[page 33]
A ditticult
road to
restoratic
Of all the countries of Eastern Europe, Romania, argue the capitalist commentators, is behind' in progress towards re-establishing capitalism. A Woods examines why.
Jur
low events
unfold is
not a
foregone conclusion
but the oduct of a struggle of ing forces.
MIR
THERE IS NO doubt that what we are witnessing in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union represents a turning-point in world history. Such turning points pose difficult theoretical questions which cannot be answered by the mechanical repetition of old formulas. Marxists must answer the question: what is the real content of the processes taking place and in which direction are they heading?
For the capitalist politicians and their echo in the right-wing of the labour movement, the answer is quite simple. 'Communism' and 'socialism' have failed everywhere. The tide of history is flowing irresistibly in the direction of the market economy and capitalist democracy.
The shock-waves produced by the collapse of Stalinism are all the greater because these regimes lasted for so long - longer than anyone could have expected. For decades, the regimes in Russia, China and Eastern Europe seemed to be stable. So much so that some even thought they saw in them a new socio-economic formation ('bureaucratic collectivism', 'state capitalism', and so on).
Only the Marxists who took their starting point from the analysis of Leon Trotsky - now brilliantly confirmed by history - predicted that these bureaucratic regimes would inevitably collapse under the weight of internal contradictions and the movement of the working class.
But would
Trotsky left open the question of what happen thereafter. He did not exclude
Boli Finne
the possibility of capitalist restoration or of a victorious political revolution of the working class which would regenerate society on the basis of a genuine regime of workers' democracy. The result was not a foregone conclusion but the product of a struggle of living forces, conditioned by a whole series of objective and subjective factors.
That these hideous regimes lasted so long has been a major factor in determining the attitude of the masses, whose hatred of the bureaucratic totalitarian regime knows no bounds. In the first stage of the movement, for example in East Germany, there was no hint of a pro-capitalist tendency. The crowds in Leipzig sang the Internationale. But in the absence of a clear alternative, an organisation, a party and a programme, the movement took a different direction. The proximity of West Germany, the most powerful and wealthy capitalist state in Europe, acted as an irresistible magnet in a situation where no alternative was offered. In general, the fact that the crisis of Stalinism has coincided with the continuation of the boom in the West has given a powerful impetus to restorationist tendencies, not least within the bureaucracy itself.
But it would be entirely wrong to present developments in Russia and Eastern Europe in a one-sided manner. Already the thinking representatives of capitalism are having second thoughts about the prospects for capitalist restoration in the East. They understand, as the
[page 34]
Marxists have understood, that the collapse of Stalinism in the given historical context contains not only a counter-revolutionary potential, but a revolutionary potential as well. The clearest example of this so far was the magnificent revolution of the Romanian working class last December. Despite all the attempts of the Western media to twist and distort its true significance, here was an example of the working class overthrowing a Stalinist dictatorship in a movement which had many of the classical features of the political revolution, with sections of the workers forming committees and taking up arms against the reaction.
If the workers had possessed an organisation, a party with a Marxist programme and leadership, it would have been entirely possible for the Romanian working class to have carried through a successful political revolution. Such a victory in Romania would have had an explos ive effect throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, the overthrow of the Causescu dictatorship, in spite of the fact that the workers were unable to take power into their own hands, was just as decisive an event as the overthrow of the tsar in 1917. It meant that the masses in Romania went far further than in the other countries of Eastern Europe, at least at this stage. It is the decisive entry of the masses onto the arena of struggle, and the consciousness of the workers that they overthrew the hated dictatorship of Causescu and the Securitate, which conditions the psychology of all The revolution had many of classes and groups in Romanian society and the classical gives the revolution in Romania its peculiar features of the character political Reading through the articles of the so-called revolution with 'experts' in the West, one cannot but be struck sections of by the tone of spiteful malice which they adopt workers when writing about Romania. They are clearly much happier when singing the praises of committees and Havel, Walesa or even Gorbachev. But when it taking up arms. comes to Romania, the smiling mask slips to reveal a snarl of rage and frustration. The massive electoral victory of the National Salvation Front was greeted with shock and disbelief by the media in the West. The media coverage of the election campaign was a total disgrace. Abandonning all pretence at objectivity, they openly sided with the opposition parties, the National Liberal Party of Campeanu and Ratiu's National Peasant Party. Public opinion in the West was led to believe that these openly pro-capitalist parties had enormous reserves of support, and would easily win the elections, if only these were not rigged by the Front... But even the Western observers, including Tory MP Edwina Currie, who went with the clear intention of muckraking, were compelled to admit that the elections had been fair. No serious irregularities were ever proved The result of the election was a slap in the face for all these pundits. The Economist, 26 May 1990, published a surly article with the title: Back to Front'. But all the chagrin of the MIR 33
[page 35]
340 MIR Summer Romania
Marian Munteanu.
