Communism and After

Billy Says:

Poland:

"I didn´t like France," our friend Ania (from Krakow) says, "they are much more communistic there, and I couldn´t explain how horrible communism was, for those of us who lived through it here." There was, for example, a law under communism that the state could assign a family with new/extra flat-mates if they determined (by some math) that there was spare space. (It has been a challenge in the last 17 years, because humanitarian law enacted with the transition makes evicting these folks illegal, but staying living together isn´t necessarily easy or desirable). Ania tried telling a French friend about the indignity and discomfort of such a policy. "At least you don´t have any homeless people," the friend replies. "That´s easy for her to say, with a comfortable apartment in Paris... why doesn´t she let homeless people stay in her house?"

In fact, it´s a very difficult conversation. It´s quite difficult to imagine a society that is simultaneously totalitarian and also meeting "all" human needs. Maybe the hardest part about the paradox is realizing that human needs can be met in a totalitarian way (such as forcing people to live in cramped quarters so that no one goes without shelter). But to have grown up in a society where human needs are bought and sold (still there´s plenty of totalitarianism, all the same) it´s hard to swallow a simple, "it was horrible." And, of course, I still believe that it was horrible.

Aside from one or two "Milk Bars," most of the positive aspects of communism in Poland are being (or have been already) erased and replaced with the flashy gawdiness of capitalism (and, delightfully, America replaces Russia as the cultural and linguistic Master of the society). Our friend Ola told us that even the memory of anti-capitalist participants in the solidarity movement has been erased. (Solidarity is a trade union movement which fought against the stalinist state and swept a huge body of support in the early eighties: "Within a few months, 10 million workers [out of 13 million employees] had left the ‘official’ state-run unions to set up their own independent unions under the umbrella of ‘Solidarnosc’. Peasants and students set up their own committees. Even 40,000 police set up an independent union! In an opinion poll at the time, 83% of the population said they were in support of the strikers." This situation led to years of martial law and harsh repression which stuck till the ´89 collapse. The union is now part of the ruling capitalist state.) There is no discussion allowed of people saying that they had fought in the solidarity years for a non-totalitarian, but still not profit-based system. Only the capitalists and catholics are allowed to claim a victory. As if they were the only ones brave enough to stand up to the communist regime.

Now Poland´s capitalist economy is growing so fast that only China´s post-communist economy is growing faster.

There is one more piece to this. Consistently in my conversations with people raised under communism, there is a little anecdote which sticks out where the person´s generally demeanor about the system suddenly changes, and I hear something nostalgic, wistful, happy about the old times.

Anna, a friend we made in Warszawa but raised in the GDR says that she can´t relate to people born just 5 or 6 years after her, people who have lived only under capitalist. She says there is a whole different attitude towards life, a whole different ethic towards human relations, that quite simply turns her off to them, alienates her. When she was enrolled in university in western germany she´d say to her friends, "I´m going home to Germany... oops, I mean, Berlin," because she felt the west to be so foreign as to be another country entirely.

GDR:

I went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin to try and learn more about the division of Berlin and the Cold War generally. I got what I paid for I suppose. Certainly I got a much clearer glimpse into the specific horrors of the wall, which without a doubt terrorized the inhabitants of a beautifully city. I left with a clear sensation that there was a large portion of the German population that felt strongly (immediately after the war and consistently afterwards) that they didn´t want their country to be divided - for the purposes of a war between two distant empires.
Still, on the whole, I couldn´t entirely trust the viewpoint of the creators of the museum. I felt almost bludgeoned by the incessant references to the "free economy," (or even "free world") of the West. If I had been raised in a "free" economy, I wouldn´t feel the desparate desire to eradicate the injustices of my society that I now do. Really, speaking of Capitalism as the "free" economy is pure religious indoctrination. So, take what I learned at the Museum with a grain of salt.

I was most struck by one story, which the museum went to lengths to tell in detail. On June 17th, 1953, there was a massive rebellion that spread throughout East Germany. The starting point for the rebellion was a strike of construction workers against the forced increases in "efficiency" and gross productivity that the state economic planners were demanding. Failing to get anyone in the government to negotiate with them, a call was made for a general strike, and some hundreds of thousands of protestors descended on government buildings in east Berlin. The strikes, riots and clashes with the "people´s army" spread throughout the country, including 24 locations where prisons were ransacked by a furious population and the prisoners released. The insurrection was put down by martial law and the rolling in of soviet tanks to different cities.

It´s a compelling story. I find it most interesting that the igniting point for the rebellion is exactly the workplace, the place that the Marxists claim to liberate first and foremost. From this I understand that life under a planned economy of this sort was not an increase in human freedom. Of course not, as the goal was increased "efficiency," not freedom. So, I´m all for the rebellion, the attacks on the prisons and government buildings, the strikes, all of it. I am inspired and encouraged. Ok, but check this out...

West Germany and the USA went to lengths to encourage the general strike and the clash with the GDR government. They printed up newspapers that were distributed in the east, broadcast over radio and Tv in support, etc. This is strange, eh? Suddenly the "free" economy is in support of general strikes and rioting? The capitalists aren´t willing to force workers to increase efficiency and gross productivity? Not a chance. Had the same thing happened anywhere in the west, the state response would be exactly the same: martial law, mass arrests and murder of protesters. Witness France, 1968, LA 1992, Katrina, 2005, etc.