TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/090489/09048900.033

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.7 KB | 189 lines

                M                                                              WORLD, Page 18

EASTERN EUROPE

Uncharted Waters


Soviet allies draw conflicting conclusions from Gorbachev's
agenda

By Jill Smolowe


    Only Mikhail Gorbachev and Mieczyslaw Rakowski know
precisely what was said during their 40-minute telephone
conversation. But the gist of the Soviet leader's advice to the
Polish Communist Party chief last Tuesday apparently came down
to this: Go with the flow. Within hours the Communists'
belligerent demands for a greater role in Warsaw's as yet
unformed government were replaced by conciliatory calls for
"partner-like cooperation" with Solidarity. The arduous and
uncharted process of piecing together the East bloc's first
non-Communist government was back on track.

    Extraordinary? Yes. Unexpected? Hardly. These days, events
in Eastern Europe are so topsy-turvy that bloc uniformity seems
to have given way to a breathless rush of uneven developments.
In Hungary, where a multiparty system is in the works,
Communist Party chief Karoly Grosz reportedly announced that he
was prepared to step down, a move that was interpreted as a
victory for reformers. In East Germany the government sought to
rid itself of malcontents by handing out unprecedented numbers
of exit permits, while thousands of other unhappy citizens
simply fled over the Hungarian border. In Poland the Communist
Party Politburo marked the 50th anniversary of the 1939
Nazi-Soviet pact -- whose secret protocols resulted in the
partition of Poland at the onset of World War II -- by
denouncing the agreement as a violation of "sanctified moral
norms of international coexistence." Lest anyone miss the point,
Polish opposition leader Lech Walesa spelled it out in an
interview with an Italian newspaper: "We are setting out . . .
to return to the prewar situation when Poland was a capitalist
country."

    But Czechoslovakia offered a stubborn reminder of the
old-style inflexibility. To commemorate the 21st anniversary of
the Soviet invasion, the government of Milos Jakes ordered riot
police to scare off some 3,000 demonstrators who had taken to
the streets of Prague. Wielding truncheons, the police arrested
several hundred protesters, including some from Hungary and
Poland. Warned the party-owned afternoon daily Veerni Praha:
"History cannot be changed. It is necessary to know it and take a
lesson."

    Energized and emboldened by Gorbachev's daring reform
campaign, many East Europeans are setting out to draw new
conclusions from old lessons. If most Communist countries share a
perception of the political and economic forces that have
brought them to this juncture, they lack a common vision of
where they are going. Acknowledged Solidarity leader Lech
Walesa: "Nobody has previously taken the road that leads from
socialism to capitalism." Poland and Hungary are pressing ahead
with sweeping reforms that promise to disprove the theory that
totalitarian regimes cannot change. Czechoslovakia, East
Germany and Bulgaria tinker with old formulas in hopes they can
stave off a reckoning with the new. Only Rumania, under the
tyrannosaurus-like leadership of Nicolae Ceausescu, stubbornly
pursues the Stalinist agenda without obstruction. As each
country feels its way through this difficult period, the
competing ambitions are putting considerable strain on the bloc.

    The greatest rending is in Poland, where Solidarity is now
officially leading the way toward a new and uncertain future.
Last week the lower house of the National Assembly, by a vote of
378 to 4, elected Solidarity's Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be the East
bloc's first non-Communist Prime Minister. The vote followed by
six days the resignation of President Wojciech Jaruzelski's
handpicked candidate, Czeslaw Kiszczak, who was unable to form
a government after two former Communist allies, the United
Peasants' Alliance and the Democratic Party, threw their support
to Solidarity.

    In his acceptance speech, Mazowiecki sought to play down the
differences that had complicated Poland's political progress.
"I want to form a government able to act for the good of
society," he said from the oak podium of the Sejm. "I want it
to be a coalition government for the thorough reform of the
state. Such a task can be undertaken only with the cooperation
of all forces represented in Parliament." Ironically, Kiszczak
had delivered a virtually identical acceptance speech barely
three weeks earlier. The difference was that Mazowiecki has the
popular legitimacy that Kiszczak, who as Interior Minister
managed the 1981 crackdown on Solidarity, so conspicuously
lacked.

