EASY
TAKEOFF, HARD LANDING:
by W. B. Allen
© W. B. Allen
I never meant to explode a myth about communism. My question was
innocent, a matter of curiosity,
the response to which revealed how profoundly we have previously misunderstood
the impact of communism on people’s attitudes toward private property and
belonging. I carried to
Czechoslovakia the fairly common assumption that the revolutionary task of
building a free economy would
require first extensive re-privatization not only regarding the conversion of
state enterprises to private businesses but also at the most elementary level
of individual acquisitiveness. Because black markets have been a permanent feature of socialist economies, we
have always known that human nature had not been changed however much repressed
by totalitarianism. But the only forms of acquisitiveness that had been
documented were either these forms of criminal conduct or the grasping
corruption of figures in the ruling class.
As I jogged through suburban and rural
countrysides in Czechoslovakia, a strange insecurity formed in my mind. No matter how taut I was, no matter the attention I paid, not once did I encounter a dog to evade or ward off. To be sure, there are dogs in the country, and I
heard their barking. Still, not once
did one appear in my path. The absence of this danger, familiar to every jogger, soon made me far
more anxious than ever I am in actually dealing with possibly hostile dogs!
My eyes
roamed the suburban “apartment cities,” the parkways, country roads, and even
farmers’ fields in search of dogs. What I found instead astonished me. Fences!
Everywhere fences! Impossibly small, universally small plots were fenced off
everywhere, signifying claims of ownership stoutly maintained. Nor do I mean
pretty little picket fences. I mean substantial barriers that would keep out
all but the malignantly inveterate and keep in every dog. Soon, though, I had
forgotten about the dogs in my wondering amazement at a fencing practice more
pervasive than ever I had seen anywhere.
I wondered
why, in conversation with an interlocutor from our conference, a member of the
government. We were in Czechoslovakia to discuss the imminent drafting of the
new Czechoslovakian constitution in relation to The Federalist Papers, which
chronicle the American experience from one perspective. Seven American experts
on the United States Constitution, members of the Czechoslovakian Federal
Assembly, government ministers, and scholar-activists from Charter 77 gathered
at the remote village of Chudobin. Between sessions we relaxed in strolling or
lounging, and it was at one such moment I asked my colleague to explain why
there seemed so many fences in the little I had seen of Czechoslovakia. His
answer confirmed that my curiosity was well grounded. Before I state that
answer, permit me to describe Czechoslovakia’s political and constitutional
dilemma so as to provide the appropriate context.
The famous “velvet revolution,” the collapse of the communist regime in
the face of student demonstrations, occurred in November, 1989, nearly three
weeks after the Berlin Wall had tumbled. In the time since preliminary free
elections have been held, the poet Dr. Vaclav Ravel became President, and the
process aimed at establishing a free constitution was initiated.
Ideally, that
constitution would be in place by the start of 1992, and the first elections
held under it would occur in June,
While the process of constitutional development has been underway
Czechoslovakia has nevertheless had to get on with the task of governing. To
that end the forms established by the
Communists—particularly
the constitutional reform of 1968—have served as administrative and legislative
benchmarks. For example, the provisional government considered the possibility
of holding persons responsible for the ravages of totalitarianism accountable
under the law. They determined, however, that such persons could be justly
judged only by the laws under which they had served. The net result is that no
purge of former, now reformed, communists can be carried out under pretext of
legal process. That means, in turn, that what some activists call the process
of de-Bolshevization can only be implemented by political means. That would be
possible only if especially wise constitutional provisions were adopted,
providing for a kind of politics
in which the reputation for Bolshevism would be the kiss of death.
The
government that shepherds the drafting of the new constitution remains, not
communist but, significantly influenced by prior communist laws and extensive
participation of communist cadres in the administrative apparatus. It will
accordingly be difficult to accomplish a clean political break with the
communist past. In some ways this political situation resembles
the situation on the collective farms.
While the country is poor by some standards (a service sector providing only a
fraction of the GNP percentage characteristic of western nations), in other
respects it seems quite rich (at least in resources). That is surely the appearance of the large-scale agriculture (at
least where soil has not been eroded by mismanagement). The agriculture
cooperatives have produced agro-business scale cultivation, though without the
full panoply of modern implements. It poses considerable difficulty to arrange
a re-privatization of such holdings, which would be most efficiently managed on
the scale attained by the communists but which offer the many individuals
employed at the business the pleasing prospect of truly “private” holdings. The
trick here is to find the
means to alter the social reality of agriculture without dismantling
advantageous practices, just as in the political-constitutional realm the trick
is to convey power from those who hold it even now without first discharging
them.
