TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032789/03278900.027

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 14.6 KB | 285 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 46

Special Report: Eastern Europe


Chips Off the Old Bloc Moscow's satellites are in ferment.
Where's the West?

By Christopher Ogden


    The police held back traffic as an elated throng of 75,000
marchers snaked through the streets of central Budapest waving
red-white-and-green Hungarian flags and shouting "Democracy!"
Under banners as disparate as those of the liberal reformist
Hungarian Democratic Forum and the neo-Stalinist Ferenc Munnich
Society, independent political clubs and parties reveled
peacefully last week in the first officially sanctioned street
demonstrations since last fall, when legislation for sweeping
political reforms was introduced, including a multiparty system
for the socialist state. Thousands more Hungarians marked
National Day by heading -- literally -- for the exits. Easy
access to passports and a loosening of foreign-currency rules
drew swarms of Hungarian tourists to Vienna's main shopping
thoroughfare, where they scooped up stereos and VCRs from
special shops bedecked with Hungarian flags that accepted
normally nonconvertible Hungarian forints.

    Unseasonably warm weather in Warsaw, 340 miles to the
north, brought more political change into bloom. Two weeks ago,
the Jaruzelski government and the Solidarity-led opposition
agreed to hold elections for a second chamber of parliament, a
revived senate that would include non-Communist candidates.
Party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, who presided over the
crackdown outlawing Solidarity in 1981, was uncharacteristically
exuberant: "Significant progress is being made to construct
parliamentary democracy in Poland." In a church basement across
the city, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told his supporters that
Poland was entering a decisive stage "we hope will lead to
democracy and freedom."

    Whole segments of the East bloc, once firmly under the
thumb of Soviet orthodoxy, are launched in headlong pursuit of
a new political and economic order. But not all. In Bulgaria an
aging leadership shows no sign of interest in homegrown
perestroika. In Czechoslovakia, where leading dissident Vaclav
Havel has been sentenced to jail, trials moved into a second
month for other activists held on charges ranging from
organizing peaceful antigovernment demonstrations to signing
political petitions. And in Stalinist Rumania, party leader
Nicolae Ceausescu remains the "Idi Amin of Communism," as his
neighbors call him. The unregenerate totalitarian, obsessed with
stamping his personal mark on the physiology and psychology of
his country, brooks no opposition. When six retired high-ranking
officials released a letter harshly condemning his brutally
repressive regime, Ceausescu arrested the son of one of the
signatories on spying charges and ordered a nationwide security
alert.

    Yet even in these nations, cowed populations are beginning
to waken to the possibility of change. Just over a year ago, the
worst riots in the history of the regime broke out in Brasov,
Rumania. And beginning last August, Czechs have taken to the
streets to protest the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion and the
continuing Soviet military presence in their country.

    In Communist Yugoslavia, not a member of the Soviet
satellite bloc, reform moves have opened yawning rifts between
the country's eight diverse republics and provinces and a flock
of feuding ethnic groups. Serbian nationalists, led by the
charismatic Slobodan Milossevic, are pursuing a dream of
dominance in one part of the country, while a divided national
leadership is struggling to stave off collapse of the Yugoslav
economy.

    Not since Stalin slammed down the Iron Curtain four decades
ago has Europe witnessed such ferment east of the Elbe as that
unleashed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's campaign to
reshape socialist politics and economics. In the past, when
opposition escalated, the Kremlin dispatched tanks and troops
to crush dissent. But since coming to power in 1985, Gorbachev
himself has been the chief dissident, leading the assault on the
status quo. Acknowledging that there is no "binding model" for
socialism, he has encouraged pluri-Communism in Eastern Europe.

    For the past 40 years, Moscow has had two goals in
controlling its neighbors: to protect Soviet borders from the
threat of the West and to provide trading partners and markets
for Communism. Gorbachev appears to have altered these canons.
He aims to rework if not junk the centralized and self-contained
Communist economies. And he seems to consider the traditional
definition of security, in the form of a chain of subservient
states, no longer entirely relevant. In fact, his policies
indicate that he probably considers revolution or economic
collapse within the rigidly controlled Soviet empire a far more
plausible threat than attack from the West.

