The New Central Europe

After Tito's death, the collapse of multinational Yugoslavia was often predicted. A communist crackdown on the democratic Solidarity revolution in Poland was also widely expected. The decade of the 1980's confirmed these and other predictions. But just before the decade ended, the totally unexpected happened: the collapse of Soviet Eastern Europe, ending 44 years of East- West partition in Europe. Following it came an even greater surprise: the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union itself, precipitating the breakup of the Soviet Union, successor of the Czarist Russian Empire for the last 74 years. The Communist enemy that threatened the democratic West throughout the twentieth century suddenly disappeared. And with the Soviet collapse, the East- West cold war that dominated world affairs since World War II came unexpectedly to an end.

The historical timing of all these world- shaking events was not without irony. The Helsinki detente accords of 1975 were aimed at bringing the East- West cold- war tensions safely under control. In the early 1980's detente suffered several setbacks. Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and President Reagans anti-

communist rhetoric brought back the cold- war atmosphere. But midway through the decade, with Mikhail S. Gorbachev's rise to power in the Soviet Union, the spirit of the Helsinki detente began to flourish as never before. Progress in the arms reduction talks promised to end the nuclear arms race. The campaign for human rights, launched under the banner of the Helsinki detente provisions, was scoring successes against retreating Soviet opposition. So much so that the status quo of a divided Europe, claimed periodically as a price of detente, seemed to be tacitly acceptable. The world was eager above all for lasting stability No major changes were anticipated in the foreseeable future. Certainly not in the twentieth century.

Contrary to all expectations, the twentieth century ended with a Big Bang of unthinkable changes shattering with amazing speed and ease the whole structure of the cold- war world. Fundamentally, all this has been the work of one person: Gorbachev. But his triumph in changing the world ended in failure at home. In December 1991 he was defeated by his rival, Boris Yeltsin. Gorbachev's effort to reform the Soviet Union collapsed. Leading a new Russian revolution which triumphed over the August coup of Soviet hardliners, Yeltsin rode to victory over the ruins of the old Soviet Union.

Yet no rendition of the twentieth century is likely to strip Gorbachev of the distinction of having started the avalanche of events that ushered in a new era in both Russian and world history. He will also be remembered as the Russian who gave back the peoples of Eastern Europe their freedom taken away from them by Stalin. Considering his background in the Soviet Communist Party hierarchy, Gorbachev as a democratic reformist was truly a "miracle," as George F. Kennan described him on several occasions battling against initially skeptical American views of the new Soviet leader.[1]

In March, 1985, at the age of 55, Gorbachev was chosen by the Politburo to lead the Soviet Communist Party as its General Secretary. He was the new man of a new generation in the long awaited changing of the guard in the Kremlin. The non- Communist world welcomed Gorbachev's rise to power. But the West lent him the benefit of the doubt only after he had proven himself to be a Soviet leader truly different from all his predecessors. His reform program under the twin slogans of "glasnost" and "perestroika" was aimed at reforming the totalitarian Soviet system on Western models. In the context of Russian history, Gorbachev revealed himself as an heir to the liberal tradition of nineteenth- century Westernizers. But philosophical- historical underpinnings played small role in Gorbachev's thinking. He was an intellectual, sensitive to Western ideas, but basically he was a product of the new pragmatic Soviet generation. His conversion to Western ways was hastened primarily by the colossal failure of the Soviet economy. Gorbachev was eager to stop the sinking of Soviet living standards to the low levels associated with Third World backwardness. He was the first top Soviet leader to admit the failure of Soviet Communism to catch up with the progress of the capitalist world.

In his reform venture of historic dimensions, Gorbachev had to win the sympathy and support of the democratic- capitalist world. Originally, the Western powers regarded Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe as the principal cause of East- West cold war. Eastern Europe's liberation had been an expressed wish of long standing in the West, particularly in the United States. By Gorbachev's time, however, a curious reversal had taken place. Without any particular Western wish or pressure, it was Gorbachev who started liberalization in Eastern Europe. And when as a result of the Gorbachev policy the status quo began to disintegrate, the Western powers actually began to worry occasionally about "destabilization" of the existing world order. Their reactions resembled, ironically, the fears of those Communist conservatives who in the Soviet bloc trembled at the thought of Mother Russia leaving them in the lurch.

On the Soviet side, early hints at the limits of Soviet aid to Moscow's East European satellites dated back to the close of the Brezhnev era. In 1981, Moscow urged the Polish Communists to take care of the Solidarity crisis without waiting for Soviet intervention. Also, Brezhnev publicly praised the Czechs for maintaining order in their country on their own.2 Originally, Gorbachev himself seemed to have wished to see Eastern Europe's enforced loyalty to Moscow transformed into a voluntary one. He certainly did not anticipate his perestroika policy to cause the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe. In July, 1986 at the Warsaw congress of the Polish Communist Party, he was fulminating against supposedly aggressive Western attempts "to wrench a country away from the Socialist community." Gorbachev's Warsaw speech, coinciding as it did with Independence Day celebrations in the United States, prompted the New York Times to label it as "the Soviet declaration of Eastern Europe's non- independence."[3]