bourgeois could not conceal that fact that their
chosen candidates had suffered a shattering
deteat. The NSF won 66% of the vote and two-
thirds of the seats. Iliescu's personal vote was
still higher — a massive 85%. The humiliation of
the opposition was total: Campeanu got 11%
and his party, the Liberals, only 6%. Ratiu saw
the Peasant's Party pushed into fifth place, be-
hind the Hungarian Party and the Greens. The
peasants voted solidly for the Front. Naturally
the defeated politicians called 'foul. But with a
victory of this magnitude, not even their West-
ern admirers dared to take this up.
The election result could come as no surprise to anyone with first-hand experience of the sit-
uation in Romania. The fundamental reason is
the fact that the Romanian workers made a revolution and their consciousness is determined by this fact. The overwhelming majority of workers are suspicious of capitalism and hostile to privatisation. They do not want their factories to be sold off to capitalists. whether foreign or Romanian.
It is undeniable that, while all the parties (the Front included) accept the idea of a market economy, Ratiu and Campeanu made the central theme of their electoral campaign the speedy introduction of capitalism. They accused the leaders of the Front, as 'Communists', of being insincere and half-hearted about privatisation. There can be no doubt that the vote against Ratiu and Campeanu was a vote against capitalism.
Of course, there were other tactors. Both men had lived out the years of the Causescu dictatorship in comfortable foreign exile in France and Britain. Ratiu's case was particularly glaring. The sight of this elderly millionaire with his dinner jacket and outsized bow-tie, summed up the class basis of the opposition. Silviu Brucan, one of the Front's leaders, commented acidly that "Mr Ratiu speaks exquisite English. I only wish his Romanian was as good."
Before the War the National Peasants Party was a major force in Romanian politics. It had a majority in 1928-38. But many older people remember what life was like under capitalism. Romania was an extremely backward agricultural economy with very little industry. The majority of the population were poor peasants subjected to brutal exploitation by the landowners, who dominated the state. Romania was dominated by foreign imperialism, first France, then Germany. Nor was it a democracy, but was run by a series of particularly corrupt monarchist regimes, and later by the German puppet, Antonescu. Behind the coat-tails of the National Peasant Party the sinister fascist Iron Guards' carried out brutal pogroms against the Jews, some of whom were hung from meat-hooks in the central Bucharest abatoir with placards inscribed Kosher meat.'
The Western media lavishes praise on the 'democrat' Ratiu but is silent about the antisemitic element which still characterises the National Peasant Party. As in the rest of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, forty years of Stalinism has had the effect of a monstrous brake on consciousness. Nowhere does this have a more baneful effect than on the national question. Anti-semitism has again raised its murderous head in Russia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Romania. The Peasants Party deliberately tried to exploit the Jewish origin of some of the Front's leaders like Petre Roman and Silviu Brucan.
As in all revolutions, the whole of society has been politicised. The general mood in the period leading up to the election was reminiscent of scenes from the Portuguese revolution in the period 1974-75. Heated discussions break out on street corners. One man starts talking and a group gathers round to join in. Frustrated factory managers complain that, since the revolution, workers no longer want to work. At the Slightest pretext, work stops and political discussions begin.
It is also a highly polarised situation. As in other East European countries, the majority of students and intellectuals support capitalism in varying degrees. On the extreme right there is a fanaticism which breeds a psychology not too far removed from fascism. In a conversation with a representative of the Spanish Students' Union, the leader of the Romanian Students' League, Marian Munteanu, confessed that he preferred fascists to Communists or Socialists.
