The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe

Andras Bozoki, John T. Ishiyama

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000161403
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What has become of the Communist parties that once held monopoly power in the east bloc? A decade ago, it was assumed that they would dissolve, but many of them have enjoyed electoral success. This book systematically examines how they have evolved. In the opening section, Herbert Kitschet and Ivan Szelenyi respectively consider post-communist party strategies and social democratic prospects in the transitional societies. Part II presents nine case studies of the major communist and communist successor parties of the region, and Part III is devoted to seven comparative studies. Appendices provide comparable electoral and party membership data.

Part I

Approaches

1

Introduction and Theoretical Framework

András Bozóki and John T. Ishiyama

Since 1991, the communist successor parties (those parties which were the primary successors to the former governing party in the communist regime and inherited the preponderance of the former ruling parties’ resources and personnel) have undergone a considerable transformation (Bozóki 1997, Ishiyama 1995). Contrary to early expectations that the organizational successors to the communist parties would disappear into the ash can of political history, the successor parties have proven quite durable. Indeed, in most all countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, there is at least one active communist successor party.

The study of the development of communist successor parties offers a unique opportunity. For comparativists working in the area of party development and area studies experts interested in linking studies of the post-communist menage with mainstream western political science examing the sucessor parties the allows for the investigation of something akin to real parties. Unlike so many parties with few organizational resources and little in the way of established social roots, the communist successor parties are not merely clubs of notables or “couch parties” (where all members could fit on a single couch). They have a long political tradition and an organizational history, as well as an internal structure that sets them apart from most other political parties in the region. They are distinct organizations, and by any definition represent “real” political parties. However, they are parties that have suffered the strains of rapid social and political transformation associated with the democratic transition, and have had to change in order to meet these new challenges. Thus, the study of the successor parties allows comparativists to bring to bear some long-standing theoretical propositions regarding party development in investigating the political impact of the democratic transformation in post-communist politics as these changes occur. Indeed, the experience of the communist successor parties offers a unique opportunity for scholars to test first-hand the long-standing theories of party development painstakingly based upon western historical experience. In addition, for area studies scholars, a focus on communist successor parties not only allows the opportunity to integrate the study of this area into the mainstream of political science inquiry, but also to significantly alter existing theory in light of new evidence.

Of special interest, at least from the perspective of this chapter, is how the communist successor parties have adapted to changed circumstances. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the transformation of the formerly dominant communist parties provide an opportunity to test further the propositions regarding party identity change. Indeed, there has been quite a bit of variation concerning how the communist successor parties have adapted to the fundamentally altered political environment of the post-cold war era. Some have changed their political identities and embraced markets, capitalism, and democratic competition, rather than state ownership and democratic centralism. Others continue to cling to ideological purity and Marxist-Leninist values.

What varies among the countries is not so much where the communist successor parties have survived, but how they have survived. The primary purpose of this chapter is to provide a theoretical framework by which we might be able to identify the various adaptation strategies the communist successor parties have persued and to investigate the causes and the extent to which these strategies have changed over time. To do this, we first outline a typology of different adaptation strategies. Second, we develop a theoretical framework by which to explain party change, a framework derived from much of the existing literature on party development.

Characterizing the Communist Successor Parties’ Adaptation Strategies

A considerable amount of literature has already examined the development of the communist successor parties since 1991. However, most of the literature thus far has focused on why these parties made a political comeback in the 1990s rather than on how these parties adapted and changed in the face of new political circumstances (Orenstein 1998, Ishiyama 1997a). Several explanations have been put forward as to why the communist successor parties were able to successfully return to the political scene (Ágh 1995, Waller, 1995, Evans and Whitefield 1995, Zubek 1994). These include an argument that characteristics of the previous authoritarian regime were crucial in explaining the return of the successor parties, as well as the degree of competition the successor party faced from other left-wing parties (Ishiyama 1997a, Kitschelt 1995a, Ágh 1995, Waller 1995). Some scholars have further argued that the existence of lingering social constituencies (such as the elderly) facilitate the political success of the formerly dominant communist parties. Others have pointed to the existence of issues which the successor parties can capitalize upon that affect whether or not they are politically successful (Waller 1995).

Yet despite the attention paid to explaining the success (or lack thereof) of the successor parties, relatively little work has been done that identifies the factors that might affect the extent to which the communist successor parties alter their political identities. Among those few works that have dealt with the identity change of the communist successor parties, most have examined early adaptation strategies when confronted with the first competitive elections as opposed to later changes (Ishiyama and Shafqat 2000, Oates 1999, Ziblatt 1998). Further, these studies examined the identity change during the period when the successor parties were reasserting themselves (from 1992-1996) not during their period of relative decline (1996-2000).

To examine the adaptation strategies exhibited by the successor parties following the “second generation elections” (those in which successor parties faced either significant challenges from opponents or were defeated altogether), we begin with the work of Daniel Ziblatt, particularly his study of successor parties in former East Germany (the Party of Democratic Social-ism-PDS) and in Hungary (the Hungarian Socialist Party) (Ziblatt 1998). Arguing against the fairly common tendency to equate “successful adaptation” with the “social democratization” of the successor parties, Ziblatt argues that there were at least two strategies available, both of which could have proven politically successful: the strategy of leftist-retreat, which involves the successor party embracing its Marxist traditions (rejecting the free-market), repudiating western influence, and adopting the status of an “anti-system” opposition party. This pattern was exemplified by both the PDS in Germany and the KSCM in the Czech Republic, and, as Anna Gryzmala-Busse points out, these parties continue to attack “bourgeois democracy” and “capitalist exploitation” (Gryzmala-Busse 1999). In Hungary and in Poland, by contrast, the leadership of the parties, aside from marginal leftist factions, have followed a strategy of pragmatic-reform, attempting to distance themselves from “dogmatic Marxism” and redefining the party as a quasi-European social democratic party of experts, technocrats, and prag-matists. Between these two poles are intermediate positions such as those taken up by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Socialist Party of Albania (SPA). The leaderships of both have professed the “social democratization” of their respective parties but have had to rely heavily on political nostalgia to mobilize electoral support (which has also been the case for most of the successor parties in the former Soviet Union) (Ishiyama 1997a, 1996a).

