University of California, Berkeley Center for Slavic and East European Studies Newsletter Special Issue: Summer 2000 Vol. 17, No. 2 Notes from the Chair In this issue: The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies has recently Notes from the Chair ....................... 1 concluded an exceptionally busy and rewarding academic year. Apart from a Fall Reception ................................. 2 full complement of programmatic events, the Institute, in particular the Mieczyslaw Pawel Boduszynski Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies (BPS), supported a Triumph of the Opportunists ............... 3 variety of activities to promote research and graduate student training. Outreach Programs ......................... 5 Thanks to funding from the Carnegie Corporation, we have moved ahead Funding for Polish Studies ............... 9 with our plans to reinvigorate the BPS graduate training program. In the AY 99–00 Conferences.................. 10 spring semester, students met regularly to discuss dissertation research and AY 99–00 Lectures ........................ 10 general problems facing Russia and the former Soviet Union. During the Anna Wertz coming academic year, 2000–2001, we are planning a series of biweekly Regenerating the Republic ............... 13 graduate student-faculty seminars as well as a working paper series for Upcoming Events .......................... 21 outstanding graduate student research. Faculty and Student News ............. 22 A two-year Sawyer Seminar on Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, and Outstanding GSIs .......................... 24 Democracy in Communist and Post-Communist Societies, co-sponsored by Kosovac Prize Awarded................. 24 the Slavic Center and the Center for Chinese Studies and funded by the Associates of the Slavic Center ..... 25 Mellon Foundation, culminated on May 19–20 with a working conference Fellowship Opportunities ............... 26 held at UC Berkeley. Twelve papers were discussed by an international Projects Funded by the Kujachich group of scholars which included sociologists, anthropologists, political Endowment ................................... 28 scientists, and economists. Among them were several former BPS graduate students. This exceptionally stimulating group, joined by discussants from Berkeley and elsewhere, broke new ground in exploring the profiles of Newsletter of the Center for Slavic entrepreneurs, the patterns of entrepreneurialism, and the prospects for and East European Studies democratization in Russia, China, and East Europe, from a cross-regional and cross-national perspective. Tom Gold, associate professor in the Depart- University of California, Berkeley ment of Sociology, and I are hoping to publish an edited volume with these Institute of Slavic, East European, and papers. Eurasian Studies Our working groups continue to flourish, especially the Russian History 361 Stephens Hall # 2304 Working Group and the newly founded Political Economy Working Group. Berkeley, CA 94720-2304 We welcome proposals from Berkeley graduate students and faculty who are interested in establishing or participating in a working group. [email protected] In May, we received the good news that the US Department of Educa- http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~csees/ tion has renewed Title VI funding for the Center for Slavic & East European Studies. These funds provide indispensable support for the fulfillment of our Editors: Stella Bourgoin and Barbara mission on the Berkeley campus and in the community, enabling us to Voytek. maintain and enhance our strengths in language instruction, library collec- tions, visiting faculty, conferences, and outreach activities. Both the Annual Submit mailing changes to the above Berkeley-Stanford Conference (scheduled next academic year at Berkeley on address or call (510) 642-3230. Friday, March 9, 2001) and the Annual Teachers Outreach Conference (scheduled for April 28–29, 2001) benefit from Title VI funding. Please send suggestions, corrections, Congratulations to our esteemed colleagues, John Connelly (Department or inquiries to the Newsletter editors of History) and Anne Nesbet (Department of Slavic Languages and Litera- at the address above. We welcome tures and Program in Film Studies), for their promotions to Associate your comments and suggestions. Professor. Similar sentiments go to Stephan Astourian who has been chosen again to be Berkeley’s William Saroyan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies. We also would like to welcome Gérard Roland, food, and good music with some news about upcoming professor of economics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles events. Until then, let me wish you all a lovely summer. and specialist on the Soviet economic system and transition economics. Professor Roland recently accepted a position in Berkeley’s Department of Economics; he will be joining us Victoria E. Bonnell in the spring of 2001. The community of scholars in Slavic, Chair, Center for Slavic and East European Studies and the East European, and Eurasian studies becomes more impres- Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies sive with each passing year! Professor, Department of Sociology Our first event for AY 2000–2001, our Annual Fall Reception, will be held at the Alumni House on Wednesday, October 11. As usual, we will combine good company, good You are cordially invited to our Annual Fall Reception Wednesday, October 11, 2000 4 to 6 p.m. Toll Room, Alumni House, U.C. Berkeley campus CSEES Newsletter / 2 Triumph of the Opportunists: The Political Rebirth of Ex-Communists Mieczyslaw Pawel Boduszynski Mieczyslaw Pawel Boduszynski, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science, is spending this summer at the University of Zagreb where he is conducting research for a project entitled “Post-Tudjman Croatia: On the Road to Eu- rope?” His graduate research focuses on the role of external forces in democratization in post-Communist Poland, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, and postwar Japan. Comments on this paper may be sent to [email protected]. Magicians In less than twelve hours the Polish Communists transformed themselves into precisely that which they had One of the most interesting changes that followed the learned, in their lifelong ideological indoctrination, was just collapse of Communism in our region is also one that is as dangerous as Trotskyism and fascism, at least in terms of frequently overlooked: the remarkable personal transforma- the threat it posed to the development of a socialist society: tions of former Communists, especially those individuals overnight they had become social democrats. that have assumed positions of political authority in the In fact, among the countless powerful images and post-Communist period. Much of the current social scien- events that came to symbolize the end of Communism in tific analysis of the post-Communist world tends to focus on Poland, often forgotten is the high drama that accompanied large-scale variables and systemic change—on things like the dissolution of the PUWP on January 28, 1990. Com- civil society, party systems, and levels of democratization. rades gathered at the final Party Congress sang the Very little is grounded at the individual level of analysis, International Communist Hymn for the last time as the emphasizing the efficacy and character of leaders. This banners were retired. A disoriented Mieczyslaw F. essay is dedicated to the proposition that in the case of Rakowski approached the podium, looked around anx- “reborn” Communists, analysis at the individual level is a iously, and asked, “What will happen now? Will someone fruitful intellectual enterprise. Why? Most importantly, come forward?” after which he surrendered the floor to a because the ideological transformation and political rebirth young man named Aleksander Kwasniewski, Minister of of ex-apparatchiks and other officials at all levels of the Youth and Sport in the last Communist government.4 Communist party hierarchy was a precondition for the The transformation of the PUWP into the SdRP is rebirth of the Communist successor parties that made manifested in the personal transformation of Kwasniewski striking comebacks in parliamentary elections throughout himself. He has come a long way in the last eleven years. the post-Communist world.1 The new rhetoric of these Long gone are the days when he spent hours at leaden parties was devised and spoken by individuals and the Politburo meetings. Long forgotten are the hours he spent ability of these individuals to change their language from winning the favor of boring Central Committee members. that of Marxism-Leninism to that of social democracy, His many years of activism in Communist youth organiza- capitalism, nationalism, or populism was a prerequisite of tions and student unions are also seemingly light-years in their own political survival and the viability of the organiza- the past. Following the dissolution of the PUWP and his tions they led into the post-Communist reality. Ryszard ascension to the leadership of its successor organization, Ulicki, a delegate to the final congress of the former Polish Kwasniewski literally remade himself. He lost weight, United Workers’ Party that produced its successor, the stopped drinking, and taught himself to speak good English. Social Democracy of the Polish Republic (SdRP),2 has quite He familiarized himself with things like the European revealingly called these former Communists “magicians”: Union, NATO, and the IMF. More importantly, he learned to