IS THE INTELLIGENTSIA STILL NEEDED IN POLAND* Edmund

Transcription

International Conference Democratic Transitions in Latin America and in Eastern Europe:
Rupture and Continuity
4-6 March 1996, Paris, France
2nd Working Session: Rupture and Continuity in the Functioning of
Institutions
IS THE INTELLIGENTSIA STILL NEEDED IN POLAND*
Edmund MOKRZYCKI
Abstract : The intelligentsia is defined in terms of a social class constituted by
educated people in the specific circumstances of 19th century Eastern Europe.
What is the role this class in post-communist Poland ? Can it survive the
modernisation process ? It is transforming itself into a modern knowledge class ?
Why has its political role declined so dramatically after the collapse of communism
? One of the conclusions reached in this paper is that rapid increase in demand for
educated labour has, paradoxically, resulted in the disintegration of the
intelligentsia as a class.
Making sense of the question
In order to answer the question posed in the above title. It is
necessary,unfortunately, to begin by making elementary conceptual distinctions.
“Intelligentsia” is above all a collection noun for the possessors od certain social
characteristics (higher education being most frequently among them) and as such
represents a statistical category useful in various historical and constitutional
conditions.
In Poland (as well as in various other countries of the region) the term
“intelligentsia” also has a deeper sociological meaning, namely as denoting a
social class which, after finally taking shape in the nineteenth century, played a
decisive role in the defence of national identity and the formation of modern Polish
society. The text below is of course concerned with “intelligentsia” in the second
sense. THere is no point in asking whether Poland still needs educated people,
but it is worth asking whether the present crisis in intellectual circles represents the
twilight of an entire social class 1. It is clear that Poland still needs educated
people : the question is whether, given the present crisis in intellectual circles, the
present class will fulfil this need.
A class of learned people
The formation of the Polish intelligentsia as a social class was a complicated
process, but two factors were it seems, clearly decisive :
1- our backwardness, and
2- the lack an independent Polish state.
* The first version of this text was introduced during the Polish -American conference “Poland 200 years after the third
partition : between east and west in her past and present” organised by the Polish Studies Association. Polish Sociological
Association and Polish Society for Political Studies, Waesaw 5th August 1995.
1 cf. Joanna Kurczewska, “Intelligencja polska : schodzenie ze sceny”. Krytyka, 4, 1993 ; Marta Fik, “Autorytecie wróc ?”
Tygodnik Powszechny, 30 April 1995.
1- Among many historical conceptions of Central Europe only a few- and those
the most arbitrary- give a basis for placing all of Poland (and any of the
independent Polish states) on the western side of a line dividing the backward,
agrarian East of Europe from the more developed transitional zone remaining
linked economically with the West 1. In the social dimension, Eastern European
backwardness manifests itself in (inter alia) the dominance of peasant culture, the
weakness of bourgeois traditions, a strong dependence of social position on
access to the means of state power and a low level of education of the society as
a whole.
The phenomenon the Polish intelligentsia fits perfectly in the latter social
landscape, because it can be interpreted as being an answer to the modern
challenge, the answer of a society, whose basic social strata were not ready for
that challenge 2. CLearly decisive here is the coincidence of two sts of
circumstances. On the one hand together with the devolpment of elements of a
modern economy, education became of ever more significant vocational value. On
the other hand the internal differentiation of the category of educated people
(whether according to specialisation, reputation of school or position in the
employment market) remains of secondary importance in the face of the basic
division between “learned people”, a term still in use after the war, and the rest. It is
natural that the rapid growth in the need for educated people in a backward society
characterised by a low level of education results in that factor being an unusually
powerful determinant of social position.
In this sense the very existence of the intelligentsia as a social class is a
structural symptom of backwardness and the evolution of criteria of
membership of the intelligentsia constitutes a particular measure of progress. In
provincial Poland at the time of the second world war possessors of a
matriculation certificate merited the status of members of the intelligentsia, while
according to research carried out under the direction of Professor Jan
Szczepanski in the nineteen-sixties university degrees had replaced the
matriculation certificate, and nowadays we tend the threshold even higher, thereby
bringing the Polish conception of a member of the intelligentsia closer to the
French conception of an intellectual.
2- THe lack of national independence affected the development of the Polish
intelligentsia, its prestige and place in the social scene, in a different way from the
effects of backwardness. Times of partition and occupation and in part, also of
communist governments, by setting the Polish intelligentsia the task which in
normal times belongs to the political elite, favoured the filling by this resulting in
responsability for the fate of the national community.
The combination of civilising leadership and political mission made the Polish
intelligentsia an exceptional formation even at a European level. The practice of
1 Cf. eg Daniel Chirot (ed), The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. University of California Press, Berkeley,
1989.
2 Cf. Zygmunt Bauman, “Intellectuals in East -Central Europe : Continuity and Change”. East European Politics and
Societies, Spring 1987, George Schöpflin, “The Political Traditions of Eastern Europe”. Daedalus, Winter 1990.
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open recruitment coupled with the principle of service to society protected it from
class criticism from below. It is characteristic that “the victory of socialism” affected
the Polish intelligentsia, called at that time “the working intelligentsia” relatively
mildly, if one considers what happened in other countries under communist rule. It
is this fact that primarily explains the development of Polish culture and science in
the time of the Polish People’s Republic in a way which was exceptional for
conditions within a totalitarian state.
A People’s Intelligentsia
The Polish intelligentsia is therefore both a structural and historical
phenomenon. It was because of the historically determined social context that
this class came into being and in so far as one can judge, only in this context does
it have a social raison d’être. Transformation of this particular social contextchanges in the conditions of social activity, national independence, the system of
general education, introduction of the foundations of a modern market economyshould reduce the social role of the intelligentsia in favour of other formations
answering to the logic of changed circumstances, such formations as the middle
class, political elites, a “knowledge class” or “intellectuals” understood in the
French sense of the term. Such processes actually began long ago, althrough
there are various opinions about their causal power. I will mention here, simply as
examples, two critical moments from the past.
With the attainment of national independence in 1918, the intelligentsia lost
some of its political mandate to a new political elite, frequently of military and party
political origin. Change of political culture in the country was immediate and
perceptible, and the character of the changes can be successfully explained in
terms of class.
After the Second World War the experiment of establishing a “people’s
democracy” brought with it a very real threat not only to the position but also to the
very existence of the intelligentsia as a social formation (which had been heavily
reduced during the war, according to some estimates by as much as 40 %). The
origin of this threat is not so much the secret police and censorship as the “new
intelligentsia” also known officially as the “people’s intelligentsia” and by its harsher
critics as the “baling-twine intelligentsia” 1. With all respect to the suffering of the
Polish intelligentsia, particularly in the first decade of the existence of “people’s
government”, it should be said that a question mark stood against the future of this
formation not so much as a result of the repressive activity of that government but
as a result of processes of structural change set in motion by those authorities
within the framework of their plans for modernisation.
