“The Return of the Left in Post-Communist States,”edited by C. Bukowski & B. Racz, 1999
If you see people always reading musty old books about
politics or history in a rapidly changing world, realize that they are living
in the past. That is not always bad, but
it does indicate that their ideas might be archaic too. This book has some
‘dust,’ especially given the changes from Russia to Romania since 1998. I will try to eke out what might be relevant
to today. The volume covers Russia,
Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Romania. I’m only going to cover the intro and
epilogue, then Russia and Hungary.
These are the points this collection of mainstream liberal
historians made at the time. Their focus is on groups or Parties rooted in some
aspect of Marxism or Left and socialist politics, even if they have strayed
significantly. Remember, this is after
the fall of the workers’ states in these countries: 1) The rumors of socialism’s death were
premature. In elections after the fall
of ‘state socialist’ governments, the Left still had a presence and was not
wiped out. 2) Violence was absent in the collapses except in
Romania, which they characterized not as a Party-controlled state, but as a
personal dictatorship under Ceausescu. 3) Youth were not attracted to the
ex-Communists, even in social-democratic or socialist forms in this period. 4) The fortunes of
the new market economy played the key role in the rise or fall of leftists in
subsequent elections. 5) Almost every former Communist Party became
social-democratic or socialist. Those
claiming to still be “Marxist-Leninist’ were a tiny minority.
RUSSIA
(M. Cichock)
The largest formation coming out of the 1991 collapse of
the CPSU was the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) led by
Gennady Zyuganov – and predictably still led by him. Presently the Party is the loyal opposition
to Putin, and has whole-heartedly endorsed the Ukraine invasion. It is described by
those to its left as nationalist and ‘social patriotic,’ abandoning any
pretense to Leninist internationalism. The KPRF call it ‘popular state patriotism.’ During
the period under Yeltsin, Putin’s mentor, the KPRF did quite well in the 1995
and 1996 elections after the chaos of capitalist ‘shock therapy’ and Yeltsin’s
violent 1993 assault on the House of Soviets that left almost 150 dead.
The CPSU at its height had 19.4M members out of 292M
citizens. The KPRF had 540K members at this point, made up mostly of white-collars, the elderly and former
apparatchiks according to Cichock. He estimates that 13 organizations came out of
the CPSU in one way or another. The social-democratic
dream of people like historian Michael Cohen about the rise of social-democracy after Gorbachev turned out to be false, as the social-democrats made no headway. The KPRF however was
strong enough to block Yeltsin’s plans to privatize much agricultural land. 3 de facto factions existed in the KPRF, and
in 1998 it let Duma deputies vote in secret, thus not being able to control their votes.
The Russian Communist Workers Party was the 2nd
largest organization, at 50K members, along with the Agrarian Party, which opposed
privatization of agriculture. Roy
Medvedev’s “Socialist Party of the Working People’ had a known figurehead yet
little of a ground-game. ‘Far left’ and “Marxist
Leninist’ groups are mentioned and they all criticized the KPRF as
social-democrats and too close to Yeltsin. These groups attempted to work
together but failed, while a KPRF coalition – the “Peoples Patriotic Union of
Russia” (NPSR) in 1996 was more successful nationally, becoming the main
opposition. Yet the ‘far left’ kept the KPRF from moving too far to the right. No Trotskyist groups are mentioned, though
there are at least 3 in Russia now.
Cichock predicts that unless the KPRF oriented towards economic issues, and away from patriotism, it will be unable to successfully combat the new capitalist forces. Its aging membership at the time needed to recruit youth too, and that still seems to be the case given what I saw in 2017. He predicted it will become a ‘perpetual opposition’ in its present condition. That prediction has been born out during the Putin years, as it has only been able to defeat Putin’s United Russia and the rigged electoral system in several oblasts. There is no mention of Alexi Navalny’s liberal forces in the book, as this predates Navalny, who started political activity in 2011. Navalny didn’t come out of any area of the left anyway.
HUNGARY
(B. Racz)
The dissolution of the former governing Hungarian Socialist
Workers’ Party (HSWP) in 1989 led to the formation of the Hungarian Socialist
Party (HSP), a social democratic / socialist organization that still
exists, now known as the MSZP. It supports the EU, opposes
Orbanism and remains the main liberal opposition. In 1990 they got 10.9% of the vote after the
collapse, with ‘left’ groups as a whole winning 26%. However the HSP was able to win a majority
after the 1994 elections due to the chaos created by capitalist restoration. In 1990 Orban’s Fidesz (AYD - Alliance of
Young Democrats) was a liberal group promoting free markets, minimal state
redistribution, speedy privatization and limited social policies. After their
loss in 1994 the AYD moved further to the right. They now govern Hungary almost permanently.
