Communist regimes, legitimacy and the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to clarify the relationship between forms of political legitimacy employed by communist regimes in East and Central Europe and subsequent models of revolutionary change in 1989. The conceptual basis of the analysis lies in Max Weber's theoretical framework of legitimacy. The four cases selected for comparison are Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The attempts of de-Stalinization and reformation of these party-state regimes through the introduction of paternalistic and also more goal-oriented measures could not prevent their disintegration in the 1980s and their subsequent collapse in 1989. But, I argue, it was the withdrawal of ideological support by elites that ultimately brought communism to an end. The differences in revolutionary scenarios and transitions to democracy in the four cases indicate the importance of a shift in both rulers and masses towards interest in dialogue and compromise. Hungary and Poland represent the clearest scenarios in which communist parties acted as agents of regime change in a rational-legal direction. The Bulgarian case stands as an intermediary case between these two and Romania. Finally, Romania represents an extreme case of violent revolution and the overthrow of a traditionalist and sultanistic regime and illustrates the difficulties following a complete collapse of political authority.

Keywords:

• communism
• legitimacy
• transition to democracy

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for helping me clarify some of the theoretical and empirical aspects of the article. Also, many thanks to my SUNY Plattsburgh colleagues – Lauren Eastwood, Jessamyn Neuhaus, Connie Oxford and Connie Shemo – for their useful comments on an earlier version of the article.

Notes

In 1924, at its third congress, the RCP expressed its approval of the return of Bessarabia (the northern part of Romania that was acquired in 1917) to the Soviet Union. For the early history of the RCP see King.

For an analysis of polycentrism – a term popular among Sovietologists in the 1980s – see Bromke.

The shift in Soviet emphasis did not mean a move towards Western forms of legality characteristic of rational bourgeois capitalism.

The crucial role of the ruling class in the act of legitimation was acknowledged by Weber himself.

For Polish agriculture under socialism see Wedel.

For the role of the Catholic Church and its relationship with the communist regime in Poland see Monticone.

By pointing out the unstable nature of charisma, Weber noted that there are two possible directions that a charismatic type of authority can follow in order to become stabilized: either a traditional or a rational-legal (democratic) orientation. Weber describes sultanism as an extreme form of patrimonialism (a subtype of traditional authority) that “arises whenever traditional domination develops an administration and a military force which are purely personal instruments of the master” and “operates primarily on the basis of discretion.” (Weber 231–32).

For Ceausescu's cult of personality see Fischer. The extreme brand of nationalism employed by the communist regime in Romania was facilitated by the appeal among an important segment of Romanian intellectuals for a right-wing ideology that promoted the idea of an exceptional Romanian nation and culture (Verdery).

For a detailed and profound analysis of the RCP see Tismaneanu.

In 1980 Solidarity won legal recognition as an independent labor union in Poland and entered a power-sharing arrangement with the communist government until December 1981 when General Jaruzelski declared martial law. In 1989 Solidarity became the main player at the roundtable talks that initiated the democratic transition.

Lyudmila Zhivkova remains, however, a controversial figure in the history of Bulgarian communism. See Atanasova.

For the Romanian intellectuals under Ceausescu's regime see Verdery.

For the workers’ protests in communist Romania see Deletant.

For the positive role played by the former communist parties and in general by the party system in the consolidation of democracy in Hungary and Poland see both Sokolewicz and Torok.

In respect of the 1989 roundtables in East and Central Europe Janos Kiss's conceptual definition of “negotiated transitions” is most useful. Negotiated transitions are obviously distinct from revolutionary transitions and are more likely to occur when ruling classes are divided over the issue of legitimacy and when both old elites and opposition groups are interested in compromise (Kiss).

For the early stage of the democratic transition in Romania see Pasti.