1969) : 228–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Daniel, Bell, “Technocracy and Politics, ” Survey, 16, no. 1 (Winter 1971) : 1–24 Google Scholar, and “The Post-Industrial Society : The Evolution of an Idea, ” Survey, 17, no. 2 (Spring 1971) : 102-68; Zbigniew, Brzezinski, Between Two Ages (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Melvin, Croan, “Is Mexico the Future of East Europe : Institutional Adaptability and Political Change in Comparative Perspective,” in Huntington, Samuel P. and Moore, Clement H., eds., Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society (New York, 1970), pp. 451–83.Google Scholar

6. Robert C., Tucker, “Communism and Political Culture, ” Newsletter on Comparative Studies of Communism, 4, no. 3 (1971) : 3–12Google Scholar; Alfred G., Meyer, “Communist Revolutions and Cultural Change, ” Studies in Comparative Communism, 5, no. 4 (Winter 1972) : 345–70.Google Scholar

7. Alex, Inkeles, “Models and Issues in the Analysis of Soviet Society, ” Survey, no. 60 (July 1966), p. 3.Google Scholar

8. Robert, C.|Tucker, “On the Comparative Study of Communism, ” World Politics, 19, no. 2 (1967) : 246.Google Scholar

9. For the latest contribution see Almond, Gabriel A., Flanagan, Scott C., and Mundt, Robert J., eds., Crisis, Choice and Change (Boston, 1973).Google Scholar

10. Almond, Gabriel A. and Powell, G. Bingham, Jr., Comparative Politics (Boston, 1966), pp. 35–37, 306-10Google Scholar; see also Samuel P., Huntington, “The Change to Change : Modernization, Development, and Politics, ” Comparative Politics, 3, no. 3 (April 1971) : 312.Google Scholar

11. Pye, Lucien W., Aspects of Political Development (Boston, 1966), pp. 63–66 Google Scholar, and Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968), p. 1968.Google Scholar

12. Jan F. Triska and Paul M. Johnson, “Political Development and Political Change in Eastern Europe : A Comparative Study” (unpublished paper).

13. Huntington, “The Change to Change, ” pp. 311-13.

14. For a recent study see Kenneth, Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development (Berkeley, 1971).Google Scholar

15. For a somewhat different view see Meyer, A. G., “Authority in Communist Political Systems,” in Edinger, Lewis J., ed., Political Leadership in Industrialised Societies (New York, 1967), pp. 84–107 Google Scholar, and Zvi Y., Gitelman, “Power and Authority in Eastern Europe, ” in Johnson, , Change in Communist Systems, pp. 239–42, 246-59.Google Scholar

16. Pye, Aspects of Political Development, pp. 45-46

17. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 53-56.

18. For an interesting discussion of various aspects of economic reforms see Andrzej Brzeski, “Social Engineering and Realpolitik in Communist Economic Reorganization, ” and G regory, Grossman, “The Solidary Society : A Philosophical Issue in Communist Economic Reforms,” in Grossman, Gregory, ed., Essays in Socialism and Planning in Honor of Carl Landauer (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), pp. 148–211Google Scholar. See also Morris, Bornstein, ed., Plan and Market : Economic Reform in Eastern Europe (New Haven, 1973)Google Scholar, and David, Lane and George, Kolankiewicz, eds., Social Groups in Polish Society (London and New York, 1973).Google Scholar

19. For a discussion of the relation between participation and information see Apter, David E., Choice and the Politics of Allocation (New Haven, 1971), pp. 105–27.Google Scholar

20. Whitaker, C. S., Jr., “A Dysrhythmic Process of Political Change,” World Politics, 19, no. 2 (1967) : 190–217CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Samuel P., Huntington, “Political Development and Political Decay,” World Politics, 17, no. 3 (1965) : 386–430.Google Scholar

21. Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, p. 167.

22. Ibid., p. 165.

23. Zygmunt, Bauman, “Twenty Years After : The Crisis of Soviet-Type Societies,” Problems of Communism, 20, no. 6 (November-December 1971) : 45–53.Google Scholar

24. Comment made during the fall 1968 meeting of the Seminar on Comparative Study of Communist Societies at the University of California, Berkeley.

25. Ludz, Peter Christian, Parteielite im Wandel (Cologne and Opladen, 1968), chap. 3 (pp. 153–258).Google Scholar

26. Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, p. 166.

27. Jerry F., Hough, “The Soviet System : Petrification or Pluralism?” Problems of Communism, 21, no. 2 (March-April 1972) : 27–29.Google Scholar

28. Bell, “The Post-Industrial Society, ” pp. 134-68.

29. Cyril E., Black, “Marxism and Modernization,” Slavic Review, 29, no. 2 (June 1970) : 182–86.Google Scholar

30. Croan, “Is Mexico the Future of East Europe, ” p. 453.

31. Ibid., p. 479.

32. Tucker, “Communism and Political Culture, ” pp. 10-11.

33. Meyer, “Communist Revolutions and Cultural Change, ” pp. 368-70.

34. Farrell, R. Barry, ed, Political Leadership in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar; Beck, Carl et al., Comparative Communist Political Leadership (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.

35. Personal interviews in Prague in the spring of 1967.

36. Bauman, “Twenty Years After, ” p. 53.

37. For a listing of recent studies see T. H., Rigby, “ ‘Totalitarianism’ and Change in Communist Systems,” Comparative Politics, 4, no. 3 (April 1972) : 440.Google Scholar

38. Personal interviews in Eastern Europe in the summer of 1971.

39. One example of a more liberal attitude in this respect was provided recently by the Gierek regime, which apparently lifted censorship from two Polish publications —Trybuna Ludu, the party's daily organ, and Polityka, a well-known political weekly. Also the regime’s new policy of granting exit visas to intellectuals critical of it may be interpreted as a step in the same direction.

40. Triska and Johnson, “Political Development, ” p. 46.

41. Andrzej, Korbonski, “Comparing Liberalization Processes in Eastern Europe : A Preliminary Analysis,” Comparative Politics, 4, no. 2 (January 1972) : 231–49 Google Scholar, and “Liberalization in Eastern Europe : A Comparative View” (unpublished paper).

42. For a different view see Gitelman, “Beyond Leninism, ” pp. 28-29.

43. One such paradigm is suggested by Huntington in his article “The Change to Change, ” p. 316.

44. J. M., Montias, “Modernization in Communist Countries : Some Questions of Methodology,” Studies in Comparative Communism, 5, no. 4 (1972) : 413.Google Scholar