People Are Still Too Happy in Post-Communist Countries to Protest

Old spectre in the new conditions Why is the social movement so weak in the central eastern europe?

Stanislav Holubec

Introduction

On Sunday 19th of March 2006 the world rememberd three years of the beginning of the war against Iraq. At this day on 256 places in the world the demonstration against this war were held. Most of them were held in the United states and western Europe. In this day were in eastern Europe only four demonstrations against the Iraq-war – in Prague, Budapest, Warsaw and Ljublanja. However, in fact were the demonstrations in Prague two. Besause of experiences from the last years, when the communist symbols on the banners of many demonstrants scared the public, the non-communist part of antiwar acctivists decided to organize this year its own demonstration. Both of them nevertheless should end in front of the US-embassy in prague. The first (noncommunist) demonstration, organized by czech antiwar inciative (groups like International peace movement, Socialist solidarity (trockist), Humanist movement), was attended by 60 People and in the evening news as it was announced only 40 People come. The second – communist demonstration, organized by the Communist league of youth and Revo (other czech trockist organization) and small groupp of left christians was visited by 90 People, including the vice chairman of czech communist party and menber of the parliment Vaclav Exner. In the evening news, ti was announced that only 20 people come. The biggest attention in the media raised the third demonstration helded on this day in Prague: The demonstration against the Belorussian President Lukasenko on Vaclavske namesti (Mustek). Around 60 People come to this event, one of the speakers was a former disident and todays defender of human rights1 and member of the parliment Svatopluk Karasek. Around 60 people shown up to this demonstration, and in mass media was announced, the number 80 – 60. At the same day, in France demonstrated 1,5 milion of People agains the proposed liberalization of the working law. In Marseille, which has the similair size as Prague demonstrated 100 000 people. Other thousands come on the streets of many western- european cities. Compared to the western europe the eastern european squares are empty. The bigesst demonstration in the Czech republic against the war after 1989 was at the time of the war against Serbia in 1999, where more than 500 People come. In the day of the begining of iraq campaign (19th of March 2003) come to the demonstration in Prague 300 people, including around 70 Irak people living in Prague. Since this time the demonstrations did not reached more than 200 People. The higher attendance have the action held annualy, to communist labour day in Prague come evry year around 5 000 people, the Social democratic Labour day is attendend by 100 thousands2.

1 Particularly in the Countries which are opposing the US-foreigner policy. 2 Around some ammount of people come to communist manifestation in Kuneticka hora each begining of september and around one thousand show up to the celebration of the communist newspaper Halo 1 As well the emipircal researches are showing less will to participate in the different social activities in the post-communist countries. Looking in the empirical data, we are considering the folowing variables: 1. Belonging to voluntary organisations and activities - Third world development or human rights, 2. membership in labor unions, 3. will to sign the petition, 4. will to join the boycott, 5. will to attend the lawfull demonstration. 6. will to join unofficial strike, 7. will to occupy buildings or factories. To avoid the comon argument againts this type of survey stresing the lie-score (the people in some countries with very pro-active culture say that they are active but in fact are not), we added the last variable 8. voter turnout (1999 - 2002). In all of these variables was the eastern europe shows the lower results than the western europe. In the synthetical index are all eastern and central european countries are behind the western european countries in the preparation for the social activity.

Activity of the people

120 y t i mean status of activity v i t c

l Will to sign the petition a i c o s

People who join in boycott e

h 80 t

o Will to attend lawfull demonstration d

e l Will to join unofficial strike p 60 o e p Will to occupy buildings or factories e h t

o 40 Voter turnout (1999 - 2002) e g a t

n Membership in labor unions e c

r 20 e

P Belonging to voluntary organisations and activities - Third world development or human rights . n a y k a a a n 0 i a y i a p d i i i a s a a y e r i a i r i i i n l i e A m a k e n u t n r c n n a n r v t a n a a r r t u d i a t S a a a a e t n i

o a r g l a a s e I m t v a l o v m g u h a g U n o b l B l u m r r r n s l o L o h e w c l u l e P u o t e e t A F E A C i e B S S S B a H B R L G D z e r C G

In my article I am trying to explain, why are the social movements (e.g. against the war, against the neoliberal globalization, or for the social forum) so weak in central –eastern Europe. At the beginning of my research, I asked 130 Social activists and social scientists, the same questino. 17% of 130 answerd my question. In the following text I will try to test the validity of their claimings with the results of the public oppinion pools and some demografic data.

