TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/090489/09048900.033

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WORLD, Page 18

EASTERN EUROPE

Uncharted Waters

Soviet allies draw conflicting conclusions from Gorbachev's

agenda

By Jill Smolowe


    Only Mikhail Gorbachev and Mieczyslaw Rakowski know precisely
what was said during their 40-minute telephone conversation. But
the gist of the Soviet leader's advice to the Polish Communist
Party chief last Tuesday apparently came down to this: Go with the
flow. Within hours the Communists' belligerent demands for a
greater role in Warsaw's as yet unformed government were replaced
by conciliatory calls for "partner-like cooperation" with
Solidarity. The arduous and uncharted process of piecing together
the East bloc's first non-Communist government was back on track.

    Extraordinary? Yes. Unexpected? Hardly. These days, events in
Eastern Europe are so topsy-turvy that bloc uniformity seems to
have given way to a breathless rush of uneven developments. In
Hungary, where a multiparty system is in the works, Communist Party
chief Karoly Grosz reportedly announced that he was prepared to
step down, a move that was interpreted as a victory for reformers.
In East Germany the government sought to rid itself of malcontents
by handing out unprecedented numbers of exit permits, while
thousands of other unhappy citizens simply fled over the Hungarian
border. In Poland the Communist Party Politburo marked the 50th
anniversary of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact -- whose secret protocols
resulted in the partition of Poland at the onset of World War II
-- by denouncing the agreement as a violation of "sanctified moral
norms of international coexistence." Lest anyone miss the point,
Polish opposition leader Lech Walesa spelled it out in an interview
with an Italian newspaper: "We are setting out . . . to return to
the prewar situation when Poland was a capitalist country."

    But Czechoslovakia offered a stubborn reminder of the old-style
inflexibility. To commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Soviet
invasion, the government of Milos Jakes ordered riot police to
scare off some 3,000 demonstrators who had taken to the streets of
Prague. Wielding truncheons, the police arrested several hundred
protesters, including some from Hungary and Poland. Warned the
party-owned afternoon daily Veerni Praha: "History cannot be
changed. It is necessary to know it and take a lesson."

    Energized and emboldened by Gorbachev's daring reform campaign,
many East Europeans are setting out to draw new conclusions from
old lessons. If most Communist countries share a perception of the
political and economic forces that have brought them to this
juncture, they lack a common vision of where they are going.
Acknowledged Solidarity leader Lech Walesa: "Nobody has previously
taken the road that leads from socialism to capitalism." Poland and
Hungary are pressing ahead with sweeping reforms that promise to
disprove the theory that totalitarian regimes cannot change.
Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria tinker with old formulas
in hopes they can stave off a reckoning with the new. Only Rumania,
under the tyrannosaurus-like leadership of Nicolae Ceausescu,
stubbornly pursues the Stalinist agenda without obstruction. As
each country feels its way through this difficult period, the
competing ambitions are putting considerable strain on the bloc.

    The greatest rending is in Poland, where Solidarity is now
officially leading the way toward a new and uncertain future. Last
week the lower house of the National Assembly, by a vote of 378 to
4, elected Solidarity's Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be the East bloc's
first non-Communist Prime Minister. The vote followed by six days
the resignation of President Wojciech Jaruzelski's handpicked
candidate, Czeslaw Kiszczak, who was unable to form a government
after two former Communist allies, the United Peasants' Alliance
and the Democratic Party, threw their support to Solidarity.

    In his acceptance speech, Mazowiecki sought to play down the
differences that had complicated Poland's political progress. "I
want to form a government able to act for the good of society," he
said from the oak podium of the Sejm. "I want it to be a coalition
government for the thorough reform of the state. Such a task can
be undertaken only with the cooperation of all forces represented
in Parliament." Ironically, Kiszczak had delivered a virtually
identical acceptance speech barely three weeks earlier. The
difference was that Mazowiecki has the popular legitimacy that
Kiszczak, who as Interior Minister managed the 1981 crackdown on
Solidarity, so conspicuously lacked.

