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I)ART ISAN REVIEW
There is a mo re ambiti o us purpose behind his analysis o f social-politi–
cal change and its prospects in Hungary. H ankiss also w ants to arrive at a
mo re differenti ated understanding o f the idea o f freedo lll. H e o ffers an in–
teresting and unusual tally of the types o f freedoms, di stinguishing among
fourteen different kinds. He po ints o ut :
.. th ere was o ne type o f freedo lll in Easte fll Euro pe Ill o re di ffi cult to
acquire in th e W est
. th e frcedo lll o f li vin g o utside th e system in
w hi ch th ey li ved ; the freedo lll of no t id entifyin g th enlse lves w ith the
system ; th e freedom of lookin g at it . . . fro
III
th e o utside. T his non–
in vo lvem ent, thi s iro n ic d istan ce, th i, in vo luntary detac hedn ess, may
have bee n painful and dangero us. b u t it W3S a rare and lIl va lu3blc hu–
man pri vil ege.
One may be tempted to ca ll thi s type of freed om ":di enati o n ."
While the goal o f H anki ss W:lS - amo ng o th e rs -
to
present a more
realisti c pi cture o f the powe r o f the Comlllunist elite in Hungary, in con–
trast to earlier vi sio ns of its omnipo ten ce, thi s has no t led him to an em–
brace o f th e no ti o n o f mo ral o r stru ctural equi va len ce between East and
W est (i.e. , we have o ur clites, they have their elites, bo th arc amoral, both
cling to pow e r, neither is as po werful as th ey wo uld like to be , and so
o n). He docs no t fo rge t th at the sys tems in Easte rn Eu ro pe had their own
pec uli ar ideo logica l underpinning,: th ey w e re no t simpl y a version of al–
ready indu striali zed soc ieties bein g moderni zed o r o f contemporary au–
thoritarian systems. He traces th e f.li1ure of these systems to their ideologi–
ca l roots, w hi ch included th e desire " to replace th e anarchy o f the market
with the rati o nal o rder o f pl anning." Mo re gener:l ll y:
Nin etee nth and earl y twe nti eth ce ntury soc ialist progralllllles and ide–
o logies in ge neral, and Marxislll-Leninisill in parti cular, w:lIlted
to
re–
plac e bo urgeois rati o nality (or irrati o nality) wi th "3 superi o r type of
rati o nality." Th ey we re convin ced th 3t th ey had a sc ientifi c knowl–
edge o f th e laws of hi sto ry and th at they were 3blc to build up 311 el1-
tirel y rati o nal soc iety . . th ey land ed in a " unf:tth o Illablc mo rass" of
irrati o nality. H yperrati o nality turn ed into " lunati c irrati o nalislll. "
Eve n fo r a life lo ng o bse rver o f E:ls te rn Euro pean and Soviet
Communi sm , th e re arc haza rds in w ritin g abo ut th at part o f the world,
given the un se ttled state o f th ese co untri es and th e ir po liti ca l systems.
While
East Europeall A lreYllatil'cs
is a first-rate guide to the histo ri cal back–
ground and stages o f change in Hungary (and to a lesser extent Eastern
Europe as a who le), no book written abo ut this regio n can count on re-
