VlADIMIR TISMANFANU
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Party (a political group similar to the Czechoslovak Civic Forum), gave
the following analysis of the situation in his country as well as an idea of
the path to be pursued: ". . . we had a revolution driving out the dic–
tator but failing to destroy communism. The old structures were restored
with new names. Sometimes, even the same people can be met there.. . .
Where East European societies consider themselves to be traveling the
road of reform, they should know they are chasing an illusion. For
communism is not reformable - it can only be destroyed. And until the
last germ of communism has been removed, our societies will have no
peace and no chance to establish democracy."
According to Stelian Tanese, another influential Romanian civic
activist and editor of the weekly
Acum (Now),
the basic contradiction in
post-Ceausescu Romania consists of the conflict between the embryonic
civil society (most of which is represented by extraparliamentary opposi–
tion) and the state that has inherited the totalitarian structures. With re–
gard to the Bulgarians, their opposition managed to organize and over–
come internecine strife. However, according to civic activist and political
philosopher Dimitrina Petrova: "The hope for real political pluralism is
rooted in an awareness of fluidity: the whole process has just begun. Op–
posing interest groups are not yet clearly defined, insofar as the relations
of property are not yet constituted and the specific form of market
awaiting us in the future is not yet fixed. At the moment we live in an
open situation, not in a system of any kind; we experience the responsi–
bility of trying to understand it, while participating in the creation of
the political stereotypes of tomorrow."
At this moment, intellectuals from all the postcommunist countries
are engaged in a soul-searching investigation of long-concealed social and
historical realities. As it is known, in spite of their international rhetoric,
communists have always encouraged the nationalists' autarky.
It
is
therefore vitally important for civic activists and critical intellectuals in all
the former communist states to embark on an open and uninhibited
dialogue. Because if it is true that Serbia or Romania lag behind the
Czech and Slovak republics in terms of pluralist development (or, some
may argue, if Slovakia lags behind Bohemia, and Serbia behind Slovenia),
it is nevertheless obvious that all these societies have experienced similar
torments provoked by similar causes. They were all victimized in the
name of a pseudo-universalistic teleology according to which a classless
utopia could and should be constructed, regardless of the people's will.
They are all now faced with the enormous challenge of creating the legal
framework that would grant the procedural expression of the most
important underpinning of democracy: popular sovereignty. To quote an
illuminating statement made by Agnes Heller, who took issue with Tim–
othy Garton Ash's frequently quoted argument that nothing new {no