    The sparks thrown off by the widely divergent policies have
ignited a sputtering fuse in the region that could lead to a
dangerous explosion. The satellites, no longer forced to
operate under the delusion that Communism works, have been given
a historic chance to pursue, within undefined limits, their own
reform policies. But if Gorbachev is willing to countenance some
degree of free play country by country, he seems unlikely to
permit any to opt out of the Warsaw Pact.

    Eastern Europe's unpredictable volatility also has
implications for the West. If Communism does shuffle slowly
offstage as a failed experiment in Poland or Hungary, there is
no guarantee it will be replaced by democracy. Without
substantial progress toward economic recovery, the odds are high
that social unrest and political chaos will lead to a
dictatorship of the left or the right. Yugoslavia too is rent
by such severe economic disparities and political tensions
linked to strident nationalism that the country threatens to
disintegrate into warring provinces.

    Out of the cracks that have opened both within Eastern
Europe and between the East and its master in Moscow emerge two
crucial questions demanding urgent answers:

    How far can the satellites distance themselves from Moscow
without provoking a Kremlin crackdown?

    How can the West take responsible advantage of what's
happening?

    Until now, the West has been remarkably shy about taking a
hand in the process of change. Entranced by Gorbachev and
anxious to believe the cold war is nearly over, the West has
been reluctant to tamper in his sphere of influence. Preoccupied
with other regions, Washington in particular has not paid more
than occasional attention to Eastern Europe. Wariness is wise,
but the current indecision has been paralytic.

    At the same time, Western influence is painfully limited.
Too bold an intervention might tempt the eager reformers like
Hungary and Poland to go too far and court Soviet repression.
At bottom, though, the West simply lacks the power to order the
universe that it wielded in 1945.

    The first question is easier to answer: no one knows how
far is too far, certainly not with any precision, perhaps not
even the Soviets. "Gorbachev has given his clients considerable
leeway," says Adrian Hyde-Price, a research fellow at London's
Royal Institute of International Affairs. "But he does not seem
to have a carefully thought-through policy for the longer term.
It is a dreadful double problem: how to open the floodgates
without letting too much water rush out."

    Soviet leaders openly disagree about how much freedom
should be tolerated, let alone encouraged, in Eastern Europe.
Conservative Politburo member Viktor Chebrikov, former head of
the KGB, last month berated "antisocial elements" for attempting
to "direct the masses toward anarchy." Pravda responded
contrarily, suggesting that the ruling party might have to
consider even "formal agreements" with independent groups. At
the same time, the Kremlin has put down in the Baltic republics
the kind of political muscle flexing it has tolerated farther
south.

    Such confusion aside, there is little doubt about the
Soviet determination to hang on to Eastern Europe, the only
place where Communist regimes have been successfully maintained
at bayonet point from outside. For all the experimentation,
Gorbachev has not come close to renouncing the Brezhnev
doctrine, which asserts Soviet authority over the bloc.
Gorbachev is not the only one without a thought-through policy.
Neither the U.S. nor its Western allies have one either, making
an answer to the second question elusive. Only now are Western
governments beginning to explore the potentially titanic
implications of the changes under way.

    Some Europeans fear the rate of change in the East may
outpace their ability to construct coherent policies in
response. Says a senior adviser to French President Francois
Mitterrand: "Eastern Europe could become a region of instability
and risk." But others scent something better: the possible end
to the cold war, on which virtually all East-West security
planning is based. "This is the greatest opportunity the West
has had to influence this region since the division of Europe
after World War II," said Mark Palmer, the U.S. Ambassador to
Hungary and a leading advocate of Western activism. "We simply
must jump in, not only to advance our own values and economic
system but to do all we can to assure that these dramatic
changes come with maximum stability. That demands the West have
a strategy."