The “new intelligentsia” was a people’s formation by pedigree, but its
ideological and political links with the “people’s” authorities were by any measure
ambiguous. On the one hand the new intelligentsia was characterised by a servility
1 “Szapagatowa inteligencja” : in this case a reference to the rough string holding together the bundles of belongings carried
by new arrivals from the countryside .
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exaggerated by the perspective of radical upward class mobility, and on the other
by a peasant conservatism ans small-town mentality- both fundamentally contrary
to revolutionary ideology even in its Stalinist variant. This formation arrived on the
social scene without political vigour, and looked to the traditional intelligentsia as
its reference group, rather than as a target to attack. For the authorities, however,
this rapidly mobilised and trained cadre of specialists ready to join the process of
building a “people’s Poland” was a substitute for the real intelligentsia.
The existential threat to the traditional inteeligentsia resulted from the very
existence of the new intelligentsia and its capacity as an alternative source of
expertise- available and more suited to changing conditions. At the beginning of
the nineteen seventies this formation had already many characteristics of a
socialist counterpart to the western “knowledge class” -amorphous and non
ideological, but a reservoir of competent specialists of all kinds, from high national
officials to scientists.
The collapse of the socialist modernisation plan led to a complexe
disentegration of the new intelligentsia. Part of it reinforced the party
nomenklatura and its fringes, part found itself in the circles of the traditional
intelligentsia most firmly in opposition, while some constituted a connecting tissue
between them. The period of the first “Solidarity” was for the intelligentsia a period
of spectacular comeback to the social scene in its traditional role, and a triumph of
its ethos, political and social values and even of its specific style of political
conduct. The famous “ethos of Solidarity” was nothing other than the
traditional ethos of the Polish intelligentsia reanimated under conditions of
dramatic political struggle and taken up by a movement of several million people. I
believe that only in those terms is it possible to find an answer to the often
repeated question, “what happened to the ethos of Solidarity ?” It left the movment
together with the intelligentsia.
Escape from the “sector”
It is time for the key question : “what happened to the Polish intelligentsia after
the collapse of the communist authorities and what is its role in the new political
conditions ?”
Prime importance should be given to two empirical processes which are well
documented in statistical data and in the results of sociological research. The first
of these, is the ever deepening pauperisation of the state funded non-industrial
sectors employing the majority of the Polish intelligentsia 1 ; the second is the
rapid growth of demand for a workforce with the highest qualifications, which in the
labour market brings with it a corresponding rise in its selling price.
These processes should cancel one another out in so far as they occur
together, but they do not and this very fact shows that the state funded sector,
1 In the year 1994 salaries in the non-industrial state sector fell by 3,3 % in the “entrepreneurial” state sector they rose by
4,2% while pensions ans annuities rose by on average 2,9 %.
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and even more so the part most heavily manned by the intelligentsia,
constitutes an anomaly from the point of view of the principles of market
economy.
The mining industry is also an anomaly in this sense. Although, whereas the
price of the labour force in mining is artificially high in relation to the market price
as a result of state subventions of various kinds (overt and covert), in the state
funded sector the price is artificially low. In other words, from the point of view of
the principles of market economy members of the intelligentsia employed
in the state sector are the objects of exploitation by the state. This
exploitation is possible because of the state’s effective monopoly in this area of
activity (science, higher education, the hospital service, etc.).
On the other hand, we observe a phenomenon which can be interpreted as an
escape from this exploitation. Those insolved might not choose to call it that, and
some of those involsed, for example a significant portion of academia, are against
such escape as a matter of principle. I have in mind, of course, the abandonment
of a vocation, something which takes various forms and extents in different areas.
If for example we take the case od science and higher aducation, according to
various estimates up to 30 % of academics have left. Unfortunately this is a matter
of positive selection, in general the yougest and the best leave. Some go abroad,
the majority take up other activities. Those who remain carry on dual professional
lives, often regarding their academic activity as of secondary importance,
legitimating a higher professional standing. In many departments and in many
institutes there are practically no academics below the age of forty.
The social consequences of this state of affairs will only be fully visible after
several years. If something exceptionally favourable to Polish academic activity
happens, a further several years would still have to pass before the best young
graduates began again to choose academic careers. During this time the
youngest amont the representatives of the still relatively numerous age groups in
Polish academia would be reaching their fifties.Political changes with espect to
science and higher aducation, among them the inevitable radical reform of this
area, will only be politically possible when the results of present policies affect
certain working class circles by blocking the road upward through free education 1.
In a few years a Polish diploma from a state university will probably have less value
in the Polish market place, yielding its position to diplomas of private and foreign
universities.
In Poland, academic activity along with art and culture, and in contrast to
agriculture and industry, ahs retained in many areas (among them the social
sciences, something particularly noteworthy for communist countries) a good
European standard. The unavoidable collapse of state run higher education in
Poland (this thesis arises from demographic data) is in the context of our present
considerations doubly important. Science and higher education constitute not only
1 For a more detailed analysis of the negative effects of working class opposition to reforms see Edmund Mokrzycki,
“Class Interests, Redistribution and Corporatism” in : Christopher Bryant and Edmund Mokrzycki (eds). Democracy, Civil
Society and Pluralism in Comparative Perspective : Poland Great Britain and the Netherlands, IFiS Publishers, Warsaw,
1995.
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of the most important occupational spheres of the intelligentsia, but also the area
in which the intelligentsia perpetuates itself.
In the case of science and higher education two phenomena are clearly visible.
Firstly, a change of social position is taking place on a massive scale i.e. a
mass transfert from one social-vocational position (e.g. “educated”) to another
(e.g. politics or industry). The scale and character of this process makes it a
process par excellence of social tranformation, giving rise to a significant
regrouping of the social scene. In our case the regrouping is resulting in a partial
disintegration of the social fabric constituting the traditional intellignetsia, and the
formation of a new structure driven by the market mechanism. Without going into
detail it is possible to state that as a result of unfirtunate policies with respect
ti the state sector and of profitable changes in the labour markert 1 a partial
and spontaneous transformation of the traditional intelligentsia into a post
socialist counterpart to the western knowledge class is taking place.
A second phenomenon is connected with this development. The part of the
state sector manned by the intelligentsia ever more clearly constitutes an
undefended social space (to borrow a term from Thomas Heller), that is, a
space which does not attract the attention of poweful political actors and strong
interest groups. As we have seen, in view of the situation in the labour market,
people with the highest qualifications adopt individual escape strategies in
response to the pauperisation of that sector. The weaker part of the intelligentsia
from the state sector, having neither strong suits to play in the market place, nor
political capitaln is helpless. Although the latter are clearly the object of
exploitation, their plight is of interest neither for the “political class” nor for the
trades unions (if you do not take into account general declarations of
understanding ans support). It is characteristic that the single serious attempt at
protest from this milieu, the strike of teachers in 1992, met with a surprising ans
single-minded reaction from the more important actors on the political scene, in
spite of the fact that the action of the teachers from the point of view of content (the
economic and legal basis of their demands) and in the context of the mores of
Polish strike action took and exceptionally positive form.