    Mazowiecki, who is expected to form a Cabinet by the end of
this week if battles over portfolios can be settled, also
addressed some of the enormous challenges ahead. Recognizing
that Poland's bankrupt economy, not the Communists, poses the
gravest danger ahead, he asserted that "Poland cannot afford
ideological experiments anymore" and promised to resurrect a
market economy. He also pledged a return to a legal system that
guarantees individual rights. Mindful of his audience in
Moscow, he promised to support existing international treaties
and obligations, making a special point of referring to the
military arrangements within the East bloc. "We understand the
importance of our Warsaw Pact obligations," he said. "The
government I form will respect this pact."

    Perhaps he need not have tried so hard. Though Moscow would
clearly have preferred a Communist government, the Kremlin chose
not to make matters worse. The Soviet media treated Mazowiecki's
election with as much interest as a report on a new sausage
shortage in Moscow. But while Moscow was unusually open-minded
about changes in Poland, the Communist Party Central Committee
issued a shrill warning to the Baltic republics that it would
not tolerate separatist talk at home.

    Poland's promising though fitful progress, coupled with
tacit approval from Moscow, has raised the hopes of millions of
East Europeans. In countries where the leaders are proceeding at
a far more cautious pace, these hopes have spawned an impatience
that can be measured by the rising tide of refugees. Hungary's
decision four months ago to dismantle the barbed-wire fences
along its border with Austria has uncorked the largest flood of
cross-border escapes since the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961.
The number of escapees is topping 200 a day, and tens of
thousands are applying to leave legally. If the flood continues,
close to 100,000 East Germans will cross to the West this year.

    The refugees testify to a disillusionment with the rigid
rule of East German President Erich Honecker, 77, who seems to
offer no hope of future change. Most of them are young people,
skilled workers or university-trained specialists. As yet,
Honecker has done nothing to stanch the flow. One joke making
the rounds last week asked, "Why will Honecker abolish East
German identity cards by 1990?" The answer: "Because by then,
Honecker will be personally acquainted with all the remaining
citizens."

    The mass exodus is no joke. In the past, the trickle of
legal refugees primarily involved senior citizens, which was
East Germany's way of palming off some of its pension burden on
the capitalist West. But the loss of so many young professionals
presents East Germany with the prospect of a serious brain
drain.

    The tide is also no laughing matter in West Germany. In
keeping with its constitutional commitment to a united Germany,
Bonn regards the refugees as citizens of the Federal Republic
with full rights. Upon arrival, they receive $100, and within
days they begin receiving unemployment benefits. West German
citizens, who already must contend with a huge influx of ethnic
German immigrants from Poland and the Soviet Union, are growing
resentful of the refugee burden, which gluts the job market and
strains housing resources. "The East German leadership carries
exclusive responsibility for the situation," Chancellor Helmut
Kohl charged last week. "We will not let them evade this."

    Refugees also continue to pour out of Bulgaria; more than
312,000 ethnic Turks have fled over the past three months. With
hundreds of thousands more refugees expected, the Turkish
government reached the limits of its patience last week and
closed the frontier to refugees not carrying visas. At 3:26
a.m. Tuesday, a train packed with ethnic Turks pulled into the
Kapikule railway station, across the border from Bulgaria. At
6:10 a.m. the train began to move -- but in the wrong
direction. Young refugees jumped from the windows and flung
themselves on the tracks. Finally, at 8:54 a.m., the refugees
were granted asylum. But that human cargo -- dubbed the Train
of Shame by the Turkish press -- may be the last for some time
to come.

    It is not certain that Eastern Europe will ever regain
cohesion. Radical reform and conservative intransigence make
uncomfortable bloc fellows. Comecon, the alliance's economic
union, is crumbling as members scramble to cut separate deals
with the West. And the allies are at one another's throats: the
Czechs and Rumanians denounce the Polish reformers for sowing
chaos, the Poles denounce the Czechs for trampling human
rights, the Hungarians denounce the Rumanians for mistreating
their Hungarian minority. Gorbachev's phone conversation with
Rakowski last week suggests that the Soviet leader finds better
promise in an uncharted future than in a failed past. But if
Eastern Europe's summer of hope gives way to a winter of
discontent, Gorbachev's go-with-the-flow optimism may bump up
against an iceberg or two.


-- John Borrell/Warsaw and James O. Jackson/Bonn