In addition to these two strategies, a third can be identified: the national-patriotic strategy, which is common to states in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union (Ishiyama 1998a). This strategy, like the “leftist retreat” strategy is characterized by a continued embrace of Marxist-Leninist traditions (rejecting the free-market). However, unlike the leftist-retreat strategy, it does not wholly embrace the Marxist-Leninist legacy. For instance, a central part of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) program is the critical re-evaluation of the past (Chotiner 1999). In particular, the party’s program distinguishes between opportunists within the party who corrupted the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, and the party of Soviet patriots. According to the KPRF, the current leadership of the Russian government are the intellectual heirs of this “party of opportunists”—the party of Trotsky, Beriya, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin who have historically plundered Russia. The KPRF itself, however, identifies itself with the so-called patriotic elements within the old CPSU—the party of Soviet heroes, the cosmonaut Yurii Gagarin, Marshal Georgii Zhukov, and author Mikhail Sholokhov. Further, this party claims that socialism is wholly compatible with the primordial collectivist sentiments of the Russian people, and the promotion of socialism necessarily involves the defense of Russian culture and traditions.

While critical of Marxist-Leninist dogma, the national-patriotic strategy, unlike the pragmatic-reform strategy, does not involve the attempt to redefine the party as a European social democratic party made up of experts (Ishiyama 1998b). Although there is pressure to alter the image of the party, the party leadership does not embrace social democratic principles and capitalism. National patriotism seeks to associate the party with nationalism, a modern ideological alternative to communism which in Eastern Europe is also historically anti-capitalist and anti-west (Szporluk 1988; Gerschenkron 1979). This strategy often involves the formation of “red-brown” coalitions or so-called “national-patriotic” or “fatherland fronts” which have emerged in countries like Russia and Romania.

Thus far the strategies identified have tended to treat adaptation in linear fashion, either moving progressively toward social democracy or retreating backward toward communism. This of course assumes that the parties either became moderate leftist or far leftist (whatever left or right means in the post-communist context). But clearly, there have been parties that have embraced nationalism and patriotism as their legitimizing ideology, and have sought to break with the past. Thus, we might also distinguish between the parties along two separate dimensions, one which represents the parties’ movement from communism to social democracy, and the other representing the parties’ movement from internationalism to nationalism. Therefore, we propose two dimensions in categorizing the adaptation strategies of the communist successor parties, distinguishing between reformed parties and non-reformed parties on one dimension, and, what we would call, transmuted versus non-transmuted parties on the other. The first dimension refers to whether the party transformed itself into what Ziblatt would call a “pragmatic-reform party” or clung to an orthodox communist identity. The second dimension refers to whether the transmuted parties made a (sometimes indecisive and ambivalent) break with their leftist traditions and managed a rightist/nationalist turn in order to cope with the political changes in their country. Table 1.1 highlights the differences between these models.

Table 1.1

A Typology of (Former) Communist Party Positions in Central and Eastern Europe

	Non-reformed	Reformed
Non-transmuted	Orthodox Communist	Modernizationist, Social Democratic
Transmuted	National Communist	Nationalist Socialist, populist

To sum up and elaborate a bit more on the definitions we have sketched above, the term “reformed,” refers to a former communist party that abandoned its communist ideology and moved towards a politically more moderate-leftist position. These parties turned away from the revolutionary tenets of Marxism and/or the orthodox methods of post-Stalinism. Reformed socialists generally accept western liberal democracy even if they sometimes criticize its practice. The word “transmutation” on the other hand refers to a former communist party that moved away from the left and adopted culturally right-wing, nationalistic, or anti-west elements into its ideology. In this situation, the party moved away from the non-democratic left toward the non-democratic right. If reform and transmutation are parallel processes, the identity of the former communist party will remain mixed or unclear.

To locate the communist successor parties along the above two continua, Table 1.2 categorizes particular cases. Since reality is more complex than the abstract, heuristic model, we have left room for less clear, “in-between cases” as well.

Table 1.2

Actual (Former) Communist Party Positions in Eastern Europe

	Non-reformed	Partly reformed	Reformed
Non-transmuted	KSCM (Czech Rep.) KPU (Ukraine)		MSZP (Hungary) SLD (Poland) SDP (Slovenia)
Partly transmuted	PDS (Germany) SPA (Albania)	BSP (Bulgaria) LDDP (Lithuania)	SDL (Slovakia)
Transmuted	KPRF (Russia) PSS (Serbia)	PDSR (Romania)

Non-reformed parties represent systemic opposition to democracy. If they are not transmuted, they tend to cling to Marxism-Leninism as their justifying ideology. An example of such a party is the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia in the Czech Republic, and to some extent the P...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Part I: Approaches
• Part II: Case Studies
• Part III: Theoretical and Comparative Considerations
• Part IV: Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Index