Toward a European Nation?: Political Trends in Europe - East and West, Center and Periphery: Political Trends in Europe - East and West, Center and Periphery by Max Haller

Author:Max Haller [Haller, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Public Affairs & Administration, General
ISBN: 9781563243844
Google: 4jy5DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 3861016
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1994-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Actors of Transformation: The Winners and the Losers

An answer to the question of who the protagonists of historical events were in European socialist countries now seems almost commonplace. Despite great differences in the pace and scope of changes in individual countries, a general answer applies to them all. The main catalysts, if not the direct protagonists of the major transformation, were intellectuals. With their activities, they created free space in which broad masses of people could also participate in political events of immense importance.

A closer look at this answer reveals that its wide acceptance among social scientists is due at least in part to the vagueness of the concept of “intellectuals.” Even if intellectuals are defined as individuals who are engaged in the creation, elaboration, and dissemination of theoretical knowledge, ideas, and symbols (Geiger 1949, p. 12), they comprise a broad social category that is internally differentiated in many respects. It would be empirically untenable to argue that the whole stratum of intellectuals was opposing the socialist regime; both loyal supporters and opponents of the old regime were recruited from this stratum. That is why the question of which groups of intellectuals dared to voice their dissent cannot be avoided. A solid analytical basis for this answer was already given in the 1970s by two Hungarian social scientists writing under the pseudonym M. Rakovski (1988). They argued that in this stratum in socialist countries was a small group of intellectuals who tried and, despite the strict control of political authorities over intellectual activities, to a large extent managed to create and reproduce their own ideology and culture. Though they possessed no power that might amplify their dissenting voices, this group of intellectuals was closely watched and sanctioned by political authorities. That is why the authors called the members of this group “marginalized nonconformist intellectuals” (Rakovski 1988, p. 77).

Though a relatively small group, these nonconformist intellectuals had a few common denominators. They were engaged in a variety of intellectual activities, the majority of them related to the different spheres of cultural creativity, such as art, science, and journalism. Because of their internal differentiation, they could not be defined in structural terms, but mostly by their “mentality”; that is, to this grouping of marginalized nonconformist intellectuals belonged those individuals who “made their position very clear in word and deed, rejecting the policy of the party establishment” (Šiklova 1990, p. 349).

Of course, these intellectuals’ political nonconformism was not established by the mere rejection of “the policy of the party establishment,” but also by the negative sanctioning of this rejection by the party establishment. Negative sanctioning was a sign that political nonconformism was perceived by socialist regimes as a serious threat to their stability. Nevertheless, political nonconformism was treated differently in different socialist societies. These differences became particularly obvious when the socialist regimes had become increasingly unable to fulfill the expectations of the masses, during the time of their decreasing legitimacy. On the one hand were the regimes such as those in Bulgaria, Rumania, and Albania that stepped up the repression of political nonconformism to nip it in the bud.

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