NOWHERE HAS THE hypocrisy of the Western media been more clearly seen than in the coverage of the events which followed the elect ion. The impression was given that the students (and others) who came into conflict with the regime were a group of peaceful and sincere democrats, whereas the miners were variously described as 'rent-a-mob miners', 'dirty-faced runts' (The Observer), 'burly proletarians, miners and others of the sort' (The Independent).
Particularly disgusting was the Italian 'Communist' newspaper, L'Unita, which characterised the miners as fascist groups' who had allegedly organised a 'pogrom against intellectuals.' The 'liberal' British Guardian was more subtle when it talked of 'peasants and factory workers. the millions kept in total ignorance by decades of dictatorship' This 'educated' formula serves as a fig-leaf to cover a deep-seated contempt for the Romanian workers and peasants. The very people who fought, and in many cases died, to overthrow the monstrous Causescu dictatorship are now slandered by these cultivated ladies and gentlemen sitting in the comfort of their Guardian offices, as ignorant brutes who, in effect, do not deserve the blessings of Western
[page 36]
'democracy It is quite true that, mixed up with the coun ter-revolutionary pro-capitalist elements, there were lavers of honest vouth who wanted to fight the bureaucracy. But Marxists have to separate the essential from the non-essential, the accidental from the necessary, and clearly identify the reactionary and progressive sides to every social phenomenon.
There is absolutely no doubt that the main thrust of the movement around University Square was in favour of capitalist restoration. The leaders, such as Munteanu, made no secret of their reactionary political views. When the student-controlled radio station, Radio FUN, run by a liberal, broadcast an interview with myself which criticised capitalism for half an hour, it was Munteanu who led the assault on the station, in which a gang of right-wing hoodlums beat up and ejected the staff - whom they falsely described as "Communists' - and closed the radio. This incident was, to my knowledge, never reported in the Western press. So much for 'free speech" — and not only in Romania! The election results were a clear indication that the open advocates of capitalist counterrevolution had been decisively rejected by the people. What was the reaction of these selfstyled 'democrats? Dissident poet Doina Cornea told The Independent, 22 May, 1990: "There was no civil society here. How could it be otherwise? I have come to the conclusion that universal suffrage - at least when you are moving from a dark night into daylight — is not fair. There are a few people who have maintained moral values and who see that we are threatened with another night. The rest don't see it."
So there we have it. Behind the facade of 'democratic ideals" we have the intellectual's elitist contempt for the ignorant masses'. And behind this, in turn, not too far beneath the surface, lies the yearning for a comfortable life and well-paid job paid for by the labour of these same masses. The election results were a deathblow to the hopes of the openly pro-capitalist elements who backed the protest in University Square. After the elections the students were completely isolated The demonstration was maintained but numbers dwindled to a couple of hundred. Predictably, the Front decided to send the police in to break it up. This was the signal for a new offensive movement of the students, which went far beyond the scope of any kind of demonstration.
Labour MP George Galloway was present in Bucharest at the time and witnessed the events: "I watched the crowd of what the minister (William Waldegrave) described as student demonstrators invade the Interior Ministry which is the Romanian equivalent of the Home Office. They stormed that building and set it ablaze. I followed them as they moved on to the Iliescu with Ceausescu, central police station which is their equivalent 1976. It is true of Scotland Yard. They smashed a police truck that despite the through the station's locked doors. I saw them heroic efforts invade the central police station and set it abof the masses, laze. They freed prisoners and they looted artthe old state efacts in the police station. They even broke machine into an armoury and had begun to liberate remains largely weapons before the police opened fire." And he intact.
adds: "If that was not the beginnings of an attempted coup, I do not know what was." (Hansard, House of Commons debate, 28 July 1990).
The accusation that the protestors were involved in some kind of a coup attempt has been generally dismissed in the West as government propaganda. But it is well known, at least in Romania, that a few days before the elections, the meeting in University Square was addressed by an army colonel who said that many army officers were on the side of the students. It is clear that many of the junior officers, in particular, are discontented at their prospects for promotion. Many of these would support a quick transition in the direction of capitalism, and, under certain conditions, might back a coup d'etat. One of the main factors which forced Iliescu to appeal to the workers was the fact that he could not trust the army. Indeed, the army was conspicuously slow to react. The police were worse than useless, which is probably due to the fact that they are terrified of being accused of repressive acts after the role they played in the dictatorship, and the revenge the people took on the Securitate. On the other hand, they do not possess the sophisticated range of anti-riot weaponry that is in the hands MIR 035 of the democratic' police forces in the West. It
[page 37]
360 MIR Summer Romania
The main hrust of the novement in
University
Square was in favour of
capitalist
restoration.
would be a matter of using firearms directly, which they were afraid to do, for fear of the consequences. Hence, the only force which stood between the government and the insurgents was the working class.
