MARCIN KROL
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started to change internally some years ago, each is now at a quite different
stage of political development. In Poland, Solidarity created a feeling of na–
tional unity against the communists and then helped to create a government
that is dominated by those from the former opposition. People with differing
ideological backgrounds, varying viewpoints on the economy, welfare, and
foreign relations have been temporarily united by the notion of the rule of
law, by the need to overcome the economic crisis and the necessity of
strengthening the Polish state. Soon, and I think the sooner the better, their
differences are going to become a political issue. For now, their alliance at the
early stages of democracy is inevitable; it may also prove salutary in the
future. Perhaps Poles will learn to work together for the interest of the state,
in
spite of the obvious and natural political differences among them.
At this point, I feel that perhaps the Polish approach may be better
than Hungary's, but I also fear the possible stabilization of the transitional al–
liances
in
Poland. The opposition in Hungary created numerous political par–
ties and groupings before the parliamentary elections and before taking over
the government. In the face of the political struggles now going on in Hun–
gary, it is unclear what kind of coalition will be ruling the country a few
weeks from now. The political dispute is strangely bitter, since it is being
conducted
in
an institutional void. There is no "front ofnational anticommunist
unity"; this has advantages, among them hindering the development of an
anticommunist collectivism. We don't know which ofthese two ways toward
democracy will be the better, quicker, and safer one. Yet examining
particularities is surely more valuable to our understanding than are over–
general speculations about the outburst offreedom in Eastern Europe.
To those who have not dismissed the future of democratic and liberal
societies and who therefore do not accept Fukuyama's idea that history is
finished, the problems that we Eastern Europeans have to face also may be
of some practical value. It is not often that one can see history in the making,
that one can, for instance, observe in detail what happens to a very strong
Catholic Church during the dawn of democracy. As everyone knows, the
Church in Poland has been politically beneficial as well as influential. Its status
has created in its leadership understandable feelings of complacency. The
majority of young people, who stand for liberal ideas, still attend Sunday
Mass. We even have political parties that call themselves Christian-liberal,
although from a logical and intellectual point of view such an animal has no
right to exist. The Pope himself has pronounced himself to be against the so–
cialist economy, yet he is also against a capitalist one. Polish society nearly
unanimously supports a radically free market economy. The conflict between
the liberal tradition and the Catholic tradition, not yet fully realized in Poland,
constitutes, in my opinion, the main source of the spiritual tension that exists
there.
There are at least three possible outcomes of this conflict of ideas and