People’s power ?
In a modern society, particularly in a democracy, political power does not only
belong to those who exercise it. The second, more profound, dimension of political
power is founf within society. Here, in the arragement of relations between interest
groups, the processes deciding the fundamental directions of state policy, take
place over generations rather than months or parliamentary terms.
In post-communist Poland a particular a arrangement is taking shape. The
class of workers in heavy industry occupies an absolutely commanding position,
1 According to research carried by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences under the
direction of Prof. H. Domanski, the socialist divergence of the two basic factors of status, ie education and income, is
systematically disappearing.
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well-organised and parctised in the struggle for its class interest. From there
impulses flow on to political scene, which in the highest degree determine the
behaviour of the political elite. Deprives of their own organisation the peasantry
influence political decisions through the post-communist PSL (Polish Peasants’
Party), which at present gives them an important share in the formation of state
policy. The political elite meanwhile engage in what Leszek Balcerowicz has
recently called 1 `small´ politics, the essence of which is the primacy of electoral
arithmetic. As a result of the elite’ opportunism a significant influence on the
politics of the country is, conversely, beginning to be strongly exerted by the
differentiated category of the professionally inactive (those receiving old-age and
disability pensions, the unemployed etc. -together somme 11 million people
among a population of nearly 39 million). The intelligentsia and the already
numerous class of entrepreneurs each find themselves as body on the margins of
the country’s political life.
From the point of view of liberal reform this is an extremely
disadvantageous arrangement. In this context, above all its is necessary to
explain the braking of reform by the present coalition? Especially unfortunate was
the sudden withdrawal of the intelligentsia from the role of politically leading social
actor. In part this withdrawal happened due to the paradox of Polish reform already
outlined : suitable conditions for the individual careers of the educated weaken
both the bonds within groups of such people and their need to defend group
interest. The myth of Solidarity as a movement transcending class is by no means
insignificant, and this myth has been transferred to the next, post-communist,
utopia of people’s government under the leadership of the working class.
Empirical research from opinion polls to deep sociological studies show that
there is a positive correlation between education and support for liberal reform,
privatisation, mechanisms of the market economy, democratic institutions, the
idea of an open society, and integration with Western Europe. Educated people
are laso less suceptible to populist manipulation (cf. for example data concerning
educated pensiones) authoritarian temptations, and the charms of ideology
appealing to the herd instinct. It is necessary also to remember that in Poland
barely 7 % of the population has higher education, one of the lowest indice of
scholarisation in Europe, and to remember the structure of education in Poland is
as levels that of a system still geared to meet the needs of the planned economy.
Poland is as it always has been, a country of low general education in
which an educated elite stands out the rest of society in its views, lifestyle,
customs, values, aspirations, interests and, what is most important today,
possibilities for development. In this situation, the disintegration of the
intelligentsia, of the single social forum for articulation of the interests of the
educated, and through it of the interests of national development, must be
recognised as a most unfortunate event.
1 “Master of `small´politics are great players but small people”. Leszek Balcerowicz, “Barriers to Reform”, Wprost, 33,
1995.
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The intelligentsia is losing its position not only in Poland, but also in other postcommunist countries 1. This, it seens, is consitent with the logic of post-communist
transformation. It might be possible to say that this has brought us closer to the
model of modern society, were it not for what is happening in other segments of
society. The political dominance of the (socialist) class of workers in heavy
industry, and the strengthening of anachronistic peasant conservatism in the
countryside, stand in the way of Polish society’s conformity to that model.
1 Cf. Boris Dublin, “The End of the Intelligentsia and the Emergence of a Professional Class”, Fifth World Congress of
Eastern and Central European Studies, Warsaw 6-11 August 1995.
8
RETROSPECTIVE JUSTICE IN THE SPIRIT OF LIBERALISM : THE CASE
OF GERMANY
A. James McADAMS
How can a new democracy come to terms with the violence and brutality of the
dictatorship that preceded it ? How can it do so without compromising the liberal
culture it hopes to embrace and dividing its citizens against each other ? From my
perspective, these interrelated questions are the most intriguing issues to have
emerged from the nearly three-decades-long debate over the costs and benefits of
new democracies’ efforts to pursue “retrospective justice”. They demonstrate just
how difficult it is for such regimes to put the dictatorial past behind them.
On one hand, we should not underestimate the pressures faced by many
democratizing regimes to give substance to their break with authoritarianism by
seeking retribution for the wrongs and human rights abuses of the past. From
Southern Europe and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s to Eastern Europe
and South Africa in the 1990s, the advocates of criminal trials, property restitution,
truth commissions, and the like have marshalled powerful arguments to support the
view that the offenses of a former dictatorship can neither be ignored nor allowed
to go unpunished. They contend that justice and social peace will only be ensured
with an open and aggressive investigation of the crimes of their predecessors
{Herz, 1982 ; Zalaquett in Aspen, 1989}.
On the other hand, the critics of such measures are equally quick to call
attention to the risks attending the pursuit of retrospective justice. Given the fragile
institutional culture of many new democracies, these observers argue, some
regimes will simply not have the political resources needed to bring their
predecessors to justice. Them, too, even if they should be strong enough to
undertake such measures, there is the even greater danger that the attempt to
settle past accounts may give rise to precisely the sorts of ills -the arbitrarines and
the intolerance- of which the former regime was guilty. Thus, these critics argue, it
is far better for the fledgling democracy to secure the future through positive steps
and hopeful appeals to national unity than to become caught up in the muck and
dreck of a bygone dictatorship {Ackerman, 1992 ; Elster, 1992}.
I first became interested in the tensions between these two positions in the
heated debates over Germany’s reunification in the early 1990s. From the
beginning, it was clear that the institutional and culture conditions necessary for
making democracy work in eastern Germany were far more propitious than those
faced by new democracies elsewhere. Unlike most Latin Americans, Germans did
not have to worry about provoking the return of old authoritarian elites to power.
Also, in contrast to other East European states, the direct absorption of the
German Democratic Republic (GDR) into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
meant that there was much less doubt about the region’s democratic
transformation. Nevertheless, in one crucial respect, Germans closely resembled
their counterparts in other countries. They were -and continue to be- just as divided
about the wisdom of seeking a “reckoning” with the crimes of their former
dictators.
Over the first half decade of German unity, this issue has been onr of the
principal battles lines among the GDR’s former citizens over what it means for
Bonn to take eastern German interests seriously. Consider the stand taken by
many of the GDR’s ont-time dissidents. “If you really value our contribution to
German democracy”, they have repeactedly told the FRG’s leaders, “you must
prove it by your actions : Bring our former oppressors to trial, open up the most
secret files of the Stasi (secret police) to public scrutiny, and leave no stone
unturned in esposing the corruption and abuses of four decades of communist
tyranny”. In contrast, an even larger group of eastern Germans, many formerly tied
to the state and party apparatus of the GDR, demands a clean break with the past.