Arguments 1.The most common argument aimed to the past. It is pointed out at the existence of the state-socialist regimes in eastern europe, which made people very ucactiv. Offten mentioned were the lacking experiences of the acting in the civil society. This argument has definitelly some thuth. There are however two important counter arguments: 1. the communist regimes were overthrown in many case by the activity of

Noviny each year in September in Prague. 2 the citizens (e.g. Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, Romania), if the regimes would create passive “homo sovieticus”, where the millions of the people on the squares of eastern European cities in the fall 1989 come from? 2. It is already 16 years after the downfall of the soviet Union, and the shadow of the communism can not be so long. It is the popular right wing cliché to explain all the problems in post-communist land, that the citizens are still influenced by the communism, what prohibites to build the functioning capitalism, civil society etc. As Czech philosoph Vaclav Belohradsky said, this idea come from kind of the neo-rousseauen imagination of the bon-savage, nice man of the past, who was perverted by the devil-communism.

2. Mass media are more manipulative in eastern europe, because the media elites (journalist) are more right wing here than in the western europe. This argument is very dificult to falsificate. However we have the sociological data shoving that the czech journalist are one of the most right wing oriented group (Holubec 2005). To the same conclusion come the british and czech journalist Jan Culik editing the czech internet newspaper Britské listy. In his numerous articles he compares the level of the czech and british mass-media and characterizes czech media as less proffesional, more boulevard and right-wing than the britis media. A. J. Liehm complain about the lacking intelectual leftist magazines and tranlating the critical western literature (one condition for the creation of the social movement)3. On the other hand, not only eastern european but also western european mass-media are not generaly friendly to the left-wing social movements and it activists offten complain about the hostility of the mass-media. The right wing political orientation of the czech mass-media may be caused by the different factors 1. The journalists experienced the rise of their prestige after 1989. The mass-media play today bigger role than the used to. 2. many of the journalists from were acctive also before 1989 and they want with their ostentative right-wing slogans show their loyality. 3. In mass media found their jobs many young people and it is well known their prevailingly right-wing orientation. 4. there is no legislature and climate supporting less manipulative journalistic. 5. the czech republic is too small market for the serious and more objective media. The variant of this argument points at the comercialization and mass-culture spread by the media, which manipulated particularly the young generation toward the consumerism, hedonism and ignoring the problems of the society. The poular pro- wetern culture even attacks everrything social and left as conected with the past and everything modern, cool and pro-western conected with liberalism and capitalism. Well known example is the role of MTV by the overthroving Milosevic´s regime (Barber, 1995: 165).

3 Right-wing think-tanks were wery active in central-eastern Europe in 1990s and most of conservative western literature (Hayek, Friedman, Nozick, Huntington, Nowak etc.) was translated into eastern- european languages. The leftist literature however occurred rather rarely. Sometimes were some leftist titles cut even from the editions. E.g. in the volumes about the comic- introductions to the social sciences produced by the american Rnadom House translated into czech language are missing the volumes about Marx and Lenin. In the recent edition of the Stefan Zweig´s Book Decisive Moments in History: Twelve Historical Miniatures was cut the captet about Lenin. 3 The historical experience with the mass-media is too short, that it prohibits to create the control mechanisms and scepticims at least in those parts of the young generation, which would carry the future social movement.

3. The people hade in the begining of nineties very high expectations and the results did not correspondent with them, therefore are the peopel becoming disappointed and appathetical. The declinig voter turnout in the last 15 years at the election in the czech republic gives the best proof about the growing apathy among the czech people. The turnout in the Czech republic dropped in the last 15 years from 96 to 58%. There are many reasons for this tendency. One answer might be, that the growing social and economical problems are taking the people from the problems of the society as a whole. Second argument is that the people realized, that the formal democracy is not the way, they cann have the influence on the way, the society is run. The big role played the scandals connected weith the politics, which led to its delegitimation in the eyes of the most people (The job - politician has a same prestige as the road cleaner today). Some right wing publicists newertheless are even saying, that the lower turnout and the declining activity are the sign, that the people are content with the politics.

The question remains, why the pople do not react with the higher public activity, if they are disappointed.