The fact of the matter is that well into that miraculous year of 1989, neither the East nor West foresaw what was coming. If Gorbachev himself, as it seems, could not anticipate the consequences of his own policy, it is excusable perhaps that most Western political experts did not foresee it either.[4] Wrote one of them, as late as 1989, in the prestigious American Foreign Affairs journal: "It is hard now to imagine how Gorbachev or any future Soviet leader could gracefully yield to the Hungarians, not to mention the Armenians or the Estonians, their independence."[5]

Ever since World War II, less excusable has been the Western professional blindness to ethnic- national problems in Communist Central and Eastern Europe. It continued into the very year of 1989. Wrote one American expert, rather naively, on the eve of Soviet collapse and the explosion of suppressed nationality problems all over the "Socialist world": "Despite speculation in the Western press, there are no indications of nationalist rivalries seriously disturbing the region's peace; on the contrary, there are good prospects for the creation of a Central European or Danubian confederation."[6] The federalist solution has been of course the vision of farsighted Central Europeans ever since the nineteenth- century. But it never became a policy either of those in power or of those powers outside the region with influence there.

The avalanche of events that made 1989 into a watershed of world history can be dated from Gorbachev's United Nations speech in December 1988 at the General Assembly's annual session. More forcefully and unequivocally than ever before he spelled out his design for a "new world order." He committed himself unconditionally to respect every nation's right to self-

determination and independence. He spoke passionately of his belief in global interdependence. He stressed the overriding importance of world peace in the nuclear age. He urged global cooperation under the supreme authority of the United Nations as an effective world organization.

No less convincing was his subsequent conciliatory speech in the Council of Europe at Strasbourg in July, 1989. He advanced the idea of a "common European house" with a reformed Soviet Union as one of its charter members. He reiterated his unshakable belief in the equal right of all nations to freedom and independence. Shortly thereafter, at a tense meeting of the Warsaw Treaty nations in Bucharest, Gorbachev made it bluntly clear that the Soviets would under no circumstances interfere anymore in the Soviet bloc nations' internal affairs.

Whether intentionally or not, Gorbachev set the stage for revolution to be carried out by each country's people's power. One by one, much faster than the Soviets once installed them, the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe came crumbling down. The speed was as amazing as the revolution itself.

Well before 1989, the Communist regimes had become split between followers and opponents of Gorbachev's perestroika policy. Poland and Hungaryembarked early on liberalization, while East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria under rigid Communist hardliners opposed Gorbachev's perestroika and hoped for its failure. In due course all the regimes installed or sustained by Soviet power col- lapsed. Only the time and ways varied. In each country, de-Sovietization, not unlike Sovietization, had its own timetable and characteristics.

Thus, in Poland, the revolution of 1989 was a follow- up to the Solidarity revolution of 1980, interrupted by the Jaruzelski coup of December 1981. The Jaruzelski dictatorship weakened Solidarity but did not destroy it. Not unlike much else, it went underground. The Solidarity success of 1980 was too memorable to be forgotten. Lech Walesa's trip to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Peace Prize was blocked by the regime but the slogan of his acceptance speech, read for him, reverberated all over Poland: "We shall not yield!," Western response to the Jaruzelski coup, as always in such cases, consisted of indignation followed by acquiescence. Only this time, the ghastly murder in 1984 of the Solidarity priest, Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko, prolonged the indignation. Not until 1987 were Western economic sanctions fully lifted, almost on the eve of the final democratic offensive against the Communist regime.

By 1988, the Jaruzelski epilogue became the Gorbachev prologue. Communist Poland, together with Communist Hungary formed a reformist front line in support of Gorbachev's perestroika. In his search for "normalization," as Gorbachev's followers called their policy, Jaruzelski concentrated on improving Church- state relations. But, inevitably, he found himself facing his main enemy: Solidarity. Taking advantage of the Jaruzelski "thaw," lifting of police terror, that is, Solidarity re- emerged from the underground. Sporadic strikes and workers' demonstrations under Solidarity banners spread rapidly. By the summer of 1988, the situation in Poland was reminiscent of the summer of 1980. The Poles picked up where they left off in 1981. Solidarity demands were exactly the same as they had been before: the holding of free elections. This tine, instead of banning Solidarity, Jaruzelski surrendered.

In the new style of the new times, so- called "roundtable" talks took place during the winter of 1988- 89 with the participation of the Government, the Party, Solidarity and the Church. A "fundamental accord," reached in February, 1989, was an unprecedented compromise. It was an unbelievable democratic triumph, the first surrender of Communist monopoly of power. In retrospect, though, it does not look so impressive since it called for free elections for the upper house Senate only, while the lower house Parliament was obliged to reserve 38 percent of the seats for the Communist Party. Despite these safety measures, in the elections in July, the Communists suffered a humiliating defeat. Solidar- ity won 99 percent of the seats in the Senate and a majority with sufficient veto power in the Parliament. The impression at that time was that the unthinkable had happened.

Tadeusz Mazowiecky, the Roman Catholic intellectual, formed the new government as Prime Minister. It seemed advisable, however, to re-elect the Communist General Jaruzelski as President of the Republic. The Polish compromise of power sharing with the Communists formally ended only in December of 1990, when Walesa was elected President. By then, not only the respect for Moscow was gone, but also the sense of triumph, the enthusiasm of 1989. In the general elections of 1991, the old Solidarity party received just a little more votes than the Communists, renamed Socialists; both around 20 percent. But the parties with roots in Solidarity still retained the majority of the Parliament.