The theory of an attempted coup is rooted in the very circumstances of the rising. After the NSF's overwhelming victory at the polls, the student leaders could have been under no illusions that their actions would now spark off another December - the original strategy behind the University Square protest. The mass of the workers and peasants would not come to their aid. It was clear that the students, by themselves, could not hope to take power yet that was the only possible explanation of the attack on strategic targets like the central police station and the television station. The only forces which might have tipped the balance would have been the military. A bold action which initially succeeded in occupying key points in the capital might have given sufficient heart to the dissident officers to join in. The Telegraph, 18 June, 1990, admitted that "the arrival of the miners and Mr Iliescu's announcement of a new National Guard, were prompted by fears about the army's reliability... It is clear that General Victor Stanculescu, the Defence Minister, resisted demands for troops to quell last Wednesday's anti-government riots." The Guardian, 18 June, 1990, published the remarks of a dissident in Timisoara, boasting that "soldiers from the Group for the Democratisation of the Army (set up by discontented officers) have come and said they are on our side...
We are not afraid of the miners." But if the lead-
ers of the movement were counting on this scenario, they were doomed to be disappointed. The
army initially waited on the sidelines - and then
came down on the side of the government.
It was the decisive action of the workers -
not just the miners but the workers of Buchar-
est - which quickly put paid to the plans of the
bourgeois counter-revolution.
George Galloway reported the slogans he
heard from the 'golani", or 'tramps as the oppos-
ition demonstrators are known: 'Out with the
Spanish yid, Roman', (Petre Roman's mother is
Jewish) and 'Iliescu was a whore-master presid-
ing over a brothel of reds and yids.' "For the
nationalists and anti-semites in the crowd, the
terms 'communist' and 'Jewish' were entirely
synonymous."
From the opposite of the political spectrum,
the theory of an attempted coup found unex-
pected backing from Conor Cruise O'Brien who
wrote in The Times, 22 July, 1990: "This was no
protest, but a student-led attempt at a putsch
against the recently elected government of
Romania... The great difference between the
two sets of mob violence is that the first was
directed against the elected government, while
the second was initiated by the ment in its own defence."
Iliescu seems to have panicked after the attack on the police headquarters on the afternoon of June 13. The pathetic showing of the police and the disturbing signs of unreliability in the tops of the army forced him to make a radio appeal to the workers of Bucharest to 'defend the government and democracy. The response was immediate. The factory sirens blew and the workers of the capital poured onto the streets with improvised weapons. reminiscent of the scene in Barcelona in 1936
An hour later the rioters attacked the TV station, which is a strategic point every bit as important as the telephone exchange was in Bar celona in May 1937. The army was still hanging back, presumably waiting to see how things would go. It was the workers of Bucharest wh re-took the TV studios and kicked out the students. The army only turned up later, when it was all over.
The miners from the Jiu valley turned up an dawn on the morning of 14 June after a televison appeal by Iliescu. These miners have been variously described as 'privileged elements' an even a 'praetorian guard.' It is true that their wages, as in many countries, are higher than other workers. But their working conditions and safety are appalling, and despite their nominally 'high' wages, they did not escape the gemeral poverty which was the lot of the entire Romanian people under Stalinist rule. Far from being a pampered 'praetorian guard' of the reg ime, the miners led the way in the fight against the Causescu dictatorship with the hero strike of 1977.