“If your democracy is really about fairness and equality of trcatment”, these
individuals contend, “then you must recognize the limits to your ability to pass
judgment on the practices of another political order and concentrate instead on the
present challenge of including everyone equally in the benefits of liberal society”.
Both stands have merit. Certainly, few would deny the right of those who
suffered most under GDR rule to demand that their new government do something
to address the injustices committed against them. In the interest of demacracic
credibility, past abuses cannot be swept under the rug as though they never
occured. At the same time, however, it is also reasonable to expect that such
measures not be allowed to become counterproductive or politically divisive. In the
interest of democratic stability, the pursuit of retrospective justice should not come
at the cost of unnecessarily pitting citizens against each other. Nor, as many
anxious western Germans have emphasized over the past five years, should one’s
zeal for retribution be allowed to compromise democatic institutions that already
work quite effectively (e.g., criminal courts). “Justice must be done”, one observer
has recently noted, ‘but too much justice is also injustice” {Rosenberg, 1995, p.
XIX}. But how should one draw the line between appropriate efforts to address
past injustices and wrongheaded steps that might threaten a state’s democratic
culture ? Is such a delineation aven possible ?
Although it can never be an easy task, I believe it is possible for democratic
regimes to avoid crossing the fine line between the legitimate pursuit of
retrospective justice and less desirable approaches to the past. But to suceed at
the challenge, they must adhere to two fundamentally interrelated standerds. The
first standard is procedural. Whatever choices they make about settling accounts
with their predecessors, democratizing stats must act in a manner that is
consistent with three minimal principles of liberal accountability. These principles
are :
1 that individuals be judged solely on their actual behavior and not on the
basis of their membership in a collectivity ;
2 that every individual have the right to know in advance of his/her actions
what behavior constitutes a punishable offense against the law ; and finally ;
3 that no individual be obliged to perform supererogatory (i.e., “heroic”) acts.
The second but related standard is essentially interpretive. I belive that a
government’s ability to act upon the past in the spirit of liberalism will be directly
tied to the way its leaders choose to characterize a former dictatorship. Undless a
democracy’s leaders can define the lines of guilt and responsibility for offenses
committed in that regime in a manner consistent with the aforementioned
principles of liberal procedure, I would say that they probably should not act at all.
2
At first glance, it may not be readily apparent why this second standard basically a matter of historical judgment- should even be linked with the first. In this
case, it is helpful to recall that in their hour of triumph over their former adversaries,
democratic leaders may be tempted to depict their predecessors in a purely
stereotypical fashion. Quite frequently, they will use uniformly negative terms to
characterize the old order (“a totalitarian regime”, “a lawless state”), while playing
down any semblance of diversity, either among a state’s leaders or within its
population. Such black-and-white depictions may very well capture a portion of the
truth about the former regime. But, I would contend that these images can also
have the unitended consequence of making it nearly impossible for the new
government to live up to the subtlely of liberal standards of accountability.
After all, how can one make claims about individual (as opposed to collective)
responsibility when the supposed uniformity of the old order prevents one from
distinguishing between good and bad leaders, good choices and bad ones ?
Similarly, according to liberal standards of jurisprudence, how can anyone be help
legally responsible for crimes committed under the old regime if one
simultaneously denies that there was any meanigful concept of law under the
former dictatorship. Finally, how is one to ovoid holding average individuals up to
unreasonably high standards of moral behavior if one depicts life under the old
order as little more than an amorphous sea of mass complicity ?
One way of inerpreting the drama of German unification since 1990 is to ask
whether Germany’s leaders have successfully lived up to the twin standards of
liberal behavior -procedure and historical interpretation- in their efforts to reckon
with the GDR’s communist past. For example, outsiders have been quick to praise
the special parliamentary Enquete-Kommission, which the Bundestag created in
early 1992 to investigate “the history and consequences of the SED (communist
party) dictatorship in Germany” {Torpey, 1993 ; Winters, 1994}. What harm can
come, they have wondered, from allowing experts on the GDR and the regime’s
victims alike to tell their stories of suffering under communism ? In the process of
ghetting to know their past, it is assumed, eastern Germans will become all the
more convinced (to quote commission chairman Rainer Eppelmann) about “the
basic democratic concensus of unified Germany” {German Bundestag, 1994, p.
5}. In contrast, nearly all observers have expressed concern about the implications
of the various criminal trials (e.g., of former borderguards, spies, and high party
officials) that the German government has pursued in the wake of the GDR’s fall.
Most would agree that somebody should be held accountable for the crimes
committed during the GDR’s forty-year history {Hoffmann, 1992}. However, many
scholars have taken Germany’s courts to task for the seemingly arbitrary manner in
which they have conducted the trials. They have also argued that Bonn is sending
its citizens inappropriate signals about the role of the judiciary in a liberal society
{Richter, 1993 ; Wesel, 1993}. But, how well do these judgments accord with the
twin standards that I have suggested for pursuing retrospective justice in the spirit
of liberalism ?
When I first began work on an essay on the 1992 trial of former SED General
Secretary Erich Honecker {McAdams, 1996}, I was initially inclined, like other
observers, to condemn the trial and all others like it on purely procedural grounds.
Any attempt, I thought, to prosecute East Germany’s leaders for actions that
occured during the time the communists were in power would violate a
fundamental precept of both liberal jurisprudence and the German Basic Law : the
3
prohibition on ex post facto lawmaking (nulla poena sine lege). As I have
suggested above about liberal procedure, all individuals should have the right to
know in advance whether they are breaking the law. Thus, any action that would
deny the GDR’s former representatives this elementary protection would be
inconsistent with Germany’s democratic institutions ; it would also seen to be a
very bad way for the FRG to introduce eastern Germans to the workings of the rule
of law.
However, the more I became acquainted with the handling of Honecker’s trial,
the more I became convinced that Germany’s leaders have actually learned
something about the use of the criminal courts to pursue retrospective justice. Not
only have they grown more determined to avoid violating the ban on retroactive
lawmaking, but in line with this objective, they have also become more intent about
finding ways of interpreting the GDR past in a manner consistent with liberal
standards of accountability. In the imediate aftermath of German unity, this was not
always the case. For example, in the early trials of former Berlin Wall
borderguards, many leading politicians and former dissidents seemed so bent
upon obtaining convictions that they espoused an image of East German society
that was essentially incompatible with the application of liberal standards of
procedure. They held that the GDR had been nothing more than a “state without
law” (Unrechtsstaat), a totalitarian state like the Nazi regime before it, in which
laws had no meaning and everyone was subordinate to official commands
{Bracher, 1991 ; Insensee, 1992}. When this characterization was used to
undergird the first two convictions in the borderguard trials, critics rightly faulted the
decision for violating nulla poena sine lege ; it was hardly just to hold individuals
accountable to norms that did not exist at the time the offenses were committed.