As all over Eastern Europe, in Poland, too, liberation from Communism was followed by political apathy. Economic problems of transition to free- market capitalism depressed the public mood. The new times were not quite as happy as expected.

Like Poland, Hungarytoo regained her freedom by a compromise following a defeated revolution. But the Hungarian compromise of 1989 was different. It emerged from an earlier compromise the Communist Kádárregime had accomplished soon after the defeated revolution of 1956. Under the Kádárcompromise, Hungarybecame the most liberalized Soviet- bloc country. Kádárwas the first, too, to hail Gorbachev's perestroika. But his guilt as a former Soviet stooge, was not forgotten. Nor was Kádárreformist enough for the Gorbachev era. In 1988, he was sacked and his compromise was replaced by a more liberal one.

As the new reformist Communist regime allowed the democratic opposition to legally organize itself, two new political forces emerged: the nationalist populists of the right and the cosmopolitan urbanists of the left. Both were burdened by antagonisms inherited from pre- Communist times wrecking several attempts at reconciliation. On the other hand, reform Communist policy of reconciliation with the opposition was quite a success. 1989 was a year of great compromises. The country, feeling free again, observed two historic events that year. One was March Fifteenth, a restored traditional national holiday in commemoration of the 1848 Hungarian uprising against Austria. The other, in June, was the commemoration for the first time publicly of the Hungarian Revolu- tion of 1956, with a festive reburial of its martyrs, Imre Nagy and his closest associates.

These two events were the most dramatic moments of the Hungarian Revolution of 1989. Thereafter political wrangles dominated the scene. Neither the compromise with the reform Communists, nor the tenuous populist- urbanist truce survived the domestic crisis. A most memorable event in the fall was the debate over the institution of the presidency in the new constitution. The urbanist Free Democrats demanded a referendum to decide whether the President should be elected by a new Parliament (which they favored) or by popular vote favored by the populist Democratic Forum. The urbanists Free Democrats won. It was a defeat personally for Imre Pozsgay, the popular reform Communist, and until then an ally of the populist Democratic Forum, regarded as a likely winner at that time in presidential election by popular vote. Anyway, the first free general elections were held in May, 1990, almost a year later than in Poland. The Hungarians felt no need anymore of a Polish style compromise with Communists. The election campaign was dominated by fight between the rightists Democratic Forum and the leftists Free Democrats.

The rightist Democratic Forum, led by József Antall a historian, won 42 percent of the seats in the new Parliament, as against 24 of the Free Democrats, led by János Kis a philosopher. The reform Communists, running as Socialists, came in third with 12 percent. Thus ended, without much revolutionary fanfare, the era of Communist rule. On the other hand, the acrimonious controversy between the Democratic Forum and the Free Democrats did not end with the elections. It shaped the tenor of the new government formed by the Democratic Forum, it influenced the conservative character of post- Communist Hungaryin general. A coalition with the Free Democrats would have better served the cause of democracy. The election of the Free Democrat Árpád Göncz as President of the Republic was not enough for broadening the progressive democratic base of the new regime.

Democracydid come to Hungaryat long last, but in a rancorous way. The new regime drew little inspiration from the sparse democratic traditions available in Hungarys past. It recognized some affinity with the democratic elements of the ill- fated post- World War II coalition government, but took a hostile attitude toward the more significant, though short- lived, democracy of the October Revolution of 1918 after World War I. This kind of discrimination, as well as other reactionary currents in post- Communist Hungarywere regrettable. Yet, talk of counter- revolutionary threats seemed rather exaggerated. Threats similar to those that defeated Hungarys democratic efforts after both World Wars weren't as dangerous as before. The new European connection and the radically democratized structure of the society itself (the only positive aspect of the dreadful Communist legacy) were enough of a safeguard, it seems, against failure this time.

In particular, charges of anti- Semitism against the new regime were unjustifiable. Memories of the Hungarian role in the Holocaust and of the Jewish role in the Communist takeover have left understandable legacies of bitterness on both sides. But the integration of Hungarys post- Holocaust Jewish population, largest of the region under former Communist rule, was in fact comparable to Western standards.

Prime Minister Antall in his inaugural address, spoke on behalf of 15 million Hungarians, not just the 10 million living in Hungary Such an outspoken official reference to the Hungarian minorities living in the countries around Hungarywas a novelty. Naturally, it displeased Hungarys neighbors used to Communist assurances of non- interference in their domestic affairs. It caused some raised eyebrows among Hungarians as well, indicating that the passage of time since Hungarys partition coupled with anti- national Communist propaganda, more intensive in Hungarythan anywhere else in the Soviet bloc, had eroded the sense of unity in the divided nation. Certainly, the oft- heard charge that the Hungarians are uniquely nationalistic holds less water today than ever. As everywhere in Eastern Europe liberated from Communist rule, in Hungary too, there was a nationalist reaction. But it was rather moderate, considering the degree of national humiliation the Hungarians had suffered under the Communists.

The Hungarian uniqueness of 1989 lay elsewhere. It was Hungarys role in igniting two revolutions in two foreign countries, one directly, in neighboring Romania, the other indirectly, in East Germany.