The action of the miners has aroused heared controversy not only in the West, but in Rom ania also. It is true that excesses were committ
ed. Violence was exercised at times in an indisc
riminate fashion. Innocent people, caught up
the action, were beaten, and so on. Such scene
provoked sharp disagreements even in the fau
ories of Bucharest, with part of the workers crit
icising the miners, and part defending the
The criticism that the miners went too far as
some truth in it. But once again, it is a question
of separating the essential from the non-ce
ential. Did some of the miners use excess
violence in putting down the counter-revolu
ionary movement of the students? Probabi
Does this fact mean that we should support it
students against the miners? Absolutely
A Marxist must set out from a class point wit
view. The movement of the 'golani' was detfit
itely a counter-revolutionary movement
at the establishment of capitalism in Roma
by provoking a coup d'etat against the NSF grow-
ernment. The miners were fighting to defeat it
restorationist elements, and in this any Ma
would have been duty-bound to support
[page 38]
380 MIR in Timiscommittees, apparently originating Summer 1990 oara, where the revolution began on December Romania 17. A lot of play was made of this fact by people who styled themselves the December 17 Committee. The fact that the revolution was won by the intervention of the working class in Bucharest on December 22 was played down by these people. They complained bitterly that 'their' revolution was 'hijacked. There is even a theory that the revolution of December 22 was a 'coup' by a section of the bureaucracy, which had organised the National Salvation Front in advance with the idea of removing Causescu from the top, but were taken by surprise by the revolution.
That sections of the bureaucracy were toying with the idea of a coup is highly likely. The crazy rule of the Causescu clan was putting the whole bureaucratic regime in danger. In Russia also, sections of the tsars' court played with the idea of a 'palace revolution', as Trotsky explains, in order to forestall a revolution from below. But the whole thing came to nothing, and the Petre Roman.
would-be conspirators were overwhelmed by the February revolution, just as Iliescu and Roman were overwhelmed by the December uprising. Of course, given the absence of a revolutionary alternative, they quickly stepped into the vacuum. But the theory' that the Romanian revolution was 'only a coup d'etat' is merely a reflection of the contempt in which the counter-revolutionary intellectuals hold the workers. Similarly they explain away the election results in terms of the workers' alleged 'stupidity'. At bottom, these expressions of artogant disregard of the masses expresses only the impotence of the intellectual. Of course, the students played an important role in December, but the movement of the students represented only the opening shots of the revolution. They acted courageously as a catalyst. But by themselves they were powerless to determine the outcome. It was the decisive movement of the proletariat which settled the fate of the old regime. As one worker expressed it to me in an angry comment on the exaggerated claims of the students in University Square: Where would Timisoara have been if it had not been for Bucharest?'
The resentment and frustration of the students flows from the feeling that somehow the revolution has slipped out of their hands. There is a widespread sensation among a layer of society that, despite all the deaths and sacrifices, 'nothing has changed'. And indeed, there is an element of truth in this assertion. Despite the Herculean efforts of the masses, the old state machine remains intact. The old officials and functionaires are still in their offices. Even the majority of Securitate agents are still at liberty - they have merely changed their jobs and now function under the control of the army. The old 'communist nomenclature still retains its le jobs, big salaries and privileges. Many of th hold leading positions in the Front. To that extent, the frustration of the stude is understandable. It would be wrong to tum that all the people in University Square conscious counter-revolutionaries. Mixed up with them were young people who in a com fused way want to fight the bureaucracy. Bun once they were identified with the open advoc ates of a return to capitalism they opened up a abyss between themselves and the big majority of the working class.
The tactics of the demonstrators in Universt Square could not have been more calculated to infuriate the workers. Their main demams were that the election should be postponed amid that no ex-leader of the 'communist party it Iliescu) should be allowed to stand for electio After 40 years of totalitarian rule, the Romanian people were in no mood to listen to the diemand for calling off the elections and surrender the right to express their opinions for the fin time in their lives! The campaign against liesc also backfired for reasons already referred to. AT FIRST SIGHT, the dismay of the bourgeois at the Front's victory seems hard to understand After all, the NSF's programme also stands for capitalism, albeit with a 'gradual transition. hedged around with conditions to protect the workers, and leaving certain key sectors, such as transport and defence industries, in state hands.
Very soon after the elections, the NSF government appointed a Minister for Privatisatiom one Adrian Severin, who advocates a rapid de valuation and a convertible lei in 18 months the privatisation of small and medium enter prises, and the break-up of big state-owned industries, even at the cost of inflation and unemployment.
But the suspicious attitude of the bourgeoi towards the NSF is not an accident. They under stand that in politics, what is important is no only what is said, but also who says it and fo what purpose. That a section of the NSF leade wants to go back to capitalism is beyond doubt But the NSF, unlike the National Liberals an the National Peasant Party, is forced to lean ot the working class. And the attitude of the Rom anian workers towards privatisation is clear t everyone.
