iming democracy even holding relatively free, fair, and open elections did not by itself serve to usher Eastern Europe into a bright new age of spiritual freedom and material plenty. Is democracy failing, then, in Eastern Europe? And if so, is it failing because it has no answers for Eastern Europe's problems, or because Eastern Europe is not ready to function in a democratic way. These are the questions we will ask, using the experiences of the Soviet Union and of Romania as particular instances of the problems of democratization.
Democracy, as commonly used, means two distinct but related things. Literally it means "rule by the people" in Greek. But nowhere, of course, do all the people of a country actually met to settle political questions by a show of hands. Actual decisions are made everywhere by individual leaders or relatively small groups. In a "democracy," these individuals and groups are somehow accountable to a broad voting public, an accountability symbolized by periodic elections. Every democracy in the real world is actually a republic. The word republic is Latin for "that which is public," and the elected leadership in a republic functions as the representatives of the people as a whole.
But practically every government in the world calls itself a republic. Kings survive, symbolically in Europe and shakily in the Middle East, but in most of the world, people with republican titles "presidents," "prime ministers," "first secretaries" and the like rule in a way indistinguishable from princes and warlords of old. Most countries have congresses or parliaments; some are actually elected, and some even debate. El Salvador has free and fair elections, but the elected government does not rule the country: the army and its business and landholding allies do. Where, in this welter of rhetorical "democracy," is real democracy to be found?
There seem to be two fundamental preconditi...