DENMARK / CZECHOSLOVAKIA The end of Czechoslovakia? THE June 5-6, 1992 elections in Czecho-Slovakia showed a massive rejection of economic shock therapy in Slovakia, but a narrow victory for the right in the Czech Republic. This divergence, coupled with the total defeat of the moderate, ex-dissident Civic Movement (OH) and the expected replacement of president Vaclav Havel, makes the collapse of the Czecho-Slovak federation almost inevitable. ADAM NEZVAL — June 10, 1992.
S OCIALIST and nationalist parties won 65% of the votes in Slovakia, in a massive repudiation of the shock therapy that has devastated the poorer, Eastern republic. The Slovak parliament will now declare sovereignty and attempt to negotiate a loose confederation with the Czech Republic. The left nationalist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) which won 48% of seats in the Slovak parliament, is demanding a "new reform for Slovakia" — with or without the Czechs -by the end of the year.
Like nationalism elsewhere in the ex-Soviet bloc, the resurgence of Slovak nationalism has economic roots. Nevertheless, the particular developments in Czecho-Slovakia have pushed the national revival along progressive lines. Populist HZDS leader Vladimir Meciar told pre-election meetings that "unemployment in Slovakia is three times the rate in the Czech Lands' which have enjoyed over 90% of Czecho-Slovakia's boom in foreign investment and tourism since 1989... The pro-Prague government is returning Slovakia to its pre-war position as an agricultural and labour reserve for the richer Czech Lands". Meciar criticizes Czech subservience to German capital and argues that independence in the world economy can best be achieved through the rebuilding of trade and political links with neighbouring Poland, Hungary and Ukraine.
The HZDS' "new reform" is based on massive job creation and a state-led restructuring of the economy. Worker and management buyouts are to be favoured in future privatizations and foreign investment subject to stricter conditions. The vote for parties supporting this strategy was so strong that the ruling pro-Czech ODU failed to achieve the 5% needed to enter the new parliament.
Differences are bound to emerge within
HZDS over Meciar's support for plans to build monstrous barrages on the Danube and other Slovak rivers to generate half of Slovakia's energy needs and build enough nuclear power stations to provide the other half. As with Public Against Violence (the Slovak equivalent of Civic Forum in the 1989 revolution) HZDS includes federalists, separatists, pro-capitalist and social democratic forces and neither its policies nor voters' expectations are crystallized beyond the "new reform" and an undefined "Slovak sovereignty or confederation"
The election also revealed the gulf between the Slovak parties and the national minorities that make up 20% of Slovakia's population. Almost all Hungarian speaking voters supported rightist and pro-Czech parties; an understandable reaction to a HZDS which intends to forbid the use of Hungarian in public service enterprises. Only one in five of Slovakia's Romany minority (10% of Slovakia's population) voted, a result of their increasing marginalization - 60% of Romanies are unemployed compared to 12-15% of "white" Slovaks - and the intense racism directed against them.
Christian Democrats split
With the failure of the pro-capitalist parties and the recent split of Christian Democrats into separatist and federalist wings, the role of opposition goes to the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL', the ex-Communist Party) now the second largest party in the Slovak parliament with 20% of the seats. SDL' leader Peter Weiss says his party supports most HZDS policies but will go further in demanding that progressive measures are carried out. Both Stalinist and social democratic tendencies in the SDL' will doubtless win new members 1. 12% compared to 2.7% according to official figures, 15% and 4% according to opposition esti- 9 mates.
June 22, 1992
CZECHOSLOVAKIA as the HZDS wavers on economic and social questions.
Those dissatisfied with the opportunism of SDL' leaders will pass to the defiant Union of Communists of Slovakia (ZKS) the radical Workers' Forum (FR) or the Bratislava-based Left Alternative (LA). These groups polled only 1%, but their demonstrations will continue to draw militant workers and activists encouraged but not satisfied with the election results.
The Slovak Social Democratic Party (SDSS), led by 1968 leader Alexander Dubcek, only just made it over the 5% barrier. A loyal defender of the Prague government until the elections, Dubcek is now stressing his desire to cooperate with the HZDS (who don't need him) and the SDL' (which he snubbed as "communist" when early opinion polls gave his party 10% support). The speed of this reorientation gives the measure of the SDSS' attachment to socialist or other principles.
### Slender majority
In the richer western Czech Republic,
Petr Uhl LONG-STANDING Fourth International supporter Petr Uhl decided not to run in the legislative elections and is taking a break from public political life in order to concentrate on his professional activities. This decision reflects in part Petr's opinion that he is unable at this time to influence the development of his country, either as an individual or a member of a group. As part of this temporary pause in political activity, Petr will no longer be considered as a member of the Fourth International, although his fundamental goals remain the same as those of the International and he will continue to fight for the defence and extension of democratic rights.