This is what the bourgeois most fear. Thei fears are shared by a section of the NSF leade ship. Iliescu himself has always been very cau ious in his pronouncements on privatisatio stressing the need to proceed slowly to awa social tension.
In all the countries of Eastern Europe, ta move towards capitalism will inevitably voke social convulsions. Nowhere is that i
[page 39]
er than in Romania. Despite the enormous popularity of the Front, workers are by no means uncritical. nor have they given the government a blank cheque.
At the moment, the regime has a certain room for manoeuvre. Its crushing electoral victory gives it a certain stability. The opposition has been reduced to a shambles.
The economy is in a bad way after decades of bureaucratic mismangement and corruption. It is estimated that the Causescu family sent up to eight billion dollars to Swiss banks, while subjecting the population to near starvation. They also spent countless millions on the notorious 'House of the People', Causescu's palace which boasts the second biggest chandelier in Europe with 984 lightbulbs, at a time when each Romanian home was limited to a single 40-watt bulb. This money alone would have been sufficient to modernise key sectors of the economy and ensure a decent living standard for all Romanians.
Instead, the infrastructure has been left to decay. Roads, railways, airports, communications, hospitals, are more reminiscent of a thirdworld country than a European economy. It is calculated that at least two billion dollars a year would be needed to modernise the economy. Ceausescu's mad idea of squeezing the population to pay off all Romania's foreign debts was one of the causes of the regime's downfall. It was crazy. but it did mean that Romania's eleven billion foreign debt was actually paid off, though at the price of inhuman suffering. In fact, some three billion dollars are actually owed to Romania and the country has a certain amount of foreign currency reserves. Part of this was used to buy food in the run-up to the Provided the harvest is a good one, the supply of food should improve in the next few months. Severin's idea is obviously to push through a programme of privatisation while the going is good. But the revolution has aroused people's expectations. In recent months there have been a rash of strikes of dockers, miners, transport and metalworkers, who have won concessions. These are now threatened by the programme of privatisation. The period ahead will clearly be a stormy one.
After the initial euphoria, doubts are beginning to creep into the pages of the bourgeois press about the prospects for privatisation in Eastern Europe in general. In its issue of April 14, The Economist carried an editorial which warned that: "The political risks are formidable. Privatisation will necessarily involve a huge redistribution of wealth. If wrongly handled, it will produce accusations of corruption, resentment against the new owners and suspicions that the nation is being sold off on the cheap to foreigners. All this could give capitalism a bad name just when East Europeans need it most." Ceausescu's 'Palace of the The same issue carries a feature on privatisatpeople.
ion in Eastern Europe which points out that: "Everywhere in Eastern Europe, privatisation will be a leap in the dark, a change so sweeping that some of its social, economic and political side effects are as yet impossible to discern... East Germany is a special case: privatisation there will advance as German unification does. Neither Romania nor Bulgaria has gone far enough in political transformation to begin talking about the ownership of industry. Romania is furthest behind: it has been hard to own a private cow there let alone a private company." Whether Romania is 'behind' or ahead of the rest of Eastern Europe depends on your class point of view. But the fact is that The Economist, which has been beating the drum for privatisation in Eastern Europe, is now having serious misgivings about the likely results. Only East Germany appears to be regarded with much optimism, and is correctly described as a , an exception to the rule. In all the 'special case, others, the authors of this article, and not only they, see trouble ahead.
The first steps in the direction of capitalism in Poland have had catastrophic results. True, the queues have disappeared and the shops are now full of goods. But real wages fell by a third in the first three months of 1990: 60% of the average family budget now goes on food. Prices have rocketed: electricity and fuel have gone up by between 400% and 600%, while wages are held below the rate of inflation. The average month- MIR 39
[page 40]
400 MIR Summer Romania
ly wage is only enough to buy 100-150 loaves of bread. At the same time, the new rich display their new Volvos and Mercedes and eat at restaurants where a dinner costs the equivalent of the monthly wage of several university professors. And on top of everything, there is the threat of mass unemployment and recession by the year's end.
