The Czech workers had welcomed the CP’s takeover in 1948 with enthusiasm. So confident were the Czech Stalinists that they even armed the workers, although the arms were later collected in. But the experience of Stalinist rule rapidly produced disillusionment. Czechoslovakia was the only country in Eastern Europe with a developed economy at that time. With an educated working class and a powerful industrial base, it achieved better results than the other regimes, and living standards were also higher. But discontent with the bureaucratic regime was enormously exacerbated by the Russian invasion of 1968 which crushed the timid attempt of Alexander Dubček and the liberal wing of the Czech bureaucracy to carry out a limited reform. The brutal conduct of the Russian bureaucracy pushed a whole layer of youth into opposition. The Russian tanks were greeted with slogans such as “Wake up, Lenin, Brezhnev’s gone mad!” The accumulated sense of bitterness and frustration surged to the surface the moment the screws were loosened.
The mass demonstrations in neighbouring East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall gave an enormous impetus to the movement in Czechoslovakia, where it went even further. There was a general strike. Mass demonstrations took place throughout the country. The attempt by the Stalinist government to crush the movement by force backfired. On 24 November, 250,000 demonstrated in Wenceslas Square. Two days later the crowd had swollen to 500,000. This forced Milos Jakes to resign as General Secretary of the CP.
Under pressure from Moscow, the Prague government entered into negotiations with the Civic Forum. On 27 November, a two-hour general strike was supported by millions – the first in Czechoslovakia for 40 years. The Stalinists were forced to capitulate in the face of this tidal wave of opposition and abolished the constitutionally guaranteed ‘leading role’ of the Party even before their East German and Bulgarian counterparts. The Czech CP leaders, who had been ‘elected’ by Russian tanks in 1968, were forced to condemn in retrospect the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. They attempted to hold on through a new government with a majority of non-Communists. It was a humiliating retreat in an attempt to save their skins. In December, President Husák resigned, and the pro-bourgeois former dissident Václav Havel was elected in his place. As in East Germany, a political revolution was implicit in the situation, but was derailed by the lack of the subjective factor.
The pro-bourgeois Civic Forum government announced it was introducing phase one of the market economy on 1 January 1991, including a 390 per cent energy price rise. The finance minister and Thatcherite, Václav Klaus, planned the sell-off of over 100,000 state owned stores and shops within the next two or three years. The auction of 80,000 smaller state properties took place, and was to be followed by the privatisation of larger companies. But according to the Financial Times (12/11/90), the “large-scale privatisation under the Transformation Law will be a good deal more complicated”. To create this ‘people’s capitalism’, citizens were issued with vouchers! Triska, the minister responsible for privatisation, admitted, however, that he did not expect a rush to buy companies. For one thing, a substantial number were not expected to survive!
In Czechoslovakia, the fear of mass upheaval against the new year austerity measures panicked the government. Klaus warned: “I am really afraid that Czechoslovakia will not overcome the transition period from the 1st January… In Czechoslovakia, we are still living on a razor’s edge.” Growing economic chaos had given rise to widespread anxiety and had resulted in the Stalinist’s strong showing in November’s local elections. The fate of the Czech Republic is closely connected to its link with Germany. German imperialism was responsible for the criminal splitting of Czechoslovakia – which was against the interests of both Czechs and Slovaks, and would have been defeated if it had gone to a referendum. But Klaus, the agent of German imperialism in Prague, made sure that the people were not consulted.
In Romania, the movement went much further with the violent overthrow of the Ceaușescu regime. The regime was smashed by the classical movement of the working class on the lines of Hungary 1956. Between the 21st and 25 December 1989, the attempt by Ceaușescu to placate the masses by promises of wage increases was met with derision. The mass rally he addressed broke up and led to anti-government protests, leading to fierce clashes with the Securitate (Ceaușescu’s secret police). Clashes took place throughout the country. The whole system was on the verge of revolution. The state of emergency simply exacerbated the situation. The masses stormed the TV and radio stations, and Ceaușescu and his wife were forced to flee.
The army came over to the workers and assisted the defeat of the Securitate. Ten thousand were killed in the uprising. The opposition formed the National Salvation Front (NSF). The Ceaușescus were captured and executed. Power was in the hands of the workers, and through them the NSF, led by Ion Illiescu. It was similar to the February 1917 Revolution in Russia. The NSF formed a new government and issued a number of decrees in late December, with free elections promised in April, which were won decisively, to the horror of the Western bourgeois, by the NSF. They won 66 per cent of the vote and two-thirds of the seats. Illiescu won the presidency with 86 per cent of the vote. The openly pro-bourgeois parties were thrashed. The reason for this is that the Romanian workers made a revolution and their consciousness was determined by this fact.