    Mazowiecki, who is expected to form a Cabinet by the end of
this week if battles over portfolios can be settled, also addressed
some of the enormous challenges ahead. Recognizing that Poland's
bankrupt economy, not the Communists, poses the gravest danger
ahead, he asserted that "Poland cannot afford ideological
experiments anymore" and promised to resurrect a market economy.
He also pledged a return to a legal system that guarantees
individual rights. Mindful of his audience in Moscow, he promised
to support existing international treaties and obligations, making
a special point of referring to the military arrangements within
the East bloc. "We understand the importance of our Warsaw Pact
obligations," he said. "The government I form will respect this
pact."

    Perhaps he need not have tried so hard. Though Moscow would
clearly have preferred a Communist government, the Kremlin chose
not to make matters worse. The Soviet media treated Mazowiecki's
election with as much interest as a report on a new sausage
shortage in Moscow. But while Moscow was unusually open-minded
about changes in Poland, the Communist Party Central Committee
issued a shrill warning to the Baltic republics that it would not
tolerate separatist talk at home.

    Poland's promising though fitful progress, coupled with tacit
approval from Moscow, has raised the hopes of millions of East
Europeans. In countries where the leaders are proceeding at a far
more cautious pace, these hopes have spawned an impatience that can
be measured by the rising tide of refugees. Hungary's decision four
months ago to dismantle the barbed-wire fences along its border
with Austria has uncorked the largest flood of cross-border escapes
since the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961. The number of escapees
is topping 200 a day, and tens of thousands are applying to leave
legally. If the flood continues, close to 100,000 East Germans will
cross to the West this year.

    The refugees testify to a disillusionment with the rigid rule
of East German President Erich Honecker, 77, who seems to offer no
hope of future change. Most of them are young people, skilled
workers or university-trained specialists. As yet, Honecker has
done nothing to stanch the flow. One joke making the rounds last
week asked, "Why will Honecker abolish East German identity cards
by 1990?" The answer: "Because by then, Honecker will be personally
acquainted with all the remaining citizens."

    The mass exodus is no joke. In the past, the trickle of legal
refugees primarily involved senior citizens, which was East
Germany's way of palming off some of its pension burden on the
capitalist West. But the loss of so many young professionals
presents East Germany with the prospect of a serious brain drain.

    The tide is also no laughing matter in West Germany. In keeping
with its constitutional commitment to a united Germany, Bonn
regards the refugees as citizens of the Federal Republic with full
rights. Upon arrival, they receive $100, and within days they begin
receiving unemployment benefits. West German citizens, who already
must contend with a huge influx of ethnic German immigrants from
Poland and the Soviet Union, are growing resentful of the refugee
burden, which gluts the job market and strains housing resources.
"The East German leadership carries exclusive responsibility for
the situation," Chancellor Helmut Kohl charged last week. "We will
not let them evade this."

    Refugees also continue to pour out of Bulgaria; more than
312,000 ethnic Turks have fled over the past three months. With
hundreds of thousands more refugees expected, the Turkish
government reached the limits of its patience last week and closed
the frontier to refugees not carrying visas. At 3:26 a.m. Tuesday,
a train packed with ethnic Turks pulled into the Kapikule railway
station, across the border from Bulgaria. At 6:10 a.m. the train
began to move -- but in the wrong direction. Young refugees jumped
from the windows and flung themselves on the tracks. Finally, at
8:54 a.m., the refugees were granted asylum. But that human cargo
-- dubbed the Train of Shame by the Turkish press -- may be the
last for some time to come.

    It is not certain that Eastern Europe will ever regain
cohesion. Radical reform and conservative intransigence make
uncomfortable bloc fellows. Comecon, the alliance's economic union,
is crumbling as members scramble to cut separate deals with the
West. And the allies are at one another's throats: the Czechs and
Rumanians denounce the Polish reformers for sowing chaos, the Poles
denounce the Czechs for trampling human rights, the Hungarians
denounce the Rumanians for mistreating their Hungarian minority.
Gorbachev's phone conversation with Rakowski last week suggests
that the Soviet leader finds better promise in an uncharted future
than in a failed past. But if Eastern Europe's summer of hope gives
way to a winter of discontent, Gorbachev's go-with-the-flow
optimism may bump up against an iceberg or two.


-- John Borrell/Warsaw and James O. Jackson/Bonn