Contrast for
a moment the “velvet revolution” with the American Revolution, and one will
appreciate the magnitude of their dilemmas in Czechoslovakia. In the United
States the ruling class of Tories largely fled to Canada or Great Britain during the struggle. Accordingly, the
patriots were left free to build a new nation without having to set a pattern
either of bloody purges or of pernicious intestine and interested conflicts
that originated prior to the motive force, and therefore prevailed over the
moral appeal, of union. This is the providential dispensation that has been
denied to Czechoslovakia. Now they are searching for one like it.
Even without
an accomplished constitution Czechoslovakia has been compelled to undertake
extensive economic reforms aiming to build a free economy. (The lesson of Federalist 10, by the way, suggests
how improbable this is!) Economy minister Klaus, one of many gifted intellectuals
directing this noble venture, has taken a commanding role in this regard.
Nevertheless, it remains true that what he has been able to accomplish thus far
has been best described by one keen observer as “state capitalism.” One might
imagine this, too, to result from the inertial drag of Bolshevism. It is rather
the case, however, that foreign investors and western aid agencies may be more
responsible, the one in order to minimize risk and enjoy monopoly profits and
the other from long established quasi-socialist practices.
Consider, for
example, the difficult situation of Slovakia, the easternmost region in which
the Soviet Union concentrated most of its defense-related heavy industry (they
made T-72 tanks!). The government has negotiated with a firm from a northern
European country to acquire operating control of one of these firms. If that
should happen, however, the increased efficiency that would result would mean
axing the jobs of a large percentage of the plant’s work force. The foreign
firm is demanding the establishment of a complete, Scandinavian model, social
security program to protect these workers before it will invest in the venture.
Yet another
example of the pressures that derive from expanded contact with the West under
Czechoslovakia’s new freedom may be found in pressures now being felt from the
World Health Organization. The communist regime carried out systematic AIDS
testing and reporting. Unlike the rest of the world, there the disease
seems to be reasonably controlled. I have been told that WHO has come to free
Czechoslovakia with the news that, to be acceptably modern, it must shift to
confidential, anonymous testing!
More
dramatically, perhaps, the Czechoslovakians have received the advice of many foreign
advisors in their constitution-making process. Prior to the arrival of our
team, they had extensive consultations with a team led by prominent Americans
associated with a Washington, D. C. organization whose chief goal is to alter
the American system from a presidential to a parliamentary one. Thus, the
American model was carried to Czechoslovakia by its professed opponents. Among
the things these advisors accomplished early were to convince the
Czechoslovakians to begin with a “bill of
rights,” which has been done, and to establish a “supreme constitutional judicature,”
which has also been done. Although it remains an open question what the unified
legislature will look like, and what kind of executive power the government
will boast, the country already has the full array of personal guarantees and
an independent judicial body whose task it is to enforce them, over and above
every political consideration. Something like a politburo has been imposed, in
other words, now only awaiting the creation of adequate political institutions
over which to preside. Every informed American will recall, of course, that the
“Bill of Rights” was the next to last accomplishment in our tradition, and the
last accomplishment, judicial review, still should not be regarded as “judicial
supremacy.” Accordingly, Czechoslovakians have been subjected to a false
analogy from the American experience.
It is in the
face of such a variety of external pressures and internal dilemmas that Czechoslovakia
attempts to accomplish both economic reform and constitutional development.
These tasks would be difficult if they had to face only the ordinary
difficulties. For example, the shift to a free economy means a shift in
people’s work habits as well. Shopkeepers must discover the idea of serving
consumers and therefore opening and closing at hours convenient to shoppers
rather than to themselves. Employees must discover a connection between the
performance of their tasks and their wages—especially service employees. There
are already a few sterling examples of entrepreneurial spirit driving folk willing
to work hard to improve their lots. A free economy, however, is one in which
this spirit sets the tone rather than stands out as an exception. We would have
learned this lesson from American ghettoes even if we hadn’t already known it.
In politics,
similarly, the idea of national union must come actually to inspire the
citizens of Czechoslovakia if they are to enjoy a common constitution. That the
country is far from this point may be gauged from the fact that the very word,
nation, to them describes not the polity, the political union, the integrated
state, but rather the separate status of Czechs and Slovaks. They speak of the
Czech nation and the Slovak nation, which two “nations” seek somehow to form a
single state. No one in Czechoslovakia seems, however, to have articulated a
compelling conception of common citizenship sufficient to fuse these two
nations into one.[1]
This is the rock on which our constitutional deliberations foundered. But one Slovak participated in the conference. Others had been invited and slated to attend, but we unfortunately lost their participation. Accordingly, we listened mainly to Czechs bewraying the obduracy of Slovaks. Granting as we must the reality of these social tensions, and recognizing as no one can fail to do the economic discontinuities between the two regions, it nevertheless remains the case that a constitution properly so-called is far less likely to be discovered in a bargain splitting the differences between them than in a transcendent acknowledgment of overriding fraternity, “a focus of loyalty that is higher than the nation.”[2] In the words of one participant, what is needed is a “supra-national principle of identity” to supply the stability required for constitutional
development. I much doubt, however, whether
this transcendent principle many now seek is adequately represented by a
romantic longing for the return of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, as Scruton
expressed it.