To curry Western favors, Hungarys reform Communist regime decided in the spring of 1989 to dismantle the "iron curtain" facing Austria. At the peak of the summer season, East Germans vacationing in Hungarypromptly made a discovery: through the recently opened border between Hungaryand Austria they could safely escape to the West. In violation of its Soviet- bloc obligations, Hungarymade no effort to stop the East Germans. The German exodus soon turned into a mass migration, in particular, when seeking asylum at the West German Embassy in Prague was discovered as another safe wa) of escape from the East.

East Germany's survival depended always on sealing its borders to the West. In 1989, the new mass exodus coupled with a rapidly spreading democratic opposition created a revolutionary situation. The Communist hardliners were unable to handle it. When Gorbachev informed the Communist boss, Erich Honecker, that the Soviet Union had no intention of saving the regime, East Germany's fate was sealed. While feverish negotiations were taking place within the regime and between the Communists and the democratic opposition, on November 9, 1989, the most unthinkable of that year's unbelievable events happened in Berlin: The Fall of the Wall. Both the world and the Germans themselves were taken by surprise. Just a couple of months earlier, one of the top West German foreign policy experts, Karl Kaiser, a director of the Institute of the German Council on Foreign Affairs, described German reunification as "impossible because of the realities of power politics." In Hungaryand Poland, he argued, "democratization and a more autonomous foreign policy is acceptable to Moscow only if these countries stay in the Warsaw Pact and adhere to established patterns of cooperation with Moscow. This is even more true for East Germany, which represents the strategic barrier between West and East and the Soviet Union a westernmost outpost of influence in Europe."[7]

Gorbachev was a bolder prophet. In an interview in the Frankfurter Zeitung, March 8, 1989, he said: "We believe that the process of the reunification of the two German states is a natural process... History has bequeathed us this question. And just now history has suddenly begun to move at great speed."8 The great speed, though, with which history solved the German problem must have surprised even Gorbachev. The German question has dominated contemporary history for a century. During the cold war it was declared insoluble within the foreseeable future. In 1989- 90, it was solved within a few months with apparent ease. It looked like a miracle. But, apart f.rom a truly miraculous combination of favorable circumstances, the peaceful reunification of Germany was made possible with the help of two unprecedented institutions of the democracies: NATO and the European Community. A united Germany could be integrated into the community of the Western democracies without upsetting the balance of power.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there were three more memorable dates next year that highlighted the spectacular events of the European revolution related to the German question: August 31, the signing of the German Unification Treaty; September 12, the signing of the Final Settlement by the victorious powers of World War II with the Germans, who, not to everybody's liking, had so successfully recovered from their defeat; and December 2, the date of general elections for a democratic All- German Parliament. The West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl presided over the German triumph which, for the first time since German unification under Bismarck's Prussians, was at the same time an all- European triumph as well.

The Fall of the Wall was a signal to Berlin's southern neighbors, the people of Prague, to rise against their Communist despots. People's power moved slower in Czechoslovakia then in East Germany, partly because of Czech preference for passive resistance, but even more on account of hard-line Communist reluctance to admit defeat. When Gorbachev told them that they are on their own, the Prague hardliners went on trying to save themselves by force. As street demonstrations began in November, 1989, the police struck back. For a while, police force was able to contain "the power of the powerless," as the would- be Czech leader of the democratic revolution, Vacláv Havel called the resistance centered around the dissident Charter 77 movement. From November 20 on, however, the regime's power rapidly disintegrated. The police were no longer able to stop the revolution.

Next to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the mass demonstrations of Prague were the most spectacular events of the 1989 European revolution. The whole world was watching in awe on TV screens as the Prague crowds were growing from thousands to ten thousands, then to hundred thousands, and finally to a million or more. The revolution was loud but peaceful. On December 10, Gustav Husak, the Communist President, hurriedly resigned and Vacláv Havelmoved into the medieval castle above Prague to become, rather reluctantly, out of duty to the revolution, the democratic president of Czechoslovakia. Located in Prague, the presidency passing from a Slovak back to a Czech, symbolically ushered in a new stage in loosening Czech- Slovak relations. The revolution in Bratislava was a triumph for Slovak nationalism. The revolution in Prague was a triumph for Czech democracy. The Czechs labeled it a "velvet revolution." The velvet revolution over, the Czechs revealed with ease once again their disciplined democratic maturity which made them famous in the world of the twentieth century. President Havels background as a writer and playwright served him well in public life both at home and abroad. The Czechs, not unlike people everywhere else, were fed up with politicians and politics. To his popularity as a non- politician, Haveladded his international fame as a writer, as well as his country's enviable international reputation as the "only democracy," of Central Europe.

Havels domestic popularity was tested in the first post-

Communist free elections in June 1990. His Civic Forum, spawned as the political arm of Charter 77, won 5 1 .3 percent of votes. Its Slovak counterpart and ally, the Public Against Violence, got a less impressive 31.4 percent, though still the single largest vote. However, both Havels lesser popularity in Slovakiaand in particular the surge of Slovak separatist nationalism as reflected in the results of the elections boded ill for Czechoslovakia's future. 1989 opened a new era in Czechoslovak history.

