Central Europe Essay, Research Paper
The Downfall of Communism in Eastern and Central Europe
The shocking fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe
in the late eighties was remarkable for both its rapidity and its
scope. The specifics of communism’s demise varied among nations,
but similarities in both the causes and the effects of these
revolutions were quite similar. As well, all of the nations
involved shared the common goals of implementing democratic
systems of government and moving to market economies. In each of
these nations, the communist regimes in power were forced to
transfer that power to radically different institutions than they
were accustomed to. Democracy had been spreading throughout the
world for the preceding two decades, but with a very important
difference. While previous political transitions had seen
similar circumstances, the actual events in question had
generally occurred individually. In Europe, on the other hand,
the shift from communism was taking place in a different context
altogether. The peoples involved were not looking to affect a
narrow set of policy reforms; indeed, what was at stake was a
hyper-radical shift from the long-held communist ideology to a
western blueprint for governmental and economic policy
development. The problem inherent in this type of monumental
change is that, according to Ulrich K. Preuss, “In almost all the
East and Central European countries, the collapse of
authoritarian communist rule has released national, ethnic,
religious and cultural conflicts which can not be solved by
purely economic policies” (47). While tremendous changes are
evident in both the governmental and economic arenas in Europe,
these changes cannot be assumed to always be “mutually
reinforcing” (Preuss 47). Generally it has been theorized that
the most successful manner of addressing these many difficulties
is the drafting of a constitution. But what is clear is the
unsatisfactory ability of a constitution to remedy the problems
of nationalism and ethnic differences. Preuss notes that when
the constitutional state gained favor in North America,
it was founded on the principle of the unitary state; it was not
designed to address the lack of national identity which is found
throughout Europe – and which is counter to the concept of the
constitutional state (48). “Measured in terms of socioeconomic
modernization,” writes Helga A. Welsh, “Central and Eastern
European countries had reached a level that was considered
conducive to the emergence of pluralistic policies” (19). It
seemed that the sole reason the downfall of communism, as it
were, took so long was the veto power of the Soviet Union.
According to theories of modernization, the higher the levels of
socioeconomic achievement, the greater the pressure for open
competition and, ultimately, democracy. As such, the nations in
Eastern and Central Europe were seen as “anomalies in
socioeconomically highly-developed countries where particularly
intellectual power resources have become widespread” (Welsh 19).
Due to their longtime adherence to communist policies, these
nations faced great difficulty in making the transition to a
pluralist system as well as a market economy. According to
Preuss, these problems were threefold: The genuine economic
devastations wrought by the communist regimes, the transformation
of the social and economic classes of the command economy into
the social and economic lasses of a capitalist economy and,
finally, the creation of a constitutional structure for
political entities that lack the undisputed integrity of a nation
state (48).
With such problems as these to contend with in re-
engineering their entire economic and political systems, the
people of East Germany seemed to be in a particularly enviable
position. Economically, they were poised to unite with one of
the richest countries, having one of the strongest economies, in
the entire world. In the competition for foreign investment,
such an alliance gave the late German Democratic Republic a
seemingly insurmountable lead over other nations. In regards to
the political aspects of unification, it effectively left a
Germany with no national or ethnic minorities, as well as having
undisputed boundaries. As well, there was no need to create a
constitution (although many of the pitfalls of constitution-
building would have been easily-avoided due to the advantages
Germany had), because the leaders of the GDR had joined the
Federal Republic by accession and, accordingly, allowed its Basic
Law to be extended over their territory. For all the good that
seemed to be imminent as a result of unification, many problems
also arose regarding the political transformation that Germany
was undergoing. Among these problems were the following: the
tensions between the Basic Law’s simultaneous commitments to
supranational integration and to the German nation state, the
relationship between the nation and the constitution as two
different modes of political integration and the issue of so-
called “backward justice” (Preuss 48). The Federal Republic of
Germany’s Basic Law has been the longest-lived constitution in
Germany’s history. Intended to be a short-lived, temporary
document, the Basic Law gained legitimacy as West Germany
continued to march towards becoming a major economic power and
effective democratic society. There seemed to be, at first, a
tension between the Basic Law’s explicit support of re-
unification and its promise to transfer sovereignty to a
supranational institution that would be created.
The conflict between West Germany’s goals of national unity
and international integration remained the main issue in the
country’s politics for many years. As Preuss no
extremely difficult to escape the economic and, in the long run
also political, implications of this double-bind situation of
Germany, one that remains a legacy of the postwar order” (51).
