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PARTISAN REVIEW
While West German parties have gone to great lengths and expense to re–
structure the numerous East German movements and sects along their lines,
no fewer than thirteen groupings are represented in the freely elected par–
liament, and in many cases it is difficult to make sense of them either in terms
of their programs or their electoral support.
One wonders whether,
if
we were in your position and had to build our
party structures in the old democracies from scratch, the same would happen
here. Along with class conflict, the two-party system has crumbled. Every–
where new groups seek a place among the old. Many of these are social
movements, such as the Greens, or one-issue parties, like the Five-Eighths
Party in Luxembourg (which demands that a retirement pension be five–
eighths ofa person's final income). Some
try
to cut across traditional divisions,
such as the Alliance in Britain, now called the Social and Liberal Democrats.
In the United States it has been observed that politics is now conducted by
536 entrepreneurs: 435 representatives, 100 senators, and one president.
(The cynic might add that members of the House have a "turnover" of$l
million per election, members of the Senate $10 million, and the president
$100 million.) You were thus quite right to raise the question of party after
class, and I am not sure that my answer will satisfy you.
In your country, of course, as in others in the post-Communist world,
you still have some way to go in order to join the great Social Democratic
consensus. I suspect that if developments in East Central Europe remain
undisturbed from outside, or from antidemocratic forces within, the pendulum
of normal politics will have to swing once in the liberal and once in the social
direction before you feel that you have made it. The liberal direction means
of course Balcerowicz
if
not Friedman (though I hope not Hayek); it involves
the jump-start of economies whose batteries have been low for a very long
time, with I hope the more fortunate countries of Europe and North America
providing the lead with the necessary energy. The next steps can be taken
in a variety of ways;
perestroika
too has as many variants as there are
countries and organized views within them. They range from monetary
union in Germany to massive privatization in Hungary. All of these steps will
- and should - be taken as a part of the initial momentum of constitutional
change, that is, before there are fully formed political parties. Opposition to
this process is bound to arise, and it
will
be about the social cost of economic
growth. At some point, in four or even eight years' time (how I hope that
you will have this time for reform which must seem endless and threatening
now!) , other groups will take over. They may even be called Social
Democrats.
All the while, however, our own problem will be a lingering reality for
you as well. Here the forces for change are fragmented and often weak. On
the one hand , the place of class has been taken by what some have called
"disparities of realms of life." This means that all of us have certain interests