Unlike in Poland and Hungary in Czechoslovakia the revolution of 1989 was not a continuation of an earlier revolution. The Prague Spring of 1968 was a revolution within the Communist Party. The revolution of 1989 was a break with Communism and also with much more in Czechoslovakia's past. Dub_ek, the living symbol of 1968, received a hero's welcome when he showed up in Prague in 1989. However, he himself was no longer the Communist of Prague Spring's time, yearning for a Communist Party "to be loved by the people," for its "socialism with a human face." He had broken with Communism. And, as many former Communists all over Eastern Europe, he claimed to be a Socialist. Nor did he admire the Soviet Union anymore. Czechoslovakia's Soviet orientation, once hailed by President Benes, and after him by his Communist successors, was over. The new world situation called for a new orientation.

When Havelinherited Czechoslovakia's presidency, the world of all of his presidential predecessors disappeared, including the circumstances once favoring the country's foundation. Czechoslovakia's existence, as conceived by its founders, rested on two premises: the unity of Czechs and Slovaks as one nation on the one hand, and the new state as the centerpiece of a "Slav barrier" against German power on the other. The emergence of separate Slovak nationhood and the rise of a democratic Germany as one of principal architects of the European Commu- nity invalidated both premises of Czechoslovak state-making. The election of Dub_ek, a Slovak, to the presidency of the Federal Parliament added little to Czech- Slovak cohesion; his roots in Slovakiawere rather shallow. President Havels historic mission, one he did not bargain for, was to replace the Czechoslovak ideology of the Masaryk- Benes era with a new one. His task was to adjust the policy of the Czechoslovak state to the new conditions, both domestic and international.

On the international scene, President Havelmoved swiftly and successfully. His first official visit abroad, symbolic of the new European situation, took him to Berlin and Bonn to apologize to East and West Germans for the postwar expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia. If there was domestic disapproval of Havels German visits, it was barely audible. But quite a few among Czechoslovakia's Western friends failed to appreciate Havels gesture. It shocked, in particular, some of Czecho-

slovakia's American admirers. They expected Havelto share their fear of German imperialism in the wake of German reunification. They saw no point in Havels apology to the Germans either, believing, as they did, that the expulsion of "fascist" minorities, especially of the Sudeten Germans, was a well deserved punishment.

On the domestic side, Havelfaced a tougher problem. Both Masaryk and Benes died with their unshakable convictions that Czechs and Slovaks were one nation. The one- nation idea died with them. The Communist constitution recognized the principle of two nations. Havels task was to further adjust the constitution so as to guarantee democratic Czechoslovakia's continued existence on the basis of two nations. After many rounds of heated debates, in 1990, the official name of the state was changed to "Czech and Slovak Federal Republic." Then in 1991, the federal structure of the two- state Republic was revamped, leaving only a few essential "common affairs," under central federal control (such as national defense, foreign and certain financial policies). A dualist system of two nations has thus been created reminiscent of the settlement under the Austro- Hungarian Compromise of 1867. As compared with the parallel Yugoslav crisis ending in a Balkan civil war, the Czech- Slovak Compromise was certainly a civilized Central European solution. The trouble with it was the same as with the Austro- Hungarian Compromise: it did not solve the problem it was supposed to solve.

In addition to their conflict with the Czechs, the Slovaks' other problem was the Hungarian minority. Ever since the Czech expulsion of their Germans, the Slovaks have been obsessed with the idea that they too are entitled to a homogeneous nation- state. Since Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918, the increase of Slovaks has been spectacular; they have more than doubled their numbers. Yet, even after a corresponding decrease in the Hungarian ratio, the percentage of Hungarians in Slovakiawas still around 12 percent, about the same as the Slovaks had been in historic Hungarybefore World War I.

Under the liberating impact of the 1989 revolution, the Hungarians of Slovakiarenewed their old demand for autonomy. The Slovaks were unyielding. No Slovak- Hungarian compromise materialized. Even minor concessions under the new Language Law were contested by the Slovaks. The Czechs, in their new role as mediators between Slovaks and Hungarians, urged the Slovaks to be conciliatory. They reminded the Slovaks that curtailment of Hungarian rights under the internationally endorsed human rights standards would imperil Czechoslovakia's eventual admission to the European Community. Retorted Jan Carnogursky, one of the more moderate Slovak separatists: "In a federated Europe, Czechoslovakia will become superfluous."[9] Sooner than anticipated, the separatist prophecy turned out to be right.

The Slovaks were in a hurry. The old regional order in Central Europe was disintegrating. Former Communist Eastern Europe was in a state of flux. The Slovak separatists sensed a historical opportunity. The Czechoslovak domestic situation, too, seemed to favor them. The Czech free market enthusiasts, angered by Slovak opposition to their policy, were glad to see the Slovaks leave. "Lustration," a Czech plan to punish Communists, on the other hand, annoyed the Slovaks who advocated leniency since the Communists supported their nationalist cause.

President Havelurged in vain to save the new federal union recognizing national equality between Czechs and Slovaks. Failure to resolve the conflict between federalists and separatists doomed the Havelpresidency. The spring elections of 1992 were a victory for the separatists. The Czech liberal economist Vacláv Klausand the Slovak Vladimir Meciar, a former- Communist Socialist, emerged as the country's new leaders. Their decision to break up Czechoslovakia into two nation- states met with some opposition among both Czechs and Slovaks. But the two regional national parliaments endorsed the Klaus Meciar pact. President Havel loosing support for his policy in the federal parliament as well, resigned on July 20, 1992. With Czechoslovakia's collapse, the country's post- Communist era of great democratic expectations thus came to a peaceful but mournful end. Officially, the breakup of Czechoslovakia took effect on January 1, 1993. Founded in 1918, it lasted 74 years.