4. People in post-communist countries are still too content to protest. On the contrary, the postcommunist cdountries shows up in the international value survey as one of the unhappiuest countries in the world. The unhappiest countries were in the year 1995 the folowing countries: Molodova, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The countries of central-eastern Europe did better but not compared to the most developed countries: The happiest of them was the east Germany, the Czech republic and Poland, foloving by Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. In the index of happiness in former Soviet 4 union was around 35, in central europe between 65 and 75 (Inglehardt, 1995). In advanced counttries were the walues between 85 – 95. In most of third world countries including India and China (Africa was not incomporated) was the happiness level also betweenn 70 and 80 points). In the last walue survey (wave 1999 – 2002) we come to the some results: The procentage of the people who considers themselvs as “very happy” is betwen 3 and 15%, in vestern Europe is the number between 18 and 44%. Ronald Ingelhardt comes to the conclusion: With the exception of post communist countries, we can say, the more developed country, the happier people measured in the world-scale. Even if we argue, that the people in the west are only saing that they are happy but in fact they are not (the keep smiling culture), wich is not yet spread in post-soviet countries and the different meaning and conotations of the world “happiness” in the diferent cultures, we can conclude, that it is not the higher level of the happiness what makes the central-europe different from the west. Indeed this argument makes again a link between the unhappiness and social activity. As already Max Weber concluded not the absolute crisis is what the people motivates to protest, but the dicrepancy between their formal and real status. The unhapiness itself can make the people even more appthetic.

5. People are not angry enough with the political system in eastern europe because they experienced rtahter the improvements of their standarts in the last 15 years. Of course the first 8 – 15 years after 1989 were for all the post-soviet countries characterized by the economic downffall and the complex crisis in the society. However some social groups improve their standarts and it was not only case of the enterpreneurs (around 60% of the Czech citizens evaluated the current regime better than the regime before 1989 in 2002). Also eastern european inteligentsia athought its material condition are not optimal, experienced the rising of its formal status. In the case of the czech republic there are other vasriables causing, that the social conflict is not yet very strong – the inequality is still one of the lowest in the world, the economy is rising continually since 1999, unemploynment and criminality have a slightly falling tendency. Compared to the western Europe according to the czech sociologist Jan Keller, at least won the people in eastern-europe in the last 15 years the freedom to thavel and the to have a free-speech. On the other hand, the similair improvements of the people in western Europe in the last 15 years virtually do not exist.

6. People in eastern europe are not protesting because many of them are thankfull to the USA and the West and the protesting against them is labeld as „communist“.

The popularity of the USA has dropped in the last years in the Czech republic from 70 to 45% of population. The People in eastern Europe were not less against the war in Irag than west-europeans (Galup, 2003). However, the eastern mentality could be influenced by the consciousness, taht everything what is coming from the more developed countries is considerd to be good, and everything what is comming from the

5 poorer countries is shady. The following graph is showing us the popularity of different countries and their GDP. As we cann see the lover the GDP, the less popular the country. We cann expect, that the public oppinion would be more tolerant to the politics of the countries, which are allready popullar and will be more critical towards the politics of already unpopular countries.

The economical and political position of the small eastern european countries in the todays world may create the popular consciousness thaty the eastern european cannot change the world anyway, we should identify with the most developed countries instead of criticising them. This is what the world-system perspective calls this the semi- pheripherical mentality. The eastern europen countries in the worlds hierarchy remain us to the middle class in the society and its mentality. Its fears of decline, its conformity, its need to identify with the upper class and its animosity to the lower class.

7. People in eastern europe have enough of their own problems, so they cannot pay the attention what is going on in the world. And they are so unactive in the questions of the civlil society, becasuse the standart of their everyday problems.

The argument is saying the opposite than the aguments before. Not because the situation is not bad enouhgh, but because the situation is still not good enough, the people are not active. This thesis has its main supporter in social sciences in the reasearches commited by Roland Inglehard (1980 – 2002). According to his oppinon in the most developed countries reaises the will to participate at the life of the civil society. In such countires raisses the need for the democracy, solidarity with other nations and the scepticism about the own nation. The set of such values calls Inglehard the postmaterial walues. In eastern europe are the postmaterialist walues significantely lower than in western Europe.

6 Materialism x post-m aterialism

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The materialist values are connected with the individualism, social- darvinism, respect to authorities and conformity. Therefore si the social movement weaker in eastern Europe. With the rising of the economic standards will rise the postmaterialist walues and this will cause the rise of the social activity.

8. People in central europe are not vervy active, because eastern european countries are prevailingly catholic and protestant countries with less active understanding of man.

