Social Democracy in a Post-communist Europe

Bruno Coppieters, Kris Deschouwer, Michael Waller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780714640921
• eBook ISBN: 9781135200411
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Militär- & Seefahrtsgeschichte

This book examines the fortunes of social democracy since 1989 in the former GDR, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, setting the analysis in a broader European framework, and relating the current problems of social democracy in western Europe to developments in the east of the continent.

PART I:

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: MODELS AND PROBLEMS

1. A West European Model for Social Democracy in East-Central Europe?

KRIS DESCHOUWER and BRUNO COPPIETERS

Traditional theoretical approaches to east European societies have largely lost their usefulness when it comes to analysing the unique attempt to transform planned into market economies. On the other hand, the search for new perspectives on the current democratization process in the east of Europe has enhanced the value of studies on western politics, concerning for instance electoral systems, party structures or nationalist movements. No longer can research on eastern Europe be isolated from research on western Europe. Comparative analysis between east European and west European societies is essential for an integration of both approaches. To that extent, the uniqueness of the current process does not preclude thinking through analogies. The quality of such analogies will normally depend, however, on systematically taking into account the unique character of the whole transition process. Comparative research requires an analysis of its limitations.

In what follows we examine the perspectives for east-central European social democracy by confronting it with the west European tradition. By drawing parallels, the possibility of applying existing explanatory models based on the experience of western social democracy to its east-central European counterpart can be examined. The electoral results of the period from 1990 to 1993 may be placed in a new perspective and conclusions reached concerning further developments. First, however, we have to reflect on the legitimacy of using west European social democracy as a model, and examine the results of previous comparative research on social democracy in western Europe and the United States.

Social-Democratic Perspectives in Russia

At the beginning of the twentieth century, political debate in the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party on the transition to socialism focused on the fundamental problems of history. The party’s leaders had great difficulty in defining working-class interests in Russia within the framework of classical Marxism. According to Marxist theory, capitalism had to generate the modernization process, and it was for the working class to complete it. Russia, where capitalism had only marked limited progress, clearly offered poor prospects to the working class in this conception of history. In his brochure Two Tactics for Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, written in 1905, the Bolshevik Lenin held the view that capitalism was a necessary stage of economic development for Russia. Socialism only had a chance of implemention when the economic and cultural potentialities of capitalist development had been realized. Russia had to respond to this historical imperative by freeing itself from its ‘Asiatic’ past and by making a clear choice for a ‘European’ pattern of progress:

Marxists are absolutely convinced of the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution. What does that mean? It means that the democratic reforms in the political system, and the social and economic reforms that have become a necessity for Russia, do not in themselves imply the undermining of capitalism, the undermining of bourgeois rule; on the contrary, they will, for the first time, really clear the ground for a wide and rapid, European, and not Asiatic, development of capitalism; … In countries like Russia the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class is, therefore, most certainly interested in the broadest, freest, and most rapid development of capitalism … The more complete, determined, and consistent the bourgeois revolution, the more assured will the proletariat’s struggle be against the bourgeoisie and for socialism.¹

Contrary to the so-called ‘populists’ – the socialist current in Russia that relied on the collective tradition of the peasant mir – the social democrats considered that the western and particularly the western European future would be shaped according to the ideals of humanity. The Bolshevik and Menshevik wings of the Russian social democrats – opposed to each other on questions of party organization and on other questions concerning the means of instituting socialist policies – did not differ in this respect. For both currents, a revolution in Russia had to embrace European progress resolutely. The Marxist tradition was understood as a critique of utopias, and the conception of world history as progressing through different stages was considered to be a solid and systematic basis for the universalization of west European history.

The road to power did not proceed according to a west European model. By October 1917, Lenin had abandoned the idea that western democracy showed Russia the image of its own future. The Bolsheviks were brought into government through a ‘permanent’ revolutionary process, in which no space was left for a capitalist stage of development. The revolutionaries legitimated their role in world history through the creation of a model of their own for the march of humanity on the road of social progress. They changed their name to ‘communist’ and organized a new International. After the First World War, the international working class was divided into two main currents and two opposed views on socialist strategy. The communists defended the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, as exercised in Russia, and the social democrats adopted the reformist defence of working-class interests through participation in the institutions of liberal democracy, as demonstrated by social-democratic parties in the main west-European countries.

After the fall of communism, socialists seem to be confronted with the end of historic alternatives between socialist policies. The closing of the previous conflict between two dominant models is equated with the end of choices. But does the failure of the communist model simply validate west European social-democratic policy as legitimate? This question has been answered positively in eastern Europe, both by the creation of new social-democratic organizations and by the transformation of former communist organizations. But what does the term social democracy in fact mean for eastern Europe? Nineteenth century western Europe was the birthplace of social democracy. Social-democratic parties managed to implement welfare state policies in twentieth century western Europe. Can this be considered as the implementation of a coherent set of policies, worthy of imitation (a ‘model’) and having a chance of being applied under different conditions? Or will the west European experience on the contrary remain unique? In what follows, we enquire how meaningful it is to expect that social democracy in east-central Europe will model itself on west European social democracy. For this analysis, lessons can be drawn from previous discussions. The problem of the specificity of west European social democracy is indeed not new. The controversies on socialist perspectives in the USA have drawn largely on this topic.