It is true that, while all the parties (the NSF included) accepted the idea of a market economy, the opposition leaders Ratiu and Câmpeanu 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 Câmpeanu was a vote against capitalism. The former Stalinists of the National Salvation Front won a sweeping victory. This undoubtedly reflected a mass mood against capitalism among the workers and peasants. What they wanted was socialism, but not totalitarianism. The elements of workers’ control existed in the factories, many of which were run by workers’ committees. The old managers were purged, and replaced by new elected managers who enjoyed the confidence of the workers. In many factories, the workers were armed and turned up to factory meetings with rifles slung over their shoulders. Members of the Securitate and other collaborators of the Ceaușescu regime were hunted down and arrested or killed. All the elements of a political revolution were present, but once again the subjective factor was missing. There was no revolutionary party to provide a conscious organised expression to the workers’ movement.
Under these conditions the ex-Stalinists of the NSF were able to step into the vacuum and derail the movement. The workers had overthrown the old regime but were unable to reap the fruits. While demagogically standing for ‘socialism’ the NSF leaders in practice wanted to move towards capitalism, but at a slower pace than the openly bourgeois opposition. In the words of the then prime minister, Petre Roman:
Not so long ago our opposition told us that we would never reform the Romanian economy, that the government wanted to talk about reform, but would never change the old system… you know the arguments… we are all still really communists. Well, who can say that now, when we are taking concrete steps to introduce the market economy? (Quoted in Galloway and Wylie, Downfall – The Ceaucescus and the Romanian Revolution, p. 284.)
In Hungary, the split in the bureaucracy resulted in the reformist wing opening up discussions with the opposition, fearing a serious challenge in the elections due in March 1990. The Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (HSWP) leadership agreed to an electoral system based upon free elections and the legality of opposition parties. As in East Germany, it was a belated attempt to introduce reforms from above to prevent revolution from below. They also opened the door towards capitalist restoration by passing a new law on associations which, according to the Financial Times (5/10/89), “creates a framework for a Western-style capital market and revives types of companies not seen since before the communist takeover”. Ownership of private joint-stock companies with up to 500 employees was legalised. The Budapest stock exchange had been reactivated in July 1988, 40 years after it was suspended following nationalisation. This began the process of privatisation of state assets, and by August over 600 joint ventures between Hungarian and foreign capital had been established. Gorbachev sanctioned these moves in his meeting with HSWP secretary Karoly Grosz.
In response to the establishment of the so-called independent trade unions, the official unions, SZOT, decided to suspend its statutes and reorganise itself into a federation of sovereign trade unions. In October 1989, the old HSWP changed its name to the Hungarian Socialist Party (HSP) in order to reform its image and entered into a dialogue with the opposition on constitutional reform. It was a victory for the pro-capitalist wing of Imre Pozsgay, which wanted a Social-Democratic party, greater privatisation and a mixed economy. In November, after a complete purge, the HSP applied to join the Second International. The remnants formed a few Stalinist groups.
A new constitution was introduced to allow opposition parties to operate freely. The electoral system was changed, effectively banning parties operating in the workplace, and the Workers’ Guard was dissolved. As a consequence, financial aid was promised from the EU and the USA. Following the general election, József Antall of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, became prime minister. Privatisation was to be the top priority of the new bourgeois government. Antall took measures to speed up the privatisation of industry, starting with 30 large entities as well as some 40,000 small service concerns. They had also come to an agreement with the IMF to curb the budget deficit and promote the market economy.
The switch to a market economy was “proceeding rapidly in the shops”, reported The Independent (28/11/90). “Hungarians already pay near-Western prices for food and other essentials, salaries are frozen by the government at Eastern European levels and a maze of regulations prevents Western businessmen from investing in Hungary.” Tolnay, president of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce, boasted that Hungary had gone further than any other Eastern European country towards capitalism! Antall was to describe 1991 as “the year of the trial” for Hungary.
However, the turmoil of the transition period opened up a crisis and splits within the government. Huge arguments raged over economic policy. As in the rest of Eastern Europe, experience of the market soon provoked a reaction on the part of the Hungarian masses. As early as 1990, The Independent on Sunday was complaining:
The optimism that followed the collapse of communism last year was replaced by a sober awareness of the headaches attendant on building stable democracies and market economies.