This thesis is a weberian in its nature and Inglehard is using it in his research as well. The cristian and particularly protestant culture is pictured as active and non-chritian or orthodox cultures are pictured as very passive in its nature. Looking at the given 8 variables we can conclude, that all the data only partly support the weberian thesis about active protestant culture: In the question about the memebership in the third world development or human rights organisation is the most active county protestant sweden, but than catholic Belgium, protestant USA, protestant Denmark, catholic Austria and Italy and protestant England. In all of the question took the first three places 14 times the protestant land of wester-europe (including USA) and 8 etimes the Catholic lands. So the presence of the protestnt nations among the most most active was two times higher than the presence of catholic nations. On the other hand the similair differencies are impossible to find among the protestant and non protestant countries in eastern europe. If we compare Estonia, and Latvia to other countires (unfortunately we have no data for the protestant eastern Germany), we come to the conclusion that their protestant tradition has no influence of the peoples activity. The explanation could be the wide spread atheism in eastern europe which is partly ignored by this kind of theories. Three most atheist european countries in are the Czech republic, Estonia and Belorus.

7 9. The old generation grown in communism, was not active, but it will change with the young generation.

The activist of the social movements however does not see any break in the strenght of the social movements in the last 15 years. Most people speaks about the slowly shrinking number of its participans. Once stronger anarchist movement in the beginning of 1990s has now only hunderts of activists4. The same situation is among the ecological movements. In 1995 show up more than 50 000 Union menbers at the demonstration, in 2003 it was only 10 000 people transported by buses from all over the country and this number was presented by the union board as a big succes. The thesis about rising activity of the young people is related to Ingelhards claiming, that the young people have more postmaterialist values and with the coming the young generation into age, tha postmaterialist values will occur and therefore the strong social movement will come into existence. Empirical data hoverer are not giving the support, that this is the case of the Czech republic. According to Petr Sak, we face the reverse tendency: The decline of postmaterialist values particularly among the young generation (Sak, 199: 83). In the czech republic declined the index of the value „be usefull“ from 4,15 to 3,75 but the value „to have the property“ has risen from 3,20 to 3,70 between the years 1984 and 1996 (Sak, 199: 82). The property was in the year 1996 the most important thing (at least in the declaratory way) for the cohort in the age 15 – 18. The value “political angaging” stays on the lowest part of the walue set of the czech youth. The second lowest postition has the value “the work for other people “(Sak 2000: 73) Sak speaks directly about the “strenghtening of materialist and hedonist orientation and weaking social and global values of the czech youth“ (Sak 2003).

10. Non existence of relevant left-radical movements or parties makes the creation of the strong social movement difficult. In the european elections 2004 in only one country of the new members of the european union a party with the left radical program was elected – the Communist party of Bohemia and Moravia. However some stalinist and nationalist resentiments existed in this party, this is only one relevant political power coming from the central-eastern europe, which programm contains the topics similair to the claims of the western leftist social movements (agains the wars, neoliberal globalization, calls for the Social forum etc.). In other post-soviet contries does not exist any other relevant lef-radical party. The same situation is with the green parties (only one relevant – from Latvia). We cann divide the former soviet blok countries into four groups measured on the existence and fate of the left wing political forces in the last 15 years:

Countries with virtually non existent relevant left forces. Latvia (Socialist Party – 5% of seats, in coalition 2002 18,9%) Estonia (0,42% – Social democratic Labour Party)

4 For example the battle between the anarchists and neo-nazis on 1st May 1992 had several participant at eache side. 8 Contries with former communist party transforming itself into social democrats withouth the exsistence of the strong left concurents. Poland (2005 – 11,3% - Democratic left aliance) Hungary (2002 – 42,5% - Hungarian Socialist party, 2,16% workers party ) Romania (2004 – Social democratic party in the Colaition with Humanist party of Romania – 36,8%) Lithuania – (2004 – 20,7% Social democratic Party in coalition) Slovenia – 2004 – 10,2% Social democratic Party)

Countries where the communist parties did not transformed itslefs and still are lacking the strong social democracy. Russsia (2002 – 12,8% - Communist party of the Russian federation) Ukraine (2006 – 3,6% Communist Party of Ukraine, 5,67% - Socialist Party of Ukraine) Molodova – (2005 – 45,6% – Communist party of Molodova)

Countries where the communist parties did not transrofmed but where exists a strong social democratic party The czech republic (2002 – 18,5% Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, 30.2 – Czech Social Democratic Party) former German democratic republic (2005 - 25,3%) Slowakia (2002 – Direction – Social democracy – 13,5%, Communist party of Slovakia – 6,5%)

Strong communist party yes no Strong social yes Czech republic Poland democracy former GDR Hungary Slovakia Romania Bulgary no Russia Latvia Ukraine Estonia Molodova On the other hand, in western europe the social movement has the solid base for its actions in the pralimentary political parties. In most of european countries (Italy, Germany and France) the strong parties with the democratic and radical political programm exist left from the social democracy. The same situation is among the green parties. In the czech case, however there is the doubt, if the strong Czech communist party creates a plausible base for the social movement. on the contrary, many people hesitate to join the organizations which could be considerd as close to the communists. Therefore I conclude, not only the exsitence of the strong left-radical political praties, but the existence of the strong left radical political parties with the democratical and progresive image makes a good soil for the growing of the social movement.