The Weakness of Social Democracy in the USA

Why is there no socialism in the United States? This question is a classic one in comparative politics. The lack of a substantial socialist movement or party has puzzled many socialists and social scientists. The Marxist logic, familiar to social democrats, implies that the United States, as the most developed capitalist country, should at least have a strong radical worker’s movement. In 1906 Werner Sombart published his major work entitled Why is there no Socialism in the United States?, which was the first of a large number of studies explaining the weakness of a socialist current in American politics.² Both theoretical and political issues were at stake in this comparative research. The presence of a strong labour movement would indicate that the United States and the societies of western Europe were of a similar type, whilst its absence would on the contrary show that the United States had very specific features and that American socialists and social democrats would have to deploy different tactics and strategies than their western European counterparts.

There is no single explanation for the weakness of American socialism. Many dimensions of the so-called American ‘exceptionalism’ have to be reckoned with.³ In the first place, a number of institutional factors have to be taken into account. The electoral system of the USA does not facilitate the creation and success of any rival party to the Democrats and the Republicans. Furthermore, contrary to western Europe, the workers did not have to mobilize around the right to vote. In a certain sense, and despite the harsh repression of the workers’ movement on the local level, the United States was too democratic to permit this struggle for the emancipation of the working class. Another factor concerns the higher living-standard of the American working class in comparison to the European, the latter having to engage in a fight for better conditions. There is also a series of arguments pointing to the cultural differences between western Europe and the USA. On this view, American values are actually incompatible with the values of socialism, being based on liberalism in its eighteenth and nineteenth century meaning which stressed liberty, anti-statism, individualism and egalitarianism.⁴ The values of liberal capitalism are not only dominant, they are consecrated. They have become part of a ‘civil religion’, with common rituals and holidays, referring to the spirit that created this ‘one nation under God’. The new nation has been defined in an ideological way. The only space for socialism or communism is the role of the great evil, whose values are un-American.

This is but the briefest overview of the arguments that have been put forward to explain why socialism is weak in the USA. It may suffice to point out that not a single one of the factors mentioned above will explain the weakness of the social-democratic current in east-central Europe. The electoral system in east-central Europe does not limit the possibilities of social democracy. In the whole of east-central Europe – and especially in Poland – the democratization of the political system was the major issue in the mobilization of the working class. The living-standard of the workers is severely threatened by the policies of economic transformation, whilst as far as the liberal value system is concerned, the historical traditions of the United States and of east-central Europe are not particularly convergent.

As previously in the case of the United States, many social democrats expected that social democracy would perform well in east-central Europe. Yet social democracy scored badly in the first elections after the overthrow of communist power, and it is still not sure that it will gain momentum in most of the countries of the region in the years to come. After looking at the United States, we can certainly conclude that there is not any iron law of history according to which social democracy has to emerge in all developed countries. The question then is: what accounts for the weakness of social democracy in east-central Europe today? And to what extent is it reasonable to expect the west European model of social democracy to emerge in the east?

Expectations for Social Democracy in East-Central Europe

The democratization process in eastern Europe raised the expectations of all the political families in western Europe. But it was the social democrats above all who hoped that they would be a successful, if not the most successful movement in the emerging multiparty systems. Several arguments could be presented in defence of this expectation. The first argument refers to the critique of Stalinism, which has been put forward for decades by various authors of the left, and which concerns among other things the prospects for social democracy. According to this critique, the rise of Stalin’s power and the subsequent violation of all democratic socialist ideals must be seen primarily as a product of Russia’s general underdevelopment. Stalin’s policy aimed at industrialization. It could not be called socialist, but it led to a large-scale modernization process, involving urbanization, scholarization and a general elevation of the cultural level, which ultimately undermined the very foundations on which the totalitarian state power rested. According to this philosophy of history, the political structures generated under the previous regime corresponded less and less to the new social relations. Reforms were seen as inevitable. Especially in east-central Europe the authoritarian communist system was seen as totally inappropriate to the emerging pluralist aspirations. The concept itself of ‘central Europe’ was intended to indicate a distinction from the political culture of eastern Europe, which had given birth to Stalinism, and an affinity with the political culture of western Europe, which had engendered liberal democracy and the welfare state.

If Stalinism were to be considered a product of cultural underdevelopment, democratic socialism could logically be expected to be a more appropriate regime for the newly modernized societies in eastern and east-central Europe. Democratic socialism meant that the workers would have the right to chose between different political alternatives. In 1989 social democracy could be expected to attract many workers, as it could not be blamed for Stalinist repression. Furthermore, the economic reform policies, as proposed by reform communists in eastern Europe had provided in the past a new legitimation for social democracy. Contrary to other socialist formations, both reform communists and social democrats had defended market principles as an economic prerequisite to the implementation of welfare state policies. Liberals, on the contrary, could not count on so much support. It was thought that the lack of a strong upper and middle class would result in their failing to acquire a backing similar to that afforded their western counterparts. And there was no reason to believe in 1989 that the workers would ever think that it could be in their interest to vote for a liberal programme. Some exceptions to this general tendency were of course considered possible (such as Catholic workers in Poland and nationalist voters in Slovakia), but as exceptions they would not reverse the general tendency in favour of social democracy.

Until 1989, the path of slow, step by step reforms to transform state socialist structures seemed to be the only viable one. The strategy of reform, which social democrats had been using for almost a century to improve living conditions under capitalism, was considered suitable for creating the appropriate conditions for peaceful change and limited political progress. West German social democracy, in particular, linked its foreign policy for more than two decades to this perspective. After the introduction of the politics of perestroika it was thought...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART I: SOCIAL DEMOCRACY: MODELS AND PROBLEMS
• PART II: SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE
• Conclusions: Social Democracy in Eastern Europe
• Notes on Contributors
• Index