In the Honecker trial, however, the courts turned to a very differents and, I think,
more easily justifiable image of the GDR. Rather than dismissing the East German
legal system out of hand, as had previously been the case, they contended that
there had been a (partially) functioning system of laws in the communist state and
that (to quote the Federal Court of Justice) even “(communist) laws were binding”
{Bundesgerichtshof, 1993, p. 146}. This relatively simple break with the depiction
of the GDR as an Undechtsstaat was crucual for bringing the courts back into
accord with the conventions of German law. It meant that individuals could be
prosecuted on the grounds that they had knowingly violated their own codified
laws. From the standpoint of liberal procedure, the courts’ shift also conveyed a
salutary message about the rule of law in a democratic society : all of the FRG’s
new citizens, even those who had once ruled the GDR, had the right to be jusged
by fair and equal standards.
To cite a contrasting case invilving the pursuit of retrospective justice, I believe
tha it is much harder to be as sanguine about the message conveyed about
German democracy by the parlianmentaryy Enquete-Kommission on the “GDR
dictatorship”. When I first began to follow the Bindestag’s hearings on the
communist past in 1992, I was inclined to share the widely-held positive
assessment of the FRG’s version of a Latin American “commission of inquiry”. An
open investigation of the abuses and shortcomings of the SED would help to
ensure that no German would ever again be swayed by authoritatianism. Also, the
hundreds of hours of expert testimony held before the commission would constitute
an undeniable scholarly resource. Yet, despite these praiseworthy features, I now
believe that this particular parliamentary undertaking may have generated more
4
confusion than clarity about the standards according to which the former citizens of
the GDR are to be judged in unified Germany, in part because of the historical
interpretation on which it is based.
A great deal depends upon how we interpret the Kommission’s pursuit of
historical truth. Had the commission, as we might expect of a liberally-minded
institution, focused its investigations primarily on the offenses of specific
individuals {say, in the fashion of Chile’s National Commission on Truth and
Reconciliation [Report, 1993]}, had it focused on specific crimes and acts of statesponsored violence, there is a chance the German parliament would have come
close to archieving its initial objectives. However, in the commission’s final report,
the majority of its members chose instead to endorse a much more abstract image
of guilt and responsibility in the GDR. They reduced the four decades of
communism to a struggle between two groups : the perpetrators of violence and
their victims.
This may have been an understandable decision for the former GDR
dissidents who sat on the parliamentary body ; they were naturally inclined to
depict the communist era in a light that replicated their own experiences and paid
tribute to their courage and foresight in standing up to dictatorship. Nonetheless,
the problem with such a simple, dichotomous characterization of the GDR’s past is
that it left no room for confortably with the SED regime but never participated in its
crimes. As a result, many eastern Germans have been left with the impression that
they may be fated to be second-class citizens in German democracy. By the
commission’s standards, they cannot be counted as victims of the communist
order, but they certainly do not want to be relegated by default to the class of those
responsible for the human-rights abuses of the old regime. Moreover, even to
suggest that these individuals could have acted differently in the GDR is to send
them a dubious message about the standards of liberal accountability in unified
Germany. It is to imply -I think wrongly- that special types of behavior, even the
hero’s readiness to risk limb and fortune for one’s convictions, should be the
measure of membership in a democratic society.
Of course, the trials of the GDR’s former leaders and the hearings of the
Enquete-Kommission represent only two of many instances in which the German
government has sought, with greater and lesser degrees of success, to pursue
retrospective justice in the spirit of liberalism. To this list, one could also add other
prominent cases, such as the efforts of the so-called Gauck Authority to give
private citizens access to their personal Stasi files or the debates over the return of
property expropriated under communist rule. Whatever cases one studies, the
more general point I wish to make is that in our efforts to draw comparisons with
past dictators, we should not only focus on whether there are already robust
institutions in place to act upon that legacy. It is undeniable that the FRG has
enjoyed great, even unprecedented advantages, in its reckonong with the German
legacy of authoritarianism, particularly in comparison to states that are burdened
with the possibility that their former dictators will return to haunt them. However, it is
more revealing that Bonn has not always used these advantages as effectively, or
as liberally, as outsiders have assumed. I believe that the decisive issue in
pursuing retrospective justice is not what instruments a state possesses to deal
with its troubled past, but rather how it uses those instrument and how it interprets
that past.
5
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
ACKERMAN, Bruce : The Future of Liberal Revolution, New Haven, 1992.
BRACHER, Karl-Dietrich : «Die Unterdrücker zur Rechenschaft ziehen»,
Universitas, 11, 1991, p. 1025-1028.
Bundesgerichtshof : «Zur Strafbarkeit von Mauerschützen», Neur Juristische
Wochenschrift, n° 2, 1993, p. 141-149.
ELSTER, Jon : «On Doing What One Can», East Eiropean Constitutional Review,
summer 1992, 1, n° 2, p. 15-17.
German Bundestag : Bericht der Enquete-Kommission : Aufarbeitung von
Geschichte und Folgen der SED Diktatur in Deutschland, Bonn, 1994.
HERZ, John : ed. From Dictatorship to Democracy, Westport, 1982.
HOFFMANN, Christa :
Deutschland, Bonn, 1992.
Studen
Null
?
Vergangenheitsbewältigung
in
ISENSEE Josef : ed. Vergangenheitsbewältigung durch Recht, Berlin, 1992.
McADAMS, A. James : «The Honecker Trial : The East German Past and the
German Future», Review of Politics, 58, n°1, 1996.
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, Trans. by
P. BERRYMAN, Notre Dame, 1993.
RICHTER, Peter : Kurzer Prozess : Honecker und Genossen, Berlin, 1993.
ROSENBERG, Tina : The Haunted Land : Facing Europe’s Ghosts after
Communism, New York, 1995.
TORPEY, John : «The post-Unification Left and the Appropriation of History»,
German Politics and Society, n° 30, 1993, p. 7-20.
WESEL, Uwe : Ein Staat vor Gericht, Frankfurt, 1994.
WINTERS, Peter-Jochen : «Zur Aufarbeitung von Geschichte», Deutschland
Archiv., n° 8, 1994, p. 785-788.
ZALAQUETT, José : In Aspen Institute, State Crimes : Punishment of Pardon,
Wye Plantation, 1989.
6
Alain Touraine (Discussant)
A vrai dire, j'aimerais revenir aux thèmes généraux qui ont été abordés ce
matin, et d'abord j'aimerais partir de la remarque, plus qu'une remarque un
jugement, portée par Jorge Castañeda quand il disait " au Mexique, il ne s'est rien
passé, malgré des bouleversements économiques, sociaux, etc. ". Parce que je
pense que ceci commande très largement les analyses que nous pouvons faire
aujourd'hui parce que je crois que le cas du Mexique n'a rien de particulier, j'ai
envie de dire il ne se passe rien nulle part, et c'est un point de départ que je trouve
absolument indispensable. Je voudrais faire une comparaison, même si elle est
un peu trop globale, mais nous vivons beaucoup d'entre nous, et en tout cas moimême, dans une vision du monde qui s'est formée comme presque tous les
aspects de notre vision du monde à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle. A ce moment-là,
nous étions dominés par l'image d'un capitalisme libéral ou, si je me place à
l'extrême fin du dix-neuvième siècle, ce qu'on appelait pas encore globalisation on
l'appelait encore impérialisme, mais ça voulait dire exactement la même chose.
