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sion, the new nations erroneously reasoned, "Europe will arm us. They
will like us; they will help us."
People who were accustomed to getting everything from above still
hope that Yeltsin will solve th eir problems, "because he is better than
Gorbachev was." W estern public opinion has been so simple-minded that
the media di scussed whether Yeltsin or Gorbachev was now the stronger
- these are episodi c and inessential questio ns. In the meantime, the struc–
ture and life of these nations has remain ed the same, with very few au–
tonomous initiatives in soc iety, and with even stronge r dependence on
the state. The state switched from a Communi st vocabulary to a nation–
alist vocabulary, because that is easy; you don't have to learn too much.
All th e former Communi sts w ho were the top sta te and Party bu–
reaucrats in the less developed countri es tri ed to switch to the nationalist
vocabulary, and they are now stron gly aga inst their own former federa–
tions; the Soviet Uni on, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia. Maybe they will
all
fall apart. Because these federations somehow were linked to the idea of
a Communist centralism, their people can no t forget their bad memories,
their ambiti o ns for independence. If they fall apart, the dismantling
process will go furth er.
I am absolutely sure that those small er nati o nal entities also will de–
fin e themselves as political communiti es and as nati o ns with aspirations to
territorial state hood . So the question is whether there is any force inside
or o utside the individual territories strong eno ugh to create a transna–
tional au tho rity. At the moment, I don 't
see
any signs of that. There is a
pervasive state of idea-lessness, a lack of thinking, in all the political
communiti es. Perhaps there will
be
a miracle. At th e moment, I am less
sca red for the Cen tral European belt. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hun–
gary will have a stro nger type of integrati o n because they may be ac–
cepted by the European Community. I don't kn ow what will happen in
the former Soviet Union. The Ameri ca ns an d eve n the Ge rmans hope
that maybe J apan can do something for Russia , and th e J apanese, of
course, say that they hope the same of the Ameri cans and the Germans.
W e see that hi story has not yet ended.
Susan Sontag:
Before we go on, I'd like to put an iss ue on the table
for discussion after we hea r our speakers. George Konrad has just de–
sc ribed th e co nditi o ns of th e inevitab ility of the rep lacement of
Communist ideology by nation alist ideology. I find hi s argument alto–
gether convincing. But isn't it also true that here in th e United States
and in the other so- call ed developed nations, natio nalism is becomi ng an
anachronistic concept, however much o ur populations are susceptible to
these anci ent sentiments? The most important reason for this is economic.
The principal instruments of capitalist produ ctio n have become transna-