Since the unification of Germany was accomplished through
accession, it meant, strangely enough, that neither West nor East
Germany had a say in the other’s decision on whether to form a
unified state or what conditions such a unification would be
contingent upon, respectively. Put simply, the net effect of the
extension of the Basic Law to all of Germany did not guarantee
the implementation of a new joint governing policy or a new
constitution for the country. It seemed, as a result of some
esoteric articles of the Basic Law, that the GDR would cease to
exist legally and the FRG would survive. It was impossible to
draw the conclusion that both would die out and be replaced by a
new political identity. Many of the Federal Republic’s laws
immediately applied in the GDR (Gloebner 153). Article 146 of
the Basic Law, put simply, allowed for the annulment of the Basic
Law, to be replaced with another governing system, without
previously binding the people to any specific rules. Seemingly,
it sanctions revolution, and, “as proved to be the case in 1990,
this is not a purely theoretical conclusion” (Preuss 52). Some
suggest that, by unifying through accession, Germany has made
problems which could end up overshadowing the benefits of
unification. The suggestion is that the implementation of a
constitution by a society without experience in utilizing it,
without the necessary institutions and without the corresponding
value system will bring about more harm than good (politically).
The imposition of the Basic Law was the root for much of the
mistrust between East and West Germans following unification. In
regards to the East Germans, the Law was effectively self-
imposed, and “neither submission nor voluntary self-submission is
likely to engender the social and political coherence which is a
necessary condition for a stable democracy” (Preuss 54). In
regards to the economic aspects of unification, some major
problems exist in the transition to democracy and market
economics. According to Preuss, the two main issues included in
the realm of “backward justice” are the privatization of large
pieces of state property, and the punishment of the elites of the
previous regimes and their comrades under the headings of “self-
purification” and “collective amnesia.” The privatization issue
is among the thorniest involved in any country’s transition from
communism. For one, a system of procedures must be developed
simply to transfer such large amounts of property to private
citizens. Also, there must be mechanisms put in place to both
protect new owners from claims of previous owners and to satisfy
former owners without alienating possible future investors. The
problem boils down to the fact that private property laws do not
always coincide with the “fair” concept of restitution. As Petra
Bauer-Kaase writes, “East Germans still have difficulties in
adjusting to a political system where individuals have a great
deal of responsibility for their own life” (307). The former
East Germans look upon this issue with contempt, because it is
the Westerners who have control over the rules, as well as the
enforcement of those rules. This is merely one of a multitude of
instances where this mistrust manifests itself.
There are also the issues of self-purification and
collective amnesia. Due to the pervasive nature of the communist
regime’s surveillance programs and so forth, there is very little
room for anyone to claim pure hands. While West Germans can
claim that they are innocent by virtue of geography, East Germans
are never able to escape the suspicions that they may have been
part of the machine. Government jobs are denied to those who
were affiliated with the Stasi, and private businesses also may
deny employment to these citizens. While unification has
occurred theoretically, in reality the Germany today is one of de
facto separate-but-equal citizenship. There is no denying that
there have been many problems associated with the unification of
East and West Germany. The transition from communist state to
liberal democracy is a very difficult one, and there is no real
way to predict how the German experience will turn out. As
Preuss writes, “The transition from an authoritarian political
regime and its concomitant command economy to a liberal
democracy and a capitalist economy is as unprecedented as the
short-term integration of two extremely different societies – one
liberal-capitalist, one authoritarian-socialist – into one nation
state” (57). In other words, the unification of Germany is one
of the most complicated and unprecedented historical events since
the unification of Germany.
Jeremy Waldroop
Works Cited
Bauer-Kaase, Petra. “Germany in Transition: The Challenge of
Coping with Unification.”
German Unification: Processes and Outcomes. M. Donald Hancock
and Helga A. Welsh, eds.
Boulder: Westview, 1994. 285-311. Gloebner, Gert-Joachim.
“Parties and Problems of
Governance During Unification.” German Unification: Processes
and Outcomes. M. Donald
Hancock and Helga A. Welsh, eds. Boulder: Westview, 1994. 139-
61. Preuss, Ulrich K.
“German Unification: Political and Constitutional Aspects.”
United Germany and the New
Europe. Heinz D. Kurz, ed. Brookfield: Elgar, 1993. 47-58.
Welsh, Helga A. “The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and
the GDR: Evolution, Revolution, and Diffusion.” German
Unification: Processes and Outcomes. M. Donald Hancock and Helga
A. Welsh, eds. Boulder: Westview, 1994. 17-34.