C'est-à-dire que l'on insistait sur la domination du capital financier. Et par
conséquent le processus de changement social nous est apparu à tous, vers
1890-1910, on a tous pensé que face à ce triomphe de l'économie sauvage,
appelons-la dominante, que les processus de changements sociaux seraient
dominés par des acteurs sociaux et idéologiques. Ensuite, il s'est passé
beaucoup de choses, mais il ne s'est pratiquement rien passé de positif depuis
cette époque-là en dehors des effets de cette vision : révolutions de 1905 ou de
1917, mouvements de libération nationale, mouvements ouvriers réformateurs ou
social-démocratisants. Mais nous avons vécu avec l'idée que, face à la
domination de l'économie, notre travail aux gens des sciences sociales, c'était le
politico-idéologique, c'est-à-dire l'introduction d'acteurs luttant contre une
domination économique au nom de visions de l'histoire, valeurs morales,
exigences d'identité nationale, peu importe. Autrement dit, mouvements de
classes, mouvements nationaux, mouvements de femmes moins importants, mais
quand même déjà important en Angleterre et aux Etats-Unis, tout ça appartient à
la même génération.
Et aujourd'hui je dirai que nous nous trouvons, et je pense qu'il est essentiel
au moins d'essayer de s'en rendre compte, dans une situation exactement
opposée. C'est-à-dire que ce qui se passe en cette fin de vingtième siècle, ce
n'est pas une réaction à une domination économique, c'est la réaction à
l'épuisement ou à la crise d'un type d'Etat, de politique et d'idéologie. Je veux dire
le phénomène que nous vivons est la crise et l'épuisement de ce qu'on peut
appeler l'État-mobilisateur, démocratique ou non-démocratique, communiste ou
social-démocrate, nationaliste ou national-populaire comme on dit en Amérique
latine et comme on pourrait dire en Inde, etc. Et par conséquent la situation que
nous visons, c'est que le seul acteur réel, le seul acteur visible, c'est l'économie, ou
je dirai l'ajuste, l'ajustement structurel. Donc, nous sommes dans une situation, je
le dis parce que ça va m'amener directement à interroger des expressions
comme " transition " ou " démocratie ", je ne suis d'aucune manière certain que
nous vivons une transition ou un passage à la démocratie. je dirai plus volontiers
que nous vivons pour le meilleur ou pour le pire l'épuisement d'un certain système
de contrôle social de l'économie, et nous entrons dans une période qui est peutêtre une transition, j'ai tendance à le croire, mais qui est la transition libérale,
définie par un faible contrôle social de l'économie, entre le type de système de
contrôle social que nous avons connu et d'autres que nous allons connaître et qui
peut-être sont déjà observables aujourd'hui. Autrement dit, avant tout, crise de
certains systèmes de contrôle social de l'économie, peut-être aussi le moment de
la great transformation polyannienne avec l'attente polyannienne de la reprise d'un
contrôle social de l'économie. Nous sommes dans cette situation-là où, je dirai, la
démocratie n'a rien à voir là-dedans. Quelqu'un a dit ce matin qu'il avait de grands
doutes sur l'existence de sociétés démocratiques, j'ai les plus grands doutes. Je
dirai, j'y reviendrai dans un instant, j'ai le sentiment qu'on assiste d'abord à un
affaiblissement du contrôle social de l'économie qui peut aller de pair avec la
rupture d'un Etat autoritaire et donc une certaine libéralisation, qui peut aller aussi
de pair avec la crise de systèmes très démocratisants du type scandinave ou
autres, disons européen-occidental d'une manière générale, et le triomphe d'une
économie non contrôlée avec augmentation des inégalités sociales, augmentation
de l'exclusion, dualisation des sociétés. Bref, je ne vois pas de démocratie làdedans, je vois une première chose, je le répète, ce sera mon raisonnement, je
vois une première dimension qui est celle-là, je ne veux pas la libération, ce qui
aurait l'air positif, mais le non-contrôle des activités économiques par des
autorités, des forces ou des mécanismes de décision, appelons-les sociopolitiques.
Deuxième idée, j'ai été frappé en lisant les papiers de cette conférence, et
je dirai presque dans l'esprit même de cette conférence, par quelque chose
d'autre qui m'a semblé un grand progrès. Au fond, il y a trois ou quatre ans, une
2
réunion comme celle-ci, je suis sûr qu'il y en a eu des tas, aurait probablement
trouvé que la transition vers la démocratie, la transition vers l'économie de
marché, tout ça c'est la même chose. Or au fond l'idée que je retire de la lecture
des papiers de cette conférence qui traite de ce problème directement, c'est cette
idée qui peut prendre une forme cynique, mais qui est une forme en tout cas fort
intelligente qui est de dire : et si la chute des régimes autoritaires, et donc la
libéralisation, supposait une absence d'acteurs sociaux, une absence de société
civile dirait Arato dans un sens où je partage tout à fait ses idées. Ça, c'est la
vision je dirai cynique mais qui est une vision très respectable parce que elle
dit : Attention! L'action, l'intervention de forces sociales, et en particulier de
majorités dominées, des peuples, est peut-être non pas du tout liée à la chute de
l'autoritarisme, mais n'est pas contradictoire, c'en est une autre dimension. C'est
ce que je pense. Je pense que nous avons à faire dans ce que nous appelons
démocratisation à deux phénomènes qui sont fondamentalement opposés l'un à
l'autre : l'un qui est la diminution du contrôle social et politique de l'économie,
appelons ça si vous voulez la libéralisation, et l'autre qui est l'intervention d'acteurs
sociaux et politiques dans le but de faire respecter, de faire avancer leurs intérêts
et leurs droits qui étaient écrasés ou dominés dans un régime autoritaire.