    Yet so far, the West has little more than vague principles
to offer, not a comprehensive vision. Former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger, an influential figure among Bush Republicans,
has argued that Washington and Moscow should directly negotiate
the future of Eastern Europe at a kind of "Yalta Two," a
latter-day reprise of the much criticized wartime agreement that
cemented the East-West division of Europe. Moscow would agree
to tolerate hitherto unprecedented political and economic
liberalism in the East and would renounce the Brezhnev Doctrine.
In return, the West would assent to the "legitimate" Soviet
security interests there, including the implicit promise not to
seek the reunification of Germany or pursue any other military
advantage.

    Western conservatives object that Yalta Two would simply
concede continued Soviet dominance over the area. They do not
favor cementing the status quo or illogically and
unrealistically attempting to extend NATO's influence into the
East. Instead, they recommend that both sides try to thin out
their troop presence.

    The wise course for the West is to overhaul its
long-standing policy of "differentiation," which has meant,
primarily, dealing with each East European country directly
rather than through Moscow, and rewarding human-rights
improvement with economic prizes like most-favored-nation trade
status. But, says a Western diplomat in Vienna, "quite frankly,
differentiation is a reactive policy, a cautious policy. It does
not initiate and it is not crafted to take account of the
complex issues that are now at stake."

    The West needs to give definition and vigor to a basically
sensible approach. It must identify what trends it should
encourage, where involvement can have the greatest impact and
where initiative would be largely wasted. Poland's Foreign
Minister Tadeusz Olechowski, for one, has made it plain to
Secretary of State James Baker that he welcomes help: "The
United States should not be absent."

    The U.S. does not intend to be, but the West is divided by
the question of how, and how much, to help the East bloc. One
school, which includes Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita,
is eager to launch a Communist Marshall Plan to deal with the
bloc's $131 billion indebtedness -- a 60% increase in three
years -- rung up by outmoded and mismanaged state industries.
"An expensive irrelevance," snorted the Economist. Critics are
wary of throwing money at Eastern Europe without a clear idea
of what they should extract in return. Former U.S. National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wants any assistance to be
met by "deliberate movement toward the adoption both of a
free-pricing mechanism and of genuine freedom of political
choice."

    Yet most of what the West can realistically do is smaller
in scope and largely aimed at nudging the bloc toward market
economies. The U.S. is prepared to help, but not with money.
"It would be hard to move legislatively," said a top
presidential aide, in an era of tight budgets. But, he added,
"if they make the kind of changes they ought to make," the
Administration would back Poland and Hungary with the
International Monetary Fund, support extending trade waivers,
increase high-level contacts and boost exchange programs.
Ambassador Palmer recommends joint ventures and small loans
directed to specific projects and placed with small commercial
banks. He wants President Bush to make an East European tour.

    Private funding can also help. This month the bloc's first
privately financed business school will open in Budapest. A
Rockefeller Brothers Fund program assists private agriculture
in Poland. But so far the private stake has been small. In the
past, the East bloc regimes have disdained such capitalist
assistance. Now Western investors worry about instability. "If
they want new money and new investment from the West, they've
got to create an economic and social climate so Western business
executives will sense they're dealing with a stable situation,
unfettered by bureaucracy, (with) a normal return they can
repatriate," says Peter Tarnoff, president of the Council on
Foreign Relations.

    The optimists believe economic progress will inevitably
provoke political progress. "If economic reform works," says
Franz-Lothar Altmann, deputy director of the Sudost Institut in
Munich, "it will legitimize political change." The eventual goal
is a gradual Finlandization in which certain bloc countries move
toward Western-style market economies and adopt the political
democratization that goes with them, reducing the adversarial
nature of the East-West relationship.

    Realistically, there is no intent to pry the East away from
Moscow and destabilize the region militarily. But there are
those who see every reason to seek systemic change. "Rather than
trying to separate Poland from the bloc, we ought to encourage
changes there to spread back to the Soviet Union," says Michael
Mandelbaum, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"Why stop at the Elbe? Let's roll Communism all the way back to
Moscow." Unlikely. But if the U.S. and its partners want to move
it at all, now is the time to get started.