578
PAUL NEUBURG
they'll look up at me as if to say, 'What's the matter with him, he was
all right a minute ago.' "
It must be said that while the effect of the Party's propaganda on
the young has been declining, the Party too has learned to give up
some of its romantic illusions about its identity with the young. In the
old days, Party spokesmen used to state categorically on the one hand
that under socialism, which resolved all contradictions in society, there
could be no such thing as a conflict of genera tions, and on the other
that in the conflict of generations the Party and the young together
formed the vanguard of the future against the rest. These ca tegoric
statements not only made nonsense of each other, but also complete:y
failed to make a dent on reality. As truths began to be admitted, the
Party began acknowledging that it was puzzled by the young. In fact,
when sociology first became respectable in East European countries,
youth was made its prime target of research. During the late fifties,
surveys of the a ttitudes of the young crowded each other in the general
and specialized media in Poland, and the first opinion poll published as
part of the new wave in Romania, in early 1965, was about youth.
The results of a number of detailed surveys of the young have
been found so depressing by the Party that it has never allowed them
to become known except to trusted personnel. But it has certa inly
acknowledge the existence of a "youth problem" throughout Eastern Eu–
rope, and has a lso established ministries or committees with ministry
rank to deal with it. How realistically these bodies cope with the prob–
lems facing them always depends on how pragmatic the faction is that
rules the Party, and what kind of men it appoints to run the youth
scene. But at least they can have access to proper information. In
every East European country research centers and institutes haye been
set up to specialize in the sociology of youth; the institute attached to
the Polish Central Committee was in fact charged in July 1970 with
the task of producing an annua l report "on the situation among young
people." I myself am very much indebted to East European sociologists
who have done research in this field and ha\"e been most generous both
in letting me see their results and in discussing with me their personal
experiences and current ideas on the subject.
For both the Party and my own study, one fact emerging from all
the research and inteviewing done by others as \,"ell as myself among
the youth of Eastern Europe is of cardinal illlportance. This is the fall
that while Party propaganda in the last t\\"enty-fi\"e years has been
able to score some successes of its o\\"n, its real influence has depended
a ll a long on whether it coincided with, or tried in Y;lin to hide or op–
pose, the much more powerful effec t of actua l social and political de–
velopments.
Paul Neuburg