Czech democracy as a positive force is not weakened by Czech- Slovak separation. Free of nationalist commitments to Czechoslovak union, it should in fact be able to act even more effectively as an agent of regional peace in Central Europe. Retreat of Czech power from Slovakiashould in particular eliminate confrontation between Czechs and Hungarians, one of democracy's most damaging calamities in the Danube region since World War I. (See Chapter 4, "Czechs and Hungarians.") Unfortunately, Czech- Slovak separation does not help to end Slovak- Hungarian conflicts. With Slovak nationalism triumphant, it may temporarily even worsen the situation. In former Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks benefitted enormously from the policy of Czech- Slovak union at Hungarys expense. Hungarys other neighbors have similar conflicts over territorial and minority rights. All of these problems could hardly be settled without neutral help, and most likely only within the framework of a broader Central European regional federation.

In multiethnic Romania, the catalyst that triggered a nationwide uprising against the Ceausescu tyranny was a rare Romanian-

Hungarian demonstration of solidarity in Timisoara. In order to play down the Hungarian factor, however, a worker's strike two years earlier in Brasov was officially declared as the beginning of the Romanian revolution. Just the same, the Timisoara incident was the beginning of Ceausescu's end.

In December 1989, the Romanian authorities ordered the relocation of László T_kés, a Hungarian Protestant pastor of Timisoara (Temesvár to the Hungarians). His crime prompting the order was that he publicly condemned Ceausescu's resettlement policy, which threatened to disperse Transylvania's Hungarian population. Rev. T_kés resisted and was ordered to be removed by force. The ethnically mixed city rose in defense of the popular Hungarian pastor. Shooting against the demonstrators resulted in street fighting. On December 17, Ceausescu ordered more force to suppress the Timisoara disorder, and left as scheduled for a state visit to faraway Iran.

Ceausescu's order was carried out with unprecedented brutality. The news of the "Timisoara massacre" spread like wildfire. The repressed hatred against the Ceausescu regime exploded in a nationwide uprising with Bucharest as its center. On December 20, Ceausescu hurried home determined to prove that what happened in Berlin and Prague would not happen in Bucharest. He lashed out against the "hooligans" and "fascists," incited by "foreign powers", he mobilized the army and his enormous security forces against the demonstrators. Street fighting in Bucharest caused heavy casualties. As in all the revolutions of 1989, in Bucharest too, the students have played a leading role. Ceausescu's pillar of power, the Securitate, trained to kill, fought loyally against the demonstrators. But the army defected. The revolution won. Captured and tried by soldiers, Ceausescu and his wife were executed on Christmas day.

Among the revolutions of 1989, the Romanian was the only really violent one. And Ceausescu was the worst among the tyrants Communism has spawned in Eastern Europe. He went down in Communist history as the Balkan king of brutality and corruption. Originally, however, the Communist Party of Romania was one of the most reputable revolutionary organizations, steeped in the Western traditions of radicalism. The Party distinguished itself, in particular, as an advocate of fairness in nationality matters. Founded after World War I, the Party's stronghold was in Transylvania, uniting Hungarian and Romanian progressives who believed in the Leninist principles of national equality.

Their program, for a while, endorsed by the Soviets, advocated Transylvania's separation from Romania's Balkan provinces as well as a revision of the Danube region's boundaries, imposed by Western peacemakers in violation of the principles of national self- determination. Even after the atrocities committed against each other during World War II, the Communist Party was able as no one else to build a few bridges between Romanians and Hungarians.

Under the first postwar Communist regime headed by the Transylvanian- born Communist fellow- traveller Premier Petru Groza, the Hungarians were treated better for a few years than at any time since Transylvania's annexation by Romania. After Groza, however, the Transylvanian tolerance in Romanian Communism, always tenuous, vanished for good. Absorbing the Byzantine legacy of Romanian history, the Party under Ceausescu became a Balkan version of Stalinist brutality. Romania remained only nominally a member of the Soviet bloc. Contrary to Tito's independent Yugoslavia, however, Ceausescu's independent Romania was Eastern Europe's most oppressive.

Driven by fanatical nationalism, Ceausescu forced repayment of foreign loans to make Romania financially independent of the West. Stressing exports to this end, his economic policy was a disaster, inflicting unbelievable misery on the population. Yet, his glorification of the Romanian nation was popular. And the West, too, rewarded Ceausescu's nationalism. In appreciation of Romania's independence as a non- aligned nation, the West joined the rest of the world in turning Ceausescu into one of the most decorated "statesmen" of the cold war era. Although, some of his Western honors were belatedly revoked, the record shows that Ceausescu was knighted by Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, and the United States accorded Ceausescu's Romania most- favored-

nation status in recognition of its "independence" from the Soviets in foreign affairs and for its "respect", for human rights, particularly for allowing "free emigration." The population at large, not interested in emigration, was brazenly ignored.