Alors voilà l'idée qui me semble, après ma lecture, s'être imposée à moi,
c'est que, en tant que commentateur, nous avons affaire aujourd'hui dans les cas
régionaux auxquels nous nous intéressons particulièrement - l'Europe centrale et
secondairement orientale, et l'Amérique latine, et plus particulièrement, mais pas
uniquement l'Amérique du Sud - , la question posée est : Quelle est la relation, de
quoi dépend l'importance relative de ces deux aspects, c'est-à-dire la montée
d'acteurs sociaux ou, inversement, la perte de contrôle politico-social organisée
de l'économie? Ce qui amène à faire une hypothèse assez simple qui est que, si
les deux phénomènes sont différents, il peut y avoir deux processus
fondamentalement différents : l'un qui est que le phénomène de transformation ou
de libéralisation de l'économie comes first, et l'autre qu'il y a d'une manière ou
d'une autre une intervention d'acteurs sociaux, cela a déjà été évoqué ce matin par
plusieurs auteurs, en particulier par Arato. Alors j'ajouterai ceci en reprenant ma
remarque initiale : non seulement il y a ces deux grands types, mais il y a aussi
une sorte de bifurcation plus élémentaire qui consiste à savoir si l'ancien système
est encore capable de se maintenir ou d'essayer de se transformer ou si il est en
état d'écroulement. Et c'est seulement s'il est en état d'écroulement que, à ce
moment-là, se pose la question de savoir si le processus sera commandé par
3
l'économie ou commandé par des forces sociales. Et alors il me semble que, en
réfléchissant aux différents cas nationaux qui ont déjà été évoqués et qui le seront,
on est amené à dire ceci : là où le processus de libéralisation commence, on va
vraisemblablement avoir dans ce cas-là, je dirai, une démocratisation par
institutionnalisation forte des mécanismes de décision politique mais avec
participation sociale faible, j'allais dire une forme sans contenu ; dans l'autre cas,
quand il y a initiative socio-politique d'un type ou d'un autre, je pense que la
priorité apparaîtra comme étant donnée, pour prendre une formule un peu
générale, à la recherche d'une plus forte participation sociale, plus précisément
d'une plus forte participation populaire ou disons, pour prendre un mot qui est
peut-être meilleur, une meilleure représentation sociale avec éventuellement une
certaine faiblesse ou une non-consolidation des formes institutionnelles. C'est
dire, et je ne veux pas devenir systématique parce que c'est toujours très artificiel
et arbitraire, mais il me semble que nous avons de manière très visible, à la fois
en Amérique latine et en Europe post-communiste, dans d'autres régions
probablement aussi, je n'en sais rien, nous avons un peu tous ces cas.
Je prends rapidement l'Amérique latine. Ce que Castañeda disait, c'est ici
un système politique en crise, mais une crise qui n'est pas réglée, c'est le cas du
Mexique, c'est le cas du Venezuela. Et même je dirai, lorsque la crise est
beaucoup plus fondamentale, lorsqu'elle est totale, lorsqu'il y a non pas crise mais
décomposition totale du système politique ce qui est sans aucun doute le cas de
la Colombie, on est bien dans cette situation d'une crise non résolue, je veux dire
que tout ce qui se passe est commandé par la non-capacité institutionnelle du
système. Et je dirai que, sous des formes très différentes, une telle situation est
une situation où l'économie est entièrement dépendante de la situation politique. Il
me semble impossible qu'il y ait transformation économique et transformation par
là-même d'un système politique sur de nouvelles bases à partir de cette crise non
résolue. D'où ce que nous dit Castañeda, et je répète que le Mexique est le cas
des trois pays que je viens d'évoquer le moins tragique, même s'il est déjà
suffisamment négatif, mais le degré de décomposition est beaucoup plus avancé
au Venezuela, et quant à la Colombie, je n'ose pas en parler en détails devant ou
à côté de Daniel Pécaut, mais nous partageons exactement le même jugement
sur ce pays. A partir de là, ce qui m'intéresse, c'est d'essayer de voir ce qui se
passe, et d'essayer de comparer ce qui se passe lorsque les mécanismes font
partie d'une crise politique. Prenons le cas de l'Argentine. Ici ce qui me frappe,
conformément à l'hypothèse que je faisais tout à l'heure sous une forme générale,
4
c'est que nous avons eu une mobilisation d'acteurs relativement importante, que
ce soit des acteurs de type militaire, que ce soit des acteurs de type syndical,
rappelez-vous toutes les grèves générales de la CGT comme d'ailleurs je pourrai
prendre le cas de l'Equateur, etc., et des institutions qui sont une consolidation
institutionnelle dont je n'ai pas besoin de vous dire qu'elle est faible, et une
capacité d'entrer dans le nouveau système économique qui est extrêmement
faible puisque l'affaire se termine par la catastrophe économique de
l'hyperinflation qui liquide Alfonsin et son gouvernement, mais qui ne liquide pas
les institutions démocratiques. Donc si vous voulez voilà un exemple et
exactement de l'autre côté, évidemment, le cas du Chili où la réforme économique
précède la transformation. Je ne veux pas entrer dans des conversations avec, en
particulier, mon ami Manuel Antonio Garretón, mais, en tout cas, depuis 1983-84,
je ne crois pas personnellement qu'il y ait eu un aspect créateur à l'époque des
Chicago boys, mais, en tout cas, après d'ailleurs les événements politiques et
sociaux de 1983-84, il y a une transformation de l'économie qui sera, grosso
modo, continuée pendant plusieurs années. A ce moment-là, qu'est-ce que nous
observons? Nous observons ce que vous savez tous, c'est au fond le
raisonnement qui a d'ailleurs été exercé par des sociologues au moment du
plébiscite, lesquels ont dit aux hommes politiques qui les ont suivis : " si vous
faites une politique de revanche, c'est-à-dire gauche contre droite, classe contre
classe, le peuple contre etc, etc., vous allez perdre. Il faut que vous donniez la
priorité au thème de la réconciliation, c'est-à-dire la priorité à la construction
institutionnelle sans la participation sociale ". Ce que les Chiliens ont fait, ce qui
leur a permis de gagner, et on a toute raison de penser qu'il n'aurait sans doute
pas gagner sans ça quand on voit l'importance des forces d'appui, direct ou
indirect, qui restent à l'ancien régime. Et j'observe que dans ce pays qui réussit
extraordinairement, mieux que tout autre, sa transformation économique, qui
réussit mieux que tout autre ce qu'on pourrait appelet, là concrètement, le retour à
la démocratie, il y a en même temps, ce dont tout le monde parle, une absence de
participation, une absence de conscience d'une transformation sociale, et, comme
nous le savons en termes objectifs, ce pays qui s'est énormément enrichi, a
diminué de manière extrêmement importante la proportion des pauvres, mais a
néanmoins augmenté les inégalités sociales. Par conséquent, Argentine et Chili,
vous êtes dans une situation exactement opposée de consolidation institutionnelle
forte ou faible et de formation d'acteurs sociaux, fort ou faibles, et en sens inverse.
