50
PARTISAN REVIEW
at the end of the Hapsburg monarchy, had been more industrialized than
all other parts of that empire, including the territory of the (subsequent)
Austrian republic. Intellectual life in Budapest and Warsaw had flour–
ished between the two wars, and Slovenia, within the newly created
Yugoslavia, had specialized in manufacturing modern, first-rate products.
The repositioning of these countries after 1989 must have been
depressing for their citizens. When ranked in the United Nations Devel–
opment Index, by 1995-during the shock of the changes in the
"reform states"-Slovenia was ranked number 37, after Israel and
Cyprus at 22 and 23, South Korea at 30, and Costa Rica at 34. The
Czech republic was ranked at 39, the Slovak republic at 42, Hungary at
47, and Poland at
)2.
In
that same vicinity were Trinidad and Tobago at
40, Bahrain at 43, Panama at 45, Mexico at 49, and Grenada at 5
I.
Nearby Austria was in nineteenth place.
The distance between the Eastern and Western economic blocs had
become
ever
larger, in spite of dozens of reform programs. Liberaliza–
tions of details could not
overcome
the demands for power by the com–
munist party. There had been no market forces counterweighing the
tight, centralized steering of investments or control of prices-on the
contrary, the most powerful managers and regional politicians domi–
nated these countries. Politically induced full employment of the popu–
lation had made for inefficient enterprises. Artificially maintained low
costs of food products, energy, and rents, which existed despite short–
ages, repeatedly led managers as well as consumers to make irrational
decisions. One bought whatever was available-from soap to industrial
products. Projected plans often ended up in the wastepaper basket, and
the "second economy" of peasants, mini-merchants, and bunglers took
on increasing importance.
The Soviet Union, in addition, had been put under pressure by Rea–
gan's rearmament policies. Poland and Hungary were already at the
brink of financial collapse: they had foreign debts and were able to
make interest payments only with great difficulty. New credit was
unavailable. And in each country the rulers' perceived legitimacy was
minimal. Intellectual dissent, despite administrative and secret service
chicanery, had increased.
In
the center of this crumbling empire,
Gorbachev
tried to keep the
communists in power-with the help of liberalizing measures. One such
attempt was tolerating discussions between the Polish party and Soli–
darnosc. But no one expected, there or elsewhere, that, as Timothy Gar–
ton Ash noted, "the powerless would so quickly become the powerful."
Not only local intellectuals like Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik, bur