With the cold war and Ceausescu gone, the post- Communist era in Romania did not usher in much democracy. The hastily carried out national elections in May 1990 allowed no time for the anti- Communist opposition or the traditional Liberal and Peasant parties of Romanian politics to organize themselves. The National Salvation Front led by Ion Illiescu won 85 percent of the vote, reminiscent of electoral victories during totalitarian times. All the new leaders of post- Ceausescu Romania have been Communists calling themselves Socialists, with only some of them having any record of resistance to Ceausescu's tyranny. The only genuinely new and democratically formed political party showing strength in the Romanian elections was the Democratic Union of Transylvania's Hungarians. It finished second and won 41 seats in the 506- member Bucharest Parliament. Of course, in a regional parliament of an autonomous Transylvania, the Hungarians are dreaming about, they would be entitled to close to one- third of the seats, considering their declining but still significant numbers. Centuries of random Romanian immigration from the BaLkans to Hungary mountainous Transylvania in particular, as well as planned colonization under Romanian rule since World War I, greatly reduced the ratio of Hungarian population.

Among Hungarys neighbors, relations with Romanians have always been the least friendly. Yet the fall of the Ceausescu tyranny brought Transylvania's Romanians and Hungarians together. Their new- found friendship, however, was of short duration. Hopes for a Transylvanian Compromise were dashed by Romanian rejection of even moderate Hungarian demands for cultural autonomy. Traditional ethnic hatreds erupted in a few very ugly incidents. The worst clash occurred on March 18, 1990, in the town of Tirgu Mures (Marosvásárhely), an important Hungarian center in Transylvania. It was triggered by local members of Vatra Romanesca (Romanian Hearth), a notorious extremist hotbed of Romanian nationalism. The occasion for violence was Romanian anger over celebration of March 15, a traditional Hungarian national holiday. Bands from the countryside, armed with iron bars, scythes and pitch- forks joined the local Romanians in an attack against the headquarters of the Hungarian Democratic Union. Three Hungarians and one Romanian were killed, and some 300 injured in a wild two- day skirmish. A Helsinki Watch investigation found that both the Romanian army and police on the scene failed to protect the citizens and restore order.[10]

Failure to end the festering Romanian- Hungarian conflict was only part of a much larger failure to make any headway in the country's democratization. The post- Ceausescu regime headed by President Iliescuand Prime Minister Petre Roman has been much less successful in democratization than the post- Communist regimes of Poland, Hungary Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Former Communists in great numbers have kept or gained prominent positions in post- Communist times. But nowhere in Central Europe have former Communists managed to stay in power as long as in the Balkan countries of Romania and Serbia.

It was tempting to see in these contrasts historically determined differences between those lands that had spent several centuries under Western Habsburg and those under Eastern Ottoman domination. This was no doubt a meaningful reading of history, but not the only one. For instance, despite their common Ottoman legacy, Bulgaria was much more successful in democratization than Romania. Also, they behaved differently as members of the Soviet bloc.

Throughout the Communist era, Bulgaria's historic loyalty to Russia as liberator from Ottoman rule was translated into loyalty to the Soviet Union. Even the coup that ousted Todor Zhivkov, one of the most durable Communist dictators, looked like an act of loyalty to Moscow. The Communist Foreign Minister who led the coup, Peter T. Mladenov had Gorbachev- type perestroika reform in mind. He failed because, unlike Romania, Bulgaria had a capable democratic opposition. Bulgarian Communists tried to stay in power as Socialists by rigging the elections of June 1990. Playing the Polish Jaruzelski- compromise card in reverse, they yielded the largely ceremonial post of the President of the Republic to the respected philosopher Zhelyu Zhelev, a democrat. The Polish formula did not work.

In December 1990, the Socialist cabinet resigned and an independent judge, Dimitri Popov, became the first Balkan Premier with no Communist past. In new elections, in October 1991, the Union of Democratic Forces defeated the ex- Communists turned Socialists, but failed to win an absolute majority. To run the government, the UDF relied on a motley coalition of political factions having something in common. They were solidly set against the Communists and not as firmly in favor of appeasing the restive Turkish minority. The new Prime Minister, Philip Dimitrov could confidently proclaim: "The age of Communism in Bulgaria is over."[11] Alas, what was not over was the economic quandary threatening democratic progress. Whether managed by former Communists or new democrats, transition to a market economy was a grave common problem in all countries of post- Communist Central and Eastern Europe.

On the Balkan scene, isolated from the outside world, independent Albania's Stalinist regime held out the longest against change. But by the end of 1990, student demonstrators forced Ramiz Alie, successor to Enver Hoxha, founder of Communist Albania, to reduce his unlimited dictatorial powers. And from then on, the isolated Albanians surprised the world with their revolutionary vigor in demanding democratic reforms. The people toppled the Hoxha statues in their towns and villages faster than the regime was able to satisfy their eagerness for a new order. In 1991, mass escapes from economic misery to Italy across the Adriatic were reminiscent of the East German exodus of 1989. But the Albanians of the Balkans, fighting for freedom from Communism had it harder than the Germans of Central Europe. Their Adriatic neighbors, the Italians, forced the desperate Albanians back to where they had come from. Yet the steadfast pro- West democrats led by Dr. Sali Berisha, a 47- year- old cardiologist, won a landslide victory in the first truly free elections in March 1992. Surprisingly, Albania became after Bulgaria the second among the Balkan countries to get rid of its former Communist rulers turned Socialist.