After having paid for his opposition to the bureaucratic regime with nine years in prison, Petr had a high profile in the "Velvet Revolution". He found himself charged with new responsibilities in a turbulent and difficult period. A member of a small anti-Stalinist and anti-capitalist group, he became the director of the national press agency, the CK (called the CSTK since 1991), and was soon after elected Deputy on the Civic Forum (OF) ticket at a time when that organization enjoyed wide popular support.
Within the OF, Petr opposed the transformation of the organization into a party controlled by Vaclav Klaus, a committed partisan of the "market economy". He opposed the Civic Movement's lack of a project for building a left organization. One of his last activities as a Deputy was to organize protests against the so-called lustrace law (which targets alleged collaborators with the Stalinist regime). He brought together 99 of the 300 federal deputies around an appeal to the constitutional court against this law. When he appeared in court in Brno as a part of this campaign, his opponents organized a public attack on him, which was widely condemned in the press.
Petr also supported an appeal signed by 70 deputies against a provision
Finance Minister Vaclav Klaus will depend on the centre-right People's Party (CSL) and the far right Republicans (SPR-RSC) for a slender 16 seat majority in the 200 seat Czech parliament.
The Czech right is dominated by the largest Czech party, Klaus' Civic Democratic Party (ODS) which defends the current reform model. Although Klaus is a federalist, he is under pressure from the impatient Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) which wants Czechs to separate from "Communist" Slovakia and seek German protection in their "return to western Europe". The ODU won 6% of seats in the Czech parliament.
Despite a series of orchestrated scandals, most recently a published list of 251 liberal and leftist journalists allegedly previously in the employ of the Stalinist secret police, voters failed to be moved by anti-Communism; most people's priorities are the economy and the future of the federation.
Three left of centre lists stood against the governing coalition. The Czech Communist Party-led Left Bloc (LB) has become the largest opposition grouping with about 16% of the vote. Its associations with the previous regime will hinder cooperation with the Social Democrats (CSSD - 8%) and the Liberal Social Union (LSU — an alliance of the Green, Socialist and collective farmers' parties with 7%).
According to Vrata Votava, a supporter of the Fourth International elected to the Czech parliament on the Left Bloc list, "the widespread privatization under way will make 1993 the year of mass redundan10 cies and subject the economy to the whims in the penal code that put communist propagation of fascist ideas. * of German capital. Our alternative to privatization is the lease of state factories to the workforce, with government-backed credits for cooperatives and small businesses. The Left Bloc also opposes the privatization of health and state childcare and the return of hospitals and schools to the church".
The far right Republicans got 6% of the Czech vote and enter the Czech parliament for the first time. Their charismatic leader Sladek has won wide sympathy for his anti-Romany racism, even if other demands like the re-integration of sub-Carpathian Ruthenia (forcibly annexed to Ukraine after the Second World War) attract little support.
### Battle of elites
The divergent views of the Czech and Slovak elites over the economic reforms makes the end of the federation sure sooner or later. Both elites are trying to portray the other as responsible, in order to maximize international support. For Czech Communist Party leader Jiri Svoboda "any split up of Czecho-Slovakia will be the fault of the Czech right. Their reform has proved socially unacceptable in Slovakia and they would rather cut the federation than slow down the restoration of capitalism. They would rather have capitalism in half a country"
In the meantime, the strong showing of the HZDS in Slovakia will block the passing of rightist policies in the Czecho-Slovakia's Assembly (parliament) where propaganda on the same level as the legislation must be passed by a separate majority of both Czech and Slovak deputies. While the federation still exists, the HZDS by itself is able to decide whether the Klaus group can pass any legislation. HZDS leader Meciar seems to have taken the decision to support Klaus in the short term, while consolidating power in Slovakia. Any support for a continuation of federal inspired pro-market reforms will, however, benefit the separatist Slovak National Party (SNS) and the SDL'.
A number of trade union sponsored candidates were elected on Czech social democratic and Left Bloc lists. Though the Slovak Marxist ZKS polled under 1%, individuals like Vrata Votava were elected on the Czech Left Bloc list (Votava with the added support of a part of the anarchist movement). Overall, however, the Marxist left in the new parliaments is overwhelmingly drawn from the ex-ruling parties, the Czech KSCM and the Slovak SDL'.
Of the 16% support these parties received in the elections, sociological research suggests that 12% came from older voters (two thirds of CP voters are over 45) nostalgic for the past, worried about their pensions and price rises, or concerned about growing German influence over economic and political life. The rest come from voters who see the CPs as the best chance for building a new left party.?