No wonder The Economist grumbles that: "Inevitably, objections will be raised by what one Polish official calls 'the people who carry communism in their hearts.' Those who are accustomed to thinking of state property as theirs already, especially the workers whose privileg es will be curtailed by privatisation, will not like watching it purchased by those who 'don't deserve it'." (The Economist, 14 April 1990)
Thus it turns out that the attitude of the Romanian masses towards capitalism is not such a peculiar thing as Western propaganda would have us to believe. Far from being 'a lesser breed without the law', the Romanian workers have much the same standpoint as their brothers and sisters in the rest of Eastern Europe, or, for that matter, in the rest of the world.
Insofar as there is a difference, it is due to the fact not that the Romanian workers drag behind their counterparts in Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, but precisely because they
went much further. In other countries, the rul-
ing bureaucratic caste made concessions just in
time to head off the movement of the masses. In
Romania, because of the peculiar nature of the
regime, Causescu clung onto power and pro-
voked a revolution. The same possibility was
implicit in the situation in East Germany and
Czechoslovakia, or even Hungary where it was
revealed that sections of the bureaucracy were
contemplating a coup. If they had not moved to
reform from the top (under pressure from Mos-
cow, terrified of the prospect of political rev-
olution in Eastern Europe), the workers would
have moved from below, as in Romania.
There is no question of the capitalist counter-
revolution succeeding in a peaceful 'cold' way
in any of these countries. The struggle between
revolution and counter-revolution may well be
complicated and protracted, because of the
weakness of the subjective factor. But in Po-
land, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the next
period will see titanic upheavals which will
once again put the question of revolution back
on the agenda. When the workers see what cap-
italism means in practise, a violent reaction will
set in: this is precisely what The Economist
means when it warns of the possibly dire con
squences of this leap in the dark.
Indeed, it is not at all certain that countries
like Romania will ever enjoy the dubious priv-
ilege of even a temporary return to capitalism.
While Severin and it seems, Petre Roman, ad-
vocate a rapid move in the direction of capit-
struggle
between
revolution and counter-
revolution
will be
complicated
and protracted -
because of the weakness
of the
bjective
factor.
alism and reject the timid approach, others, probably including Iliescu, are not too sure. There are colossal difficulties in the way. Already Dan Pascariu, the deputy chairman of the Romanian Bank for Foreign Trade warns: "The whole Eastern Europe region is in turmoil and the (foreign) bankers are nervous." (The Independent, 5 June, 1990). His fears were confirmed by Tom Butler, general manager of one of the two foreign banks which actually operate in Romania: "Romania at this stage is not that bankable," was his laconic reply.
Just as in Britain, the big majority of workers who vote Labour have never read the party programme, so in Romania the big majority of workers who voted for Iliescu almost certainly do not know that the Front's programme includes the idea of a market economy. When told that the Front also supports capitalism, most workers respond with total disbelief. After all, that was the programme of Ratiu and Campeanu - how could Iliescu be the same as them?
Any attempt to push through the kind of prog ramme advocated by Severin will provoke exactly the kind of social turmoil Iliescu has been
trying to avoid. After an inital honeymoon period, which could last a few months, there will
be new struggles, strikes and demonstrations -
and this time, not of the students.
The NSF itself is not a homogenous organisar-
ion. Originally formed as an organisation of diss-
ident bureaucrats, it has since proclaimed itself
a political party and in the election campaign
was joined by a large number of workers. Under
pressure from the working class, it is doubtful
whether the NSF leadership will hold together.
Neither capitalism nor Stalinism can guarantee
the future of the workers of Eastern Europe
The present confused and contradictory situat-
ion, the inevitable consquences of decades of
Stalinist misrule, will become clarified to the
degree that the masses learn from experience
the right road to take. In particular, the attempt
to introduce capitalism represents a colossal
blind alley. As The Economist anticipates, it will
inevitably cause a massive recoil in one country
after another.
At present, the ideologues of capitalism are
crowing about the alleged demise of 'socialism
But what we are witnessing, after a long delay.
is the demise, not of socialism, but of Stalinism.
The real ideas of socialism, workers' democracy
and internationalism will be rediscovered by
the workers of Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union, when life itself demonstrates that capit-
alism offers no way out for them. The inevitable
ending of the present long boom in world capit-
alism will, in its turn, prepare new social up-
heavals in Western Europe, Japan and the USA
which will make the revolution in Eastern Eur-
ope look like a tea-party.