The Rise to Power across Eastern Europe

The rise to power across Eastern Europe of a new revolutionary class of dissidents in 1989 and 1990--this time a class of anti-communist dissidents--has been one of the most dramatic changes in contemporary politics. Throughout Eastern Europe, thousands marched for freedom and bulldozers leveled statues of communist heroes, leaving Vladimer Lenin lying face down in the streets of a new era. Political parties headed by opponents of communist rule came to power through free elections in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia; the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic was ousted by anti-communist dissidents, preparing the way for unification with West Germany; and non-communist political parties appeared for the first time since the Second World War in Bulgaria and Romania.

Partly because of a desire for a peaceful transition and partly because many of the anti-communist dissidents believed they were fighting against impossible odds, many compromises were made with the ex-communists in government administration and bureaucracy. Compromises with the ex-communists were even initially made in East Germany, although the reunification process appears to be forcing a fundamental change in the composition of government bureaucracy. In Bulgaria, not only were compromises made with the former Bulgarian Communist Party, but it appears that the party has succeeded in re-entrenching itself at the helm of Bulgaria's government.

This research will chart the process of change

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, and Latvia--in which former communist representatives hold power or significantly share in the governance. Former communists have returned to power via the ballot box in Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. They have retained authority in the face of challenges in Moldovia, Romania and the Ukraine. They have toppled regimes in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan. They hold unchallenged control in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. And they share power in Bulgaria and even in Russia (Karatnycky, 1994, p. 36). After the torrent of movements toward privatization and democracy, why is Bulgaria and Eastern Europe slowing the pace of change? There are several reasons. First and foremost is the sudden realization that the grandiose promises of economic prosperity through immediate privatization and free-market economics may have been exaggerated. The United States and other Western industrialized powers have not, as previously believed, marched into the East with vast economic assistance to rebuild and bolster the economies of Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. Even the European Community has denied Eastern Europe access to their market. Duties and quotas are still in effect against East bloc exports of steel, textiles,

Category: Foreign - T