Et je prendrai comme cas extrême un cas pour lequel j'ai beaucoup de sympathie,
parce que c'est un pays dont on ne parle pas beaucoup et en général en termes
5
peu positifs, c'est le cas de la Bolivie. La Bolivie est le type même, peut-être le
cas unique, en tout sur le continent sud, d'un pays où la crise a été une crise
politique qui a abouti à l'hyperinflation, où le politique commande, et vous le savez,
tout au moins ceux qui s'intéresse à l'Amérique latine, on assiste à ce phénomène
extraordinaire qui est la création d'un Reichstaat, d'un État de droit, dans un pays
où les mécanismes politiques étaient limités à trois villes. Aujourd'hui, grâce à
l'incorporation du mando indigène dans les pouvoirs locaux, on assiste, pas
toujours avec un succès fou, à la création d'un État de droit. Donc, ici, vous avez
un des rares cas d'un processus de changement qui est un processus à
dominante ou, à facteur central, politique. Evidemment, c'était le pays le plus
pauvre de l'Amérique du Sud, et avec le plus d'exclusion sociale et ethnique, qui
demeure, alors que sur le plan de l'insertion dans l'économie mondiale, la Bolivie
a surtout des problèmes étant donné le chapaje. Mais cela me semble important
de monter combien dans cette espèce de typologie le cas de la Bolivie s'en
éloigne. Mais évidemment le cas le plus complexe est le cas du Brésil, mais peutêtre que parce que c'est un pays tellement important, il est difficile de lui trouver
une formulation exacte. Néanmoins, au total, parce qu'il y a eu une continuité
jusqu'à une date très récente du modèle économique, vu que le Brésil a été le seul
pays à maintenir un modèle nationaliste extrêmement longtemps, ce n'est pas
l'économie qui a commandé, mais le politique, en bien et en mal, et avec le
maintien, j'allais dire à la tchèque, d'un certain modèle intermédiaire, mais, je
dirai, là encore une stabilisation institutionnelle moyenne et un degré de formation
d'acteurs sociaux moyen non négligeable. Je ne parle du temps lointain de la
création d'un syndicalisme moderne en 1977-78, mais la phase, après distenção
et abertura, c'est quand même la création de la CUT représente avec ce qui s'est
passé à São Paulo, avec beaucoup d'aspects du PT, et fin 1970, début 1980,
avec les communautés de base, il y a un degré de mobilisation qui est lié toujours
à cette relative prédominance. Alors nous pouvons discuter pour savoir quelle est
l'orientation du gouvernement actuel, mais cette orientation est caractéristique de
ça.
Alors je ne veux pas prendre trop de votre temps, mais je voudrai
simplement dire que, si nous considérons les pays de l'Europe post-communiste,
nous avons des situations aussi opposées. Je veux dire que quand je parlais du
Chili où, si l'on peut dire, l'économique a précédé le politique, c'est évidemment à
la Hongrie qu'on pense, étant donné que la réforme économique a commencé en
1968 et que les capitaux étrangers sont arrivés en Hongrie bien avant les autres
6
pays, comme cela peut se voir physiquement parlant à Budapest. Et ce qui est
intéressant c'est que, dans cette situation, la Hongrie dont on ne peut pas dire que
la vie politique ait été particulièrement brillante, on n'a rarement vu autant de
médiocrité politique que dans la Hongrie contemporaine, et bien malgré ça le
système politique est resté extraordinairement solide et, comme on l'a dit
récemment, le problème national (Slovénie, Voïvidine, Transylvanie) qui était
extraordinairement difficile à résoudre, ça a extraordinairement bien résisté, et
nous voyons une capacité du système de se défendre contre l'extrême-droite
nationaliste. Mais, en revanche, j'ai la même admiration que Arato pour le
mouvement des chauffeurs de taxi qui est un mouvement tout à fait important, j'ai
une grande admiration pour le mouvement de défense des tsiganes, un
mouvement anti-raciste très efficace et remarquable, mais tout cela veut dire
quand même que les acteurs sociaux restent d'une extraordinaire faiblesse, alors
que le système politique reste fort, c'est un cas que je prends évidemment en ce
sens-là. Dans le cas tout à fait inverse, là où le politique a commandé, je dirai que
là il faudrait penser, pas forcément en bien, aux pays baltes et à la Slovaquie, je
n'ai pas besoin de dire que je laisse de côté aux systèmes politiques en crise,
crise non réglée comme la Roumanie, crise politique réglée comme la Russie
mais elle n'est pas sortie de cette crise. Et de même que j'hésitais sur la cas plus
complexe du Brésil, ma dernière remarque sera pour dire que ce qui est
intéressant dans le cas polonais, pays où la mobilisation politique, sociale et
intellectuelle était essentielle, mais la sortie du régime autoritaire s'est faite à
l'inverse. C'est-à-dire que la table-ronde, c'est exactement le contraire, c'est un
accord tardif au sommet dont le résultat est une extrême stabilisation, puisque le
système politique polonais a résisté à la poussée des catholiques de droite et au
retour des communistes sans se casser, ce qui tout de même assez remarquable,
avec en plus la personnalité de Walesa qui ne facilitait pas les choses. Et,
inversement, un degré de formation d'acteurs sociaux et intellectuels extrêmement
bas, et, aujourd'hui, la scène intellectuelle apparaît socialement et
intellectuellement comme plus proche d'une situation chilienne, c'est-à-dire d'une
situation où le développement économique et la stabilisation institutionnelle sont
fortes. Je pense d'ailleurs, et je m'empresse de le dire, qu'il ne serait pas du tout
difficile d'appliquer ce genre d'analyse à l'Europe occidentale et d'étudier aussi
dans le cas de l'Europe occidentale les crises de la démocratie qui sont rarement
des crises d'affaiblissement du système institutionnel, même en Italie, mais qui
sont considérablement crise de représentation, crise de participation, crise de
formation des acteurs sociaux, ce pays-ci étant d'ailleurs un excellent exemple, ni
7
meilleur ni pire que l'Italie, l'Espagne, la Grande-Bretagne et beaucoup d'autres
[coupure provoquée par la fin de la cassette]. Il y a deux tendances, je ne dis
pas que c'est le contraire, ce serait tout à fait ridicule, je veux dire que la logique
qui pousse d'un côté et la logique qui pousse de l'autre sont des logiques qu'il faut
combiner, mais qui sont opposées, et qu'il y a donc une logique de la démocratie
qui n'est pas simplement l'extension du libéralisme, du champ économique au
champ politique.
Et je dirai, et c'est ma dernière remarque, je vous amenais dans un passé
relativement lointain, mais je terminerai volontiers en disant que ce qui est
intéressant pour la prochaine conférence que vous organiserez, c'est que je pense
que dans les très peu d'années qui viennent, dans les années qui viennent, nous
allons maintenant que nous sommes en plein règne de l'économie assister à la
réapparition de processus de changement social dirigé d'en bas et non bas d'en
haut, c'est-à-dire à la réapparition de mouvements sociaux, politiques et
intellectuels. Et je pense que il est intéressant, et j'y pensais ce matin en envoyant
un article sur les élections d'hier au El País qui me l'avait demandé, et je pense en
effet, et je terminerai là-dessus en disant à Monsieur Asnar qu'il en profite vite
parce qu'il n'est pas là pour longtemps, et ce sont les premiers commentaires de
notre ami Felipe sur le redémarrage d'un mouvement social et intellectuel, chose à
laquelle on assiste, sous des formes diverses, un peu en Grande-Bretagne, de
manière confuse en Italie, de manière contradictoire en France, de manière un
peu plus claire en Espagne. Et je pense que pour des pays d'Amérique latine
comme pour des pays d'Europe centrale ou orientale, la question devient
maintenant une question relativement urgente, car je répète que pour la période
historique qui commence ce n'est plus comment entre-t-on dans la transition
libérale, mais comment en sort-on.
8

IS THE INTELLIGENTSIA STILL NEEDED IN POLAND* Edmund

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