The HSP joined the Socialist International while the HSWP
rump became the Workers Party (WP), which called itself ‘Marxist-Leninist’ and
got 3.68% of the vote in the 1990 elections.
The Hungarian Social Democratic Party (HSDP) only got 3.55%. The Agrarian Alliance opposed willy-nilly
privatization of agricultural land into pre-1947 small-plot farming. Racz also notes a large amount of non-voters.
Racz does a careful and detailed analysis of the 1990, 1994 and 1998 elections, noting the vote totals of the various left forces. He christens Hungary as a ‘one-thirder’ political culture – right, center, left. Yet plant closures and the shuttering of large-scale agro-enterprises undermined the governing conservatives who had won in 1990. He notes the dormant strength of the left in the labor unions, workers’ councils and parties. The HSP allowed factions and inner-party democracy, and yet there were no splits. HSP cadre were more sophisticated and battle-hardened than other liberal and conservative groups, so they were able to build a grassroots base for the 1994 election. In 1992 they formed an alliance with the largest union, the NFHU. Unemployment reached 700K in 1992, so job security, Kadar nostalgia, privatization and welfare policies became increasingly important. The HSP also treated Hungarian minorities in other countries in a less confrontational way, opposing the ‘greater Hungary’ methods of the conservatives and Christian Democrats. "Greater Hungary" has become a current platform for Fidesz.
This led to the HSP winning a landslide victory in the 1994
election, with an absolute majority. As Racz puts it, the HSP supported a “market economy with social responsibility’
so a sort of welfare-state capitalism. The HSP got 33% the vote, with 54.14% of the
seats; while the WP shrank to 3.19% and the HSDP almost disappeared at
.95%. Fidesz only got 5.19% of the seats.
Two-thirds of the HSP vote came from blue-collar workers. The HSP joined with the liberals of the
Alliance of Free Democrats (AFD) to form a governing coalition.
As is predictable, economic problems, specifically interest
on the ‘vicious circle’ of loans from the IMF began to take their toll on the
national economy. Kadar had first
started the loan process in Hungary when it was dominated by the HSWP. Investment from outside capitalists had yet
to flow into Hungary at that point. The turn
came in 1995 when Lajos Bokros became finance minister and Hungary ‘balanced
its’ books’ to avoid ‘bankruptcy’ on the back of labor and farmers… its electoral
base. Wage increases and benefits were ‘forcefully’
limited, the forint was devalued and for the “average wage earner … stagnation and/or reduction of living standards.” The coalition AFD liberals heartily
endorsed the policy while the HSP was of mixed-minds. But they had jettisoned what Racz called 'solidarity politics.'
The 1998 election resulted in a narrow 158-165 loss of
governmental power for the HSP/Liberal bloc, which was predictable given the
economic situation. The 3 left
formations still got 37% of the national vote. Racz goes on to predict that “real GDP growth … of the Hungarian economy
will be limited for some time to come.” This continues under the conservative Orban,
even with EU subsidies, investments by China and Europe, along with continuing
corruption, white elephant projects and the starvation of Budapest’s finances
by the national government.
This book shows capitalism eventually creates its own labor
and electoral Left opposition, which can be moderately or extremely successful unless
a dictatorship of some kind is imposed. This dictatorship has now happened both in Hungary with the autocratic ‘illiberal democracy’
of Orban, and the capitalist police state of Putin in Russia. Orban’s Fidesz sought to never again have the
Socialists win, and set up a legal and financial system that made it very
difficult after they won in 2010. Putin has made it almost
impossible, except for loyalists of some kind like the KPRF, to actually oppose
him. Plane crashes, window falls,
explosions, exile, prison, poisoning and prison deaths are all administered to opponents or failures. It also shows that Stalinoid ‘Marxist-Leninist’
support dries up without a one-party state. And it shows that economic issues are at
bottom the main source of logic for the left, to be ignored at their peril.
Prior reviews on this subject, use blogspot search box,
upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: “Hungary,”
“Russia,” “shock therapy,” “CPSU,” “Kadar,” "central Europe."
May Day has books on what happened after the fall of the USSR. I got this one at the college library!
Red Frog / April 30, 2025
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