Finally, there was independent Communist Yugoslavia, half Balkan, half Central European, a unique case from the beginning to the very end in the post- World War II history of Eastern Europe. Tito's Yugoslavia was a curious darling of the cold- war era in several ways. It was a dar- ling of the anti- Communist West because of its break with the Soviets. It was the darling of non- aligned nations and other believers in East- West "convergence" to save the world from nuclear cataclysm. Tito also earned recognition for creating a new model for a multinational federation in the most ethnic- conflict- ridden part of Europe. His achievements, however, were less admirable than they appeared to be.

Marshall Tito's federalism was no doubt an admirable alternative to Czechoslovakia's President Benes's postwar homogeneous nation- state policy, advocating expulsion and assimilation. Benes evaded Czechoslovakia's structural weaknesses by claiming that "fascist" national minorities caused the collapse of the inter-war order in Central Europe. Tito boldly faced Yugoslavia's nationality problem. He saw it as the principal cause of national catastrophe. But his federalism had two fundamental weaknesses. One was Yugoslavia's lack of democratic institutions. Many liberalized features notwithstanding, Tito's federation was a Communist dictatorship woefully short of democracy. Yugoslavia's other weakness was that as a regional federation it was not large enough to balance and thwart Serb hegemonistic aspirations for a Greater Serbia. In some respect Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were similar. The Czechs, too, had ambitions for a Greater Bohemia. Neither of them had enough dedicated "Yugoslavs" or "Czechoslovaks" to keep the peoples of their states together.[12]

In Tito's Yugoslavia, Communist solidarity was supposed to check Serb hegemonistic aspirations. Called Communist League (to distinguish it from its Soviet model) the Yugoslav Communist Party was to serve as an adhesive to keep the federation from falling apart. But to make the system work Tito's unique authority gained as a partisan leader was necessary. Following Tito's death, the League failed and thus, predictably, the federation collapsed as well.

In May 1988, Slobodan Milosevic, an unscrupulous Serb nationalist, seized the leadership of the Communist League. He was convinced that the Serbs, 42 percent of the population, the largest among Yugoslavia's "nations and nationalities," were denied their rightful place as leaders of the federation. He was determined to correct the wrongful situation, by political means if possible, by force if necessary. Enthusiastically supported by his Serb countrymen, he went to work to destroy the Tito- created Yugoslav Federation. His first move was to establish Serb hegemony in Serbia, one of the member- republics of the Federation, by abolishing within Serbia the autonomy of both Vojvodina and Kosovo. The blow against Vojvodina's Hungarian minority did not matter much, except to the Hungarians. But Kosovo's Albanian majority fiercely resisted and shook the foundations of both the Serb federal republic and of Yugoslavia as a whole. Croats and Slovenes, who together with the Serbs formed the Slav core of Yugoslavia, sensed in Milosevic's moves a revival of the imperialist Greater Serbia legacy.

Restless anyway under the impact of the 1989 European revolution, Croats and Slovenes started correcting what they regarded as curtailment of their national rights under the Yugoslav federal constitution. Never having felt united with their Eastern Slav Serb brothers in the Balkans, they were responding to their traditional Western bonds. Like their fellow Central Europeans, they were eager "to return to Europe." In democratically held elections, under their new leaders, mostly former Communists turned Socialists, they declared themselves independent sovereign nations.

The Serbs regarded these moves as treason to Yugoslavia and declarations of war on them. The ensuing civil war that broke out in 1991 released all the historic antagonisms between Serbs and Croats, but in particular the recent hateful memories of the partisan war of World War II. The savage struggle, aiming at changing ethnic borders, dislocated millions of people from their ancient homes. It added another ugly term to the vocabulary of nationalistic intolerance: "ethnic cleansing." Not since the population expulsions after World War II in Czechoslovakia have the lands of Central Europe seen such a reign of terror in the name of national justice. The Serbs were mainly blamed for the spreading violence engulfing a good part of former Yugoslavia. But the Western democracies, too, were censured for their impotence to stop the fight in time. For the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe the crisis was a reminder that with the collapse of the Soviet sphere of influence they were no longer of much concern to anybody.

Whether democratization of the Tito- created Communist federation, as had been urged for years,[13] could have prevented the tragedy of civil war is a matter of speculation, Yet, it is not totally unrealistic to imagine that a democratized Yugoslav federation might have established friendly links with the European Community. With the civil war raging, any such scenario became rather inconceivable, and the protracted Western effort to save Yugoslavia rather unrealistic.

The collapse of the Yugoslav federation fueled the nationalist reaction that flared up in the wake of Soviet collapse in Central and Eastern Europe. The simultaneous nationalist disintegration of the Soviet federation next door had similar effect. Revision of the structure of the Yugoslav federation spawned new nation- states, but no new viable regional federal structure was invented yet for Central and Eastern Europe. Nation- state nationalism that has been the cause of so much tragedy was scoring new triumphs toward the close of the twentieth century. A comprehensive regional federal union advocated by far- sighted reformers since the nineteenth century was still waiting in the wings to be called on the stage of history.

The New Central Europe