[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 14, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               WESTERN ASSISTANCE TO FORMER SOVIET EMPIRE

  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, lately, we have seen, both within and 
outside the Senate, growing attention to the issue of United States 
assistance to the New Independent States and Central/Eastern Europe. 
This Senator, along with many of my colleagues, has expressed concern 
over the direction and scope of this assistance and urged a more 
thoughtful approach in understanding the admittedly complex dynamics of 
the post-Communist transition. Our assistance programs should be 
focusing more on hands-on programs to train managers and public 
officials capable of replacing Communist institutions and attitudes 
with democratically-oriented reforms. This is especially important 
given the still prominent role of ex-Communists in the vast majority of 
the NIS and Central and East European countries.
  A recent article on the subject addresses many of the concerns that 
have been expressed on this important subject. I urge my colleagues to 
read Adrian Karatnycky's ``How the East Was Lost--Western Donors Ignore 
Faith in Favor of Finance'' which appeared in the June 12 Washington 
Post, and ask that it be submitted in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, June 12, 1994]

 How The East Was Lost--Western Donors Ignore Faith in Favor of Finance

                         (By Adrian Karatnycky)

       Today, out of 22 states in central and eastern Europe and 
     the former Soviet Union, there are only five--Albania, 
     Armenia, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia--in which 
     former Communists do not hold power or significantly share in 
     governance. Yet the startling political comeback of ex- and 
     neo-Communists excites little concern in the United States 
     and western Europe. Many of the new ex-Communists are viewed 
     as pragmatic, go-slow reformers committed to playing by the 
     rules of the market and of democracy--a characterization that 
     is more apt in some cases than in others.
       Democratic activists in the region do not share the West's 
     lack of concern. Those in Ukraine, for example, report a 
     palpable shift in the attitudes of the media and among 
     academics since the takeover by Socialists and neo-Communists 
     of the country's newly elected parliament. ``We are beginning 
     to see a hardening of positions among many Communists who 
     were lying low over the last two years,'' observes Ilko 
     Kueheriv, director of the Democratic Initiatives polling 
     center. ``Now they feel much more self-assured; they are on 
     the offensive.''
       And that is legitimate cause for alarm, since there is no 
     denying that many self-styled reformers were cogs in a system 
     which for decades proscribed human rights, suppressed 
     religious liberties and crushed opposition. Even more 
     worrying is the fact that many of the millions who voted for 
     them did so out of a nostalgic hope for a return of social 
     and economic security, even if that meant a return to 
     authoritarian order.
       To be sure, the difficult transition from statist economies 
     to a market system could have been expected to push millions 
     of disgruntled industrial workers and pensioners to the left. 
     What surprises is that they turned to the old ex-Communist 
     left and not to the new social-democratic parties. How did 
     this come about?
       First, the West vastly underestimated the psychological 
     damage inflicted by decades of statism. Communist rule 
     destroys the ideas of voluntarism, self-help and cooperation 
     and with them any sense of authentic community. It is also 
     now clear that the old Communist nomenklatura never really 
     relinquished influence over politics and economics, 
     especially in the former Soviet Union. And in central Europe, 
     where privatization has made remarkable progress, much of the 
     power of the ex-Communists was retained through a tightly 
     controlled process of privatization that, accompanied by 
     rampant corruption, seemed to discredit capitalism and 
     economic reform.
       The West further underestimated the solidarity of ex-
     Communists who had worked in the upper and middle reaches of 
     the Communist Party, women's, youth and trade union 
     organizations. Those potent networks remained intact despite 
     confiscation of much party property.
       Central Europe's economic difficulties were also greatly 
     aggravated by the selfishness of the European Community, 
     which denied Eastern bloc nations what they really wanted: 
     market access. The EC covered its protectionism with bogus 
     explanations: One sick sheep from Poland was cited as 
     justification for prohibitive quotas on all sheep from 
     anywhere. Not surprisingly, Poland and her neighbors 
     responded with duties of their own, hurting the economics of 
     both areas--but plunging central Europe into political 
     turmoil as well.
       Above all, the ex-Communists clawed their way back to power 
     because anticommunists lost their moral voice. Organizations 
     like the National Endowment for Democracy were pushed aside 
     as the big boys from the international financial 
     institutions--the European Bank for Reconstruction and 
     Development, the International Monetary Fund, the World 
     Bank--managed the transition to a convertible currency, and 
     in the process helped make finance ministers the focus of 
     media attention.
       When the genuine leaders of democratic movements steeped in 
     the values of human rights and moral courage were replaced on 
     the airwaves by cold-blooded economic surgeons, the public 
     was encouraged to think about reform exclusively in material 
     terms. Detached, pragmatic Eurocrats and Beltway Bandits 
     recoiled at such unifying forces as nationalism and religious 
     revival, which are central to the fragile rebirth of civil 
     society. Instead, nationalism was equated with xenophobia and 
     ethnic hatred--a dangerous threat to stability which, as the 
     former Yugoslavia shows, is often cynically mobilized by ex-
     Communists.
       Richard Rose, of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, 
     has been tracking public attitudes toward the transition in 
     most post-Soviet bloc countries. He has found that citizens 
     appreciate the improvements in political rights and civil 
     liberties, the fact that they can now worship in the church 
     and vote for the party of their choice, speak their minds 
     freely and choose television shows and newspapers that are 
     more truthful and open. Yet the democratic revolutionaries 
     who led the movement to secure these new rights failed to 
     remind the public of these tangible gains. Had they done so, 
     they might have withstood the populist and materialist 
     onslaught of the ex-Communists and brought more time for the 
     economic transition.
       Can this trend be reversed? Clearly the pendulum will again 
     swing. The ex-Communists who have staged their remarkable 
     comeback are aware that if they return to their old ways they 
     can again be swept out of power. There are economic 
     constraints, as well--among them, the emergence of a true 
     middle class and increased trade links with the industrial 
     democracies.
       Yet the worrying signals from the post-Communist world 
     suggest that Western aid programs should be redirected away 
     from their nearly exclusive focus on market mechanisms and 
     local administration. Aid programs should aim at the 
     strengthening of independent media, democratic education of 
     the young and the dissemination of books and journals that 
     promote respect for political freedoms. Help should also be 
     targeted to independent trade unions that give voice to the 
     interests of ordinary working people and so stern the rise of 
     pro-Communist and pro-fascist sentiments among those who have 
     borne the brunt of the harsh economic transitions.
       Just three years ago, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland met 
     with Sandor Nagy, the leader of what had been Hungary's 
     state-controlled Communist trade union. Nagy told him: 
     ``There are three major currents in Hungary today--the 
     Christian Democrats, the liberals and the Social Democrats.'' 
     Kirkland, who has spent a lifetime fighting totalitarianism, 
     looked him in the eye and asked: ``What happened to all the 
     Communists?'' Nagy, Kirkland recalled, turned a deep red. 
     Now, he and his cronies are back near the levers of power.
       As a lifelong anti-Communist surveying the dismal political 
     landscape of the former Soviet bloc, I am depressed by what I 
     see. But in the post-Cold War world, everyone must make 
     accommodations. And so, I too have abandoned my old faith. 
     Now I am an anti-post-Communist.

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