The
constitutional difficulty I describe does not so much inhere in the fact that the
Czechs complained about their political opponents as that their complaints were
insufficiently political. As we remarked at one point in our conference, the
way in which we resolve Aristotle’s recognition both of families or tribes and
of individuals as the building blocks of the polity is to observe that he
regards the family as basic when the question is who benefits, cui bono, from the polity, and he regards the individual as basic when
the question is who participates, methexis. Czechs may be Czechs and Slovaks
may be Slovaks when it is time to ask how one will benefit from the
Constitution, but all must be Czechoslovakians when it is time to ask to whom
does the constitution belong.
The first,
tentative steps toward a constitution have proposed the idea of two republics,
Czech and Slovak, confederated for national purposes and operating by a
principle of concurrent majority (a majority in each republic voting in the
same way) in order to carry any law or act. In effect, this is only a proposal
for tribal unanimity as the basis of government, the return of Poland’s old liberum veto—a completely unworkable idea. Unfortunately, nowhere today
is there a visible alternative to this proposal, and only six months remain to
complete the constitution. It appears, then, that Czechoslovakia will not
succeed in its first attempt at a post-communist constitution.
This is,
perhaps, not cause for alarm. The United States began with a similarly unworkable
confederation scheme before the Constitution rescued the nation from political
imbecility. Before we become too sanguine about Czechoslovakia’s ability to
complete a similar eleven or thirteen year interval between revolution and
ultimate constitution, one would do well to recall that the Balkan peninsula is
a much less secure geographical setting than the United States enjoyed. It is
by no means certain that Czechoslovakia’s neighbors will be as accommodating to
her as the United States’ neighbors had to be to her at the end of the
eighteenth century. In fact, our visit was timed to correspond with the
planned, final withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia. I inquired
about this event everywhere, and was assured that the withdrawal had been
completed without a hitch. Nevertheless, I saw not a single evidence of such
movements having taken place. Nor did I see any Soviet troops. Every barracks I
passed seemed deadly still, empty, save the occasion on which I observed a
large number of motor pool vehicles in an apparently empty garrison.
Czechoslovakia
has one powerful advantage the United States lacked. While the leadership
cadres in each bear striking resemblance for wide learning, the American
founders enjoyed no prior historical example on which to found themselves. It
was manifest as we read and discussed The
Federalist Papers how the
mere existence of that wondrous work had altered the moral calculus. Our
discussion began from the assumption that republican government was possible
for Czechoslovakians. The American accomplishment was to prove this principle
for all mankind. The only question was whether the Czechoslovakians would
discover the political and moral means by which to accomplish the work.
They are
ready to perform this work, if one may judge by the extraordinary examples of
their learning. I had not realized prior to this trip that the dissenters in
Charter 77 (and presumably others, such as the Jan Huss Society) had maintained
a parallel university in Czechoslovakia. Where I thought they had read samizdat only in the form of political tracts, they in fact pursued
systematic study in history and political philosophy—indeed, in the liberal
arts. They did this “underground,” even as the regular curriculum in
Marxism-Leninism dominated the established university system. The result: we
conferred with people fully as well prepared, and probably largely superior, to
colleagues of the highest training we expect to meet with in the United
States—and despite very little direct exposure to the United States and other
countries. One such devotee had managed to read every number of the William & Mary Quarterly for almost twenty years!
Yes, the
leaders with whom we met possess the intellectual tools for their tasks. It
nevertheless remains true that the task of making a community, a single people,
out of any number whatever—e pluribus unum—poses rather a moral challenge than an intellectual challenge.
We can identify the James Madisons, Alexander Hamiltons, and John Adamses of
modern Czechoslovakia. We could not discern their George Washington. I do not
doubt that Providence has raised up a George Washington for Czechoslovakia, at
least if it intends that this be a free country. I say only that we Americans
did not succeed in identifying him.
The reason
for this may perhaps be bound up in the answer to my opening question, which
belies the common assumption that the communists “extinguished every form of
belonging” among the people. George Washington, one will recall, was an
intensely private man who effectively sacrificed that private life for the sake
of building an enduring public good. When I had inquired about the fences I
half anticipated some kind of totalitarian control mechanism as the response.
