After Communism

A group of Russian musicians played an American song, The Beautiful on the banks of the Neva River, at that afternoon. They were seven middle-aged music player dressed in slums and tried to survive in the St. Petersburg's wet air in early November.

Near that place, a tourist bus parked. In it there were a number of older travelers of America who afraid of the cold air. As the inflatable music stopped, the rear door of the bus opened. An old fat man down with New York accent, "I want to give them money". Then he put ten rubles in the charity box, near the foot of singers. Then the band also sang The Star Spangled Banner.

It was in the year 1991. In Russia it seemed people were making the state capitalism of the 20th century as a new Qibla. At least, the old Qibla already considered collapsed.



At the end of November 1991, for the first time in history, in Red Square in Moscow, October Revolution (which according to the international calendar count actually occur in November) was not commemorated. There was no parade of November 7. There was no leader who stood on the stage of honor, red marble platform built on top of Lenin's mausoleum.

Even in St. Petersburg, in the church of St. Isaac, the tallest in the world after St. Peter in the Vatican, held a religious ceremony according to Orthodox Christianity. Hertog Romanov -- descendant of Tsar Nicholas II , Russia's last king who with his wife and children were killed by Bolshevik troops in their exile was there.

Under the dome as old as 150 years, in a room decorated by golden mosaic of lapis lazuli, as if Russia had not been touched by a moving history to establish a classless society, with political power against the religion and hoisted the banner of the workers.

Now religion has been living back to the surface. In one corner of the Akademigorodok city, near Novosibirsk, Western Siberia, I saw people were busy setting up a wooden church from among the ranks of birch trees, when in the city, people were lack of funding for the theater maintenance for their pride ballet. I saw people kissing the hand of pastor, half-hidden in a black outfit covering a bloated stomach.

People also smelled something else. Everywhere, especially in big cities like St. Petersburg (who recently called "Leningrad") the residents sweating with anxious to pursue currency, or hard currency - and generally it was the "dollar".

Even in Moscow already established what was proclaimed as the "Millionaires Club". The character was a young person aged less than 30 years named German Sterligov. Handsome, slender, mustachioed and bespectacled, he told anyone who would write, that his hobby was "traveling and earn money". He hated "Soviet Power".

I did not know how much of his wealth. A source said that Sterligov claimed to have deposits of one million rubles (In the dark exchange at that time about 120 thousand dollars) in a bank. A very small amount compared to the average wealth of an American millionaire, but in Russia, it was also an indicator :  that after communism, people seemed to want to go back to capitalism. If necessary, in a frenzied manner.

1991 has been replaced by 1992, and in 1992 was soon replaced by 1993. The changes that occurred throughout Eastern Europe was so fast. What I witnessed at the end of 1991 quickly became the stale goods which might not be used to help us to reflect on what exactly had changed in our history, after communism collapsed.

Ralf Dahrendorf writing, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, drafted in 1990 before Gorbachev experienced a coup and the Soviet Union fragmented, therefore we could estimate that its benefits had to be viewed in term of  the other side: not as an afterthought of a completed event, but as an example of the view that -- with the spirit of Edmund Burke two centuries earlier -- did not believe in the theory of politics, government and its direction.

But as he dismissed the theory, Dahrendorf proclaimed the belief. As can be read at the end of his writing, he was a liberal who risked almost everything to freedom. "Freedom above all, that is what I believe," Dahrendorf said.

In following a treatise which asserts a belief, without theory, perhaps the reader will not find the incandescence of thought which was born of the collision.

Dahrendorf  follows the style of Reflections on the Revolution in France from Burke, the style of a letter for someone next to "there". However, different from the classical works of Burke -- written with prose that is not only clear and elegant, but also in the style of "attacking here and defend themselves there" -- which was born from a polemical situation -- Dahrendorf treatise is an article that just eager to explain and to show. Shape of the letter gives the impression of immediacy. So: what we face is a belief that is delivered immediately, as the answer.

It is not surprising if Dahrendorf does not provide a further description of the problem which is very interesting, especially for today's readers: the birth of civil society. Dahrendorf argued what is the meaning of civil society for East European intellectuals such as Adam Michinik and Janos Kis: substantial strengths that exist outside the state, and more often, which is facing the State. That means creating a tight network of autonomous institutions and organizations which do not have one, but a thousand centers and therefore can not be easily destroyed by one monopoly holder, in the form of a government or a party.



Could it be formed? Dahrendorf just replied simply, "We have to try."

He did not examine further how the autonomous institutions and organizations, which sustained themselves and did not require the State could develop strong in a country whose economic power still has not spread to the rest of the outer layers of society, many were even still in the hands of the government.

Initiative for privatization of State enterprises attempted in Poland and Czechoslovakia did not take place smoothly.

To submit a number of state enterprises to the private sector requires not only capital, but also efficiency, and therefor the labor should be more selective and less. Termination of employment as it would lead to protests . So, how? To reduce the subsidy (which is the political implications reducing the State's role as a the power of giving) not only will lead to a number of basic needs prices will be expensive, but also most of the community power will suffer, such as farmers, who strangled by debt interest expense in future monetary policy tight. So, how?

Freedom and democracy has its own dilemma. In Poland there are about 30 parties arise, as communism fell. All to vote, to place and recorded. For months President Lech Walesa failed to form a cabinet, in the presence of a strong government was necessary to change the existing economic system toward a market economy, which certainly contains a lot of bitter pills.

Something like this is not addressed by Dahrendorf. Perhaps because the European experience is not sufficient to anticipate it: they have never seen the transformation of a "guided economy" to a market economy. We -- on a limited scale -- have experienced it, and therefore we can immediately see how many of the unanswered questions of post-communism by the European reviewers.

Dahrendorf effort is limited. Perhaps all efforts to explain about the changes in Eastern Europe. Moreover, to give a prescription or referral for a change, it will always be limited. In this case the spirit of Burke can be remembered again. Who does not consider that the circumstances are always infinite and join each other indefinitely? That the situation is volatile and temporary? Who does not take into account about it, and then formulate a theory or advice, which according to Burke, "metaphysically is crazy"?

In the afternoon, at the end of November 1991, on the banks of the Neva River, perhaps metaphysical, crazy or not, must be contrived wise by humor. Near a group of street musicians I mentioned above, a historic ship docked -- Aurora -- as a museum of the struggle. Of the ship, in the evening 7 November 1917, the pro-Bolshevik sailors firing the blank bullets from one cannon, marking the start of the invasion of the communists to the Winter Palace. The Bolsheviks succeeded, and since then the Communist Party practically became the sole ruler.

A joke circulating in St. Petersburg now is that Aurora must have the most powerful weapon in human history: with only an empty grain bullet, it has managed to afflict Russia for 70 years.
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(CZ/a relic note. father/)