9 11. Different political opinion of the social groups which are in the western countries the main force of the social movements.

In the czech republic and similairly in other eastern european countries (with the exception of eastern Germany) the folowing groups are the typical supporters of the left wing and the right wing policy: LEFT RIGHT poor rich old young smaller cities towns educated uneducated

For example, the czech communist party was in the european election supported only by 7% of people younger 25 but 24% people odler 65 years. Social democracy was supported by 5% of people 18 – 29 years and 15% of the old generation. In the czech capital received the KSCM 13%, in North Bohemia 27%. 70% of czech unemployed voted for KSCM, but only 1% of scientist, and 5% of inteligentsia (Linek, 2004: 66).

Therefore, in eastern europe the groups which suppor more offten the social movements in western europe – young students and intelectuals form the cities rather unactive. According to political scientist Herbert Kitchels, the explanation of the boom of the new left movement in Europe since 1970s is in in the fact that the old main conflict line between the work and capital was complemented with the new similairly important conflict line – between authoritarism and libertarism (Kitchelet, 1994). This new axis shifted the main political conflict between left/ libertatrian and right/ auhtoritarian camp. The social groups with the inclining to the liberal values started to play a bigger rolle in the left movement and created its own form of the new left- Green parties and new social and left-wing radical movemnt. On the other side, the righ wing parties wonn the social groups inclining to authoritarism, partly workers and small bussines man and its result was the creation of the strong right-extreme parties in Europe in 1980s (e.g. Front National in France, ÖVP in Austria).

10 In eastern europe on the contrary was the left associated with the authoritarian values and therefore the social groups which would be the representants of the new social movement did not conect their ambitions with the political left. For example between the years 1996 – 2002 the supporters of the czech social democratic and czech communist party were situated in the left authoritarian quadrant (Matějů. 1998: 263, Vlachová, 2002: 58) . We cann as well assume that for the succes of the social movements is an important factor its support among some parts of the elites (particularly journalist, culture, intelectuals) in the society. As we concluded in the recent research paper (Holubec, 2005) czech elites are very anti-left orientated,5 not only in the sence against the the former stalinist regimes, but also they associate the new social movement from western europe with them. Ofcourse the elites in the most of european countries vote prevaillingly for the conservative forces, but we did not find there such a big gap betwen the electional behaviour of elites and people as in the Czech republic.

Conclusion The people in eastern europe are generaly not less critical, pro-social or content with the current situation than the western europeans, wehat are the people in eastern europe lacking is the level of acctivity. The lacking level of activity is caused by the two factors: The state-socialist regime, which did not allowed the social movements to grow and supported in the people rather the non-ative mentality. The second factor is the transformation of the society in 1990s, which brought the economic decline, growing disappointment with the democratical policy, but at the same time brought the comercialization, the improvemnt of the living standart of the new elites and some parts of the middle class and subjective social status for the inteligentsia.

5 The czech president Vaclav Klaus was warning against the subversive left forces form the western europe which will try to find their ground in post-communist countries. In the nevspapers was offten mentioned, that the westen europeans have no experiences with real communism and therefore they dont know what is the nature and what could be the result of their irresponsible acting. 11 This two factors prohibited the creation of the strong left wing postmaterialist social stata, which could start the movement. We cann expect the creation of such a strat in the case, the economic situation will improve and eastern europe will be more and more similair to its western-european counterparts. On the other hand, it is not sure, if the further economic decline would cause the rising social activity of the people. We cann suppose rather the growing apatthy in such case.

Literature Sak Petr. Proměny české mládeže, Petrklíč 2000. Sak Petr 2003 Faktory ovlivňující a posilující mír, http://www.blisty.cz/art/13431.html

Holubec Stanislav, Sociální struktury a politická orientace. Politologická revue 2/2005. Gallup Internation Poll Results, 2003 http://www.eriposte.com/war_peace/iraq/iraq_war_worldwide_support.htm Linek, Lukáš. ského parlamentu, analýza volební účasti a stranické podpory v České republice. Sociologický ústav AV ČR, Praha 2004. Ondřej Kříž, Pavel Peřina Takové normální partaje Jak vidí politiku a politické strany budoucí novináři http://www.blisty.cz/2006/2/10/art27013.html Barber Benjamin. Jihad gegen Mc World. 1995