Instead I learned how intensely private every Czechoslovakian is.
These fences
demarcate their private property—no, more, their private lives! Communism does
not destroy private property or the sense of ownership/belonging, it rather
alters radically the uses to which people put private property. What one sees
in Czechoslovakia is that, in the face of totalitarian repression, what is
indeed one’s own becomes still more emphatically one’s own. We who live with
alieanable property in fact show far less regard for property per se (just as we sometimes seem curiously inept at defending our own
ways!). We use property,
we do not hold it. We might have expected as much from Thomas Jefferson’s
initial assault upon the law of primogeniture. To us property hardly counts as
property unless it is moveable, unless it appreciate in value and can be sold.
Anything else is a mere consumable.
Our lives are lived outside of our property.
Communism forced people to live their lives within their property. Their
fences only made that all the more secure. The answer to my question had been,
in effect, that people used their fences to define what was private—what did
not belong to the common. (Where one’s contribution to the common cannot serve
as a point of distinction and emulation, this alternative now seems almost to
be the intuitive response.) Good fences unmake forced neighborliness! How right
was Aristotle, criticizing Socrates’ communism, to say that anyone would rather
be somebody’s second cousin than everybody’s brother.
My interlocutor supplied a compelling example. In his flat he enjoyed a
garret space in which he read (probably
Aristotle). To get more light he one day cut a new window in the roof—much to the consternation of his neighbor. The new
window looked right down upon his neighbor’s fenced yard of a few square feet (as they all are). The
neighbor’s protests were not necessary. He recoiled in horror and hastened to
fill in the window himself. He did not wish to enjoy an unimpeded view into his
neighbor’s privacy. “It was like looking into his bedchamber; who knows what a
man might wish to do in his backyard!”
The legacy of Bolshevism is far more complex than we sometimes imagined. We long ago knew that it required to stifle ideas of citizenship (Gorbachev’s unleashing of which for whatever reason may lie at the root of all that we now behold in the East). But if it did so by fostering inadvertently this curious kind of respect for property and neighbors, it may yet redound to the benefit of honest republicanism.
To be sure, this is a more intense form of privacy than is consistent with republicanism. But it will presumably require only the felicitous expression of the moral necessity of a public good as the ultimate guarantee of worthwhile privacy—the life of self-government—to give neighborliness its positive expression. This is the aspect of the Czechoslovakian experience—and of our consultations—that was truly inspiring and exciting. It forces some optimism even out of my coldly realistic appraisal.
I may offer
the optimism symbolically to close this account. The very first thing,
literally, to strike the visitor to Czechoslovakia is the brutal candor with
which the people now reprehend their past government. In my case it began quite
literally before I set foot on Czechoslovakian soil. As I read in OK Flight, the official Czechoslovak Airline publication, the guidelines
for currency and other travel operations caught my eye. Then it jumped from the
page, this passage:
...in Czechoslovakia, where the national economy was devastated by the former totalitarian regime over several decades...
Forty-one years, to be exact. Bolshevism
prevailed by force in 1948 and remained, by force, until 1989. This is not your
standard bit of airline puffery! Everywhere one goes, with everyone to whom one
speaks, the same aspect prevails.
This
explains, then, the sheer joy Czechoslovakians and other Europeans now take in
the slow unveiling of Prague, one of the last great imperial cities of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and one the least touched by the military devastations
of the past one hundred and fifty years. For all the years of Soviet domination
Prague lay beneath a drab Stakhanovite grime. Edifices that once were
resplendent with elaborate ornamentation (statuary, reliefs, etchings, etc.)
and bright pastel colors became black with neglect. This city was one of the
early “planned” urban areas, presenting facades of standard dimensions and a
humane scale. When it all became drab black it loomed imposingly as a great
social migraine.
Since the
“velvet revolution” the clean-up has begun—I should rather say, the unveiling, for
like a modest maiden who has kept herself decently covered in the presence of
unworthy persons, Prague puts on her best face by undressing. Starting in “Old
Town Square” a “new” beauty emerges to declare Prague free. This, perhaps, and
as much as anything, gives one reason to hope, however difficult it may finally
prove for Czechoslovakia to land on both feet.
*
Professor Allen is also a member of the United States Commission on Civil
Rights.
[1] Perhaps it is true, as Roger Scruton claims, that these ethnic rivalries are being exploited and exaggerated by “reform communists” seeking to derail the journey to freedom. It is nevertheless the case that there exists kindling sufficient to the purposes of these incendiaries, and that would pose a political difficulty with or without the communists. Los Angeles Times, “A Focus of Loyalty Higher Than the State,” June 16, 1991, p. M5.
[2]
Ibid.