The ex-ruling parties not only contain social democratic currents but are competing with smaller social democratic parties for the support of the growing trade union movement. An analysis of the treatment of
June 22, 1992
International Viewpoint # 231
CZECHOSLOVAKIA self-management, co-management and cooperatives in the election programmes of the Czech CP-led Left Bloc and the Liberal Social Union shows the extensive common ground but also the confusion over the nature of an economic "third way"
### Worker participation
"Participation of workers in the management of enterprises is of cardinal importance for the competitiveness and economic development of the country. Democracy inside the enterprise is the main democratizing and development trend in the modern world economy" , argues the Liberal Social Union, "It is typical of the Czechoslovak *reform' that it goes against this trend and that that part of the old system which should have been developed was instead abolished. Instead of the trade unions really becoming active at the enterprise level and joining with management to solve enterprise problems, instead of other forms of worker participation being introduced, and instead of decentralizing decision making as far as possible to the level of the work team, in Czechoslovakia employees have been practically excluded from the game. All the above is labelled 'socialist manoeuvres" 3
Both the LSU and the Left Bloc have criticized the current coupon privatization as a lottery which at best will turn citizens into powerless small shareholders and at worst rob them of their share of state property and their savings. Instead they defend the original aim of the current coupon privatization, that of distributing a minority of shares to employees as a motivation package.
The formation of cooperatives and self-management are also put forward as a way of harnessing entrepreneurial energies in the population and as a means of de-statization in their own right. "Why should privatization projects be judged behind closed doors by unqualified and unaccountable civil servants and their advisors, most of whom have never seen the enterprise they are deciding about? Why isn't the decision made under public control at the government level, where the problematic is best understood? Why does a government which rejects all industrial policy as a return to before November [1989] act in reality like the Communist Party apparatus at the time of deepest Stalinism?"4
For Left Bloc strategist Radim Valencik "privatization has become the end goal of the reforms. Originally, sale to a private owner was only one means of de-statization. 'Privatization plans' for the forming of cooperatives, or for worker buyouts should at least be given equal consideration. Indeed, favouring such plans would be a genuine way of returning the property to the people, unlike these joke coupon books"
Both the LSU and LB make concrete demands for participatory property forms to have equal access to credit and tax advantages for small businesses. Left Bloc economist Zdenek Haba also suggests that cooperatives and self-managed enterprises be allowed to lease rather than buy the enterprises where they work "to allow ordinary workers to take part in privatization alongside old apparatchiks and the new mafia". The LSU proposes leasing for all small businesses to allow entrepreneurs to put their capital to work immediately rather than seeing it flow - through privatization auctions — into state reserves.
Some representatives of both parties suggest that a majority share for employees will hinder the subjugation of production to foreign capital and will ensure that restructuring is carried out in a humane fashion.
The general model of both programmes is one of fully independent enterprises in a market framework. The Left Bloc sees the problem with the former Yugoslav "self-management" model as lying in the hidden power of the competing bureaucracies through their control of the credit system. The Communist militant-led Czech and Moravian National Investment Fund is hoping to set up a self-management bank and development centre along the lines of the Mondragon system in the Basque country.
The LSU and Left Bloc proposals for worker involvement face a number of problems and only the behaviour of these parties in parliament will show exactly what their ideas mean in terms of legislation, political campaigns or worker initiatives.
The LSU co-management plan, for example, is based on the quality circles and co-management practised before the Second World War by the Bata shoe firm. In fact, Bata achieved very high productivity by combining worker involvement and a range of non-pay incentives (housing, sports and education subsidies) with suppression of trade union activity and a company police force investigating workers' private lives.
Both parties present management buyouts as a form of self-management and a valid realization of the LU's promised "priority in ownership of national property to those who work with it"5 The Communist Czech and Moravian National Investment Fund also bases its self-management programme on worker-management coalitions. So far, however, management in many factories has used the rhetoric of self-management, or self-management privatization funds, to gain effective control, if not ownership, of "workers'" shares with the aim of maximizing managers' autonomy from state or majority shareholders.
### Radical programme
At the same time, it is also not clear whether the two parties appreciate how radical their programme is. Are they really willing to allow the creation of new property forms, or change the national system of credit allocation? This would certainly come into conflict with the LU's commitment to the "social market economy"
Nevertheless, the development of the above ideas finally convinced a number of workers of the falsity of the central argument of the right wing under Finance Minister Klaus — borrowed from Marga-
ZDÁLKY VYTADAL JAKO BLBÉC... ALE JE TO VOLiČ !
"From a distance it looked like a madman, but in fact its a voter!" (cartoon by Vladimir Jiranek from Lidové noviny)
ret Thatcher; the claim that, whatever the cost of the reforms there is no alternative. The coming months will demonstrate how far left parties in both republics are willing to go in support of democratic and socialist alternatives. * 2. See for example the AISA party supporter profiles commissioned by the Mlada fronta dnes newspaper. 3. Ekonomicky program, LSU, April 1992, p. 22. 1 1 4. Ibid, p. 23. 5. Ibid, p. 14.
June 22, 1992